Choo Choo & Turning 2

We celebrated Carver's 2nd birthday last weeked by doing lots of his favorite things. He absolutley loves Thomas the Tank Engine so he wore his Thomas shirt all day...I thought it would be nice to take Carver out for some special alone time with just Mom and Dad (not something he gets too often...in fact we couldn't think of a time that this has ever happened). We went to the mall and let Carver ride the choo choo with Ryan, he LOVED it and cried when the ride was over and he had to get off...

Next we took Carver to the store to pick out a toy. Not surprisingly he picked out a train set with a battery powered train named Arthur (thomas's friend). Then we headed back to the house to party! Kaydree was our resident party planner for the day, she wanted to make everything very special for Carver. She helped with the decorations (you can see the pictures that she carefully colored hanging in the background) and she even helped me make some party hats. They turned out pretty cute but Carver wouldn't wear his... Nana and Ava were ready to party...Carver opened presents from Grandma & Grandpa, including a new train named James to go with his choo choo set. Then he opened presents from Nana and Papa, including another train set with Thomas himself. I thought it was pretty amazing that we all got train sets, but none of us got the same thing...that's some motherly and grandmotherly intuition right there. Don't you love how 2 year olds open one gift and want to take it out and play with it right away without even opening the other gifts?Rather than cake, I made Carver's favorite - chocolate chip cookies - in the form of one giant cookie. He loved it!For the big finish, we plan to take Carver to ride the real Thomas train when he is in town in a few weeks...

I can't wait to see his reaction to a life-size Thomas, stay tuned for more pictures of that!

At Carver's 2 year check up he weighed 25lbs. 7oz. (20th percentile) and measured 34 1/2" tall (50th percentile). I wasn't surprised by the weight because he's definitely come into the 2 year old stage and says "NO" to a lot of the meals that I put in front of him. Combine that with the fact that he never sits still and is basically burning calories all day, and you have one tall thin little boy. He might not be as tall as he'd like to be, but that sure doesn't stop him from doing whatever he wants to do...

I'm sure we have a crazy year ahead of us with this one (maybe even some potty training in his future...ugh) but for now we're just taking it one day at a time with our wild and crazy man of the house. Happy Birthday Carv!

Christmas: St. Louis Style

I think traveling with 4 kids is difficult anyway you go about it. A long car ride is brutal but is traveling by plane really any better? Especially nowadays with super tight security, long lines, delays, etc...who wants to travel with 4 babies? Not me, I tell you. Plus, our babies HATE their carseats and any drive longer than 30 minutes usually turns into a screamfest (which I am convinced is some sort of birth defect, aren't babies suppose to LOVE their carseats? don't desperate parents everywhere put their kids in the car and drive around the block just to get them to sleep? for some reason our girls didn't get that memo). But when the Anderson fam decided to meet up in St. Louis this year for Christmas, we went against our better judgement and made the 10 hour drive anyway. We left at around 7pm the day after Christmas hoping that the kids would sleep if we drove through the night...not so much. The older kids mostly looked like this...Hanging out and quietly watching DVDs wasn't so bad. The babies pretty much took turns fussing the whole time though (i was just glad they never both got upset at the same time). Pair that with snowy/icy roads and both drives (there and back) were pretty much miserable. But once we got past that, the trip was fun. Our kiddos can't pass up a chance to spend some quality time with Grandma and Grandpa...

Grandpa & Ava

Grandma & Elsie

Kaydree had a specific request for "twin babies with hats" from Santa. Unfortunately, this request came after Santa had already bought all of her gifts and he wasn't about to go out and return them just to get those darn twin babies. Luckily, Grandma found out about the whole ordeal and was able to help Santa out a little (good thing too, I know we'd still be hearing about it otherwise).

Merilee & all the babies in their footie pajamas, I love this one of Carver too...

We were able to make it over to the gateway arch, but we didn't actually go up inside of it. Instead we just walked around the museum and afterward took a little tour of downtown St. Louis.

We also went to one of the coolest children's museums I have ever been to called the Magic House. Kaydree and Kelan took off and did a lot of the big kid stuff, while we took Carver and the girls around to some of the baby things (thanks for the photos, courtesy of Robyn and Nikki)...

We mostly just hung around at home... We had a good time singing in karaoke competitions... It looks like there are more than 2 sets of twins in the family too, check out how much Ryan and his sister Ansley look alike in this picture...

Here's the whole gang in our new Christmas outfits that Robyn coordinated. She had the hats custom made for the kids and they turned out really cute...Finally, the ladies did a little crafting. We made some cute beaded watch bands (aka: Bandersons) and we also painted these onesies thanks to Afton and her stenciling skills. We had this picture done of all the 2009 Anderson babies and I think it turned out super cute...We're hoping our 2 babies will be big enough for forward facing carseats the next time around, and with any luck that will do the trick and make car rides much easier. Either way, we are always up for a little adventure!

PS: This officially concludes my third and final Christmas post (phew). Now on to 2010!

8 months (Baby's First Christmas Edition)

My little ladies were just the right age for their first Christmas, they didn't need tons of gifts but they really enjoyed watching everyone else and playing with the occasional scrap of paper. They are still really great about letting me dress them up too (they're still too young to complain yet I guess) but I figure half the fun of having twins is dressing them up right?

A, E

Ava continues to be my even tempered baby, she's just chill and calm most of the time. The girl can eat though, just take a look at those cheeks! She's been driving us crazy waking up in the middle of the night for meals the last couple of weeks. One night last week she had woken up a couple of times during the night to eat, and the next morning when I got her out of bed she seriously felt like she weighed 5lbs. more than the day before. Just when I think she and Elsie are starting to close the gap in their weights, Aves will have a growth spurt and pack on the pounds! I haven't weighed them in a while but I'm thinking Ava has got to be at least 2 lbs. heavier than Elsie right now.Elsie's temperament is different than Ava's - she's our bipolar baby. She's either really happy and excited or really cranky and whiny. Most of the time she's happy though so I can't complain. She has really taken to table food too, she loves sitting in her booster seat at the table and eating. She even feeds herself cereal puffs.
Here are the ladies in their Christmas jammies from Grandma. I just love this next picture... I dressed the girls up for church in a few of Kaydree's baby dresses and they reminded me so much of her...The triplets...Aside from their first Christmas, the 8th month has been full of milestones for our girls:
-they're eating 3 square meals of baby food each day
-they got new booster seats and are loving their new spots at the table with everyone else
-We discovered that Ava had cut her 2 bottom teeth a few days after Christmas
-Elsie cut 1 bottom tooth just a few days after Ava (luckily their were no complaints from either girl!)
-Both girls are army crawling, rocking on their hands and knees, and sitting up better and better each day (they are still a little wobbly though).

I've been doing a little recession proofing as far as baby food goes. I saved up a bunch of jars and containers and made some homemade baby food the other day. It looks like enough to feed an army but the way these girls eat I figured that it'll probably last a month if I freeze it...
Here's a video of the girlies trying out their new booster seats. It's a little boring but I haven't taken any pictures of them in their boosters yet so this will give you an idea of how much they like them. (Mostly this disclaimer is for my "extra cautious in a good way" Mom, but just in case you see this video and freak out because you think the babies are going to flop right out of there seats, I can assure you that the trays click on and hold them in place, plus they're belted in. So don't run off and give me the "Worst Mother of the Year" award just yet, save that for when you see a picture of Carver jumping off the roof or something)...
Here's one final picture of the cuties all ready for bed in their fuzzy bag pajamas, don't you just want to snuggle with 'em?Since I'm behind as usual, I'll probably be doing a 9 month post in just a couple of weeks so check back for even more pictures of our terrific twinners.

Christmas Catch-up

Each year we plan so many fun things to do around the holidays and yet we are always surprised at how fast the time flies and how little rest we get. This year Ryan took 2 weeks off from work to spend with the family, and we were busy nearly every day. We went early to get our Santa pictures to avoid both the dreaded swine flu and the crazy mall crowds...luckily we managed to dodge them both. But what would Santa pictures be without at least one kid crying and looking totally freaked out? This year it was Elsie...
True to form, Carver is trying to make a run for it in both these pictures. Below was a Christmas breakfast/pajama party that we went to at church. And yes, our nativity has 2 babies in the manger: Baby Jesus and his cousin John the Baptist, clearly...

We had a little pre-Christmas bash at our place this year that included caroling around the neighborhood, eating loads of homemade donuts and other sweets, and of course playing games. We were glad so many of our friends could get together...Our Christmas card picture definitely wasn't our best work this year, we couldn't get the kids or the camera to focus and finally just got tired of trying...I still had fun dressing everyone up for church though... Pretty soon the girls will be too heavy for Ryan to hold like this but for now he's still strong enough for a good picture. Of course, they are much more cooperative when it comes to pictures than Carver is and they are pretty willing to smile and look cute...Per tradition, I sewed matching PJs for everyone. I seriously tried not to procrastinate this year, but I still ended up spending all of Christmas Eve day chained to my sewing machine (actually chained to my mom's sewing machine that I borrowed since the 25 year old hand me down beast she gave me finally bit the dust after the pedal nearly melted a hole into my carpet). Not pictured are mine and Ryan's PJs complete with nearly perfect pockets, thank you very much. But despite my domestic ambitions, I have pretty much resolved to just buying jammies next year: it's cheaper in the end and a lot faster and lets be honest sewing projects and Christmas just do not mix...someone remind me next year when I'm feeling overzealous again okay?As always, Christmas day we were so focused on getting some good ole fashioned home video footage that we didn't take too many pictures. I did manage to capture one good moment though: after all of the gifts were open and everyone was off doing their thing, I came into a messy living room to find Carver devouring what was left of Santa's goody plate... We were also blessed with a rare Texas White Christmas this year and RYAN...er, I mean THE KIDS had a blast playing in it and making a snowman and snow-dog...

Christmas day we headed down to my parent's house for more presents and fun. I love this picture, not just of Caitlin but of the background: the missionaries and everyone else doing their own thing, organized chaos...a true Carver Christmas...

Here's Ryan happily opening an even bigger and better George Foreman grill than the one we already have. I know Santa granted someone's wish this year...

The day after Christmas we made a trip to St. Louis, which deserves a post all it's own. So for now it's time for some "catch-up" not just on the blogging but the laundry, the cleaning, organizing toys, and everything else. But our busy break was sure fun while it lasted!