Being the creative person that I am I decided I would take our Christmas card pics this year. This was a seriously bad idea. If there's one thing I'm learning about one year olds it's that they don't seem to follow directions very well...and they simply will not sit still.

Take 1:
My Mom helped me with this attempt. We were both sweating and out of breath from chasing babies and hats and eventually gave up.

No one will look at the camera...and there are no smiles...


Got Jack to look at the camera, off with Lily's hat, and Bennie decides the tinsel is out to get him.

Bennie goes MIA, running from the evil tinsel.

Lily soon follows.

Scene change, Lily's hat immediately comes off, but look at that grin! Jack is pulling the tinsel apart and eating it. Bennie really, really hates tinsel.

Attempted to squeeze them in their bumbos with red towels. Mind you, they haven't sat in them in like six months. No one smiles, their legs look strangely deformed, and no amount of cropping will fix the odd angle of their bodies.

Take 2.

I come up with an idea that is bound to work. They certainly can't escape a giant box wrapped in Christmas paper, right? I am Seriously thinking I am a genius at this point and even have Brian on board to help me.

Hats immediately come off...and surprise, no smiling. How can you not like Santa hats?

What is this look? Don't they know Christmas is supposed to be happy?
Things begin to get rowdy.
The box actually falls over and out run babies in every direction (no babies were harmed).
I am making stupid noises, shaking a lamp in the air, and STILL NO SMILES??? I think Jack is plugging his ear.
At this point we gave up and everyone will be receiving a card in the mail with a picture that is four months old. Deal with it.

Here's My Excuse!

As you can see below, I really have been busy. Their birthday came and went, then there was Thanksgiving, and now Christmas is coming? Holy Cow. I have a faint feeling of always being behind these days. I'm hoping to catch up this week. I've started a list an entire page length and am slowly checking things off.

These little guys are keeping me busy. It seems they have sprouted extra arms. They can somehow spot the one thing in the room they shouldn't touch and are on it in less than 3 seconds. I'm figuring out I'm not that fast. We've had a few bruises, more than a few messes, and on unfortunate episode where someone (not naming any names here) ate the goldfish out of someone else's puke. That one almost made me puke.

Here's some footage of their newest tricks. Ben is almost running, Jack is walking, and Lily has taken the vertical route.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Our days are spent eating, drinking, playing, and not nearly enough napping. We've been blessed to spend a lot of time with family over the past few weeks. We've all enjoyed our time together. It amazes me each time just how enjoyable these babies are. For kiddos who have always been on a schedule they are so flexible when we're not at home. They just go with the flow. They obviously have inherited Brian's easy going nature!

It feels like we've had a lot of changes happening around here. We've transitioned to whole milk with meals. They are doing a lot of self-feeding and meals have finally started to get easier. (I'm probably jinxing myself here.) We've got both playrooms up and running, one upstairs and one downstairs. We moved out the old off-white sectional couch upstairs (it needed to go), added a long gait, and moved our old set of leather furniture upstairs. This has really opened up the room and gives Bennie a chance to run laps. The real reason we had to move the furniture around, however, was Lily's climbing. There just wasn't a way to arrange the sectional that seemed safe.

They got new carseats for their birthday! One unfortunate...and unforeseen issue has come up, though. Car sickness. Ugh. It seems like everytime they ride in their seats I have to clean one of them. Those stupid seats weigh around 25 lbs and aren't so easy to get in and out of the car. Lily puked on the way to the zoo, Bennie puked on the way home from Thanksgiving, and Jack had his turn on the way home from my parent's house on Saturday. I'm talking projectile in massive amounts. I know one thing, I am NEVER feeding anyone strawberry applesauce again. After smelling it mixed with curdled milk for two hours on the drive home I am officially banning it from the applesauce rotation.