November

The babies are enjoying one of their last car rides of the year with Grandma (Hattie at the wheel, Tille looking at Grandma)

Tille is being cute at breakfast

If you look closely, you can see a full bite mark on Hattie's cheek.  For a few weeks, both girls always had bite marks on various parts of their bodies.  It's getting more rare, which we're very glad about.

Tille REALLY liked the cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving

A few Saturdays ago we got our first real snow of the season.  The babies were super grumpy that morning and just whined and cried and followed us around.  Finally I said, "Who wants to go outside?" and they both smiled and clapped their hands.  So we bundled them up and played outside for a little while.  When they first got out there, they were laughing and clapping.  It took them a little while to be brave enough to walk around on the grass (where the snow was kind of accumulating), but they did eventually. (Hattie in purple pants, Tille in pink)

Snack time while Grandma and Grandpa were babysitting (Hattie on left in blue pants, Tille on right in gray pants)

One morning after I got ready for work, I came out to the living room and found this.  It's so cute,  I had to get a picture.  Both girls were completely asleep. Hattie in pink, Tille in blue.

Every now and then, Hattie and Tille will have a real wrestling match.  It usually starts out slowly, with one taking the other's toy and the other leaning in for what looks like a hug but is actually a death squeeze, and sometimes a bite.  Sometimes it'll end there, but sometimes they death squeeze each other back and forth.  A few weeks ago, I was sitting on the couch and they started wrestling.  It escalated until one would stand up and the other would pull her down, then they'd tackle each other back and forth.  At one point, all I saw was Tille almost standing up, but very slowly getting pulled over backwards as Hattie reached out for her.  They were laughing and growling and huffing and puffing.  It probably went on for about 10 minutes.  It was so funny, I wish I'd gotten it on camera.

Lately, the girls have started playing pretend.  Every so often, Hattie will grab an invisible object out of my hand and put it in her mouth.  She'll do it a few times in a row, and then she'll smile and laugh so I know she's not thinking there's actually something there.  It caught me off guard the first time, but now it's really cute.  Matt's parents gave us a Little People nativity set, with shepherds, camels, cows, sheep, wisemen, angels, etc.  Tille has started setting them up in different configurations on flat surfaces around the living room.

Most mornings, I wake up way too early and go downstairs to exercise.  Usually the girls will wake up while I'm down there, so Matt gets them up and gives them bottles and cuddles them in the living room.  Then I sneak up and go take a shower.  When I get out of the shower and go in my room to get dressed, I always hear two tiny sets of pajamed feet shuffling their way down the hall.  The first baby will push the door open, and then squint and look down at the floor to avoid the bright light, but with a big morning smile on their face.  Both babies come in and pull clothes out of our dresser or shoes out of the closet, or play with the radio, or get up on the bed and pretend to go to sleep in the pillows.  It's one of my favorite morning rituals.  Their little faces when they first come in are just the best.  Then we play and they help me pack a lunch while Matt gets ready for the day.  And then I give them all hugs and kisses goodbye and go outside, while they go to the front window and wave at me as I leave.  

Since Halloween (ish) we've only had one or two full weeks where the girls weren't sick.  They'd just be getting over one cold when a new one would start.  This week has been the worst yet.  We've all had it pretty bad.  The girls have been really congested and coughy, and so so grumpy.  They just whine and cry all day.  I'm excited to be done with this phase.

On Sunday we were having a good Sunday dinner, and Tille was grumpy, so I put her in my lap.  She grabbed my spoon and started playing with my mashed potatoes, and got some of them into her mouth.  So a few times now we've given them their own spoons for dinner.  They mostly just play with them, but they also practice getting food onto their spoons and into their mouths.  It's exciting to see them learning these new skills.

October (and some November)

The girls put on their comfy dresses and sat on the couch with their dollies to watch General Conference (Tille in front, Hattie in back)

The girls were helping me unload groceries. Hattie on left in blue, Tille on right in white.

Matt's sister Kathryn has a magical ability to get the girls to sleep in places other than their bed.  I've never seen them fall asleep in the middle of playing, but they do it for her every now and then.  She also knows how to make their hair look cute.  I do pony tails, but they never turn out this well. Aren't they the cutest here?! Hattie in stripes, Tille in shapes.

One morning Matt was out doing yardwork so the girls and I joined him.  Hattie helped us pick up weeds and acorns.

Then Tille joined and helped Hattie put acorns and rocks in our planter container.

I got Hattie all dressed for church and then realized this outfit was awful for church.  But I still had to get a picture.

For Halloween the girls were rock n roll girls.  They wore Metallica and Guns N Roses t-shirts, and had spiky mohawk hair.  They didn't like getting their hair done, and wouldn't let me put on makeup like I had planned. But pretty cute little rockers (Hattie in Metallica, Tille in Guns n Roses).  Hattie and Tille picked up on trick-or-treating really fast.  My parents babysat them Halloween morning and then brought them to my office for trick or treating.  It took them about one try to realize they were getting treats from people.  And they weren't shy about it.  They'd dive in and get as much as they could carry (score for the parents!). They stayed at work with me for a couple of hours because it was a crazy busy day and I couldn't get away as early as I'd hoped.  But they just sat on the floor in my cubicle, ate treats, and played with calculators without making a sound.  That night we took them trick-or-treating around Matt's mom's neighborhood (our neighborhood isn't conducive to trick-or-treating, with it's sidewalkless streets and it's long hilly driveways).  They got so much candy.  It was great.  And they had a lot of fun doing it. 

Tille kept taking pretend naps on the living floor.  Hattie wanted to join in.

Here they are on Halloween again. Hattie on right with taller hair)

And again.

This is Tille next to her 5 month old cousin.  He wears the same size clothes as the girls and weighs as much as them.

I like to take the girls for long Saturday morning walks while Matt does yardwork or other house projects.  Last week it was pretty cold, but neither of them would keep their hands inside their blankets.  So I gave my gloves to Hattie and my jacket to Tille.  Hattie kept looking at her hands and waving them around to figure out what was on them.  She kind of looked like a muppet with her huge floppy hands.  And Tille was waving her floppy arms around.  But they left them on the whole walk and stayed warm. 

The girls got pumpkin cookies for dessert a few nights ago, and made quick work of them.

Tille's going to town on this sandwich.  She was super sick the next day, and now that I look at this picture, I think I see it in her eyes.

We got the girls bathtub crayons for their birthday and finally broke them out this week.  They love scribbling on the tub walls, their toys, and each other.

Tille sporting her new winter clothes that Aunt Kathryn got them for Christmas

The babies love to play with doors.  They'll go in a room, close the door, open it, close it, etc and have great fun until they close it too much to open again and get stuck inside.  I caught this image on the camera in their room.
Below:  We have stuffed elephants that sing 'Do Your Ears Hang Low'. The other night we caught Tille dancing to the music.  She does this a lot now.  She loves moving her arms to any music, including hymns at church.  If you ask her to sing, she'll always oblige with a little tune of 'aaaaaaahhhhhhhh' in her cute squeaky voice.  Hattie will usually join in, but doesn't seem to like singing quite as much as Tille.

Tille and Hattie both now love helping clean.  They love getting any kind of wiper and cleaning the floors and walls and their hands.  And now that we sometimes ask them to throw things in the garbage, we have to check the garbage before we ever empty it.  Any time we're missing something, it's probably in the garbage.  I've found socks, sippy cups, and cell phones in there. Yikes!  They also love putting their dirty diapers outside when we change them.  And they're great at putting their dirty clothes in the laundry (or sometimes the garbage).
Hattie and Tille are getting better at sharing all the time.  Last week, Hattie found the snack cupboard unlocked.  I was working and turned around to see her grabbing a granola bar out of the cupboard.  She started walking away, but then saw Tille and went back for another granola bar to give to her sister.  She'll usually grab at least two of anything so she can give one to Tille.  If we give Tille little snacks like cereal or crackers, she'll usually run over to Hattie and put a few in Hattie's mouth.  They're also good at sharing toys.  Usually Hattie's favorite toy is whatever Tille is playing with.  But she'll usually offer a trade instead of just taking it away from Tille.  And Tille is usually pretty content to take whatever trade Hattie offers.  It's a good system.

Hattie and Tille's personalities are coming out stronger and stronger.  Hattie is learning to be a really good big sister.  Any time Tille is sad or hurt, Hattie will give her a hug or pick out a toy and hand it to her.  Last week Tille was coughing in the bathtub and Hattie reached over and patted her on the back.  She sure loves her sister!  She's also learning to help.  Last night after the bath I had dried and lotioned Hattie and was doing Tille.  Hattie picked up the lotion bottle and handed it to me.  I would get some, then set the bottle down to rub the lotion on Tille, and Hattie would pick up the bottle again and hand it to me when I was ready.  It was pretty cute.  I have a big green double nursing pillow.  Lately, I just have to ask Hattie to get the big green pillow, and she'll run over and grab it and try to drag it to me.  It's a little too big for her, but she really tries.  If I give Hattie a wet rag or paper towel or anything and ask her to clean something up, she's really good at wiping it around.  And if I ask her to throw something away, she'll lift the lid on the garbage can and put it in.

Tille is really into learning how things work.  We have the standard baby toy that's a stick on a base and it has rings to stack up the stick.  Tille was determined to learn how to put the rings on.  She would sit and try and get really frustrated when she couldn't do it.  But then she started being able to get the rings on faster and faster.  Until one day she mastered it- and then she would sit and stack all the rings, dump them off, stack again, repeat, repeat, repeat forever until we made her go to bed.  She didn't crack a smile or a laugh or pause to look around.  She concentrated hard and practiced a ton.  We have a baby gate/wall that was in front of the fireplace, and we put all sorts of forbidden things behind it (lamp, diaper wipes, dirty diapers, etc- all the things our babies most want to play with).  Tille and Hattie both learned how to move it around so they could get behind it.  So Matt arranged dining chairs and high chairs on their sides with the legs sticking through the gate, and the gate folded a couple times to lock it into place (I'm not describing it well, but basically it was a tangle of gate and chair legs).  Tille took her time and studied the construction, and then moved the chairs away and got into the gate.  So we've given up on the gate.  Now Tille is really into buckles.  When I take them downstairs to play, she spends most of her time standing by the stroller studying the buckles and trying to see how they work.  She does the same with her high chair.  And anytime I buckle her into anything, she hands me the pieces of the buckle and watches closely to see what I'm doing.

Ever since the babies were born, I've been expecting them to poop in the tub.  Other than a couple little poops in their first week or two, we haven't had any.  I was starting to think that my girls just weren't interested in bath poop.  And then this week happened.  Saturday night Matt was bathing the girls and I was cleaning the kitchen.  Suddenly Matt yelled 'Tille's pooping!'  I ran in and he handed me Hattie and got Tille out fast.  He cleaned up while I got the girls ready for bed.  I think we were both so surprised, we didn't really know what to do.  He bleached everything and we called it good.  The next night, I was bathing the girls while Matt was cleaning.  They were playing nicely and then Tille got the look.  She pooped again and I got them out of there as fast as I could.  Again, Matt cleaned up while I got the girls ready for bed.  Thankfully we've had 2 poop-free nights in a row, but I'm paranoid now that Tille just likes pooping in water.
And now, some pictures.

My boss's wife works (runs?- I'm not sure) for an online boutique girl's clothing store.  Every now and then he'll bring in some outfits for the girls.  Usually they're super cute frilly dresses.  Most of them are still too big- their sizes are from XS to whatever, rather than 9-12M, etc. So I have a bag of really cute dresses that I'm excited for Hattie and Tille to grow into.  A few weeks ago he brought in these dresses.  They're still a little too big, but they're pretty cute.  If you look really close, you can see that they're unicorns.  There's a face on the chest and a little horn sticking up at the collar.  Hattie loves  putting on frilly, lacey clothes.  These dresses have flowers and beads and lace and frills and everything.  I put it on her and she just sat and looked at all the details.

Every now and then we have a girl from down the street come and babysit.  The girls DO NOT like her.  They scream and cry the whole time she's there, whether it's 1 or 3 hours.  Luckily, the babysitter has little siblings who were sad babies, and screaming babies don't bother her.  Also, as a coincidence, her family has just started going on volunteer trips to the Mexican orphanage with A Child's Hope Foundation, so she's trying to earn money so she can go on the next trip.  So we're happy to let her babysit and she's happy to sit with the babies while they cry.  A couple weeks ago Matt and I went to my friend Emily's wedding in Springville.  Matt's sister babysat some of the time and our neighbor girl babysat the last few hours.  I assumed the girls would be at their wits end after a day with other people, and I was scared for how they would treat their babysitter.  But she said they actually only cried for a few minutes at the beginning.  She said if she stays on one side of the room and lets them play on the other side, they're happy.  Phew!  I'm glad they're learning to be ok with strangers.  Anyway, this picture and the next are from a few weeks ago.  Matt had to go to a meeting before I got home from work, so our neighbor girl came over just for an hour or so before I got home.  Hattie and Tille were screaming when I walked in, and cried the whole time the babysitter was putting on her shoes and saying goodbye, and cried when I took them downstairs to play for a few minutes, and cried when we came upstairs to play.  I wanted to see how their hair would work with gel (practice for their Halloween costumes), and since they were crying anyway I wasn't worried about making them mad by doing their hair.  So I tried, and I got these sad little spiky-haired girls (Hattie above, Tille below).  They stopped crying a couple minutes later.

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Hattie and Tille love animals.  If an animal (any kind) comes on tv, they get excited and point and laugh.  They're still pretty timid around animals and take a lot of coaxing to pet one, but they love seeing animals.  Here they are playing with Arthur at FHE. (Hattie in white shirt, Tille in pink shirt)

They love love love shoes.  If either baby sees a shoe lying around (or in a closet), they have to try putting it on their feet, then my feet, then Matt's feet.  And they're getting comfortable with wearing shoes for an extended time.  Tille wore hers all day yesterday.  Tille above, Hattie below.

When I lie on the floor, the babies use me as a pillow.  Usually they'll kneel on the floor next to me and lean their elbows on my chest with their hands propping up their head.  But sometimes they'll climb right on me.  This is Tille being super comfy. She sat like than on me for a while. That wasn't a fresh diaper. 

The Bodens handed down their little tykes car for Hattie and Tille.  And the girls LOVE it.  For a while we had it in the basement, and they would crawl all over it and push it around.  Now we have it in the backyard.  Anytime we go outside, they climb in and ask for a ride.  We just push them around and around the cement area and they laugh and smile and honk the horn and turn the wheel.  This is Hattie showing off her sweet sweet ride.

Here's Tille looking for acorns.

Both girls are chewing acorns about half a second before I fished them out.

I love how they hang their arms out the window like they're so chill.  What you can't see is that Hattie's other arm is around Tille's shoulders.

Hattie's having a blast while Matt drives her around.

On Fridays, Matt's sister Kathryn watches the girls for a few hours.  Usually his other sister Kim and his niece Tyler will bring their boys over to play (5 kids total, all under 2).  I love that theses babies will get to grow up being friends, and that my girls get to learn to socialize with other kids.  Last week, they all went on a field trip to a petting zoo in Eden (Ogden Valley, near PineView).  They got to see dogs and turkeys and goats (and probably other animals), and they got to ride a horse and a tractor.  Kathryn said the girls had a lot of fun watching the animals, but got scared if anything came too close.  Tyler posted a picture of her baby right next to a fence as a dog came running up.  In the background, Hattie and Tille were running the other direction as fast as their little legs could go.  Haha!  In the farm pictures, Hattie has two pigtails and Tille has one.

Both girls love anything resembling a seat.  They'll play in their carseats for almost an hour before they get bored.  We had to hide their baby rockers because they kept climbing in and rocking way too hard.  At church if they get antsy, I'll sit them on a chair next to me and they'll sit and swing their legs and wave at everybody and be happy for a while. 

A Birthday!

How are these girls already a year old?! How?!  This year flew by.  I feel like we just brought the babies home from the hospital a couple weeks ago, and suddenly they're on the verge of being toddlers.  Both girls love looking out the window and reading books.  If they're being grumpy, I'll say, "Go pick out a book to read", and they stop crying and go over to the bookshelf and pick a book.  They can sit and study a book for 5-10 minutes by themselves.  They'll point at the pictures and really get into it.  If I'm reading them a book, I'll say "Turn the page" and they (especially Hattie) knows exactly what to do.  Lately, I can start reciting one of their books to them, and they'll go and pick that book off the shelf.  Sometimes when they're napping my phone (connected to the video monitor in their room) alerts me that they're moving.  I'll look at the video feed and see Hattie sitting up in her crib reading a book.  Hattie usually needs 5-10 minutes to think about life before she's ready to really wake up, so she'll always play/read quietly in her crib for a while before she cries to get out.  Once Tille wakes up, she's awake and wants out.  Yesterday after I put them down for a nap, I heard a weird noise in their room.  I looked at the camera, and Tille had reached out of her crib to a chair we have sitting next to her crib.  I didn't think she could reach it, but she had dragged it over to be right in front of her crib and was just playing with it, rocking it back and forth, dragging it around. 
Hattie has gotten really good at walking. She rarely crawls anymore. It means she has a lot of bumps and bruises from falling, but she's walking all over the house now.  Tille has been walking for a few weeks, but just a few steps at a time.  Just in the last few days she's gotten more adventuresome and will walk across a room.
The weekend after their birthday, they started really sleeping!  Hattie almost always sleeps from 8:30-5:30ish.  Tille wakes up around 2 or 3 most nights, and every now and then she'll scream loud and long enough that I'll go hold her.  But usually she just cries for about 10 minutes and goes back to sleep.  It feels so good to sleep again.  Now if we can just get them to sleep in a little later on the weekends.  That'd be golden.
Tille gives super good hugs.  A few weeks ago I was holding her in sacrament meeting, and every few minutes she would wrap her arms really tight around my neck, sometimes giving me a slobbery open mouth kiss on my chin or nose.  Ever since then, she's been giving great hugs, just whenever she feels like it, or whenever I ask her for a hug. Hattie and Tille love hugging each other.  If we say, "can you hug your sister", they'll both stop whatever they were doing and cuddle each other.  It's so cute.  Often, they'll be playing and start hugging each other.  They start off laughing and smiling and taking turns hugging, but it usually ends in a wrestling match with them mad at each other. 
For Hattie and Tille's birthday, we took them to their 1 year doctor appointment.  They got shots, which they hated, and they got their eyes, ears, nose, hips, etc checked, which they also hated.  But afterwards, the nurse let them choose toys out of a box.  Tille chose a yellow maraca and Hattie chose a blue squeaky whale (see the above video).  It was cute to see them study the toys in the box and choose the one they really wanted.  And they love them.  They rattle and squeak all the time.
Yesterday I tried putting shoes on them for the first time.  Hattie was amazed.  She grabbed one foot at a time and studied and stared at it.  Tille, not so much.  She only cared about getting the shoe off as soon as possible.  For the rest of the day, Hattie would try to put her shoes on, then take them off, then show me, etc, etc.
Oh, one more thing.  These girls really love tv.  Tille has always loved tv.  Even when she was just a few months old, she would stare at the tv for a good while.  But now, they both love it.  If they hear a baby or a kid talking on tv, or even kid type music, like in an ad or something, they'll stare until it goes back to being boring.  I think their favorite show is Sesame Street.  If they even see the logo come on the screen they'll get excited, and they squeal and bounce up and down when the music comes on.  When the characters sing songs, Hattie and Tille will bounce and rock to the rhythm.  Yesterday they were being super moody while I was trying to work and Matt was canning peaches at his parents' house, so I put Sesame Street on and they watched 2 1/2 episodes straight.  I didn't think they had that kind of attention span.  I sat on the floor, with Hattie laying on her stomach over my legs, propping up her head with her hands, and Tille leaning against my legs.  My computer was on the couch behind me, and if I moved at all, Tille would get sad and demand more cuddling.  So I worked in that position, craning my head around to see my computer.  But it bought me about an hour of work time, so it was good. 

A few Fridays ago we went to a Greek restaurant that Matt used to go to in college.  Hattie and Tille usually do really well at restaurants.  They sit in the high chairs and smile and wave at everybody who walks past.  They usually aren't super interested in eating though, when there's so much to see. (Tille on left, chilling in her seat, Hattie on right)

The babies weren't at all excited about eating birthday cake at their parties.  They were super sad and just wanted to hold hands to get through the ordeal.  They did eat their cakes over the next few days. (Tille left looking at camera, Hattie on right trying to get comfort from her sister)

Tille is quite the little poser. 

Hattie on left, Tille on right, celebrating their birthday.

Hattie looked so cute sitting in the grass. 

Here's Hattie swinging at East Canyon when we went up for the day.  I love her hair flying around and her cute little excited smile.

On their actual birthday, Matt and I got KFC and took the girls to a park for a picnic.  They LOVE playing at parks.  They love playing in the woodchips and swinging.  Look how excited Tille is to be swinging!  Hattie was smiling, but I couldn't get it on camera.