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.
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| 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) |
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| 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) |
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| Tille is quite the little poser. |
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| Hattie on left, Tille on right, celebrating their birthday. |
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| Hattie looked so cute sitting in the grass. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
