New Look

I was feeling like my blog was a little blah, so I changed the look a little. Ok a lot. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks to the Simply Chic Blog Backgrounds site for the background. Also, in honor of the new title, Jared has come up with new lyrics to the best song ever, "My Favorite Things:" "When the twins bite, when the husband stinks, when the books are sad...."

Christmas Morning

This was our first Christmas with kids. It wasn't that different than previous Christmases except now Jared isn't the only one eating the wrapping paper. Ha ha. Ok that was a cheap shot. But you notice I didn't delete it from the post. That's the kind of wife I am. Anyhoo, we got the girls up, put on their sweet new hats, and let them go to town on their gifts. I noticed I didn't really get a good picture of them together, so here is a picture of Katie grinning and Charlotte busy unwrapping in the background.
As you can see, these really are fantastic hats. Here is Charlotte looking pretty awesome in hers.
Here is Charlotte chewing on the wrapping paper, which was her favorite part of Christmas morning.
And here is Katie doing what babies tend to like doing most on Christmas, playing with the boxes.
When we were feeding them breakfast, we put on their most expressive bibs to go along with their new Christmas pajamas and hats. When I bought these bibs, I thought of my friends Heather and Deanna. Heather truly is a biker chick and Deanna was absolutely born to be wild. If they ever read this, hi girls! As you can tell from the look on her face, Katie feels likes she's about ready to jump on a Harley. Charlotte, on the other hand, probably feels like she was not born to be wild and that is why the look on her face is one of pure grumpification.

So that's a wrap on our first Christmas with the twins. We had a great time this holiday season with our friends and family and hope everyone else did too.

Books, Books, Books

So normally I do posts about the twins, but today I saw a cool blog about books and was inspired to post some books I've been reading lately. Most of you who are bothering to read this probably know me and know that I have a problem when it comes to books. I have always been happy (ok, thrilled) to get sick because it meant I could stay in bed and read. In fact, I used to fake sick when I was growing up if I had a particularly interesting book and it was a Thursday. I would only pretend to be sick on Thursdays so that I could have the entire weekend to make up my missed homework instead of just one day. I ditched responsibly. Of course, it's pretty sad that I would ditch school to read books, but that is another topic. Anyway, here are some books I've read and liked or at least thought were interesting.

I don't usually recommend books because then I feel crappy if people don't love them as much as I do, but here goes. The Moonspinners by Mary Stewart is a book I'm rereading right now. It's about a British girl living in Athens who goes on vacation in Crete and gets mixed up in a murder, a kidnapping, and a jewel theft. It was made into a movie with Hayley Mills way back when, so this tells you first of all that it was written years ago and second of all that said murder and mayhem are pretty tame. It's not as violent as it sounds. I saw the movie when I was about 8 and don't remember if it was good, but I like the book. I've actually read every one of Mary Stewart's books and love them all.

Ok, next I'm posting a really disturbing book that I read this past week. The Bone Doll's Twin by Lynn Flewelling is kind of a twisted book, and I'm not sure I really liked it. But it was interesting. It's a fantasy book set in a kingdom with a prophecy that as long as a female descendant of the first queen rules, the kingdom will prosper. After a long line of queens, a king comes to the throne and then kills off all his female relatives except for a half sister. She gets pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl, and some wizards get together with her husband and decide that the boy must be killed and the girl magically disguised as a boy for the sake of the kingdom. Yes, it is disturbing; and yes, it is as violent as it sounds. It deals with the bad deeds people sometimes do for the sake of the greater good, and the results of those deeds. None of the people who take part in the plot escape being touched by it. The book is the first in a trilogy. I haven't read the rest of the books yet, so I don't know if it all turns out. From the tone of the first book, however, I sincerely doubt that the series ends happily ever after.

And now for a completely different type of book. As you may be able to tell by the books listed, my two favorite types of genres are mystery and fantasy. The last book was fantasy, so this one is a mystery. Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen is a book I read recently. It is set in the early part of the 20th century and is about a young woman who is about 40th in line to the throne of England but who also happens to have no money. She decides to go up to London and make a living but gets drawn into a murder investigation when her brother comes under suspicion of committing the crime.

Finally, I decided to post a YA book lest you think I spend all my free time reading fantasy books in which people do terrible things to each other and mystery books in which young women get mixed up in murder investigations. The Countess Below the Stairs by Eva Ibbotson is a great read about a young noblewoman who has to leave Russia during the Russian Revolution. She and her family find refuge in England but get separated from her younger brother's nanny who is carrying all their jewels. To support her family, she takes a job as a maid at the estate of a English lord who has recently returned from WWI. As I think about the book's premise, it actually sounds like it could be a plot from a trashy romance book. However, I promise you it is not. It is a cute book that is pretty funny too.

So those are some books I've read recently. If you want, let me know and I'll post more books from time to time. Actually, I'll probably talk about books no matter what just because it's kind of fun. I might also talk about my favorite TV shows. In fact, I think I'm going to go compose an ode to NCIS right now. If any of you watch USA, I'm sure you know by now that NCIS is in the only show that has the guts, the courage, and the audacity to air three episodes in a row. I love it!

Bad Parenting

Some of you have commented on the way Jared and I have let the girls be called Crazy Katie and Sensible Charlotte. So I started wondering... does it make us bad parents that we have let their cousins call them that? Maybe. But I know for sure there are a couple things that do make us bad parents and am going to post them now for all of you to see.

1. We have been harboring the baby unabomber.

2. We almost let the baby unabomber poke out her eyes with the vertical blinds.

3. We let the girls take part in a baby cage match.

Katie might look happy that her sister has tackled her but don't let that deceive you. She was putting on a front for the camera.

4. We let the girls use play gyms as weapons in said baby cage match.


So now you know what our bad parenting looks like. Enjoy!

Family Pictures

We got pictures taken with Jared's family over Thanksgiving. I kind of hate getting my picture taken, but I like getting pictures of the girls. Here are some cute ones of them.
Some of Katie's cousins started calling her Craaaaaazy Kate because of her sticky-uppy (yes, that is the technical term) hair. You can't see it as well in this size, but her hair was sticking straight up for all the pictures.
As you can see, all Charlotte wanted to do was suck on her overall strap. Silly baby. Her cousins were calling her Sensible Charlotte because her hair is more calm and sensible. Maybe when she grows hair, we'll dye it purple so she can be more exciting.
This is a sweet picture. Their socks got all dirty while they were sitting on the grass, so we took them off. Then the photographer snapped some pictures while I was holding Charlotte.

Yes, Charlotte's strap was pretty much perpetually in her mouth during the pictures. And I think she only smiled in two of them. Katie smiled in more pictures but really started to break down towards the end.
This is Katie with her cousin Jacob at the very end when she had just about had it with pictures! I think by that time she was speaking for all of us.

Can You Tell the Difference?

Can you tell the difference between this picture

and this one?
Katie seems to have inherited the funny face gene. It's a time-honored tradition in my family. Make the yuckiest face you can when someone points a camera at you.

How to Escape from a Bouncy Seat

I can't do a posting of just Katie without doing one of Charlotte too. Charlotte is our escape artist. She has started really moving around and trying to get out of anything we put her in. Above is a picture of the first time I noticed her trying to get out of her bouncy seat. I hadn't even realized what she was doing until she started crying. Yes, she started crying, and I took a picture instead of trying to comfort her. I might be a bad mother.

Here is a picture of Charlotte a little later when she got a little more comfortable with escaping from the bouncy seat. Just to reassure those of you who are worried, no babies started crying during the taking of this picture. In fact, she got all the way out and was pretty happy with herself because she got to roll around on the office floor. Ahhhh..... what baby doesn't love to get into her dad's computer cables? Good times.

Evolution of a Baby Fro

Katie kind of has an awesome baby fro. People always ask me what I do to her hair to make it stick up like that. Apparently it comes from Jared's side of the family. His mom tells me one of his brothers also had a fro as a baby. So here is a picture of her when her hair started growing.

Here is a more recent picture that shows her hair a little longer.

Finally, here is a picture I just took this week that shows the true awesomeness of Katie's fro.

Eating My Sister's Head

I know I promised a bunch of lies to make our lives sound more exciting, but I'm not making this up. One of the girls' favorite past times is trying to eat each other's heads. It's a little strange, but they've been doing it their entire short lives. Hopefully, they'll grow out of it. Here is Katie eating Charlotte's head when they were only a few weeks old.

Here Katie is at about 3 months getting her sister again.
Now, lest you think Katie is the only one who does this, here is a picture of Charlotte preparing to get Katie on Halloween. I took the picture a little too early, so you missed the big finish.
By the time I got Katie away, the whole side of her head was damp. Sorry for not rescuing you earlier!

Inaugural Post

Ok, so hello. I'm not sure I have anything fantabulous to say, but here is my new blog about my family's very very exciting life. Um, I already can't think of what to say. Maybe I'll introduce myself. I'm Jessica, wife of Jared (computer programmer extraordinaire) and mom of Charlotte and Katie (twin six-month old stinkers). As they are infinitely cuter than I am, I posted a picture of them to go along with our inaugural post. Katie is on the left and Charlotte is on the right.

Until about six months ago, I was a technical writer for a software company. Now I work part-time from home as a technical writer for that same software company. So that's me and my family. I'm a little boring, but I never really noticed until I tried to write a blog posting about myself. Ha! I guess I'll try to liven it up next time by making up a lot of lies. Ok bye!