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.