DaHalls

May '07 - Twins Baptized in Illinois

After a long and hectic airplane ride from Denver to Chicago, the twins settled down and had a great visit to see the grand parents, great-grandparents, aunt Julie and lots of friends over the Mother's Day weekend. In addition to getting to visit with lots of family, the girls were baptized at great-grandmother Sophia's church in Lemont, IL. The occasion also made for some wonderful photo opportunities -- after all, how often will they get dressed up in pretty white dresses on a beautiful spring day?

Mother's Day Weekend May '07

Mother's Day 2007 was special in Chicago! The girls got to visit with BOTH their great-grandmothers, both their grandmothers, their grandpa and their aunt Julie. It was a great time! Tina's mom lives in Willowbrook IL and the twins made that their base headquarters with visits to Lemont IL to see great-grandmother Sophia and to LaGrange Park IL to see great-grandmother Ruth, their namesakes. They gathered for lunch at Ruth's Plymouth Place with family. After lunch the twins practiced their walking skills up and down the halls of PPlace to the enjoyment of (most) all the residents.

Going Hiking!

What to do when you have twins and want to go hiking! Yikes!

Heavy!

What to do when you can barely lift two? Sit on a rock and hang on tight!!

April '07 Walking - Finally!

My April visit to Vail was especially fun because I got to watch the girls master walking. From a few insecure steps to a full scale trot, the twins have entered into a whole new ball game! Things they learned right off: sidewalks are easier to walk on than grass and bark chips; wherever I walk, mom or dad is right behind me; when Sophie goes one way and Lauren goes another, we get mom and dad all agitated; there are curbs in town; everyone seems to be excited when I walk; and the #1 new discovery -- I can get around faster when I walk than when I crawl!

Springtime in the Rockies

What to do on a spring day in Vail? Why, go to the park, of course! What's great about this time of year, is the weather is beautiful, yet there's still snow on the mountains. So it's off to the park -- a great little neighborhood park just down from the twins home. While playing in the grass and swinging on the swings (only Lauren likes to do that!) was fun, the best is the slides and climbing equipment! Wheeeee! (Grandma only took a couple hundred photos:~)

February '07 Visit

My February visit brought many new treats. Besides being able to view the gorgeous, snow-covered mountain ranges right out their windows, I got to see how much the twins had grown and learned to do. Mealtime is a lot easier now that they can eat "real" food -- and boy do they like to eat! When they get full, the rest goes on the floor for Cooper. With every handful, they like to exclaim their favorite new word -- "uh-oh!" While there's no full vocabulary yet, the "B" words seem to come easiest. So we spent a lot of time with books (buk), bubbles (babus) and balls (bul). Fortunately those are favorite activities too.

The Twins go to WalMart

Nap time wasn't going very well anyhow, so Tina said "Since there are two of us, let's take the kids on their first outing to WalMart." So off we went to spend the afternoon on a tour of the sights and sounds and colors and aisles and aisles of toys at DisneyMart. And, of course, they loved everything. We "tried out" lots of toys and took lots of pictures. The other shoppers thought we were nuts, but we didn't care. There were only a few tears at checkout when we had to put the toys back, (well, most of them anyhow:~)

THE PINK PRINCESSES TURN ONE!

Sophie, Lauren and their parents made it through the first year! Should it get easier now?? On January 9th the girls celebrated their first birthday with more gifts and some gooey cakes. With Christmas and birthday only two weeks apart the girls are really getting into opening packages. Think they'll expect that every week? Maybe Grandma will have to help out with that expectation.

Another playground! (...much more fun if Mom gets in the game too!)

What's the twins favorite time of day? BATHTIME!

"What would I do without my constant playmate? Life would be so BORRRING!"

The girls are almost one year old and putting on the pounds so we're sitting down from now on for the month

ly Grandma photo.

Christmas celebration was full of surprises (some when Grandma Geidre and Uncle Tom came, some when Grandma Linda came, and some when Santa came!)

The Christmas tree was "prickly" but that didn't stop the Curiousity Kids.

"Wonder what's under here?"

Opening gifts (some each day) wrapped in "rattley" paper and discovering new noise makers kept them occupied for... well, a few minutes.

Zoom, Zoom, ZOOM! Look out walls and doors and toes and anyone in their way! Demolition Derby is a new favorite game (complete with screams and a few tears.)

"Want some macaroni and cheese?"

"

Let's see, do you want to read to me or should I read to you?"

One of Sophie and Lauren's favorite playmates is their "brother" Cooper. Such a patient and cooperative friend.

11 months old and upright most of the time, but still depending on tables and "walker toys" to get around. Also happy most of the time (unless the ear infections choose to flare up -- hopefully taken care of now by the insertion of ear tubes.)