Christmas Eve

Another tradition in my husbands family is to host a Christmas Eve party each year. I remember when we first started dating I would go to church with his family then to their house for a party filled with a lot of people, a lot of food, and a lot of laughs. When I think of Christmas I always think of and remember these parties with such happiness. We knew after we got married that we would continue this tradition with our own family and friends. Shortly after moving to Florida we hosted our first Christmas Eve party with just us and one friend with their kids. This year we had our family plus 3 others as well as their children and another family friend. It was of course a great time with lots of laughs, with kids running and playing, and a lot of food. I wasn't feeling too hot (from the flu.. of course) but still managed to have fun time with our friends. I feel very fortunate to carry on this tradition and I can't wait to see how it grows in the years to come.

Christmas Cookies

There is this tradition with my husband's family, every year a handful of women in the family get together the day (and the next) after Thanksgiving and bake cookies. Not just any cookies either about 20 different kinds each year the "cookie natzi's" (as they are affectionally referred too) bring new recipes to add to the tried and true. They start baking Friday morning and end Saturday evening. There are very strict rules such as ~ No eating the cookie dough ~No sampling the cookies ~Clean your stuff after you are done with your batch, and much more! The women are busy making the cookies while the men go out hunting. They all have a blast and enjoy this family time together full of laughs, reconnecting, and memories. I  have taken part in this cookie baking twice, don't get me wrong I love to bake and I love me some cookies, but I don't have the stamina nor the desire to bake for two days straight!!! Plus this cookie party normally occurs in West Virginia or in New York.

With my Sister-in-law now living in Florida we have started our own cookie baking tradition. We don't bake for two days straight and we only make a few types of cookies but we love it and so do the kids. It's a lot of fun watching the kids grow year and year and what they are capable of doing. Kendal and Jaden (the oldest) are becoming very good at reading the recipes and getting things prepared. Madison and Rileigh (the middle) enjoy rolling the dough and of course using the cookie cutters! Mason and the twins (the youngest) of course love decorating and eating the cookies (well all of them love to eat the cookies!!). I feel fortunate to have my sister-in-law here with my nieces and nephew so that we can create these types of Holiday Memories!

Special shout out to my niece Jaden for taking most of these photos!

Olivia Loves her Uncle Ry-Ry

16 Months (already)

16 crazy, fun, exhausting, laughable, happy, months have come and come in the blink of an eye. Always the week before the 18th I find myself saying that I can't believe they are a month older already. The days just go by so fast and they are changing so quickly now everyday it seems like there is something new.

This month has also been very trying for me - both girls' sleep habits have changed dramatically both for nap time and bed time. Probably more so for Charlotte. I have said several times through out the month that I think I shot myself in the foot over my last monthly post (here). I was raving about how well the girls were doing with teething and sleeping and on and on.. well cue month 16.. teething, growth spurts, extra energy, and NO SLEEP! I really have no idea why this is happening and I am sure it could be any number of reasons. I have pretty much given up on trying to figure it out and decided that the best thing to do is keep a consistent schedule and let whatever it is work itself out.

Now that all of that is out of the way onto the monthly updates!

Olivia- this girl is stubborn yet so lovable, she wants what she wants and she will let you know if she doesn't get it. She is very particular with her hands and can't stand to have them dirty. She will immediately stop what she is doing and request them to be cleaned. She has learned to ask for a tissue  when her nose is running (this month was also full of colds around this place). She loves to snack on anything she can get her hands on, her favorite is cereal. She can often be seen getting into the pantry pulling out boxes of cereal. She is 100% a daddy's girl always climbing into his lap and snuggling. When daddy walks through the door after work she runs to the door and stares up at her daddy until he picks her up. She has 3 new teeth this month these include her two bottom molars.. a possible cause of the sleepless nights. Still very much the observer as she watches everything we do and often ends up somehow involved in what we are doing. She tries to mimic the words we say, I just love this stage in development because it is absolutely adorable to hear them say new words almost daily. Some of our favorites are, yellow (eeeelow), please (peeeees), cheese (ceeeeeese), and a version of I Love you. She loves books and climbing on anything and everything even though her legs are just a little too short to make it where she is trying to go. And can we talk about dancing for a second? OMG these girls both love to get down and whatever you do DO NOT stop their music while they are shaking those booties! I love Olivia's personality she is a mix of her mommy and daddy part silly and part serious I can't wait to watch her personality continue to grow. She's becoming more "loving" towards Charlotte - holding hands and allowing Charlie to kiss and hug her. She takes a lot of "stuff" from Charlotte in the way of getting smacked on the head pretty frequently and Charlie loves to give Livy little pushes to "help" her move faster or walk ahead. Livy doesn't retaliate "yet" she just politely sits there and takes it- all the while crying.
Every day the love we have for this little girl grows more than we ever thought possible. She lights up our life and we couldn't imagine life without her.

Charlotte - Remember when I was talking about those sleepless nights? Well Charlotte is at the route of most of those sleepless nights. Why I still have not figured it out- I am likely incapable of figuring it out because of the mass amount of sleep I have lost over the last 4 weeks. However, Charlotte is our comic relief our sunshine when we are having a bad day (don't misunderstand we feel the same way about Olivia, but Charlie just has her own approach). She always seems to know what to do, seems to know what we need to put a smile on our faces. She is silly always laughing at random things; she loves to pay any game you are willing to teach her and it will almost always result in tons of giggles. She is involved in everything and there is nothing she won't try. She can often be seen standing on the furniture and dancing if there is any sort of music playing. Music.. lets just talk about Music for a minute, now both girls love to dance and will dance to any kind of music but Charlotte has this way of hearing the music over any other sounds in the room. And we are always laughing while she is grooving to the music. If you follow me on Instagram (klynnphoto) you have seen several videos of the girls dancing and I just can't get enough! Charlotte is also a little bit of a rule breaker, now I know she isn't old enough to understand most rules just yet. However, what we would consider a rule or something we don't want our child doing... Charlie does it, hitting, pinching, throwing things, feeding the dogs, pushing... etc. Sometimes she listens when we tell her no other times she just looks at us and goes back to doing whatever she wants! She has been in timeout several times and I think she is starting to understand what timeout means. This is a work in progress for sure. On the flip side she is her sister Olivia's biggest protector always watching her, helping her, and holding her hand. She loves to give her kisses and hugs on command. She has also started to mimic the words we ask her to say some of our favorites are; Please (pppppeeeeesssss), Thank you (tannnn ooooo), Minni (miimi), blue (boooo). I love repeating words over and over to hear her say them... she probably thinks I am crazy... I'm blaming it on lack of sleep. 

We Love you Charlotte Ann- keep up your dancing and spunky attitude. 

Poor Charlotte was sick with croup this month we ended up in the ER 

I am still amazed everyday that we have twins I just can't imagine our lives with out them. I kind of feel like I say this all the time but it is one the biggest truths as a parent of twins. When I see all of my girls together the love I feel is something I never knew possible. I am cannot wait to see what the future holds for our family. 

Charlotte and Olivia are the best companions for each other I love to hear them laugh when they are chasing each other around the house or when they empty all my drawers in the kitchen. Their newest trick, holding hands about brought me to tears when I saw them do it for the first time. I Hope they always feel this type of love towards each other.