Happy Halloween!

For the girls' first Halloween, we met up with good friends Monica and Tom and their two boys, Sawyer (Nemo) and Jax (lil Monkey) at the downtown mall. The stores had trick or treating starting at 12:00 pm. It was nice to not be walking around in the dark. And since the girls don't eat candy, it was more of a social thing to look around and see all the costumes.

Napa represented well. There were a lot of creative costumes, and well done ones at that. Despite this, Charles was nostalgic for the 80's vinyl sheet costumes with plastic masks. Ahhh, the smell of plastic.

We were going to make the girls be Thing 1 and Thing 2 (Charles idea, who else?). However, when I started going through the garage to get the next group of clothes for 6-9 months, I found the sunflower costume inside. A friend had given me the costume along with four huge garbage bags of clothes. Free costume! So all we needed to do was find another one. Newly transplanted Jessica (from New Jersey) drove up from San Francisco and went thrift store shopping with me. At the first thrift store we went to (the only one open on a Sunday in Napa), we found a ladybug in the right size for $4.99. Serendipitous?

Annabelle was soooooo excited to be out and seeing everyone. When we showed her the mirror so she could look at herself as a little sunflower, she just laughed! What a kick!

Doodlebug as a ladybug (ha!) was somewhat docile, which was uncharacteristic for her. I think part of it was she was so warm and snuggly in the fuzzy outfit that she was always on the verge of falling asleep. Plus one of us was holding her the whole time so we could have her engage with the people.

The Knecht family. Charles asked Sawyer (Nemo) what it was on his nose and he replied "A boo-boo." Yup, the day before Halloween + concrete pavement = Boo-boo.

The Stark family. I wore a wig to try to be festive. It has been a long time since I dressed up for Halloween. Charles came as a Giants fan. (:-)

My wig is falling off, and Abigail is about to start dreaming, but Charles and Annabelle are having fun! One of a few family pics that we own! Thanks Monica and Tom!

Pink and Blue

One day in March before the girls were born, my aunt Lisa called me from their car. A friend of theirs who had twins was giving away their stroller. "It was barely used, fancy jogging stroller with mountain biking tires, in mint condition...the friends were glad to pass it on. It's just amazing..." my aunt Lisa was saying.  "It's a cad-a-laaaaac!" I could hear my uncle Ronnie adding in the background.

"Cool. What brand is it?" I asked, as Charles and I had been looking at jogging strollers. I figured if it was a brand I knew then I could estimate the cost of the stroller. "Valco? VB? Val-co...does that sound familiar?" My aunt asked. "No," I replied. "But it sounds really nice. We will take it."

My sister Guinevere (Aunt Gigi) drove the stroller from Palm Desert, ten hours north to Napa, in her car on her trek to visit the girls when they were born in March. When Charles went home that night to check on the dog he saw the stroller for the first time. He came back to the hospital and told me all about it. "It is an amazing stroller. It is super nice. I looked it up on the internet. It's like an $800.00 stroller. It's a super-stroller."

"Cool," I said. "We needed a jogging stroller because we already have a portable stroller, the McClaren."

"It's just that....well....one side of the stroller is pink and the other side is bright blue," he confessed. After a moment of picturing it I replied, "Oh, like a boy and a girl?"

"Yeah. It's like a custom ordered stroller. The people before us must have ordered it special that way because they don't sell that type of stroller online. I looked," Charles explained.

"Oh well," I responded. "Who cares? It's free!"

This was the beginning of our pink and blue story. This stroller is our favorite. It goes up and down the stairs to our house. The girls sit in it on our patio and listen to the water fountain. I stroll them out into the garden over rocks and dirt piles to watch us plant and pick. I put the girls in it so they can watch me mow the front lawn. I sat them in the stroller in the living room while I did work out videos (admittedly like three times...). But most importantly, we take walks everyday in this stroller through downtown.

It is our favorite because it is such a smooth ride. It goes over bumps like a four-by-four. Anyone that knows Napa knows what a crappy condition the streets, sidewalks and curbs are in this town. Therefore, this is a crucial feature. The basket area below is big enough to hold a gallon of milk, a bag of groceries and a small diaper bag. It has a cup-holder. It has two pockets for keys and cell phones. The girls can have variable reclining positions. It has a four point harness system. And it has a sun cover which is adjustable, and at the same time strong enough to hold a shopping basket on top (at the grocery store).

But this huge sun cover is half pink and half blue. In fact, it is so prominent, we have had people stop their cars while they are driving down the street and yell out "Hey, do you have a boy and a girl twin?! My mom's, grandmas, second cousin's best friend had a boy and girl twin!"

See the pink and blue?

To everyone else (people in the grocery store, people walking past you, cashiers, old people, young people, toddlers, and teenagers) who asked, "Do you have twins?"

"Yes," we would reply.

"A boy and a girl?" they ask. At first I tried to be helpful and explain. "Well no, actually. It's two girls. We just got the stroller from a friend."

But then later, after about 20 other people asking the same question, I decided to be clever. "A boy and a girl?" they ask. "Two girls. We're just cheap."

But then later, after about 20 other people asking the same question, Charles decided to do a little make over. He switched the inside head rests so that the pink one is inside the blue one and the blue one is inside the pink one. And we bought name plates at the local toy store that he velcroed to the top that say "Anna" and "Abby."

See how he switched the inside head rests? Boy does that confuse people.
I've had them ask me if I had two boys. (Granted in this picture they are both wearing Giants outfits-Go Giants!). Never have I had someone ask if they were both girls. It's so weird!

But then later, after about 20 other people asking the same question, we decided to dress the girls particiularly feminine. In dresses. All pink or all purple. With bows.

Still, people would ask, "Twins? Boy and a girl?"

Finally, we decided to just go along. "Yup" we reply.

Now our stroller is famous. I had a friend stop by today for a walk. She was talking to a friend of hers whom I have never met. When she mentioned I had twins, her friend asked, "Is she the one with the pink and blue stroller?"

Such is life in a small town...

More Garden Pics

The garden is now fading, but in September it was still alive and well. This bounty made a delicious salad.

A more bountiful bounty: cucumbers, carrots, lemon cucumbers,
bell peppers, green beans, tomatoes, pear tomatoes.

The first crop of ripened tomatoes: heirloom, yellow, yellow pear, and early girl.

Daddy and Annabelle watering. She loves to water.

Daddy and Annabelle in the Bjorn.

Mom and Abigail in the Bjorn. Abigail likes to harvest. Mom just has to
watch so that she doesn't eat the leaves while we are leaning over to pick.

Umm.....Make that Two!

Teeth that is....We just discovered a second tooth on little Abigail. Girl of firsts, soon with two bottom teeth.

I thought I would include this picture because of Abigail's hair. It's quite the talk. Some people say she stuck her finger in a socket. Others say she is just a punk rocker. A good friend of mine said, she must just have fine hair. (She was being so nice!).

My husband asked me, "So, what are you going to do with her hair?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

He replied, "I was just wondering if you were going to try to style it or something so it didn't stick up."

"Nope." I replied. "We've tried lotion and it just sticks up again and feels sticky. I have put Vaseline in it and it works for emergencies. But it is gross. She's got her entire life to style it. I think we should just keep it the way it is."

"Okay. I agree," he said.

Punk-rock, electrified, two-toothed, Abigail it is. :-)

Separate Cribs

It's official! They are their own individuals now! The girls moved into separate cribs. It was a necessity really, after Abigail started rolling, as she liked to roll onto her sister. It wasn't so bad at first because she would only roll but once, but later as she began to roll multiple times, Annabelle was in the path of the steamroller. I worried that Abigail's swaddling blankets would get stuck on Annabelle's head one night while I was asleep.

A good friend of mine, Dana, who happened to have a crib that was not in use, drove her crib up to my house. She and her husband assembled it for us and everything. We decided to order another mattress so that they both were equally as new and so the cribs could be interchangable.

Charles and I debated on the room arrangement for a while. At first, I thought we'd have to move my chair and put the cribs on either side of the window. But we were worried that if the girls were separated too far, they would get lonely and wake up in the middle of the night. Also, when we did arrange it that way, the chair was stuck against a window and every time I sat in it, it would hit the window sill (since it is a rocker). And we looked for another place to have it in the house, but we don't exactly have room for it elsewhere.

But mostly, we live on a busy street. Our house is on a corner of sorts; the street actually takes a little jog to the left. So our house and the house kitty corner to us both have part of our street that Ts into the side of our house. One summer when my sister was visiting, Charles, Guinevere and I were eating dinner in the back yard. Charles went inside to clean up the dishes while Guinevere and I finished a conversation, when suddenly we heard and felt a huge crash. My back was to the sound, but Guinevere was facing the back fence and watched it all unfold: a car crashed into our yard and knocked down two small trees and the back half of our fence. He ended up in the far corner of our yard. In his defense, his brakes actually did go out. But to his detriment
he was also drunk.

The girls' bedroom is in an even more vulnerable spot than our back yard because it intersects with the two streets. This equals double the opportunity for people to come crashing into our house. So we planted a huge non-fruiting pear tree in the corner of our front yard, and when the settlement of the insurance came from the car accident, we built a new fence with posts reinforced in 4-feet of concrete all along our house.
And then one night, we put them to bed in separate cribs. So ultimately we decided that the cribs had to stay away from that exposed wall, and had to stay on the inside wall.

Right now, Annabelle sleeps in the white one and Abigail sleeps in the brown one.

Beyond the safety concerns, I think I agonized over separating them than was necessary. I worried, they would be lonely since they were so used to sleeping with someone. I worried that they would get cold. I worried that I wouldn't be able to see/hear one of them (in the crib further away). I worried that the new crib would be harder to access as I was used to the other one.

So during the day, we let them trade off napping in the new crib. And I let them play in the new crib. They loved putting their hands through the different shaped bars, and looking at the mobile from a different angle.

Ultimately, when the night came to have them sleep in separate cribs, none of these worries came to pass. The change didn't faze the girls one bit. They slept through that whole night. They LOOOVE the new crib and loving having their own separate play areas. And when we do put them together in the same crib to play, it is a special treat.

It just goes to show that babies are resilient and adaptable. As it turns out, it's the adults that are not!

Abigail- a girl of firsts

Being the younger of the two girls, Abigail has had to wait a lot of her life. She had to wait to come out of the womb until Annabelle, who was lounging around not in any great rush, got out of the way.

She had to wait for Annabelle to gain weight so she could leave the NICU. She has to wait, especially if I'm alone, to get picked up or changed if I happen to grab Annabelle first. Of the two girls, Abigail is currently the less patient one. Or possibly the less distracted one (ie while Annabelle is studying the designs on the carpet Abigail is ready for a change of pace, darn it!)

Because of all this waiting, Abigail decided to jump to the front of the line on a few big things. At four months she started rolling over and hasn't looked back. Annabelle just started rolling over at six months; she could always physically do it. She just hadn't seen the need, until now.

And Abigail just three days ago got her first tooth! A tiny portion of one of her front bottom teeth is poking out. She's been a trooper really. We probably wouldn't have known, if not for Charles' daily mouth checks.

In addition to that big news, her baby babble really started to change this week into some more distinct sounds. Instead of screeches, we could hear some word-like and sentence-like phrases (which happens to be a really fun guessing game to see which words they sound like).

Awwww. They grow up too darn fast!

Amy

Funniest Pictures in the Universe!

It was one of those days when Daddy was extremely tired from his shift at work, and I was extremely tired from my shift with the girls at home. So Daddy was resting on the couch in the living room trying to take a nap. I took the girls into our bedroom and propped them up on a pillow looking out the window at our backyard. I figured that they could entertain themselves for a bit while I rested next to them on the bed. Instead they ended up entertaining me!

I love this picture. It amazes me how much they've changed already. Much more hair now.

For some reason, Abigail started hootin'.

And hootin'....And Annabelle just looked bug-eyed.

And they both were just staring at me so funny until.....

HA! This makes me laugh out loud to this day....What the heck!

Annabelle was in on the joke the whole time. Abigail is like, "What? What was so funny?!"

What a crack up!

A Day in the Garden...

My aunt Gail, in her previous comments, requested more pics of the garden (so sorry it took me this long to post them!). And I am glad she did, because the garden is slowly dying out as we prepare for Fall.

We enjoyed quite a bounty from the garden this summer and so did many of our friends and family. Take a look!

We had a ton of bell peppers! We were just waiting for them to turn red and yellow!

My red sunflowers. I was so excited to have found these seeds.

The eggplant surprised us. He had heard that they were hard to grow.
Our three plants are going ganbusters. Still! We've made grilled eggplant,
eggplant parmesean, grilled egplant sandwhiches and even babaganoosh!

The famous stroller (and laughing girls) next to a row of ten tomato plants. Tons of tomatoes, but they are all green. The weather has been unseasonably cool and they won't ripen.

A successful bounty. Zucchini, yellow squash, round zucchini, japanese cucumbers, and lemon cucumbers.



The teepe housed the sugar snap peas (yum)! Lavendar row is to the right, and front and center is chard central: yellow, green, and red.



Green onions and carrot bed. We've made salsa with the green onions. The carrots are so much more tasty than grocery bought ones. There are some vegetables that are so much work and they don't really taste that much different when you grow them. But carrots and tomatoes are easy and they taste WAY better fresh from the garden.

A lone plum from my plum tree. I haven't had much success with my darn plums. And then the birds ended up eating this plum before I got to it.

Chard close-up.

Red chard close up. I love the veins.

Thanks Gail for the inspiration!

Real Food

At five months, we gave in to the girls and let them try real food (baby food). They would look at us with such longing when we were eating our dinner, it was like a little puppy begging for scraps.

But first, they practiced with their sippy cups, given to them by Aunt Gigi.

Annabelle gets a little taste of water.

Abigail prefers to chew on the outside of the cup. Her arms aren't strong enough to hold it upright yet, but with help, she got a good taste of the water inside.

Even though their five-six main meals are still from nursing, they now also eat one-two supplemental meals of jarred baby food or rice cereal. They have tried peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, chicken, prunes, peaches, pears, bananas, and even home-made pureed eggplant. Boy did that clean out the pipes! They liked them all except the chicken. So far they only like it in small doses.

Here is Abby sitting up in her high chair for the first time. She still needs the straps to help keep her from flopping forward as her trunk still isn't very strong.

Annabelle doesn't even need the straps anymore.
 She can hold herself up fine. When she isn't chewing on the table.

Both girls at the dinner table. Just part of the family.

Annabelle thinks the dinner table is the coolest thing. She can watch us,
bang on the table and taste new foods all in one place.

 Happy eating!

Grandma and Grandpa Hurwitz

My Aunt Jeanette and her husband Michael have always been involved in my life, especially since Charles and I moved up north. They have hosted many o' Thanksgiving Dinners, we've gone to Giants Games together, danced at many of their band's shows, and celebrated a few birthdays.

But they have also been there for us when things weren't so nice. They came and visited me after my ectopic rupture emergency surgery, and took me to knitting conferences to cheer me up. And they were rock solid supports after Chazz died.

Some of you may remember that Charles' dad died four months before Chazz died, and his mom died three years later. Between the two of us, the beginning of this century was rough. It was a godsend to have family only an hour away.

When Jeanette saw me this Christmas, glowing as pregnant ladies often do, she lit up with excitement. An idea had popped into her head. "Can we be grandparents to your girls?" She asked. "Not having kids of our own, we won't ever get the opportunity to be grandparents," she added. I thought about it for a second, remembering that our girls were already down one set of grandparents with the loss of Charles' parents. And I remembered fondly how involved they have been in my life. "Let me run it by Charles, but I think it is amazing idea! You can never have too many grandparents!" I told her.

After talking with Charles (and she with Michael), he said that he couldn't think of better people to be involved in our girls' lives.

Below is Grandma J reading books to the girls one night. She popped over one evening after a busy day and helped me with the bedtime routine (bathing, lubing, dressing, reading, rocking, sleeping) while Charles was at work. Another godsend.

Lots of love to GM and GP!

Annabelle is distracted from her favorite book, "Mimi's Toes"
(a brilliant gift by my friend Monica), when the camera flashes.

Abigail gives Mimi a kiss every night now. Her whole body wiggles with

excitement when I start to recite the lines from that book.

Five Month Pictures

This wasn't my best photo shoot. For some reason, things turned out blurry. And I didn't charge the battery enough ahead of time so I kept running out of juice. But despite those obstacles, I still got some fun ones.

The first set of pics I decided to do in just diapers since it was such a warm day. And the girls just loved having their skin exposed in the warm breeze.

Abigail. "Who me?" Next to the baby sign.

Annabelle. "Not me. Boo-hoo." Next to the baby sign.

Sweet Abigail.

Happy Annabelle.

These two slip-like dresses were given to me by my good friend Erica, who threw the family shower with my friend Stephanie. I have always loved their antique and hand-made look (see detail of embroidery). The girls are wearing them in the professional pictures we took with my grandparents, but of course they were too huge for them at that time. Now they actually fit.


"Oh, what did you say mom?"



Complete sweetness. I could eat them up.

So serious.

The next set of dresses were given to me by Suzie Loza. They are probably a little big for the girls, but I was impatient! It says three-six months gosh darn it! So I put them on.

Annabelle LOVED her dress. She was fascinated by the embellishments on it. And since she was just starting to sit up on her own, she could really see all of the dress.

Annabelle looking at the trim on her dress.

Annabelle, mad at me for moving her.

Annabelle, happy again. I'm forgiven. :-)

Abigail has started to grow quite an interesting hair-do. It looks just like daddy's do!
So I had to get the side profile shot to show it off.

Poor Abby in that too big dress. But doesn't her personality fit that dress so
well? She is just a bundle of sunshine.

Contemplative Abby. New thing is sucking on anything in sight.

And her stereotypical thumb in mouth smile. It gets us all every time.

It always surprises me when they hold hands. Here I was having to emply interesting distractions above their heads for them to look up. There were so many other interesting things to see on our back patio like the trees and the birds and the clouds and...

Doesn't it look like Abby just told Annabelle a funny joke? I can just picture this being a recurring image and possibly next time the joke will be about Dad and Mom!

They both looked over at the tree in the wind at the same time. Such inquisitive girls...