4. Resurrecting Christmas childhood memories. I envisioned the girls squealing in delight over my grandma’s old train set, but alas, quite the opposite happened. As kids, we used to set the train up around the Christmas tree and have it “deliver” our presents to us, even if that meant present-opening took seven hours. Once Jake did some clever engineering to bring the train back from the dead, it was choo-chooing and blowing out steam, just like old times! Unfortunately, the girls were indifferent to it at best, and scared of it, at worst. Maybe next year!
5. Sickness. A few days after Christmas, Amelia had a fever and was uncharacteristically fussy, so we took her into the local urgent care, and she was diagnosed with a mild ear infection. I don’t know if it’s the high altitude, or the cold or what, but the only times they’ve ever been sick are when we’ve come on vacation to Utah. Samantha had a little bit of a pink throat, but other than that, she amazingly never came down with what her sister had. Due to Amelia not feeling well, we didn’t get to go out and see as many friends and family this trip. We were looking forward to seeing some of my friends’ families, as well as the girls’ cousins/Jake’s family, but we just didn’t want to make it out a ton this trip with Amelia under the weather.
6. Date night! When it seemed like the girls were feeling a bit better, Jake and I left the girls with my mom and ran some errands ALONE. You know we don’t get out much when we were excited about perusing Costco and Michael’s crafts (well, at least I was excited anyway). It felt weird walking around, holding hands, instead of carrying babies or pushing the stroller and lugging fifty-nine million things in two ginormous diaper bags.
The last night we were in town, we put the girls to bed and went out to see Catching Fire. The last time I went to the movie theater was back in December 2012 when I was HUGE and basically couldn’t move. I went to see Les Miserables with my family and was so uncomfortable/over-heating in theater, that I didn’t even make it to “Castle on a Cloud” and had to call Jake to come pick me up and take me home. So pathetic.
Needless to say, this movie theater experience was a lot more comfortable. I loved the first Hunger Games book, was indifferent toward the second installment and couldn’t even get through the third, I hated it so much. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the movie and ended up liking better than the second book.
Anyway, after the movie, we arrived home around midnight. The house was dark and everything was dead quiet, which was strange since my dad is usually up watching TV at that hour. I went into the kitchen and heard my mom whispering from the family room for me to come. She was sitting there in the dark rocking Samantha. Apparently, Samantha had woken up about an hour before we arrived home, and as soon as she was picked up and she saw it wasn’t mommy or daddy, she SCREAMED at the top of her lungs for quite some time. In fact, even though she had eventually fallen back asleep, she was still “sleep-sobbing” and let out little pouts/gasps every few seconds. So sad!
We then went upstairs to find my dad in the guest room holding Amelia in the dark. Samantha’s wailing had woken up Amelia, who had then started joining in as well. My dad had been the one to pick up Samantha first, but when she wouldn’t stop screaming, he gave her to my mom and he took the screaming Amelia. Amelia calmed down after a few minutes, but when he tried to put her back in her pack n play, she started crying again, so he just held her the entire hour.
I made Samantha and Amelia apologize to grandma and grandpa in the morning, but they claimed they had no recollection of ever screaming. Those little scalawags!
7. Lots of picture-taking (duh)! Aunt Sarah came down from Salt Lake for a few days and was able to take a bunch of pictures for the girls (me). What would we do without her?
8. Game night. Jake picked up a game called “Spot It,” and while it seemed like too simple of a premise to be fun (basically a fast-paced matching/memory game), we quickly became addicted. We played it almost every night with either my family or, one evening, Jake’s sister’s family who was in town for the holidays. That, and a few games of Rook, kept us pretty entertained!
I can’t believe you had fun without me!
9. Three square meals a day! The best part about vacation is getting to eat uninterrupted. My mom fixed us all delicious meals everyday and we didn’t even have to deal with the clean-up. With so many extra hands to hold babies, we could eat in peace instead of being forced to take bites in between preparing the twins’ food/cutting up pieces of fruit/picking up sippy cups the girls had thrown on the floor.
We eventually had to leave, so hoping Amelia wouldn’t miss it, I grabbed a back-up pacifier and picked up Samantha to be put in the car. As I carried her, I noticed she was a little more squishy than normal, so I set her on the edge of the couch and saw a little bump sticking out of her chest. I reached under her fleece jacket and two more layers of clothes until, sure enough, I pulled out her sister’s wub! She had been hiding it in her shirt and carrying it around all along! Samantha gave me an innocent, yet devilish smirk as if to say, “What? I didn’t know it was there either!”
11. Antics. The girls were up to their usual tricks–stealing toys from each other, throwing food down from their trays to brother Bandit and maxing out their silliness quota hourly. In just the ten short days we were there, the girls also became a lot noisier and interactive. We sat them facing each other in their high chairs and they would “chat” or laugh at each other. Amelia started clicking her tongue and did it constantly, while Samantha learned to do her “guppy face” –she would open and close her mouth, making a “pop” noise over and over. One night around 3 a.m., we heard Samantha stir, wake up and make her popping sound in her pack n play for fifteen minutes. We had to stifle our laughter so that she wouldn’t realize we were up and start crying, but it was hilarious.
And, lastly, my favorite memory from our trip:
I don’t know how many times I’d walk in from the kitchen and find both girls glued to the french doors in the family room, trying to escape!
Our best Christmas/New Year’s ever! We had a great trip and were grateful for all the family and friends who were able to share in making Samantha and Amelia’s first Christmas so special!
Lots of love,
