The night Santa came to the Laidlaw's new home.

Once upon a time Santa came to our new house to suprise four little kids. 

 

 

Ben's co-worker dresses as Santa every year and gets paid to go to parties and people's homes.  Well, he is a super nice guy and said he would come visit our kids! We kept it a secret for a few weeks, let me tell you, it wasn't easy!  I was excited they were getting a special visit, especially right before he came.

 

 

We went to the annual Laidlaw party last night that Santa also attends and the twins *hated* him!  Well, this Santa had Daddy sit on his lap while holding them... and they still scream.

 

Haha, poor babies. 

Abby and Jack had written him letters (still not knowing he was coming) earlier in the day so they were so excited to be able to hand deliver them.

Abby heard the sleigh bells as he was walking up to the door and was SO excited when he burst in.

Well, so was Jack, but he bit his tongue in all of the excitement and refused to sit on his lap... until Santa refused to give him a present until he did.  But he refused  to tell Santa what he wanted, because...

He had already written him a letter complete with pictures, so he made Santa read it instead.  Funny kid.

She warmed up just a bit when he called her name and tried to hand her a present.  This piqued her interest, so she inched forward just enough to reach the bag.

After talking a bit more to the older kids, it was time for Santa to leave.  On his way out the door he stopped to say a bit more to the twins and they just stared at him, even let him pat their heads and stroke Georgie's cheek.  Not even a peep from them.

Elizabeth was less than thrilled with her new dolly, so George got to snuggle both of them.

Jack LOVES his new "four wheeler guy"... so does Izzy, she fought him for it...

Abby got a new creepy doll lalaloopsy, she was so happy.

And here Izzy is showing how much she hates the new baby.  She threw it around the room for a few minutes then ignored it.  I tried to put it in her crib with her tonight, but she threw it out.  Whateves. 

Featured.

Anyone who talks to me about sewing knows how much I seriously LOVE Oliver + S patterns.  I rarely sew with any other brand anymore.  So I recently saw a ruffle trench pop up in my facebook feed that someone had commented on to buy and I KNEW I could make one myself (and for much, much less!!:)  So I ordered the pattern and obsessed about it for a week until it arrived.  I bought the material the night it arrived and had it nearly all sewn up the next day.  I belong to the O+S flickr group and showed it there and had many people request a tutorial, including the designer of the patterns!! I was beyond flattered.  She asked me to do a write up for her blog and she would feature it (she ended up just directing traffic to my blog instead of using the write up, but that's fine with me!)   So I made another in the size smaller since the first was WAY too big and blogged a tutorial. 

 

 

Today I was pleasantly suprised to see my coat was featured on the Oliver and S blog and Liesl said some great things about it.

 

In case you didn't want to follow my links, here are the pictures of my cute little cheeser.  She kept making this face and it cracked me up.

And here is the shot of the bit I altered.  So incredibly flattered to have it featured!

First day.

I have so many pictures to catch up on from the summer, it is embarassing.  Instead I will just go with this today. 

Abby's first day of second grade was yesterday, she was so excited! She had her clothes picked out for literally a month! She folded them and hid them somewhere in her room so they would be clean and ready to go, ha!

We dropped her off in her class and as we got back in the car Jack sighed and said "Oh Mom, I miss her already!" Sweet boy. Don't worry though, once he got done pouting he got comfy, aka in his underwear, played trains and ate snacks- so pretty much like everyother day, except no one to fight with!

We were at the Laidlaw's and while I was cutting hair Sherry had the girls outside.  Part way through the cut they came in and Sherry said to look, so I did, and nearly died at the cuteness.  (is cuteness a word? well it is now!).  I made Ben hurry and take a video of it, he wasn't fast enough getting it set up, so she backed them up and started again. 

The eclipse.

The kids were crazy excited to view the  eclipse today!  They took Ben's welding helmet around all day looking at the lights and even the sun a few times to try it out. 

We were able to hold them off until seven, then I sat outside with them while they viewed to their heart's content. 

Jack looked a couple of times, he just enjoyed being outside. (Clothed only in his underwear, as always)

Abby LOVED it, she looked through it every 2-3 minutes. 

Ben came out with the babes for a few minutes, this was their spot.

Then he showed the kids how to hold a paper with a pin prick to see the eclipse. 

They enjoyed watching the shadows from the leaves.

Here are some random bits from the last month...

George can put herself to sleep for naps most times, but Elizabeth, no way!  So I put Georgia down in her crib and went in the front room to help Iz, and this is how I found her when I went to put Iz down.  She cracks me up!  This is how I find her most times, or something similar.

Jack cracks me up.  Most days he hangs out in his underwear. All. Day. Long.  So I thought it was funny he and Elizabeth were just in their bottoms and both totally fixated on Sesame Street.

Girlfriends love their TV.  Well, mostly just Elmo and Blue's Clues.  I love that they fight for the best spot to stand and watch it!

Ben likes to put food in the middle of them and watch them duke it out.  Georgia is definitely the fighter.  I will give each of them one cracker and Georgia will steal Iz's so she has two and Iz has zero.  So most times I have to seperate them while eating snacks.

Sweet little Iz.  Still as chunky as ever.  She now has six teeth!! Whoa buddy.  For a few days she had six and George had one.  But, then George sprouted another, and she is so close to cutting another today.  I can see the white under her gums and she is a BEAST.

She put this on her head.  Or at least no one will fess up to putting it on her, so I will just believe she did it on her own.

He dressed himself today. In the shirt he wore yesterday. And his snowman tie from Grandma.  Yes, we left the house like this:)

I realized I don't have any pics of Abby from the last month... promise she is still here!! :)  She is doing ah-mazing in school, her teacher just raves about what a joy she is in class.  She tutors kids in her class, reads at a 4.8 grade level and even got to teach kindergarteners about dinosaurs recently.  She had to prepare a 20 minute "lesson" and she wrote it herself.  I didn't go, but she says it went well, so I will just have to believe her!

And since the girls are still awesome nappers I have been sewing up a storm!  They usually get in two, two hour naps. I am so lucky!! So I usually sew for one nap and clean for the other.  So if ya wanna see what I have been up to, check out my sewing blog.  (in fact, I made all but the pajamas and the onesie George was wearing in the picture with the headband)

Another twin!

Elizabeth found her other twin!  Earlier tonight, Ben said "hurry, look! She found her twin."  And it was Iz down the hall, banging on the mirror jabbering.  It was so funny!  Even funnier because she is usually so quiet and reserved, but she was getting so worked up!

Of course once the camera came out she wasn't as interested in the mirror, but still a cutie.

9 months.

Wow. I can't believe it has been 9 months since these two little monsters... er, wonderful children... came into the world. We have had our battles the last month or two with teething, ear infections and day light savings time (just to name a few) that have made these two a little more ornery than I would like:). We had finally been able to put them down around 9 and have them wake up at 730 the next morning (instead of 11 or midnight and waking at 8) and those two weeks were ah-mazing! Then all previous battles that were mentioned hit pretty much at the same time and we were back to square one. Darn. But now we have adjusted to DST, George's tooth FINALLY popped through and stayed (her first!!) and I think we are over the ear infections. Hoorah.

We took all the kids to the park last night so I lugged along my camera since the lighting would be just about right to snap some 9 month portraits of the girlies. Elizabeth wasn't very cooperative. Turns out she woke up today with a fever so she probably wasn't feeling so hot last night.

We were on a hill so she rolled down to the edge of the blanket and stayed there. She, well they both, HATE the grass.

Elizabeth is still our fussy girl. She just loves being held. All.The.Time.

She has mastered pulling herself up on furniture, sitting back down and even cruising along. I am NOT ready for them to be walking.

She tends to be more chill than George, George is constantly moving but Iz is content to be still.

She weighs in at a whopping 21 1/2 pounds. Though Ben thinks she probably weighs more since her arms and legs were off the scale when she was measured.

She is kind of over baby food, she will eat it but it isn't her favorite. She much prefers to eat off our plate.

Then there is Georgie. She is a mover and a shaker.

After a month of watching Elizabeth pull herself up and take steps, she decided to try it out and within a few days went from pulling herself up to taking steps. Yep, Elizabeth went for a week or two of just pulling herself up to her knees, then a week of pulling up to her feet, then taking steps and eventually figuring out how to sit back down. Georgia went from knees for two days, then to her feet for another day or two then taking steps. Whoa. This is how they roll. Elizabeth figures things out first, but Georgie masters them faster.

Ben made a make-shift playpen (turns out a normal play pen isn't built for two babies;) and she is perfectly happy to stay in and play, it is quite nice. Elizabeth HATES being in there.

She is still my mini, and weighs just 19 pounds.

She could care less if she eats real food, which is probably why she is so much smaller:)

They both still nap twice a day, (Yay!!) they love their walkers and being outside. They are in 6 month clothing and size 3 diapers.

Three more months until their birthday, holy moley!!

Attack of the giant babies.

Jack loves trains. That is no suprise. What you don't know, is the babies also love his trains. The girls typically nap from 10-12 and Jack watches Word World and Sesame Street and builds his trains- that is his safe time, ha! Nice and quiet and he can get his toys out without worrying about them getting drooled on. He left them out after naptime was over and the girls went straight for them!

They have hit the 'let's bang everything together' stage. It gets dangerous when they try to bang toys into each other.

Ah, pretty much her only happy moment today.

And like typical siblings they tend to fight over the same toy. Usually a ball from the ball popper.




George can be so mean. They now 'cruise' along furniture and George will drag Iz down All.The.Time. Then she climbs on top of, chews on appendages, pulls hair or ears, hits... you get the point...


George is on top. Really for no reason at all, she wasn't going after a toy or anything, just looked like fun.

What a cutie:)

But lately Elizabeth has been giving it right back to her. I have to put them in separate play areas many times during the day.

Finally he just got sick of them "ruining all his things!!!" and went in his bedroom to play with legos. It is funny, because for the longest time he refused to play in his room alone, but lately he goes in there just to get away from the girls. Or to play legos, that is the only place he is allowed to play them, at least that is what I tell myself. He loves his sisters, but everyone needs a little space sometimes, right?

My sewing journal.

In my perfect world I would keep a notebook next to my sewing machine and keep detailed notes on the fit of each garment, what I liked about the pattern and fit, or what I didn't. Well, I do have said notebook, but NEVER write in it... Well, I did for about a week... So I decided to start a seperate blog for my sewing projects so I could link my flickr account to it and comment on other blogs without having a bunch of strangers look at my family blog. Doesn't mean strangers don't look at this blog, but if you don't know us, why are you reading?? ;) So anyways, the link is http://sewingforfour.blogspot.com. Check it out, if you want.

The girlies.

I thought this was funny because usually Georgie is the one attacking Izzy, well lately Iz has been giving it right back, ha! But then a few minutes later, George fell and pulled Iz down with her, so she got it back this time.

Surprise! They stand! For the last 4-5 weeks Elizabeth has been pulling herself up on our make-shift play pen, and in the last week or so she has started to take steps along it! Georgie has only figured out how to pull herself up this last week, buuuut she went from pulling up to her knees for two days, to her feet for three days, then taking steps. So she went from nothing to steps in a week. Whoa! I am so not ready for this, they are not even 9 months yet!!

Fun with Jack.

He loved crushing the oreos!!
Looks good to me!
He wasn't quite sure he wanted to taste it at first, but he loves oreos, pudding and gummy worms, so they must be delicious together, right?

Yep! They were delicious together. He loved "swishing the worms" (as he called it) around in the pudding then licking them off before slurping them down.

Which led to the above photo. He was absolutely covered from head to toe in pudding... and so was my counter!

Pictures of two.

This is a story of a silly Mom who thought she could out smart her twins and come up with a decent picture of the two in their new outfits she made for them.



First, the babies realize Mommy is alone and there is no one to make noise to trick them into looking at the camera, so they don't.



Then one decides she is too good for this and pulls the diva card.



And when that didn't make Mommy stop trying to take their picture she remembers she can just flop on her belly and get away.

Dang. That didn't work either. Fine, she decides, I will just sit and look and maybe she will be done with it. Turns out, Mommy wasn't prepared and the shot ended up out of focus.

So they decide, fine, we will sit and look adorable (and in focus) but the catch is, we wont look at her. And Mommy gives up. Babies 1, Mommy 0.