Ten to Twelve months!

Ten to twelve months has been rough. It's winter and cold season, and it feels like Liam and Reece have been sick since Christmas, but now it's finally starting to warm up! You will notice the boys are wearing pajamas in most of these pictures, but that's our uniform when we are sick. I have a hard time accepting that they are one now. It has been the shortest and longest year ever.

Liam

Liam is cuddly, sweet, pensive, jealous, cute, quirky, and serious.

When Liam is excited he huffs and puffs and does this flopping thing. It a variation of the jumping jacks he used to lay on his back and do. He rocks and kicks at the same time. If you hold him up in the air he does it and opens his mouth up wide like a flying fish. Liam makes the best disgusted faces when eating cold or bitter things. Liam also loves to shake his head "nooo". It's one of his only tricks, and if I try to get him to do another one like clap or say words, he just shakes his head "nooo". I am pretty sure he knows I am trying to get him to do a trick, he just thinks he should get to choose which one. Liam learned to pull himself up at 11 1/2 months. Liam was a little behind in learning to pull himself up. The only reason he finally learned is because he wanted to climb into my lap. I was the only thing he would pull himself up on at first. He is a total momma's boy and I love it.

Now he is all over the house pulling himself up. He loves to look out the front window and see everything going on outside. Liam hasn't learned to crawl yet but he is a speed army crawler. He is pretty good at keeping up with Reece. It is cute to see them follow each other around all day. They may not be playing together, but they almost never leave each others' side.

It's funny how much they disregard personal space with each other. I had to separate their highchairs because they would always distract each other and put their hands all over each others arms and trays.

Reece

Reece is active, personable, happy, loud, bold, hungry, and everywhere. He is very strong socially. He laughs when I laugh, and Liam laughs when Reece laughs. When Reece is around other kids he crawls very proudly. It's more of a march with his head held high and a big smile on his face. He loves other kids and being the center of attention. Reece crawls all over. He mastered crawling at about 10 months. He also started dancing sometime after 11 months. Whenever he hears music he starts to bob and sway.



The Pabst family has a trait where we like to stand on our toes, and Reece definitely has it. It's actually not great in the long run, but right now with Reece's chubby legs and feet it's very cute!

Reece loves to snack. He likes to hang out underneath his high chair in search of leftover food, usually right after mealtime. I don't think its because he's hungry, I think it's because he found that food all by himself, like a mountain man.

He likes to steal the other kids' sandwiches at the church playgroup we go too. He is a scavanger.

We are still working on sharing. Reece has no boundaries and Liam gets jealous easily. Liam doesn't get jealous about attention, mostly just bottles and toys. They are both big copy cats. Wherever one goes the other one follows and if one yells then the other yells.

The boys have been taking two naps a day and I am pretty good at keeping them on the same schedule. It's fun to listen to them fall asleep because most of the time they make sounds back and forth until they fall asleep. Then, when they wake up they do the same thing. I almost always find them playing with each other in the middle of both of their cribs like this.

The boys love taking baths together, but both Ryan and I end up drenched by the end. It's all worth it for the cuteness factor!

The boys love trucks, balls, and furry animals. We still love to read books. They love to turn the pages, and will flip very quickly through any pages that bore them. Their favorite books are the ones with photographs or things you can touch like fur. It's so cute to see Liam stick out one pointer finger and gently pet the soft animal fur in the book. Liam also uses that finger so swipe things on the ipad and iPhone. He figured that part out out on his own and very quickly.

The boys spend a lot of their day looking outside our windows, and luckily most of them are just the right height.

Babies love when daddy comes home!

The boys also love to play the piano.

Ten months was when the boys started to show their own sense of humor. This is also when they started to be more opinionated.

Saturday Fun Day!

Winter has been slow around here with the rain and cold (I know, you Idahoans are rolling your eyes) but now that it's warming up Ryan and I are trying to do something fun as a family every other Saturday. Last week we went to Happy Hallow park and zoo. It's a small zoo, but it also has a bunch of kiddy rides and a petting zoo. I got a season pass so I can take the boys to play there during the week.

Liam and Reece love riding on daddy shoulders.

 Liam checking out the bees... this might be my favorite part of the park. It's a big fenced area with  beehive boxes in the corner. Not sure what you're supposed to see...

Liam making meerkat friends!

 Reece making a pony enemy.

 This goat's no dummy. He hangs out by the food machine all day.

Loved the carousel. Reece got this cool seahorse and Liam got a tough looking rhino.

The boys were enamored with all the music and light and movement on the carousel. 

Afterword we went to "Banana Crepe" since I've been craving crepes lately. Really it's all about the Nutella. The crepe is just the best way to transport it into my mouth.

Kitchen Plates

I have been collecting plates to decorate my kitchen with for the past two years. We have vaulted ceilings, which create an awkward triangle space above our cabinets that has always felt like it needed something. Even though my collection isn't complete I thought it was time to put the ones I have so far up. After looking into how much plates hooks cost and how most of them are visible I decided to improvise. Since these plates aren't worth much to anyone but me, I decided use some E6000 and a paperclip to do the job. I put felt on the back while it was still wet to make it stronger. So far it's done a good job.

This is my favorite plate. Ryan got it for me two Christmases ago. It reminds me of our house.

Mounting plates can be easy, just give it a triangle!

(Ryan added that part)

Birthday Week!

I haven't posted much but pictures since Christmas because the boys or I have been sick for the last 2 months which limits fun things to talk about. Last week they seemed to be getting better though, except for Liam's double ear infection, but he's took antibiotics so now he is in the best shape he has been in a while. Last week we did lots more fun stuff and it being birthday week couldn't be better timing. We made it through our first year with twins so we had lots to celebrate! On the Tuesday before their birthday the twins and I went with friends to the De Young art museum which is my favorite museum in California. It was free museum day which means it was crowded but well worth it. I was so embarrassed because the musuem has high ceilings and lots of open spaces which made the acoustics amazing. The babies kept yelling happily to hear the sounds echo back.

My favorite pieces:

Then on the boys' birthday we went to lunch and got Pinkberry.

Reece loved his and Liam didn't which is pretty typical.

 My neighbor remembered the boys' birthday somehow and brought them both a gift and balloons which they loved.

We opened presents from Dipsy and Papa Murdock on their birthday and they loved this talking and singing dog they got. 

We also wanted to take the boys to Monterey on our first family trip alone. Both Ryan and I love it there. We drove up the coast on our honeymoon and we stopped there for a few days. Now that we live close by we try to go about one a year. We decided to go stay at a hotel so we could also take the boys swimming. We took a page from my parents' playbook and stayed at an embassy suites so we wouldn't have to share a room with the boys. It also had a warm indoor pool to take boys swimming for the first time.

Loved the boys in their swim trunks.

The whole trip was worth it just for the floor length mirror. The boys were very entertained.

 Our dates to Chilis! They were cheap dates because all they wanted to eat was the sugar packets.

On Saturday we went to the Monterey bay aquarium. 

 

 The huge deep ocean tanks were all of our favorite. The fish and sharks were huge. We let the boys crawl all over the room and check out the tank. Notice the hammerhead in the back. 

Until now, Liam thought the food chain ended with Orange.

  Babies liked the aquarium, but were pretty done by the end. Even their penguin friend couldn't cheer them up.

 But crepes could! Reece was flipping out over strawberries and Nutella and would beg for more. He is totally my child!

When we got home we found a package from Nana and Papa Pabst! 

The boys each got their own motorcycle. It's the first toy we own two of. I've been making them share until this point, but it's getting more difficult to explain sharing to them lately. They love sitting on their motorcycles and pushing all the buttons, though they don't know how to make them go forward yet. Liam would sit on his all day if he could.

I wasn't sure about having a party since they don't care yet and they don't really have friends, but I thought it would be fun to have a few people over for sunday dinner and then have cupcakes. It was fun and very chill. Perfect for a first birthday.

 Reece loved the frosting! He even grabbed the frosting off mine when I showed it to him. 

 

Liam was not a fan. He threw his on the floor twice!

Happy birthday babies!