Happy Thanksgiving (and farewell to the blog)

To state the obvious, we ran out of steam on the blog after the girls turned two, and now Maggie and Bea are so big they will no doubt soon be twittering, facebooking and otherwise documenting their own experiences in technologies yet unthinkable. So we are officially wrapping up this parental chronicle of their baby- and toddler-hood. As for ourselves, we are happy to report that we started catching up on sleep at about the 2-½ year mark. Sanity is a bit slower to return. The only constants are fun and games.

And so to this last batch of images: The big event this spring was Aunt Nessa and Uncle Scott’s wedding, where Maggie’s dress serendipitously matched the bridal bouquet. We spent a lovely week in Vermont in August with many bike and canoe rides, and then in September, the girls started “school” at the Smithsonian natural history museum. They love it so much, they ask to go on the weekends too. Bringing us back to where this blog began, Maggie and Bea reprised their Thing 1 and Thing 2 costumes for Halloween (here's the 2009 edition). They still had no idea what candy was as they sorted their stash but – as the video shows – instinctively knew to count it.

Thanks to everyone for reading. Happy Thanksgiving, and happy trails from the Apple Twins!

Two!

We have made it to birthday #2. So what are we in for now? Two terrific, truculent, tranquil, tremendous, tasmanian toddlers? All of the above?! (We are not mentioning that other "T" word...) For the big day itself, there was a morning tea-party snackfest with three of their favorite neighborhood friends. Very civilized bedlam--with flower pot hats all around. After a long recovery nap, Maggie and Bea opened many cards and gifts from family and friends, and felt very loved indeed.

The close-up photo is from more than a month ago, but as it captures the girls in dresses Grandma Janet made for Heidi when she was about this age, (carefully stored away for just such an eventuality), we thought we should save it for an historic occasion. Sledding on cookie-sheets out the back door of Grandma Joan's house took place last weekend, when they also met their first snowman.

Happy (not so) new year!

Before January runs out, we had best get off a new year's greeting. The video is a bit of a cheat, having been taken on New Year's Eve, but Maggie bouncing around the four corners of her grandmother's bed seemed a nice companion to Bea's spoon dance in our previous post. The photo of Bea and her sippie cup is from a New Year's Day outing, and then everybody pretty much managed to stay sick (and decidedly unphotogenic) for the remainder of the month. Yesterday, all were hale and hearty enough to tromp about in the park. Bea was a bit slow to leave the stroller, but eventually warmed to the sensation of snow crunching under her boots.

Christmas in PA

We spent the Christmas holiday in snowy Pennsylvania, where little girls scarfed down Christmas cookies, opened their own presents, and shouted "ho,ho,ho" whenever they saw an image of Santa. In Chambersburg, Maggie visited with cousin Henry at the dinner table, Bea did a silly spoon dance, and both girls enjoyed stories with their grandmas. On Boxing Day with the Stoltzfus relatives, we all took a walk in the snow, and Uncle Nevin provided simultaneous airplane rides. Merry, merry all around!

Cold December

Maggie and Bea had a blast at their friend Clara's birthday party earlier this month. Clara's big brother Anthony bounced in the trampoline with Maggie, and also generously stood by while little girls commandeered his train set. Back at home, Bea hugs her sister on their "rocking horse" (with thanks to Bethany for capturing this happy moment). Cold weather and yet another cold last week made for a good excuse to catch up on some reading. In the video, Maggie copes with the early stages of the bug that eventually slammed the lot of us.

Red wagon and Thanksgiving yellow boots

The girls brought along nearly all of their stuffed animals for an inaugural ride in their new red wagon. The modern Radio Flyer comes with seats and (sippy) cup holders but somehow retains the spirit of the original. Just a couple of furry friends joined them for a Thanksgiving morning snack at their own special table at Grandma Janet's house. We would like to report that Maggie and Bea merrily tucked into turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and all related holiday fare, but they remain steadfastly unadventurous when it comes to food. Still wearing their dinner dresses, both girls joined grandmothers at the piano. Afterward, the ever-practical Bea swapped out her fancy shoes for galoshes.

Maggie Moo and Bumble Bea

Back when the little girls were still very little, one of their NICU nurses put signs on their cribs with illustrated nicknames of Bumble Bea and Maggie Moo. This Halloween, those nicknames inspired costumes worn up and down our street, netting quite a haul of candy that their parents -- taking one for the team -- dutifully ate. The photo of Maggie hugging Bea on the arm of the couch was a few days earlier, Bea's face showing both glee and the marks of a recent tumble.

It has been a season of colds, which typically haunt Maggie with a runny nose for a couple of days while heading straight to Bea's chest and staying for more than a week. And so it was that Halloween sniffles turned into some very labored breathing during the (sleepless) night, enough to warrant a trip to the doctor's office which then turned into a four-day stay in the hospital complete with supplemental oxygen, steroids and nebulizer treatments. The world's sweetest dog came by the ward on Day 3 of Bea's stay, curling up at the foot of her crib for a snooze, much to Bea's delight.

By the time Bea was released from the hospital, the weekend was just around the corner. After getting a clean bill of health in a follow-up visit, Bea celebrated her new-found freedom with a trip to the National Arboretum on a glorious fall Saturday. As of press time, both girls have the next round of colds, but so far (knock on wood) no hospital stays!