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!

Fall travels

It takes a crashed hard drive to remind one of the importance of regular back-ups. And while that only partially explains the long delay in a blog entry, it certainly explains why these photos are the handiwork of Grandmas Janet and Joan along with honorary uncle George. The little girls finally took to the skies for an hour and a half flight to Albany NY over Labor Day, the full plane overrun by kids who easily drowned out the fairly yowl-free but squirmy activities of Maggie and Bea. We were there for a party thrown by Aunt Mary to celebrate Virginia and Dan's marriage and Liam's subsequent arrival on the scene.

We spent three gorgeous fall Saturday afternoons at soccer games cheering on cousin Jamey, who is the senior goalkeeper for Haverford College. Pony-tailed Maggie showed her strong support while exploring the stands.

The last two photos are from Lancaster, where Grandma Janet looked after little girls while their father rode around the countryside's Amish farms and covered bridges with college buddies George, Glat and Aaron. When the bikers rolled by at snack time, George captured Bea with her sippy cup on her head.

Second summer's end

Heading into the Labor Day weekend, summer is distinctly in the rear-view mirror. The first two images are last looks at Peacham Pond -- the girls holding hands as they walk down the lane, and Maggie with her mother down on the dock. Next up is Maggie sporting a bowler hat, well really a bowl for a hat. On a visit to Chambersburg, the girls clamber about Eagle Rock, having ridden in backpacks on a hike that we took 15 years earlier on the morning of our wedding. And speaking of such conveyances, that is the girls' first official unprompted word: "backpack." They will say mama and dada and baby and Bea and (sort of) Maggie and a few other words with prompting, but the sight of a backpack elicits a gleeful "ba-pa." Backpacks also work pretty well as frontpacks for short walks to the park but with their combined weight now 45 pounds -- Maggie holding a four-pound lead on her sister -- the emphasis is on short.

Go jump in a lake

August is not August without a trip to Vermont and Peacham Pond. Last summer's photos feature little girls taking in the view but not able to interact with it very much. This year, interactions with the scenery were much expanded. The first photo is looking out from the rocky outcrop atop Devil's Hill after hiking there atop parental shoulders along with Uncle Charles (in photo), Cousin Cea, her boyfriend Tom, Cousin Virginia, husband Dan, and First Cousin Once Removed (but who's counting?) Liam. In addition to bagging the summit (and being rewarded with a lovely view of the pond and surrounding forest-covered hills), their other firsts included a first boatride -- with Cea handling both the oars and the photography -- and a first swim in the pond. Once the boat was safely dragged up onshore, Maggie snuggled up to Grandma Joan. Maggie can also be seen inaugurating her new cow pajamas with the special added bonus of getting a story from her Aunt Mary, who shares the childhood nickname of Moo with this particular niece.

Old Friends, new friends, and a big bowl of Maggie

Two photos and a movie celebrating the girls' discovery of the joys of sitting in a salad bowl and napkin basket. The other photo and movie are from a visit with Heidi's childhood friend (since kindergarten!) Jenn and her little boys Gavin and Everett visiting from California. We all gathered at the home of Jenn's brother, where Maggie and Bea explored the big front yard. The movie ends abruptly as the videographer raced over to prevent Maggie from decimating the lovely flowers by the front door.

Franken-Bea and the Fourth of July

You can childproof and childproof and childproof, but something is going to slip through the safety dragnet. A birdbath, for instance. Said birdbath looked stable enough when Maggie was investigating it, but what one cannot do alone, two can do with ease. Shortly after Bea joined in the fun, they managed to pull it down, directly onto the bridge of Bea's nose. Within ten minutes, she was being checked in at the Chambersburg Hospital emergency room and then in short order having her head examined (via CAT scan) and four stitches expertly applied right between the eyes. Bea proved remarkably resilient. She was only Franken-Bea for five days, at which point the stitches were removed, and her scar was already fading when we returned to the scene of the crime two weeks later for the Fourth of July. Bea and Maggie celebrated with matching patriotic dresses supplied by Heidi's beloved first-grade teacher, who stopped by with her grandchildren during an earlier visit to Grandma Janet in Lancaster. The big water-bearing hit of the holiday weekend was not a weaponized birdbath but a soft plastic contraption that was part wading pool and part sprinkler, providing some much-needed relief from towering temperatures.

Hats and hikes

As noted previously, there is general agreement that the heat and humidity of Washington in summer make it unfit for human habitation, forcing inhabitants to dart from one air-conditioned space to another. But there are urban escapes to be had. Two photos from a family hike on the wooded hills of the National Arboretum. When Utahn field geologist par excellence David Dinter paid a visit to the swamp, Bea attempted to mirror the rake of his weather-beaten hat with her own and then tried the real thing. And speaking of hats (if not the urban experience), the girls sport a pair of Shaker bonnets, a look not to be passed up.