Thanksgiving

Having managed to forget our camera for the trip to Lancaster, we are grateful to Uncle Peter for his iPhone. He captured the girls' first Thanksgiving dinner enjoyed with their cousin Sophie, Aunt Jenn, and Grandma Janet. Compliments of a food grinder, they had a go at turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, and Cope's corn. Of those fine delicacies, only the mashed potatoes passed the textural test, hence the baby food Thanksgiving-in-a-jar pictured nearby. While still at the dinner table, Maggie shows off her favorite pasttime, which is putting a cup in her mouth. And in this blog's first-ever video clip, Bea uses a matryoshka doll to make funny noises. We have much to be thankful for!

Bea on the move

In recognition of Uncle Nevin and Aunt Leslie making the trek from Boston to visit their nieces, Bea undertook the only slightly less arduous journey from the living room across the forbidding expanse of the dining room and on to the kitchen, where she can be seen triumphantly arriving in her superhero red socks. Maggie has been showing signs of incipient crawling, rocking back and forth on her hands and knees. That or she is about to transform into a frog. Either way, mobility is not far off. Bea copied Nevin's backwards ballcap look while enjoying a ride on his formidable forearm (until she lost part of her lunch, that is), and Maggie bonded with her Aunt Leslie.

Pumpkin kitty things

The girls made the most of their first Halloween with multiple costume changes. First came Bea in Clyde's pumpkin onesie and Maggie dressed as W.C. Fields playing Sir Thomas More. She was supposed to be a cat (note tail), but she vetoed whiskers, and the cat hat her mom whipped up didn't turn out quite right. Heidi had better luck re-engineering blue feather boas into wigs to go with t-shirts from Buck and Rosemary to make for an irresistible Thing 1 and Thing 2 look. So irresistible indeed that it was impossible to keep the girls from removing the other's blue hair. Maybe by next year this will be a costume that can last more than 30 seconds. Finally, there were their bear suits for an All Saints Day outing to see Roman ruins and a Japanese pagoda, both conveniently located at the National Arboretum about three miles from home (the columns used to hold up the east front of the Capitol). It was all a bit much for Bea who fell sound asleep while sitting on the couch next to her father.

Calisthenics and sweaters

When they weren't consorting with Hoosiers this past weekend, the girls were interacting with one another. They have started to elicit giggles and guffaws while watching each other's antics. A favorite pastime is snatching a pacifier out of a sister's mouth and then having it snatched back, all in good humor (neither, thankfully, has any concept of "Mine!" yet). Maggie was particularly amused when Bea appeared above her poised to pounce. Crawling remains elusive, but they are increasingly mobile, finding ever more creative ways to scootch across the floor. Bea now gets up on her hands and knees and even -- as shown in another black-clad pose -- on hands and feet. She does not quite drop and give us twenty as the pose might suggest, but can Charles Atlas-style self-improvement be far off? Following their afternoon of rigorous exercise, the girls tried out their new sweaters, hand-made by Aunt Mary and complete with the same dancing flowers as she designed for our wedding invitations, their birth announcements, and these hers-and-hers ceramic bowls. What an aunt!

Hoosiers!

We connected up with the Indiana contingent of Applegates at Grandma Joan's house this weekend. All but cousin Jesse (now a Brooklyn-based Hoosier) had met the girls early on, and now having had the pleasure of Jesse's company, the girls have met all their cousins. Maggie can be seen spending quality time with Aunt Amy and Uncle John, and both girls took a turn in their new jog-stroller and cozy bear suits with cousin Gillian.

Maggie the ham

Maggie has mastered the fine art of mugging for the camera at a tender age. Thanks to Alison for these marvelous iPhone shots of Maggie in fine fettle. Stacking cups are a big favorite these days for both girls, especially when the stack can be knocked over. These photos also showcase Maggie's flair for sitting. We still put a boppy pillow around her in case she flops, but it is increasingly unnecessary.

Stowaways

Their head-control and sitting skills having improved by leaps and bounds, the girls have graduated from riding around the neighborhood in their car-seat buckets snapped into the stroller to sitting in style. While this affords less opportunity for staring up at the trees, it does have the advantage of facing forward. Bea shows off her impersonation of a ten-toed sloth (thanks to Jeff for discovering this talent). And both girls are quite pleased by their attempt to stow away in their father's luggage -- or is it a sit-down strike seeking to thwart their father's departure?