day 12 : yay for normal (the new normal)

day 12: It has been such a relief in the last month or two to have babies with an actual bedtime. Our nighttime routine has slowly shifted from scarfing down dinner in 5 minutes before the babies go to bed (so that we could sleep right after they did) to microwaving something quick after they went to sleep to finally now actually cooking dinner and sitting down together before bed. It makes me feel like a real living human being to have dinner with adults and have real conversations. It might not be our old idea of normal but at least it's a start! Tonight Carli came over to my parents' house after baby bedtime and we had pizza and beer. It was a total blast from the past to hang out with her without the babies but I had such a good time. Carli if you're reading this thanks for coming over!! We should do it again soon!

day 11 : still in Encinitas

day 11: Today was sort of the same as a regular day at home, except I wasn't at home, I was at my parents' house. I took care of the babies and Allison helped me to feed them their lunch of delicious baby food pears (mmmm pears). All in all it was pretty uneventful. After baby bedtime Allison Mark and I had dinner together before they headed off dancing. Allison is quite the chef these days. We had some chickpea sandwiches and tasty orzo. Mmmm orzo.

day 10 : a crazy day

day 10: This morning I checked my phone and had lots of missed calls voicemails and text messages. Little Olive was admitted to the NICU and all of my friends and family were trying to get in touch with me. I decided to drive down to Encinitas to be near everything that was going on so I loaded up the babies and headed south. I ended up having my first solo overnight baby watching experience and not only did the babies not sleep well (Amelia woke up at least 10 times) I was so nervous that I woke up a lot too. One of the times that I woke up I panicked and realized I hadn't taken a photo-rific post yet for the day. So I snapped this one. Technically it was after midnight but it was before the next day started so I'm counting it.

day 9 : close to the beach

day 9: Today I was exhausted. The solo trip down to San Diego to meet baby Olive was SO worth it, she was amazing, but when I got back to LA I was officially wiped out. The babies didn't exactly reward me for my efforts by being great sleepers (oh, ok.... Paul was a great sleeper, Amelia woke up at least 3 times last night) so I was beyond tired when I got out of bed this morning. I decided that our "outing" today would be to the beach, but I got going on the PCH going north and couldn't find a good spot to get out and take a stroll. I actually couldn't find a spot to u-turn either and by the time I did it was time to turn around and head home for baby lunch. Sheesh. What a morning. I figured at least I'd be able to pull over for a quick snap for the blog of the beach.. but in Malibu there are houses or fences always blocking your view of what you want to see. This is as close as I got to the beach today... behind a chain link fence and across a field. Oh well. At least the babies napped in the car :)

day 8 : welcome to the world Olive!

day 8: This morning the peanuts and I drove down to San Diego to meet Valena & John's new arrival, Olive Marie who was born last night. She is the most beautiful baby I've ever seen (except for my peanuts of course!) Here is one of my favorite pictures of her... for more you can check out the baby blog

day 7 : first week done!

day 7: I am so proud of myself for completing a whole first week of photo-rific WHILE being a mom of twins :) It may sound silly but it's hard for me to stick to anything every day while I'm so so busy! I know I said I was only going to do one baby photo a week but this one was just too cute to pass up! Tomorrow I'm going down to San Diego to meet Valena and John's new baby girl (hopefully born sometime tonight, go Valena go!) so I will definitely be posting a photo of the new lady :)

day 6 : my little tummy sleeper

day 6: This morning we walked into the nursery to find Mr. Paul not only on his side half flipped over (see here for clarification)but fully flipped onto his belly. He was just snoozing away and he looked so very comfy! He actually slept an entire 12 hours last night without waking up (a much appreciated first) and I have a hunch it has something to do with his new-found sleeping position. Way to go Mr. P!

day 5 : out and about!

day 5: Ben's parents are in town for the weekend visiting and catching up with the peanuts and since I take the babies out and about from 11 to 1 every day we decided to do the same while they were in town. This morning we headed out with our BOB (our stroller, if you don't know what it is check out this post) to the beach boardwalk for a little stroll. Both babies eventually took a little snooze so we decided to take advantage of the situation and sit down to a nice lunch outside on the beach. Yep. We had lunch. Out. At the beach. Amazing how your life slowly comes back piece by piece as the babies get older. We can do so much more than we could even 2 months ago. Here's Ben explaining social networking sites to his dad at lunch :)

day 4 : ring-a-ma-bob

day 4: For valentine's day Ben got me a macro ring flash. Supposedly it's useful for taking macro shots since while you're super close to things you block out available light with your body and camera, this puts the light really close to your subject. What Ben REALLY got it for though was a clever trick to get babies to look at the camera. They love lights and this puts the light right at the lens so they'll stare at it. It's pretty bright so I don't think I'll put it in their face very often... but maybe sometimes :) Anyhow, we were testing it out. It leaves a kind of eerily even tone to the picture, but it does make fancy circular catch lights in the eyes. Hmn. I think I need more practice with it.

0

day 3 : oh well

day 3: I've been in need of a haircut for a long time. Trouble is I'm on mom duty 24/7. I'm with them all day at home by myself during the week and then I spend an awful lot of time with them on the weekend as well. And if I'm not helping around the house on the weekend then I'm trying to catch up on work. Thus not a lot of time for haircuts. I was at the grocery store late last night and noticed that the haircut place next door was open til 9 so I figured I'd go in after baby bedtime today and get it done. Bad idea. When walking into a hair salon 30 minutes before close on a Thursday you will end up with a Russian woman with very poor command of the English language who gives you a bob no matter how many times you tell her that is not what you want. Oh well. Here it is. I will have to get a re-cut soon.

day 2 : i told you i'd do it :)

day 2: See look at me... posting again on day 2! I told you I would :) The idea of me starting up again was to document what I do every day this year. I take the babies on one "outing" a day, partly to get them used to going out of the house, but mostly so I don't go stir crazy. The goal is to do my photo-rific posts while we're out but unfortunately today was not a fun outing. The babies got their monthly RSV vaccine today so I didn't really feel like snapping a photo in the pediatrician's office. The silver lining for the peanuts was that today they got to try sweet potatoes.... yum! They both loved 'em!

year 2 day 1 : for real

Ok... so I know I've had a few false starts here but I really and truly am starting up photo-rific again! I just got a book in the mail that I made from my first year of photo blogging and let's just say I LOVE IT!! It is ridiculously cool to see a whole year in pictures in book form. So here goes another photo-rific year with bigger better pictures and a few new rules: No more than one baby photo per week, and no more than one day late for posting (aka no big catch up posts). I certainly can find time to take and post ONE photo per day... how hard could it be :)

Day one photo: the book that inspired me to start back up again