Happy New Year!

Our New Year celebration took on a new tradition this year with an early family celebration at the local Fuddrucker's with several other families with young children. Mommy and Daddy wouldn't have had it any other way- what could be a more appropriate celebration of the best year of our lives than celebrating together as a family, with new friends who have made this year even more special?

Alex asks "where's my burger?"

Ari is ready for dessert:

2006 has been a good year for family...

...and friends (Mommy and Ari with Melissa, an old friend found again in 2006 and Mommy to A&A's best big pals):

After dinner, it was home for a bottle, bath, and bed time for the kiddos. Here they are in their cozy new PJ's from their "great grandma" Minnie (Minnie was Mommy's Zaide's girlfriend before he passed away several years ago, and she still holds a very special place in our hearts and our family. And she makes a mean latke.):

We have so much to be thankful for in 2006. If 2007 can be half as wonderful as this year, we are one lucky family. To all of our friends and family who visit this blog, please know you hold a special place in our lives and we wish you a happy, healthy New Year. May all of your wishes for the year ahead come true.

Hanukkah Revisited

Yesterday Ari and Alex took their second road trip to New Jersey to attend their Great Aunt Joyce's annual Hanukkah celebration. This year, the festivities took place in Aunt Joyce's brand new home, which is only a 2.5 hour drive from our house (barring holiday traffic!)

Alex and Ari had a blast meeting all of their New Jersey relatives and seeing Aunt Joyce's beautiful new home for the first time. They especially loved the extra attention from their aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. They received such generous gifts-- including a few of their new favorite toys (an electronic drum from Aunt Joyce-- see pictures below-- and hand puppets from Aunt Ellen, Uncle Ted, and Cousins Steven and Kevin) and some very stylish outfits for when they're a little bigger. We can't wait to see Alex in the Kenneth Cole button-down, suede blazer, and hip jeans his cool Cousin Jessica and her boyfriend Josh picked out for him.

Here are some pictures from our visit:

Ari visiting with "Great" Aunt Joyce and Rose:

Alex with Cousin Jessica:

Alex with "Great" Uncle Ted and Aunt Ellen:

Ari playing in front of all of the presents:

Alex helping Cousin Jess open her present:

Alex back at home playing with his new favorite toy:

We're already looking forward to next year's celebration!

Happy Nine Month Birthday A&A!

It's official...Alex and Ari are nine months old today. They have now been in this world longer than they were in Mommy's tummy.

We celebrated Alex and Ari's big day with dinner out at Moby Dick's House of Kabob. Alex and Ari even got to share in some of Mommy and Daddy's food- they happily munched on small pieces of the fresh tandori oven pita bread. Earlier in the day, we finally completed the application process for their passports. This process involved three trips to the post office, but in the end we think we completed the applications in plenty of time to receive their passports in time for our visit to Chile. Speaking of Chile, today was also our friend Jan's birthday...Happy Birthday, Jan...we can't wait to see you and Michael!

Here are some of their official nine month pictures:

We're nine (months)!

Alex and Ari's favorite activity- pulling books out of the coffee table and pulling themselves up on the table: Playing "house":

Latest Stats

Alex and Ari had their 9-month check-up (a few days early) today, and here are the latest stats:
Sir Alex is 30.25 inches long (96th percentile) and 21 pounds, 4 ounces (75th percentile). Miss Arielle is 29.5 inches long (97th percentile!) and a slight 17 pounds, 5 ounces (25th percentile).

Both kids weathered the appointment very well and were happy to find out that they did not need any vaccinations today- only a finger prick to test their hemoglobin (iron) levels. The doctor gave them both an "A+." It was hard for Mommy to believe that she was making the next appointment for Ari and Alex's ONE YEAR check-up. Where has the time gone?

Official 9-month pictures will come on Friday, but for now here are a few so that you can see what Alex and Ari have been up to the past few days:

On Monday (Christmas Day), we took a ride with Nana to visit Nana's boss' mother, Clair, who has been looking forward to meeting the kids after seeing their pictures in Nana's office and hearing all about their first nine months. Alex and Ari enjoyed Clair's loving attention and watching the birds who live (in a cage, of course) in the lobby of Clair's building. Here are Alex and Ari with Nana and Clair. Can you believe this beautiful, spunky lady is 90 years old? Neither could we!

Finally, Alex and Ari aren't yet crawling (Alex moves around by rolling and scooting on his tush; both kids can get up on all fours and rock, which according to our pediatrician means they'll be crawling any day now) but they are already pulling up on furniture. We're wondering if they'll just go straight to walking like their Daddy. Here they are standing at our coffee table- notice they've already pulled all of the books that were in the lower compartments out onto the floor (one of their favorite activities)...and Alex's expression asks, "Who, me? I didn't do it...":

Goodbye Hanukkah

Friday evening we celebrated the final night of Hanukkah, closing out a very social...and fun...week.

Ari and Alex's social calendar was quite full this week, with playdates (our weekly neighborhood group as well as a special play date with friend Hayden and new friend Chase) and parties. Thursday evening Alex and Ari celebrated Hanukkah with cousins Naomi and Jonathan, who were visiting New York for the first few nights of Hanukkah and therefore missed out on the earlier celebrations. Friday evening, after lighting the hanukkiah for the final time this year, they attended a holiday party thrown by their twin friends Angela and Christopher's Mommy and Daddy.

Saturday Nana and Poppy Jack came for a visit before we all headed out to Aunt Lori and Uncle Sam's house for a pizza dinner (actually, it was mixed veggies, spinach and potatoes, and apples with plums for Alex and Ari). This morning we had a little get-together at our house for other young families from our synagogue (a havurah).

Tomorrow we will be "celebrating" Christmas with Alex and Ari's friends Sadie and Gabriel, along with their parents. Their mommy makes some killer homemade bread so we are having a late sandwich lunch after Alex and Ari wake up from their afternoon nap. We're all looking forward to spending time with them, as they are Alex and Ari's favorite older buddies.

Here are a few pictures from this week:

Daddy and Ari opening Hanukkah presents:

Ari and Alex with Poppy Jack, Nana, and Mommy:

If You're Happy and You Know It...

"They" say that learning to clap is a skill most babies don't achieve until 10 months of age, so we must have some pretty advanced babies. Ari has been clapping for quite some time now, and over the last couple of days Alex has also achieved this milestone. He is very proud of himself and has been clapping almost non-stop today:

Today we also opened one of the Hanukkah presents from Nana and Poppy Jack- animal rockers- and Alex and Ari squealed with delight as they rode their new toys:

We took advantage of another beautiful (70 degrees- 2/3 of the way through December!) day to visit the tot lot for a ride on the swings. We also attempted to apply for Alex and Ari's passports (for our visit to Chile in March) but learned, only after we got to the post office, that you actually have to make an appointment and that there are no appointments this week due to the holidays. So we have an appointment to apply for their passports next week. I should mention that their passport photos are very cute...much cuter than their Mommy's!

Happy Hanukkah!

Happy Hanukkah! Ari and Alex celebrated their first night of Hanukkah at Miri and Opa's house last night, complete with Hanukkah bibs, a menorah, and, of course, presents:

Ready to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah:

With Miri and Opa:

With the Hanukkiah (menorah):

Playing with a new toy:

Arielle wearing her gift from Nana:

Today Alex and Ari took their first trip to the Inner Harbor to have lunch with one of Mommy's dearest friends from law school, Trip (yes, they took a trip to see Trip...) It was a gorgeous, unseasonably warm day for a stroll around the Inner Harbor and lunch at a tapas restaurant:

With Daddy at the Inner Harbor:

Trip "double fisting" it:

We hurried back from Baltimore to join Nana, Poppy Jack, Aunt Lori, Uncle Sam, and Cousin Ozzie at Nana and Poppy Jack's house for the second night of Hanukkah. Again, there were plenty of presents, latkes, a menorah, and, for the adults, gelt:

With gifts from Great Grandma ("GG"):

With Nana and Poppy Jack:

One of the best gifts had to be the DVD Aunt Lori made, highlighting the kids' first eight months of life. It was a beautiful gift that we'll be watching again and again.

So, all in all, a great start to the kids' first Hanukkah. And the best thing about Hanukkah? It lasts eight nights!

Fun Week

After recovering from our busy weekend on Monday, Alex and Ari have had quite a fun week. On Tuesday, we joined some of Alex and Ari's friends from the neighborhood at a local Hanukkah Story Time. They were a little young to participate in the interactive part of the program, but seemed to enjoy watching the other kids and listening to the stories (they are at a stage now where they do actually pay attention...we have a feeling that will change once they learn how to crawl and aren't stuck in one spot!) We even picked up a Hanukkah goodie bag with candles, a dreidel, and gelt (too bad Mommy will have to eat it since Alex and Ari are still too young for chocolate!)

Wednesday was our weekly neighborhood play date, where our host Sharon provided yummy home-baked biscuits in honor of their southern heritage. Today was another story time at our local library, and this proved to be a gem of a find: free, fun, nearby, and geared towards babies Ari and Alex's age. They watched the storyteller with rapt attention and really liked the music portion of the program when (in the spirit of the holidays) jingle bells were handed out to all of the kids. At the end of the program, the kids were allowed "free play" with all sorts of old-fashioned (i.e., from when Mommy and Daddy were kids) toys. We'll definitely be returning for future story times at the library!

This afternoon we took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather (highs around 60 degrees- who says there's no such thing as global warming?!) to take a trip to the nearby tot lot. The kids LOVE the swings, as evidenced by these pictures:

Tomorrow it's another playdate in the neighborhood with our older (12-15 month) twin friends and then we'll kick off the kids' first Hanukkah at Miri and Opa's house. Stay tuned for pictures of Alex and Ari in their special Hanukkah bibs (courtesy of family friends Mike and Lynn!)

Open House

A house is just a house until friends and family make it feel like a home, and yesterday our new house officially became our home with the help of many of our family and friends. It was a busy weekend preparing the house for the 100+ guests, but the effort was well worth the reward of spending time with the people who are very important in our lives. Luckily the flow of guests was steady throughout the day, so with manageable crowds we were able to spend at least a few minutes catching up with everyone who was nice enough to take time out of their day to visit us. Ari and Alex were the consummate hosts, from shopping for the food at Costco (see picture below) to greeting their guests, to allowing their friends to play with all of their favorite toys. Ari proved to be a social butterfly, refusing to go down for a nap longer than 20 minutes the entire afternoon (who wants to be sleeping when everyone is having so much fun downstairs?!) By the end of the day, we were all exhausted but happily so after spending the entire day with our favorite friends and family. Here are some pictures from the weekend:

Shopping at Costco for party goodies, in the special cart with a seat for two babies:

Ari in her party dress with Poppy Jack:
Alex sharing his favorite toy with friends (counterclockwise from top) Joe, Sydney, and Alex:
Alex G., Syd, and Joe:
Mommy and Aunt Lori:
Alex and Ari with twin pals Brandon and Zoe (Ari is showing the effects of refusing to take a nap during the party...)

Meme

I didn't know what a meme was until I read my friend Mel's latest entry in her blog. By virtue of reading her entry (and as a "thank you" for the honor of being mentioned in one of her answers), I deemed myself "tagged." Hence, here are my answers to her thought-provoking meme:

I have created this meme which can be done in two different ways. Either you can do all seven categories and list two answers for every category (get it? It's 2007, so I'm playing on the two numbers: 2 and 7) OR you can choose two of the categories and list seven answers.
The categories:
Things you learned this year
1) Parenting twins is hard work but more rewarding than we could have ever imagined
2) How much love you can feel for two little people
People you met
1) Mel, a friend from high school who I hadn't seen in years, but it's eerie how similarly our lives turned out
2) The Goldman family- it's hard to imagine we did just meet in 2006 because it feels like we've known each other forever. Another family with boy/girl twins; not to mention, their son is also named Alex (great minds think alike...)
Things you don't want to take with you into 2007
1) The boxes from our recent move that are still sitting, unpacked, in the basement
2) Sleepless nights (granted, those were only from March-May 2006, but we're hoping they do not return in 2007...or 2008, 2009...)
Things you want to hold close as you pass into 2007
1) Our family
2) Our friends
Things you're looking forward to in 2007
1) Alex and Ari's first birthday in March
2) Attending the JCC Maccabi Games as a family in August (Mommy and Daddy are co-chairing the Greater Washington Delegation at the Baltimore Games this year)
Things that were life changing in 2006
1) Ummm...gee...something about having two babies?
2) Moving into our new home
Things you hope to accomplish by the end of 2007
1) Compete in a triathlon
2) Set a personal record in the marathon

Now that you've read this entry, consider yourself "tagged." Either post your answers on your own blog (if you have one), or shoot us an e-mail with your answers.

This past weekend was spent catching up with friends. Saturday night we had our friends Jana and Seth (along with their almost-two year old daughter Lauren) and Sarah and Udi over for a make-your-own pizza dinner. We had a blast and ended the night reminding ourselves to get together more often. Sunday we all went to Daddy's co-worker's house in Virginia for an early holiday dinner. The kids loved all of the attention they received and enjoyed watching the older kids running around, playing video games, and eating candy canes. Unfortunately, Mommy wasn't very diligent about taking pictures this weekend so we don't have any photographic evidence of our activities, but Mommy can never close out a post without some sort of picture, so here's one of Alex and Ari playing with Daddy's old electronic keyboard, one of their favorite "toys":

Eight Months!

It's hard to believe, but Alex and Ari are EIGHT MONTHS OLD today! That's 2/3 of the way to their first birthday. Wow- everyone warned us that they'd grow up quickly, but we didn't realize just how fast time would seem to go by. We have friends who are expecting twins and they are coming over in a few weeks to hang out with us and see how we "manage" infant twins...but yesterday I realized that our kids are no longer really "infants"-- they're closer to the "toddler" stage already. And, of course, here are the obligatory monthly birthday shots:

Mmmm, Mmmm Good?

An exciting day in the lives of our almost-eight month olds...today Alex and Ari tried "finger foods" for the first time. Quite an entertaining experience...for us. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, we'll let the pictures tell the story:

Mom, what did you just put in my mouth??!

I'm not sure what I think about these round things...

Maybe I'll investigate a little further

I'm thinking about it...

Hmmm...not so bad after all.

Go Flames!

Today Alex and Ari took a trip to Virginia to see their cousin compete in an ice hockey tournament. Cousin Devin and his father Jonathan were in town from New Jersey for this annual tournament and this year, unlike last year when Devin was sidelined by an injury, Devin had an exhausting weekend playing (goalie) multiple games.

By our own assessment, we believe that Devin is Alex and Ari's second cousin once removed. In other words, he's the child of Nana's first cousin. But titles deceive: Cousin Devin is much closer to our hearts than once removed. In fact, Devin's older sister Marissa was the flower girl in Mommy and Daddy's wedding (at which time Devin was only two years old) and the first trip Alex and Ari took was when they were just six weeks old was to New Jersey for Marissa's bat mitzvah and Devin's 10th birthday party. Marissa and Devin are by far the most well-mannered, mature, fun, sweet, spectacular "tweens" we know and we have often said that if Alex and Ari can turn out like Devin and Marissa, we'd be very proud.

When we arrived at the ice hockey arena, Devin made a special effort to leave the locker room and lumber upstairs in his full goalie gear (not an easy task) to say hello. Here are all of us visiting minutes before Devin's next game:

We're happy to report that Devin's team won their match 4-0 (thanks to several saves by Devin) and will advance to the championship match tomorrow. We all wish Devin and his family lived closer so that we could spend more time with them!

On the way home from the game, we decided to stop for an early dinner at Buca di Beppo. Alex and Ari enjoyed looking around at all of the pictures and colors and they impressed us by behaving beautifully despite a long day. Here are Alex, Daddy, and Ari at our dinner table:

Our favorite moment of the evening was when a woman at a nearby table allowed us to add to our list of "silly questions people ask about twins." She asked us if they were paternal twins (yes, that is actually what she asked...she repeated the question twice). Mommy answered that no, ours are actually fraternal twins. Guess it's better than the more common question, "are they identical?"

Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving! Ari and Alex celebrated their first Turkey Day today, and needless to say, Mommy and Daddy are thankful for many things, foremost Ari and Alex themselves.

Most of the day was spent lazing around the house in pajamas, taking advantage of the holiday and the cold, rainy weather. We were invited to our neighbors' house for a little pre-dinner festivities, including an impressive display of their piano and voice talents. The kids watched with rapt attention and enjoyed being serenaded (and held by) our wonderful neighbors and their friends. We hated to leave, but dinner at Miri and Opa's awaited, and Daddy was eager to eat his favorite food: Miri's Thanksgiving stuffing. It was a relatively small gathering this year: just Miri and Opa, Nana and Poppy Jack, family friends Marie and Roberto, and the four of us. It was a wonderful evening with family, friends, and yummy food. Ari and Alex even tried Miri's corn souffle but it seems that their palettes aren't accustomed to that type of texture yet...maybe next year. Here are pictures from this evening:

With the grandmas:

With Marie and Roberto:

Happy family:

Laughing with Nana: