March madness, section deux

Okay, where was I...? Oh yes. In the middle of reliving an extremely crazy month. So, we've covered the first three crazy weekends--spring break in Kentucky, and the visit from Laura's family. Now I've covered through March... I keep up at this rate and I'll be writing about the twins' first birthday party sometime next September.

Anyway, on to:

Weekend #4

April 2-3: Last year, Scott's aunt Susie got an idea in her brain about starting a Hewitt family reunion. Scott's dad's parents had five kids who in turn have generated a slew of cousins, and we are now busy filling the earth with sub-cousins. Or something. Anyway, the family has bloomed and spread across the country, and the opportunities to get everyone together have gotten fewer and farther between. So she organized a get-together in Gruene, in New Braunfels. She booked a really neat house-cabin ensemble on the Guadalupe River and we went campin'.

Noah helped us pack. Okay, so he didn't. But he did climb onto a suitcase. Lily was not impressed.


He begins to lose his balance--Lily gets interested.


He crashes and burns--Lily looks on, intrigued. Our little darling, unburdened by any sense of empathy. Must take after her mommy, who was more interested in taking a picture than preventing the tragedy...

Here we are with Brad and Becca and their little Elijah. He's about 3 months old in this picture, and creeping up on 4 months at the end of this month. It was so strange to be around a baby who doesn't babble or reach or sit up! Babies change fast, but our expectations of them are only a tiny bit behind.

Here we are on the riverbank, with a view provided by Giovanna and Chuck out on a kayak. Lily DESPERATELY wanted to go swimming--she was pretty sure the river was the coolest thing on the planet. I would have been more willing to let her if we hadn't accidentally left all the babies' spare clothing at home...

Jackson was NOT as interested in the water. He was much more interested in throwing his mama's camera into the river.

We went shopping around Gruene, and the babies kicked back and enjoyed some nice refreshing formula. There wasn't enough to go around, so the adults in the gathering opted for snow cones.

Notice Lily's change of clothes. They are actually pajamas. Because when do your kids poop in their clothes? WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE ANY EXTRAS. Lily's best friend is named Murphy, by the way.

Our slice of the Hewitt reunion pie:

Weekend #5

April 8-12: We took advantage of Scott's ACTUAL weekend off (he gets one scheduled 4-day weekend per month) to visit his family in Beeville and see Brad, Becca, and Elijah again before they headed down to Mexico. They're actually on their way as I write: Brad and Danny have driven about halfway there (safely, thank God!) and Becca and Elijah are flying soon. They're changing locations and will now be toughing it out in the barren wasteland of Puerto Escondido. Reed and Liz weren't feeling the greatest and couldn't make it, so we missed getting to see them again.

Ooh, what do YOUR footies look like?

I became obsessed with taking baby pictures in wildflowers, and our trip north happened at the perfect time. So we stopped and took pictures. The perfectionist in me has been eyeing every wildflower field and picture I've seen since then, wondering if we could have scored a better spot if we'd just held out a little longer. But with a 6-hour car ride and twinfants to consider, you have to take your cards as they fall sometimes. And even if there's a better bluebonnet field out there somewhere, I think my babies are still the cutest things on Earth.

Noah apparently just can't contain all the glee... Lily may be picking out which flower she is going to eat.

Because she did eat one. Oh, yes she did. Did you know that bluebonnets induce vomiting? Oh, yes they do. Right after a big breakfast and a full bottle. In the car. On the road. Luckily, we had extra clothes this time.

We also got a completely random chance to see my friend Nancy from high school when we drove through Austin. I went to high school in Ohio, and she then moved to New York--so it was great to get a chance to see her! She was trying to decide which grad school to attend. (She chose the wrong school, so it was our first and LAST chance to see her in Austin.) I took a picture, but if I uploaded it now it would mess up all my formatting (not my favorite feature of Blogger). So if you would like to see us with Nancy, please visit my facebook.

And finally, since last Monday, we've been back at home uninterrupted for awhile. Back to enjoying the simple things, like the wonderful swings Scott put up on the back porch. I have NEVER heard babies laugh so much as Noah does when Daddy darts under the swing and pops up unexpectedly.

In other news, the babies turn a year old in A MONTH. That's approximately equal to half a nanosecond, for those of you who haven't had kids and watched them change visibly in between blinks. Their faces and babbles and movements are looking more and more like those of toddlers than babies every day. Noah has perfected the army crawl and pulls up on everything that gives him even half a handhold. I wouldn't be surprised if he started walking within the week. I can get him to follow me around the house when I say one of his favorite words, like "eat" or "milk" or "bath". I'm pretty sure the follow-mommy-around-like-a-puppy phase doesn't last very long, so I'm going to enjoy it as much as possible while it lasts.

On the other side of the twin situation, Lily has remained utterly, completely, and absolutely stationary. No crawling. Occasionally she'll push really hard to reach something and actually propel herself backward about half an inch. I'm trying not to worry too much, but she's got to be reaching some sort of record for Worst Crawler Ever. And for those of you who say "maybe she'll skip crawling"... well, maybe I'll post a video of her awkward, stiff-legged attempts to stand up. She is slowly, slowly getting stronger, but it is... well, slow. In other things, though, Lily amazes me every day with new skills. She plays peek-a-boo with her hands, makes a "wa-wa-wa" sound by patting her hand on her mouth, and constantly beeps my nose. She gives kisses, both on command and spontaneously to babies' pictures in books. She can even eat pudding with a spoon, and protests "MA-MA-MA!" when you take the bowl away. (Girl has a sweet tooth.) She constantly looks through books, points at the pictures and babbles at them. So she's not dumb, just really, really uncoordinated. Perhaps we will pursue instruments with Lily and leave the organized sports to Noah.

So that was our crazy month, and those are my babies. I'm going to use that word as long as I can, though it's not much longer. I can't picture their birthday without getting majorly teary-eyed. We'll see if I can make it through the actual day with dry eyes.

For as scary as the concept of twin babies has seemed to me, I have found a far more frightening concept: Twin toddlers.