14 months 12 days

Today is their biological first birthday. Happy Birthday! We celebrated with a (Christmas) photoshoot, and this time we'll have great pictures!

Last night I succeeded in going to bed earlier, at 1:30 am, thank God. It was definitely easier to go through the day today. We fed them at 9 am and then put them to bed for their nap; today it was even more important they'd sleep, as the photographer was coming at 12:30. The boys fell asleep, and I lay down with Tammy, who fell asleep at 9:45 and slept until 11. Emmy usually wakes up after half an hour, and it was a little more than that today when he woke up at 10. Randy was too slow to respond and by the time he came, he couldn't get him to sleep any more.

After Tammy had woken up and been taken downstairs, I put the food into the warmer, and wanted to lie back down, but I had too much to do, so I didn't. We started feeding them at 11:45, and at 12 our friend Sonja came to help during the photoshoot. She helped right away with feeding them, feeding Emmy, while I continued feeding Tammy.

Our friend and photographer came earlier than planned, just after 12, before we had finished feeding them. Then we dressed them, took them downstairs, and put our own clothes for the photoshoot on. We started with neutral pictures, and I sure hope we'll have a nice family picture we can use. Then we changed them into Christmas clothes, and changed ourselves. The kids also got another outfit change later, into other Christmas clothes. We took pictures together, pictures of only the three, and a few individual ones. I was holding Sammy up from the side for those, and I hope the photographer can photoshop my hand away. The most hilarious moment was when everybody tried to get Sammy to look up and smiled. Daddy was lifting Emmy up and down, and Sonja Tammy, right behind the photographer. I also have a video I will upload. In any case, it was funny and it worked!

As you can imagine, it was was pretty challenging at times. They were moving around instead of sitting still, and kept pulling their hats off, but I still believe we'll have some great pictures. It was amazing that we got it all done in just over an hour! We were all surprised. Being in a familiar environment, and before they were getting sleepy, was just the perfect setup!

Our friend said her good-byes, and the little ones got be in their regular clothes again and go back to playing with toys instead of Christmas decorations.

It was going on 2 pm, so my job was to cook, and so I started cooking for us three adults, while the other two were with the little ones. However, the kids were getting cranky, and so we fed them at 2 pm (I turned the stove off), and by 2:30 pm they were in bed for their nap. I needed to finish cooking, so I could not lie down with Tammy. I heard her cry and cry, while the boys were sleeping, and I was cooking. I took the food to Randy and Sonja and put my plate next to me on our bed and then picked up Tammy and lay down with her. By 3 pm she was asleep, and I was able to eat with her sleeping on my chest - my first food of the day!

Sonja finally went home, having helped us the third day in a row. As always, Emmy woke up after a while, and Randy sat down with him to rock him back to sleep. And after a while Sammy started crying. With both of us tied up with the other two (which I didn't know), he kept crying. I finally got up, Tammy waking up, and then we were all up. It was 3:45 pm.

We all went downstairs to play again and had fun. Tammy now walks a lot more too, and I have a video clip of the two of them walking during that time. At 4:30 I went upstairs to get their dinner ready, and it was after 5 before they got to start eating. Emmy immediately put the first piece of bread into his mouth, right after I put him into the chair, and the girl started mashing everything up and mixed it together, and throwing it out. Even the wall behind her got food on it! They both got more dirty than ever since eating in those chairs! And they weren't that motivated to eat, so I finally gave up. As dirty as they were, I was not willing to let them walk around and feed them that way, but they needed to go straight into the bathtub.

With the food flying, I was also more dirty than ever, and since the water ended up deeper than ever, I decided to simply get into the water with them, which I had been wanting to do from the beginning. We had lots of fun in the water together, and they definitely went under more, so it was good I was right there. Randy put Sammy to bed, and then I got up with Emmy and put him to bed, and then Randy brought Tammy to me, so I could put her to bed. I was hoping they'd be asleep fast, but it wasn't meant to be. At first Sammy fell asleep, but then Emmy decided to wake him up and interact with him, which was cute, even though they were supposed to sleep. Tammy kept checking - lifting her head up - to see whether I was still there, and when I was, she'd put her head back down. When I wasn't, she started screaming. Every time Emmy was getting too active and standing up, I'd walk away, and he would lie back down to sleep. But then I'd come back because of Tammy screaming, and she would lie down, while Emmy would get back up. What to do when your children are opposites! And when they were finally falling asleep, Sammy started whining, and I had to give him some milk before he could fall back asleep. Finally I was free to cook, eat, and work!

And somehow time has passed quickly, and it's nearly 2 am, which is the bed time that worked much better for me than 4 am, so hopefully I can go to bed soon.