Cousin Love

It is funny - when Erika was still pregnant with the twins, she and I often talked/made predictions about how Ryan and Dylan would react to the girls .  Would they be rough or gentle with them? Would they want to help or not be bothered?  Would they be grossed out by diapers? At the time, Dylan was much more interested in Erika and her belly (and what the babies were doing in there)  than Ryan was and we wondered if it would be that way once they arrived.  

The day that Ava and Ella were born, we FaceTimed so the boys could "meet" their cousins.

 

Ryan was a little more interested than Dylan but in the days/weeks that followed, both boys frequently wanted to face time and they talked about who would do what job when we saw the twins in person (Dylan usually said that he would feed them, Ryan was going to either feed them or help them take a nap). Dylan always talked to them in a baby voice and called them his "cutie patooties" and Ryan just stared at them a lot and smiled.

All of that changed though when the boys first meet the girls - for Ryan, it was definitely love at first sight!!! As soon as he saw the babies for the first time, he asked could he feed one of them and he grinned from ear to ear the entire time!!

He fed Ella that first time and when it was time to feed the babies again, he asked Erika "Can I help? This time I will feed Ava since I fed Ella last time". He loves those girls so much and it is really so adorable and heartwarming. Every time he sees their pictures, he smiles and without fail, says how cute they are!

 

 Dylan on the other hand, didn't show much interest right away.  He said all he wanted to do was throw away the dirty diapers.   After watching Ryan for a few minutes though, he changed his mind and decided to feed Ava.  While he was much more gentle than I thought he would be, I do think that he was thinking up some naughty scheme involving Ava and is hoping that the girls will one day be his partners in crime!

All week, Dylan gave the twins lots of kisses and wanted to help burp them, but I think once he realized they were not going to get up and play with him, he lost interest. (probably realizing this was his chance to play with Ryan's toys while he was busy) Dylan is the BEST though at telling the girls apart - he never gets confused about which is which.  

 

We spent tons of time with Ava and Ella over the week of Christmas.

One of my favorite moments of the week though was when I walked down the hallway and I heard Ryan say "Now Ava, that is Indiana Jones and those are the bad guys" and I found them laying on the bed together.  (grandma was there too which is how they got on the bed together)

Ella really was not interested in Indiana Jones but Ava stayed with Ryan for a pretty long time as he talked her ear off about all things Indy - the temple of doom, the crystal skull, how important Short Round is, how much Indy hates snakes.........

I left the room for a minute and when I came back, Ryan was so excited saying "mommy look, Ava really wants to hold my hand?   Isn't that so cute?  Really, look, she is holding my hand!!"  It was SO cute!

When Erika, Richie and the girls left to go back to North Carolina after Christmas, I don't think Ryan really understood they were leaving, as in going back to North Carolina and we would not see them for a long time.   He was really disappointed once he understood and not long after that, Ryan started asking about the girls often.  One night, while we were facetiming with the twins (have i mentioned how much I LOVE facetime?) Ryan read them a bedtime story.   CUTEST.THING.EVER!!

 I am not kidding, Ava was seriously concentrating on everything he was saying and Ella paid attention when any part about food came up.  Since that first night, we have done a bedtime story almost every night - not only is Ryan getting a lot of extra reading practice, he really loves reading to the girls and I love that they are all bonding already (as much as you can have a bond at that age).     Ryan even asked them at the end of the book the other day "Did you guys like that story?"

He even ran to the kitchen to get some food to show Ella to try and make her laugh!!

I am so thankful that even though we live so many states apart, the cousins have such a strong relationship already. I can only imagine as the kids get older, we go on vacations together, and spend more time together how much fun these four are going to have together!

ps- Have I mentioned how much I love Face Time?? xoxo



Happy New Year

What a fun way to kick off 2014!! Even though we took it easy this New Year's Eve, we had a great time!!  Jay, the boys and I went to Grandma and Papa's house to celebrate and Michael and Jasmine came too.   Even though it was just a few of us, we got hats, party horns, beads etc. and got decked out for the occasion.  

We played games (Guess Who and Fibber - Grandma stunk at Fibber), ate tons of food and had a fantastic dance party!! Papa played DJ and the kids danced and played air guitar for our entertainment.  Let's just say, their air guitar skills need a lot of work (Jay asked Ryan if he knew what a guitar looked like LOL)

 I wish I had taken more video from the night because some of the dance moves were amazing and others were totally hysterical - in truth, the reason there are not more videos is because I was laughing so hard, I couldn't hold the camera straight!!

Eventually, the boys found a banjo and some bells and that was the end of the air guitar. 

 

Ryan remembered that last year, he was asleep before the ball dropped and did not want to miss it this year(of course, Dylan didn't either)  With no nap at all, the kids begged to stay up and watch the ball drop - they were so wide awake that we had to force them to go to bed at 1 am while Dylan screamed "but i am not tired, I still want to have a dance party"

Thanks Grandma and Papa for having us over - we had a lot of fun and tons of laughs!! Definitely was a fun way to start the year.   I am excited to see all of the fun things in store for our family in 2014.

Happy New Year everyone!



 

Thanksgiving

(from Nov 30th)
This year, Thanksgiving Day was jam-packed!!  We were lucky enough to be offered 4 tickets this year for one of the grandstands at the Thanksgiving Day parade and Omi came down to join the boys and I - this was the 1st time the boys and Omi to see the parade in person!  Jay opted to avoid the cold (and wanted to give Omi his ticket) so he stayed home and watched us on tv.   It was REALLY cold that morning but we put on lots of layers and headed crosstown to go to our meeting spot.   We needed to be there by 7:30ish and since I was not really sure how it worked, we didn't want to be late so we left home at 7 am.   As we got closer to where we were supposed to show our tickets, we saw many of the surrounding streets were already a few rows deep with people - Luckily, we got to avoid all of that!

When we showed up at the correct location, we were escorted a few blocks and in to Macy's which was great because we got to use the nice, clean bathrooms, we were given pompoms and confetti and we were told to be lively because we would be on tv and we even got some coffee from the Keuring salespeople.   When we headed outside, we were so surprised to find out our seats were right in front of Macy's by the broadcast booth!! Savannah Guthrie, the newscaster for the parade, waved hi on her way in (she was really waving to the kid in front of us but whatever, looked like she was looking at us)

view from our seats of the booth which is the where the reporters were

After one of the bands did a warm up number, it was almost go time so we got situated and waited for the start.

What I didn't realize in all the years of watching the parade is how the logistics work:  the parade starts uptown but our seats are at the very end so they need to do something to keep us entertained.  As a result, the parade begins and starts marching downtown, different Broadway shows do their performances right in front of Macy's that only we, and the viewers at home, get to see.   That made the waiting time more tolerable but when we heard the parade approaching, it got really exciting!

The kids were screaming with excitement at the noise, confetti and whole scene of the parade and I loved watching their faces as each different balloon went by. 

 We were told to throw our colored confetti and wave our pompoms at the start of the parade but we were supposed to save our white confetti until Santa came.  Dylan got more than his fair share of confetti tubes (and asked me every 2 minutes when he could use it) and he wasn't able to hold them all in his hands.   He didn't want me to hold them either because he was worried I would mix them up with Ryan's so, he made up his own solution - store them in his hat!  

Finally, the Big Guy himself ended the parade - it was Santa!   The kids were so excited that the REAL Santa was there, not one of his helpers and they made sure to wave, yell and throw their confetti!

After the parade, we relaxed a bit in the apartment before heading to Westchester to go celebrate at Michael and Jasmine's house.  

We all spent the afternoon eating, watching football and just relaxing. 

Unfortunately, Jay had to work and Erika, Richie, Ava and Ella were in North Carolina so they weren't with us and we missed them but we all still had fun together. We have lots to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving!