Happy winter/summer solstice and other assorted holidays to family and friends on several continents!  We hope you’re all enjoying good company, health, and of course food and drink this holiday season.

After a year such as ours, we can’t help but reflect on the journey thus far. Thirty plus days of bed rest and uncertainty, a 28 week twin birth on Mother’s Day, 100 plus days of daily NICU visits, one daughter home and one in hospital, hospital parent rooms, endless hours of tube feeding by hand, and medical appointments galore. However, we can now say that it’s all somehow culminated in a pair of happy, healthy 5 month (adjusted) old twin girls who bring us immense joy. Natasha is now 14lb, 3.5oz (6.5kg) which (just) gets her onto the growth chart without adjustment, while Katarina is 12lb,10oz (5.7kg).  So we thank our good fortune and look forward to many years soaking up our girls…whatever their personalities may turn out to be! (REALLY hoping they’re good sleepers though).

A few holiday pics to help get you all in the mood if you’re not already. This is our impromptu holiday photo shoot in the living room rather than on Santa’s lap. Note usual photo bombing by Bruno:

Tasha enjoying a Christmas Eve photo op:

Neil hangin’ with the girls who still don’t seem too sure about each other:

Grandma and Grandpa Diener paid us a lovely pre-Christmas visit in early December:

And Uncle Anton and Aunt Vinaya met their nieces in November!

And some video because that’s the good stuff where you really see their “true selves” coming through- and we can prove that Kat is actually super smiley and laughs a ton even though it never appears that way when the black device comes out to take photos. Most recently she’s discovered bouncing on her own legs is hysterically funny (especially from 44sec onwards) (http://youtu.be/7c4pccC3geg). Meanwhile Natasha is more serious and instead of laughing makes a noise more like what we imagine a velociraptor sounds like. But in a cute way of course. We haven’t managed to catch that yet on video but here is her “Xmas Eve Address”: http://youtu.be/kOM3UCBlXX4