4 January, 2015: Happy New Year!

Wishing a happy and healthy 2015 to all our friends and family!

We spent the holidays in Canmore, enjoying a week in the mountains with grandparents. A real Christmas miracle was the fact that both toddlers and all five adults were healthy! (of course we had been blasted by bad colds before the holiday, so got that bit over with)

As far as Christmas goes, the girls are still oblivious to the whole deal (e.g. underwhelmed by tree: http://youtu.be/TP1DD23PxIk ). They got some pretty cute presents, but were often just enamored with the tissue paper. I’d say the most popular toy yet is the Star Wars deck of cards we picked up at Goodwill for a buck. They like to sort through them endlessly, move them from floor to sofa, and sometimes place one next to Bruno so he doesn’t feel left out. Otherwise, books are still a huge hit and they’ll sit rifling through them for nice stretches of time. Oh…and the motorbike, dishwasher, and broom also make the top five most fascinating household items!

The town of Canmore now has a gorgeous community center called Elevation Place complete with library, climbing walls, coffee shop, lounge, pool, and toddler slide. A huge hit with the girls who liked to gaze (we think longingly) at the climbers through the glass wall. Our guess is Kat will be scaling those walls as soon as she’s allowed in…age four, apparently. We also had our first visit to a library while there. Most appropriately Grandma Diener, former Librarian was able to share this extra special moment with the girls.

In other news, the girls had their 18 month appointments back in November. The pediatrician often just says, “you’d never know these were 28 weeker preemies.” They are the same weight (just over 20 lb) and height. They chatter gobbledygook a great deal and don’t have too many words at this stage, which is still on track if you go by their their adjusted age. So far Kat says “mama” and “dada”, but possibly her most well-used word is “up.” Meaning lift her up mainly so she can see what you’re doing on the counter or table. Tash has a fondness for b words…she uses “bye bye” the most, followed by “ba” for ball and bath and bird and plane. They like reading and dancing (http://youtu.be/V36Vu47L2s0), and are starting to chase each other (http://youtu.be/L3_eprHN0eY) while squealing. And of course we got them really drunk one night (http://youtu.be/SC7ywKNHC68). That was after one beer each.

Katarina, 19 months