Dear Sofia, Dear Olivia
Mommy and Daddy absolutely cannot believe you turned one today. It truly does seem like just yesterday we were anxiously awaiting your arrival and hoping and praying that you would stay put just a little while longer. You two had other plans – you were ready to meet us! You were the tiniest babies we had ever seen when you were born, but you were healthy and you were perfect. And just look at you now……you’re still healthy and you’re still perfect.
What a year we’ve had with eachother. It’s been a year of learning for Mommy and Daddy but as each day passes, we get more confident in our actions and more comfortable being parents to two sweet baby girls. We’ve had so much fun watching each of you grow and develop – both your physical development and the development of your little personalities. Although we, and other people in our family, can tell you apart, you do look very much alike and when people meet you, they always ask if you’re identical. Every now and then if you’re sleeping a certain way or we’re looking at you from across the room, we have to do a double take, but that doesn’t happen very often. We try our best to not compare you, but sometimes it’s hard. You both have very similar mannerisms and you seem to have a lot of your “firsts” within a few days of eachother. There are other things you each do in your own time and we like it either way. I certainly don’t wish the time away – it goes by way too fast already – but I always try to enjoy the moments now and look forward to what you’re going to do next.
We have lots of memories from this past year that I’ve hopefully captured on this blog for you to go back one day and read. Mostly awesome memories with a few trying times sprinkled in here and there to keep us on our toes!
So….as you turn one, let’s see what each of you are up to………
My sweet Sofia. Our oldest by a minute and our smallest by a whole pound. You are our relaxed girl – whenever you’re sitting somewhere, be it the highchair, stroller or on someone’s lap, you’re always kicked back and relaxed – usually with one leg thrown over the side of the stroller or the chair. You’re not so quick to smile at people – you like to check everyone out first and make them work before you’ll give them your sweet grin. You have your 2 bottom teeth although we’re pretty sure you have others that are close to breaking through since you’ve not felt your best these past few days and you’ve been chewing on your fingers and pulling on your ears. You love the “bouncy” exerciser and when we put you in we say “bouncy-bouncy-bouncy” and you’re bouncing away with a huge grin on your face. When you’re really excited you have this high pitched squeal that I can hear over the phone when I’m talking to Daddy during the day. Sometimes you like to just lay there and you’ll ball your hands into fists and shake them as your squeal. You’re rolling from your back to your tummy at will and when we check on you while you’re sleeping, we usually find you sleeping on your tummy with your rear end up in the air. Although you’re not crawling just yet, we feel like you’re very close, but you still manage to get to anything that’s on the floor that you want. You’ve even managed to push yourself up to a sitting position from being on your tummy, although we’ve not yet seen a repeat performance of that!! You eat everything that we put in front of you – the only thing we’ve found that you don’t like is peaches. I can’t say I blame you there – I’ve tasted them and they’re quite bitter. You do very well with feeding yourself Cheerios although it’s hilarious to watch you when you think you’ve eaten all of them, but then you open your hands and realize you’ve had 2 “stored” in each hand. Speaking of your hands you discovered your hands quite a while ago but it seems like you’re still in awe of what those two little hands can do – we often catch you looking at your hands as you open and close them. You love to play “patty cake” with anyone who starts singing it – we can hold our hand out and start saying “patty cake, patty cake baker’s man” and you’ll start patting our hands. We’ve also been working on clapping with you and you can definitely do it. You’ll put your hands together first and watch as someone claps and then you clap, except that one of your hands claps on the back of your other hand. Quite cute. We’re working on waving hello and bye-bye to everyone and I know you can do it – it just gets back to what I said in the beginning about you liking to check people out first. You’ve started “talking” quite a bit although your vocabulary consists mainly of “Da da da” at various volumes from a whisper to an all out yell and you’ve just recently learned to shake your head “No no no no no”. You’re a happy baby and we have a ton of nicknames for you – but most of all we call you Sofie Kate or Pia. I can’t believe how fast this year has gone by and we’ve loved every minute that we’ve spent with you.
Little Miss Olivia. Or Livie, Livie Claire or Livie Lou as we also call you. You have these big eyes that light up when you smile and it’s just the sweetest face. You definitely let us know when you’re not happy about something, but you are also very quick to give us, or anyone else, a big smile. When we hold you, you like to tilt your head back until we lean you backwards – you could play this game for hours. You currently hate tummy time although Mommy and Daddy are working with you every day so that you can start working towards crawling. We always joke that you don’t really care about mobility – you’re content to just sit there and let everyone bring things to you. I think that will change, though, when Sofia gets mobile. As it is now, we put both of you on the floor and scatter toys around you and the next thing we know you’re sitting there with one single toy in your hand while Sofia has pulled the rest of the toys over to “her side”. But you don’t care – as long as she doesn’t try to take the toy you have in your hand! You do like to stand up, though. We took you for your one-year pictures yesterday and some of the poses included you standing up and holding on to a rocking chair. You were able to stand there for quite a while and you has this satisfied look on your face like “Look what I can do!” You actually started to cry when we picked you up and made you let go of the rocking chair! You’re usually the first one to go to sleep or, even if you’re not asleep, we can lay you in your bed and you’ll play quietly until you go to sleep. When I go in to check on you during the night, you always have something over your face…..a blanket, a toy, your arm – something. I used to think you ended up that way because you fell asleep in the middle of playing, but now I think it’s just how you like to sleep. You’re also usually the first one awake in the morning and most of the time you start the morning off by talking to yourself. It’s one of my most favorite ways to wake up – listening to you talking to yourself in the morning. It’s the sweetest sound and I could lay there forever listening to you over the monitor. Speaking of talking, you have picked up a lot of syllables – da-da; la-la; ba-ba; and, my favorite, ma-ma. You also love to make clicking sounds and other noises with your tongue – it’s quite cute. We play patty cake and I’ve also seen you wave “hello” and “bye-bye” to people. As far as eating goes, you will eat any baby food we give you except for peaches. You also love Cheerios but you’re not a huge fan of new textures. As we try new foods, the first time you have something new in your mouth you make this face like you’re gagging. You usually still give it a try and end up liking it….although you’re not a huge fan of grits!! You also definitely let us know when you’re finished eating – you’ve gotten very good at swatting our hand away as we put the spoon to your mouth or shaking your head “no no no no” …..and both of those usually results in food on one or both of us. But you always do it with that sweet smile so how could we be upset?!?! You have two bottom teeth but, like your sister, we think you’re teething so we’re anxious to see what comes in next. I could go on and on, my sweet girl. This has been an extraordinary year for you and we’ve loved every minute of it.
My sweet baby girls are growing up and we cannot wait to see what’s in store in the coming year. You have truly been a blessing to us and we are so proud to be your Mommy and Daddy.
Happy Birthday, my sweet baby girls. We love you more than we could ever tell you.
Love,
Mommy and Daddy
Mommy and Daddy absolutely cannot believe you turned one today. It truly does seem like just yesterday we were anxiously awaiting your arrival and hoping and praying that you would stay put just a little while longer. You two had other plans – you were ready to meet us! You were the tiniest babies we had ever seen when you were born, but you were healthy and you were perfect. And just look at you now……you’re still healthy and you’re still perfect.
What a year we’ve had with eachother. It’s been a year of learning for Mommy and Daddy but as each day passes, we get more confident in our actions and more comfortable being parents to two sweet baby girls. We’ve had so much fun watching each of you grow and develop – both your physical development and the development of your little personalities. Although we, and other people in our family, can tell you apart, you do look very much alike and when people meet you, they always ask if you’re identical. Every now and then if you’re sleeping a certain way or we’re looking at you from across the room, we have to do a double take, but that doesn’t happen very often. We try our best to not compare you, but sometimes it’s hard. You both have very similar mannerisms and you seem to have a lot of your “firsts” within a few days of eachother. There are other things you each do in your own time and we like it either way. I certainly don’t wish the time away – it goes by way too fast already – but I always try to enjoy the moments now and look forward to what you’re going to do next.
We have lots of memories from this past year that I’ve hopefully captured on this blog for you to go back one day and read. Mostly awesome memories with a few trying times sprinkled in here and there to keep us on our toes!
So….as you turn one, let’s see what each of you are up to………
My sweet Sofia. Our oldest by a minute and our smallest by a whole pound. You are our relaxed girl – whenever you’re sitting somewhere, be it the highchair, stroller or on someone’s lap, you’re always kicked back and relaxed – usually with one leg thrown over the side of the stroller or the chair. You’re not so quick to smile at people – you like to check everyone out first and make them work before you’ll give them your sweet grin. You have your 2 bottom teeth although we’re pretty sure you have others that are close to breaking through since you’ve not felt your best these past few days and you’ve been chewing on your fingers and pulling on your ears. You love the “bouncy” exerciser and when we put you in we say “bouncy-bouncy-bouncy” and you’re bouncing away with a huge grin on your face. When you’re really excited you have this high pitched squeal that I can hear over the phone when I’m talking to Daddy during the day. Sometimes you like to just lay there and you’ll ball your hands into fists and shake them as your squeal. You’re rolling from your back to your tummy at will and when we check on you while you’re sleeping, we usually find you sleeping on your tummy with your rear end up in the air. Although you’re not crawling just yet, we feel like you’re very close, but you still manage to get to anything that’s on the floor that you want. You’ve even managed to push yourself up to a sitting position from being on your tummy, although we’ve not yet seen a repeat performance of that!! You eat everything that we put in front of you – the only thing we’ve found that you don’t like is peaches. I can’t say I blame you there – I’ve tasted them and they’re quite bitter. You do very well with feeding yourself Cheerios although it’s hilarious to watch you when you think you’ve eaten all of them, but then you open your hands and realize you’ve had 2 “stored” in each hand. Speaking of your hands you discovered your hands quite a while ago but it seems like you’re still in awe of what those two little hands can do – we often catch you looking at your hands as you open and close them. You love to play “patty cake” with anyone who starts singing it – we can hold our hand out and start saying “patty cake, patty cake baker’s man” and you’ll start patting our hands. We’ve also been working on clapping with you and you can definitely do it. You’ll put your hands together first and watch as someone claps and then you clap, except that one of your hands claps on the back of your other hand. Quite cute. We’re working on waving hello and bye-bye to everyone and I know you can do it – it just gets back to what I said in the beginning about you liking to check people out first. You’ve started “talking” quite a bit although your vocabulary consists mainly of “Da da da” at various volumes from a whisper to an all out yell and you’ve just recently learned to shake your head “No no no no no”. You’re a happy baby and we have a ton of nicknames for you – but most of all we call you Sofie Kate or Pia. I can’t believe how fast this year has gone by and we’ve loved every minute that we’ve spent with you.
Little Miss Olivia. Or Livie, Livie Claire or Livie Lou as we also call you. You have these big eyes that light up when you smile and it’s just the sweetest face. You definitely let us know when you’re not happy about something, but you are also very quick to give us, or anyone else, a big smile. When we hold you, you like to tilt your head back until we lean you backwards – you could play this game for hours. You currently hate tummy time although Mommy and Daddy are working with you every day so that you can start working towards crawling. We always joke that you don’t really care about mobility – you’re content to just sit there and let everyone bring things to you. I think that will change, though, when Sofia gets mobile. As it is now, we put both of you on the floor and scatter toys around you and the next thing we know you’re sitting there with one single toy in your hand while Sofia has pulled the rest of the toys over to “her side”. But you don’t care – as long as she doesn’t try to take the toy you have in your hand! You do like to stand up, though. We took you for your one-year pictures yesterday and some of the poses included you standing up and holding on to a rocking chair. You were able to stand there for quite a while and you has this satisfied look on your face like “Look what I can do!” You actually started to cry when we picked you up and made you let go of the rocking chair! You’re usually the first one to go to sleep or, even if you’re not asleep, we can lay you in your bed and you’ll play quietly until you go to sleep. When I go in to check on you during the night, you always have something over your face…..a blanket, a toy, your arm – something. I used to think you ended up that way because you fell asleep in the middle of playing, but now I think it’s just how you like to sleep. You’re also usually the first one awake in the morning and most of the time you start the morning off by talking to yourself. It’s one of my most favorite ways to wake up – listening to you talking to yourself in the morning. It’s the sweetest sound and I could lay there forever listening to you over the monitor. Speaking of talking, you have picked up a lot of syllables – da-da; la-la; ba-ba; and, my favorite, ma-ma. You also love to make clicking sounds and other noises with your tongue – it’s quite cute. We play patty cake and I’ve also seen you wave “hello” and “bye-bye” to people. As far as eating goes, you will eat any baby food we give you except for peaches. You also love Cheerios but you’re not a huge fan of new textures. As we try new foods, the first time you have something new in your mouth you make this face like you’re gagging. You usually still give it a try and end up liking it….although you’re not a huge fan of grits!! You also definitely let us know when you’re finished eating – you’ve gotten very good at swatting our hand away as we put the spoon to your mouth or shaking your head “no no no no” …..and both of those usually results in food on one or both of us. But you always do it with that sweet smile so how could we be upset?!?! You have two bottom teeth but, like your sister, we think you’re teething so we’re anxious to see what comes in next. I could go on and on, my sweet girl. This has been an extraordinary year for you and we’ve loved every minute of it.
My sweet baby girls are growing up and we cannot wait to see what’s in store in the coming year. You have truly been a blessing to us and we are so proud to be your Mommy and Daddy.
Happy Birthday, my sweet baby girls. We love you more than we could ever tell you.
Love,
Mommy and Daddy
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