Photos, Anyone?

My goodness it feels like it has been a while since I've posted pictures of the girls! 


But don't you worry your little heads, now--I may not have been posting them, but I've definitely been taking them. It's habit, you see...


I haven't pulled the photos off my phone (or my Nikon) in a while and so I finally did tonight and there are SO many that I want to share! I feel very blessed to have access to such affordable technology that allows me to document pretty much every single move my children make. My parents took lots of photos of us growing up, but I think the amount of photos I took of the girls in their first 6 months of life exceeds the amount of photos I have of my entire childhood.....maybe.


So enjoy this post-it's a simple one with not much thought, but lots and lots of memories! And please, forgive me if I post photos here that I have already added to previous posts...the sheer number of pictures to keep track of is monumental!


Here's a video that I did with Olivia for Matt the last time he was on a business trip:

This one is when we first moved here and it was still winter. The girls were obsessed with looking out the windows and I love how sweet Sophie was at this stage. She's still sweet but she definitely has some feisty to her now!

This is what Sophie does whenever I ask her, "Sophie, are you so cute?"

I love Olivia's voice! I love her jabbers, but I can't wait until she starts talking. I have a feeling she's going to say some silly things!

This will be one that the girls watch when they're older and they'll laugh at the dynamic that existed between them at this age, and how it probably won't have changed all that much since.

I want to note that I am wearing this tan and while stripped shirt in a LOT of these photos...apparently I only show up in pictures on days that I'm wearing that shirt. Sorry. I promise I do change my clothes.

 These girls and their love of swings...

Particularly Olivia.

This is a different day (than the photos above in which I am also wearing this shirt...) at the Boston Common. 

I love it when A) I can get these two to sit still for half a second and B) when I can get them to sit still next to each other for half a second!

 She has a very serious face most of the time (she gets that from her mommy) but when she smiles its like an explosion of joy all over her face, and it melts me every time!

This is a photo from back in March when my family was in town visiting of me and my sister Emily smooching on those chubby cheeks! It was taken at the Boston Science Museum.

This was also taken at the science museum...they have a Models exhibit and Olivia loves to stand on the chairs and play with the magnetized board that allows you to stick colored metal chains all over it. Loves loves loves!




Also at the science museum...

I love the weekends when Matt gets to sleep in with all of us. He usually gets the girls out of bed when they wake up and brings them in and they tackle & tickle mommy! I think this was the one time in history that I was up before all of them and so I got to photograph Olivia in the morning next to her daddy.

Again with that explosion! I hear her laugh echoing every time I see this picture. 

My little readers. They babble back and forth like they're reading stories to each other. I love how they grab a handful of books from their bookcase, plop down on the floor, and just dig in!

Sophie is the daddy's girl out of the two--Olivia usually kicks it with mommy, but I find it so sweet and endearing when Olivia will seek Matt out for cuddles. This moment happened at a playground in Arlington one afternoon.

 As my dad would say, "you've got your momma's cheeks---and I'm gonna kiss 'em!"

Oh, I love these crusty looks of hers!

My girls are so great at sharing their snack with mommy!

Hee hee...

Since I posted about Kathy's chewy gingerbread cookie recipe, I've made them several more times. The girls love to stand in front of the oven and watch them bake almost as much as they like to scarf them down when they come out! 

I love my little leaner! She leans on everything! I find it highly amusing.

Sophie is slowly starting to figure out how to break into various areas of my phone. The camera is probably the easiest thing for her now, and every now and then I'll find pictures like these that let me in on what they've been up to!

I  love how she sits at the front of these bucket swings! Olivia sits toward the back, but Sophie always finds her way up to the front, no matter how smashed she seems to get!

 More joy...

I could live each day without food, water or air if only I could have cuddles like these to replace them!

This one isn't a cuddle...it's one of Olivia's leans that happens to be against my face!

We gave her a piece of chocolate and caught her running around the living room with her face like this! We looked for signs of chocolate all over the couch, rug, TV, etc...but didn't find anything until the next day when I went to open the blinds! Good thing chocolate is easy to clean! Those poor windows...

Sophie re-discoered her toy bins inside her closet and is now tall enough to pull them off their shelves, turn them upside down and climb right inside them! It's super cute...until I have to pick up the giant mess she's made in her closet!

This one cracks me up! She loves wearing the hat and the sunglasses. I'll admit the tutu took some convincing but she endured it long enough for me to snap this!

And we're at that stage...

My wonderful husband makes amazing homemade brownies! I consistently remind him that I hate baking when he asks for sweets (who knew he'd have such a sweet tooth!) so he found a recipe online, dug everything out of the cabinet and the result was absolutely delicious! The batch didn't even last through the next morning!

It was hot here, and we were tired, and Matt snapped this one on his iPhone of all of us laying together on the couch just taking a break. Again, in our household, this is a rarity. 

These were at our favorite park in Somerville where they have this sort of trough set-up. There's a wheel at the top where if you crank it, it pumps some water out. There were some older kids playing with the water that day and Sophie discovered some of the run off. She was so thrilled!

Oh...and did I mention this set-up is right in the middle of the sand pit? Wonderful. 

 I can measure how much the girls are growing by what they are able to get into. Sophie is now tall enough to open her top dresser drawer and pull things out. A few nights ago she pulled out these hats that their Aunt Stephanie got for them a while ago and they had a blast throwing them on and pulling them off their heads!

 This child loves daddy's iPad! This is just one of about 100 photos I have of her playing with this thing!

That's chocolate milk in there....

"Hands off my milk!"

These girls get so happy in the afternoon when its snack time! They rarely get something as awesome as popcorn, but I hadn't been to the grocery store in a few weeks and it was the last bag that I had, so I figured I'd give them a treat to go with their chocolate milk!

They love popcorn!

I think she thinks the couch wanted some too--and this is why I insisted on them drinking their chocolate milk in the kitchen!

Sophie has been on this kick lately about taking off her pants (thankfully this only happens at home and not in public!) Olivia's pants aren't quite as loose on her as Sophie's are but when she saw her sissy strip down, she made sure to let me know that she wanted her pants to be gone too!

Olivia was reading a Curious George book that we have and was jabbering on as she flipped through the pages. Every once in a while she'd stop jabbering, point to pictures of George and make this face:

I nanny for a little girl two days per week and she sleeps in this pack n' play in my bedroom. The girls are fascinated with it and have recently started asking to be put inside of it! They run around inside of it, banging into each other, laughing their little heads off. Who can say no to that?

Speaking of Sophie taking off her pants...
Here's the initial drop:

Followed by some steps with her pants around her ankles. 

She's finally pulled them off, and wants me to hold them for her. Of course.

Now she wants her pants back!

She knows to sit down to try to put them back on...

She finds the top where her leg is supposed to go...

And shoves her leg inside!

I'm not sure if she realized that they were on backwards or if she decided that she in fact, did not want to be wearing pants, so off they came again.

And then she went about her business, sans pants.

Crazy kiddo--running around the house in her diaper...at least it's not the neighborhood!

And today, I took the girls to the grocery store and this cart was available! They had an absolute blast flying around the store in this little car! They beeped on the horns as people passed, Sophie stuck her head out the window and said, "hi" to strangers when we were stopped in aisles, and they even turned the wheels like they were steering while we walked through the store. This was a fun trip to the store...which almost never happens. And yes, I always take them when I go.

This is Paulo. He's Olivia's penguin pillow pet. She loves to snuggle with him!

This kiddo makes some seriously funny faces. She goes from this: 

To this:

This is Geoffrey, Sophie's giraffe pillow pet. When she wants him, she runs around shouting, "Geoffreeeeeeey!"

I wonder how old they'll be before they stop sucking their fingers. I'm not worried about it now, but I was a lot older than I'll admit when I stopped sucking my thumb! Time will tell I suppose!

Here's Sophie sitting on Geoffrey. She thought it was simply hilarious to do so.

And a kiss for Paulo for good measure!