The twins

Page 1  ☼  Page 2  ☼  Page 3  ☼  Page 4  ☼  Page 5  ☼  Page 6

Page 2

You join us now just over a month later, at the twins' 1st birthday bash.  In their playpen, Evie greets the newcomers whilst Ellie mans the lookout window, although she gets distracted by me.

Just in case there wasn't sufficient reminder, the big 1st birthday balloon gives it away.  Both girl give the room their attention, although Ellie looks a bit concerned.

Enough messing around, it's pressie opening time, as Michelle grabs Ellie and Nic looks after Evie.

The twins get hands on with the present opening.  What could they be...?

That's right - their very own buggies.  They're a bit too young to sit on them and push themselves along just yet, so just satisfy themselves with pushing it from behind.  The seat lid opens up as a storage facility.  Isn't that brilliant.

The award for the biggest present clearly goes to the one bought by Rachel and Lynne (and, technically, Dave and Paul, but we really didn't have that much involvement).  This might take a bit of opening.

Evie pauses to take it all in: "you do the next bit, Ellie".  Can you guess what it is yet?

Ellie runs out of paper to rip off so leaves the last bit to Evie.  Well, there we go - it's a whopping great slide.  No more shots of the slide, unfortunately, but they did have a go later.

Nic minds Evie as she reads one of her new books to one of her favourite characters from one of her favourite TV shows (which I can't remember right now).

And finally... time for the birthday cake, which is coated in chocolate and looks to be in the shape of a caterpillar.

Coming up: Lynne and Paul do babysitting.  Will it go well?

Yes, actually.  How 'bout that?  Well, mostly.  First up, some air paddling from Ellie.  Look at how much her hair has grown in just three weeks.  Not sure what that is on her chin, though.

The girls engage in a duel at five paces, erm, crawls.  Ellie gets stuck at the baby mat.

Evie gnaws at the sofa.

A well-behaved Evie poses with her godmother.

Ellie, with her beloved phone, tries to make an escape.  You get to make one phone call when in jail, right?

"Oh please let me out, Paul!  I want to crawl and crawl and crawl."  Even the distinctive Ellie sticky out tongue has made an appearance.

I spent most of the afternoon stopping them from crawling towards things they weren't allowed to go for.  They are absolutely fascinated by paper, and by the TV (which does not steadily hold them when they haul themselves up on it).  Putting them down for some sleep did not work well, but taking them for a walk to the park resulted in instant snoozing.  Once back, it was time for a rest for us, so we put them back in the play pen.  Here, Evie posed for the camera, as she loves to do.

And then shows off her teeth... and a strange bit of food round her mouth.  Should have Photoshopped that off really, but it's more realistic as it is.

And that is all the photos I have of the twins, for the time being...

At the end of November, Suze and Rick popped round for a couple of hours.  This was only the twins' second trip to our house since (I think) coming along for a house warming tapas night when they spent most of the time asleep upstairs.  This time, however, we had to attempt to baby-proof the downstairs.  It was clear that Evie wasn't her normal self - see the redness in her cheeks and the slightly apprehensive look on her face.  Ellie, however, could barely wait to get going, bandaged finger or not.

Ellie was soon demonstrating her recently learnt ability to walk with the walker.  Next on her list of things to learn: how to change direction with it.  She certainly seemed to enjoy using it, anyway.

As usual, she was fascinated by something completely run of the mill and random.  This time: the blinds.

Evie could only sit and watch, distinctly lacking energy.

Oi, Ellie, geroffem.

The sight of a big bushy cat (not ours) at the patio window had Ellie fascinated, albeit unable to touch her.  The cat seemed equally fascinated.

Come back, pussycat!

Evie was still poorly and could only be consoled by resting in the arms of daddy Rick, which she did peacefully.

Meanwhile the ever curious Ellie checks out some of Lynne's baby clothes.

A final word from Ellie: "don't keep taking photos of me".

Stay tuned for another babysitting session in mid-December.  But you'll need to click to the next page to see the photos from that.