Withdrawal

I heard it through the grapevine that someone (or a few someones) were going through withdrawal from the twins since it's been so long since our last post.  Well, quite right.  It's been far too long, and I too am in withdrawal since the "3" from our blog name are in Colorado, and I'm the lonely "1" here in Ohio. 

I will say that the girls were fabulous for the flights out to CO.  But once there, the time change and number of bodies around the Jutras home got the better of them, and have put them a little out of sorts.  I was sorry to leave Laurie alone to take care of them (at least at night), but I am grateful for the time to work on my thesis with fewer distractions (no matter how cute they are, they're still a distraction).  That said, offer up some prayers for Laurie - she needs them!

Speaking of my thesis.  Don't wonder why this post is being written after 12:30AM.  I'm just biding my time while my lab computer makes one of those green bars move across the screen towards 100%.

Enough chat, here's pictures.

Naked tummy-time.  Who wouldn't enjoy that?  Well...Melody, I guess.

After the workout on the floor, Melody catches a nap on the sofa while watching one of her favorite soaps: "As the Mobile Turns" or "All My Bottles"

Here she is awake.  This one was too cute to pass up.  The extra huge foot is a little disconcerting.  Doctors assure us the other one will catch up.

"What now, Bethany?!  Who's got her head up high now?"  Addie, if you're reading this, you better comment on Melody's perfect skydiving arch technique.

All that exercise makes Bethany hungry.  She has regularly been finding and snacking on her sister's hand since she has learned to roll to get it.  But like Zoolander, she has yet to figure out how to turn left.

And what better after a snack? A nap. 

This is rapidly becoming one of my favorites.  Bethany always has the most thoughtful stare.

It's like thumb war, with your feet.  Clearly one of them is playing with a handicap.  No idea where the other leg is hiding.

Finally, I know the last post was about snow time, but you need to click on this one and enlarge it to enjoy just how cute their smiles are in this photo.  This is my desktop photo at school.  It should be yours too.  Pass it around to your friends.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that both girls are talking a lot now.  Their oh's and ah's and aloo's and gi's (along with many a raspberry, especially from Bethany) are adorable.

Signing off from AFIT; here's to science!

Snow Days

Laurie's mom got it right when she said "It seems as if the only things you do with the girls are feed them, change them, and pose them for pictures". We took advantage of the deep snow we have had here in Dayton, Ohio by bundling up the girls and taking pictures of them out in the snow.

3 months old

I can't believe that the girls are already 3 months old. At the same time it seems we have been sleep deprived for a lot longer then 3 months :0) Here are a few collage pictures of the girls of random pictures taken over the last three months. Laurie's mom thinks the only thing we do is feed them, change them, and pose them for pictures.

Bethany

Melody

The girls have a ton of fun playing together. They have just gotten to the point where they will find each other and smile really big. It really is so adorable. Of course they seem to take pleasure in the others misfortune, they always seem to smile wider when the other one is crying.

This next one are pictures of the girls wearing the purple dresses their Aunt Nikki bought for them. Joe was going to help with the "photo shoot" but at the last minute he went out with the missionaries. Laurie was left by herself trying to pose the girls. Bethany knew exactly what to do. Melody on the other hand wanted nothing to do with it.

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Here are some scrapbook pages that should have been made a while ago, but as you can imagine, Laurie sometimes gets behind in her hobbies.

Joe also works hard to get great pictures of the girls. While the pictures look great, he clearly needs to work on his people skills.  We got such a kick out of this picture, we came up with two captions to make demotivational posters with it.  Which one do you prefer?

The girls are getting over their first colds. Joe and Laurie are now pros at cleaning out the girls noses with the squeezy ball. The girls are not happy with us when we pull it out. They recognize it and start making faces at us when we bring it close to their faces. We were very grateful that Grandma Evans was here this last weekend to help comfort the girls back to health.

Joe loves to get down on the floor and play with the girls. Can you guess which girl is smiling down at him?

If you guessed Melody, you would be wrong. It is our Miss Bethany. This next picture is Miss Melody. She decided she had enough "wake time".. One minute she was sitting next to Laurie on the couch all smiles, the next she was in baby dream land.

As was mentioned earlier, the girls love to look at each other and smile. Here is one of those precious moments caught on camera.

An activity that the girls would rather skip is tummy time.  Bethany has a really strong neck and pushes up high. Melody, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with tummy time and she lets us know it.

Compare For Yourself

So we've shown individual pictures to some people, and have been repeatedly asked by others, so here goes.  Here are some pictures of the girls mixed in with baby pictures of Laurie and I so you can see who looks like who.  Clicking on the pictures should get you to a larger copy.

2 pics of Laurie and 3 of Melody

2 pics of Joe and 3 of Bethany

To save time, we'll answer your questions in advance: 1) yes, those pictures are adorable.  2) No, we don't have any pictures of Laurie or Melody with their eyes open, or Joe and Bethany with their eyes shut (okay, maybe we do, but we're not redoing the Photoshopped collages).  3) Yes, Joe still makes that face to this day if he is not fed on time.

Holiday post, take two

Well the blog has glitched, and for some reason, it still reports that it hasn't been updated in over a month, though we created the post below just a few days ago.  Hopefully, this post will fix that.  Please find the real update below.

Christmas, New Year's, Family, and Snow

Welcome back.  To us that is.  It's been a while since our last post.  It's because we've been out and about these eastern states on vacation for the better part of 3 weeks.  If we were to summarize our travels in a song, it would be the 12 days of Christmas, and it would end thusly:

4 Generations,
3 Days of boarding
2 Babies Trav'ling
Aand something that rhymes with pear treeeeee...

Our journey started a few days before Christmas.  We drove down to be with Joe's family in Knoxville.  This was the girls' first road trip, and they handled it quite well.  We found our rhythm with Laurie feeding them in tandem every three hours in the back seat (she sat between their car seats).  We'd then stop at the restaurant of our choice to burp, change diapers, enjoy milkshakes, show off the girls to misty-eyed people, explain that the girls aren't boys, etc.  Then back on the road.

We enjoyed a nice family Christmas in Knoxville, and then headed down to Atlanta to be with the Simon side of Joe's family.  It was especially wonderful to introduce the girls to their Great Nana and Great-Grandpa. 

Great Grandpa loved playing with the girls - the feeling was mutual.

So did Great Nana.  Here she was mimicking Melody.

We'd really catch it if we didn't include this one to offset the previous picture of Great Nana :-)

The girls are too cool in their new sunglasses from Great Aunt Bebe.

Here's four generations of Joe's favorite ladies.

Group shot.  From top left: Uncle Jared, Aunt Emily, Great Uncle Bob, Laurie, Joe

Bottom: Aunt Mary, Yay Yay, Melody, Great Nana, Great Grandpa, Bethany, Great Aunt Bebe

Melody making a face on Uncle Jared's lap.  Now where have we seen this face before...?

Yep, that's it.  "One Million Dollars..."  Seriously, we can't make stuff like this up.  We just try to keep the camera handy.

After Atlanta, we headed to Snowshoe WV for our (mostly) annual ski/snowboarding trip.  Finally, we had great snow, which fell all three days we were there.

The view out our door every morning as more snow drifted in overnight.

Joe about to take on a black diamond slope.

Meanwhile Laurie took the time to enjoy a nice massage at the spa. She wouldn't allow a picture of it here :-)

The sun came out the third day and lit up the white landscape beautifully.

This is what it looks like when the power goes out when you're on the lift at night.  You can barely make out Mary and Uncle Bob's backsides on the next chair in the center of the photo.  It took 10 minutes to get moving again.

The girls enjoyed themselves too.

Group shot, minus Dad who had to leave a day early.

As you can see, we had an enjoyable time on our trip, though in retrospect, we would rather have had 3 separate trips to do it all.  3 weeks away from home, constantly adapting the girls' schedule to new places every few days was difficult.  But we're learning.  Heaven help us, we just might be adequate parents yet!