And SO much has happened! Our computer had to get a few repairs and we have been mostly without one for almost 3 weeks now! Thus the delay in blogging and updating those near and away! But we are back and have some catching up to do!
The girls are quickly on their way to 6months old already! Hannah will be four in only 3 short days! And the holidays seem to be approaching quicker than ever! True to form the twins are completely different than Hannah and they LOVE rice cereal! I mean LOVE it! They see their bowls and spoons and start kicking and yelling completely excited! This has been a whole new experience for us as I don't think Hannah ever finished a serving of baby food. She went from nursing straight to finger foods and never looked back to that mushy stuff! We still can't convince her to eat applesauce! Must be a texture thing!
Feeding two at once is quite an experience as well... especially when one baby is patient while the other is quite
persistent that she be the only one fed! We found these nifty little spoons that hold the cereal in the handle so you don't have to mess with bowls, spoons, and such. You just give the handle a little squeeze and the cereal oozes out on the spoon ready for a little mouth.... or two little mouths in our case! $6.99 @ Target but priceless in my book! Has made feeding two at the same time a breeze! Also pretty nice to store in the diaper bag and not worry about messes etc... Oh and they are dishwasher safe which is MANDATORY in our house! I mean really.. who has time for dishes anyways!?!?!?
In general... (not always, but usually!) Aspen is quite persistent and Brooke is quite patient :) True to their everyday personalities as well. Although I wonder sometimes... Is Aspen actually a "persistent" eater or just a fast eater while Brooke enjoys sitting back and enjoying every single bite of rice cereal? I mean John can eat a meal at least 15minutes faster than me :) I imagine it's the same thing... just during infancy rather than adulthood! :)
I tried to get by with only one spoon here... As you can see Aspen was quite persistent today! ;) Practicing no patience whatsoever! :)
Although in the end she got the whole spoon! And although she is teary eyed, she is quite satisfied! (That is until she stuck the spoon down her throat and gagged herself!)
This is what the end of a meal looks like for Aspen!
And this is the end of a meal for Brooke! I say overall they stay pretty clean considering all we are up against!
Then it was time for the park! Here Hannah is flying high and loving it! The deal is she has to pump on her own to get started and keep pumping until she reaches John... then he sends her soring! Our way of encouraging Hannah to swing on her own! She really is a great pumper, just prefers the simplicity of hanging on while someone else does the work! ;)
And of course the twins had to have their turn! This was the first day they have ever gone in "Big baby" swings and they loved them! No complaints out of them! Even both took a nap in them at some point! All we could think was "Bummer! Now we are stuck at the park until they wake up!" (Sleep is such a precious thing! We sure don't want to wake two sleeping babies now do we?)
What a carefree day we had. With John home more, we have so much more time to sit back and just enjoy life... and each other. So important for a family! We are so blessed and sometimes life starts to move so fast that we forget it sometimes. It's days like these that we need in order to "reset" and remember what our true priorities are.
The girls continue to refuse to take
binkies but will suck on their thumbs anytime they can get them to stay in their mouths! Here they both figured out the perfect angle to keep them in and in they stayed for quite a while! Oh how I wish they took
binkies! A habit so much easier to break!
By the end of the day our bodies, souls, and minds were
rejuvenated... Just what we needed to face another day in the life of the
Daurer's!
Ok folks! Well here it goes... Not short, but definitely sweet! What a busy couple of weeks we have had pre-holidays, so I can only imagine what the Christmas season will bring! We'll start off with a couple of cute pics of the twins. They love the outdoors and the colder it gets the more they get bundled... by the end of the Christmas season I'm confident they will not be able to move under all of the layers they have on! Although in pink, it is Brooke above and Aspen below (as if the helmet weren't enough to give it away!)
The girls LOVE to hang out and just enjoy any fresh air... hot, cold, warm, cool, stinky or not!
We are making the most of our Willow leaves before it comes down. John helped cut down a grown Willow a couple of weeks ago and said this is the last season ours will see. Bye bye Willow! Our three years together have been short and sweet... we are not sad to see you and your leaves go!
Hannah loves to jump in leaves... slide into leaves... throw them... crunch them... and make crafts out of them! Leaves on the ground can be so much fun!
Four... can you believe it??? Four years old! What a big girl! We like to decorate Hannah's door on her birthday so she wakes up to a surprise... this year John completely covered her door (with breathing room on the bottom to avoid panic!) and he colored a fun "Happy Birthday" picture on the other side! What a fun dad!
Hannah spent the day opening gifts from friends and family far away! Every gift had to be tried on, tested out, and assigned to a home in her new play room or closet! Training a child to be organized can be quite exhausting when as a parent you are ready to leave it all in a pile for a couple of days but your 4 year old insists on organization. Thank you Hannah, truly... I appreciate the motivation to stay organized! 
Nice chocolate mustache! I was at work but am pretty confident her birthday breakfast consisted of chocolate! 
The openings were slow as she had to play with everything right away!
Perfect gingerbread cookie cutters... Just in time for holiday cookies!
And then came party time! Which was new as it require some organization as 4 year old can be quite busy if left to fend for themselves! Hannah wanted to have a bug party and what a bug party it was! She even introduced a couple of new friends from school to the group. Very sweet girls with great families!
Anxiously waiting to dig in!
And dig in everyone did!
Present time!
Eva and Hannah were pretty close in sharing a birthday! We will actually be attending her party today! They met when they were 9 months old and it has been incredible to watch the both of them as they grow!
The girls even had one of their friends to play with. Although Zyan is crawling now and a little puzzled that there are two of them? I'm sure he wonders if he is truly seeing double!
Turning 4 is so much fun! One more finger to add, and before we know she will simply have to hold up her hand in response to the question... "How old are you?" Happy Birthday Hannah! You are an amazing little girl and we love you!
Yep... makes you want Thanksgiving all over again doesn't it!?!?!? (I told you this was a long post!) We spent Thanksgiving at the Meistrell home along with a bunch of others and had a great time! Great food... great company... couldn't ask for more!
The morning of we explained to the twins what Thanksgiving was and what would happen that day... they were excited to go hang out with so many people and you can see their smiles as they heard it was bath time first!
Well then we got to talking about how much food people actually eat and they were both shocked!
Then when we told them that everyone takes a nap just to wake up and eat more... they couldn't contain themselves! I'm sure believing they will never ever eat that much! ;)
Our beautiful 4 year old waiting to NOT eat turkey (she is just appalled that anyone would eat turkey..), just simply anxious to get there and have fun!
Happy Brooke!
and Happy Aspen!
Let the festivities begin! Fortunately we were in a home that is well aware there may be no food left after the men go through the line (there were more college age guys than any cook could prepare for!) and they waited for all of us gals to get our food first! Never once complained on how slow we were! What gentlemen!
Lots of different families all intertwined as one for the day... it is great to be loved by many and so great to love them back! Both we and the girls are so blessed to have so many wonderful families directly in our lives!
Lots of people... lots of food.. and room for more! There was definitely life in this home today! 
And plenty of extra hands for baby holding! That is what my back was grateful for this year!
Need I say more than the picture already does?
What a great Thanksgiving we had this year! And as Hannah and Jackson played the night away, and the adults came out of our food comas...
The Forrest family showed up and 4hours of intense spades began! (We left somewhere in the middle but I can only imagine the competition that occurred as the night went on!) Now on to Christmas tree cutting, cookie making, and Christmas decorating! I love the holidays! 
