The Winter of our Discontent

"Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this son of York our stellar friends and family," is how I'm going to paraphrase some Shakespeare, if you don't mind.

This winter has been unpleasant. We've dealt with newborn twins and a move back to our new and improved abode (both more positive changes than negative, but still major)--and then one baby was hospitalized for RSV, the whole household save me and Finn (and I do mean save) was struck with an awful stomach bug, and now we've been passing a mild cold around for weeks while the temperatures struggle to hit the thirties. THE THIRTIES. IN MARCH.

But now it's April and it looks like Mother Nature agrees we're due for some spring. It was in the forties and sunny yesterday, the fifties with some sun today, and the kids and I have been gasping for outdoor time as if we've barely been out in five months. Which...we haven't.

In the midst of all this foggy slogging (band name!), we've kept our sanity with a lot of help from our family and friends.

Bridget is stunned by the lack of sunshine, but Nan knows it's New England's signature

My camera wasn't functioning properly, but I still think this shot of Bridget cuddling Lilly (Sharon's daughter) is sweet

Danielle, our beloved babysitter, home for Christmas

The whole Isis gang (except for the twins)

Isis boys: Ryan, Connor, Will

Aunt Jen, Uncle Kai and Jenna visited

Godson and Godfather

They were all smiles until we sent them home with our stomach bug :-(

Ethan came over to play (Finn wears that sweater vest with everything)

Amanda and Sarah did some baby-holding for me

The Orr and Noon kids took advantage of some rare spring weather

Fort-building with the Comenzos

I got a visit from my adorable godson, baby Johnny

Grace and Bridget 

Mindy helping Grace hold Hadley

Mamp and Hadley

Bridget and Brendan at the park!
(It was windy but we had to do it anyway.)

Jack and Finn

Bridget and Riley

Auntie AlRo stopped by

Abby and Will had a sleepover (their first ever)!

Watching Frozen, of course

Connor's the Spider-Knight, Will's the fierce dragon, Finny's the lurking Power Ranger

Bridget and Stevie get acquainted

This would have been a truly horrible season without all the wonderful people in our lives. Thanks to all of them for making it--if not quite a "glorious summer"--a survivable winter.

The Twins at Four Months

Anders at four months: 16 lbs. and 26 1/4 inches

Hadley at four months: 15 lbs., 8 oz. and 25 1/4 inches

 Hadley has started to get frowny/whiny when we walk away from her and out of her eyeline. She is definitely a baby who feeds off of attention--when anyone makes eye contact, she lights up like that person's the best thing that ever happened to her. As you can imagine, it makes us all want to lock eyes with her as much as possible.

 Anders needs to figure out what you're doing for half a second before he engages in a smiling match; then he gets pretty grinny. He's always startled easily, but now he must feel safe enough to find it funny instead of scary, so we can lean in and say "Boo!" to make his body jump--and then he laughs.

The twins take turns in the Bjorn, the Exersaucer and the Jumperoo these days, but they remain in the Table for Two for basically all their bottles and they're swaddled and in their Rock 'n' Plays for naps and nighttime.

 They've begun to hold hands on purpose throughout the day, and it seems like instinct--they look befuddled when they are grasping each other, but they still seem to get some comfort from it even if they don't know why.

 Since these pictures were taken (on Monday 3/24 to be exact), the twins suddenly went down to two naps a day. I wasn't expecting it yet, but they just took a slightly late morning nap and then a slightly long afternoon nap, and there was no time for a third before they went to bed for the night! Their current schedule is:

7:30-wake up
9:30-11:30 nap
1:30-3:30 nap
7:15-go to sleep

This is so much better because it allows me to feed them at 11:30 and pack everyone up in relative good spirits to pick up whichever boy(s) needs getting. I also did a couple of dropoffs with everyone in the morning--it's less fun because there's SO much that needs to get done simultaneously between waking up and getting out the door, but it's still possible! A whole new world!

We are...not inconspicuous.