Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a great Thanksgiving this year- the first one at this house! The last Thanksgiving that we did not travel for was 5 years ago at our apartment in Kent and I was just days away from delivering Chloe. I was going to post a picture of that Thanksgiving, but I was large with child (and when I saw large, I really mean LARGE. I didn't want to post a picture and alarm anyone with my overwhelming size).

We were excited to host our first Thanksgiving in our own home with our own kids. And we didn't have the stress of making it fancy for anyone- our kids don't know any better.

We had a very relaxing day, just the 6 of us. We spent lots of time lounging around watching The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, movies and football.

Mitchell couldn't wait for dinner!

Ben carving the yummy turkey!

Plastic plates, cups and silverware for the kids, and since we have no fancy china, our everyday dishes for Ben and I. (We did go "all out" and use some fancy glasses for the sparkling cider...)

The kids had eaten lots of cheese and crackers all afternoon, so neither of them was super hungry, but we asked them to at least try just one bite of everything. Chloe is a fantastic vegetable eater (the best, really) and ate all of her veggies (minus the yams, which she grudgingly only took one bite of).

Mitch on the other hand is not a good veggie eater and since half of the items were veggies, he didn't eat a whole lot. We kept referring to the turkey as chicken because he knows what chicken is and loves it. But either he wasn't fooled or wasn't hungry, but he wouldn't try it. And he is becoming quite good with his speech. Point in case: Me: "Mitch, can you try some of your chicken?" Mitchell: "Me no want that chicken!" Needless to say, Mitch no eat that chicken (turkey).

At dinner, we all went around and said something we were thankful for. For Mitchell to understand, we asked him to fill in the blank: "I love...." and he said "Puntins!!" (pumpkins). Chloe said: "Water."

At Chloe's preschool, each child made a turkey and on each turkey feather they named something they were thankful for. Here is Chloe's list of things she was thankful for:

*Friends

*Brother and sisters

*Mom and Dad

*Summer

*School

*Halloween

*Water to drink

*Trees

I thought it was a very thoughtful list and she definitely named things she really loves and is thankful for.

But of course everyone was excited for dessert! We had a pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin pie and an apple pie (with ice cream and cool whip, of course). Mitch only ate ice cream and Chloe only ate apple pie.

In preschool, Chloe made an Indian outfit and was very excited to "dress up" for Thanksgiving. She kept asking what her friends and cousins were "dressing up like" for Thanksgiving.... I think we may have just combined Halloween and Thanksgiving.

Anyway- it was fun to dress up, and here is the Andros line up for Thanksgiving day:

Chloe, the Indian

Mitchell, the Turkey

(and boy is he a little turkey these day. He is hilarious and lots of fun, but he's two and can be a turkey....)

Alexis and Leah, the Pilgrims

(Pilgrims because Chloe was very stuck on the idea that everyone needed to "dress up.")

Yes, little Leah has BIG, beautiful eyes. She can really take it all in with one good glance!

And the 2 big kids were in bed by 6:00, which I don't think has EVER happened on Thanksgiving. Happy Turkey Day to me and Ben!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Twins 2 week old photo shoot

In my haste and excitement in posting these photos the first time, I failed to give proper credit to our photographer. This photo shoot was given to us by the photographer, Jenny Joy Photography, (www.jennyjoyblog.com) for free as a special promotional offer. We were very fortunate to be given this free photo session, in our home, when the babies were 2 weeks old. Being a free session, we got to keep all the digital negatives in their original, raw, unedited form and as a special gift we were given 15 of the images edited. In posting the first time, I failed to give our photographer credit for the amazing work she did on the images she edited and did not differentiate between the work she did and the editing I did on the raw images given to us. I've rearranged the post to show the images she worked on and the images that were unedited by her and either left in their raw, original form or edited by me at home.

We are delighted at how all of the pictures taken turned out- the photographer did an amazing job capturing such beautiful and precious poses and moments that we will remember forever.

All of the images were taken by our photographer, but the first group are the shots that the photographer edited and worked many, many hours on. They look amazing:

Lexi, our little angel sleeper

Lexi

Daddy with Leah on left, Lexi on right

Daddy with Lexi

Daddy with Leah

Mommy with Leah

Leah, Lexi

The "little old man" shot....

Leah in Ben's hands, Lexi in mine (it seems that most of the time, Leah ends up on the left and Alexis on the right!)

Lex

These bookshelf shots were Ben's idea. The photographer was hesitant to do them, for obvious reasons (tiny babies falling off 4 shelves up, us blaming him) but we finally talked him into doing it. Alexis (on left) was perfectly positioned, all on her doing and was dead asleep. Leah was not quite as asleep and not quite as perfectly positioned, but still cute.

Leah

Alexis

Lexi was so dead asleep and still, we were tempted to leave her there to take a nap!

The rest of the images are the digital negatives given to us, untouched by the photographer's amazing editing skills. Any editing was done by me. I still have to give most of the credit to the photographer for how the images look- such an amazing job was done just in how the picture was taken, and some of these are just the raw negatives.

Leah, Lexi

Mom with Lexi

Leah with quite the pose....

I know this is like the third picture in this same pose, but she looks so angelic.

Leah and Alexis

Lexi and Leah

This shot really shows off all their differences- Lexi has slightly darker skin, is bigger in body, head and face, and has more hair that is darker in color. We have absolutely no trouble telling them apart.

Lexi and Leah

Lexi in Daddy's hands

Leah and Lexi

Lexi

Lexi

Now how will we ever choose which ones to print??

Blessing Day

On Sunday we blessed the twins, just shy of being 4 weeks old. Nothing is sweeter than seeing newborn babies all in white.

Leah and Mommy

Leah in her gorgeous blessing gown from Nana (thanks Nana!)

Alexis

The sisters (Leah on left, Alexis right)

Ben and I have some fantastic parents. Both of our parents drove up to Seattle for the blessing, not an easy feat for either set. My parents drove a round trip of 22 hours to be here for just 2 days, and Ben's parents drove up early Sunday morning 3 1/2 hours to be here, just to turn around and drive 3 1/2 hours back after church. We are so glad all our parents could be here and are thankful for their efforts and sacrifice to support all of us on this special day.

Nana with Lexi, Papa with Leah

Grandma with Leah, Papa with Lexi

The Andros 6. Just 6 more kids and we can have our own reality show called "Carrie and Ben Plus 10."

Sweet Lexi

Beautiful Leah

My favorite picture of the day- the two sleeping princesses.

The first pair of socks that has fit either one of them! My mom found them and brought them for the girls. Thank goodness- I searched high and low for preemie tights for the girls (couldn't find any), but did find preemie socks, but they wouldn't stay on either. These socks fit perfectly and were adorable on the girls with their dresses.

My handsome little man with his sisters

Ben gave 2 beautiful blessings to our sweet little angel babies. I don't know who was more nervous: Ben to give the blessings, or me wondering if Ben would mix the girls up and give the wrong name to the wrong baby. He did wonderful and there were no mix ups!

It was a beautiful day spent with family and marveling at our blessings. We have a beautiful, healthy family and we are so grateful to be with these sweet children through the eternities, along with all our extended family.