It has been a tiring, but wonderful year! After their startling entrance: one at home, one at hospital, they have come on in leaps and bounds. Here is an update on their recent progress and birthday celebrations...
Both babies are now very active, crawling quite quickly, cruising along the furniture and grabbing anything in sight. Jory dashes for the outdoors as soon as a door is opened and screams in frustration when the door is closed before he can reach it. Tahlia has just begun to stand on her own and now weighs about 1 st 5lbs; Jory isn't far behind but has a little more weight to support at about 1st 8lbs. It seems as though Tahlia may walk in the near future. They love the extra attention that comes from doing party tricks such as clapping and waving; Jory in particular relishes praise and will always clap on demand.
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| "How big are you, Jory?" |
After teething for months, Tahlia now has two bottom teeth and the top ones are almost through. Jory has been teething recently, but still has no sign of any teeth. Both babies love to chatter away, often sounding as though they have just said real words.
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| "All the better to eat you with, my dear" |
Tahlia and Jory play alongside each other reasonably well, although Jory will occasionally steal a toy from Tahlia's hands and Tahlia will often push on Jory to help her stand up, both of which result in a few tears.
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| Play time! |
Both babies love to follow Mummy around the house and pull on her clothes when they want feeding. They are too big to tandem breast feed, so have to take it in turns, much to the frustration of the baby who is waiting (who isn't too bothered about feeding until they see the other twin enjoying their milk).
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| Thrilled that the stair gate is finally open! |
Tahlia is very much a lover of food -she'll devour a whole banana, eat anything she finds on the floor and will never turn down a snack. Jory, on the other hand, isn't too fussed when it comes to food and will often tear things into hundreds of pieces without actually eating anything, or spit food out of his mouth.
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| Tahlia chews on some yellow pepper |
The babies have had their ups and downs with sleeping. The best nights we've had have involved a 7 hour stretch for both babies (which sadly lasted only a few nights). The worst nights have involved Mummy being up every hour, falling asleep while they feed and wishing for just two hours sleep in a row. Unfortunately we have had a lot of the latter recently, as they've been teething and grumpy, but we're sure things will get better soon. They are, however, very good at having two daytime naps in a regular routine, so Mummy catches up with sleep when she can.
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| Napping at a food festival |
Here are some of the highlights of their birthday celebrations...
Bash and Bang marked the beginning of their birthday weekend. They unfortunately weren't fans of the hats and took them off before we could finish singing happy birthday.
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| Birthday hats |
We hosted a birthday party with some of Tahlia and Jory's baby and toddler friends from church and other groups. It was rather chaotic but we all had a good time. The older toddlers very much enjoyed opening their presents on their behalf.
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| Jory enjoyed dressing up as a superhero |
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| Playing pass the parcel |
It was soon time to celebrate with cake, so we brought out their birthday snake cake...
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| Not as low calorie as it first appears |
Jory and Tahlia looked less than impressed as everyone sang happy birthday. They were however pleased when they were allowed to eat some of the cake (especially Tahlia).
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| Cuddles with Chela and Annie while we sang |
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| Dressing up time! |
It was soon Monday the 25th, their actual birthday and we held a mammoth present opening session. We let the babies crawl up and help themselves. They were particularly interested in the crunch of the wrapped presents and Tahlia succeeded in grabbing small amounts of wrapping to eat before we could stop her. Zachary was on patrol to stop them opening the wrong presents and he also was in charge of the unwrapping.
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| Presents in piles (Tahlia left, Jory right) |
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| Tahlia delves right in (to Jory's presents) |
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| "I got one!" |
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| "What's happening to my presents?" |
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| Tahlia plays with her new toy (and scatters the pieces around the house) |
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| Jory loves the noise and lights of his new magic hammer (thanks, Auntie Beckrum) |
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| Zachary also loves playing with all the new toys; only he has been brave enough to crawl through both tunnels so far |
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| Cuddles with Daddy. And a snake. And a ball. |
It was finally time for the Dobson tradition of birthday Cornettos! Here's how they enjoyed them...
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| Tahlia wasn't too sure about the level of cold at first |
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| Jory didn't quite get the hang of it straight away |
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| Tahlia worked her way through the messy job |
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| Jory likes mess; he didn't appreciate being cleaned up though |
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| Almost finished! Tahlia devoured the whole ice cream; Jory gave up before reaching the wafer |
