One year old. I can barely believe my babies are ONE YEAR OLD, but the calendar does not lie. This time last year, they were squishy, tiny, wrinkly little babies who weighed a total of almost-twelve pounds at birth (and less than that when they came home from the hospital).

E is screaming.

L is sleeping.

Today, they’re learning to walk, trying to talk, climbing the furniture, expressing their preferences for food and toys and books and fashion accessories, and it’s almost like they’re actual little people or something. TWO of them. Some people would even call them toddlers. (Not I, though. They’re babies. Large babies.)

In the past month, they’ve had their first Thanksgiving, which was great fun. Last Thanksgiving, we were just not sure how soon the babies were going to come, so we held off on making any plans because we thought we might wind up in the hospital. It turned into a quiet day at home (my husband cooked) and the babies waited another week or so to make their arrival. This year, we had two new little faces at our table! We let them try all the foods we were having: roast chicken, mashed potatoes, roasted root vegetables, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream. They loved everything except the moment when CW sprayed a tiny, tiny blob of whipped cream into their mouths directly from the can (they were not into that at all, whoops!), but then they wound up enjoying dessert when we put a little bit onto their trays for them to pick up themselves.

Saturday, we had their birthday party, which turned out to be really fun. My BFF Claire a and her son visited for the weekend, plus we had our local friends over, many of whom also have little ones. There were a few kids around from age 5 months to 9 years, and they had fun running around and playing with some of the twins’ toys. We had brunch food and mimosas and cupcakes, and of course tiny smash cakes for the babies to try.

Y’all. The cake. It was amazing. E enjoyed her cake, which she dug into with one hand and ate fairly neatly. L, on the other hand, quickly realized that cake is delicious and that eating with one hand is not nearly effective enough. Perhaps he realized that this was a limited-time situation and that the cake would be taken away at some point, so he decided to dig in with both hands — and then quickly moved on to diving face first into the cake. We were DYING laughing. I will never forget it. Dude just kept going and going, both hands sunk knuckle-deep into the sides of the cake, frosting all over his face, and eventually ate (“ate”?) a not insignificant portion of cake and frosting. I am so proud.

At one year, E is 29.75″ tall (72%) and weighs 22lb 4oz (83%). She:

• Has four five teeth. Her top two were slowly, slowly coming in over the past few weeks and they finally broke through. In the time it’s taken me to get photographs ready for this post, her fifth tooth (bottom left) came in!
• Has taken 10-12 independent steps at a time on several occasions, but still doesn’t choose to walk very often. She prefers to walk while holding one of our hands or to crawl. I’m sure she’ll get to walking full time very soon, though.
• Still scrunches up her nose when smiling and generally smiles with her whole face. She has the best dimples.
• Has started refusing to wear her headband bows, to my great dismay. And so it begins: soon I’m sure I’ll have no influence at all over what she wears, so I’d better enjoy choosing her clothes while I can.
• “Talks” quite a bit, though not with (m)any real/intentional words, mostly just babbling. She’s said “mama” and “dada” a few times, and “da” (possibly directed at the dog?) but we’re not confident any of those counts as a purposeful first word yet.
• Points, claps, waves, and gives high fives — the lattermost she just learned this past weekend from her big buddy, Liam (my BFF’s son), age 9, who came to visit and is an excellent teacher.
• Can be both a little bit shy and extremely friendly in the same moment — she loves to smile and wave at new people, but often only wants to do so from the safety of her parents arms/laps.
• Loves to play with her Little People farm animals and put them into their places in the barn. Sometimes she also loves to stick the animals in my face until I let her put them in my mouth. Why, E, why?

At one year, L is 29.5″ tall (35%) and weighs 20lb 14oz (43%). He:

• Has four teeth. The second top tooth came in shortly after I last posted about this, so they’re well established now and he’s been putting them to good use gnawing cantaloupe off the rind and digging into birthday cake.
• Has taken 1-2 independent steps at a time, but mostly has been working on his climbing skills. He’s able to get up onto the futon in the nursery and onto the ottoman in the playroom without assistance.
• Has the most delightful full-belly laugh. The other day, I started goofing around with him and something about the way I was shaking my head back and forth made him laugh, so of course I just kept doing it over and over until he was completely CRACKING UP and it was the absolute best. I love making this kid laugh.
• Loves to read stories. He will get his favorite books off the shelf and bring them to us to read. I love letting him cuddle up in my lap while we read — he usually holds my hand/wrist and just snuggles up so sweetly. His favorite books recently are Brown Bear, Brown Bear and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. 
• Has just started “talking” a lot more. He’s always been a bit quieter than his sister, but lately he’s really got a lot more to say. He’s experimenting with new sounds. My favorite one is the “ga” sound he makes every morning when he sees the lit-up Christmas tree for the first time. He really likes it, I think.
• Points, claps, waves, and gives high fives. And loves to grab people’s glasses right off of their faces! I find it a lot easier to wear my contacts, quite honestly. He’s obsessed!
• Loves his stuffed animals, particularly an old monkey of mine that I handed down, and a new snow leopard his dad picked out for his birthday. He’s so sweet when he hugs them.

I love watching them grow up so much. We’re so lucky and thankful to get to be their parents.