Aunts and Uncles and Cousins, Oh My!

One of the things that we have been most excited about is having our families meet the girls. In the last two weeks, we've hosted/met up with Sean (Dan's brother in town for business), Tim, Stef, & Dima (Holly's brother & his wife and their new son passing through Dulles), and Dirk & Erin and the kids (Dan's sister and her family).

Sean was fortunate enough to spend a couple of nights in DC and was selfless enough to ride an hour each way on the Metro every day after a full day of conferences and workshops. He did this every day for three days and we couldn't have been more thankful to have family spending some time with us. However, he was unfortunate enough to not have had his picture taken with the girls...which is why there are no picture of him with the girls! Oh well...we'll see him and his family in May on our way through during our drive to Kansas and we can take plenty of pictures then.

This past week, Holly packed the kids up and drove out to Dulles so she could meet Tim, Stef, and the newest member of their family, Dima Matthew. After many weeks spent in the Ukraine and going through all the ups and downs during the entire process, they have themselves a new son! And since their layover was cooperative, Holly was able to meet up with them. Pictures are below. Unfortunately Dan had to work and couldn't make it out to the airport.

Tim & Bridget

Stef, Abby & Dima (who is quite a little chatterbox!)

Dima was very attentive to the girls' needs while they were being fed.

Finally, we hosted Dan's sister and her family today as they were in town for the baptism of their Godchild. Jackie, PJ, and Diana took to the girls very well and kept asking two things..."Can I hold Baby Briget?" and "Can I hold Baby Abby?" And after having spent half of yesterday in the car, they needed to burn off some steam so we let them build up a sweat playing Wii and then took 'em to Chuck E. Cheese! We don't have any pictures of Chuck E. Cheese's but have plenty of pictures of the Steenwyk family with girls. As always, enjoy!

Erin sure does have hands full!

Jackie & Bridget

Diana was really excited to be able to hold HER Bridget! :)

PJ & Bridget

The Steenwyk Family plus Two!

Capitol Kiddos!

This is a quick post so we could throw some cool pictures up on the blog. We've been told a couple of times that if you're going to survive as parents of twins you have to have a small dose of "crazy." Well, yesterday proved that we are well on our way! We decided that since the weather was so incredible (hi of 78!) that we would take the girls and the dogs into the city so we packed everyone up in the mini-van and off we went!


We carried the kids in their Baby Bjorns and kept the dogs on leashes (obviously) and what we noticed was that every other set of parents with a singleton had way more stuff with them than we did. I'm talking strollers, blankets (it's 78 degrees! Blankets? Really?), diapers bags...the works. What we realized was that since we had two and didn't have room for all that stuff that we are learning to pack only the essentials. If the kids needed a diaper change than they would get one when we got back to the van. Are we really going to wrestle the dogs while we try to change a diaper on the National Mall? No...so we left the double stroller and car seats and diaper bag in the van...and giggled at all the parents pushing strollers overloaded with unnecessary extras...while they looked on in curious amusement at the two idiots with twins and dogs!


Enjoy the pictures. :)

I had to throw this one in there because Bridget has got some really, really blue eyes.

Happy Valentine's Day!

As a Valentine's Day present, we took the girls to the doctor's for their 2 month check-up! The good news is that both girls are doing great. The check-up went very, very well. Abigail is bigger and taller than Bridget and both are in a lower percentile for both height and weight but that's to be expected since they were 3 weeks premature. The highlight came when we found out that Abby's head has a 15 1/2 inch circumference which put her in the 70%...she's a Hayden! For those of you not in on the joke, Hayden babies customarily have enourmous heads...just ask my sister and sister-in-law. It's definitely something I tried to hide from Holly but she figured it out eventually. :P

After the check-up we took them the immunizations clinic to get their shots. We were forewarned that it would be a terrific explosion of tears and screams and the girls did not dissapoint! Poor kiddos. They'll be okay though.

That's it for now. Enjoy the two month pictures!

Bridget is watching her new bear friends very closely.

You can't tell from this picture but Abby (L) is actually bigger than he stocky little sister.

Smiles are usually few and far between from Bridget so you gotta be quick with the camera!

Bridget is just hangin' out with her friends.

Abby might've gotten her wink from her dad.

Abby is all smiles all the time when Daddy gets home from work.

This is a great smile from Bridget. Like I said, gotta be quick with that camera!

Bridget's dressed up in her new monkey outfit while her sister is donning her new cow ensemble.