retro twins

Abby shot this video some time ago. It's a good one.

Halloween on Birch Street

This year, Elsie and Jess's big cousins Ethan and Owen shot out for the weekend before Halloween. Trevor attempted to hand down surgical skills to the next generation.

The results of the kids' efforts.

CHOOO! CHOOOOOO! TRICK OR TREAT! GIVE ME SOMETHING GOOD TO EAT!For their costumes this year, the kids chose the costume that follows their current obsession. Elsie is Sleeping Beauty, as she is fascinated by all things princess. There are times when she will only answer to Sleeping Beauty and will correct you if you refer to her as Elsie, even during prayer. And Jess has been fascinated with Thomas and all trains since last February. So much so that everything he plays with becomes a train, even if it's Elsie's doll stroller. Not a day goes by that he doesn't get to play with his train set.

This video is of breakfast the next morning.



True to their words, Jess has shared his candy, and Elsie has proceeded to organize it by shape, size, and color, hardly eating any.

Lotte Jane Nydam

If a new baby can't make you update your blog, then not much else can, I would guess. Which is a bit ironic since it was the pregnancy with its associated sickness and fatigue that made me abandon it in the first place... But now that she's here, I want to show her off, of course. She joined our family on September 18, weighing 8 pounds 10 ounces, 20.5 inches long.


The first time they met her, Elsie and Jess had different reactions. Elsie thought she was wonderful, like her new precious little doll. She still thinks that, and often brings me outfits for her from the closet, telling me that she wants her to wear this today. At first Jess was indifferent (as can be seen by his interest in the plugs on the hospital wall), and his first question was, "Where's the other baby?" We're not sure if he thought that all babies have to have a twin, or if he just wasn't that excited with this one. But since then, he has been the most loving big brother around, singing to her when she cries, and insisting that I give her more milk.

These next few pictures are from this past week, so that the family members who haven't seen her for a month can see how much she has changed, now weighing 13 pounds 6 oz.:

I've tried to capture some of her smile and her goofy looks, as these are what's gotten me through the last few weeks. Let's just say that she hasn't been the easiest baby, but she sure is sweet now that we are seeing some of her personality. Some people think that she looks just like her siblings, and other people say she looks nothing like them. Here's a picture of them at the same age to compare:

And lastly, this is one of my favorite pictures from the pregnancy. I received frequent checks from my 2 year olds to make sure that the baby was okay. They were very interested in the baby the whole time. We found out we were pregnant on their 2nd birthday, and when we told them that I had a baby in my tummy, Jess just looked at me with huge eyes and then yelled, "Get it out!" My favorite quote from Elsie came one time when she was giving my belly kisses, then stopped and looked up at me and asked with concern, "Where's the baby's mommy?" like who could just leave their baby in there. When I tried to explain that I was the baby's mommy, she simply shook her head no.

Happy Easter!

We had a wonderful Easter weekend, with a visit from our good friend Sandi and her daughter Claire, who is only a couple of months younger than Elsie and Jess. We had a great time running around the city together, and just as much fun spending time at home with the kids. Just being able to get to know your friends' children is a blessing, especially when they live as far away as Montana. We hope that our children will grow up to be friends and look forward to seeing each other too.

The kids opened their Easter baskets before church, and each had a different response. Elsie did not want to disturb anything in her basket, while Jess inhaled most of his candy within the first 10 minutes. Claire sampled hers, but saved most for later.

After church, they all dove into their chocolate bunnies. At this point, we were starting to reconsider the wisdom of giving them chocolate and candy in the first place. We seemed to witness 3 two-year olds turn from pretty agreeable children into little terrors. By the end of the day, we were all exhausted. But at least the adults got to have a nice Sunday meal . Jill and Dave came over and we made lamb and potatoes which was delicious, thanks to Sandi's recipe.

The classic bath photo.

Practicing on the potties together. Actually, when Claire wanted to practice, she insisted on taking all of her clothes off and squatting down and grunting while pretending to use the potty. Wonder where she gets that from?

The trio on the swing.

Just playing outside at the park was one of the favorite activities.

And we figured out that we could fit 3 car seats in our back seat -- what a relief!

A quick catch-up...

I've had a few questions about what was new with us during the time when the computer died and the blog was silent for a couple of months. To think about it, some things have changed so I thought I would give a quick run-down:

I finished my pediatric cardiology fellowship in October and started a new job in November. This actually marks a pretty big change, as it brings an end to post-college medical education/training. In total it was a ten year deal, with 4 years of med school, 3 years of pediatrics residency, and 3 years of pediatric cardiology fellowship. I joined a group of three other docs in town, and am working 3 days a week, Tuesday through Thursday. Compared to working 5-6 days a week, this seems like a dream. I have five days of call (taken from home and usually pretty light) a month. Compared to "sleeping" in the hospital for a 3o hour shift every 4th day/night, this is pretty nice. All of a sudden I feel like I actually have time to exercise, learn to cook again, organize things, etc. I find myself constantly busy at home trying to catch up on the past five years of stuff since we've moved here, but I'm happy to do that. I've tried new recipes, joined a stroller aerobics class, and just enjoyed having time to see friends. So far, I really like the job, and although it's scary to be on your own after constantly having someone to look over your shoulder, I feel ready at the same time.

Trevor made a big decision as well: he decided that he wanted to pursue a fellowship in Transplant surgery, and got it set up with the department here at the University of Colorado. The match won't be final until March, so we can't make any true plans until then. But if it goes through, it will mean that after Trev finishes the 1 1/2 years left of his surgery residency, he will do another 2 years of transplant fellowship. Which will lead to a grand total of 13 years of post-college medical education and training. We both are happy about the decision, but I have to admit I'll be pretty excited when he's finally done.

And just as importantly, the twins made some big strides in November as well, as they gave up the pacifiers. Well, they didn't really choose to give them up, but they managed to handle the strange disappearance of the "bedos" pretty well. Jess cried for one nap for about 15 minutes, and then when he woke up he cried and I had to hold him, telling him I was sorry. Then he just looked up at me and said "Bedos all gone!" And that was that. The next day, Elsie cried for a bedo during her nap, and I could hear Jess saying to her from his crib, "Elsie, bedos all gone!" Then she was fine. To lose something that had become a complete necessity, I was amazed that they could adjust that quickly. Maybe that's because we let them suck on Reddi-Whip instead...

Okay we only let that happen once, but if you ask Jess where the bedos are now, he'll tell you, "I'm sorry, bedos all gone!" He heard that a few times during the transition.

Happy second birthday -- Two Two year olds! As we say around here, "Wow dude!".

Tuesday the 13th marked the day that Jess and Elsie turned two, and we celebrated with my family. My mom and dad and sister Jody flew out from Michigan for the weekend, and Jill and Dave came down from Boulder. We all couldn't believe that our little babies are now these chatty little toddlers with distinct opinions and wishes. What a wonderful couple of years it has been. I know that I couldn't feel more blessed and more full of love for these adventurous and sweet little children.

Ever since Jess and Elsie were born, I have wanted not to stereotype their genders, and provide them with similar toys and opportunities and let them choose what they like. To go along with this, one of their presents was a set of doll twins that looks a lot like Elsie and Jess, with blond hair and blue eyes. We didn't know what Jess would think, but watching him open his little boy doll was priceless and something that I wish we had on video. While Elsie pulled the doll out and started to play immediately, Jess looked at his with a very confused look on his face. Then he started shaking his head and saying, "no, no, no, no, no!" I tried to take him out of the box to show him how cute he was, but he took him and shoved him right back in, like he just wanted him to go away. It took a day or two before he decided that he was all right. Now he likes to put him in the double doll stroller and run around really fast with him, laughing if he runs into something and the doll falls out. That kind of counts as playing with him, right?

Here I'm trying to show him how fun it is to change his clothes, which brought more looks like, "Come on, Mommy." He did seem a bit more excited to open his soccer set and tool bench. But Elsie likes to play with those toys just as much -- interesting...

Elsie wanted to brush her doll's hair right away, but just like she won't let me put pigtails in her hair, we had to take them out of her doll's hair too. I'm don't think I'm gonna win that one.

The highlight of the whole day was the Elmo cake that Grammy made for them -- they still talk about it. Here they are "helping" with the frosting.

The finished product -- we were worried they wouldn't let us eat it at first.

They got in some good cuddle time with Grampy.

On their actual birthday, they got to open some cards and a few gifts in the mail, which seemed to be just as much fun. And then they got to eat chocolate cookies.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

This post is my attempt to capture the Christmas that we experienced around the Nydam household. I realize that about two months has passed since our last post, but we'll catch up on those last couple of months on the next post. This one is dedicated to Santa, reindeer, and Christmas lights. I feel that to truly represent our time leading up to Christmas, I should talk about Christmas lights for pages and pages, because Elsie and Jess were so fascinated with them that we spent many nights driving around to look at them. And Elsie became so infatuated with the reindeer on people's lawns that she would give us a heart-wrenching cry when we finally had to drive away. So we decided to get our own reindeer for our lawn -- can you see the joy in her face? They would watch them out the window as the reindeer's heads bobbed up and down, and would ask to go out and see them all the time. We thought it was pretty cute.

We started talking a bit about Santa, and they enjoyed wearing their Santa Claus sleepers to bed (and Jess wanted to wear the headlamp to bed too, but that didn't work out so well). We thought that they might enjoy actually meeting Santa, but you can tell from the next picture that this wasn't the case.

Sheer terror.

One of the favorite activities was to play with the manger set from Great-Grandma Nydam the previous Chrismas. They learned most of the names of the characters, and while the angel was the favorite, the wise men were a little confusing.

We decorated the tree with the breakable ornaments on the top half, and the non-breakable ones on the bottom. Both Elsie and Jess thought is was fun to rearrange the tree, and Elsie especially liked to take the ornaments off and organize them in her little chair. She would send Jess to bring her another one, and then she would put it in her perfect little line. I really don't know where she gets that from...

On Christmas Eve, we went to the zoo with Nana, Poppie and Uncle Aaron. There was a light display of lots of different animals and a few of the real animals were out too. I think that Elsie liked the lights the best, but Jess liked the real animals the best. Here we're studying one of the animated light displays.

The kids were spoiled by all family members this year, and they loved it. This is a tea set that Elsie bonded with immediately, and it was adorable to watch both of them set up for a tea party. While they have used their imaginations in the past, it was suddenly obvious that their imaginations have grown tremendously.

Jess went right for the teapot. I mean, if it's good to drink out of a cup, why not go right for the source?

Jess on his new bike -- there's no training wheels, but kids learn to walk and then start to scoot. He can't touch the ground yet, but by the summer he'll be scooting around in no time. So far we've been wheeling them around in circles on the hardwood floors.

Elsie likes hers just as much.

Family photo. If you look closely, you can see a banana in Jess's hand. There was no negotiating (to a happy ending anyway) about that for some reason...

We got to spend some good time with the Nydam side of the family up at the cabin in Winter Park. Scottie and his fiancee Jennifer came in from California, Aaron and Leah came in from Wyoming, and Ron and Sugar from Michigan. We're not often all in the same place, so it was nice to have everybody there. We did a little downhill and cross-country skiing, played games, and just relaxed. Although I didn't get to see my family (Trev was actually on call Christmas Eve and Christmas Day), we'll be seeing them soon for the twins' birthday.

Sledding was a fun new activity. It was interesting to me that after the first ride, for which we happened to place Elsie in the front, that spot was designated as hers. We tried to switch them around once, and there was much protesting.

Poppie especially got into it by running as fast as he could. Elsie would hunker down and giggle, and Jess would laugh and clap his hands (if you click to enlarge it you can see their smiles).

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.