As promised, here is my one year birthday post!

My goodness what a year we’ve had! It’s hard to imagine life before the twins, and they have only been around a short 12 months.

Having twins has truly been a unique experience. My friend Jennifer told me once I got past the first year, things got a lot better. And I definitely have seen my happiness levels rise dramatically with each passing month.

As they grow they continue to reveal themselves to me. It’s a wonder how different two kids who are going down the same path in life can be.

Aaron is sensitive and easy going. He gets scared easily, for example he will cry when you put him in the swing, get his hair cut, or put him in the bath. Yet he can be easy going as well. It doesn’t matter who feeds him or puts him to sleep. You can leave him in the basement to play quietly for a moment and he won’t even notice your absence. He will sit quietly and happily in the stroller or car seat, unbothered by being harnessed. Oh, and he is quite the dancer. He’ll sway back and forth to any music, no matter how bad.

The start of a Calisoff boy band?

Sam is more adventurous and more demanding. If you take him to the park, he is off and running in every direction. Chasing birds, using the equipment correctly, he seems to have an innate sense of the right way to do things. He started automatically crawling backwards to get back down the stairs the other day. But he notices is you leave the room and will follow you, whining all the way. And he is very restless in car seats and strollers. He seems to be leading the charge in all developmental things, including dropping his second nap.

As for new talents – Sam has learned to clap, Aaron has learned to blow raspberries. Sam will clap randomly, like when he’s eating, or when you are trying to sing him to sleep. Aaron likes to blow raspberries on furniture and any exposed body parts he can find.

Where Sam is careful, Aaron can reckless. Sam will walk straight and tall, puffing his chest out like a ballerina or lion. When Aaron walks he reminds me of my old roommate Rob Hart after he’s had 17 beers. Stumbling and falling and laughing the whole way.

No matter what, they are definitely joined together in life at this point. Where one goes, the other follows. What one has, the other wants.

For their birthday party we treated them like the 3rd and 4th kid that they are and skipped the big fancy party. But as promised, here is the proverbial frosting picture…

Sam is a neat eater, Aaron not so much.