Back That Thing Up

Ive gone blog crazy. In Melissa Iannucci fashion, I put up three posts today. You will have to pardon the background chatter on this hilarious video. Some members of the Smith household have never been part of a Ryan Smith production before so they lack proper etiquette. If you can fight your way through the annoying audience this is a gem. Riley just cant seem to get her pants over her ample posterior. Sorry the video is so long. I couldnt cut it down while away from our home base.

Babypalooza 2.0

This is the second post of the day, so be sure to check out the action of Christmas day as well.


Today began a story that will play itself out over the next 20 years. Finnegan is clearly in love with both of our daughters. Here you can see him expressing his love by choking Sanna. Typical grade school crush. She didnt cry as one normally would when being attacked. I am keeping a close eye on him. He isnt walking yet, so he cant actually chase after them, but he is doing his darndest.

Riley did her best to make Finnegan aware of her beauty and personality by pushing him in the wagon. He seemed interested, but he was clearly playing it cool.

Not to be outdone, Sanna jumped in to get her push on. Finnegan is starting to look annoyed by all this female attention. He just wanted to watch football and listen to his dad agonize over ever yard gained by his opponent's players in the fantasy football championship game.

This is the closest we could get to a group shot. Owen is the only one who cares about the quality of this photo. I thank him for the effort, but Riley's crying and Max's crazy cry/wheeze/grunt signaled the end of this dream shot. We tried to get everyone in funny hats as well. We are so nieve.

Owen tried his best to get a Santa hat on Sanna, but no luck. In another of her 'feats of strength', she fought him off and maintained her sweet hairdo.

Riley's second love was this bounce horse. She hung on for dear life as it played some sweet tunes.

Setting the feminist movement back another ten years, Riley and Haley proved themselves completely incapable of simple tasks like hammering and sawing. Owen had to come over and give the ladies a hand.

Christmas Number Two, Take Two

Our second Christmas of the year was in Grand Rapids. Here is a sampling of the chaos.


Rley could hardly control her excitement as she opened her numerous gifts. She took time out to relax with her Aunt Jenna.

The surprise gift of the day was a box of painted rocks for Sanna. She has a weird love for carrying around rocks she finds around the house. Granny Smith painted them as some of her favorite things (Brobee, an owl, butterfly, ladybug, etc.). She loved them and is currently trying to keep them away from Riley.

The stress of Christmas drove Riley to double-fist her milk. Bottle #2 came from her new baby.

"You will drink this milk and you will like it!" Riley said to her disobedient daughter. Karma is a bizzo my dear.

Sanna stared into her stocking to make sure she didnt miss any gifts.

The Many Faces of Riley Revisited

Yesterday, we took the kids over to the Perl museum in Ada, MI. We were very afraid that their curiosity and destructive tendencies would be too much for our hosts to take. They assured us that they were mentally prepared for the visit and that the cuteness of twins would outweigh the pain of losing treasured possessions. Riley was so excited she completely soaked her pants. That is why we have a bunch of naked shots. We didnt get as many pictures as I would have liked with the Perls due to our constant monitoring responsibilities. These are outof order again, but you can figure it out. Mrs. Perl also thinks we should publish more of the crazy/whiny moments from our ladies to show the reality of twins. I am happy to do that, but I dont want to scare people off of ever having children. I will look into a 24 hour webcam in our play room. We can stream it on the blog.

You may ask yourself "what lovely lady do these legs belong to?" The answer is Nick Perl. In honor of our first visit to the Perl house Nick spent 3 hours getting these pants on. The girls appreciated it.

This is my new favorite Riley picture. She is flashing her gang signs but maintaining her supreme cuteness.

She then proceeded to eat a spatula. Her hair was the impetus for this photo shoot. It turned out quite a few great shots of her many expressions.

If you are wondering why Sanna didnt make it into this post, it is because she spent most of our visit crying/clinging to her mother. She opened up towards the end of the visit, completing the first somersalt in the family as part of 'the move'. Riley was more willing to be passed around, spreading holiday cheer.

Cindy was so excited to hold a baby she couldnt stop screaming. Luke is in a world of trouble.

Gift Explosion

Thanks to the generosity of our friends and relatives, our children have been showered with gifts of all shapes and sizes. The girls have been dancing their faces off on the new Yo Gabba Gabba musical dance mat. They have also been carrying around their new baby dolls that begin a five-minute conversation with the touch of a button. They also got some sweet new hats that were hand crafted by Great Aunt Patti. The girls enjoyed ripping open their gifts and making a giant mess.

Party on the Step

Here is a video of our children at their calmest. Noone is getting bitten or slapped, so it is a happy moment that I wanted to capture on video. Please let us know your thoughts on this one so we can solve a raging family debate. Funny? Cute? Not Funny? Not Cute? Neutral? Our kids are definitely a little odd.

Christmas Party Fun

Late in the party, Sanna thought it was important to hide under this table and scream. We did not agree. Sorry all of these are out of order.

Sanna was cautious but intrigued by this bearded weirdo distributing fun toys to all the other kids.


Riley did not find Santa as amusing. Despite him giving her a gift she now loves she cried her eyes out until we seperated her from this odd character.


Riley saw the big kids diving on the floor chasing after baloons. She thought it looked fun, so she just dove on the floor and started making swimming motions.


This is a picture of Sanna early in the party, before she had run us and herself completely ragged, ripping ornaments off the tree and finding hidden staircases to climb.


Riley grew out of her latest carseat, so we have decided to just go ahead and buckle her in like a big girl, which she insists she it. We will have to put some padding on that strap that gos across her neck.


The girls find the vent to be thoroughly enjoyable. It makes for some good pictures too.

Riley is very exicted about the hot air.

Christmas Picture Take Two

Matching Christmas pajamas plus music equals funny pictures.

This is one of two reasonable pictures we were able to get. Despite all of Laurins coaching and props it was nothing but chaos.

Riley is really in to sitting on this little window ledge in our family room. She likes to look out into the backyard for squirrels. None this day, but she will try again tomorrow.

Sanna had removed most of the balls from the tree. She will get tired of doing that eventually Im sure. When we tell her to be gentle/nice to the ornaments she goes and kisses the goose ornament. She has no love for the decorative balls apparently.

This is the other winner. Laurin wasnt totally satisfied, but if you go back to last years pics you can see just how far weve come. I think she dreamed of the two of them hugging in their matching pea coats in front of the tree under perfect lighting. Maybe next year.

This is my favorite of the bunch. This was when they first saw the tree and were totally amazed/excited.

The Move, Version 2.0

I took this one today and thought it was worth sharing. The move has evolved to include a leg raise and morphed into a game of peakaboo. If anyone knows how to make these videos somewhere in between 300 MB (original size) and 2.6MB (compressed size), Im all ears.

Other People's Babies

The Damrons finally came to their senses and returned to Indianapolis. Well, for 36 hours anyway. They even brought their babblin baby, Mara. She talks even more than Sanna did back in the early days. As you can see from the picture, we dont need showers to look our best. Laurin and I just slap on our matching sweatpants and embrace the day.

Here you can see Justin doing his best creepy Captain Morgan impression. Since Ryan had lost his wedding ring he saw the opportunity to swoop in and acquire another wife/baby. Well done, sir.

Clearly Im my mother's son, inheriting her amazing ability to make other people's babies cry at a moments notice.

Erin used her linebacker-like strength to commandeer Mara's bib. It made its way to her mouth shortly after this pic was taken. Luckily there were parents around or it would have been like a scene from Jaws.

And the winner of the funny baby face contest is.......Erin by an ear!

So Much Thanksgiving Fun

We got quite a group together for our Thanksgiving celebration. Thankfully we were able to find a place to board our dogs or it would have been bananas in the Smith house. As you can see in the picture, frozen fruit salad made a guest appearance. That made my day. The meal came in a close second to the wii as the biggest source of fun/joy for the weekend. As I type this, Riley is saying everyone's name who is in the picture.

Granny Smith continued her mastery of making our girls cry. I forget what she did this time, but it worked. She either hit Sanna with something or took her rocks away. Boo, Grandma.

While Sanna was being tortured by Grandma, Riley worked on her dunks. The rim is regulation height if anyone was wondering. All of our jumping practice at home has paid off.

This is how Riley looked toward the end of her first Thanksgiving dinner (she couldnt eat at the real first one). It was a combination of mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce that did the work of hair product.

Before she messed up her hair/outfit, Riley made time to befriend Mimi. The two shared some great times over the weekend. They mostly discussed how annoying Cosmo is.

Random Assortment

Due to the lack of time spent with the babies this week there isnt much to offer. Most of my pictures were actually taken of Erin this weekend. This one is my favorite, but you will probably see more on www.indynucci.blogspot.com soon. She makes almost as many different faces as Riley.

I loaned my camera to our neighbor who shot a picture of our house as he walked over to bring it back. I used the 'color outline' filter to produce this. I thought all the bare trees looked cool. If we had more lights on in our house at the time you would have seen more detail there.

We went over to the Iannucci's for some of Melissa's home cooking, shephard's pie. By home cooking, we mean she heated up a dish her mother sent her home with from Atlanta. Either way, it was thoroughly enjoyed. Riley mostly enjoyed the tupperware.

Our girls caused minimal trouble. No babies were harmed during our one hour visit. We should keep all trips out of the house under an hour in the future to avoid trouble.

Depsite having already eaten dinner, Sanna insisted on sharing her mother's food. It kept her happy, so we agreed.