some more photos from november in london, with our lively four-year-old, sweet two-year-old, and one month old twins!

our craft walls continued…

we took our first big family day out and spent it at kew gardens:

the babies just continued to fill our home with sweetness…

lizzy dropped moses off at school every morning and then took gabriel out on a little adventure, while ian worked from home (rotating between rooms and usually taking his calls while sitting on the bathroom floor – the only guaranteed quiet space in the flat!) and i cared for the babies, the housework, and my continued recovery.

from a morning walk with the babies soaking up the incredible foliage in kensington gardens:

celebrating guy fawkes day / bonfire night with some indoor sparklers at the dinner table:

one night ian and i got out on a bike ride to see the christmas lights that had gone up so far. it felt sooo amazing to be out on a date with no kids enjoying our city and the fresh air.

the sweetest snuggle bugs:

a pretty restaurant facade in the neighbourhood, and realising we had to send back this snowsuit that i ordered for eve in a newborn size. her feet didn’t even touch the top of the legs of the suit, haha!

a few times i swapped with lizzy in the mornings – she took care of the babies for a couple hours before they were desperate again for milk and i took gabriel out on a little adventure. gabe was such a champ becoming a big brother x2 overnight, and i treasured any one-on-one time i got with him in those first weeks as a family of six!

from a weekend outing to st. james’s park – admiring the views of buckingham palace and whitehall/the london eye, discovering a now-beloved pastime: “stick baseball,” and snapping some photos with the technicolour-in-autumn ivy wall at the bottom of the park:

this is what i looked like most of the time in november – holding a baby or two and completely disheveled:

but in those precious weeks my heart was glowing and growing.

from a morning outing with gabriel and the twins on lizzy’s day off:

when we got moses’s school photo, we had to do a side-by-side with his school picture from the year before. look how much he’s grown!

from an afternoon playing together as a family in hyde park:

some snapshots of common scenes around the house (yes that’s a baby on my chest in addition to in my arm!:

i had to run an errand in mayfair and biked there just after more christmas lights/displays were going up along piccadilly. even after many months of pandemic, in and out of different levels of lockdown, it’s still a bit alarming to see busy parts of the city so not busy.

joy school has always been hugely appreciated and beloved by me and my kids, but even more so this fall when i felt so, so much gratitude for the friends, learning, childcare, and happiness that it blessed our family with as we were going through such a huge transition. gabriel got soooo much joy out of joy school this autumn.

after a few months off, i got to be the joy school teacher again at the end of november. it was so much fun to be with gabriel and his pals. we held joy school in our garden two times a week, and i’ll always have such fond memories of this adorable group learning and playing together there!

ian and i became permanent residents of the united kingdom just before the babies were born, and right after that we applied for citizenship for moses and gabriel (the twins were born citizens). the boys’ certificates of registration as british citizens arrived in november and it was so exciting that they were officially dual citizens!

after these certificates came, we were able to apply for their british passports. here’s some attempts to get a photos that fit in the requirements for the passport application. look at these sweet boys!!!

one afternoon on our walk home we realised that a christmas tree had been put up in our garden! it was a magical, exciting surprise. // these sticker charts are what got the boys ready and out the door in the mornings. that 8-8:30 rush is no joke with two active and often stubborn little boys!

another loaded-up craft wall!

a tiny sliver of the copious, copious amount of love and adoration that was showered on the babies by their big brother moses:

i snapped this photo of the babies when they turned one month old on 13 november. i wrote this about august and eve at four weeks old: they are more and more alert every day, still sharing a tiny bed and drowning in newborn size clothes, and breastfeeding every two hours around the clock. august almost always has an adorably furrowed brow, and he loves being cuddled. eve has the widest eyes that look around in wonder whenever she is awake, and she often flashes milk drunk smiles. we love them so so so much and can’t believe it’s been a month since their incredible birth that changed our world forever. // and first passport photos for the twins!

here’s eve’s huge, wide curious eyes!

we had our photographer friend amelia do a quick 5-minute photo shoot for us on a pretty street in our neighbourhood – to get a great family photo for christmas cards. it was quite a production to get everyone dressed and smiling but it was worth it!

from an outing with daddy to visit the deer at richmond park:

snoozing and growing babies:

lizzy continued to be such a blessing in our lives and home. one kind of silly contribution she made, among the tons of significant ones, is that she found the perfect method to tame gabriel’s wild hair and got him excited about getting his hair done in the mornings. doesn’t he look so handsome?!

from another walk with the babies in kensington gardens on a beautiful morning:

naked and dressed babies on mom and dad’s always unmade bed in the soft morning light:

another passport photo attempt and a capture of gabriel’s growing love for and expertise at puzzles! he mastered these two quickly and did them probably fifty times each.

yep, unmade bed, always. and usually with two babies and a pile of unfolded laundry on top 🙂

we continued our thankful tree tradition, collecting real leaves from the streets and parks of london for the second year in a row. the tree filled up and up throughout the month and took up our normal craft wall space so we made a different wall our space for displaying the boys’ marvelous creations!

enjoying the christmas tree in the garden:

gabes “reading” a book to auggie and a snap during breakfast with the boys’ beloved friend “calix” (someone had randomly given me this huge stuffed animal on the street one day the year before around christmastime – the stranger had won it at the huge “winter wonderland” fair in hyde park and saw that my kids were excited about it).

christmas popped up more and more around the city // the babies started to fill in their snowsuits a tiny bit more…

one evening we went to covent garden, and then through leicester square to picadilly circus to enjoy some sparkly christmastime festivity.

i spent a lot of time with this gigantic tandem breastfeeding pillow, and just snuggling these sweet, sweet little babes!

i guess you can never have enough pictures of newborns sleeping…??

more christmas popping up…
i used to be very against christmas-ing before thanksgiving, but i have completely converted to the joys of embracing christmas-ing start in november.

august and eve on the day they turned six weeks old:

and our complete, full thankful tree. so, so much to be thankful for!!