The O'Malley's: California

We had SUCH a good time in California! At first I was a little nervous since I was traveling all by myself with the twins, but they did sooo well on the airplane. Not to brag or anything, but not only do I have the cutest kids in the world (in my opinion) but they're also incredibly well-behaved! They both have such easy temperaments and rarely cry unless they're hungry or overtired. Even when they 'cry' it's really more like fussing most of the time.

We had two seats so I held one in my lap and put one in the car seat next to me. The first flight was in the morning and they were wide awake for most of it but only got fussy a few times. When that happened, I just switched them up and held the fussing one, who usually settled down within a few seconds. They played with their toys and looked out the window and smiled at the person sitting next to us. (I would have given anything to know what went through that person's mind when they first sat down next to me and my 4 month old twins, they must have thought they were in for the worst flight of their life!) But the boys charmed both of our seatmates who eventually were practically begging me to hold them. The flight attendants even told me that they had never seen such calm and quiet babies on a flight before. They were so good to us too, they helped me load all the gear onto the plane (by far the most difficult part of traveling alone) and were constantly offering to hold the boys if I needed to use the bathroom. They helped me make bottles and dimmed the lights once when I needed to rock Cullen to sleep in the back. And my stroller made getting through the airport a breeze. The carseat that I took on the plane just snapped into the front seat of the stroller, I stowed all of our carry-on bags in the storage basket under the seats and it even has a cup holder for my Starbucks. There I was, strolling through the airport, sipping on my latte and laughing to myself at all of the sympathetic looks I was getting!

And of course, once we landed in LA, I had more than enough help from all of the eager grandparents, aunts, uncles, great-aunts and uncles, extended family and family friends that were waiting for us! We took it easy all week, mainly hanging out at my Mom's apartment by the pool. The weather was perfect! And the boys really seemed to like their pool floats I got for them. Whenever they got bored, there were more than enough volunteers to sit in the shade with them so that I could lay in the sun.

We also took the boys to Disneyland twice, once on Friday afternoon and once on Tuesday afternoon. They were much more interested in it this time around and didn't sleep the entire time either. They even went on their first ride, It's a Small World! As far as I could tell, they enjoyed it too, they were looking all around at the bright colors and moving characters and hearing the happy music.

Besides the pool and Disneyland, we didn't do much else. It was a really fun, relaxing week filled with lots of admirers for the boys and lots of good food for Mommy! Below are tons of pictures from our trip:

They finally got to meet their Uncle Jon, and he obviously has the magic touch with babies :-)

Cullen splashing in the pool with Mommy

Jack (if you click on the picture, you'll see that he's raising one eyebrow. I wonder where he got that from?)

Jackson loving the pool

Mommy loving the sunshine

Cullen (yes that's technically a girl's float, but what if we have a girl someday? She'll need a pool float too!)

Auntie Rachel on the Disneyland tram with her boys

Their first ever Disneyland ride!

My Mom bought them these cute onesies (which are size 18 months, but she couldn't resist trying them on) and those ridiculously cute sunglasses. We all laughed so hard when we first put those on their faces!

My Mom also kept up with the tradition of bathing them every single night (which is way more often than they get bathed at home). I figure once they start eating food next month and sitting up then they'll need daily baths, until then, I'll continue being lazy...