Big girl food

Hannah and Leah have gotten very frustrated with me feeding them. They want to do it themselves, and tend to scream at the spoon. So, the past two nights the girls have eaten their dinner without my putting anything into their mouths. They did great with it! Last night they had little pieces of chicken nuggets, and shoveled in mac n cheese. Bananas are a favorite as well. I have to say that it is a strange experience watching them feed themselves like big girls, and they do very well with it. A LOT ended up in their laps though which the dogs loved. Im not ready to give up the baby food, even though they could care less about it, but it seems a lot easier to get in all their vitamins and essentials with those little jars. But for dinner, right before their baths, they can be messy and independent if they want to be. They grow up so fast!

The joys of the door stopper

The girls are so active in the bath now that we have resorted to giving them their baths in our jacuzzi tub. This way they have so much more room to plow each other over and pull each other down, all while stealing whatever bath toy the other one has.

After baths, the girls have a little crawl from the bedroom to the den. (I refuse to carry two crawling babies everywhere). I walked a little ahead of them the other day when I heard the very loud unmistakable sound of the door stopper springing with enthusiasm. Leah had found it! She was having the best time. (She also really enjoys throwing the dogs metal bowl around on the hard wood floors. That makes a FUN sound as well!). Hannah joined right on in, and found yet another one, so we had harmony.

This amused them for a good 5 minutes, and Matt said it was blog worthy. Hey, when it is your own kids, everything is just so darn cute!

9 month checkup

The girls had their 9 month well baby check up today. Just a quick note for my records sake. They got two shots today and they did well with them - as long as we had apple juice ready for them!

Apparently Hannah has a nervous habit of pulling at her ears, which I always worry is a sign of a possible ear infection. Her ears are clear and Dr Bashinsky did a tempanogram and her pressure in her ear is perfect too. So she just likes to pull on her ear for fun. Good to know.

Leah is incredibly flexible. Oddly and supernaturally flexible in her hips especially. I have been a little worried about it (hip dysplasia, etc.) so I mentioned it to him today. He was quite amazed at her flexibily and said it was definitely not normal, but her legs are even and so there should be no reason to worry. Guess we have a little gymnast on our hands!

Otherwise, they are perfectly healthy and right on track as far as developmental milestones. I just need to work on the whole sippy cup thing a little more.

They are big girls. I will say that. It will most likely melt away when they start crawling, and honestly, I am not ready for the fat rolls to go away. But for now they are big. Here are their measurements (for my charting purposes later)

Hannah:
Length - 28 3/4 inches (90%)
Weight - 21 lbs, 6 1/2 oz (95%)
Head circumference - 17 1/2 (75%)

Leah:
Length - 27 7/8 inches (50%)
Weight - 21 lbs, 2 1/2 oz (90%)
Head circumference - 17 1/8 (25%)

So they go back at 1 year! Hard to believe that is only 3 months away....

Trip to the beach and the "swimming twins"

We got back from the beach 2 weeks ago, but I am been so busy since then I have had no time to blog! So I am now doing a little catch up.

I have to say that the trip to Panama City was wonderful. Overall the girls did great, the weather was very nice, and it was a good time to get away and relax. We stayed at some friends condo, which is right next to Pier Park. We were able to walk to restaurants and a huge number of stores, and the girls enjoyed strolling along with us. Many days we would leave the condo around the time they needed a nap, and walk the streets in Pier Park while they snoozed. They even stayed out until 10 a few nights, just sleeping in the stroller! Matts parents were there the last half of the week and it was very nice to visit with them in a stress free situation. And it is always nice to have an extra 2 sets of hands!

They slept well for the most part. We had 2 rough nights but otherwise they both were good. Hannah even slept until 10 or 10:30 some mornings. The definitely got off any schedule they were originally on, but hey, it was vacation!

Unfortunately the beach experience was not as great. We ventured out one day, lugging all our things with our two children, set up their little tent (we had planned on renting us chairs, but they were out) only to give up after about an hour. The water was too full of seaweed and jellyfish to get in, and it was entirely too hot on the beach to not play in the water. So we packed it up again and went to the pool which proved to be a very popular area. We got out there two more times. One day we could get in the water and the girls enjoyed a little snooze on their Mommy and Daddy in the ocean and lounge chairs. The other day they "played" in the sand, but Hannah mainly ate it and Leah just raked it on her legs. :)
We did not get many beach pictures because our hands were always full, but here is one before they freaked out that the ocean was going to get them...


The pool was such a successful place to go that the girls thus became known as "the swimming twins". They had quite a little following. They have absolutely no fear when it comes to the water and people were a little surprised at their willingness to go under (especially Hannah).

Here are some pictures of hannah "jumping" to me


And of her swimming to me - notice her closing her eyes when she knows she is going under


Leah would rather kick and float


One of their favorite days (and ours) was when we went to Shipwreck Island Water Park. They loved crawling around the kiddie area and playing in the wave pool. It was so shallow in such a large section that they just crawled everywhere in the water. It was really fun watching them. I have some cute pictures but I have not had time to upload the ones from the park yet.

Lastly, apparently the twin fascination is heightened ten-fold while on vacation. At restaurants we had a least 10-20 people a night say something to us. In fact, people love to call them chubby! One lady actually picked up Hannahs juice bottle and tried to give it to her. Hannah looked at her like she was crazy at which point this (drunk) woman did not know what to do with the bottle so she tried to just hand it Hannahs right hand. As if she will take the bottle in her hand and say "Thanks!". Drunk lady eventually gave up the whole feeding thing and put the bottle down on the table again and finally left. Good grief.

I am sure I have missed so many things I wanted to mention, but alas, I am now 2 weeks later in my memories and am trying to sum up an entire vacation. Maybe Matt can pinpoint some other moments.

Elba, Alabama

Really this should be enough said...but it is a little side story in our adventure down to the beach.

Ben's Mom, the lady we are renting from, got Ben to warn us that Enterprise had a large detour, so you can go through Elba to get to Panama City. So we took the advice and went through Elba.

As we approached Troy, it was still an hour till lunch time for the girls and they were happy watching Baby Einstein, so instead of stopping in Troy where there and 15 places to eat, we decide we will just stop in Elba, there has to be places to eat right.

Yup, we were right...but there was just one place (at least we were willing to eat at), good ole BK.

So the girls needed to eat and needed to be changed, so we stop. We walk in sit down and start to feed the girls, pretty normal, then once we finished eating it was like the told everyone in the back..hey they are done eating. Twins must be the biggest thing to come through there in quite some time. About half the staff came and talked to us and invaded our personal space like the children were there own all while we were trying to eat our meal. One lady in particular said at least a half a dozen times, I just cannot believe how fat they are. Personally I know our girls have the chunky arms and legs, but they do not have fat tummies or anything and we are not over feeding them, so come on people...most likely it is rude to use the word fat. We got some random story about how one of the workers was a god mother to triplets that were born naturally 10 weeks early and did not have to be in the hospital (somehow I find it hard to believe...but we went with it).

So we packed the girls up and got out of town, an entire two miles later :). It was an experience, so next time you are in Elba and you have some twins on board stop by the BK, you will enjoy the unwanted attention :).

Getting ready for the beach!

We just got the girls down and I am going to start packing for a week at the beach! I am really excited for the break from everyday chores and work! It will be really nice to spend some quality time with the girls and hubby out at the pool/beach.

Packing is going to be fun. I feel like we need so much for these girls. Feeding, bathing, changing, sleeping, and playing requires a lot of stuff. I am thankful for out minivan at this point since it will be packed full.

If I have internet I will be posting pictures while we are away, otherwise I will get them when we get back!

Struggling a little...

It was hard, really hard, when I went back to work. I remembered crying like crazy the night before I had to leave my little 3 month olds. But I survived. 3 months later, I went through a little depression. Every time I went to work I felt like it was just so wrong. Like every part of me was telling me not to leave. But you do what you gotta do. And it was great knowing that my sister was keeping the girls and they were in such good care.

Now we are at another crossroad. Laura has decided that she wants to have another job and get an apartment of her own. I guess when she did not go back to school this year because she missed the deadline, I secretly hoped she would just keep watching the girls until next August. But she wants to "spread her wings" or whatever. She went and looked at apartments today with her potential roommate and apparently they found a place they love.

So there are some other things that need to play out, but it seems as if she is dead set on leaving our little family. Today I went back to the daycare I really liked when we were looking a year ago. They do not have any openings for their infant 3 room, which they would be in until they turn a year old. They do have an opening in their Toddler 1 room. Of course they cannot go into that until they are a year, which will be in October. Laura wants to leave in September 1. So, what will we do for a month?

And the other dilemma.. They have raised their prices - new ownership. 2 babies (or toddlers) would be a little over $1500 a month! Wow.
I guess I never really wanted to put them in a daycare, even though I knew the day would one day come. I am having a hard time with it. I love my job, but I would much rather be home with them.

We are not in the position where I can stay at home right now, so I guess I just have to suck it up and face the inevitable. But, as good at this daycare is, I still teared up when I left.

We have given my sister every possible offer under the sun in the hopes that we can delay the daycare scene, but I have a feeling our attempts are futile. I know it is not the end of the world and children do great in daycare. We have been lucky to put it off for this long. But I cant help not wanting to leave them in the hands of some stranger.

So pray that I find peace with this because I know it is not going to be easy.