Santa!

Sorry it's been so long since I posted. We haven't had internet at our house for over two weeks now. The girls got to see Santa today. They did so well, especially since they had to wait 45 minutes in line. I don't have much time now, but I hope to fill you in next week on the new happenings around our house. I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!!

Out of touch

Since last Monday we haven't had internet or cable at our house. The cable I don't miss much, but the internet I'm addicted too! Thank goodness I can sneak in some 'net time at work once in a while! I feel so disconnected from the world. I have no idea what's going on in the news, or on Facebook (lol!).

The girls are doing good! They are 6 1/2 months old now. We had their Christmas pictures taken on Friday afternoon. Here are a few the photographer sent me. I'll get the CD with all of them sometime this week. This lady does a pretty good job for not being a professional. She works with my mom and takes pictures for fun. Can't beat free!

I think the family pic turned out pretty good, although you can tell I'm MELTING in my turtleneck. My fact is so red.

Katie's hair was pretty wild that day. We tried to tame it with hairspray, and it held for a while, but then it started to lift back up. She looks like a peacock when it is left alone. Pretty funny.

I love this one of both of them. So sweet!

Kaitlyn loved the big ornaments.

Natalie tried to eat them so here is a good shot without them in her mouth - lol

I'm pretty satisfied so far with the pictures. I can't wait to see the rest of them. Sometime this week we HAVE to get them to the mall to see Santa, I don't want to miss him! We also have their first ornaments to buy and their stockings.

The girls also went to their first Christmas party on Saturday. We didn't get any pictures of it, but it was fun. They did better than I thought. There were a bunch of people there and they got passed around. They were just full of smiles. Nap time was not fun since the noise was pretty loud, but we survived. It was the first time my dad's side of the family had met them.

We still do not know what we're doing on Christmas Eve or Day...it's always a battle with Hubby and me as to what we're going to do. We need to decide quick!

Okay, enough blogging, I gotsta get some reading in before I leave work today. I'm so behind on reading other peeps' blogs!

6 month check up

All's good in da 'hood!

Stats:

Natalie -
13lbs
26 1/2"
3rd percentile

Kaitlyn -
15lbs
27"
26th percentile

I got a couple of little girls! K has stayed pretty consistent in her weight gain and the percentile she falls into. Natalie on the other hand has slowly dropped off. Being in the 3rd percentile is a little concerning. We are going to feed her every 2 hours now instead of every 3. We talked with the doc about staying at 3 hours but upping the amount, but with her spit-up issues we figured that probably wasn't a good idea. I hope that helps her gain some weight.

It was a pretty routine check up. There were no real issues to talk about, but somehow the appointment lasted an hour. The girls did have to get some vaccines - 4 injections and one oral. So sad! It worked out this time that Hubby got to hold them while they got their shots and I got to hold the other one out in the hallway so the crying one didn't make the other cry.

Later on tonight Hubby got a phone call from the doctor. Apparently the nurse screwed up and only gave the girls three injections and the oral. She thought it was just four vaccines, not four injections. Hubby said the doc sounded really embarrassed and apologized for the screw up. Thankfully the one she missed was just the booster of the Hep B. They've already had two of them and it's not like they are exposed to it. He said we can have them get in next month when we bring N in to get weighed again or at their 9 month appointment.

I'm not really sure how I feel about it all. I'm really glad the doc double checked and fessed up - in fact he called the nurse at home to get it all figured out. At the same time though, what if it was something more important, like an overdose or something. I don't know what I'd do if something happened to my girls, especially from a stupid error.

So far tonight N seems to be sleeping well - after putting up quite a fight to go to sleep. K on the other hand went down easy but has woken up a dozen times...so who knows what the rest of the night is going to be like. I purposefully made their appointment on a Friday afternoon so I could have Saturday to recover if the night was bad.

Well, that about sums it up. Natalie for sure goes back in a month for a weight check but we could bring K to be weighed too. We could do the Hep B booster at the time or wait til the next appointment which is at 9 months.

I'll leave you with a few pics (sorry you have to click the links. Blogger hates me.)...

Both girls in K's crib watching the mobile

Katie on Thanksgiving

Natalie on Thanksgiving

6 months!!

First, let me say sorry. I tried several times to upload some pics, but Blogger just was not cooperating.

Anyway...

The girls turned 6 months last Friday!! I can't believe it. On one hand time has gone by fast, but on the other, it has gone sooooo slooooooow...

They are both eating solids now. Natalie just caught on last week. She's has some cereal, cereal mixed with squash, and just yesterday some cereal and green beans. The green beans did not go over well. She took a few bites then started gagging so we stopped. I'm proud of her though that she's finally interested. She'll actually open her mouth for the spoon! :0D

Katie has been on solids for over a month. She's had quite the variety: cereal, bananas, sweet potatoes, squash, green beans, and peas. All have gone over pretty well. The first try with peas she shivered and gagged, but she seems to like them more now. She wasn't a huge fan of the beans, but she ate them all so they couldn't have been that bad.

They still aren't rolling over consistently. They both get up on their sides all the time and randomly roll (according to the grandmas), but I've only seen then do it a couple of times.

Natalie is finally discovering her legs. She has been quite the wet-noodle. You couldn't get her to stand for anything. The past week or so though she has shown more interest she'll stand for a few seconds. I think the two exersaucers we've gotten have helped. She uses her legs more. She also has been using them to kick in the boucy seat to get her rocking. I don't know what the change in her was, but it's good to see her do more than lay like a worm all the time.

Katie is little Miss Active as usual. She's always moving. She tries to sit up a lot. We'll lay her on her back and she curls trying to sit up. She loves to stand. It's so funny to see how proud she gets of herself when she stands. She just looks around smiling. She is quite the kicker too...and not only in the bouncy seat these days. It seems whenever you touch her to change her clothes or diaper she spazzes out thrashing around. It's cute for about 3 seconds, then it gets annoying since it's almost impossible to get her diaper on straight or her feet in the pant-legs.

Natalie is officially in 6 month clothes exclusively. She still wears Costco's 1-2 size diapers, but they are pretty small. We have a bunch left that I was trying to use up, but after the poopy blow-out we had tonight, I'm not sure that's such a good idea.

Kaitlyn is in mostly 9 month clothes, but can still wear some 6 month. She seems pretty long to me. She was in Costco's size 3 diapers, but since we ran out, she wearing size 3 Pampers (which seem bigger than Costco's).

They are both into grabbing everything. When you try to burp them they grab at your face, eyes, nose, necklace, earrings, whatever they can get their clammy little hands on.

Still no teeth yet. I wish we could get the initial teething over with so we know what we're in for. I think Natalie will be first. She chomps on her fingers all the time, drools, etc...

They have their check-up on Friday. I'll try to give you a timely post with updates, and of course pictures :0D

1st Restaurant Experience

My mom and I were running errands yesterday and decided to stop for lunch. We just had Natalie with us and it was about time for her to eat as well. I had the (dreamland) thought that we could stop at a restaurant, order food and gab while Natalie ate a bottle and sat playing in her car seat.

Ha! I was totally dreaming!

It may have actually worked if we chose a quieter/calmer restaurant than Appl.ebees. I never realized how loud that place is. With the loud music, clanging dishes people talking it was sensory overload for the poor kid. I barely set her car seat on the floor and she was screaming. She was so upset she wouldn't eat. We managed to order our food and told the waitress we'll need it to go.

I took Natalie back outside and finished feeding her in the car and we took our food back to my place to eat.

Next time, we'll have to make sure it's a little calmer place, and the poor kid isn't tired and starving (bad mommy!).

On a positive note though, the girls got their Christmas dresses and shoes yesterday. Now we're just on the hunt for black tights. Any suggestions on stores?

The great feeding dilema

I may be making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be, but now that we are introducing solid foods I'm really confused on the amounts my girls should be eating. I know they still need a lot of formula, but does it stay the same when they are getting solid foods too? Ugh...

Another dilemma is poor Natalie. She has been the spit-up queen for quite a while. We started off with Dr. Brown's bottles when they were small. They are the 4oz size. Well, once they outgrew those we just bought some regular ol' bottles. Nothing fancy. She had gotten up to 6oz per feeding, but she seemed to barf up a lot of it. I know babies spit up, but this was just abnormal. So, we decided to cut back to 4oz, use the Dr. B's and feed her a little more often. This has seemed to help, but I'm still concerned. Their doc is being called today. She's also always been the smaller of the two, and not that it's a big deal, but I just want to make sure she's growing properly and getting enough nutrition.

When it comes to the solid food thing, Natalie doesn't seem that interested, which is fine. I know right now the formula is more nutritious. So we keep trying out cereal. But I'm definitely letting her go at her own pace.

Katie on the other hand is obsessed with watching me eat. She is a good cereal eater. And yesterday she tried sweet potatoes for the first time and LOVED them. With her I'd like to keep moving with the solids, but I don't know how to proceed. Do I keep up with the same amount of formula and just see how much solids she eats afterward? I've been doing it backwards, I discovered. I've been feeding her solids before the bottle, but I guess I should let her eat all her bottle first and then let her eat the solids that way she gets the most nutrition that way. I guess that makes sense since sometimes she gets too impatient waiting for the spoon and would rather suck on a bottle.

At their four month appointment N & K weighed 11.5 and 12.5lbs respectively. They are little girls. I think N was in the 8th percentile and K was in the 22nd. Like I said, I don't care that they are small as long as they are continuing to grow properly, and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize that by changing their feedings.

Anywho, I just have been thinking about that a lot in the last few days. Decisions, decisions...

In counting weeks, the girls will be six months on Wednesday, but month-wise, they won't be until the 26th...Now is about when it's recommended they start being introduced to solids anyway.

Sigh.

Halloween at the office

I took the girls to my office today to "trick or treat". We actually just visited everyone in the office. Surprisingly Mit did great and Bur was the crabbier one. I thought the roles would be reversed. Kermit was passed around and got held by a few people. She smiled a lot and talked a bit. Wilbur smiled a lot too but she ended up getting really grouchy because she was tired...because she won't nap (see previous post). I held her for a while until it was time to go. They both ended up sleeping in the car.

I intended for them to wear their little kitty headbands with their kitty shirts, but I forgot the headbands. They did wear shoes though - for only the second time. It was cute. I had two pairs of black dress up shoes, but the second pair didn't fit Bur. I ended up finding a different pair of shoes that my friend gave me that worked perfect. They are little high-tops with pink laces and pink flannel-print skulls on the side. I'm totally not into the whole "cute skull" thing, but they are actually pretty darn cute. She got lots of compliments :0) Perfect for Halloween.

I'm not sure what we're doing on Sunday. Hubby wants to leave the house while the neighborhood is treating, but I think we can just keep the porch light off and shut the blinds. We'll see.

I know there were some pics taken today at the office. I'll post them when I get them. In the meantime, here is a pic from the photo shoot they had a couple of weeks ago. And our second family pic :0)

Wanted: sleep

Actually, it hasn't been TOO bad lately...but it could definitely be better. Mit has been going to bed and napping pretty well. These days we can just wrap her up and lay her in bed. She puts herself to sleep. Her sister on the other hand is not napping well lately. She only sleeps in the swing or if you rock her. Once she's asleep she wakes up within minutes when you lay her in her crib. It's tough. Tonight my mom took Mit home for the night so I could work on Bur.

I rocked her. She fell asleep. I laid her down. She woke up. I let her cry, then put the pacifier back in her mouth. I never picked her up. I had to re-wrap her a couple of times because she snuck a hand out. It took about an hour, but she finally fell asleep. I'm pooped.

It's 9pm on a Friday night and I'm headed to bed. At least Bur sleeps all night and probably won't wake until 7-8am. Mit on the other hand goes down easy, but has to eat at least once in the middle of the night and it up about 5:30 am. Yeck. I'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.

Missing my Grandma

I don't know why, but I've been so emotional about my grandma's death lately. She died fairly suddenly last May, the day before Mother's Day. We weren't actually that close, but I did hear that I was her favorite grand kid. She lived near me my whole life up until about 7 years ago. While she lived out here I didn't see her as often as I could have. After she moved back to WI, I probably had seen her 3 times. I found out on a Thursday she wasn't well, my mom flew back there on Friday and she died on Saturday. I chalked it up to being almost 8 months pregnant for being so emotional about not being able to go back to see her and attend her service, but I guess it wasn't just hormones.

Even now, almost 6 months later, I still cry when I think about her - and I think about her a lot. I think about how she knew about my infertility, and how excited she was that I got pregnant and with twins. I get so sad knowing she died just weeks before the girls were born. She never got to see them. I get angry that she died when I was so far along and even if I could have afforded the last minute airfare, that I wasn't allowed to fly anyway. The last time I saw her was two years ago this Thanksgiving. I get so sad.

Yesterday a coworker missed work due to her grandfather's death. She came in this morning and we were talking about it. I think I got more emotional than she did. Even as I write this, I'm teary eyed.

I'm am thankful though, that my girls have young grandparents and they should be around for a long time. AND they have good grandparents that will spend time with them and have fun with them. That is something I didn't get from my own grandparents.

I am also thankful that even though they will never know their great-grandma they do get to hold on to some of her things. My mom brought back two quilts they girls can use on their big-girl beds, two small, framed Capodimonte pieces and I got a couple of pairs of her earrings. My mom asked me if there was anything of grandma's that I remembered and would like to have, that's how I got the Capodimonte pieces. It's just lucky she brought back two small ones instead of one, that way I can pass those on to my girls as a keepsake from their great-grandma.

Nom! Nom! Nom!

Bittersweet

I'm sure this could be a title for many posts as the girls get older. Tonight, it's for Kermit, and the fact that she no longer wants to be rocked to sleep. It's actually a relief that she doesn't need it anymore, since 4 nights a week a put the girls to bed alone, but I miss that cuddling and bonding time already. For a while now, Hubby has been putting her to bed that way at nap time when he's home alone during the week. She's gotten to the point now where she doesn't want to be rocked. Period. I try, but she fights me. She squirms and cries. I put her down and most of the time she doesn't make a peep. If she does squawk it's usually for only a couple of minutes. It is nice, but kinda sad.

Bur, on the other hand, is still a handful. Man, she used to be the easy one. She'd go down easy, sleep for hours, blah, blah, blah. Now, she takes FOREVER to rock, most of the time she's awake in less than 5 minutes and won't fall asleep again unless she's rocked. I know this isn't the ideal way to put her to bed, but up to this point, we've just kind of stuck with what works. We need to figure out something different though. I don't want to be rocking and packing a two year old to bed every night.

On a good note, I think I've got a bedtime routine, finally. We've always basically did bottle, jammies then bed, but it wasn't always that way. We seem to have fallen into a routine, since the girls have been eating around 5:30 -6pm every night. The last few days I've implemented the new routine: bottle, jammies, book, bed. The girls LOVE books! They both reach out and grab on to either the book or the pictures. I want to get some of those books that have different textures in them. I think they'd like it.

Anyway, like I said, I'm sure this is the first of many bittersweet moments with the girls, but it doesn't make this one any less emotional.

Terrible Two's can't be worse than the terrible 4 months, right?

Four months...how I loathe thee. I know "they" always say once you get used to something it changes. Well ain't that the truth with these girls!

In the beginning, Bur was the super easy baby, just smiles all the time. She'd nap for hours, sleep all night, blah, blah, blah...Fast forward a few months and now she's the hardest one to put to bed. She pretty much doesn't nap at all now. Mit is the easier one. She and Hubby seem to have a routine down during the day while I'm at work. Lately I've been coming home and she's asleep in her crib. Wilbur on the other hand is either barely sleeping swaddled in the swing, or she's wide awake. The.Kid.Doesn't.Sleep. If you rock her to sleep and put her in her crib she's out for maybe 5 minutes - tops! It's really turned into a nightmare. By 4pm she is super crabby, you can't entertain her. I try to get her to nap for a while again, but it's a no-go. Finally she eats again around 6pm and that's it. She's done, zonked...at SIX. Thankfully though, that kid sleeps through the night. She's usually up between 7-9am.

On the other hand, while Kermit may be a better napper, she is not great sleeper at night. I guess I can't really complain that much, since she is sleeping about 5 hours at a time, but she does wake up to eat once or twice. And she WILL NOT sleep past 6:30am. Ever.

Between the two of them lately, Hubby and I are just exhausted. Thankfully, both the grandma's took a girl on Friday night, so we had a good night's sleep finally.

This whole "phase" has lasted a couple of weeks and I'm SO ready for it to be over. Tell me it ends soon, please. PLEASE?

What's in a name?

Well...I've debated to use the girls' real names or stick with their nicknames. I think for my peace-of-mind I'll use their nicknames.

You may be wondering how the heck we came up with Kermit and Wilbur...well, it's easy. When little K was a newborn she kept her legs tucked underneath her body all the time. They were always curled up. We have some photos of her on her belly with her legs curled up and she looks like a frog, hence Kermit.

Wilbur's name did not come from looks...but size - and no, she's not a pig. It's cause Wilbur in Charlotte's Web is the "runt," the small fry. She's always weighed less, and is a little shorter. Because Hubby and I can't leave well enough alone...we even got lazy and shortened their names. They mostly go by Mit and Bur.

I know, right?

One week old

Welcome!

Hello! Welcome the the girls' new blog!

If you just found us, please feel free to follow along.

If you've jumped over here from my first blog - thanks for sticking with us!

As you may or may not know, Hubby and I tried to have kids since August 2005. We started fertility treatments in November 2007, since I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and did not ovulate on my own. If you are interested in that journey and how we arrived at twindom, click here. Since that blog was dedicated to my fertility journey, I thought it only fitting to create a new blog for the journey we will experience raising our sweet girls.

In the other blog it covers their birth story and life up til now (almost 5 months!!). If I have a chance/time, I will move the other posts over...but...that probably won't happen - just sayin'...