What's Up?

First off, Nicole and Kaitlyn want to wish Gamma a very Happy Birthday!!!! I don't know if Gamma ever even reads this to keep up to date on us, but we sure hope so.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

The colds haven't completely left us, unfortunately. I think everyone is feeling just fine, but those pesky noses keep running. I should have bought stock in Kleenex.

On a fun note, we start swimming lessons this weekend. I'll have plenty of photos to share with the babies in their cute swim suits.

2 Babies + 2 Colds = A Long Week

Both Kaitlyn and Nicole have colds. Stinks!!! That has kept me very busy and probably why it's been a while since my last post. I've been washing their sheets every night, as well as PJs and sleep sacks. We have enough PJs that I wouldn't have to do laundry every day, but we currently only have one summer time sleep sack that fits and only one spare set of sheets, so laundry has been my life.

They first got sick Saturday night when they both woke up 2 times each, and of course not at the same time, so that was 4 trips down to the nursery Saturday night. What fun. It's been getting better, but they are still sick after 5 days.

Anyway, Kaitlyn did an official baby crawl tonight. I guess she's trying to move on from creeping. It wasn't much, but she did it. Hopefully she'll keep practicing and get even better. Nicole is showing much more interest in her tummy. These past few days, I've even found her sleeping on her tummy which was unheard of before. And when she's on her tummy playing with toys, it seems as if she's contemplating movement. A good start!

That's all for now. Busy, busy, busy...

Milestone Moments

The babies had a big week. I think I previously reported that Kaitlyn could pull up. We went ahead and lowered both cribs when that happened even though she couldn't get from laying down to sitting (and she couldn't pull up from laying down). We didn't want to find out the hard way in the middle of the night one evening that she had figured out how to sit up and then pulled up and fell out of the crib. So, anyway, we lowered the cribs. Good thing because this week she figured out how to go from laying to sitting. A big moment.

Nicole is getting better at standing unassisted. She doesn't pull up to get there, but if we stand her up and let go, she'll stand. It's great. I wanted to write down in the baby book that she did it for about 30 seconds (I don't think 3 seconds or anything counts for the baby book). Mike said it was more like 10 seconds. We're compromising on 20 seconds, so it will go in the book!!!

And back to Kaitlyn...she said her first word!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DaDa of course. Darn it, but I hear that it truly is harder for a baby to say MaMa. And she even proved that to us herself. She's been babbling dadadadadadadadadadadada for about a week now. She just finally shortened it to just DaDa. We still get the babble too, but a word is a word. She does occassionally say just the DaDa part.

Oh, and Nicole is still not "happy" on her belly for long, but she has begun to tolerate it more than in the past which is good. Maybe she'll hit some milestones if she hangs out on her belly more. Who knows?

Now for the pictures....we went to Portrait Innovations this weekend. They give you a CD, so I was able to upload a few shots. Enjoy. (They give you a CD of the whole shoot, so these aren't all photos we bought, but they sure are cute.)





This next one was supposed to be a cute shot of her on her belly looking up, but she started to roll over as they were clicking the photo. So, instead (if you ask me) she looks like she's posing for some cheesy magazine photo shoot. Oh well. And Kaitlyn was supposed to be on her belly too, but she pushed herself to sitting. All in all, the belly photos didn't go over so well.

We're having a Sesame Street themed party for their first birthday which inspired this next round of photos. I thought I could incorporate them into the invite or the thank you notes or something. I brought our dancing Elmo doll to be in the photos too, but we didn't get that far. Good thing we have two months before their birthday.

And this is why....NOT a happy Nicole!!!

What a Strange Night

This first part has nothing to do with the babies, so I apologize. I'll get to them next.

Mike has done some odd things in the middle of the night before, leading me to believe that maybe he's got some kind of sleep thing. It's not necessarily sleep walking and it's not necessarily talking in his sleep, but stuff like that. So, last night, around 3am or something, I awaken to my husband standing on our bed fiddling with our ceiling fan. At this point, I say to him, "What are you doing?" He responds that he's changing the light bulb. Now, in his defense (....I'm laughing so hard as I type this by the way....), our ceiling fan takes two light bulbs. One has been burnt out for about 2 weeks now. So, from that respect, it did need to be changed, but at 3am???? And, not to mention, he didn't have a new light bulb with him. He was just taking the cover off the fan. STRANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, so that was actually my second interruption last night. The first one came around 11:30pm when I awoke to Nicole crying. This has been going on for about 2 weeks now. Every few nights, we now hear her crying in the middle of the night. From what I've read about the 9 month age, it can either be night terrors or separation anxiety. Mike and I are trying to not go in there and see if she goes back to sleep (cause we don't want her to think that we'll come running every time she cries...vicious cycle). However, I don't want to ignore her basic needs either. Anyway, we ususally break after 10 minutes. So, last night, I went in and cuddled with her for about 10-15 minutes and then put her back. She did cry again off and on (mostly off) for about the next 10 minutes, but then she went back to sleep.

Needless to say, I'm going to be very tired today.

Last update. The babies had their 9 month checkup last Monday. I'm a bad mom and don't remember the exact height and weight figures, but I know the percentiles. Nicole was 85th for height and 92nd for weight. She had been 95th for weight at the 6 month check, and I was surprised to learn that she had only gone down 3 percent in weight because I actually think she's thinned out quite a bit. Well, this can all be explained by the fact that she was 75th for height and went up 10 percent. So, she has thinned out.

Kaitlyn was 50th percent for height and weight. This is a decline in both areas for Kaitlyn (not too bad, maybe 5 percent or so in each), but she appears to be exactly on track for her age, so you can't be disappointed with that. I have to admit, I was hoping that they would both be tall, but maybe just Nicole. Who knows at this point.

If I had to guess at the actual figures for height and weight, here's what I'd say. I believe I'm pretty close:

*Nicole was 21lb and something oz (it was high...on the way to 22lbs) and 28 1/2 inches tall.

*Kaitlyn was 18lb and something oz (maybe 6 or 7oz, so right in the middle) and 27 1/2 inches tall.

I may not be exact on those figures, but what I do remember for sure is that Nicole is now just over 3lb heavier than Kaitlyn and exactly 1 inch taller.

Happy Reading. That was a long one. And have a great day!!!