seven

Happy to be seven months old!!

Caroline

Emily

The cute stickers are pretty useless at this point.  As soon as I stick them on, the girls rip them off and start chewing them.  So they go on the chair.  :)

My favorite thing about these pictures is that Caroline is smiling because Will walked up on the side of the chair and started singing to her.  So sweet!  

{And she's sort of sitting up on her own for the first time, with some help from the armrest}

Will joined too.  These girls love their big brother and are always watching him!

And here is Emily telling me she's pretty much done with pictures.  ;)

Caroline and Emily are pretty adorable at 7 months old.  They love to laugh and smile, and it doesn't take much to earn a giggle.  It's so fun to reach the stage where you don't have to do cartwheels and a full comedy routine to get a grin.  :)  They are getting wigglier and more mobile every week...barrel rolls are a popular way to get around, and they flip on their tummies almost immediately when they get set down now.  Both are pretty easy to console when they get upset...they just want to be held.  I hate when I sometimes have to leave a crying baby while I pick up her sister, but I guess that's the life of twins when mama only has 2 arms.  I have gotten much better at the simultaneous pick-up and double baby hold, but it doesn't work so well when someone gets really worked up and needs some one-on-one attention to calm down.  However, they often seem to alternate so that one is fussier during the day and the other tags in at night.  While this means less down time for us, it's nice to avoid double-super-meltdowns whenever possible!

We're still waiting for some progress towards sleeping through the night.  I think we are definitely ready for a little bit of sleep training, but we are waiting until we are in the new house and have a bit more space before we get going with that, mostly for Will's sake.  Have I mentioned that Caroline can be REALLY loud?  Like....Really.  Loud.  So right now, we are up every few hours and still doing feedings twice a night.  I like to think of it as extra bonus baby snuggle time without a toddler climbing on my knees.

Speaking of feedings, we just started oatmeal cereal this week.  Actually, we tried it once a few weeks ago, but it seemed to make the girls fussy, so we gave it a few weeks and started again this week.  I've just been giving them a chance to try a bit at lunchtime each day, and although I don't think much is going down, they seem to enjoy trying.  Will never loved cereal, but he LOVED food...so I'm excited to try some new things with the girls soon.

How about some more pictures?  :)

oatmeal!!

Caroline

Emily

First time in jeans {actually jeggings, ha!}

sweet little bloomers

Bathtime fun! {C}

{E}

We have the breathable bumpers, which have a little gap where they velcro on...and the girls can peek through at each other!  So cute.

There aren't many clothes that can be passed down from big brother to little sisters, but I always loved this little yellow "hug me" shirt when Will was a baby, so Caroline got to wear it the other day.

I turned my back for 2 seconds, and C barrel rolled across the room!  {she started next to E!}

We are loving the cooler weather and took a short walk yesterday.  It had to be short because carrying two almost-14-pound babies in carriers is a back killer!  Sheesh!

Being 7 months old is exhausting!

lunchtime entertainment

A frequent part of any lunchtime around here is making movies of Will singing his favorite songs.  Today's choice was "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."  Sounds like he understands the rules of the game pretty well, right?  ;)

c + e baptism

Caroline and Emily were baptised today! We were very happy that Reverend Mark Craig was able to do their baptism, because he baptised Will 2 years ago.  He's retiring later this year, so we made sure to get on the schedule in plenty of time.  It was a wonderful service, and standing up there with the girls made me a little emotional after everything we went through during the pregnancy, hospital stay, and NICU time.  God is so good, and we are very very blessed to have three healthy, awesome, beautiful children.  

Speaking of awesome children...against ALL odds, we managed to make it through the entire hour long service with all three kids sitting with us!  I thought for sure that Will would have to be taken out of the sanctuary, but thanks to his entertaining grandparents, uncles, and soon-to-be aunt, he made it the whole time with relatively little disruption.  {not sure the guy sitting in front of us would agree, since he had two strong little feet kicking the back of his pew constantly...}  And sweet Emily and Caroline hung in there wearing their fancy dresses for the whole hour as well.  They did great for the actual baptism and then took naps and bottles during the service.  I never in a million years expected it to go so smoothly, but what a great surprise!   

Sweet girls after their baptism

I think everyone's attempts to get Will and the babies to look at the camera were cracking the adults up while the children were only marginally impressed. 

The whole family {minus Aunt Ryan who was out of town}

 These babies are so lucky to be so loved!

first day of school and cookies!

Will's first day of school was today!  He is attending the same Mother's Day Out program he went to last year, still just one day a week.  And I can say with certainty that this first day was far easier on both of us than the last one!  Will woke up today saying "Um, we don't want to go to school today," and I had fears that drop off was going to be pretty rough.  Then we walked in the building and it was like a scene from a horror movie....every doorway had kids screaming and crying as they were pulled from their moms.  {In all fairness, it may have been like that last year, but I was too focused on my OWN screaming crying baby to notice.}  So we got to Will's room, and the kid being dropped off in front of us was NOT pleased about it, and as I felt Will clinging tighter, I was ready for him to lose it.  Then...he looked in the room and saw his teacher and all the toys, and he asked to get down and go in!  He ran right in and started playing without even looking back.  Yay!  I definitely have felt so much better about him being at school after a good drop off.  Matt is off work today {we closed on our new house this morning!} so he is picking Will up right now.  Hopefully he had a fabulous day! 

All ready to go with his backpack!

Totally didn't notice his bedhead until after we took pictures...

Yesterday, while I took the girls to their 6 month check up, Will spend the afternoon with Mimi and Duke.  When we got back from the doctor, we all made cookies!  This was Will's first cookie making experience, and he had a blast.  He wasn't that interested in rolling or cutting out the dough, but adding sugar and sprinkles was a HIT.

rolling the dough with Duke

"W" cookie!

the girls watched...poor babies had just had FOUR shots each

And of course, he sampled the goodies!

Such fun!!  Thanks Mimi & Duke!

6 months

I know, I know...every monthly baby post on every blog starts with some version of, "I can't believe it's been X months," or "where did the time go?"....but SERIOUSLY.  I am supposed to have brand new babies, right?  And apparently they are half a year old!?  Sweet baby girls.  We will go see Dr. Denison tomorrow, but I weighed them at home today, and I think they're both a little over 13 pounds.  They've come a long way from 4 pound preemies!!

The girls' adjusted age is 4 months, and I think they're hitting about the same milestones Will hit at 4 months.  Both girls started rolling over {back to front} this month, and they are so cute showing off their new skill.  They are still nursing, and they are great about taking bottles when I'm not around.  That doesn't happen often, but it sure is nice to have the option! 

I would love to say that they are sleeping like champs, but sleep is still a work-in-progress around here.  They sort of regressed this month...not sure if it was related to catching their first little cold, or if they're just growing a lot, or maybe even starting teething?  But for a week or so, they were back to eating every three hours around the clock, which isn't so fun for anyone.  {and of course, when I say "they," I mean my sweet girl Caroline}  But we've been working on it this week, and I think things are heading in the right direction.  

Let's see...other milestones this month include sleeping in their own cribs {except I put C back in the rock & play sleeper last night, and it really seemed to help her sleep, so maybe not so much for her?}, laughing, shrieking, sitting up in their high chairs during our family mealtimes, sitting in bumbos, and saying goodbye to the beloved woombies and hello to regular sleep sacks.  Busy girls!  And now for the pictures...

The stickers didn't last long this month...as soon as I would back up far enough to take the picture, one or both babies would grab the stickers off, wad them up, and put them in their mouths.

 Most of the pictures had some combination of hands in mouth, dress pulled up, etc...

Emily

Caroline

We were having fun taking pictures and ended up putting our bedspread over the sofa as sort of a backdrop and having a mini photo shoot. 

 Emily ROCKED it, and Caroline just wasn't feeling it the first time around.  We had a LOT of pictures like this...sorry, C.  After a nap, she came back and finished strong.  :)

Caroline {see...strong finish}

Emily

Caroline will dislike me someday for sharing this, but during the first attempts when she was struggling, we had a ton of what I like to call the "bitter beer face" pics...

Will helped.

 Love my girls!

We took a few early morning pics with pjs on too.  :)

Caroline

Emily

hilarious...I checked the time stamp on these, and this one is exactly 10 seconds after the one above.

Highs and lows, folks.

And I can't end the post with a mad baby, so here are smiley babies!

{on Labor Day}

Happy 6 months, sweet baby girls!