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Friday, April 30, 2010

Hay, Hats and Hair


You've got to make hay while the sun shines- or pick flowers while the sun shines, in this case.

Our lilacs are in full bloom!



Yes, I know- we need to weed!


But, when the sun doesn't shine and the temperature drops 15 degrees overnight, my kids still like to make hay...


They'll just do it with some rain boots, snow gloves and a hat.


Oh yeah, and with flop flops too (guess it can't be that cold!)


And don't mind that Mitch is still in his pajamas...


And you can also make hay inside, in a variety of hats and with different games strewn about (with no clothes on).



On a separate note, I think Ben may be right. This little lady looks like she's going to have red hair!


What do you think?


It doesn't look quite as red in person- the camera makes it look a little more reddish. If this color stays, that would make 3 red heads out of 4 kids. I think it's a little too early to completely rule Leah out as our 4th red head, but I think she could be my only brown haired baby (although from day one, I thought Lexi was for sure going to be brown, and a dark brown at that, but it looks like she has proven me wrong). I have been told by strangers in public that red heads are a dying breed. Mass producing red heads does not seem to be a problem for us, so the Andros' may keep this breed alive all by ourselves. Stay tuned in the months to come to see if Leah joins the rest of the crew, or sticks with her mother and stays brown...

Thursday, April 15, 2010

6 months

My sweet babies turned 6 months old on April 6th. A half year has already gone by. It has been a busy 6 months, no doubt, but the thought that in another 6 months I will have 2 one year olds is a little sad (and a little scary too...) I took them to the doctor on Monday and here are their current stats:


Leah:

Weight: 14 lbs, 11 ounces (25%)
Length: 25 in (25%)
Head: 41 cm (10%)

Alexis:

Weight: 14 lbs 3 oz (10%)
Length: 24.5 inches (10%)
Head: 42 3/4 cm (50%)

It is official for the first time- Leah is bigger! She has always been a pound or a half pound smaller, but she is now a half pound heavier and half an inch longer. She still has a smaller head, which is one of the first things people notice as a difference between them.

Here are a few things the girls have been up to in the past few months:

Lexi has always had more hair, but it is starting to get a bit longer on top. Chloe takes it on as a personal job to "spike" Lexi's hair.

Leah has been our bald little beauty since day one. Chloe has been known to introduce the girls to people by saying, "And this is Leah, the bald one." But just in the last 2 weeks or so, Leah's peach fuzz has started to sprout and although she by no means has hair to brag about, she is no longer bald! (In the picture above, you can see some of the hair sticking up- we love it!)

About 3 weeks ago, we moved the girls into their own cribs to sleep. I would come in after nap time or in the morning to get them and would find them head to feet (like above) or head to head in terribly uncomfortable positions that indicated they were hurting each other by kicking or banging heads during sleep time. They are rolling and twisting and moving so much now that they just can't share a bed anymore and sleep well. They have been doing great in separate cribs and sleep through the night and take great naps.

But with their new found freedom of their own cribs, they have been moving around even more and have found themselves in quite a pickle. I found Leah like this during naptime one day. That can't be comfortable! So I decided to switch her to the other "crib" (our co-sleeper which is a glorified pack and play) which has no bars to get legs stuck in. But the next day I found....

Alexis in the exact same position! Oh well! I now sleep Lexi in the big crib- I can get her out of that position and she'll go back to sleep, whereas Leah would cry if I helped her and then didn't stay to chat or take her with me when I left.

Feeding time has been going well- both girls are mastering it quickly and quite liking it. Leah now leans forward to intercept the food more quickly if she is really hungry- waiting for the spoon to get all the way to her mouth just takes too long, apparently.

Lexi enjoys the food too!


We went out to one of our favorite restaurants a few weeks ago and let the girls try sucking on some honey dew. Leah could not get enough. She was sucking so hard and making such loud smacking noises.

Lexi loved it too, but didn't cause quite the noisy scene with it as her sister did. They were both a sticky mess when we were done.

Tummy time is going well- now that they both can roll both ways, being on the tummy is fun rather than torture. Doesn't Leah look like she could just up and crawl away? My guess is that she'll be my first crawler of the two.

Lexi has made leaps and bounds with tummy time. She used to have the hardest time keeping that big head up, but now can hold it up with the best of them. She loves to roll, too, and can turn circles in any room to try and get to things.


These little ladies love their big sister. They both love to be held by her, carried and play with her every day. Leah thinks Chloe is hilarious and the two of them are my two little talkers in the house. When Leah can use real words and she and Chloe can both talk a mile a minute, I am in trouble!

Ben thinks Lexi is going to have red hair (I am not totally convinced yet). With more hair coming in on her head, Ben is getting more and more convinced. To try and anticipate what she will look like with the Andros red hair, we used Chloe's beautiful hair and plopped it on Lexi's head. If she does have thick, long red hair like Chloe some day, here is what she may look like!

The girls at their 6 month checkup. Can you guess who is who? You probably want to say Lexi is on the right because she is the one with the binky... you would be wrong!

That's right- Leah has now joined the binky world and we could not be happier about it! She has never taken a binky well. The first few weeks of life we could force one into her mouth and the only way we could keep it in was to hold it in, and within weeks she wouldn't take one at all. I always imagined what it would be like when she took one, and it is everything I dreamed of and more! She is definitely still the more emotional twin and needs more comforting and a little more attention, but a binky has helped with that tremendously. We always wondered what it would be like to be able to just pop a binky in her mouth when she was crying (which some days can be a lot) and now we know, and it's amazing! We call this the new and improved Leah. We love her just as much as before, but are loving that she can be soothed eaiser and longer with a binky. She really is a lot more happy and has mellowed out so much in the past few weeks.

Our newest binky friend Leah- you are one of us!

But the good news doesn't stop there- the amazing Leah has one more trick up her sleeve- she now takes a bottle, too! This has been an exciting month for us. I have tried for months now to force a binky and a bottle on Leah and forcing her to do either usually made her even more upset. But one day she just decided to take both of them and our lives haven't been the same since. As the mom, I can taste the freedom! Watch out babysitters (and Ben)- I am no longer the only person in town that can feed this girl. If there is a bottle and plenty of milk around, I may not come home for hours!


I give the credit to Lexi- she probably calmly talked to Leah one night in bed, telling her how much it would mean to the whole family if she would just take a binky and a bottle. And Lexi set the perfect example for Leah in both areas. I mean, really- just look at her. She'll even take a binky upside down and it doesn't bother her a bit. You can even see that when the binky is upside down it covers her little nostrils and it is no big deal to her. Sometimes I think she even prefers to have it upside down.

I just set up the Exersaucer this week and it is a hit with both girls.

I just love this age- it is my favorite age for babies. They are not mobile yet (yea!) and will stay where you put them, but are just getting to the point where a pile of toys can entertain them for long periods of time. They are awake more and alert and happy when they are awake, trying to take everything in, but still young enough to need lots of sleep (which means they still take long, great naps). They can't make messes yet, either, and are fascinated by everything. It is such a fun age and I love every minute of it, especially having two babies to enjoy it with. I still can't get over that I have both of them in my life. I shock people daily that I have twins and they just can't seem to comprehend it, but the truth is I can't get over it myself. All babies are miracles and I have two miracles. That will always be amazing to me. What a blessing twins are, especially these two beautiful little ladies. I wouldn't trade them for anything, not even a nap!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Easter Weekend

What a fun Easter weekend we had. My mom and older sister Amanda and her little boy were in town, which made the holiday weekend extra fun.

Mitch and cousin Carter- they are just 8 months apart in age. Now that they are both walking and talking, they had a great time together. Mitch taught his new favorite game to Carter called "High Tower." This is where he stacks all the pillows from both sets of couches on top of each other, then jumps are falls into the pillows. This provided lots of fun the entire weekend for both boys. Mitch would run up to Carter and excitedly ask, "High Tower??" to which Carter would respond, "High Tower!" and they both would run off to collect pillows. Mitch came up with this name all on his own.

We had a great time at the Factoria Kid's Quest musuem (free on Friday nights!)

Saturday morning we braved the cold and impending rain to head to our neighborhood's annual Easter egg hunt. Mitch couldn't even walk this time last year (at 17 months old), so he was very excited and ready this year!

He did a great job and got quite a few eggs, but his competitive mother thought he could have gotten a few more if he would have hustled just a bit more...

Carter found one egg, then spotted the basketball hoop and only wanted to put the egg in the hoop.

Then it was Chloe's turn. Here she is with Mitch, waiting with her age group to start.


This is the first year she was old enough to be in an age group where they actually had to do a little "hunting" for their eggs. The younger age groups (1-4 years) just have their eggs laid out on the ground, none hidden. For Chloe's age group, the eggs were hidden in and around bushes, toys, trees, etc. Chloe was disappointed that she only got like 5 eggs (she noticed other kids with an entire basket full), but was excited about the great candy inside. (Seriously- they stuff those eggs with the good stuff- all chocolate, all name brand. No wimpy jelly beans or gross marshmellow stuff).

The Easter bunny made an appearance and Chloe was brave enough to stand by him for a picture. This is usually something she would not want to do, but she is growing up and doing more things that she used to be uncomfortable doing. After she got her picture with him, she turned to me and said, "Mom, I DID IT!" She was very proud of herself, and so was I!

Our fun filled weekend didn't end there. After a birthday party that Chloe attended, we colored Easter eggs with Grandma. There were lots of spills this year and I think our table got more color on it than the eggs did, but the kids really enjoy it. If I ever get a new table, I may not be so willing for them to stain it.

And who could forget our little Easter bunnies? I thought these little polka dot jackets looked like Easter eggs and very spring-like. They were such good little girls all weekend with all the outings and shopping we did.

Grandma brought them a singing duck that sings 3 verses to "If You're Happy and You Know it." They were wide eyed every time it sang, but it was Mitchell who was obsessed with it. He must have played that darn song 100 times and even sang along with it and did the actions. He proudly told me, "My Grandma brought me that!" (Good thing Leah and Lexi are too young to care that it was really for them!)

Easter morning brought baskets filled with goodies for the kids. They consumed way more candy than they should have between the Easter egg hunt, Easter baskets and all the goodies Grandma brought, but since they have candy loving parents, it was okay for a weekend.


Leah and Lexi with their baskets on Easter morning.

Leah loved her purple egg and concentrated on it for as long as her little hands could grasp it.

Lexi tasted her egg.

My kids were in heaven with Grandma here- she spoils them rotten with treats, toys and mostly her attention and time. She is willing to do just about anything my kids ask her to do with them and does it happily and makes it fun for everyone. She is truly my example of how I should be as a mother- patient, kind, fun and willing to give or her time for them. I hope I'm as fun of a grandma as she is someday.

With mom and my sister in town, we did some shopping! We took all 5 kids out to multiple malls and stores. It wasn't always pretty, but we did it (and much easier and more fun with their help then doing it by myself, I must say). Our biggest feat was taking all 5 kids on a walk one cold, blustry morning. I just recently purchased 2 new double strollers- a jogging one and an umbrella one and we decided to test drive them on our walk. I pushed one stroller, my mom pushed the other and my sister front-packed Lexi and off we went. With the cold and wind and no toys or snacks, we thought we might hear complaining, but for the hour walk we went on, we did not hear one peep from anyone. It was miraculous! Both babies fell asleep and the 3 big kids were mesmorized by just being outside. Makes me wish I could somehow push all 4 of my kids in a stroller by myself and take them for walks more often. That was definitely one of the best hours of the weekend!

All 4 cousins together. Don't mind Mitch- he found one of the babies' hats and would not take it off.
Grandma with her kids. She was the favorite person of the weekend.

Mitch showed Carter how we use our plastic rocking horse as a two-man toy. Carter got bucked off multiple times, but once he got accustomed to the Andros' rough way of doing things, he had a good time.

We had such a fun weekend. Time with family always goes by way too fast. My kids always have a hard time when family leaves (so do I) and we are always looking forward to the next visit as soon as they walk out the door. Hurry summer, hurry!