Beach Day!

Last Saturday Mom and David took the three big kids to Galveston for the day.  David took lots of pictures so we could enjoy it too.  :)

David has a friend with a beach house, so they drove down there first.  They didn’t actually borrow the house, just the area down below it with showers.  And it had great beach access.  It was perfect!

James has a regular swim suit, but he was recently passed this floaty suit down, and he loooooves it.  I’m not sure how much he actually made it in the water, but he was ready!

I’ve got a couple of beautiful beach babes!

Apparently this is how James felt about the waves.

But eventually he got out there on the board!

I get the impression he spent most of the time doing this:

The girls were great surfers!

There was kite flying by all!

And lunch at Fish Tales, a favorite.

Then they rode on the ferry.

Look at James feed a fry to the seagull.  One moment it’s here:

Then it’s gone!

Look closely at Natalie here. This is the face of someone who’s just been pooped on.  :)

They came back tired and having had a wonderful day!

The Babies are 11 months!!

This was our money shot this month.  :) (It’s also the only one I edited.  It’s almost been a month since I’ve posted – gotta streamline!)  They turned 11 months old on September 29th.  Now, we’re in the month of their birth.  Wowza!

It’s getting HARD to take pictures of these boys, especially Thomas.  See?

This one basically stays where you put him though.  :)

Basically, they’re adorable.

So.

The babies are 11 months old now.  Here’s what I can think of about them this last monthly post before the big OH ONE!!

• Thomas is all over the place.  He crawls for real on his hands and knees and can pull up on anything. He does this cute thing where he can scootch around 360 degrees while sitting on his bottom.  I’ve seen him let go briefly while holding on to things and also take a couple of steps when something he’s holding on to moves.
• Michael is scootching – he pulls himself across the floor with one arm and pushes with his toes.  He can sit but can’t get himself into or out of a sitting position on his own.
• The boys can both wear 12 month size clothes, but mostly Thomas wears 18 month.
• They’re sleeping from 7-something at night to 6-something every morning, pretty regularly.
• They take two naps, though sometimes the afternoon one gets dropped. 
• They eat three meals of food each day and nurse 5-6 times.  Their favorite things to eat are Cheerios, bananas, and anything in a pouch.  At home they pretty much eat what we’re having but out I will usually send along those baby food puree pouches.  They love ‘em.  And it’s a pretty good way to get some veggies into them.  Veggies aren’t they’re favorites.  :)
• Thomas likes to get into and explore things.  He’s pretty much not happy unless he’s stealing my phone or eating some schoolwork or other such things.  :)
• Michael’s more content with standard baby entertainment but less content without me close by.
• We went in last week to the pediatrician’s office to have the babies treated for thrush (which they didn’t have but I did) and discovered that Michael had a double ear infection.  Boo.  He’s on antibiotics and was doing better for a couple of days.  Then this morning he woke up with a fever, which he hung on to all day.  He felt totally miserable and spent the whole day sleeping, nursing, and moaning.  It’s very pitiful to see my littlest baby hurting so much.  Hopefully it’s a short-lived virus!
• We got their weights at the appointment (fully clothed).  Michael is 15lbs 7oz (0th percentile), and Thomas is 19lbs 6oz (27th percentile).
• Thomas is so strong. He throws himself back or down when he’s fussy or frustrated.  I don’t think he’s been getting quite enough sleep lately, and he turns in to kind of a monster in the early evening sometimes.
• Thomas loooooves to dance.  His particular favorite jams are the opening and closing songs of Gilmore Girls.  It’s pretty adorable.  He stops whatever he’s doing so he can dance when the music comes on the television.
• They both have the most adorable smiles.
• Thomas has three teeth on top and two on the bottom.  Michael has two on the bottom and finally cut that second one on the top.
• They both love their daddy and their brothers and sisters.  I love that so much.
• They really have started interacting with each other in the last month.  I catch them staring at the other one sometimes.  Poor Michael is always at the bottom of the dog pile, but he doesn’t seem to mind toooooo much.  They pat each other; it’s sweet.

Quick Trip to OKC!

I’ve really been wanting to make a trip to Oklahoma to introduce the babies to my dad and step-mom, and we managed it! I decided the most realistic, actually possible way to do it was to try and fly there with just the babies, leaving Matt and the big three behind.  To do this, I needed my mom’s help.  :) She decided the best time would be the weekend after Labor day (planes tend to be a little emptier right after a holiday), so we planned to leave on Thursday.

If you’ve ever traveled anywhere with me ever, you know I’m an over-packer.  If I think I might possibly need it in any version of the future, I pack it.  :) I decided that traveling with two babies meant I needed to rethink that strategy.  Since we were going to be staying at my sister’s house, I knew I could scale way back on things and just borrow from her as well as wash clothes if needed.  So I managed to bring everything the boys and I needed in a big backpack and a tote. 

Here’s what I looked like in action. Mom brought a suitcase to check so she’d have hands free to help me.  I had Michael on my front, a backpack on my back, a tote on my arm, and I still had hands free to push Thomas or carry a car seat.

We made it in great time for our 7:23am flight on Thursday and got confirmed seats (four!), but there was a delay.  We ended up leaving about 8:30.  Michael needed a little nap before we boarded.

You can see Thomas chilling with Gran in the background:

He grabbed her pen, and we thought it looked like he was waving a magic wand. “Accio Cheerios!!”

On the plane Mom worked her magic and put Thomas right to sleep!

Michael and I hung out and ate snacks.

Kathryn and Tawna picked us up at the airport and took up back to their adorable house. I had to capture Kathryn vacuuming up for us.

I looooooved their floor plan – I wanted to steal it for myself.  I couldn’t figure out how to make that work though.

Mom took us all out to lunch at one of our favorites, Red Lobster.

Terrible back-lit group selfie!

For dinner, Dad and Renee came over as well as some of Tawna’s family.  It was lovely!

Here’s Popo with Michael:

The next day Thomas was up for the morning first, so he came out on the back porch with me.  I got to drink my tea in one of Kathryn’s pig mugs.  :)

Kathryn and Tawna had to work Friday night, so they stayed at their house to sleep most of the day.  Mom took me over to Dad’s while she ran around with Kathryn’s car.

Popo and Michael again.

It looks a little like Thomas is beating Nana with a wooden spoon, but I don’t recall that actually being the case.

Sadly, this is the only shot I got of my dad holding Thomas.  They were playing a cute tickling/laughing game.

The girls bought the babies these adorable OSU outfits to wear.  Dad graduated from there and is a fan.  It was pretty cute.  :)

We mostly hung out and tried to keep the babies from getting into tooooo much.  Dad made a super delicious seafood soup for dinner.  It was so so so good.

Then it was time to go before the babies really turned on us. 

The boys sure loved meeting their Nana and Popo!!

The drive back to Kathryn’s was just beautiful.  The land just goes and goes, and the sky was filled with gorgeous clouds and rays of light.

And then we saw a double rainbow! The second one is to the left of the bright one.  It’s very faint in the picture.

When we got back to the house Kathryn and Tawna were at work (They’re NICU nurses.), so we made ourselves at home, put the babies to bed, and did some laundry.  It was nice.

Our flight on Saturday wasn’t until early afternoon, so we were able to have a leisurely morning and get to visit with the girls one more time.

We left about 11 and enjoyed a little Braum’s on the way.  That is something I miss very much when I come back to Texas.  :) My favorite thing is a chocolate heath mix.  I may have had two while we were there.

We breezed right through to the gate and waited to board the flight.  Well, I made three trips to the bathroom to change diapers.  The babies had some snacks.

Again, my mother worked her magic and put Thomas to sleep on the flight.

And again, Michael and I hung out… awake.  :)

He was pretty cheerful until the very end, but didn’t cry if I kept up a steady stream of Cheerios going for him.

Then it was just a matter of getting home and hugging all my big loves.  I missed them sooooooooo much!!

It was a great trip.  I looked forward to getting there on the way, and I looked forward to being at home on the way back.  I’m pretty sure that means it was the perfect amount of time.

Thanks for the hospitality Okies!!

Ten Months!

So the babies are TEN MONTHS old! That just seems so huge, even though they’re still my leetle bebes.  I’m going to write some things down about them at this age, as them come to me. It’s All About the Babies, stream of consciousness style.

• They are recently pooping about three times each, every day.  They manage to accomplish all this pooping while Matt is at work.
• They tend to nurse about every 2.5 hours through the day and eat three meals of food.
• They’re favorite foods involve grains and fruit, but they’ll eat veggies and meat sometimes.
• They often (but not always) sleep from about 7:30-5:30 each night.  They go back to bed after that early feed until 7:30 or so.
• Thomas is definitely wearing 12 month clothes.  Michael can wear either 6-9months or 12 months.
• They have recently started interacting more with each other, and I have hope that they really don’t think the other is the worst thing ever to happen to them.  :)  I have an adorable video to post illustrating this.
• Thomas is now pulling up on furniture to stand.  He can also put himself into and get out of a sitting position.  And he crawls everywhere.
• Michael can pull himself along, scootching style, but he’s pretty slow.
• Thomas has four teeth – the middle two on top and bottom.  He’s working on at least one more, on the top.
• Michael has two on the bottom and one on the top.
• Neither is a very pleasant teether.
• Both boys can clap, though Thomas did it first and does it more often.
• They can both wave also, though Michael did it first and does it more often.
• Thomas hates loud noises like the vacuum, grain mill, blender, etc.  It makes him cry.
• Thomas is usually very good about going down for naps and at night.  Michael has to be just the perfect amount of tired for it to work out well.
• They take two naps each day.  The first is usually from about 10:30-12:30 (or less, rarely more).  The second is often 3ish, for about an hour.  They actually just took one nap yesterday because is was pretty late and pretty long, but they were nasty tired boys in the late afternoon.  Church is at an undesirable time for the babies.  :)
• Michael still sucks his thumb regularly when he’s tired or upset.  Thomas will very occasionally suck his first two fingers for comfort, but it’s very rare these days.

(I started writing this almost a week ago and am just now getting pics added to publish! Enjoy these few I took on the 29th of my sweet babes.  I edited the one of Thomas standing by Michael outside, but the others are right out of the camera.  I just got back from Oklahoma City with the babies, and I have that post to write as well!)

I tried to do our standard sit-on-the-couch pose, but oy! Thomas kept trying to leave.  It was rough.  :)

I thought about it for awhile and decided I needed a situation where Thomas was standing and holding on to something, as he doesn’t move as fast from that position.  I saw our little chairs and decided to give that a try!

Seconds after I shot the above picture, Michael fell forward, flat on his face, and because there was nothing in the chair, Thomas fell over onto his bottom.  Thankfully, the grass was long and soft, so Michael wasn’t upset at all.  Thomas cried, but he was fine.  :)

I love these next two.  I think they speak for themselves.

Twins sure are fun to have around.  :)