Twelve Months Old

Official Stats-

Ian - 23 lbs. 12oz. (84th %tile) / 31 1/4 inches (93rd %tile)

Suzette - 26 lbs. 9 oz. (98th %tile) / 30 1/4 inches (86th %tile)

Well, it happened.  Suzette and Ian turned one on Wednesday, September 26th, 2012.  My babies are no longer and somehow I have two toddlers in front of me now.  Everyone says it, but really until you live it there is no way to truly understand just how fast it all goes.  So many other years of my life passed by without much thought, but this one has been big - for all of us!  How amazing and awe inspiring it has been to see two tiny babies come out of my body, enter this world and grow into little people with personalities and characteristics all their own. 

Ian, what's that silly thing on your head?

Let me take it off for a closer look!

Blessed.  I feel it in abundance these days.  Suzie and Ian are so full of life and laughter, curiosity and charisma and love.  I have such a deeper understanding of what my Father in Heaven feels for me now that I have become a parent.  An amazing journey filled with joy and the best part - it's only just beginning!  These little munchkins are doing so much these days.  Biggest news is that Suzie is walking!  She took her first steps the day she turned 11 months and within the next 7-10 days she was walking all over the place.  Ian's cognitive abilities have come a long way too.  When playing with his stacking ring toy he will now put them on in order of size and then clap for himself.  So amazing to watch him just figure things like that out on his own.  While both are good eaters, surprisingly Ian has been the more adventurous one with trying out different foods.  Which I love!  Suzie gets picky with what textures she likes to eat and if it's not an enjoyable feel on her tongue she'll promptly scoop all the food out of her mouth with her hand.  Bibs are critical.  Now if there was only something that would make all the finger food that ends up on the floor easier to clean we'd really be in business.  Maybe it's just my 8 month preggo belly that is starting to get in the way a bit more than before.  Suzie LOVES books and will often just sit for 10-15 minutes with one book flipping through the pages and sometimes even "reading" it to herself.  Ian's attention span for that is much shorter, but he loves to fill and empty containers, build towers of toys and figure out where and how things fit together.  Ian and Suzie have had a few playdates with my friend's son who is 8 months old and it's been fun to see how they interact with another child close to their age.  Makes me excited (and nervous) to see what they'll be like with the new baby around.

Suzie said her first word (besides mama and dada) a few weeks ago, but has yet to say it again as clear as she did the first few times so I'm not sure if it really counts.  But for documentation sake I'll record it here.  It's only fitting her first real word was BABY!  She got pretty close to saying book, but not quite there.  When she said 'baby' though it was clear as day.  Haven't really been able to get her to say it again though.  Ian is sticking with the mama and dada for now.  He has gotten pretty close to saying 'ball'.  What Ian is doing now that is WONDERFUL is drinking from a straw sippy cup!  I am soooo happy he is doing well with it and hope Suzette soon follows his lead.

On Wednesday, their actual birthday, my mom (who is a public school teacher) happened to have the day off.  I couldn't say no to her plea to see her grandchildren on their birthday so we drive out to  my parents house after their morning nap.  Since I was saving the cake experience for their party on Saturday my mom got some ice cream to introduce them to.  Well, re-introduce.  Anyone who knows my husband well knows of his passion for ice cream.  Needless to say Dave has already exposed Suzie and Ian to the goodness that is Cold Stone.  It was still fun for my mom to see their reactions to the cold sweet treat she got them.

One the way back to our place I wanted to do something that Ian and Suzie would enjoy for a special birthday outing.  Okay, well maybe not so special, but it's something I know they love and what better thing to do than something they like on their birthday?!  Get ready for it...our special trip was to COSTCO!!!  

They did a good job of containing their sheer excitement in this photo, but honestly it never fails that the second they get out of the car and into the awesome Costco cart the happy giggles and swinging feet come out and they are all smiles!  So we headed in for some pizza and frozen yogurt sundae, mmm mmm good.  The big purchase of the day was whole milk.  No more formula for these babies toddlers.

Ian and Suzie had their 12 month check up on Thursday and we had to say goodbye to Dr. Hirsch - a pediatrician whom I love!  I just couldn't switch pediatricians before he completed at least their first year with them.  He was such a good fit for us as new parents with twins.  Very through, gave down to earth advice that is always medically sound, comfortable to talk to and ask any questions and always so quick to respond to e-mails and phone calls.  There are 2 main exam rooms at his office that are decorated perfectly for kids - the zoo room and the fire station room.  This visit we got the fire station room.

 

With Ian and Suzie being so mobile now it was perfect and I couldn't help snap a few shots of them exploring.

Ahhh, good times.  I sure do hope to find a pediatrician I love just as much here in Virginia.  We had fun celebrating during the week and now it's time to get ready for their big birthday bash tomorrow!

Mischief Makers

I seem to have some mischief makers on my hands these days who love getting into laundry baskets, under end tables, behind curtains...

emptying the nursery shelves (over and over and over again), pulling down the place mats off the table to see what else may come down with it...

cool toy - look at all these buttons!

getting into the tub that was leaning up against the wall in the hallway for a day time bath and the all time favorite of playing with Daddy's shoes and ties!  And pregnant mommy can only keep up with them for so long so there is bound to be a lot more of this to come from these little rascals.  

 It's a good thing they're cute!

Seven Down, Two More To Go

32 weeks with baby #3

Yesterday I entered my 32nd week of this pregnancy, the beginning of the eighth month.  It has been an enormous blessing that this pregnancy has been so much easier for me than the twins was.  Mainly I've noticed that carrying only one baby has allowed me to have more energy and a bit more ease in moving around - go figure.  Heart burn, while it still comes at times, isn't nearly as intense or frequent as when I had Ian and Suzie squished in there together.  The hormones that come along with pregnancy are definitely still there it's not quite as amplified as it was with multiples.  Ian and Suzie are of course keeping me pretty busy so I don't have too much time to think about all the "what ifs" and "how will we" with this baby as I did with them.  I think that is pretty typical with a second pregnancy though.  

Last night I felt the baby hiccuping for the first time.  Such a neat feeling!  I am pleased that this baby doesn't seem to have the need to keep mommy awake all hours of the night and early morning by doing acrobatics like the twins did (mostly Ian since he was on top and had the most room to move around).  We'll see if that translates to it's personality once outside of the womb.  Dave's guess as to the gender changes almost weekly and I freely admit to having no clue.  I've had no dreams or promptings one way or the other.  For me it's nice to not know.  That way I don't favor one twin over the other knowing there will be a playmate of the same gender for one soon.  And really - is there any better surprise?!  This is a pretty exciting time in our lives.  I mean how many people do you know that have these two books as current reading material on their nightstand?      

Yup, that's right.  Simultaneously reading the What To Expect series for pregnancy and the first year.  Good stuff.  And just for comparison sake this is what I looked like at 32 weeks with the twins - 

32 weeks with the twins

  While you may be looking at my belly, I'm looking at my short hair with blonde highlights.  Ahh, those were the days.  But who has 1 1/2-2 hours and $150+ to spend on upkeep like that - not me, anymore.  And that's okay because look what I get to have instead...

I'd say it's a pretty good trade off, wouldn't you agree?

And yes, those are boxes that are still packed full of dining room books in the background.  The hoisting the large bookshelf over the back balcony idea has yet to come to fruition.  I can't blame Dave for focusing his "extra" time on more important things like studying for his PE (Professional Engineer) exam - which less than 7 weeks away (you can do it, babe!).  Oh well, the boxes will get unpacked one day...

In the meantime I'll continue to grow this little human in side of me and take care of the two bigger ones that are now practically running around in circles in front of me.  These are the days :-)

It's Been A While

So before August totally passed by without a single blog post from me (pretty crazy!) I thought I better get my act together.  I'll be posting updates of our adventures over the past month, but they will be back dated for my record keeping purposes.  Enjoy!

Eleven Months Old

My little bundles of joy aren't so little anymore!  Even doing these month photo shoots is quite the task now with two babies wanting to do anything but sit or stand in one place.  So I guess that is our first and biggest piece of news - Suzie is

now 

standing up on her own!  She even took her first solo steps while at my parents house tonight.  She had incentive each time, first it was to get closer to the TV and the second time it was to get a pack of fruit snacks I was luring her with.  Cruel, but hey - we got two steps out of her!  Suzie like to stand much of the time now and is very good at bending her knees to get a toy then come back up to a stand.

And as for Ian?  Well, just days (I kid you not) after we moved in he 

started to

take off 

 crawling!

 Which means he's been perfecting this skill for a few weeks now.  And man is he fast!  I had a feeling that was going to happen.  He also is able to pull himself up to a stand on the furniture and, after a few days, figure out how to bend his knees and get down by himself too.  Dave and I both agree Ian is much happier and very content now that he can crawl around and get the toys and go to the places he wants.  No more just sitting and watching Suzie move around.  It has also changed the dynamic between them a bit.  Suzie used to be able to take a toy from Ian then crawl away with it.  Now he is able to fend for himself by crawling after her to get it back.  It's been fun to see how both of them deal with his new found mobility.

Suzette has 2 teeth on the bottom now as well as the 4 on top and Ian is rocking 4 on top and 4 on the bottom.  I've tried to start feeding them even more finger food than I did before and it's been a hit and miss process.  Some things they like right away (mostly fruits like bananas, grapes and strawberries) and others take a few days to acquire the taste for (like cheese, squash, sweet potato and carrots).  I've been trying different combos of lentils, quinoa and pasta with a protein and veggies for their dinner meals and get mixed results each night.  Most often I think they're just so distracted when daddy comes home from work that all they want to do is get down and play with him rather than finish eating.  And sometimes that's exactly what happens, for everyones sanity sake!  I need to work more with them on drinking from a sippy cup.  We have 4 or 5 different kinds now (3 of those are with straws) and we never seem to get past the toy stage with them.  The day that they finally get the concept of drinking water/formula from the sippy cup will be one I'm sure I'll hear a choir of angels sing.  In all honesty, I probably haven't stuck with it long enough to give them a fair shake at it (I've read it can take 3 weeks to well over a month for the concept to sink in).  My days are numbered before baby #3 comes, so this will be my focus with them over the next couple months.  I'm open to any tips or suggestions!

I held on to their 10th month like nothing else, but it's funny now how the 11th month doesn't even seem to exist because when people ask now I say, "They are almost 1 year old."  And they are, but for a few more weeks they are still my little (big) babies.  Dave and I have loved this stage of seeing their personalities come through more and more.  Suzie is so sweet waning to just be near you and babble away (her first words, besides mama and dada, can't be too far off now) and Ian is quite the crack-up.  He loves to experiments with making all sorts of different noises with his mouth and tongue and will do anything to get a smile out of you.  Both Ian and Suzie love playing so-big and Ian's favorite is still peek-a-boo.  Bath time has become great fun and meal time the never ending sensory experiment with texture and taste.  Ian will let me tickle attack him every now and then and his laughter is music to my ears.  Suzie is a harder crowd to please and will only reward me with her lovely giggles when I make of fool of myself with all sorts of silly/crazy faces.  

Plans for their first birthday party are under way (it'll be a small event with mostly just family), but for now I just want to soak up each day I have left with my sweet and silly eleven month old babies.

Settling In

We've been busy unpacking boxes over here.  I didn't get many pictures during the actual move since Dave and I were too busy actually moving.  We were blessed to have great friends who helped Dave load everything up from the storage unit to the moving truck early Saturday morning on July 28th.  Then Dave's brother Sam, my uncle Phillip and some members and the missionaries from Bethesda ward helped load our things into the truck from my Grandfather's house AND move his furniture back into the rooms we'd be living out of.  When we moved in we put many of his pieces of furniture in the basement so there would be room for ours.  The third and final stop of our moving adventure ended at our new place in Virginia where we had some really nice guys from our new ward, Sam and our AMAZING friend Riley (who helped at all THREE locations!) get most of our things moved in.  I say most because there is still one large bookcase sitting in our garage that was unable to make the trip up the stairwell due to it's size.  Dave has plans to hoist it up over the balcony and bring it in through the sliding glass door - hopefully it'll work!

It was only a year, but it was hard having 90% of our belongings packed in storage.  It really has felt like Christmas morning for me as I unpacked box after box, especially all my kitchen goods.  The hours of entertainment the packing paper provided for Ian and Suzie was a nice bonus.    

taken with my iPhone - got a bit of double exposure action happening, oops

 As we've placed the furniture where we want it Suzie and Ian have had fun exploring their new jungle gym.  Which helps us to baby proof as we go.  Seems like everyday there is a new skill they've acquired to help peel off tape and open boxes.  It provides motivation to get things unpacked and put away for sure!

Our new place has 1800 sq. ft. and is a 2 over 2 condo.  From the outside it looks like a 4 level townhouse, but there 2 front doors - one leading to the lower two levels and the other to the upper two.  We have the top two floors with a large living room/office, dining room, kitchen and 1/2 bath on the main floor and 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and laundry on the top floor.  Each unit has a driveway, garage and balcony on the back.  For me the driveway and garage were a must when looking at places to rent.  I did not want to deal with only having 2 parking spaces outside while trying to get 3 babies loaded into the car.  So far it has worked out well here.

Slowly, but surely all the boxes will get unpacked, things will be put away and it'll start feeling more like home here each day.

Sick

Poor Suzie ended up getting a cold (probably from that dreadful Urgent Care center) just a few days after having stitches.  A few days in she developed her first and really bad diaper rash.  She is miserable!  I'm hoping the rash clears up quickly and this cold doesn't hang around long.  Her bibs have become snot rags because her nose in constantly running :(  She has no appetite to eat anything and it's hard for her to even drink from the bottle as her nose is so stuffy that she can't breath. 

My poor baby, hasn't she been through enough?!

Trauma

Not even in our new place one full week and we encountered some trauma.  It happened in the morning 7 o'clock hour while I was in the kitchen unpacking some dishes.  I heard Suzie scream a loud painful cry and bolted over to her where she was laying face down in between the chair and entertainment center.  I scooped her up and saw she was bleeding above her eye. A lot.  After getting some paper towels to dab on her cut I noticed it was pretty deep.  This wasn't going to be good.  I'm guessing she hit her head on the corner of the entertainment center, as that was the only sharp thing around, but since I didn't see it happen I cannot be sure.  And while you're wondering how that even happened with her wearing the helmet, she wasn't.  She gets three 30 minute breaks each day and I usually do one in the morning after she gets up.  She took her spill in the last 5 minutes of her break.  I took this photo with my phone and sent it to Dave who had just left for work not that long before...

 with the message saying, "I think this will require medical attention."  Of course he called right away and we decided with traffic there would be no point in having him come back home as I would need to take Suzie somewhere to get this taken care of ASAP.  Dave looked up Urgent Care locations for me and luckily there is one in the shopping center of our new neighborhood.  Not even having been to church yet to know anyone to call and help I felt really alone, but knew I needed to pull myself together and deal with this.  So I got myself, Suzie and Ian dressed, diaper bag stocked and loaded everyone up in the car.  Of course since Dave just started his new job we don't have the actual insurance cards yet which made checking in a pleasant process - NOT!  The receptionist was very unhelpful and seemed to lack compassion and understanding, which I really needed at that exact moment.  She kept insisting calling and verifying our coverage with Blue Cross Blue Shield over the phone using Dave's member and group number (which he got in a jiffy from the HR guy at work) wasn't enough, we had to have the actual card.  Are you kidding me?!  I've worked in a medical office before and that is just bologna.  After insisting on speaking to her manager and going into a bit of a mommy meltdown explaining how my daughter needed treatment NOW and I knew for a fact it was possible to submit a claim having all the info that would be on an insurance card, but not the actual card I was told they'd see her shortly.  

And that was just the beginning of it.  Once we were taken back and the doctor finally came into the exam room she stated right away stitches would be needed.  The nurse was asked to come in and hold Suzie's head while she was laying down on the table and I was to hold her arms and legs.  All the while Ian is still sitting in the stroller just watching things unfold.  With the numbing shot Suzie's wails of pain began and I tried with all my might to hold it together.  I sang songs and tried stroking her tummy while looking over and Ian to reassure him it was okay.  By the time the 4th stitch was done, Suzie's face covered in tears, snot and a bit of blood was the point Ian lost it and started to hysterically cry and scream.  I could do nothing but turn my head and try to verbally comfort him, but I couldn't even do that.  The tears started to come and the overwhelming feeling of both my babies being scared and in pain and I couldn't do anything was awful.  I couldn't even sing anymore.  I just layed my head on Suzie's tummy and sobbed, praying that the last stitch would be completed soon and I could scoop Suzie up off that table and walk over next to Ian to stroke his face and say we're all done.  It seemed like forever, but finally that moment came.  

With tears still streaming down my face the doctor actually had the audacity to ask if there was another adult in the house, why did I come alone and I shouldn't leave my children unattended for reasons like this.  I wanted to shout - WE JUST MOVED HERE A FEW DAYS AGO!!!  My husband works and the place obviously isn't baby proofed 100% yet, sheesh really - your timing couldn't be worse.  There were also comments and rolled eyes about me being pregnant with another baby.  Obviously I couldn't wait to get out of there and upon walking out the door I got a call from my mom and just lost it.  Tender mercy indeed because I really needed some words of comfort right then.

Suzie actually handled it all pretty well.  She had some bruising from the shot and stitches the next day, but that didn't last too long and we were able to find another Urgent Care center just up the road in the other direction to go to for her suture removal.  That was a MUCH better experience.  It was such a new center that it didn't come up when Dave did his initial search, but it worked out well in the end.

So that is our bit of trauma upon moving in.  Let's hope things just keep getting better from here!