a post in pictures, part 2

 a lazy saturday

 happy kaylee

 ethan really wanted to crawl off the bed, so blake was letting him look over the edge

ethan and I tried cosleeping for a nap. I can totally see why other people love it, it is super cuddly and sweet and precious. but, it's not for us. ethan kept on flailing his arms and eventually (ie 10? 15? minutes later) blake picked him up and transferred him to his crib. but I'm glad we got to snuggle for a bit.

 we went to great-grandma betty's retirement home for lunch one day and the kiddos had a great time at lunch.

 kaylee and great-grandma betty

first day of the redmond farmer's market! but did we buy anything at the farmer's market? no. did we buy some coldstones ice cream? why, yes, we did. I let ethan drink the remains and turns out he's a fan!

Ethan loves baths :)

oh my goodness, kaylee tipped over!

 I will put my hand in her face...

 and go over here...

 funny, she's still tipped over...

 having a little fun w/ ethan's abundance of hair...

and we shall close with this pic of ethan trying to escape his bath. I think my children have the cutest little butts. :)

a post in pictures pt 1

note: if you can't see all of a picture, you can click on the picture and it will open in a new window where you can see the whole thing.

these are the 9 month spreads in the photo album i'm making. they're still in draft form (ie where it says "weight" it's blank because I need to find the papers from the doctor to fill that in), but I thought this would be a good way to show you the month pics from now on.

It was an entertaining photoshoot because Ethan was so thrilled that he could crawl that you would put him down on his back and he would immediately roll over and try to crawl away (as you can see). so I included some "outtakes" to remember that little phase in his life by. but, as you can also see, both kids are pretty happy.

 kaylee making a silly face

 give me that camera mommy!!!

I have a new friend, Audria. I met her through the multiples group. Her kiddos, Ben and Claire, are 2 months older than Ethan & Kaylee and she lives just 4 minutes (driving) away. So that's been fun to have another day-time friend. ha. it's like she's my new coworker, since this is how I spend most of my days now. :)

more to come later...

9 months

Posted by B.P.

My how time flies!  The babies are 9 months old.  What have they been up to the last 3 months?  I'm glad you asked.

• Crawling.  Ethan was the first crawl, but now they both it!  We've got a gate by the stairs.  Both babies like to crawl towards wires, which has forced us to remove the lights from their room:-)  Now they crawl in the dark, but they don't electrocute themselves.  We think they are still electrocute.
• Eating.  They eat all sorts of foods now, and can even feed themselves, sortof.  The self-feeding inevitably results with most of the food on the floor, and Ethan choking himself on his fingers.  Kaylee seems to have better fine motor skills.
• Clapping!  Ethan has learned to clap.  He thinks it is a very fun way to pass the time.
• Biking.  The babies like to go for bike rides in their new bike trailer. 

• Cloning.  Both babies have successfully cloned themselves twice, as evidenced by this picture.

• Splashing.  The babies like to splash around in the bath, Kaylee especially splashes us a storm.  Dana says that Ethan does too.
• Standing.  Both babies can pull themselves up to a standing position; great for licking those hard-to-reach places.
• Sitting. Ethan and Kaylee can go from sitting to crawling and back to sitting again.  Kaylee's preferred method of going from crawling to sitting is to scream until someone picks her up (but she can do it on her own)
• Teeth.  Ethan has 6, Kaylee has 2, and boy can she bite!
• Communications.  Both kidos have learned the sign for "milk".  Ethan likes to make kissing noises, and Swahili tongue clicks.  With these new-found skills, the kids have given up crying (not).
• We found some miracle drugs that have cleared up Ethan's cheeks (mostly). 
• Dying eggs.  Ethan's favorite part is spilling the dye all over everything.

Happy 9 Months!

kaylee signs milk

Yesterday and the day before Kaylee started signing milk. I took a little video of it below. In the first clip she was signing milk over and over while drinking her milk. but when I started filming she stopped of course. In the second clip she's fussy, and then gets distracted by Ethan. But you can see a few half-hearted signs in there.

Good ol' Ethan has given up on signing milk. Interestingly, my cousin just blogged this morning about her daughter signing. According to my cousin, it's "common when children are learning language to overgeneralize." This is not something I knew, but it is definitely something that Ethan did. His milk sign suddenly became "I want something" and we tried every time he signed it to give him milk, but this just frustrated him when it wasn't milk that he wanted. So now he's just stopped signing. Our response to this has mostly been, "oh well." Perhaps he'll be inspired by Kaylee and pick it up again. And speaking of miss kaylee, she has woken from her nap and would like some attention, so I gtg. Happy beautiful-weather-in-WA Thursday to you all!

panorama

check out today's fun project! thanks as usual to danielle for taking the photos :)

8 months

I know, the kiddos are 9 months now. but scheduling their 9 month photoshoot made me realize I never posted their 8 month photos. so here they are!

gosh, my children are so cute :D

9 months

yesterday and today the kiddos turned 9 months. 9 months! can you believe it! they've been outside of me for as long as they were in now. crazy. I just called and extended the rental on my pump for another 3 months. I'm still pumping 4x a day, but I am so ready to decrease! In fact, I've put a date on my calendar (late June) when I'm going to reduce to 3x day. And then on Aug 1 I'll decrease to 2x day. our insurance has been super awesome so far and paid for my pump rental, but after Aug 11 I have to start paying for it myself. So my plan is to take a month or two to gradually decrease and then reclaim my body for myself! Hurrah!

In other news, I think Kaylee will be crawling in the next couple weeks. She's happy to hang out on her tummy now, and she can back up using her arms to push. She can also support herself in the crawling position, but she hasn't put it all together and actually made forward progress yet. But we did install a baby gate for Ethan last night, so that's crazy!

Happy Wednesday! (hey - it was a Wednesday 9 months ago too. weird.)