Dear Violet

Dear Violet,

Happy half birthday pumpkin!!! I can't believe it's already been 6 months since you joined our family! It's been flying by! I wish you and your sister would stop growing so fast! I already miss those newborn days! But at the same time, every day that passes with you gets funner and funner!

You've gotten so strong this past month! You are now rolling both ways whenever you please. Any time I leave you on the floor, I come back to find you in a new position! Not only are you rolling all over the place, you are also break dancing all over the floor in circles! You both have been doing this for a couple months now, but it seems to have gotten more extreme this month, with more purpose! You are also starting to learn to sit up unassisted. You are not to sturdy yet though, so I can't step away from you while you are sitting yet! You'll get there this month I'm sure! I've also caught you starting to try to get onto you knees a few times! You push your stomach as far as you can off the floor and get up on your toes! Will we see creeping of crawling this month?


You have become a solid food eating fiend! You LOVE to eat solid food! You never turn down a spoonful of something, and are always happy with every new food you've tried so far! So far you've had apple sauce, banana's, carrots, sweet potato, and peaches. Peaches was the only one that you didn't love, but you still ate it. Banana's I think are your favorite though! You gobble those up! You get so impatient when I have to feed you and your sister at the same time though. When I'm giving her a spoonful, you get so upset and whine or cry until I give you another bite! You also love to play with your spoon a lot. You get so upset when I have to take the spoon back to feed you! Must be soothing to your poor teething teeth.

Since you having been eating more solids now, you've started to be less interested in breast feeding and bottles. You've dropped a bottle, so now you get three 5oz bottles a day. And we nurse a few times a day, mostly in the am and pm. It seems to be more of a comfort thing for you now. I'm so glad we stuck with it, even though it has been such a struggle, especially with you. We're in that nice bonding stage now of our nursing relationship! I love when you look up at me sweetly while nursing, and reach up to touch my cheek! That just makes my day! You also love to grab at my nose, and pull my glasses off my face! You are also easily distracted during nursing sessions now! You keep looking around at every little noise! So nosey! Still, I'm so glad we are at this point, and hope to continue nursing you as long as possible!

These past 6 months you have been the happiest baby I have ever come into contact with! You are so easy going! Every time someone meet you the comment on your beautiful smile! Daddy and I always joke about what a big flirt you are! It's adorable now...but I think in several years Daddy will start losing all his hair if you continue to be so flirty! Right now we love how happy and cheerful you are though!


Like your sister, you have become more and more vocal over the last month! You love to show off your voice with your coos and shrieks! The funniest thing you've discovered with your voice this month is how to click your tongue! I was stilling on the computer typing up something with you in my lap on 6/7, and suddenly you clicked your tongue! We both started laughing...it was so funny! You continue to click your tongue all the time! Another fun noise you've discovered how to make is a raspberry sound! You've started blowing them on my arms a lot now! It's hysterical!

My favorite new thing you've learned to do this month is give hugs! When we pick you up now, you wrap your little arms around us, and nuzzle your head into our neck!! It is the sweetest thing in the world! Truly melts my heart! You are also trying to either give kisses, or eat our faces off! You grab my face, and move in with your mouth open wide, and then attach yourself to my cheek, or nose! It's adorable, and slobbery!

You seem to adore the cats! Ouija, next to your sisters, seems to be your best friend! You just light up whenever you see her!! You love when she bumps heads with you, and curls up next to you, so you can brush your fingers through her fur. They both are so gentle with all you girls, even though you pull at their whiskers and try to bite their ears. They have always just patiently took all the gentle abuse. I hope you continue to have a love for animal though. I've always been a very sensitive to animals, and I can tell you are going to be the same way as me!


You continue to adore your sisters! You face just lights up when you see either of them! You think Lily is the funniest person alive, and you have such a sweet spot for Ella. Whenever I put you on the floor with Ella, you always reach immediately for her hand to hold, and you start talking to each other. Of course like any sibling relationship, you have your little squabbles over toys. Ella, unfortunate for you, almost always wins when you are going after the same toy. But you are so easy going, you often will be happy with just watching your sister play. It truly is a joy watching the toy of you play together though!

We love you so much Violet! Having twins isn't easy, but I am thankful every day that we were giving this wonderful opportunity to watch two of our children grow up right next to each other! I couldn't imagine our family without you and Ella being twins! It's crazy some days, but really we are blessed! We are so proud of how far you have come already! Even though you are a full 2.5lbs lighter than you sister, you don't let us know it at all in your development! I can't wait to see what next month holds for you and your sister! Stop being so eager to grow up so fast though! I love you Fuzzy!!

Love,

Mommy



Fast asleep in the jumperoo:



With best friend Ouija, trying to eat her ear:



Still teething, and still no teeth!

Dear Eleanor,

Dear Eleanor,

Happy half birthday sweetie!!! I can't believe half of our first year is already gone! It makes me so sad how fast you and your sister are growing up! But it also makes me proud, and a little bit relieved that we've survived thus far! :)

In my last letter to you girls, you were just barely starting to roll. Now you are rolling all over the place!! Not only are you rolling over from your front to your back, you are now going from your back to your front!! You figured that out on June 4th! I was so proud...you've been trying to figure out how to roll that way for a couple months now! Now every time I put you on your back, you roll to your tummy immediately! Every time I leave you on the floor, I come back to you in a different position! You are also break dancing all around the floor too, turning yourself around in circles! You've been doing that for a few months though, so it's not new...but it seems to have picked up this month! You are not creeping yet, but I think you are very close. I've caught you a few times this week trying to get up to your knees! You also stretch out your legs and get up on your toes in a plank like position for a few seconds. I think this next month I'll be seeing you get a lot more mobile! You've also gotten a lot sturdier at sitting up unassisted! I still need to be there next to you to catch you when you wobble, but you're getting better at it!


We've continued down the path of solid foods this month, trying a few new things! Your first real food after cereal was apple sauce! At first you didn't seem to care for it, but after your first meal of apples was finished, you loved them! Now that is a staple food in the house. You and your sister gobble up your food when apple sauce is mixed in! I think it may be your favorite so far! You've also tried bananas, peaches, carrots and sweet potato. With each new food I give you, you make a funny face the first few bites, as if you are saying "What in the world is this Mommy?". But after those first few bites, you always seem to love the food! You are a good eater now! Messy, but good! You are a little better than your sister about being patient while waiting for your turn with the spoon, but you still get a little upset sometimes when I need to give Violet a few spoonfuls, making you wait!

As for your other food, you are still getting breast fed with supplements of formula. Since starting the solids though, both breast feeding and bottle feeding have been a little messed up! We've dropped a bottle, so now you are only getting 3 bottles of 5 oz a day...and usually you don't even finish that! As for breast feeding, you nurse a few times a day. It's been hard having a low supply, but I'm so glad I stuck with it. We are now getting all the great bonding benefits of breast feeding! I love our quite one on one time together when I'm feeding you! For the last couple of months you've been reach up and touching my face, or grabbing my nose while nursing! I love this stage of the nursing relationship, and I'm so glad we were able to get to this point! I'm hopeful we'll be able to continue nursing for a long while now!


You've become a lot more vocal this month! You've been shrieking and "talking" a lot! You like to talk to your sisters, making a lot of coo like sounds. You also when you are mad babble "Mum mum mum". Lily use to do the same thing! You also discovered how to make a raspberry sound by pressing your lips together and blowing. Very cute! I wonder if I'll see some real babbling from you sometime this month! I'm excited to see what you say next!! (As I write this I can hear you in the other room talking away! Lots of vowel sounds, Ahh, EEE, AHOOO, YEA! Very cute!)

You and your sisters are the most ticklish little monkey's I've ever seen! You love getting tickled on the belly, and just shriek with joy! You're laugh is just so infectious too!

Over the last 6 months you've developed a few nicknames. Of course there is Ella, which is what we call you most of the time. I've also been calling you Ellie a lot lately. Those two names have lead to Ella Bella and Ellie Bellie! Other nicknames are Ellaphant, Ellagater, Ellabellerina, and the usually monkey, princess and squishy. I love that you have so many nicknames!!


You continue to adore both of your sisters. I hope this keeps up for a very long time! You love when I put you and Violet on the floor facing each other! You talk, and play, and touch each other faces!! (Or maybe sometimes it's yell, fight and scratch each others faces! ) You do fight over toys, usually Sophie the giraffe, which is both of your favorite toys. You, being the "dominant" twin, usually win! I hope someday you'll learn to let your little sister have a turn!

As always, we are so proud of you Ella! It's amazing to me to look back over the last 6 months, and see all you've learned in that short time! It's flown by so fast already! I can't believe you are already sitting up and getting ready to creep...to me it seems like we should still be trying to get you to hold your head up! I look forward to seeing how much you'll learn in this next month!! Maybe we'll see a tooth make an appearance, or maybe you'll start creeping or even crawling? We love you so much Ellie Bellie!

-Love
Mommy





Playing is such hard work!




Photo shoot out take (aka "It's too sunny out Mommy!!")

6 Months!!!

Happy half birthday girls!!! We are SO proud of you both! These last 6 months have been a lot of hard work, but so much fun! We're so blessed to have both of you in our lives!

Love,
Mommy and Daddy









Photo shoot out takes:

Hard to get you to both look at me!


Sisters means there is always someone there to catch you when you fall!! (aka...Violet needs more practice sitting up!!)


Open your eyes Violet!!



Full 6 month letters for each to come!

Birthday At the Aquarium

We spent Sean's 28th birthday this year at the aquarium, eating sea food, and of course, a stop at the book barn for my book loving husband!

It never ceases to amaze me how much there really is to do at this small aquarium! We've been members since Lily was about 4 months old, and have been so many times, and there are still new things for us to do! This trip we saw / did 3 new things! First was a new exhibit, that just opened up since the last time we were there...jelly fish!! All different kinds! They are so pretty to look at!

Second new thing was the bird exhibit! We've never gone into the cages to feed the birds before, and to be honest, I'm not sure we'll be doing it again any time soon! They give you a little stick with bird seed stuck tot he end, and send you into this cage with what's got to be hundreds of birds. Of course they come flying for the food! It was fun at first, and Lily was delighted to have this one little green bird eating from her stick.






Then they started swooping at her, and it scared her, so she handed the stick over to me, and I had a couple birds land on my arm!! Scared the living daylights out of me! :) We id have one pretty yellow bird stay with our stick for a bit.


Lily was still scared though!


I ended up finding a spot in a tree to ditch the stick that still had food on it, so we could leave. It was fun, but just made both of us a little to nervous!

All 3 of my girls...still haven't got a decent picture of the 3 of them!


The 3rd new thing we saw was the bull frogs singing in the marsh. We usually go to the aquarium in the winter/spring/fall months, so we often see the marsh with all the tadpoles...but have never seen the frogs before! It was fun running around the boardwalk finding with frog was singing!


Of course we stopped to check out the penguins and the sea lions!


This is the huge male sea lion they have. I've never seen him come out of the water like this before! It's like he was checking us all out! He was just out of the water for a minute or so, but it was really neat to see really how large he is!


I really love that we can go to this aquarium so many times, and still have a different experience each time!

I also have a few pictures to share relating to Sean's birthday.

Here is one of the pictures Lily painted for her Daddy:


She said that it was a picture of Daddy, with his eye brow, eyes, and nose!

Painting another picture:


And then showing off one more picture. She was so excited that she made gray by mixing all the colors!


And here she is helping me frost the spice cake that I made yesterday:



(Note to self...left the cake cool completely before trying to frost with butter cream frosting!! It kept melting! I was in a rush though to get it down before her nap! Also need to figure out a better way to mix pumpkin puree into the frosting...it didn't mix as well as it usually does!)

And the birthday boy blowing out his candles with a little help from Lily and Ella:


I hope you had a wonderful birthday sweetie!!

6 Month Doctors Appointment

Today the twins had their 6 month well baby visit with their doctor. The girls are both doing great!! Eleanor is 15lbs!! That's a whole pound heavier than Lily at this age! She's just a hair over 25% in weight. She is 26 inches now too. That's just above 50%. Head circumference was 43cm. Violet is still a peanut at 12lbs 12oz. That keeps her at 5% on the growth chart for weight. For height she is 25 3/4 inches long. That's about 50%! And her head circumference is 40.5 cm, which is also in the 5th percentile. Their doctor is still a little concerned with Violet's weight, but says she's been gaining consistently at her own curve, so she just may be meant to be small. She did jump a percentile in height though! We thought she was looking taller lately!

Their shots went well. Of course there was the usually crying during and after, but they are ok now! As all mothers know it's so hard to watch our little guys get poked, and it's doubly harder to watch 2 of your kids get them one right after the other! Their next appointment will be horrible, because Lily will also be getting a shot then! (though I'm trying to remember...are there shots at 8-9 months? I remember getting a break at one of the first year appointments with Lily...maybe it was that one?)

We got the green light to start meats, and other fun food with the girls! The doctor was even telling us about new research about allergies, and how they are now recommending it better to give those common allergy foods during the first year because at this age their bodies don't recognize it as something they need to fight against. She recommended we start putting a dab of peanut butter next to their lips for a week, and if there was no reaction we could start giving it to them. Now I'm not going to jump right in and start doing this on her recomendation alone...and would never give peanut butter at this age anyways because of choking risks, but this is some interesting new information! I'll definitely be researching this some more! She also laughingly sugested with give Violet ice cream to help her gain more weight. (she was serious about the suggestion...but was laughing I think because it's kind of a silly recommendation!) I won't be giving Violet ice cream this early though! We'll let her get closer to one! haha! I think I will be getting her some avocados to try soon though...lots of good fats in those!