Food, Glorious Food!

The girls started solid food last Tuesday. We started with oatmeal under the advisement of the pediatrician as Alexandra has had issues getting with her tummy in the past. Alexandra was not very keen on the oatmeal thing but we stuck that out for 3 days just to stay consistent with Annellice. On day four we gave Alexandra rice cereal instead oatmeal and she was a happy camper who obliged each raise/lowering of the spoon with a giant push out and waggle of her tongue. I almost wish we didn't have to introduce them to new things as I have never seen her so happy eating... the bottle happiness she has just doesn't compare.

Right now everything that they are taking in is made at home. Kevin's parents gave us an awesome book on pureeing food. I keep going back to it and other books trying to figure out what to give them and when. Unfortunately, there is not a set of instructions manuals with these things... if there are someone let me know. So we are winging it for now, trying to stay to introducing new foods once every 4 days and then adding a 1/2 teaspoon of apple/prune juice to Alexandras to help her process things along. Needless to say I need to start writing things down on the calendar so I can remember what and when. Oy!

Here are some pictures of our happy and full babies (Annellice on the Left, Alexandra on the Right):

Sleep... PLEASE!

So traveling and having the babies sleep in the same room with us isn't quite the same as being at home. We knew they made noises during the night but the past 2 weekends have shown us more than we realized. I think in large part it is due to them not being comfortable away from their own crib because when we get home they fall asleep so easily and soundly.

Last Sunday Kevin and the girls watched as I completed the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler in DC. The run was a ton of fun and the girls seemed to enjoy the Metro rides to and from the race. There were more fast people that I realized up there. I accidently got sucked into a faster pace that what I had trained at. Turns out all was ok and I was able to hold the faster pace the whole time. Kevin and the girls wandered around the start/finish line area and came down the street to see me pass at mile 5. With the way scheduling and feeding worked out the girls ate and slept on the metro for the most part. Alexandra was so tired after the fitful night of sleep and the soy issue earlier in the week that she was either fussy, grunting or passed out.

This past weekend the girls came up to Lake Anna for the Rumpus in Bumpass race weekend. Lindsey, our babysitter extraordinaire, came up and stayed with us making the work/life balance much more bearable. The girls were oggled over by many and they hammed it up whenever possible to get more smiles. They enjoyed tummy time in the back of my wagon and played with the best rattle ever made! (A mini-gatorade bottle with rocks in it). Peek-a-boo is fast becoming one of their favorite games - their eyes follow you to where you go to hide and when you jump out it is like a whole new thing for them.

Here they are getting ready for Cherry Blossom:

7 Months have come and gone....

Its hard to believe that this journey started out with the babies in NICU. Don't get me wrong, some days we still act like we have issues but for the most part they have come a very far way. Last week I jumped on the scale with each of them at the YMCA. Annellice is hip-tiring 15.75 lbs while Alexandra is staying petite at 13.25lbs. Its strange that Annellice is growing faster because they are now drinking the same volume of milk (well atleast 90% of the time). Something we will obviously be keeping an eye on and asking about at their 9 month check-up.

(alexandra on left, annellice on right)

Alexandra has been taking things at her own pace these days. Somedays she will feel like turning her head to the sound of her name and other days she could care less and go about staring off at more interesting things. She also likes to pull the one-show-pony card too. I reported a couple of months ago about her rolling over she then stopped such activities for about a week or two and just now will only do it intermittently. At any rate, Alexandra is in LOVE with her feet these days. She lifts them, pulls them and on a number of occassions gets them into her mouth. In the process of playing with her feet she also loves to blow strawberries/bubbles with her mouth. Something new we have also learned about her is that she cannot take SOY formula (we started supplementing this month)! The was a hard lesson learned as both times she performed acrobatic vomiting to cover both myself and/or the couch and floor.. good times! Once we removed the soy formula we had our happy little child back within 12hours or so and after atleast one other vomiting session.

Annellice has been ticking along. She gets overly excited now when she even sees a bottle with milk in it so we are thinking we may have created a monster. Most things that touch her hands now wind up somewhere near her mouth/head so we are going to have to start being a bit more careful now with things at the table. She has just started to sit unassisted for up to 30-60seconds at a time. She thinks it is the funniest thing to push her upper body with her hands and more often than not falls forward with giggles and laughter. Outside of that Annellice still loves making the space-shuttle noises and checking herself out in the mirror to see if she can insight laughter/smiles in others especially Alexandra.

The Exersaucer was introduced in ernest about 10days ago. At first they didn't seem to like it much but once they understood that the toys we just toys and not bad noise makers they started to enjoy it more. We have been trying the exersaucer out for 15-20 minutes at a stretch after which that get tired of it. With the addition of this we now have something new to do with the girls other than just TummyTime. Although, tummy-time seems to be getting more interesting lately as some days they have figured out how to prop half of their body ready for crawling... to bad they haven;t figured out how to do the other half at the same time yet.

Sorry!!!!

So the month of March got away from us a bit... SORRY!!!!

Things that happened in March (the quick and dirty version):

1. The girls grew... a ton! See the 7Month posting arriving next

2. The race season started so my workload just got a bit heftier

3. Kevin has settled into his new job but still is working as the Manager part-time at his old job until they find someone to replace him (this could be a while).

4. I have taken on water aerobics and spinning classes at the YMCA in Goochland to force myself out of the house some mornings... provides me with a bit of sanity between the kids and work at home.

5. We put our house on the market as we have realized that we desperately need a garage and a place where I can just walk out the door with the stoller to walk the dog instead of having to load us in a car to drive to town.
6. Lindsey started coming in to babysit the girls Mondays and Wednesdays so that I can get some work done for the upcoming races.

Here are some snapshots from March:

Alexandra is laughing at Annellice during TummyTime:

The girls are chilling - Annellice is wishing she were in the sun with Alexandra:


Off we go for errands - Alexandra on the left and Annellice on the right:

Happy babies in the morning! Alexandra top right and Annellice bottom left:

Afternoon stroller time for short dog walk - Alexandra on the left and Annellice on the right:

Alexandra rockin' it out with Titan:

Annellice boogeying it out now too: