10 Month Pics & Happenings

This last month has been very exciting in terms of the girls development. Kylie is now crawling properly and is SO fast! Caelyn can also crawl correctly, but sometimes still leopard crawls. She's getting faster by the day! Both of my girls just LOVE being on their feet and walking along the edges of things. Kylie's been able to pull herself up for a few weeks and can now even bend down from a stand to pick up things off the floor, but we always had to help Caelyn get up until today! She just pulled herself up for the first time about an hour ago. I'm so excited for her because she was getting frustrated that she couldn't do all that her sister could. This week has been one of new freedom's for Caelyn as she also learned how to go from a crawl to a sit this week as well as to clap her hands! Both girls are loving spitting (sometimes with food in their mouths) and shaking their heads no at the moment! They think they are really funny :) They also love to play peak a boo and to imitate you. Of course, the sillier you are the better. It's embarrassing to admit the ridiculous things I'll do to make the girls laugh! We're going into winter now and even though we've been lucky with weather so far... it's starting to change. I've been struggling with ways of keeping them occupied on the days like today where it's pouring rain outside so if anyone has any ideas please please do share!! I've attached some pics I've taken since they turned 10 months below. You'll notice there's one with another set of identical twins. There was another set of identical twin boys that were born on the same day, same hospital, same Dr. etc. We tease and call them the girls' boyfriends :) It was all of their first time enjoying a french fry. We had to give them fries to keep them still enough to take a photo!! Their Mom, Ilse, and I have become friends since meeting at the hospital. It's been so great to have her to chat to because we seem to go through the same things at exactly the same time! I'm s grateful for all of my friends and family who've had kids before me or who has had them around the same time because all of the advice has been SO helpful!! Other good news... we've booked our tickets to Seattle. Yes, we're braving the long flight with the girls this coming Dec. and will be home for the holidays! Yay! I'm so excited and can't wait!! We'll also be going to Sun Valley and it's going to be so fun to see the girls explore the snow! More later, but please know that I really miss you all and hope to hear from you soon. Lots of love!!!

9 month pics & update

Sorry it's been forever since I've posted... the girls are keeping me busy busy busy!!! They're both ALL over the place now (crawling and walking holding onto things) so I spend my days chasing after them :) They're getting sooo big all the sudden and it seems like they're growing up faster each day. They were 10 months old on May 25th and Caelyn now weighs 10.2kg and Kylie 9.2kg's. They're 75 cm long which I've been told is tall for their age! They're becoming very talkative with their babababas, mamamas, gagaggas, etc and they're interacting with each other more and more each day. It's sooo cute to watch. They both love music and start either rocking or (if they're on the feet) bouncing to the music. They're also starting to get really competitive both over me and toys. They can be holding the exact same toy and still want the one in the other one's hand. Any tips on how to manage this would be greatly appreciated!! It's a bit of a bummer that we're going into winter because the girls are starting to get really bored of being in the house and of their toys! We've had several nice days luckily so we go for walks with the dogs (which they love) as often as we can. They also now have a swing that we've hung from the oak tree in the front yard and I get to see huge smiles every time I put them in it! They also love their walking rings. I know it's not great for development so they don't spend much time in them, but I can't resist letting them spend 10 mins or so every few days because they squeal with excitement. They're now really fast in them and race all around the house bumping into everything including each other!! I've started taking them to a baby development group once a week. They have soooo much fun because there's ton of babies and new toys. We spend some time on development activities, then they get to have messy play (such as playing with shaving cream) and then they get to play with all toys. They love sitting in the ball pit and riding the horse! I'm happy to report that both girls are now sleeping through the night and I couldn't be happier. I was seriously close to collapsing from sleep deprivation, but I'm staring to recover now because I've had over a week of good sleep. I didn't realize how much I missed my sleep :) They aren't sleeping very well or very much at all during the day, but I'm not complaining because they sleep well at night. I also now have some help with the girls.. yay!! A young girl named Eleen who's Grandma looked after Andrew when he was a baby started 2 weeks ago and so far she's working out great! It's making such a difference because they're becoming more demanding all the time and they take off in different directions so it was getting really difficult to keep them both happy and safe. It was also very tough to take them out into public on my own so now I have someone who can come with and help me. It's given me a whole new sense of freedom which I really needed :) We finally had some professional family photos taken yesterday. The girls were very good, but they were really intimidated by the camera and photographer so it was really hard to get them to smile. I should have the photos back in a few weeks... fingers crossed they turned out! I can't wait to see them and will post them as soon as I get them! In the meantime, here are some pics I've taken over the last month or so!!