Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. It felt so long! Jerame took the day off on Wednesday so our weekend started early it was nice. My cousin Melissa came over to take care of the babies on Wednesday evening and we got to go out with some friends for drinks. It was so much fun... I had a little too much fun though and had a bit of a hang over on Thanksgiving. It was worth every bit of pain though :-). I have to say it probably wasn't even that fun to your average person but considering I have not been in a bar having a drink in over a year anything would have been fun to me I think.
We spent Thanksgiving day with my family at my Mom & Jerry's house. It was a very relaxing day and the food was delicious. My Mom made a very traditional Thanksgiving meal which was just perfect. Saturday we celebrated the holiday with Jerame's family at our house. We made butternut squash soup, turkey sandwiches and salad. It was fun to have all the kids together. Then Saturday night Jerame and I got to have another date night! Jerame's Mom & Sister stayed at our house while we went down to Seattle to meet up with my Dad and Shelly to celebrate my Dad's B-Day. We went to Wild Ginger. Our entire weekend was centered around food which was just fantastic!
The babies are doing great. They are growing like little weeds. My Mom and I spent the entire morning Friday packing up all of their 0-3 month clothes. It was a huge job...it took us a good 2 hours! It is so sad to put away all of their sweet little outfits that they only got to wear a handful of times. They are now wearing 3-6 month. Carter still has a hearty appetite and will pretty much eat at any time. Chloe is still a fussy eater and feeding her has sort of become a process that can take a while. We are pretty sure she has reflux so we are going to start her on some medicine that hopefully will help. She is doing better nursing now than taking a bottle so I have decided to still nurse for a while longer. My goal was to give them breast milk for the first 3 months and we made it! I have to say nursing two babies is a lot of work. We have started giving them formula for a little less than 1/2 of their feedings throughout the day and it has really helped me feel a lot less stressed out about finding the time to pump. They are also sleeping much better at night. Last night both babies slept from 10pm to 5am. That was the longest stretch both of them have ever slept!!! So both Jerame & I felt like we got a good night sleep it was the first time in a long while for me. I finally ordered the babies birth announcements...yes almost 4 months after they were born...like I said twins Mom's deserve a break. They turned out really cute. Now my next challenge will be getting them mailed before Christmas. I think we are going to put up our tree this weekend. I can't believe Christmas is in just a few short weeks.

Our two nieces Skyler and Olivia

Jerame playing with the girls

Jerame sister Arielle and Carter

This look cracks me up...this is his classic look

"deer in the headlights"

Daddy and Daughter

My Mom and I on Thanksgiving

Cater hanging out in his bouncy chair on Thanksgiving

Mom, Jerry and Carter

Jerry carving the 20lbs turkey

Out to dinner at Wild Ginger

The miracle mobile

There have been several times along our 3 month and counting journey of parenting that I stop and think how thankful I am for our swings, bouncers and really anything that has helped the babies sleep or stay occupied! I thought I would share with you the most recent lifesaver we have discovered...the mobile. I don't know why we waited so long to get one of these because it is awesome. I can put the babies in the crib together and they will lay and look at this thing for sometimes 30-40mins. That might not sound like very long but in my world it is an eternity! Who knows how long it will be interesting to them but for now it works and it is allowing me to take a shower without listening to babies crying through the monitor.

who would have guessed I would ever be this

excited about a mobile.

Here they are completely memorized

The babies first play date. You can see they are

doing lots of playing :-). At least Mommy got

out of the house for a change.

3 months old

The babies turned 3 months old on the 21st, I can't believe it. They have changed so much and continue to be different on a daily basis. Everyone says that the first 3 months are the hardest and after getting through them I believe every bit of it! I would never want to relive the first month if you paid me...it was VERY challenging. It is getting so much better and we are feeling more 'normal' all the time. Life has changed completely and totally but we are loving our new lives and cannot imagine what it would be like with out our babies now. I feel totally comfortable now being alone with the babies and manning the fort by myself. We pretty much know what all their different cry's mean now and feel like we can figure out what is going to make them happy the quickest. I have figured that parenting a newborn is just a total game of trying to figure out whats wrong with them most of the time. They are both smiling, cooing and on occasion they will both let out little laugh-like squeals. It's really pretty cute. Last week we got out of the house and had a play-date with some girls I went to high school with. It was fun to catch up...I can't believe my 10 year will be next summer...crazy! Good motivation for me to get back in shape.

I am excited for this week because Jerame will have some time off for the Holiday so we will get to spend more time together as a family.


The babies are more interested in playing now. I
can actually set them down on the floor and they will
entertain themselves for 20 min stretches sometimes.


Carter flirting


He is such a smiley boy


Need we say more!



Chloe is more in toTummy time than Carter

We got this mirror that they can look at while

laying on their tummy. You would never think

it would be that interesting but they think it's

pretty neat.

Mommy & Chloe. We went to Kirk, Karen & Sydney's

house to watch the Apple Cup. Go Cougs!

Bath time

Chloe after her bath last night. Both babies have
discovered their tounges lately and stick them out
all the time.


The babies are starting to enjoy their bath time. They splash and kick their legs...it's starting to not seem like such a chore for Mom too. We are getting the hang of it. It's sad though I feel like I have to rush them through their baths with fear the other baby is going to have a melt down at any moment. It will be so nice when I can finally bath them at the same time. We are now going to try and start doing baths as part of the bed time routine that way Jerame can help me too. All the books say you can try to start to establish the routine as early as 3 months...I say the sooner the better. I think we already have a little bit of a head start on the bed time routine because both babies have been sleeping in their cribs at night for a while now. This is not to say they stay in their cribs all night but at least they go to bed there initially.
Chloe got her weight checked again on Friday. She is now 10lbs! She is maintaining her weight in the 10th percentile, which is good. She is just small.

We had a wonderful weekend. Jerame started to clean up the many gallons of leaves we have in our yard. He filled 13 yard waste bags with leaves in just the back yard. We had a group of friends over for dinner on Saturday night too. It was fun to see everyone and have them get to know the babies a little bit! Sunday was football filled and family time.

Cuteness

We finally caught a smile from Chloe on camera tonight. They both are just getting cuter and cuter by the day. I pretty much can get Chloe to smile on demand now :-)....she loves her momma. Carter is still more serious but does flash us those gums quite often. Carter always looks like he is in deep thought trying to solve the worlds problems. As you can also see Carter has completely found out that he has hands. He sucks on them at all waking times! I just fall more in love with these babies everyday. I just can't believe they are all ours...we are so blessed! I feel like I am really starting to get the hang of taking care of two babies. Sometimes I just can't imagine what it would be like with only one baby to take care of....how boring!

Daddy & Chloe had a long night together last night
so they are both very sleepy this evening. I hope tonight
is better!






Time fore some smiles!

Night Out

My cousin Melissa came over last night and took care of the babies while Jerame and I had a date night! We went to the new luxury movie theater in Redmond town center. It was really cool they have really comfortable seats and you can order food & drinks inside the movie theater. It is sort of like going to dinner and a movie all at the same time. It was so fun! Then Melissa stayed the night with us and had baby duty all night so we got a good night sleep. She is just awesome! The picture is us before we went on our date last night.

So Big!

I remember when I got these outfits at my shower and they seemed so big. I just would never have imagined that they would fit into them already! They don't have a lot of matching boy/girl outfits so it was fun to dress them similar today, even though we didn't leave the house :-). The babies slept so good the night before last and we thought that maybe we were making progress in the sleep department but last night they reminded us that they are the ones calling the shots still! I think that we all got maybe 4 hours total sleep...ugh! Then they slept most of the day today so we will see how tonight goes. Wish us luck.
I got to go out to dinner last night with Ashley & Misty while Jerame stayed home with the babies. It was so nice to get out and get somewhat dressed up. It was so fun to catch up with the girls. I was ready to get back to the babies though by the time the night was through...I missed my little family!

Carter taking a nap yesterday.

Chloe loves to sleep with her arms up it's so cute.