First time to Sunday School

RSV season is now over so we have been cleared to start getting out and about. Today we took the girls to church. They haven't been since November so they looked huge to everyone. They were all amazed at how big they were and what all they were doing, but they will be 10 months on Thursday. I was a little anxious to see how they would act. They are scared of strangers, aren't use to being held forever and having to be quite, and sure aren't use to being out of the house and off their schedules. But they did pretty good. They made it through the whole first hour of worship being held and rotating out toys. Then I took them to Sunday school. It was their first time so I stayed in the class with them. I wanted to see how they would act, but also to help the teacher who has been bombarded with twin girlies. Lexyn did great during class. She sat in her seat the entire time without fussing, just chewing on the props that were handed to her to fit each song. Brittyn did pretty good too, but she got a little irritated towards the end because she wanted down on the floor to play! I can't believe my babies are now able to go to Sunday school.

They start out having all the kids together to sing some songs. The girls were amazed at all the singing and motions the other kids were doing. They even sat on the floor like big girls with all the other kids.

Lexyn was patting the Bible during the song "I Love to Pat the Bible"

Brittyn was patting the Bible during the song too.

But then she quickly put it in her mouth, where she thinks everything belongs these days!

After Church we went to my mom's to eat lunch and play with cousin Brinlee. When she isn't playing the jealousy game, she LOVES HER babies!

While we ate the girls watched their favorite movie, "Praise Baby". Thank God for "Praise Baby" DVDs. They are my life saver!

By the way, don't they look so cute in their pretty dresses! Their Nana bought those at the Carter's outlet in Branson back in October. We are finally wearing them for the first time, and they are size 0-3 months!

Pulling Up

Ok, so now I have two baby girls that are pulling up. Where has time gone? I think I some how missed the stage of just holding helpless limp snuggling babies. They are both now on the go, pulling up and pretty independent. Although they are in this needing held stage but there is lots of fussing to go along with that holding. Lexyn started pulling up on a toy to her knees on March 14th, then the next time we looked over at her she was standing up holding onto the toy. How did she do that? She is getting too big. Bless her heart she is pulling up before she is sitting up! She has sat up a few times but only for a few seconds. The therapist says it just must be to uncomfortable for her tight little leg muscles. She can almost pull up on anything sturdy now, but she quickly starts to fuss because she has no idea of how to get back down to the floor.

Along with the pulling up came a more aggressive Lexyn. She has decided to get Brittyn back for all the times she stole her toy, or used her head to push up. Lexyn is now stealing Brittyn's toys, pulling on her clothes, using her back to push up, and the funniest thing is she has figured out how to hold on to Brittyn's legs and hitch a ride. Lexyn can get almost anywhere she wants but she still does it by doing the wounded soldier crawl. She only uses one arm and one leg to crawl-scoot on the floor. So if Brittyn is near she will grab a hold of her legs and get pulled to where ever Brittyn is headed. It is so funny to watch, although it usually aggravates little miss Brittyn.

In the picture above Lexyn was holding onto Brittyn's shoulders to push up and Brittyn got aggravated and turned around, when she did Lexyn grabbed a hold of her hair to keep from falling. Poor Brittyn!

The girls have been pretty sick. I took them to the doctor of Monday after a long rough weekend. Lexyn had been running fever and they both have had runny, stuffy noses, and a cough for over a week. Well, they both have double ear infections and sinus infections. Poor Babies! They did get weighed at their appointment and they have gained pretty good since their last appointment 3 weeks ago. Lexyn weighed 13 pounds 14.2 ounces, and Brittyn weighed 13 pounds 11.6 ounces.

The First of Many...I'm Sure

Black eyes that is!

Yes, Tuesday the 17th my Miss Independent BIG Stuff lost her balance and tumbled to the floor. This time when she fell there was a laundry basket, which she started out holding on to, in the way. Her head smack it good, and she cut her eye lid causing it to bleed and immediately a bump swelled up and turned black. Poor baby. She cried with real tears for about 2 minutes and then wanted down to crawl right back to the laundry basket and pull up again. The girl has NO fear!

Lexyn's EEG results came back showing nothing abnormal, Praise the Lord!

The actual procedure was by no means a fun experience. She screamed and cried the entire 5 to 10 minutes the that nurse cleaned, measured, glued, and gelled the 24 little metal button size probes to her head. She then had to go to sleep for 20 minutes and at least 5 additional minutes in stage 2 sleep. She had screamed so loud and long during the preparation that she wore herself out. I rocked her to sleep and she was gone immediately. Then they woke her up after a 25 minute nap, shined really bright flashing lights in her eyes and scrubbed the probes off her head and washed the glue and gel out of her hair. NO FUN!!!

Now the doctor is saying it must be night terrors she is having, and recommended some things to try to break the pattern. We will see what happens from here.

Our fun new swings

After making a few trips to the park we realize that the girls LOVE to swing. The weather here has been really nice, so my mom and I made a trip to Babies R Us and found 2 swings. Tonight daddy hooked the swings up under our covered back patio. They had the best time. We pushed them for 30 minutes while we were out back grilling our dinner. We are so excited about our swings and the many more outside fun times we will have.






Lexyn








Brittyn

Thanks Gamma for our new fun swings!

Our First Zoo Visit

Saturday March 7, 2009 was free admission at the Little Rock Zoo. We mainly went to get out of the house, and we were asked by some friends to tag along. We were actually excited to get out with the girls and enjoy the weather. Of course our girls really had no idea what was going on and could have cared less, but still they were there! Lexyn didn't much care for the stroller long, so she was the one we had out showing all the animals too. She actually noticed some of them and even talked to the sheep in the petting zoo area. It was pretty neat to see her notice them. I must add that since it was free admission day, the place was PACKED, so we skipped seeing a lot of the animals.

By the way, I realize from this picture I must get busy on my goal of losing 10 pounds by June!

Me and the girls

Lexyn looking down at the prairie dogs

Daddy carring Lexyn and looking at the goats

Ben helping Liam feed fish

The girls in their stroller

Brittyn excited to be out of the house, we only have 3 more weeks of this house arrest stuff and then we will be on the go ALL the time.

Mommy and Brittyn looking at the Giraffe's

Lexyn

9 Month Check-ups

Today my mom and I took the girls to the pediatrician for their 9 month check-ups. Notice I said my mom and I, those appointments are way to complicated to take 2 by myself! The doctor was very pleased with their progress. He couldn't believe Brittyn was crawling and pulling up on things. He wasn't at all concerned that Lexyn is sitting up yet. He said she is about in the norm for an 11 week preemie. He said Brittyn falls in the 9 month category for a full term baby. I knew she was strong willed when she was in the NICU! He was a little unhappy with their weights, oh course! He said that their head measurements and their height measurements are almost up to where they should be when the age is adjusted, but they are behind in their weights. I told him they were taking 4 to 5 ounces in their bottles but only taking about 5 bottles in a 24 hour period when we feed them baby food for lunch and dinner. He said they should be taking 8 ounce bottles but also took into consideration that they get rice cereal in every bottle to thicken it to Nectar. Since they aren't taking in enough formula, which we are to push for, he wants me to increase the calorie intake. I am to make a 5 ounce bottle and put 3 scoops of powdered formula instead of 2 and half, that way it will be 24 calorie servings. We have done that in the past but we thought they were gaining pretty good and laid off, but we were wrong. He said Brittyn has only gained 4 ounces since we were there in January for her ear infections.

Lexyn:
weight - 13 pounds and 6 ounces
height - 26 and 1/4 inches

Brittyn:
weight - 13 pounds 2.4 ounces
height - 27 inches

Lexyn finally passed her sister up in the weight department. She has always been at least 5 ounces behind Brittyn, but since we started feeding baby food, Lexyn is my eater! Brittyn could take it or leave it but don't forget her BOTTLE! He took into consideration too that Brittyn is a lot more active than Lexyn. So we know what we will be working on before their 1 year check-ups.

I also asked him about Lexyn's night screams. He said she is pretty young for night terrors, that they usually start around 2 years old. He gave me the name of a doctor that wrote a book about sleeping habits and night terrors, and told me to read it. But he wants to be able to rule out her having seizures. So he is scheduling her for an EEG at Children's hospital. I am not really concerned about it, because she only does these bloody murder scream outs at nap time and during the night. I would think that if she was having seizures she would have them in the daytime too, but we are going to proceed with the test since he recommended it. He said if the test comes back negative he will refer her to a sleep clinic for infants. Maybe we will get some help for these every night scream out problems. But for now, yes we are still getting up several times a night to eat and having these screams outs while completely asleep that could last up to 30 minutes.

Tomorrow we are going for their first pediatric eye exam. Since preemies are common to have vision problems and their retinas didn't attach until they were 4 months old they have recommended we get on their vision early. I am mainly hoping that everything is fine tomorrow and they don't have to be followed for their vision but we will see. I am sure I will post tomorrow or Friday to let you know how their eye exams went.

My little mess!

About a month ago, Ben and I enrolled in the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University course that a couple at our church are teaching. Tonight we went to our 4th session, and by the way it was GREAT, and my mom came to the house to watch the girls and get them in bed for us. While we were gone Miss Brittyn decided to venture out and explore the dog bowls. They have been in the same spot for her whole 9 month life, but she hasn't paid them any attention as she crawls past them. But tonight she figured out they are pretty cool, light weight, and make lots of neat noise! My mom happened to catch a serious of pictures as she explored them. Notice in the first one she has that mischievous look on her face. Enjoy!

Jeans, Jeans

Back in September 2008 we took our first family of 4 vacation to Branson, Missouri. We had a great time shopping for baby clothes, finally. We have been to Branson probably 10 times in our 5 years of marriage but we have never been able to buy baby clothes. We went to the Carter's outlet store and got the girls their first pair of jeans. They are so cute, with a little pink and green butterfly on the back pocket. We got the smallest size they had which was 0-3 months. I have tried them on every few weeks just waiting for them to fit. FINALLY, today they got to wear their first pair of jeans. They looked so cute and soooooo big! I had to share a few pictures.

Lexyn, yes they are still a little big in the waist so they didn't stay up all the way but they never fell all the way down!!!

The next 2 pictures are our attempts to get both girls sitting up (Lexyn supported with a pillow) and looking at the camera at the same time. Notice, it didn't work very well today!

March 3, 2009 = 9 Months for the girlies!

Yesterday the girls were 9 months old. They are just way too big. I am not sure what they weigh now but we go tomorrow for their 9 month check up and shots. I am thinking Lexyn is heavier than Brittyn. She is the eater, that's for sure. She likes to eat her baby food. They both are finally doing pretty good with that after a long messy battle with Brittyn. They are still wearing 0-3 month clothes, but we have started wearing a few 3-6 month sleepers. They have step up in the shoe size and now wear size 1 shoes instead of newborn. They are also still wearing size one diapers. The girls new thing is they LOVE bath time. They take a bath together and love to chew on a rubber ducky and splash with their legs and arms.

Lexyn is still not sitting up but she was evaluated yesterday by an occupational therapist and will soon be evaluated by a physical therapist. We don't know if she qualifies for occupational therapy yet but her developmental therapist feels she needs the additional help. She did start the G.I. Joe crawl over the weekend, but we call it the wounded soldier crawl because since her left arm and shoulder muscles are real tight that arm gets stuck under her body and so she just uses the right arm and the right leg to crawl/scoot. It is really funny to watch. She doesn't last long doing it but then she goes right back to her rolling to get where she wants. She still loves to "bouncy bouncy bouncy" in the jumperoo. She has also taken a step ahead of sister and began talking. She says "dadadada" and "bababababa". She has the softest sweet voice when she is talking, but she is also the extremely loud high pitch squealer. Her sequels will hurt your ears they are so loud.

Brittyn is EVERYWHERE!!!!! She is crawling like a pro, and just a few days after she mastered the big girl crawl she began pulling up. She pulls up on everything. She is also scooting her bumbo chair around on the hardwood floor. She thinks she can walk because she will pull up on something and then let go and try to move her feet. She very quickly falls to the floor. As you can see from the pictures, her forehead is getting the best of a lot of the falls. When she falls and hurts herself she cries really loud and hard, but she doesn't really want consoled and cuddled she just wants to cry for a minute and then get right back after it! She is a mess, and very independent. She plays very well by herself except now that she can crawl she likes to crawl over to you when you sit in the floor to play and pull up on your leg. She is still taking mainly 4 ounce bottles but does usually take at least one 5 ounce bottle a day, but we are up to taking baby food for lunch and dinner.

The girls have also started playing together. I do have to say that Brittyn is a toy thief, but sometimes she will just join in and play instead of taking the toy from Lexyn. They really are cute and fun to watch interact together.

One last thing, we are experimenting with bows. Do you think this bow is too big? I think big bows are so cute, but daddy keeps laughing at them!