We had our 18 month checkup last week and the doctor thinks the girls are doing quite well.

Abby:
Weight: 23.4 lbs (34th % of all girls her age), or 585% of her birth weight (4lbs)!
Height: 32.5" (70th % of all girls her age), or 180% of her height at birth!

Abby is growing steadily and is following a very healthy growth curve. She is below average in weight and above average in height. She is healthy and happy. She is currently on lactaid rather than whole milk because it makes her stomach sick, but she can eat all other dairy. The doctor said kids usually grow out of this. For those of you who have asked in the past, that red spot next to her nose is a hemangioma, which is basically a build up of blood vessels on her skin. Yes, a benign non cancerous tumor. They are very common in baby girls, and even more common in twins girls. Abby's has stopped growing and is actually starting to go away already! About 50% of cases are gone by 5 yrs old, and 90% by 9. If for some reason it doesn't go away it can be removed, but it's not important to us and certainly not worth the risk of surgery if it's not a threat to her health. It'll likely go away very soon as it's already clearly shrinking, but even if it doesn't we'll let her make that decision someday as hers is very small compared to most.

Well, that was a bit of a downer. Just wanted to clear up what that spot was since people seem to mention quite often that we should cut her nails because she always has a scratch on her face. Yes, I've just let my daughter repeatedly scratch her own face for 1.5 straight years.

Anyways, Abby is totally healthy and is doing well developmentally as well. Her favorite new word is "apple" which is also one of her favorite foods. Well, apples and raisins. If you ever want a good laugh, change one of Abby's messy diapers. You'll most likely find whole raisins in there. She INHALES them. There are very few things that Abby will fight to keep from Emily (our little thief) but Raisins are one of those things. She also loves to dance.

Abby busy at work in the sand and sea table

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Now, on to Emily:
21 lbs (6th % of all girls her age). This is 579% of her birth weight (3lbs, 10 oz)
32.5 inches (70th % of all girls her age). This is 201% of her height at birth! Can you imagine DOUBLING your height in 18 months?

Emily is doing great. She usually has an ear infection but the doctor checks her after each one and they do clear up. She had a double one this time as well. The plan is to keep a close eye on her in the coming months. She is light but her growth curve is steady and the doctor isn't worried at all. She's just one big tornado of trouble, so she's probably just burning off all those calories after each meal. I'm pretty content having tall, thin girls, so as long as the doctor isn't worried I'm content.

Emily's favorite words are "no, no" and "apple". Her favorite food is either cheese or bananas. Her favorite activity is definitely dominating Abby. If Abby has a toy, Emily wants it. She is sweet though, also. She loves to hug and kiss Abby. If you ask Emily to march she'll lift up her knees real high and march all over. It's so funny.

Emily enjoying the weather

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Emily pretends that her toy boat is a phone

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I know that the coming years have plenty of embarrassing events in store for me, but the girls' current embarrassing habit is calling EVERY MAN THEY SEE "dada". Why is that embarrassing you may ask? Well, given that I look like I'm approximately 13 years old people already think I'm a teen mom when we're out shopping. Add to that the fact that my daughters call all men "dada"...well it makes people think that they don't know their dad. Yep. I'm a teen mom who doesn't know the father of her children. It's funny to think about while it's not happening and I'm sure this will be on the totally mild end of the embarrassing scale 5 years from now :)

Abby really enjoys her swing. She would probably sit there all day if we let her.

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Sometimes she falls asleep in there

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This weekend was Memorial Day weekend. On Saturday we visited Davis' Farmland. It's an awesome place near our house for kids that has a bunch of playgrounds, a water area with all kinds of things that squirt water and a huge petting zoo with just about every kind of animal you'd possibly think to put in a farm. There are baby goats and sheep walking around free and the kids can touch everything. Emily especially enjoyed the baby chicks. Abby enjoyed the fences, benches, gates and anything that was man-made. She enjoyed the animals, but she REALLY enjoys figuring out how things work. We will definitely return this summer.

Byron with the animals

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Byron running around the yard with Emily on his shoulders

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Sometimes Emily tips back intentionally.

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Emmy up in the air

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Abby up in the air

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Experimenting with water

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Sunday was pretty low-key. We went to church and then just hung around outside the rest of the day. Today (Memorial Day) we played outside all day. The girls were beat by the end of the day. This is the first year in my life that I can remember where I didn't either have people over or go to a cookout or something, but it was fun just the same. We had a fun day enjoying the heat and sun with the girls.

Abby the beach bum:

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The girls LOVE to share...sometimes. Especially when what they are sharing isn't particularly desirable. Here's Emily running across the yard with a cup full of water from the pool. Yes, the pool that they wear swim diapers in. No, swim diapers don't hold in the pee. Only the poop. Watch what Emily does next.

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Emily taking a minute to pose for the camera

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Emily offering a sip to Abby. Abby isn't dumb.

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A good rule of thumb in our house is that if you didn't ask for something and someone volunteers to share with you, it is probably in your best interest to pass on the offer.

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On the trouble-making front, there's way more to report than I have time for. My favorite event of the last week was when I was changing Emily into her pajamas and Abby scurried over and stood over us. She had been eating an apple and decided to stuff her mouth before she came to visit us. She stood there and smiled politely and then proceeded to open her mouth and let all of the apple drop out onto Emily's face. She giggled and walked away. I told her she needed to come back immediately and clean Emily's face and pick up the mess. She walked away. I thought I was going to have to chase her down when I was done changing Emily. She returned a few seconds later with her child-sized broom and started sweeping Emily's face and then went on to clean the carpet. She eventually picked up the whole mess. I guess getting to spit on your sister's face is worth having to clean up the mess.

Emily decided that she should go ahead and go for a walk in the woods all alone:

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In typical Abby fashion, Abby was feeling a little hungry so she ate whatever she found near by. This time, a flower.

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It wasn't any good so she decided to scrape the flower taste off her tongue.

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The girls have been so funny lately! They are just crazy...and they are acting like little people now. Just a couple days ago I had to get an extra potty chair because fights have been erupting over who gets to go first. Emily now runs across the kitchen holding her diaper to get to the bathroom. Unfortunately they aren't really even close to potty trained yet so they're still in diapers, meaning that we need to strip them down to get diapers off before they can go. It was so funny how excited Emily got when we cheered for her. She ran over and gave me a big high five.

Emily is definitely my daughter (lounging in the sun):

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Speaking of fights, there have been LOTS of fights in our house lately between the girls. Though they love each other and love to hug and kiss, fights break out all the time. Sometimes they'll even break out because Emily wants to hug Abby and Abby wants to be left alone, so Emily will chase her around and drag her down by the neck to give her a hug. It is really just so funny (but sad to see how bad behavior is just part of the very being of people).

Here's Abby pulling Emily's eye lashes. Emily was being quite patient, though.

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The biggest development is that the girls seem to be confused. They seem to think that they turned 2 instead of 1.5 last week. They have been absolute TERRORS, and I think they've officially hit their terrible twos. It all started two Saturday mornings ago when I was going to take them swimming. They were playing in their room while I packed things up and they were being so nice and quiet. It turns out they were being quiet because they climbed up their dresser and found a container of vaseline. I have learned my lesson, nothing that can cause any damage should be stored in the girls' room. It was everywhere. It was so bad that I couldn't even really take pictures because getting the mess cleaned was so urgent. I got a short video that I'll pretend that I'm going to post soon, but honestly it'll probably be several months before I remember to get it off the video camera and onto the blog. It was all over the girls, their carpet, the walls, the furniture and a clean basket of laundry. Actually, I got to work on Tuesday (3 days later) and someone asked me if I spilled water on my shirt. Nope. It was vaseline. The shirt must have been in the basket of clothes and I didn't realize it until I got to work. Oh well.

Later in the day they dumped two tubs of wipes all over the house and made sure to wipe the floor with all of them so they were too dirty to put back in the container and reuse. Since then it's been one thing after another. If the house is quiet, something must be going wrong. Silence has become my worst enemy.

Since then they've taken to digging their hands into their messy diapers if they aren't wearing a onesie to keep their little hands out of there. It's unbelievably disgusting. I think we'll have to get some tank top onesies for them to wear all summer :(

Abby burned out from all the mischief:

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Emily stands on the stump that she's claimed as her own and uses it as a watch tower to look out for ways to get into trouble:

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If there's one thing that I'm looking forward to as the girls grow, it's playing catch and other sports with them. Byron has to play catch with me on the weekends because obviously I'm a 12 year old boy who needs someone to play games with them. Honestly, I could play wiffle ball, dodge ball or any other sport all day every day. In order to get the girls ready for all the games they're going to have to play with me Abby has been getting used to wearing baseball gear:

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Emily likes to run around in our clothes. Any time Byron leaves his running shoes out she steals them and tries to walk around in them. Last week she got into my jacket and wore it all around the house.

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Emily's hair got totally out of control. She had the most awful mullet ever. For those of you who don't know what a mullet is, think 80's. Business in the front, party in the back (see below). Anyways, we got Emmy a haircut finally to clean it up and help it grow a bit more evenly. She sat through it so well. It was just too cute!

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The girls have really enjoyed the warm weather. They have a big climbing structure with slides, a tunnel and a club house that they enjoy playing in. Of course they still love their sand and sea table, and their newest outdoor activity is going on short hikes in the woods behind our house. We have a path that goes back to the blackstone river which is a few hundred yards away. They love to walk and pick flowers.

Playing nicely:

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Learning how a sifter works:

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Emily in the tunnel:

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Of course playing isn't fun unless it's dangerous:

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Here's Abby enjoying the club house:

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Abby considering going head first down the slide:

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Byron teaching Emily to use the slide alone:

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Abby on the slide:

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Abby's grumpy face:

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Abby thinks accidents are SO funny, which is good because she used to be a huge wuss about falling and getting hurt:

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Abby is definitely going to be a beach bum. She will sit in the warm pool water all afternoon just hanging out. Emily, on the other hand has suddenly developed a fear of water. We're trying to help her get over it very quickly.

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She isn't afraid of the sand and sea table, though.

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How do you spell Emily? T.R.O.U.B.L.E. Look at that adorable, mischievous face.

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No matter how much trouble they get into, it's moments like this, where they go in to kiss each other that make me willing to put up with all the poopy hands, vaseline messes and fits.

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Emily snuggling Abby:

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It's fun to watch the girls learn so quickly these days. All of a sudden they understand everything we say. They follow instructions and love to communicate with us! The most recent development is potty usage. As I mentioned a few months ago, Abby has been using the potty before bed every night. A couple weeks ago Emily jumped on the bandwagon and is consistently using it before bed every day!

Emily's first pee on the potty:

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We had a great Easter at Byron's parent's house this year. Byron's younger cousins Gerty and Molly spent a lot of time with the girls and were great with them. The girls really enjoyed it!

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Emily looking burned out and it wasn't even 1pm yet!

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We recently bought a picnic table for the girls that they love to eat at. (Abby also loves standing on it...she's our little climber).

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The girls escape from the house! They love to play on the deck after dinner.

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I have been a huge Boston Celtics fan for my entire life. I can remember crying as a child that Larry Bird was retiring. I remember it plain as day...I was standing in the living room at my grandmother's house and my mom was telling my grandmother that Larry Bird announced his retirement that day. I was devastated. Anyways, since I'm a fan of the Celtics the girls are too. In honor of the first playoff game tonight the girls wore their throwback Celtics shirts today.

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Yes, Emily is eating a candy wrapper. Another example of wonderful parenting :)

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Abby got a little too excited about the Celtics shirt photo shoot...she started flashing the camera :) oops.

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