Tuesday, July 28, 2009

9 Month update!

I really am trying to post on a regular basis, but we are always so busy. The girls are just about 9 months old now. That means I only have 3 months until Halloween. 3 months to pick out awesome first birthday costumes and plan an awesome costume birthday party!

Here are the girls' 9 month checkup stats:

Abby:
18lbs - 50th percentile, yes that's 450% of what she weighed when she was born!
27" long - 50th percentile, 150% of her height at birth!

Emily:
About 16lbs - 25th percentile, that's 400% of her birth weight!
26.5" - 25th percentile, that's 165% of her height at birth!

In case you can't tell I'm all about numbers. I love to have some sort of way to judge things, because I LOVE to compete and win. With the babies I feel like I'm "winning" if they are growing well.

These babies are growing like weeds. They aren't huge babies but they are huge when you consider Emily looked like this when she was born. Yes, that's Emily pretty much fitting in Byron's hand.

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We've had a crazy 9 months. I'm thinking back to the first couple months when the girls wouldn't even be quiet for 15 minutes while Byron and I ate a quick meal. Now they're eating with us and laughing at each other because they think that throwing cheerios is funny.

What's new?

- Emily finally had her MRI and MRA to see if they could find the cause of her seizures(she had another once since my last post) and thankfully the scans came back clear. The doctor helped us to decide that it's OK to keep Emily off medicine for now. If she has a third seizure she'll go right on medicine. Here is a picture of Emily in her hospital gown before she was put to sleep for the MRI.
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- The girls eat lots of grown up food. They like scrambled eggs, ravioli, pancakes, french toast, ground beef, bread, pizza, sliced oranges, sliced peaches, yogurt, slices of cheddar cheese, roasted potatoes. The list gets bigger every day.

- They like to take sips out of real cups. They were especially excited last week when Byron was giving them sips of gatorade.

- Abby likes to make silly faces now. Her two favorite people to pose for are Byron and Emily. She really gets a kick out of making Emily laugh and absolutely adores Byron. Overall they just love to laugh.
One of Abby's silly faces. I haven't caught her really good silly face on camera yet, though.
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- As mentioned above, the girls love to make each other laugh. They'll bounce make faces, make noises throw toys - whatever it takes to get a laugh.
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- They always want to know what the other one is up to:
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- Abby is up on all fours and crawling backwards. Emily drags herself backwards. Abby should be crawling any day now

Abby crawling while Emily hangs upside down:
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- They can both stand when holding your hands and walk. Emily loves to walk now. She rarely wants to sit.

- They both have their two front top teeth and two front bottom teeth.

I'm sure there are lots of other new things to write about, I just can't think of them right now.

In other news, we spend a night with Bev and Mark Krans last week and took the standard picture of all 3 girls (Abby and Emily with their daughter Lydia who is 2.5 months older) on the pink blanket. We think Abby is chubbier than Lydia now. When the girls were tiny newborns I could never have imagined a day when either of them would have caught up to Lydia (who seemed like a giant at the time).

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Abby and Emily at 2.5 wks old, Lydia at 3 months:
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Abby:
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Liz made a paper napkin tube top for Emily. She looked pretty sleazy (but she loved it)
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Meanwhile Abby sat around without a shirt on:
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The girls are obsessed with my iPhone. They'll do whatever it takes to get a hold of it:
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The rare grumpy face from Emily:
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Emily talks on the phone. "Mom, it's a telemarketer. Should I tell them you aren't home?"
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Emily and mom:
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Emily in the swing:
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She loves her dad:
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Abby taking a break:
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Happy Emily:
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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

It is amazing how fast the girls are growing - they are now 8 months old! They are babbling a lot and Emily now says "hi dada" all the time, but she doesn't know who dada is. She says it to everyone who walks into the room. Abby is very good at imitating sounds. They are both able to feed themselves cheerios and other finger foods (although they are lazy and prefer to be fed). They are able to move around and are starting to pull themselves up to standing on things.

We had a great 4th of July weekend. On Friday we hung out around the house with the girls and then went to see some fireworks at night. We woke Abby and Emily up after they had been asleep for a few hours and they were surprisingly OK with it. Abby was very happy with the fireworks. Emily seemed to be very afraid of the noise but liked the lights. We also gave them some cotton candy, which Abby did not like but Emily loved.

The weather has been pretty awful here - we're really only starting to see summer like weather now. It rained for just about all of June, but we were lucky enough to get a couple nice Saturdays so we took advantage of the sun and spent a lot of time outside with the girls.

The girls play outside in their baby sunglasses:
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Emily loves to pose:
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Abby was FINALLY willing to smile for the camera!
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The girls were so happy to play outside after a LONG month of rain:
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Emily the ham:
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The girls are very interested in each other these days. They crack each other up. Every night on the way up stairs Byron and I each carry a baby and they look at each other and laugh all the way up to bed. They are also enjoy poking at each other, checking out each others feet and talking. Below Emily is checking out Abby's hat.
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We recently got a baby tent to carry along with us when we are out so that the girls can have a place to nap. It came with the cutest sleeping bag ever. The girls have great time snuggling together in it.
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Abby snuggles with Byron:
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Emily and Byron check out the back yard:
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Last weekend we spend Sunday with our small group from church at Justin and Lisa Grant's apartment. They have a great pool that we were able to enjoy. Emily had a great time playing, but Abby was as relaxed as we have ever seen. She is definitely my daughter - I can see us lounging together in the pool and ocean in the Caribbean in a few years. Abby was so relaxed that she fell asleep in her float. Unfortunately our camera went a little crazy and some of the best pictures came out way over exposed :( but we do have a few good shots:

Abby napping on the float:
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Emily enjoying the water:
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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Abby finally has teeth! Last week at 7.5 months Abby got both of her bottom front teeth in one day. They are so cute, but still a little small and hard to photograph. I'll try to catch something soon.

The girls are SO vocal now. One morning before church Emily was sitting in the office with her Frog and we were spying on her from the hall. We caught her having a long conversation with the frog. It was adorable. When she noticed us there it was even more adorable.

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That same morning Abby took a nap with her monkey. The girls love their stuffed animals.
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Abby still pretends to be camera shy
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I've mentioned in the past that I've been visiting a twins message board since I was pregnant - this past weekend we went to meet one of the women from the board at the mall. Here are our girls with her girls (Peyton and Delaney). They are about a month younger than Abby and Emily, but were born about 3 weeks further along.

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When Abby gets too tired to sit she just folds in half
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For fathers day the girls fingerpainted for Byron. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures while the painting was underway or the final product. I'll have Byron take a picture of the finished good for the next posting.
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The mess wasn't as bad as I expected. The paint was washable so no permanent damage was done and the girls had TONS of fun while painting.
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My little cousin Timmy recently turned 8 and we had the party at our house. Here's a picture of my grandmother (the girls' great grandmother) with the girls that day:
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The party was a pirate theme. Abby the pirate:
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Emily loves chocolate cake:
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Emily with my cousin Rachel. Rachel is really great with the girls. We hope that she'll come visit us for a weekend this summer!
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Liz came and stayed with us for a night last weekend. Here she is with Abby bright and early in the morning. Abby's middle name is Elizabeth because of this Elizabeth (and one of our other friends, Liz D)
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