The girls have learned SO many things recently! It's crazy how things just click and fall into place so quickly!

1) On August 11 Abby decided that she had enough of crawling backwards. She saw my computer on the floor across the room and decided that she was going to play with it. She's now crawling all over the place. For a few days Emily watched Abby crawl around and she honestly looked jealous! The following Friday Emily started crawling forward also!

2) Starting at 6 months old the girls were able to sit up, but needed help getting to the sitting position first. The same day that they started crawling they each figured out how to get to a sitting position. Now Emily doesn't need to do her little crunches to try to sit any more!

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3) They finally figured out how to use sippy cups. They sometimes need to be reminded to tip their heads back to get the water, though.

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4) They'll pull up to a standing position whenever given the chance. If there's an object around that they can reach to pull up on, they're going to be standing.

Emily pulled herself to a stand:

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Abby pulled up to stand:

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Emily LOVES to walk with our help so Byron put her on the treadmill and she thought it was hysterical.

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5) Emily started waving "hi" and "bye" this past weekend. It's just too funny - she'll even initiate it. If she sees someone walking out the door she'll look up with her big blue eyes and do this adorable wave where she flops here wrist and opens and closes her hand. I'll try to catch a video. Of course, because they seem to be learning things just a few days apart, Abby also figured out how to wave this morning. As I was leaving and saying bye to the girls Abby stretched her arm out and waved. When she waves she has a stiff stretched arm that she lifts up and down with an open hand and tips her head to the side like she's being shy about it. It's funny how they do things so differently.

6) They also clap when we cheer or say "hurray". They are very excited about this new skill. It's extra funny when Abby decides that she is going to clap with her feet.

7) Emily figured out how to climb the stairs and quickly shared the skill with Abby, so we had to put a gate up. I was dreading the day this happened because now we have a gate at the bottom of the stairs and although it's a really nice gate, it's still makes getting around more difficult.

The girls love playing in the laundry baskets. Abby loves to chew on it and Emily loves sitting in it.

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Abby had a busy day of learning - Differential Equations, Organic Chemistry, Calculus and Business Dynamics.

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All the learning was too much stress for Emily...she snapped and ripped pages out and started to eat them.

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Abby had fun posing for the camera:

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"I dare you to try to steal my sippy cup"

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I think Emily looks SO old here. I love this picure

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Crazy Emily. When you show this picture to Emily she makes the same face and growls and breathes loud at it - it cracks me up.

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Emily pinned Abby down

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The girls love to watch us golf in the back yard

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We found Abby jammed sideways in her crib a few days ago. There was a time when both girls fit in the crib together sleeping sideways. I can't believe how big they are already!

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Emily plays the piano with Byron:

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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.



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:


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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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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