Wednesday, March 26, 2014

6 Months


These two little girls have been a handful this month! But it has been such a fun month! Some days were  awesome, and some days were terrible. I am pretty sure they have had quite a growth spurt, both physically and cognitively. It is pretty apparent that they are learning so much, so fast! For the most part, they have been very smiley!
I tried weaning the girls out of their swaddle...it kind of worked for Alya. Most of the time she can lay down and sleep really well without it. Lyla does not sleep well without her swaddle blanket. She was sleeping for only 30 minutes and then REFUSED to go back to sleep. I am pretty sure that contributed to Lyla being unhappy this month. I decided to go back to swaddling her, and it's made a world of a difference!
We rearranged our room, and set up another crib, so now the girls are sleeping in their own cribs. It's only been a couple of days, so hopefully it goes a little better. Lyla sleeps really good in her own crib, but so far Alya has been struggling. I am really excited to get them in their own room! We just have to put them downstairs, so we are waiting for the weather to warm up a little more...and until I can get their room painted...before we move them down there.
They are getting so wiggly. I lay them on their tummies and they spin in circles. It's really cute! They can get their knees under them, but they can't really be up on all fours at the same time. It's either straight arms, or on their knees with their chest on the ground.


Like I said, Lyla did not do well napping without her swaddle blanket.  Now that I am putting her back in her swaddle blanket, I have to wake her up from naps! :) She wakes up in the mornings happy and talking, and I LOVE it! I lay in bed and just listen to her talk for about 10 minutes or so before I make myself get out of bed. Sometimes she doesn't want to be rocked to sleep...she just wants to be laid down awake so she can put herself to sleep. She is very, very stubborn! She definitely knows what she wants and she knows which of my buttons to push to get what she wants.
She has recently started screaming...just screaming. She isn't necessarily mad or upset. She just screams. It's pretty funny. Until she screams to the point that she gets mad, and then it's not quite as funny.
She is so close to rolling from her back to her front. She will twist her body around to try to reach for her toys or her binky, and she gets so close to rolling. She still loves to play with her toes.
I have managed to get her to laugh a couple of times!!!! It makes me so happy!
We did our own weighing and measuring of the babies the day they actually turned 6 months, and according to us, Lyla weighed 15.03 lbs and was about 26 1/4 inches long. When we went in for their 6 month appointment, Lyla was 14 lbs 15 oz and 25 inches long. I'm pretty sure she moved a little, so that's why she was so short...I don't know for sure, though. She is definitely smaller than her sister, though!
She loves to look at herself in the mirror, so we had some fun with one of my wall mirrors one day!




She is a wild child! And I think Matthew and I are both a little nervous for her teenage years! :)


Alya is hilarious! Most of the time, she is very easy going. If she gets really ornery, I know something is wrong with her and my mind instantly goes to "she's sick" or "she's teething". She is such a happy baby!
She has been loving tummy time this month. She's learning that she can move around when she is on her tummy (unlike Lyla, who moves a little better when she is on her back...) She spins in circles, and scoots off the blanket. She never ends where she started. It makes me so happy, yet so sad, that my little tiny babies are going to be crawling around soon! It scares me a little bit to think about it.
She rolled from her back to her front...once. I keep hoping she'll do it again, but she hasn't. I'll be patient! She is starting to sit up on her own, though!
Alya is really so funny! We love to play with each other! She will put her hands on my cheeks and pull my face to her, and she'll try to eat my nose, or my chin. I like to pretend she's trying to kiss me, but she really is pretty much just attacking my face. It's really funny.
She has been a little more cuddly this month, but I'm not complaining! When we hold her, she has been grabbing a piece of our shirt or something to help keep her steady. She almost always grabs the collar of Matthew's shirts, but with me...she just grabs a chunk of my neck! Haha!
When we did our at home measurements of Alya, she weighed 15.97 lbs and was 26 1/2 inches long. At her doctor's appointment, she weighed in at 16 lbs 4 oz and was 26 1/2 inches long.
She is so easy going. Sometimes it's quite a fight to get Lyla to go down for her nap, so while I'm trying to get her to go to sleep, Alya is left on her own. Once I get Lyla down, I come back in to get Alya and she is asleep where I left her.


Either that, or Lyla will be wide awake and playing, and Alya will just pass out!


I love moments like this, though! I love Lyla's and Alya's personalities! I am still amazed that they are mine! They make me so happy!


It really blows me away that these two little girls are mine. They are so much fun, even on the days that they are hard. They definitely keep me busy! They still LOVE to go on walks. I love to take them...especially on their hard days. Getting fresh air is the best thing for all of us! It's been getting warm enough, too that we have gone out the last couple of days and sat on a blanket and watched the neighbors play.
The girls are loving food. I'm pretty sure they like everything we have tried giving them. They like some things more than others. We've tried applesauce, pears, avocados (they have been the funniest to watch them eat so far), carrots, sweet peas, squash/zucchini, blueberries, and they LOVE bananas.

 These are a couple of the avocado tasting!




They are really grabby with each other, still. They can be playing with the same toy as their sister, but they will want the toy their sister has. It's a constant battle. :) They also like to steal each other's binkies...even if they are chewing on their binky at the time. It's kind of funny. I love watching them interact with each other. Things that I imagine would drive other siblings crazy doesn't seem to bother these too. They pretty much climb all over each other (as much as they can...since they aren't really crawling yet) and they don't seem to be annoyed by it.


They have also become Dad's little hunting buddies! We went on a drive one night so Matthew could decide where he wanted to go horn hunting. As you can see, the girls thoroughly enjoyed themselves! I am pretty sure they are going to be Daddy's hunting buddies!



Well, I feel like this post may be a little scattered...it's taken me 3 (maybe 4?) days to write it, so I can't be held responsible for any repetition or confusion! In closing, as always, I will leave you with some pictures of two of the cutest babies in the entire word!







Thursday, February 20, 2014

5 Months


Can you seriously believe that I have had these two awesome little babies for 5 months!!! It is so crazy for me to wrap my head around. The girls are getting so big, and learning lots of new things. They are very interested in each other. They sit face to face sometimes and try to grab each others shirts and especially each others hands. They love their hands. They have also found their feet, and are very content to lay on their backs and play with their toes. It keeps them entertained for quite a while! (Which is kind of nice for mommy!)

We started feeding the girls rice cereal. Alya actually kind of liked it, I think. She liked it better with applesauce in it, but she didn't mind it plain. Lyla wanted nothing to do with it. She never ate rice cereal very well. We actually ended up switching to oatmeal cereal and they both eat it really well. They LOVE bananas. They like to help me feed them, so I let them hold onto my fingers, but they don't realize that they need to let go of my fingers so that I can get another spoonful for them, and I get in trouble because I'm not fast enough for them. They have been pretty ravenous the last couple of nights.
They love to grab everything, and of course everything goes straight to their mouth!


Lyla continues to be my little runt. Although, she is still longer than Alya. She just feels so small (especially after holding Alya). We have a little bathroom scale that I sometimes weigh us on, so I'm not sure how accurate it really is, but one day it said that Lyla was three pounds smaller than her sister! It felt right! :) She is catching back up though! According to our luggage scale, Lyla weighs 13.38 pounds and she is about 25 1/4" long.
She is starting to lift her head up a lot when she is laying on her back. She is really interested in my water cups, so I gave her a small plastic cup to play with one day, and she loves it. It's probably one of her favorite things to play with.
The girls almost always get a bottle for bedtime, and Lyla keeps trying to hold her own bottle. She actually manages to hold it every once in a while.
She is a little shy, and it is so cute! She gets excited and turns her head away like she got embarrassed. I'm not sure if she has giggled yet...which sounds weird...I should know if she has giggled or not, right!? Well, she has this cute little noise that she makes that really makes me wonder if she is giggling, but I keep thinking that when she actually does giggle, I will KNOW. If the little noise that she makes is her giggle, it's adorable. I don't even know how to explain it, but it's cute.
Lyla loves to look at herself in the mirror. She loves to smile at and talk to herself.
Her hair is getting SO long! It is so fuzzy and I love it.
She is a busy little body. Her feet seem to always be going! (No wonder she's smaller than Alya!) When she's laying on her back, it seems like if she is not trying to chew on her toes, she gets her feet pumping like she's trying to run!
Her sister gave her a little bit of a cold this month. She was pretty pathetic, but handled it like a champ! I felt so bad for her, though! She had a hard time breathing, and had the saddest little cough. Her voice actually went pretty hoarse, but she thought it was a little entertaining. She would talk A LOT, I think just because she thought her voice sounded so funny...or maybe it felt funny when she would talk? I don't know, but it was really cute!
As I mentioned earlier, she is a little shy, and I think she is nervous to do new things. She is so comfortable with the things that she knows.
Oh how I love this girl!



Alya has been a lot of fun. She was the first to be really interested in my water cups, and still is on occasion, but she loses interest a little faster than Lyla does. 
She loves her food...always has, I guess. According to our luggage scale, she weighs 14.35 pounds and is about 25" long. She can hold her own bottle...when she is not too tired! But she is always really helpful when it's time to eat...whether it's from a bottle or from the spoon.
She caught her first cold this month, and it was SO sad. She got sick before Lyla, and I think she got the worst of it. She was pretty uncomfortable and sad for a few days. I felt SO bad for her. We had a few sleepless nights together. Thank goodness she is feeling better!
I think Alya is somewhat adventurous! I think she gets excited to change up our routine. She likes to bounce with me. We kind of gallop up and down the hall and she loves it! It kind of freaks her out, but she does like it. It's funny to watch her face go from stressed to smiley!
Her hair is getting a little longer. She does have one long hair right on top of her head that is about an inch long...and it sits there, all by itself, surrounded by tiny hairs that aren't even half as long. She's a little Alfalfa. It's funny!
I have heard Alya giggle! I have been able to get her to giggle three times. It's not an easy task! She gets so close so often, but doesn't quite get the giggle out! It is the cutest sound I have ever heard, though! It makes me so happy!
She almost rolled over from her back to her front the other day. I think it was kind of an accident, because she was playing with her toes and just kind of rolled to her side, but she actually kept herself going. She hasn't done it again yet, though. We'll see!
She also wants to be able to do so many things that she just can't do quite yet. She mostly wants to sit up, I think. It sometimes bugs her to have to lay on her back. She's so happy when we help hold her up and she can play with her toys the way she wants to.
These girls are probably the most amazing girls in the entire world, and since I KNOW they are the cutest girls in the entire world, I will, of course, leave you with some of my favorite pictures from the past month! Enjoy!
Lyla eating apple chunks


Alya eating apple chunks


Lyla preferred the actual apple


Lyla & Alya


Alya


Alya, Mo & Lyla
He's such a good babysitter!


Lyla


Lyla - she is really good at taking socks off


Lyla


Lyla & Alya
wearing Valentine's day shirts from Daddy


Lyla


Alya & Lyla


Lyla & Alya


Alya


Alya


Lyla


Lyla


Lyla
She gets so excited to see her cup


Alya


Alya, Daddy & Lyla


Lyla


Alya


Mo, Daddy & Lyla


Alya


Lyla & Daddy


Lyla
Alya

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

A Day of Love

Valentine's day was for the most part...uneventful. Matthew bought me some goodies (Pepsi!!) and flowers, and the girls got some way cute shirts!




And I made some heart shaped pancakes for dinner...only I didn't make this on Valentine's Day...I made it on Monday. I guess I wanted to celebrate all week! :)


Happy Valentine's Day everyone!



Tuesday, February 4, 2014