8 Months

Well, another month has passed! The girls are 8 months old, so hard to believe.

This is really such an awesome age! They are hitting so many milestones and are, in general, really happy babies. They will play with each other and their toys on their tummies for pretty long lengths (long enough for me to throw in a load of laundry at least!) and do a good job of keeping each other, and me!, entertained. They are so inquisitive and want to touch everything! Then they want to put it in their mouth, haha! They are mesmerized by the dogs. They love to "pet" them and thankfully the dogs oblige happily. Catherine LOVES taking "bo back rides" on her dog Bo! Emily is neutral about it, haha!

They have started babbling and love to say "da da da da" over and over. Brian loves this! Now we just have to get them to start saying "ma ma ma ma"!

Catherine has her two bottom teeth completely in, and her top two are really starting to come in. They have definitely broken through the surface! Emily has her bottom two coming in. One has broken through the surface and the other is just on the cusp. Emily had an especially cranky day yesterday so I wouldn't be surprised if the one on the cusp is going to break through very soon.

They eat solids twice a day. Normally in the morning we have a fruit mix. Usually a frozen cube of whatever I have made - peaches, blueberries, apples, pears, prunes, etc. mixed with a banana or yogurt. I make them organic oatmeal as well, and sometimes we eat that. In the late afternoon we have a veggie puree - butternut squash, sweet potato, green beans, and parsnip are all favorites. Sometimes I try and give them meat but they seriously hate it and gag when I try and give it to them. I really want them to get the iron though, so I have to keep trying. But I guess who can blame them for not liking whipped meat?! We also tried "pastina" the other night (tiny pasta), and they seemed to like it! They always get a baby "cookie" (a baby "mum mum") at the end of their meal, which they LOVE!

They are on 100% breastmilk for their bottles and have been for a while now! It makes me very happy! I even cut back my pumping sessions during the day to every 3 hours instead of every 2 and it's going great! I just have to pump a little longer, but I'm getting just about the same amount of milk. It's very freeing after having pumped every 2 hours these last 8 months!

At night they sleep wonderfully, as usual! I have noticed thought that on days when they are cutting a tooth, one of them will tend to wake up at night for a paci or something, but they fall back asleep within minutes. I can't complain about that because I know it could be SOOOO much worse!

They absolutely love their daddy. We try and sneak him in when he gets home from work without the girls seeing him, because if they do and he says hello and kisses them and then goes into the bedroom to change and wash up, they just freak out and have a melt down! They get so mad when he comes home and then "leaves" again - they don't realize it's just for a few minutes! Catherine is especially sensitive to this. I think it's adorable how much they love him and how much their faces light up when they see him come home from work!

Emily's Big Week

Well THIS time Emily has some really big news! Over the course of this past week she cut her bottom two teeth AND learned how to crawl! Talk about a big week!

Her teeth are just barely starting to come through. I can feel one, but I can only see where the other will be coming in! She is very excited for this as she is way behind sissy in the tooth department! She's doing pretty well with it, so far. She has had some cranky days of course when they were first starting to come through. Now she seems pretty good though. She LOVES sucking on ice pops!

I can't believe she has learned to crawl already. I'm actually surprised she beat Catherine in this area as well, because Catherine was up on her hands and knees rocking back and forth a couple weeks before Emily, so I really thought Catherine would be the first to crawl, but alas, Emily REALLY wants to get moving! It's still very unsteady, but it's definitely a little crawl! My little girls! AND I have some very exciting news! I *finally* figured out how to upload movies off my video camera on to youtube! It was really complicated, lol! BUT now that I know how to do it, get ready for some videos! Here is one of little miss Emily crawling!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFHVHgTaKXs

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day from our little Valentines! Daddy brought them each home a big stuffed Valentines day bear. And he knows the way to my heart - chocolate!

Baby Finger Painting

Over the weekend we decided to do a baby arts and crafts project - mess free finger painting! I knew they would like it, because when we feed them and a little bit of food drips onto their high chair tray, they immediately try to squish it and move it around!

I put some blobs of finger paint onto their high chair tray. Then I covered that with plastic wrap, and taped the edges down with masking tape. It really was mess free until Emily decided to scratch the plastic wrap with her finger nails (which I need to cut, oops), and then that concluded her finger painting fun! Catherine kept things mess free though! They both really enjoyed it!

Next time I think I'm going to use a heavier plastic wrap - like maybe a freezer bag. Or just cut my kids fingernails first! :)

All Fours!

On February 1st, Miss Catherine was playing on the floor and all of the sudden Brian and I look over and there she goes! Butt straight up into the air and knees under her! We were so proud of our little girl! Since then, she LOVES getting up on her knees! She is constantly on all fours and rocks back and forth, back and forth! We are waiting with baited breath for the day she decides to put one knee in front of the other and start crawling!

And we can't forget about little Miss Emmy! While she isn't on her knees as consistently as her sister, she has done it once or twice! She still prefers to get around via rolling or 'army crawling' though!

In other news, I think we might be getting some new teeth. Emily has been especially cranky lately and is chewing and drooling like crazy. Catherine is drooling like a faucet and I *think* I might see a top tooth starting to poke through, but I'm not sure!

7 Months

Sorry - our 7th month update is a little late this month! I opened an Etsy store for my crochet hats (shameless plug here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/CatilyCrochet !!!) and have been crocheting my fingers to the bone!

The girls are doing fabulous! They are growing so big and strong every day and learning like crazy. They want to touch, feel, and put EVERYTHING in their mouth! They are sitting up unassisted very well. Emily is miss rolly polley, she rolls everywhere! Catherine doesn't like to roll so much, but she sits up by herself way better then Emily. She can sit for 20+ minutes and just play with things around her! They've both been rolling their back up and getting up on their knees, too! I think crawling might be in our future!

These girls are like their mama - they LOVE to eat. They eat 6 bottles a day (all breastmilk! We're off formula again, yay!) and 3 solid meals a day, haha. I feel like all we ever do is feed these girls! But they need to get bigger so it's fine by me! Their favorite foods include: YoBaby Yogurt, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, banana and apples. They don't really like carrots, green beans or chicken. So I just mix foods that they don't like in with foods they like, and that is good by them! We also tried baby mum mum's yesterday and they LOVED them! A chew toy they could eat - score!

They still sleep perfectly, we are so lucky! No new teeth, but I wouldn't be surprised if Catherine cut another tooth or two shortly. She's showing teething behaviors again. Poor Emily is still toothless, haha.

We're having an extremely unseasonably mild winter this year, so we've been able to take walks outside! It's crazy that we're taking walks in February...completely unheard of for this area!

Well I think that's about it for now! Happy 7 months my precious angels!