8 Months old already!

Well 8.5 months actually since I'm posting late. I usually start with Ella but I'll start with Ms. Olivia today!

Ms. Olivia:

1.) You are finally drinking your milk again!!! It was a very long and ROUGH month and half battle with you. I really did think I was going to have a nervous breakdown for a minute or two there. You are so skinny that I was worried about you losing weight and not getting enough nutrition. I tried switching back to your previous formula (Nutramigen) first, and then to the Similac version of the hypoallergenic formula (Allimentum) and you hated both. I gave in one day to giving you your sisters Similac and you drank 4 ounces without stopping. After 2 days you jumped up to 6 ounces. Now after 2 weeks you take 2, 7 ounce bottles a day! Yippee!

2.) You are just about to crawl. You get up on all fours and start swinging back and forth. You still roll around to get to where ever you want to go and you cannot be contained. You want to reach for everything!

3.) You have become a scaredy cat! You are now becoming weary of strangers and do not seem to like new sights and sounds. You bury your face in my chest and rub your face side to side. You especially hate it when I blow dry your hair.

4. You are on a pretty good schedule and you really like your naps. You do better than Ella at naps now. You have slept up to 3 hours straight. Add to that the 12 hours you sleep at night and Momma is a happy camper!

5.) You are wearing 6-9 month and 9 month clothing and 9 month PJ's. You are still very skinny and long. You have my long and skinny feet but HUGE hands!

6.) You have discovered that you can take off your bows and eat them. That does not make me happy!

7.) There is no discipline with you. We tell you "no" and you think it's the funniest thing in the world. We are gonna have to work on that.

Ms. Ella

1.) You are still my chubster and are getting heavier by the minute. You love your food and will not wait for it. You start whining the minute you see a bottle or a plate of food. You sound like a monkey! You also see a plate of food we are eating and immediately your mouth and hands start going!

2.) You are still as lazy as they come. You don't like to roll over anymore and you will not even make an attempt to crawl if I paid you with Puffs! You still like for us to sit you down and if you fall you just scream your head off! I have just left you there to see what you would do and I swear you can scream for an hour if I let you. And not just mad screams, I'm talking red faced, sobbing, snotty tears!

3.) You have become less weary of strangers now. You love to smile at people more and love it when you get attention.

4.) You are also pretty good and naps but you don't sleep as long as your sister. You will usually just play in your crib with a toy for a while before you fall asleep and sometimes a 30 minute nap is all you need! You do fall asleep faster at night and I think you have only woken up once in the middle of the night since you were about 4 months old!

5.) You are growing out of clothing in the blink of an eye. You are wearing 9 and 12 month clothing and 9 month PJ's. It's funny to see your belly hang out of your shirts sometimes. I wonder how come that doesn't look so cute on Mommy?? Ha!

6.) You have also decided that bows are to eat, not to wear! You take EVERYTHING off your head. Do you know how many times I had to fix this flower on your head in order to get a picture?? Every time I sat down, you would pull it off!

(And yes, these are their 4th of July outfits that I did not get to snap pictures of them in because they wound up falling asleep after about 10 minutes. So I figured I would try it again.)

This is a perfect example of what you do when we lay you on the floor to play...

A total lazy bug!

In her travels, Ms. Olivia has now discovered that she can open and close doors. She was trying to close this door with little pushes for about 5 minutes before finally giving up and pushing it back open in one swing!

Who me??

There's never a boring moment around this house I tell ya'!

I try, I really do!

How does a blog that is supposed to be updated daily, go to being updated once a month?

I ask myself that question every night when I think about blogging.

And truth be told, I just don't feel like it!

I'm tired!

I'm stressed!

I'm overwhelmed!

I'm frustrated!

I'm worried!

I'm anxious!

I'm preoccupied!

I'm about damn near ready to lose my mind!

Life with twins is hard! It's incredibly emotional, incredibly exhausting, and incredibly wonderful! And yes, ALL at the same time. Most days, I just want to scream "I miss my Mommy" because doing this without her is damn near impossible. She always told me that a woman carries ALL the responsibilities of her family. She runs the house, the kids, the husband, the family, the phone calls, the finances, the plans, the worries, and the chaos. I didn't grasp the reality of her words until recently. Carrying all this weight around is exhausting and no lie, there are days when I wonder how and, if, I can even do it all.

Then I see these faces and I remember that I don't have a choice. Like my sister-in-law says, "Switch to survival mode and just go!"

(No, Daddy did not give permission for the bikinis. Mommy just didn't tell him! Ha!)

I have decided that for my sanity, I need to switch things up around here. I am going to try and get out of the house at least twice during the week. I usually try to avoid it because it's such a long ordeal to get 2 babies ready and out the door, let alone all the luggage I have to carry around with me. I feel like i'm going on a weekend trip sometimes. I am going to sign us up for classes at the library starting in August. I am going to find the best, non-toxic, insect repellent I can get my hands on and take these babies, and Cody, on a walk. I am going to try and get dressed before I leave the house instead of throwing on yoga pants and a t-shirt. I am going to attempt to remember how to put make-up on before I go too. I am going to go buy myself something once a week, even if it's a pack of head bands! (Somehow I misplace those. A LOT!) I am going to make sure my toe nails are always painted. For some reason it just makes me feel a little bit more put together. I am going to try to remember to just sit and ENJOY my babies for however long I can! They are growing up too fast! I am NOT going to fight with Olivia because she doesn't want to take her milk. I am just going to adjust the schedule and try to give her as much as I can when I know she'll take it, like every night when she cuddles in bed with Daddy. I am not going to worry if I don't have a whole lot to say on this blog. I am going to post what ever it is I feel that day because this is for my girls. Whether they just like to read about what it was like for me when they were small, whether they just want to laugh at a funny picture, or if they just want to one day feel that they are not alone. This is ALL for them.

And speaking of them...

This past month has been the hardest month since they were born. They are wanting a lot more attention and activity. They scream when they don't get what they want. And boy, do they know what they want! They get cuter by the day and literally do something new every day.

This is Ella today, trying to bend down far enough to eat her foot.

When that didn't work...

She tried to lift her foot to her mouth! I was laughing hysterically because I could see the little wheels in her mind starting to spin as she debated on the best possible method of putting said foot, in said mouth!

Don't even try to tell me that this is not the cutest thing you have seen in your life!

I have my very own Pebbles!

And we FINALLY got to use the wagon! This is the first thing I bought for the babies when I found out we were pregnant.

They rode in it all the way to Tia Cindy's house on 4th of July! It was a sight to see these 2 bikini princesses riding down the sidewalk. Ella had a ball. Olivia, as you can see by her pose and her expression, was glued to the side of that wagon as if her life depended on it! She's on a scare-d-cat phase at the moment. Is that even a word??

Oh and where are Olivia's pictures you ask? Well, tell her to sit still long enough for me to snap one and then you'll get some! That child is a rolly-poly, literally!