Hair cuts!

It was constantly casually mentioned around here, since the girls were born, that I needed to cut their hair as early on as possible and as short as possible.  This so that their good hair would grow out faster and fuller rather than just waiting for the baby hair to fall out and allowing nature to take it's course.  Well as you can see by "Exhibit A" down here, we didn't listen, and their hair got so long in some parts that the ONLY thing I could do was give them the old "whale fountain" do!  (I happened to think they were the cutest things I have seen, but I may be a little biased.)  I must admit that I didn't want to cut it for the fear that they wouldn't look like little girls.  I can't even tell you how many times I was out with them and their huge pink polka dot bows and I was still asked if they were boys or girls.  No joke!

"Exhibit A"

I finally gave in and took them to have it cut. These are the before pictures...

 This is what happens when your hair has been in a "whale fountain" all day long.

 And here we have the afters.

Ella did so well!  She stayed still and just looked at the girl that was cutting it.  Olivia, however, could not keep still.  She wanted to grab anything she could including the scissors.  They had to eventually give up using the scissor and use the clippers.  It got cut really short in the front as a result.  I was NOT happy.  But it's hair, it will grow back.  (Hopefully soon!) She does look like she has ginormous cheeks now!  Ha! 

Poopy Post...literally!

Please tell me that this doesn't only happen to me??

This is what I discovered one day after I left Ms. Ella playing in her crib for a little while...

Up the nose & in her mouth!

::::Mommy cringes as she types this::::

I just scooped her up and stuck her straight in the tub. There wasn't an inch of her tummy or back that was clean. The tub got a pretty deep scrub after too.

It seems that since these babies were born, there is not a single diaper out there that can contain their poop. (I have the proof, I just don't think you want to see all it. You can thank me later!) I always say that I should have gone the cloth diaper route but I didn't because of all of the negative reviews with them and front loading washers. Maybe I wouldn't have to clean up so many poopy messes!

9 Months already!

I really debated whether or not I should continue this blog given the fact that I have completely abandoned it. Life continues to get more and more complicated and when I say I have ZERO time, I mean ZERO time! With 2 babies, a house, a business to run, a very sick mother-in-law, and her affairs to run, I can honestly say that I have had several break downs! Mentally it's more than I can take. But instead of completely closing shop, I have decided to just update monthly until I can keep up again... whenever that may be.

Ms. Ella

1. Oh my chubsters! You weigh 18.4 lbs! You are growing so fast lately. I have started to notice that you are loosing your baby features and starting to look more like a toddler.

2. You are wearing 9 month clothing mostly and have JUST started to wear 12 month pj's. Since you hit the 6 month mark, I have had to continually make sure that you wear all your clothes because you wear things once and that is it!

3. You are in between shoe sizes right now. 2's are too small and 3's are a little too big. You have really chunky feet.

4. You are still a lazy bum. You refuse to crawl or even attempt to. You are content with just sitting there and screaming until someone gives you a toy or Olivia comes up to you with one and you take it. The battles are beginning! The Dr. want to keep an eye on you because you should be crawling already. She says we will re-check you at a year and as long as you are making progress we won't need to put you in physical therapy. You might just turn out to be the lazy bum we are always saying you are! Ha!

5. You eat like a champ. You love to pick things up with your fingers and there isn't anything that we have given you that you won't eat. I can't even pin point something that would be your favorite because you inhale everything!

6. You have a few allergies to something that we can't figure out. It usually shows up in the form of a small rash out of no where. You have had several reactions in the last month where I have had to give you Benadryl. It was really weird because it was usually just your legs that broke out into hives. No further issues though, Thank God!

I can't say it enough, you are a VERY happy and healthy baby.

Ms. Olivia aka TROUBLE!

1. You my wiggle worm, are 16.4 lbs! Still long, skinny, and petite! (I kinda like that you are so small, you will grow into a big girl much to quickly and this way I enjoy you a little more.)

2. You are also wearing 9 month clothing and 12 month pj's, but only because of your length. I could stuff 2 more of you in your pj's because they are too wide and big on you.

3. The same goes for your feetsies! You have your momma's long and skinny feet so 2's are too short and 3's are too wide. We have to tighten them a little extra to get them to stay.

4. Unlike your sister, you are ALL OVER the place. You JUST learned to crawl and we cannot keep you anywhere without tying you down. You love to explore! The Dr. was also a little worried about you not pulling yourself up on things or trying to stand but since you are already getting around, we don't think it will be an issue.

5. You are our picky eater! You make such a fuss to eat. You like what your are eating usually, but you don't want to sit still long enough to eat it! It takes us forever sometimes, especially with milk. We had to switch you over to regular formula because you refused your specialty formula. Your allergies were not happy!

6. As I said, your allergies were NOT happy with your formula change. You are covered with Eczema all down your arms, legs, and the back of your neck and upper back. They don't seem to bother you too much and as long as there are no internal affects, we would prefer to treat the Eczema and have you drink your milk.

This is what you get when you try to get pictures of a wiggly worm...Ha!

No matter how hard things get around here, having you munchkins makes our days the happiest ever!

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!

A puff eating Houdini!

Isn't it amazing how much this child looks like her father???

(She got the cute gene though! Ha!)

We finally started eating puffs. I was waiting because I was afraid that they weren't ready plus if Daddy saw either of them gagging or choking on a puff, he would probably have a heart attack!

Ella picked it up with her pinchers on the first try! I was a very proud Mommy!

Olivia would pick it up with all her fingers and then it would get stuck in the palm of her hand. She couldn't figure out how to get it into her mouth...

(We fed her this puff.)

Now this...

This is a problem!

I was making myself breakfast and I look over to find Little Miss Houdini-ette,

trying to crawl out of her rocker.

Apparently it bored her and she decided she had enough time in the rocker.

I was tempted to find the duct tape...

Me? What did I do???

A first & 7 Months!

Our first beach day!

(It was all Tia Genelle's idea! She always wants to go to the beach.)

I wasn't sure about how this was going to go since these little munchkins have been a tad fussy for the past few weeks. As I predicted, the fun lasted for the first 10 minutes. We went into meltdown mode shortly after.

Olivia loved the sand. She kept jumping up and down and looking at her toes. I couldn't even get her to look up at me for the picture!

Ella was a little unsure but I think she liked it. She kept digging her feet into the sand and sank all the way up to her ankles.

I LOVE sandy little toesies!

Once we saw that things were going downhill, we gave them a bottle and laid them down for a bit. I didn't think they were going to sleep since the sand was so compacted and hard but they knocked out almost immediately.

They slept for about 30 minutes and woke up happy so I figured we would try to put them in the water. It was freezing cold so they weren't having any of it. We laid on the mat and played with them for a while and after about an hour, we attempted it again. This time they didn't even protest. They loved it!! I didn't get any pictures because all of us were in the water with them. We bounced them and let them splash around for a good 10 minutes. They would have stayed longer but I didn't want them in the sun very long. They are really starting to love the water.

Isn't beach hair usually a good thing??

Overall I would definitely take them to the beach again! It's a mission and a half with all the extra stuff we have to take but it's worth it to see them have so much fun!

Is it a little bright in here??

Here is what you're up to at 7 months old:

Ms. Ella:

1. You LOVE food! You drink about 25 ounces of milk a day along with 3 meals. You usually start with cereal and a fruit for breakfast. A yogurt with a fruit for lunch or sometimes a veggie and a fruit, and mixed veggies and a meat with a fruit for dinner.

2. You are as impatient and whiny as your Mother! UGH! Especially when it comes to food. You start wailing the minute you see a spoonful going to Olivia and not you. You cannot see a bottle or see a bib without panting like a doggy. You would think I don't feed you chubsters!

3. You are wearing 6 month clothing and some 6-9 footsie PJ's. I think I change your clothes more now than when you were first born. You love to spill food on yourself or my favorite, you love to sneeze with a mouth full of food!

4. You are still lazy as ever. You don't like to roll over unless you want to reach a toy. If you are tired of being in a certain position you pretty much just scream until we move you.

5. You still aren't sitting or attempting to crawl and trust me, I'm not in a hurry!

6. You are very sentimental. I have had to very strongly tell you no a few times and you just look at me, pout, water your eyes and then just scream! It breaks my heart to have you look at me that way but sometimes your whining is OUT of control!

Ms. Olivia:

1. Oh Olivia! You are such a trouble maker! You and food are not seeing eye to eye at the moment! You DO NOT want to drink your milk. And I mean DO NOT! I can get about 10-12 ounces of actual formula in you a day and the rest we do by giving you yogurt or formula mixed with your cereal. We had to call the Dr. after about a week of struggling to get you to drink and she said that you need about 20-25 ounces of dairy a day. She said we can continue to give you yogurt and we can also try cottage cheese and that will count. I still try to give you as much formula as I can but NOTHING I do will make you drink more. I have tried it all, literally. (Even trying to give you milk in a regular cup, sip by sip.)

2. You are still a spunky little jumping bean! Your new thing in the morning is that you stay lying down with your eyes closed until we come to get you. Once you hear the door open you open your eyes but stay very still. Once we come over your crib you become a wild child! You start flailing your arms and legs and start rolling from one side of the crib to the other and then back again. We just stand there and laugh at you. You are so funny!

3. You are wearing mostly 6 month clothes and PJ's. You are long and skinny as always. If you keep eating the way you are now, you are really gonna turn into a real life "olive oyl!"

4. I keep thinking that you are going to start attempting to sit or crawl soon because you are all over the place... but so far, Nada! I think you just like to roll over to where you want to go.

5. We have to tie you down to everything! You seem to wiggle out of every contraption we put you in. (Minus the jumperoo.)

6. You are a nosy busy body. You want to know what's going on in every corner of the house and will strain your neck to see. I would swear you have ADHD! You can't sit still when something grabs your attention. And might I add that something new grabs your attention every 5 minutes!

I thank God that you guys are healthy, happy and growing!

I say it all the time and will keep saying it, but you guys are just growing up too fast!

I can't believe you are 7 months already. I have already started planning your first birthday! How insane is that? Weren't you just born?

Nothing in this world makes your Daddy and I happier than being your parents!

You make our life worthwhile and I wish there were more words to explain just how much we love you!

Aren't they stinkers?