Happy Easter

Happy Easter! We hope you had a happy and blessed holiday. We had an action packed and very fun weekend.

Lily, Elsa and Mark coloring eggs. Mark's doing the work. The girls are supervising.


Elsa and Lily all dressed up and ready to go to church. They made it through a 1.5 hour service.



Elsa is chewing on her bunny's ear. We saw her first tooth this morning.



This afternoon we were invited to Cristin's grandma's house for a family party. She lives on a farm out in the country. We had a lovely drive out in the Mount Diablo foothills. The hills are green and gorgeous. On the farm, it is baby season. They had over 4o baby goats and sheep. Here is Cristin's cousin Joy showing us their triplet lambs! They were only 2 weeks old. We learned today that sheep and goats usually have twins. But, this year was unusual. There was a set of triplets and two sets of quads. Amazing! It was so nice to spend the holiday with family (even if we are not related). They were very welcoming and had an amazing spread of food. Lamb and goat were on the menu, but thank goodness we didn't have to explain where it came from to Lily and Elsa.

Good morning

After only two night wakings, the girls both slept until 630 (!) this morning. This is a good deal, since SOMEONE is usually up for the day between 5 and 6.

Typically, we are awakened by a 3 alarm siren of crying. But this morning, we heard laughing and squeals. The girls were having a party in their room without us. Both of them had giant smiles on their faces when we opened the door. What an excellent way to start the day!

Edited to add pictures



The girls received these beautiful hand embroidered bibs from their G-Aunt Chris. For once I don't have to label the pictures!


I tried to get a shot of them both together, but as you can see Elsa was DONE getting her picture taken.

Why chew on your own hand . . .

when you can chew on your sister's? Elsa uses Lily as a teether. Still no teeth for Elsa.


My cuties looking older. Lily left, Elsa right.


Trick photography. Lily looks at herself in the mirror.


Simpsons training starts early at our house. Elsa left, Lily right.

They grew!

Elsa: 12lb 14oz, 24 1/8in
Lily: 12lb 12oz, 24 in

Elsa is 2 oz and 1/8 inch bigger.

They have more than doubled their lowest weight which was below 6lbs. The doctor is very pleased. They are at the third percentile for height and weight. Although, chubby babies are all the fashion, I've told them not to worry. All of the other girls will be jealous of their figures by the time they get to high school. As their grandmothers and mother can well attest, there are advantages to being short. We don't have to worry about being taller than any boys and we can always wear heels. The doctor still thinks they might surprise us with a big growth spurt. But, for now, God in his infinite wisdom has decided to keep them compact. This means that Mom and Dad will be able to keep holding them at the same time. There's nothing like snuggling with both my girls. It will be a sad day when I can't hold them both together.

He did give us the green light to be more aggressive about getting them to sleep. He says by this age, they should be capable of sleeping 8 hours at a time. However, our girls rarely go longer than 2 to 3 hours. Their night wakings have gone from bad to worse. I won't bore our readers with the details. Suffice it to say, it is sad. Very sad. Tonight, we are going to try them again in separate cribs. between the teeth and the flailing, they are waking each other up all night long. Last night, we kept Elsa in the big crib and put Lily in the portacrib. Elsa slept like a log, but Lily was up quite a bit. Lily rolled all over her bed, but Elsa stayed put. So, tonight we are going to reverse the cribs and see what happens. It seems that Lily might need more space. And Elsa is sick of her sister constantly rolling into her back. Keep your fingers crossed. I know that eventually they WILL sleep. We just need to be patient.

Here are some pictures. The weather was amazing this weekend. We took the girls outside in the backyard to feel grass for the first time.



Elsa's first time feeling grass beneath her toes.


Same for Lily.


My 3 babies: Mark, Elsa and Lily. Dad was very excited by the caps. He's already planning their first A's game.


Mom and the girls posing in our backyard garden.


And a special thanks to Cristin and Meggan who sat with the girls on Saturday. We got a much needed break!

Sweet Potatoes

My girls are not big eaters. Since they were down to the 3rd percentile at their last doctor's visit, I fret about this all the time. (Yes, I know I'm being silly and paranoid. And we'll know more when they get weighed for their six-month appointment on Monday). Granted they started off little, but they are slipping off their curve a bit on the growth charts. For some reason they just don't seem to get very excited by food. Breast milk? eh. Formula? eh. Baby cereal? blah. I generally have to turn their heads and keep them on task. Even when they nurse, they generally fall asleep within minutes. The past couple weeks we've started introducing a few fruits and vegetables into their diet. Green vegetables and bananas were received with mixed reviews. Apparently, there is this whole color progression system to the introduction of solids. But, by golly, they finally got excited over sweet potatoes. They split a whole jar on their first try. For perspective, I got three meals out of one little jar of peas. Elsa was so happy she started shaking. Now, I personally think sweet potatoes are rather yucky. I would gladly take green peas over orange goo. But, I'm not going to argue with success.


Here's Elsa enjoying her meal. Note the enthusiasm.


Here's Lily in the aftermath. I think with the orange moustache, she looks ready to lead some sort of South American revolution.

In other news, since Lily was first to get teeth, Elsa has been sharpening her offensive skills.


Here is Lily casually holding on to their favorite ball. (thanks g-grandma A!)


Now check out her face seconds after her big sister, took the ball away. Priceless. Elsa is perfecting the reach and grab.


Finally, here is Elsa flying with her mom.

Biggest diaper ever

This one deserves to be recorded. This afternoon Elsa managed a diaper blowout that covered herself, Lily and me. Another amazing talent of my daughters. 3 people had to change outfits. This is why I am nervous about them wearing antique gowns at their Baptism. Really do you trust those little poop machines in family heirlooms? Maybe something in yellow, tan or brown would be more appropriate.

By the way, there's another tooth. Lily has sprouted two. Yet, Elsa has been the one up all night crying. (Two nights in a row). She's a very sympathetic sister. Or maybe she's about to sprout a couple herself.

A drummer and a tooth.

That's what we have to report.

Lily is most certainly sprouting her first tooth. Lower, front (leftside). Yesterday we noticed that she has the white line and a sharp edge poking out. So far, she seems to be taking it in stride. She's been spending a lot of time chewing on things and drooling. She's also been rubbing her new tooth in Elsa's face. Or at least chewing on her sister's arm quite a bit. I'm not sure what this new tooth means for our breastfeeding relationship. The girls are getting about 50% formula these days. I feel proud for breastfeeding twins for nearly 6 months. But, I'm not sure what I think of breastfeeding twins with teeth. Ouch! I'm going to have to draw the line somewhere.

Here's the little teether in her punk shirt from Aunt Meggan. The shirt reads "criblife" and features a baby drinking a 40 oz bottle. What a rebel.



We also hit another big milestone yesterday. Elsa figured something out. Mark was playing the toy drum. Then Elsa decided to copy her dad. She took the drumstick (and instead of eating it as per usual), she started hitting the drum. As first-time parents, we are now convinced we have musical prodigies. We're signing them up for Suzuki classes next week.


Aunt Olivia must have been pyschic. This shirt arrived just a couple weeks ago. Elsa hamming it up for her dad. The babies glow whenever he's in the room. They have daddy totally whipped. And let's be honest, mommy's whipped, too.

We can't believe how fast this is all going. They will be six months old in 8 days. Wah! They seem to have matured by leaps and bounds the past few weeks. They are laughing, smiling, developing opinions. We are having so much fun.

They also seem to be in constant motion. Elsa especially is constantly bouncing. Just as I envision her dad as a small child. Lily's really been trying to sit up. Yesterday they got a doorway jumper. Here's Lily testing it out. (Don't worry, we are not going to keep it in the bathroom. Too close to the pinching door).