It's been a year and we survived!!!

Happy 12 months old to our sweet baby girls! Where has the time gone!

I've decided that life exponentially gets faster and faster with each child...By having twins as my 2nd and 3rd. I can not believe how life is racing by so quickly!

We just love these girls so much and we love how their little personalities shine!

Kathryn

Weight: 19lbs 9oz  (23rd Percentile)

Height: 28 1/2 in  (30th Percentile)

Head Circumference:47.9cm  (99th Percentile)

Olivia

Weight: 18lbs 4oz  (8th Percentile)

Height: 27 3/4 in (11th Percentile)

Head Circumference: 45.4 cm  (58th Percentile)

We were so excited to have Grandpa Jerry and Grandma Lyn here to help celebrate! Wish we could have more family closer, but so grateful they'd come and spend a week with us.

Birthday Hugs with Grandma! 

We had a fun day!  The girls woke up with a bunch of balloons in their room! They weren't really sure what all this was! But they had a lot of fun playing with them! 

It was such a beautiful day we had to go for a walk!

It was fun to have my mom here and help me get ready for the celebrations!

Once daddy was home from work! The celebrations began!!

Birthday Dinner!

These girls were loved with lots of presents and cards from family! Andrew was so excited it was their birthday and wanted to stay home from school to celebrate! It took a lot of convincing, but he finally realized that we would not open presents and have the party until after he got home from school. He was a good little helper in opening up presents!

He did understand that these gifts were for the girls, but he just couldn't wait to try out their new push car! 

We decided to try to do a little cake smash with these girls! We got them dressed up and tried to take some cute pictures! These girls didn't know what all this fuss was about. I just have to laugh at their reaction to the birthday cake! Neither of them knew what to do with it.

Olivia was just her happy little self. She poked at it a little bit, maybe tried a little taste, but didn't really think much of it. She mostly just waved her arms and kicked her feet which went right into the cake.

Kathryn was a bit sad. She hadn't taken good naps that day and the next day woke up with a fever. So I don't think she was feeling to well by the end of the night. She sat for a bit and got into it more than Olivia, but only just a few fingers got frosting on them. Then she had had enough and just started crying! Poor thing.

A little bit about Kathryn right now..

• She is all about walking. She will cruise along the walls, couches, cupboards etc. you name it and she'll do it! She'll push anything and everything around the stools, the high chair, push toys, Andrew's walker, etc. She's getting more and more brave and has unknowingly taken 3-5 steps here and there the last few weeks to try to get at something, but then she loses confidence and drops down to crawl. 

• She just had two more teeth break through to make a total of 8 teeth. 
• She is a little bottomless pit, when it comes to meal time. She will devour anything and everything we set on her tray. I almost can't keep up with how fast she eats and grabs things a handful at a time. She's like a little chipmunk, because this girl finds every nook and cranny to put food into those cheeks. She definitely out eats both her brother and her sister!

• Her laugh is the best little belly laugh I've ever heard. And she'll laugh at most everything.
• Any time we hear music this girl is moving up and down to dance to it! So so cute! 
• Her latest passion is to climb stairs. Our gate at the bottom of the stairs was getting loose from a 4-year old shaking it and sometimes wouldn't latch completely tight. I caught her a few times all the way upstairs and playing in my bathroom.(Don't worry we've tightened the gate.) Although, this newly found skill has come in handy as it's getting harder and harder to carry both babies at the same time. I'll have her climb the stairs and I'll follow closely behind with Olivia. 

• She loves to be chased and will get giggly and just fall on her tummy laughing! 
• She loves the bath and splashing in the water. But she loves even more is snuggling in the towel after she gets out.

• She loves sleeping with random things. Her crib is right by the hamper and when it's full, she'll pull things out into her crib and fall asleep with them in her grasp. 
• She is still the most easy going little girl. I honestly didn't know babies came in such an easy packages!  
• She says mama, daddy, uh-oh, mah (for more) and nana (for banana)

A little bit about Olivia right now...

• She's a mommy's girl and my little cuddly one. 
• She becoming a girly girl. It's so fun to watch. She'll try to comb her hair,  and put on sunglass and necklaces. She'll also find her shoes and carry them around. 

• Standing on her head is also a new found love! She is hilarious and I catch her trying to do it herself all the time! 
• We've named her the dainty eater...even though she's starving she'll pick things up one at a time and slowly chew it. She is a lover of fruits and yogurt. Depending on the day doesn't always like noodles or eggs or cheese. 
• She lOVES books! She could sit and look at books for a very long time and I love it. 

• We are waiting and waiting, but this girl still only has her two bottom teeth. 
• She's always got to be carrying something around. A lot of times it's in her hand, usually one of Andrew's matchbox cars or his Daniel Tiger figurines.But more often it's in her mouth like a puppy dog....she'll take off her socks or shoes or find random toys and carry them around in her mouth.

• She says mama first thing in the morning when she wakes up. 
• She has a few words like mama and nana (for banana) but she uses sign language more to communicate. She'll sign more, all done and milk.
• This girl loves to use a spoon! She always has to have a spoon in her hand and will try to scoop her food up off her tray during meals. She is getting pretty good at it too and is successful most of the time. She just doesn't know what to do next, so she'll pick the food off the spoon with her hands and eat it. 
• She loves to clap! If she hears clapping on the TV or if I say 'Yea' that's her cue to start clapping! 
• She also loves to spin around in a circle on her bum. She use her legs to spin herself around and around and around...especially when she's on the wood or tile floors. She can get going pretty fast. 

It's so fun to see their personalities developing and see how they interact with each other. 

Kathryn is still the more easy going one, but she sure let's herself be known in other ways. She is always the one taking the toys away from Olivia. She's very determined and knows what she wants. She'll push and squeeze her way through just about anything to get to what she wants. So far Olivia has been pretty good about just finding other toys, but I know that won't last much longer. 

These two are both still pretty good sleepers. They sleep through the night and most days take two good naps about 1-2 hours long. Although we'll see how long two naps are going to stick around. Andrew lasted until he was almost in 18 months before he needed only one nap, but these two just play and play and play in their cribs. They have a harder time settling down with a playmate in the next crib over. It's playtime ALL the time! It's actually really cute to watch, but it's getting harder and harder for them to settle down for naptime. They just have too much fun with each other playing Peek-a-boo and handing things to each other between the railings. 

They really are the best little playmates! 

This picture is so funny. Olivia actually crawled herself into that trap, but Kathryn was just sitting there laughing at her. 

Olivia although might be a bit more vocal. She is also more sensitive. She tries to hold Kathryn's hand while they are in the stroller....especially after their one year old appointments and had their shots! These girls screamed for almost 20 minutes. When I finally got them strapped in their stroller, Olivia just kept reaching for Kathryn's hand for comfort. Though, Kathryn was too upset to even want to hold hands. 

This has become a favorite past time with these two. Kathryn loves to push and Olivia loves to ride. It's a great way to entertain the two and it keeps them occupied for quite sometime. 

The swing is the favorite at the park!!! It also contains them into one spot! It's a win win for mommy...right? 

Love them Both! Can't imagine our crazy life without them!!

Our September

I've decided that September is pretty much the ideal month of weather here in Georgia! It's still warm and feels like summer, but the humidity is not nearly as bad and I feel like I can get out of my house without becoming drenched in sweat. So we've been a bit more adventurous. Last year I was in a hospital bed the entire month so I missed out on this blissful reprieve from summer. Before the fall weather hits.


We started the month by working hard around the house over Labor Day...Stephen took a day off and we dug in and got some good projects done. (Ahhh the joys of being home owners.) So Monday afternoon we decided to do some exploring and found an awesome little park.

Andrew now thinks he's a real cowboy. We've started another therapy to add to our weekly regimen. Hippo therapy. They have been awesome. He rides every week for 30 minutes and works on a lot of core muscle strength and fine motor tasks. It's been so wonderful! His therapist is amazing and they've already done some pretty amazing things with him. We're gearing up for another surgery next year and so we are hitting the therapies hard.

Stephen's Aunt and Uncle who we lived next door to us in Texas have sold their home in Arlington and moved to North Carolina about 2 hours away from us! We are super excited to have some family close by. We couldn't wait to go say hello and welcome them to the south! They live in a quaint little city in the Applications and their home is right on the edge of the national forest. It's very secluded and very beautiful. They took us hiking to some nearby waterfalls and we had a little cookout on their back patio. What a fun day to spend with them!

Now that it's a little cooler, we've been able to use our fire pit out back! Its been so fun! Andrew especially loved being a "fireman" and help daddy put out the fire. He insisted that we get his fireman hat from the recent visit to the fire station with preschool for fire safety week.  I just love his imagination.

We are getting out doors so much more these days! When Andrew gets off the bus and the girls wake up from their naps we like to go on a walk/bike ride down the street. It sure has been wonderful weather and we're soaking it up!

We go walking with a bunch of friends each week! It's pretty fun! We meet up at the park and walk and chat. We are quite the force to be reckoned with. We counted last week there were 8 babies/toddlers altogether in strollers. You'd better watch out or you'll be run over! These girls love it! They love even more playing at the park every time after we get done with our walking!

We had Andrew's Fall break the last week in September! We had a bunch of fun things planned like going to the zoo and the children's museum and playdates with friends, but we had to cancel all of that. Poor Olivia was pretty sick with a very high fever for about three days. After a bad rash and a trip to the urgent care we found out she had Roseola. Then a few days later Kathryn started the whole process again. It was no fun...not to mention we had side effects of the hurricane rains that hit Charleston. So the entire week was rainy and humid and yucky. Finally on Friday we broke out of the house and headed to the mall to see the Lego exhibit we'd heard so much about from our friends. It was awesome! Andrew had fun building his own car to race down the track and I loved seeing all the different national monuments built entirely out of Legos. The 10 foot tall Statue of Liberty was pretty neat and so was the white house!

We got pretty creative being inside all week long...here's a little dress up session done entirely by yours truly..Sunday shoes, sunday belt, his watch and cowboy hat...
"I'm a cowboy. Ya know, Cowboys go to church too mom. And I'm late!!!" ~Andrew
I just love this stage he's in right now! So much fun....and I never know what's going to come out of that little mouth of his....he kills me sometimes!

Before we headed home, we stopped off for a little donut treat! Mmmmmm. Donut eating is serious business!