Leaps and Bounds

The newest trick this week: Standing. Both girls have shown the ability to balance themselves quite well against something, and Megan can pull herself up, and today has even worked herself around the living room playpen.





During Jenn's pregnancy we often wondered what it was going to be like to have twins, and while it certainly is challenging, the truth is that we've been lucky, getting as close to perfect children as one could hope. They slept through the night at 3 months, they very rarely cry for no reason, overall they could not have better dispositions. Now that they're getting mobile, however, and watching how they're starting to get after each other in the playpen, I'm thinking we may be near the end of the "honeymoon", so to speak. It's strange, you keep thinking a milestone like walking is far off into the future still, then you start seeing things like this, you remember Jalen tearing around the house a couple weeks ago, Ruth mentions Karen walked at 9 months...yeah. Fun times ahead for sure.

Finally, we present Megan: A Story in Pictures.


"All right, time to pull myself up, this shouldn't be too hard."


"This wooden mountain should provide a solid enough base."


"Whew...OK, here we go!"


"Almost there!"


"Hey, what's this?"


"This book looks like a pig!"


"That's the craziest thing I've ever...WHOA!"


"Hi, Mommy! What are you doing up here?"

More firsts

Both girls now have teeth; Megan two and Kayla one. Picture of Megan's:



They've both also mastered the ability to crawl; still a little sporadic of course but forward motion is definitely possible. Once they had that licked though they both turned their attention to trying to stand up. We had assumed they weren't quite strong enough to accomplish this, until this morning when I went in to get Kayla:



That's all for now, see you later!

Busy Month

First off, I double-dog dare you to figure out which one is which in this picture. Honestly you take the hair away as a factor and it's a little tough for me as well.



All kinds of happenings since my last post. About a month ago. Heh. Anyway, Linda, Jordan, and Jalen came for an afternoon of play:



This serene picture belies world of chaos that was the house that day, lead chiefly by Jalen, of course, who I am convinced has the strength, speed, and stamina of 10 babies. One day soon we will learn that government agents gave him the Super Soldier formula shortly after birth, and he is destined to become Captain America.

This week also had Granny Vogts down with us, taking care of the girls while giving Ruth a break from daycare duties, an event that we somehow managed to not document with even a single picture (though we did get some video I believe). She came at an opportune time, as both girls are teething pretty hard, and have had a Fussiness Quotient well above 7.9 at times, especially at bedtime. Nobody can rock a baby to sleep like Granny, though, so all was well, and we definitely look forward to her triumphant return the second week of July.



So yeah, teething (and other tricks). Megan now has two bottom front teeth poking through (you can feel and see them); Kayla has none yet, but considering the fevers she's been running, we expect them any day. No crawling yet, at least according to Webster's definition of the word, but both girls can get up on hands and knees with ease, and will make progress sort of lunging forward when properly motivated. They just need to make the quadrupedal locomotion discovery. They both can sit up on their own power as well (though it lacks grace admittedly, generally coming in the form of a half rollover from the hands and knees position), and just this week we caught Megan in particular sitting up in her crib. Megan has also made efforts to pull herself up into the standing position, though gravity of course remains an unforgiving instructor.

Both girls have also mastered "Peek-A-Boo" to a level unheard of since my junior year of college, recognizing that the burp cloth should not only be removed from their faces, but daddy's as well. All these things should come as no shock to me of course, as they are 8 months and counting now, but still, it is somewhat surprising how a simple act like sitting unaided or pulling cloth from face can change your perception of a human life. I told James the other day that for the first 3 months or so, babies are basically Sims characters, which is crass for the sake of humor of course, but the point being, the ultra-small of our species basically has 4 settings: Hungry, tired, soiled, or just mad at the world. You evaluate the situation and react accordingly, and that's pretty much it. Then one day you wake up and they can say "Bye bye" and you realize that, yes, there is a brain in there, and it is growing exponentially.

Kayla In The Spotlight

Kayla has her turn!

It's All About Megan

Pictures....We've got pictures

Several newer ones:



Girls getting ready for supper the other night. Girls started fruits this week, applesauce.



Having fun playing. The playpen is something Jenn found online, a piece-together thing that allows us to let the girls roll around and play on the floor, without worrying about them rolling down the stairs or whatever.



More playtime.



Sleepy Time Kayla comes complete with Realistic Thumb Sucking Action and Kung Fu Grip (batteries not included).



Sleepy Time Megan comes complete with Physically Impossible Neck Pose and Remedial "Wave Bye Bye" Action (she really can do this now).



Toes are neat.

So Mommy's A Prude...

Sometimes I do things for seemingly no reason, except that it’s fun. Dressing the girls in ducky and bunny costumes around Easter, for example.
But it’s not just me. Remember Mike saying how my friends put the girls’ hair in pig tails? Here’s a different view, that shows it a little better.

Mike was mowing lawns and I was alone with the girls. We’d already eaten and it was time for baths. Normally, we use the baby bath in the kitchen sink, one at a time. Well, mommy wanted to be different, so we got out the ducky tub!

The girls seemed to have an okay time. It wasn’t really roomy enough, but that helped them stay upright more easily. At first they were a bit put off by the environment, since they’d never been in the ducky tub before. They’re not used to sitting in water, either. But then when they realized it was a bath, they were okay with it.

But, mommy is a prude, and won’t put naked pictures of them on the internet! So I covered them with washcloths.

Megan decided one wash cloth was a toy at first.

Then she decided it was a snack.

By that time, Kayla was done with pictures (and the giant duck head) so we called it a night.
All in all, it was fun! They’re first bath in a sorta-real tub!

Let’s Revisit Easter!

Mike shared a picture of the girls in their ducky and bunny costumes, but they didn’t look all that happy in that one. But they liked being a ducky and a bunny. Really, they did! This shot shows them both smiling even!

Well, the girls just HAD to have “First Easter” outfits. I mean, who could resist those bunny-feet pants?? I’d seen these in a Wichita Target store, but they only had one in small. We went to KC shortly after that, and Mike humored me – taking me to Target store after Target store, in search of the outfit – with no luck. A few weeks later, I found them! At the Target on the west side of Wichita.


Here’s one before church, where Kayla has discovered Megan’s ear. We had new Easter dresses, but they were short sleeved and Easter Sunday was too cold for the dresses.


And the outfits before we went to the mall....hey! you look familiar!


...to see the Easter bunny!

A little bit of an older picture obviously, but we have to meet the cuteness quota for this post:



Things have been going pretty good lately. Babies had a little bit of a cold last week, but nothing too serious. Last Friday a couple of friends from Jenn's office came and babysat for us in the evening, while we went to eat at Sumo with James and Tricia. After we came back to the house, James and I went downstairs to drink a couple of beers and watch Survivorman, and the girls had a little fun playing dress-up with the girls.



The pigtails maybe weren't that impressive from an overall standpoint, but the girls bald spots are starting to fill in finally, something that is of great relief to their mommy.

I think on the last post I forgot to mention the girls weights; 15 lbs 15 oz for Kayla and 15 lbs 3 oz for Megan. They're definitely getting to be big girls, getting more active and able to explore things around them. We bought an expandable playpen for the floor to "corral" them, and they're quite happy to lay in there and roll around playing with toys for an hour or two easy, as they're doing now. We haven't seen any real crawling yet, but have seen little legs start to get underneath them when they want to go somewhere. No teeth yet either but some unusually fussy girls once in a while, along with a constant need to have something to chew on, so only a matter of time. Kayla in particular has taken to sucking her thumb when she's tired. Megan will sometimes too, but not as much. Grandma Vogts of course loves it, as it reminds her of Linda. We try to discourage it somewhat, but figure that if she's only picking up the habit now, how bad can it really be, and when the girls are crying to keep themselves awake (they take after their mommy this way), seeing that thumb in the mouth is actually somewhat of a welcome sign.

6 Months

Girls hit the big 0.5 this month. Had our 6 month appointment at the doctor as well, and everything is looking great. They've also been learning some new skills as well:

Playing the Piano


Cosplayer




And champion MMA fighter


You can definitely see development happening. We can play peek-a-boo with both of them now with some success, and they're happy to play on the floor by themselves for pretty long stretches. They've also been on "real food" for a while now; from cereals through most veggies, all the way up to chicken this week. Haven't seen any crawling yet, but they do try to get their legs underneath them to push off every once a while, so it shouldn't be too much longer for that as well.

Behind The Camera

I know I’m biased, but I think we have some cute pictures of the girls. Anyone with kids will tell you that it’s not always easy to get that perfect shot the first time. Try doing it with two little ones, and it becomes more difficult. I’m amazed that anyone actually gets good family pictures!

So those cute pictures that we have? Yeah, we worked for them. At the hospital, the photographers there took pictures of the girls. They turned out okay, but before they started, we took some of our own. The girls were less than cooperative – but hey! They were only 3 days old!


The purple outfit picture is one of my favorite early pictures, even though we had Megan on the left instead of the traditional right. But in this not-so-perfect shot, Kayla is practicing her evil-twin look – and Megan is about to smack her if she doesn't stop it. Well, it least that’s what it looks like to me….


Our birth announcement photo turned out really nicely. But this earlier shot shows the struggle we had that day keeping the girls from hiding their pretty little faces. But they look so cute, almost as if they're giggling about it!


At Christmas, cousin Nathan was very patient as we tried to get a Christmas photo of him with the girls. Megan—not so much.


It’s always a challenge trying to prop the girls up so they don’t look funny. It doesn’t help when the squirm and slide around – which happens nearly every time.


And sometimes, they just tip, and look at you like, “Mommy? Where am I going?”


The girls have a tradition of spitting up as soon as we put them in an outfit for a picture. I think it took three different nights before we got a good shot for the Valentine’s card. It’s one thing to have to wash the front of her dress, but it’s a whole different ball game when Kayla gloats about it…


Sunglasses on the girls are always a challenge. You have to be quick, because they move, and you end up with a look like this that just doesn’t have the same cool-girl effect.


And sometimes, you get multiple issues. Here we have the aforementioned sliding issue, accompanied by the mid-blink look.



Sometimes, the out-takes are as fun to look at as the successful ones! Just a little reminder of how life isn't always perfect, but that's okay.