5 Months Old

The babies turned 5 months old yesterday.  They are growing so quickly.  Here is a little update on each of them and then plenty of pictures.  I managed to take quite a few this month.

Lincoln continues to be a mama's boy.  He loves me and if I'm in the room he usually will only be happy if I'm holding him.  Even if he hears my voice from another room that is enough to make him cry until I hold him.  He still gets up 2-3 times at night and that is hard on me, I'm not going to lie.  I know he isn't always hungry, but feeding him is the only way to calm him so he will go back to sleep.  If I let him cry he just cries until Annika wakes up and then I have TWO crying babies.

Lincoln has definitely found his voice and he loves to make sweet cooing noises.  He has a softer cry and a more gentle coo than Annika.  Her cry is louder and more demanding and her coos are louder too.  She wants to make sure she is heard.

Please excuse the purple Bumbo seat, but I thought Lincoln looked so handsome in his little overalls.  Such a cutie!

This is a shirt that Kimball wore as a baby so I see a lot of Kimball in Lincoln when he wears clothes that Kimball wore.  That is probably while we frequently end up calling him Kimball and Annika-Rebecah!

We started the babies on cereal about 5 days ago.  We give them a small amount shortly before bed in hopes that they will sleep better.  I'm still trying to decide if it is helping or not.  Lincoln tolerates the cereal, but I can't say he loves it.  I started these babies much earlier on cereal than I did with Kimball and Rebecah. With the others I waited until they were 6 months old before starting them.  These babies aren't really ready for cereal yet because it is taking them longer to get the hang of it.  I'm just doing it in hopes of giving myself a few extra hours of sleep each week.  Here are Lincoln's eating pictures:

Annika is sweet and still loves her swing.  She usually gets up 1-2 times a night.  She is active and smiley.  She will go to anyone as long as they are willing to care for her.  Her hair seems to get redder each month.  She rolls from side to side, but neither baby consistently rolls over.  Annika, too, has found her voice and I love to hear the babies being vocal.  It is so sweet.  

 


Annika doesn't really care for her cereal.  We have to try to trick her with her pacifier in order to get her to open her mouth and then she makes gagging sounds.  I don't really care that she isn't too interested in her cereal because I would rather she drink milk at this point.  Since both babies are still on the small side I am very careful to make sure they have just enough cereal to help them sleep, but not so much that they don't eat well at bedtime.

 

The weather has warmed up recently so we were able to go on a walk last week.  I still bundled the babies up, but they really enjoyed the nice day.  After our record setting cold February the 30s and 40s feel so warm.

Rebecah loved going on a walk with the babies.  It makes her feel so big.  Splashing in the puddles of melting snow was pretty fun for her too.

Four Months Old

Lincoln and Annika hit the 4 month mark on Presidents Day.  We love having them in our family so much.  They are sweet and smiley and I couldn't imagine our lives without them.  Here are a few pictures with a short update from the last month.  

The babies went to the doctor today.  Annika weighed 11 lbs 7 oz. and was 23 1/4 inches long.  She handled her shots much better this time.  She screamed only a few minutes.  In the last month Annika rolled over once from her tummy to her back.  She also slept through the night twice.  She loves her swing and she will sleep in it for hours if I let her.  She is smiley and loves having people talk with her.  I don't think her pictures show how cute she is!

The first set of pictures were taken about 3 weeks ago.  

Lincoln has finally taken the lead in a big way by weighing 12 lbs 8 oz. this morning.  He is 23 3/4 inches long.  The 1 lb 1 oz difference in weight is the biggest difference the babies have had.  Lincoln loves his mom and loves to be held.  If Lincoln sees me he won't settle to be held by anyone else.  Even Joseph can't make him as happy as I can.  Lincoln has rolled over three times now.  His third time was at the doctor's office this morning.  It was the first time I actually saw him roll over. Lincoln has slept through the night once so I am eagerly awaiting the night that both babies sleep through the night on a regular basis.  Lincoln likes to stick his tongue out a lot.

I think this picture is cute.  Both babies have their fists ready.  Who will throw the first punch?

These pictures were taken about 3 weeks ago too.  They show that Kimball actually does hold the babies.

The happy older brother first thing in the morning.

These pictures were taken on Monday, when the babies turned 4 months old.  Annika was rather interested in her dress in the first picture. 

A big smile from a big girl!

  

Lincoln was just relaxing for his pictures.

 

We finally got a smile in the last picture!

 

A Budding Artist

One activity Rebecah does at preschool is "Mat Man".  This activity teaches the kids how to draw people using shapes.  Rebecah now makes "Mat Man" drawings regularly for us.  Joseph liked her work so much that we framed her drawings and will hang them in our house.  

Here is our little artist with a white board marker drawing.  It is a self portrait of
Rebecah in her "Minnie Mouse"dress with Lincoln and Annika in the picture as well.

Close up of the drawing.

   

Here is our goofy artist showing her personality.

Here are her pencil Drawings:

Life With Twins

A few people have asked what it is like to have twins so I thought I would do a post about how my life has changed.

This might be lengthy so if you don't have time to read the post, in a nutshell this sentence should sum things up...I started this post over a month ago and I just now have time to finished it and publish it.

I'm busy!  Things are always a little crazy at first with a new baby, but with two new babies it is relentless. All of my time is taken in the care of the babies.  I feed them, dress them, try to find time to pump and then if there is time and the babies are sleeping or happy I have time for the laundry and chores.  I occasionally have time to email, but not daily like I would like or used to do.  I don't get to spend as much time with Kimball and Rebecah as I would like or they need and want.  I feel bad about this, but as the babies get older I hope I can find time for all of my children.

Before the babies were born I had a lot of concerns, but thankfully, most of those concerns have not been reality.

Before the babies were born I thought I would never get out of the house.  The reality is that I need to get out of the house so I don't go crazy.  Going out and running errands helps me feel normal.  I went grocery shopping with Joseph when the babies were 2 weeks old just to get out.  I now run errands a few times a week just me and the babies.  Thankfully, most people I encounter have soft spots for babies so when you have two babies they go out of their way to be helpful and then I reward them with a peak at the babies.

Before the babies were born I thought I would be a zombie from lack of sleep.  While it is true that I am tired every single day and I usually go weeks without a nap, I don't feel like a zombie.  I also go to bed pretty much as soon as the babies are settled for the night and I'm ready for bed.  I have gotten faster with our routine and when Joseph is home to help the babies are usually settled by 8:30 and when I'm running solo it might be another 15 minutes.  Joseph is able to get up with the babies a few nights a week when he doesn't work early the next morning.  It is nice that Joseph's work schedule varies so much.  If he weren't able to help at night it would be much harder.  The weeks he is on call are a little harder since I don't get help for 5-6 nights in a row.  When I have to go 2-3 nights in a row getting up 3-4 times and I start to feel really tired I just pray to Heavenly Father and let him know that I really need a good night of sleep.  The wonderful thing about our Heavenly Father is that he knows what we need and when we ask him he gives us our simple requests if it is in our best interest.  Thankfully this tender mercy is repeated weekly in my life and on the nights I say this prayer before bed are the nights the babies only get up once and it is at the same time.

Before the babies were born I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to feed both of them and that we would have to use formula.  The truth is that I'm able to feed both of them.  I nurse Lincoln and Annika takes a bottle of milk.  About once or twice a week we recently started giving Annika a bottle mixed 50/50 with milk and formula just so she can develope a taste for formula in case she needs to drink formula on a regular basis.  I have to make a conscious effort to pump regularly so I keep a good stash of milk around. Sundays and days where we are gone a lot are the hardest to find time to pump.  I was pretty disappointed when Annika didn't pick up nursing, but here again, I realized it was a blessing from the Lord.  Because we give her a bottle we decided to try Lincoln on a bottle at times.  This means that I can leave the house by myself and I know that Joseph can feed both babies and I don't have to rush home.  This is a freedom that I never had with Kimball and Rebecah.

Before the babies were born I thought they might have health problems which would make it hard to care for them.  The babies were born at 38 weeks and are perfect.  Once they both got the hang of feeding and I learned how to balance nursing and pumping the babies have thrived.

The transition to life with twins has gone so much better than I thought it would.  The biggest factor has probably been Joseph.  He has been so supportive and I know I would be the stressed out zombie mother of twins if it weren't for him.  He has probably done more laundry and cleaning in the last 3 months than in the almost 10 years of marriage.  That isn't to say that Joseph didn't help before, but I always tried to have the laundry and chores all finished before he got home from work.  Now when he gets home if he sees a basket of laundry waiting to be folded, he just folds it because he knows I haven't had time.

Everything takes longer with two.  I don't know why I didn't realize this would be the case.  It just takes a lot of work to get both of them ready and myself.  BUT, I have never once been late for church or any other appointment for that matter.  I am proud of that fact; I just set my alarm earlier if we have a deadline to meet.

I don't intend for my life to seem like it is all roses.  There are the moments where I feel so tired that I just want to pause time so I can relax and sleep.  I have times when I have to give myself a wake up call and tell myself that it is okay that I don't get everything done that I hope to do each day. And I repeat over and over that it is okay that my house is messier than I would like because it is the babies that matter.

Life with two babies is wonderful.  They are precious babies in our home and we love them.  We have good days and rough moments.  I would like to have a little more free time where I don't have to choose between a nap, sending email, my church calling, blogging, etc, but I manage.  Someday I'll even have time to read a book again! I know we have been blessed in our transition because the Lord wanted us to have these babies at the same time.  I must close this...both babies are starting to cry!

Beaver Lake Park

I came across this post today.  It is a trip we took in October about 6 days before the babies were born.  We went to Beaver Lake Park and enjoyed a hike and the visitor's center.  This was our last family outing where we still fit everyone in our car before becoming a family of 6.

Along the trail.

A fun tree we climbed.

Kimball and Rebecah taking a break on the tree.

A fun Joseph shot.

Fall colors

Having fun.

In this picture it looks like Kimball is aiming a gun.

Three Months Old

The babies hit the 3 month mark today, the 16th.   It is hard for me to believe that they are 3 months old already.  Where has the time gone?  Things are going so well with the babies and they are a joy in our family.  Kimball and Rebecah might disagree when they are having to hold a grumpy baby, but we love them!

This week I transitioned the babies from sleeping on boppy pillows to flat on their backs at night.  Over the Christmas break we transitioned them from their car seats to the boppies so we have come a long way. Lincoln has done really well with the transition.  I thought he would struggle since he doesn't like sleeping flat on his back during the day, but he has surprised me.  He is even sleeping better at night only getting up once to eat after going to bed at 8:30 and then getting up for the day anywhere between 6 -7:30.  Joseph and I tend to go to bed pretty early so only eating once in that time frame is great, I think.  Annika has had more of a struggle with the sleep transition, but she is still doing well.  She might get up twice in the night which is still pretty good for her.

Both babies are now smiling and it is so fun to see smiles break across their faces.  They smile at everyone in the family, but I still think I get the biggest and best smiles.  I should since I care for them the most!

They aren't rolling over yet, but I'm trying to be more diligent about tummy time.  I don't really care when they start rolling over because I know they will get there when they are ready.

Annika loves to sleep during the day in the swing.  If the swing stops it isn't long before she is waking up. Lincoln still loves to be held to sleep during the day, although he will nap in the bouncer.

The evenings are still the craziest because that is when the babies are usually the grumpiest.  When Joseph is gone in the evenings it isn't rare for me to be holding both babies keeping them happy.

Here are a few pictures from today.  I think it is hard to really capture their cuteness.

         

Lincoln smiling with his tongue sticking out.

           

More smiles.

I couldn't capture any of Annika's smiles.  She
gets camera shy or at least she doesn't
realize it is me behind the camera.

Chillin' in the swing.

Big smile from the big sister.  A baby post wouldn't be complete
without a picture of Rebecah with one of the babies.