Thursday, November 28, 2013

Twins are 13 months!

(I thought I posted this, but here is a post from a couple of months ago)

Wow, how things have become so busy since we are now all back to school.   I have had a few moms of twins tell me the first year is the hardest.   However, I am beginning to think the second year is harder now that the twins are mobile......

The girls had their year checkup at the end of July and to no surprise Emma had another ear infection. This makes it her fifth ear infection and makes her a candidate for tubes.  With it being still summer, the Dr. wanted  us to wait on the tubes and her put her on an antibiotic.  He said it would not be the best idea to put tubes in her ears in the summer because there is a good chance they could fall out in the middle of cold/flu season, when she would probably need them the most.  Ava has an appointment in October to finally have her blocked tear duct opened. It is only a five minute procedure, but I hate watching the Dr's put a baby to sleep!  Other than the that, the appointment went well!  Emma now weighs 23 pound 4 oz and is 32 inches   long.  Ava weighs 21 pounds and 3 oz. and is 31 1/2 inches long.  They both continue to have the two pound difference.  They seem to look more and more alike.  I often get the question, "How do you tell them apart?".  However, to our family it is very easy to tell them apart.

Our crazy schedule has set in with work, school and practices.  While I am at work, Emma and Ava go to my mom's house.  I have been blessed with an incredible mother who watches them while I work.  She is truly amazing!!  Emma and Ava also spend a lot of their time running to and from practices and sitting at sporting events on the weekends.  They typically start out in their strollers and end up crawling around in the grass.They are not yet walking, which is OK! They will cruise along furniture and are even starting to let go of things and stand on their own.  They try to climb the steps when they can get to them faster than we can. Of course, this has resulted in a few bumps on the head.  I am sure walking is just around the corner!  We have changed our living room area a bit to give them a bigger, safe area to play in and put the gate in a way that blocks them from getting out of the living room.  This seems to work very well. They are starting to say a few new words.  Ava continues to say Uh-Oh and mom, da and book.  Emma says mom, da, book and dog.  Emma also continues to babble this same consistent word that nobody can figure out what she is saying.  It is pretty comical.  Lastly, Emma got her first bottom tooth this month.

Here are some of their first year pictures.....
                                                Emma
                                                   Ava
                                            Ava
                                        Emma
                                       Ava
                                         Emma






Sunday, August 11, 2013

Happy 1st Birthday Ava and Emma!

It was a day to celebrate!  Not only were Ava and Emma turning one, but Marc and I survived our first year with twins :).  I will have to say this year went extremely fast.  The first couple of months were the hardest as we were so sleep deprived, but it definitely got easier!  Do not get me wrong we had/have our challenges, but we have found out what works for our family.  We do not sweat the small stuff, control the things we can and have come to the understanding that it is OK if our house is not clean 100% of the time (although this drives me nuts at times). Oh yeah, we laugh a lot! We are blessed with this crazy house full of kids and love!

The theme of the birthday party was CUPCAKES and lots of pink. Who does not love a cupcake?  Double the trouble, double the fun our little cupcakes have turned one.  The girls were dressed in a tutu and monogrammed onsies with a cupcake on them (adorable, right?).  Melis made some delicious and beautiful cupcakes for part of the decorations as well as the party favors for all of the kids.  The cake was beautifully done by Carrie Johnson (and so delicious), as well as the colossal cupcakes she made for Ava and Emma to dive into.  Their high chairs were decorated with balloons and a pink tutu.  It was a perfect day!  The girls started the party by being spoiled with lots of gifts.  It was pure (but good) chaos when they were opening presents, as they had lots of help from their siblings and cousins.  They are all set for the fall and winter with lots of great clothes!   After we had dinner, it was time for CAKE.  We sang Happy Birthday to the girls and they were a little unsure of 30 people gathering around and singing to them.  It was then time to dive in to the cupcakes.  Emma took the cupcake and tried to put the whole thing in her mouth and Ava picked at it.  They both got the hang of it eventually and enjoyed the icing for sure!  The girls definitely were ready for a bath when they had enough.

All in all it was a perfect day.  We cannot thank our family and friends enough for all of their support of this last year.  Melis just indicated that I end all my posts with this and I told her you cannot thank those who help you enough! 

Here are some pictures below from the party:


                        Melis made this picture on Instagram for me...What a year!

 




 

 
           Marc and I think the girls look a lot like in these two individual pictures!


                                                                        Chaos




     Here is where we were singing, they are wondering what is going on....





Wednesday, July 24, 2013

11 months and Twins with Double Ear Infections

This month has been all about battling ear infections for both babies.  Of course they were a couple of days apart in getting them, so this resulted in multiple trips to the doctor's office.  The girls (as I have mentioned before) are as tough as nails because the only sign they gave me that they even had the ear infections was when they were digging in their ears.  They did not have a cold, run fevers or even stop eating.  They were both put on an antibiotic, but that did not clear it.  Ava went back and still had the infection in one ear and Emma has it again in both ears.  These poor girls have had a rough month of ear infections and doctor visits ( you will see in a picture below of Emma solidly sleeping in her car seat after a doctor visit holding her ear, she wore herself out screaming when the Dr. was checking her ears).

The girls are crawling around everywhere now.  I finally got a gate to keep myself from going nuts.  As you will see in the picture it is made for dogs, but works well for the twins :).  Emma's favorite place is the kitchen and getting into the cabinets. She has shattered a bowl and a jar of Stage 3 food.  This was my fault for not clearing the shelf from where she got it from, but she is fast.  Ava seems to be more content with playing with her toys rather than getting into trouble.  I am sure this will change soon.  Emma has started to pull herself up to stand and Ava is very close to doing this as well.  They are starting to fight over toys these days.  They consistently play tug o war with toys, but they also are going back to grabbing each other's hands (love this), especially on car rides and when they sit in the high chair.

Ava and Emma partied this month with their very first 4th of July. They went to their great Aunt Pat and Uncle Tom's for a pool party.  However, it was very rainy a little chilly for them to go swimming.  Although they had fun seeing everybody!  They also went to a 4th of July party at my parents' house the very next weekend where my mom had several games and prizes for the kids.  While they could not play the games, they had fun crawling in the grass and playing with the decorations. My mom bought them some really cute sunglasses and headbands to wear, but of course they would not wear the headbands I got a few pictures with the sunglasses. They will be ready to participate in the games next year.  I am sure they will love finding the cherry in the pie pan filled with whip cream (the older kid's favorite game).  My mom works so hard on this party and does such an awesome job.  Thanks Mom!!!!

We also had Ava and Emma's 1 year pictures taken at Sawyer Point a couple of days ago.  I was not holding out much hope for these pictures because it was about 98 degrees out and both babies had ear infections (how could this possibly work in our favor, right?!?!).  I have to say while I prepared for the worst situation, they did quit well with the circumstances.  I believe the photographer got some good ones.

It is hard to believe that in a couple of days the twins turn 1.  It has been one crazy, yet fun year! Our theme is cupcakes for the girls party. I will definitely have lots of pictures to post from their party next month.  At this time last year I was getting so anxious for the birth of the girls and so tired of bed rest.  All of that seems so far away, this year has flown by!  I recently went back and read a lot of the posts that I wrote while on bed rest and boy was it a roller coaster ride week to week.  I will never forget this particular Dr. visit/email (posted below) I sent about one of the Dr. visits.  It was one of the hardest to hear when the Dr. talked about the survival rate of Baby A.  I am even tearing up as I write this. I remember the exact room we were in, where I was sitting, and the Dr. Baby A proved him wrong and these girls fought together!!! We are so blessed and thankful for these baby girls.  They amaze me every single day!!!

P.S.  Baby B- Emma is the wild baby and Baby A-Ava is the calm one

April 5, 2011

Well what a roller coaster ride this is....the good news is that the blood flow, cervix, and amniotic fluid are all still measuring normal. The bad news is that the size difference between the babies has gotten bigger from two weeks ago. It went from 16% to 26%. The Dr. explained this to be a result of an abnormal placental share. The smaller baby A has a smaller amount of placenta that she is sharing and Baby B has a much bigger amount. They are both definitely growing from week to week (which is good), but Baby A is just not growing to the size she should be at for 20 weeks. The Dr. indicated when the size difference is over 25%, the survival rate of the smaller baby decreases and there is an increased risk of pre-term labor, preeclampsia, babies born early, and a few other scary scenarios. I am supposed to continue my bed rest as I have been doing. I am still allowed to work, but need to sit as much as possible at work. So, needless to say, it was an emotional appointment and we thank you for your continued support, thoughts, and prayers.

Happy Easter!

Jenifer

P.S. On a happy note, these two baby girls are amazing to watch on the ultrasound. Baby B seems to be the wild baby (much like Lydia) and Baby A (much like Melis) is more calm, but they are always near each other in the womb. They have a whole area in my belly to roam, but they are always together. Baby B was sucking her thumb and turned and gave a peace sign during the scan, the tech caught it in a picture and of course my kids loved it!!!

Here are some pictures from this month:

                                           Ava standing with a little help to get there
                                                             Emma
                                         Ava loves to be tickled by her brother and sisters!
                                                    Emma is yelling/babbling here
                                                    Look at those beautiful eyes on Ava!
                                Poor Emma is knocked out from her Dr.'s appointment
                                                     Ava is ready for the 4th of July
                                                          Emma is ready to party too!
                             Playing "nicely" together in a playpen outside
                                      The playing "nicely" did not last long.....
                                                    Ava is waving her flag
                                                 Emma is being patriotic as well
 
Ava and Aunt Leah
Tyler trying to keep Emma from taking her headband off
                                                             Tug O War
                                                      Look at that smile on Emma.
They are trapped in the cage. 
 
 
 
 
 
 




Wednesday, June 26, 2013

It continues to amaze me how much the girls change in just a month.  I was reading last month's post and reflecting on what they are doing this month versus last month.  The month started out with Emma finally getting her collar.  She is doing really well with it.  The PT has instructed her to wear it for at least four hours a day, but it does not have to be a consistent four hours.  The other rule with the collar is that she can only wear it when she is sitting up and not lying down or in her car seat.  The hardest part about it is getting it on her.  However, once she has it on, she does not mess with it. I have a picture of her in the collar below.  She is still as cute as a button! We continue to go to physical therapy two times a month.

Ava and Emma headed to the ocean for their very first time this month. We were not sure what to expect as we were packing up the minivan (which was impressive that we packed for all 7 of us for the week and we did not need additional luggage for the top of the van) and getting ready for a 12 hour car ride with 5 kids.  However, as I said to Marc, somebody must have been looking out for us and knew we all needed a nice vacation as a family.  Our vacation was perfect! We set out for Florida at 3 am, stopped twice and ended in Destin at 4:00.  Our condo was beautiful with an awesome view of the ocean.  We brought two pack-n-plays for the twins to sleep in and rented two exersaucers for them to play in.  It worked out really well.  Marc and I would take turns staying in with the twins for the morning and afternoon nap time. We would take Ava and Emma out in the afternoon for some fun. They would play on a sheet under a palm tree and splash around in the pool.  The weather was great all week and the older kids had a blast playing in the ocean/swimming pool. My parents and sister also joined us on this vacation  Marc and I cannot thank them enough for all of their help with the kids.  They helped to make this vacation so wonderful!! We were all sad to leave for the week.  The ride home was just as flawless.

We get home on Saturday, and Emma starts crawling.......this is a whole new ball game!!!!  She started off slow and mainly stayed in the living room area.  This did not last long.  She quickly showed me what needs to be baby proofed all around the first floor.  When she started crawling, Ava would just be sitting on the floor playing toys, and Emma would crawl right up to her and steal whatever she was playing with.  It was then about two weeks later and Ava started to crawl.  I now get nothing done because they both go in different directions ;).  I have to mention that Melis, Tyler and Lydia are all incredibly helpful with the twins, especially with them crawling!!!  It is funny to look back just last month and see that they were just rolling around and in just a month's time, they are now crawling.

I also have to mention that they are both now eating Stage 3 without gagging and Ava is taking her baths without screaming....yeahhhh!!!!  The girls are babbling a lot more.  Ava started with the consonant vowel of dada this month, which as an SLP, this is huge. I have been waiting/worrying for so long for her to say it, she finally did it. She would babble, but it was a sound she would make in the back of her throat (more like a grr sound). She is even saying uh oh, which is the cutest thing.   They both make the "Indian" sound with putting the back of their hand over their mouth and vocalize.  The kids taught them this. They seem to babble back and forth the most when we are in the car.  I just love it!!!

Here are some pictures from this month......

     Emma with her collar on

     Ava
     Emma
     Ava discovering sand for the first time.  She was not a fan of it!
Ava with her toes in the ocean...too cold for her.
Emma starting to learn to crawl
Twins in their suits
      Ava
      Emma being a "ham"
 Ava and daddy (AKA her twin)
      Swimming as a family
      Beach pictures...it is impossible to get all 7 smiling/looking at one time.
      Funny face pictures (kids favorite pose)
       Playing under a palm tree
       Ava
One of my favorite pictures.  Daddy and all of the kids on father's day.