9 Month Apt.

Ok, so Brock put a small amount of himself in the toy bucket this morning and I did the rest. How cute is this?!?

C did not really like being in his bucket :)

Babies in their buckets :)

Mom- Why did you put me in a bucket?!?

Let me out :)

Well we had a great 9 month appointment today.

Christian weighed 18 pounds, 8 oz and was 27 1/2 inches long. He was on all the regular 9 month charts at 25-40% range. Yeah! He was super cute with our new pediatrician and smiled and coo'ed at her during the exam. His head was rated "excellent" and he passed with flying colors.

Brock weighted 19 pounds, 12 oz and was 28 inches long. (no wonder my back is hurting). He ranked in the 25-50% in all his areas on the regular 9 month chart and was at the 90% for weight for a 7 month old (which is even a month before he should have been born). He was also very charming for the doctor today and she was thrilled at both their progress, development and personalities.

We have been cleared to eat pretty much everything with a few exceptions (fish, milk, peanut butter, egg whites). So, Brandon and I will start feeding them some bit size foods, level 3 baby foods and let them start playing with the spoon. They can also start with sippy cups with juice/water mix and in a month or two we will be cutting out one of their bottles. They are turning into little men before my very eyes.

Brandon and I are exhausted from taking them in today... two 9 month olds in a waiting room is a LARGE chore. They ate all the paper on the exam bed, twice, threw up on a nurse, the floor and all over us and tried to chew on all the stuff on the walls. Yikes!

She also increased our prevacid. The boys both have reflux and although we are eating great, they do some big time spitting up. Hopefully an increase in medication will help cut down on this for both of them (we would love that). I am covered in spit up everyday.

Oh, Christian now has TWO teeth on the bottom! Soooo cute but it hurts when he bites me now :) We will start brushing his teeth when they are a little more visible.

Brandon also had his cancer scan this week and came back clean as a whistle! Yeah!!! How wonderfully blessed are we?!? Thank you lord for two healthy, wonderful and loving babies and a healthy, happy and very much loved husband. We certainly have quite a bit to be thankful for :)

The Helmet is OFF!!!

We are so excited that C got his helmet off today. He looks just GREAT! I forgot my camera (of course) and they sent me some photos but I can't figure out how to get them from the PDF onto the blog... I will keep trying. He looks sooooo cute!!! We can finally kiss his super cute head all day :)

Montage of pics from home

B says "what mom?"

"Say What?!?"

This looks like dad in college after a frat party :)

"Mom, can I have that camera please?"

"Why NOT?!?"

C showing me how much he LOVES his feet!

The boys on their living room play mat. We love our new toys!!!

Yeah for toys!!!!!!

My beautiful babies :)

I think this picture really shows them... C is almost always happy like this and Brock looks like he is up to something :)

Brock in Christian's space

I just can't believe that my little angels are having their 9 month apt. this Friday. Where has the time gone?!? We had a fun weekend with the boys.... what a different world now that we can take them out and about! On Saturday we took the boys to Buy Buy Baby and the Walmart to pick out some new toys for them. We decided since they no longer fit in their WONDERFUL bouncer seats we needed new locations for them to be while we are getting ready in the morning and in the kitchen. So... we added a living room play mat with a couple of buckets of toys, and a bedroom play mat with some entertaining toys. So far both spots have worked well in addition to their playroom off the kitchen. Our house has OFFICIALLY moved to the dark side of fisher price and infantamo toys :) You would think we had 8 kids instead of two!

I know quite a few of these pictures are the same but I couldn't decide which I wanted to add so I added them all :) Brock and Christian are so funny these days... they are full on stealing toys from each other and grabbing each other in the face and hair and ears. Brock has learned how to commando roll around the room and roll over and steal C's toy.... C has started to learn to protect himself and typically goes for B's face when he tries to take his toy. I know I should probably stop it, but it is so funny to watch the two interact I usually let it play out.

Sunday, we wanted to take the kiddos to church and try the nursery maybe, but we woke up to a big rain storm... so we stayed home with them instead. So... next week is our week!

Brock has started to pull his knees up a little so I have a feeling crawling is not to far in the near future. Brandon and I started our hunt for some used baby gates this week and have secured one already! Ideally we would have several places we would like to "rope off" for the angels. Right now we keep finding Brock in the opposite side of the room from where we left him... he would be an amazing military man right now... he is an EXPERT roller.

One of my favorite things about Christian is the way he loves to look at me and try to do what I am doing... he loves when I say "mama, mama" to him and look in his eyes and smile. He will ALWAYS smile back. He has an amazing spirit about him and you can tell he will have a HUGE heart as an adult. One of my favorite things about Brock is the way he smiles. He has this gummy, wonderful grin with a huge laugh that can brighten my day no matter what. He is active and fun and just a joy to be around. I know he will make me laugh forever:)

I think I am using this blog as their baby book (who can really do it all?!?) and my hand writing has always been terrible. To my little men right before you turn 9 months.... mommy loves you so much. You have both lit up my life in more ways than I can count, never let your light burn out. Love mommy

First swim lesson and a great play date!

We had our first swim lesson today and it went well! The babies LOVED the pool and splashed all the other girl babies in the water :) The pool was VERY heated which we all loved. We spent 30 mins in the water playing and "dipping" their ears in so they wouldn't be scared. Rachael, our instructor, held one baby than the other (we would switch back and forth) and the babies loved it. Mom might not ever need another arm workout again. After loading, unloading, getting in all our stuff and then holding a 17-18 pound baby above the water, my arms are mighty sore right now.

We then went to a play date this afternoon.... as always, when you invite the Barefeet the children out number the adults. All the babies did great, all the mommies were able to eat lunch and I would consider it a GREAT success!!! Thanks Lauren for hosting us!!!

I wish I could have taken my camera today but after the ordeal that was the swim lesson... that is NEVER going to happen. The babies were super cute in their suits today though :)

We got our first tooth!....... Which baby is it?!?

Christian!!! He has been a great sport about it so far. It is on the bottom and just peeking through. Congrats to my oldest son :)

p.s his cold is feeling much better and we are down to 8 days in our helmet!!! Yeah!

Easter Weekend and Beyond

Sara, Roger and I at the nature preserve.

Mom and the twins at the nature preserve animal house. They saw their first set of animals in here!

Dad and Mom at the nature preserve.

Dad and the babies at the nature center.

My dad's parents (Howard and Betty Linn) with Brock on Betty and Christian on Howard. This is a four generation picture for his family.

The family with my grandparents the Linn's.

My mom's mom, Jane Faust with the family. Another four generation picture. I have B and Brandon has C.

We spent a wonderful weekend in Fort Worth with my family for Easter weekend. My grandparents flew in on Thurs. and Brandon and I headed over on Friday. We walked in the nature center, had yummy food and spent wonderful moments with family. Thank you to my wonderful grandparents for flying in to see our wonderful babies and thank you to my parents for hosting our crew :)

The twins were on a roll this weekend and as it turns out were in the process of getting sick. with the change in their routine and a baby illness there was a lot of crying.

We went to our first church service this morning for Easter. The twins made it 30 minutes in the service until the music was over and then started crying... when we went to the cry room (with several other young families) we were the loudest ones in the cry room so we had to head out a little early. I still think they guys did pretty good to make it 30 minutes but I have to say, it was pretty rough on their parents :) We parked in a garage and carried them up and down several flights of stairs in and out of the church... we were all pretty tired come Sunday night.

This week we have all been battling colds/broncial (sp?) infections. We took Christian into the doctor on Tuesday and got another vaporizer to help his lungs clear out. Luckily he tested negative for RSV (yeah) and just seems to have a cold. Brock has pretty much fought his off, and then mom got it BAD on Wednesday. So... I took the day off and took myself into the care now clinic. Having a sick mom and babies is NO fun! It does seem that everyone is feeling a bit better this morning.

I am heading to Odessa for my first night (post hospital) away from my family. It is bittersweet for me (pro, a night alone and con, I am going to miss everyone sooooo much!). I am thrilled I get to see Grady baptised but I do wish our whole family could be there. I am sure Brandon will do a great job with the babies on his own!!! We have our sitter coming on Sat. night still so he will get a little break :)

Oh, and I decided you for sure know when you are a mom of multiples.... in almost every picture you are wearing workout clothes with spit up somewhere on you :)

p.s- when we took C to the doctor he weighted in at 17.1 pounds and was 27 inches long. The doctor and nurses thought he was doing great! He coo'ed at them and grabbed his feet for them :) He is scheduled to get his helmet off on April 22! Whooo- HOOOOO!!!!

Both boys are sitting up, eating LOTS of baby food and Brock has started to "pivot". This is when you are on your stomach and move all around on your tummy (usually for a toy). He has also started "swimming motion" on his stomach. This is supposed to be our "pre-crawl" so I guess we have that not to far in our future :) C is really doing great sitting up and rolls both ways (when he want to of course) and is VERY into toys right now. He loves his feet and is very vocal. Good stuff!

Happy Easter

Ouch! B with his hand in C's eye.

Cute bunny tails :)

B and C

B and C

Two happy bunnies