4 Months

We're 4 Months Old Already...

Miss Maia Jean is 25 inches and 12.5 pounds. Personality traits I am noticing: She is patient with herself (she'll try something over and over until she gets it, without getting frustrated) but if she gets hungry she is less patient (give me food now!!!). She is independent when it comes to things like holding her own bottle and putting in her own pacifier (can't do either completely on her own but is trying SO hard!) but at the same time loves it when you talk to her and pay attention to her, and rewards you with huge smiles and even an occasional giggle. She has recently become aware of our dog and her brother, and smiles at both. She already wants to put EVERYTHING in her mouth and when I let her try a tiny bit of ice cream she LOVED it - she comes by her sweet tooth honestly!

JD is 25.5 inches and 15 pounds (a couple pounds ahead of his sister, but a couple pounds behind his mama's weight when she was 4 months!). Personality traits I am noticing about Josh - I really think he is introverted, he takes everything in and becomes really easily aggitated when he's had "too much". He is very physical (strong, wants to touch everything) and is a big lover - nothing makes him smile like his mama giving him tons of kisses and he lights up in the morning at whoever comes in to get him out of his crib. This boy is a TANK - even his doctor is surprised by his strength - and he already rolls over, tries his darndest to crawl when he's on his tummy, and flexes his legs like he wants to stand when you hold him up. He either lacks some of his sister's coordination or patience (don't know which) and gets frustrated easily when he tries to grab a toy or move in one way or another and can't do it successfully the first time. I have a feeling he's going to be the "tough guy with a big teddy bear heart".

PS - I missed the 3 month picture completely and if I sit around waiting for myself to make little number signs for both of them I'll never take the picture. So from here on out I'm adding text boxes to the pictures electronically. What can I say, being crafty is not one of my strong points.

Grandpa's Garden

While my parents were visiting, they went on a bike ride in Santiago Canyon and saw a sign for a farmer's market in Silverado Canyon called Grandpa's Garden. It's a beautiful 10-minute drive from our house, so we decided to go check it out. Then I took Ryan back with us again last weekend.

Ryan went sailing today. I took JD & Maia on a great 90 minute walk this morning when it was still cloudy and cool, but after the sun came out we were all looking to get outside again...

So...

Nikki and I decided to take the babies to Silverado Canyon to get some produce...
They were relatively well-behaved in the car and ANGELS at Grandpa's Garden...
There weren't many people there so we chatted with "Grandpa" Mike and "Grandma" Colleen for a while, and walked back to see where our vegetables were grown and to meet the chickens that laid our eggs that very morning....
Grandpa Mike took out his camera and got pictures of JD & Maia in front of his produce stand so he could show everyone "his twins" that visit every weekend...
Just as good as the produce, is the fact that the outing wore out my babies...
And they are still sleeping, so I have been able to make myself a delicious vege/egg/cheese scramble with all the pickings from the garden and chicken coop AND write this blog...
We even picked up a jar of dill pickles canned by Grandma Colleen herself to give to Ryan when he gets home from his sail....

If you live in Orange County, whether you have kids or not, go pick up some home-grown organic produce & eggs. A variety of jams, honeys and pickles, too. Tell them that "the twins" sent you...

12 Weeks!

Our babies are 12 weeks old...

Maia Jean has grown from 5 lbs 4 oz to 10 lbs 10 oz. She is exactly 2 feet tall.

She falls asleep when she gets tired, no matter where she may be, but if it is daytime a door shutting, a bump in the road, a pacifier falling out, a not-tight-enough swaddle, or her brother crying wakes her up with a jolt.

LOVES her pacifier - can we say addict?

When this girl cries, there are always real tears. BIG ones. The kind that will melt your heart and probably get us to buy her a car someday.

She is usually pretty quiet, but very alert and observant. She likes to sit back and watch the world unfold.

Cuddles more often than her brother but makes you work harder for a smile!


Josh "JD" has grown from 6 lbs 11 oz to 12 lbs 8 oz. His grandpa calls him "bruiser". This boy can eat and he is SOLID.

He has 3 moods: Tired (which you know he is if he gets fussy), Happy (full of smiles and coos, on the verge of laughing) and Angry (he actually yells at us already, no joke). It takes a little more effort to get him to sleep, but once he is, he is totally out.

Needs a super-tight double-swaddle and white noise like his sister needs her pacifier.

If he is awake, you'll hear him. He'll either be yelling at you (one of his distinct cries) to pick him up, babbling, grunting, or making any other sort of random noise. Knows what he wants and won't stop until he gets it.

He is already a take-charge kind of boy. He likes his toys, wants to be entertained, and seems irritable if you pay more attention to his sister than to him!

We are consistently getting at least one 4-hr stretch of sleep per night, and usually at least an hour of overlapping nap time in the afternoon. Occasionally a 5-hr stretch at night and occasionally 2 hours of overlapping sleep in the afternoon (which is why it took me an entire week to finish this blog post).

Oh and they both LOVE to go for walks (2 a day, getting Mama back in shape!) They both like to be outside (favorite time in the morning is eating breakfast outside on the patio and watering the plants).

Josh has been fussing no matter what I do for an hour so I finally just set him down and went to make dinner. He kept crying for a while and then got really quiet, so I thought he had fallen asleep. When I went to check on him, he was wide awake and very aware of and interested in his toys! He was reaching out and touching them, and just studying everything in front of his face. He's never seemed aware of them before. He entertained himself for 4-5 minutes which is HUGE.



In other news, we are home from Utah and they are 11 weeks old now. After some practice in Utah, I am getting better at taking the two of them out by myself now, so outings are our new thing. It still takes me longer to get out of the house than I think it will every time, but we're making it places with everything we need and usually two generally happy babies...

Stewart Falls

We've been in Utah for a week and we've tried to do some hiking - but there has been so much snow over the winter that both hikes we've gone on have been cut short. Stewart Falls was accessible only by crossing a pretty big patch of snow; after watching several adults losing their footing and slipping on the snow we decided to take a piture with the falls in the background and head back down. We probably got within a half mile of the falls so it was still a good hike.

I used the moby wrap on this hike but got too hot, so on yesterday's hike I used the baby bjorn for Maia Jean and it was more comfortable for both her and me.

There was a second set of falls to the left of Stewart Falls that usually isn't there - excess snow runoff from such a wet winter.

Horrible Mother Award

I went out to the garage to get something today and somehow the door locked behind me. Of course both babies also started crying at this same moment. I freaked out and called Ryan in full panic mode because my brain shut down and I needed someone to save the day. Luckily I remembered my one criminal skill - breaking and entering with a credit card - and luckily my license was in the car and it did the trick. I was back inside within 5 minutes but felt like the most horrible mother in the world. Everyone was fine though so now it is starting to be a little bit funny. Only a little though!

7 Weeks

I need to start writing stuff down because I am going to forget it. Don't expect anyone to read all my ramblings but at least enjoy the pictures, courtesy of our friend James - thanks!!!

This is our baby girl Maia Jean at 7 weeks....she sits like this naturally, even in her sleep as you can see, we did not pose this in any way. I am unsure how I played a part in the creation of such a girly-girl, she is so delicate in every thing she does; good thing she has an all-boy brother to toughen her up a little! She is really so precious though and we love her to pieces.

Maia Jean seems to do the "normal" developmental things about a week or 10 days behind her brother. She's very content and not in a rush to do anything, but just this week she started regularly tracking toys with her eyes and also just yesterday she grabbed for a toy several times for the first time. She is all smiles for her daddy (I can play with her and try to coax smiles all day long, get nothing, and then he walks in the door and says something to her and she smiles at him right away). She only cries when she is really sad, and she looks so sad when she does it! She loves to sleep curled up on someone's chest and she is starting to get some weight to her, at her last appointment she was 7 lbs 5 oz so I'm guessing by now she is about 8 pounds. She outgrew her first newborn outfit this week and is starting to graduate into 0-3 months.

She LOVES her pacifier and it will almost always make her stop fussing if she gets the slightest bit irritated. She has sucked on her pacifier since day one like a pro. This will probably be a hard habit to break at some point but right now we love it.

I look so much like my mom in this picture its uncanny. We've decided Maia Jean has her dad's face shape and eyes, and my nose and mouth. Her hair is darker than Josh's and her eyes are still blue, but a more grey-blue than his.

This little boy gets BORED and goes from content/interested to this face in 0.2 seconds when he does! He is less content than Maia Jean, he likes to be entertained a lot and always wants to be looking at something new. Or listening to our voice - if he's wailing (he doesn't cry - he's either quiet or wailing, our poor neighbors.....) because he's bored, hearing our voices will sometimes calm him down. He has been focusing on toys/books for close to two weeks and occasionally will grab at something if he really likes it. When he is on his tummy he gets frustrated with the process of turning his head and gets angry, even though he's been able to do it since he was less than one week old and still in the NICU. Maia Jean learned this trick later than he did but she is more patient with it - she doesn't get frustrated even when it takes her a few tries to do it.

He was 9 lbs 4 oz at his last appointment so probably about 10 lbs now. We think he has a little red in his hair, and his eyes are bluer than Maia Jean's, so maybe they'll stay blue. He is a combination of Ryan's brother Russ and my dad, lucky boy he will be very handsome. :-) He is STRONG and when he's on his tummy he tries as hard as he can to push up with his arms. Laying on his back he can already get one leg up and over the other by twisting his torso, if he sets his mind to it he may be rolling over sooner than we'd like! They still share a crib but we'll seperate them when he starts rolling.

Maia Jean studies things every once in a while when she's really alert and interested, Josh studies EVERYTHING.

Then he gets bored and starts to show it, this face means he is going to start his fire siren wail if you don't change things up ASAP.

He is not nearly as good a sleeper as his sister, who will fall asleep in your arms and then not budge when she's set down. He looks like he's sleeping peacefully.....

And he might be, you can never tell....if you think he's deeply sleeping and he's not, you'll find out the second you set him down and he screams to be picked back up without missing a beat!

He eats about 4-5 oz every 3 hours. She eats about 3 oz every 3 hours. We are trying a new schedule today of feeding them every 2.5 hrs even if we have to wake them up, because I am going to be flying solo when they are 11 weeks (after the 4th of July, up until that point I will have more or less had around the clock help, thank you family!) and if I'm going to do it without totally losing it, Josh has got to start sleeping at night. We're hoping that by working harder to keep him awake during the day, and getting in an extra feeding (by feeding him every 2.5 hrs) in during the day, we'll get more sleep. To give you an idea, last night he slept from 11-1, 3:30-5:30 and 8:00-8:30. So you can do the math on how much sleep that gives his parents. :-) The best night we've had with him so far was a 3, 2 and 1 hour stretch - meaning 6 hours of sleep for me, but not uninterrupted by any means. Ryan helps out on the weekends and when he can on weekdays, but he has to go to work in the morning so I try to do as much as I can at night.