Familia!

Santi and Fernanda were in town this weekend so we all got together at Gaby & Jim's for a BBQ. It was so much fun to have everyone together. I love this big family picture!!

The girls took a much needed nap while we were there!!

Silly babies!

Leah eating cheese. I think she was just saving this for later.

The girls deciding they would be better in the laundry basket than all of the dirty laundry that they pulled out!

Crazy Leah & the Stairs

Today, I was at the grocery and Cesar was home with the girls. Isabella was still not feeling well, so she was sleeping on her Daddy's chest. Leah meanwhile was happily playing on the floor in the family room. Then she ventured off into the kitchen and then the living room. This is not unusual..the girls go back and forth between rooms all the time. The way our family room is set up, you can't see the living room from the couch in the family room, but Cesar could hear Leah playing and figured she was OK. All the sudden, he realized he hadn't heard her in a while. So, he got up and walked into the living room, figuring that she had gone into the bathroom to play (another normal occurrence). He looked all over the kitchen, living room, and bathroom and couldn't find her anywhere. Then...he looked over and noticed the gate on the stairs was open. He called her name and heard her making noises UPSTAIRS. She had gone all the way up the stairs and into her room to play! Whoops!! Good thing we have been practicing the stairs recently! Glad we learned our lesson the easy way and didn't have to make an emergency trip to the hospital!!

Isabella sleeping

Our poor Isabella is sick! Yesterday, she fell asleep in her chair like this! Well, she was sitting in it normally, but in her sleep she turned over and then just stayed like this.

We finally picked her up and moved her to a pillow and she slept like that for a long time..

But, it was getting close to bedtime, so we wanted to wake her up so she wouldn't be up all night. This is Cesar trying to get her up...clearly, she did not want to wake up. The funniest thing about this is Isabella is usually a pretty light sleeper. If you touch her at all, she usually wakes up. Guess not when she isnt' feeling well! He was moving her all over the place and she just slept through it all.

Finally, we got her to wake up...isn't she pretty :) HE HE!

More video...

One more thing to add to the "likes"...the girls still love their chairs! They have been in these chairs since the day we brought them home and they still sit in them daily. Now, they can climb in and out of them on their own, and they often will both climb into the same chair to play. It is very cute. I got a video of them playing in them the other day. It's a little shaky, but you can see how they like to play together. They are really starting to bond! It's awesome!!!
One other thing to note in this video is how sweet and gentle our Isabella is. The girls sometimes like to play rough with each other, but when she does something that makes Leah upset, she almost always stops as soon as Leah fusses (unfortunatly we can't say the same about Leah...we call her our little bully).

About us!

Here are some things I want to remember about the girls' at this age!

• Isabella loves bugs...and when I say loves bugs, I don't mean she likes to play with them, I mean she loves to EAT them. Ewww...on multiple occasions, we have had to pull bug parts out of her mouth. The first time, I thought I was mistaken on what the thing in her mouth was, but..sure enough, I started pulling out legs, wings and body parts. Cesar had to pull out a HUGE one from her mouth the other day. He said it was so big he isn't sure how she got it in there!


• The girls both love blueberries! I love that they are in season right now because they would eat them at every meal if I let them (and I usually do!). They also really like grilled chicken, pancakes, avacado, and well...pretty much anything I feed them. I am so happy that (so far) they aren't picky eaters. They will pretty much eat anythign I offer them...including all types of baby foods! I hope that lasts.


• Both girls started climbing the stairs last week! Leah did it first...she went all the way up to the top. Isabella couldn't get passed that first step for a few days, but now she has it down. Of course, we have the gate up most of the time, but we let them climb when we are with them.


• The girls are finally out of their infant car seats. I was really holding on to those things because I think it is so much easier, but...they were just getting too long for them. SO...we graduated to the convertable seats on Friday...oh man, my girls are getting so big. They really like the new seats though because they can look directly into their car mirrors. They spend most of the trip laughing and screaming into the mirrors.
• Leah loves to play piggy back with Isabella. Isabella will be crawling around on the floor and leah comes up behind her and hangs on for dear life. See video below for a demonstration! She does this all the time and usually, Isabella is a pretty good sport about it!

Congratulations!!!

Congratulations to my Nephew Kai (and his mommy and daddy)! He is going to be a big brother in January :)

Kai is ONE!

Randoms

I love this one of Leah

My girls LOVE apples. Whenever I eat an apple, I hold it for them and let them suck on it. On this day, Isabella became very territorial of the apple. Anytime I let Leah have some she got hysterical. I finally just let them hold it and fight over it. It was really funny. You can see Isabella's fit in the first picture. I think she is going to be the one with sharing issues :)

Ahh....So happy to have my precious apple!!

The girls LOVE the bathroom. Anytime the bathroom door is open, they immediately go in. They also LOVE to play in the toilet (yuck!). So..I have been pretty good about remembering to keep it closed. The other day they were in their for a few minutes while I was making dinner, but I knew the toilet seat was down, so I just let them play. This was what I walked into when I went to check on them. Isabella was trying to flee the scene!

After dinner!

I love my Sissy!

Finger Food!

Bring on the finger food! They just love the new independence of eating on their own (sometimes a little too much because now they want to shovel the baby food in with their hands too...ugghh...what a mess!). We have tried all kinds of finger food the last week or so...lots of fruits, pasta, cheese, and of course their favorites...the gerber puffs. I even let them eat some of my dinner at our block party tonight and they loved it! YEA...one step closer to getting rid of these bottles...I just can't wait!!

We are also trying to get them to use sippy cups (again...trying to get rid of the bottles...can you tell I can't stand the bottles anymore!!). Leah has got it down pretty well. Isabella still doesn't get the idea that you have to flip it up...she just tries to drink it like a straw...maybe we'll have to get her a sippy cup with a strw to see if she likes that better! Anyway..here is Leah mastering the cup!

MOHAWK!!

So Isabella is already becoming a rebel and growing a mohawk! Her hair is only growing down the center of her head and when she gets out of the bath it sticks straight up! I tried to take some pics of it yesterday and here is what she gave me. As always...she cracks me up!!!!!

My little Bruisers!!

So the I had every intention of posting this yesterday and the title would have been, "my little bruiser." Leah did not want to take a nap the other day and I tried to lay her down next to me. She was not having any of that and took her head to my cheek bone as hard as she could. Ouch..who knew a little head could hurt so bad. So...I was left with this pretty black eye. However, the title changed last night because Isabella, who was not at all ready to go to sleep 1.5 hours after her normal bedtime decided she would do the EXACT SAME thing to me as I was rocking her in the glider! OUCH again! So, now I have a VERY large black eye. My crazy husband refuses to go out in public wiht me because he thinks people will think he hit me :) I am sure the girls will look back on this and laugh that they both had a chance to really give me a shiner!!!

First Swim!

Today we took the kids (Leah, Isabella and Kai) to the pool for the first time! I think they had a good time, but it was pretty close to nap time for all of them, so we didn't stay for very long. None of them were afraid of the water though, so that was a highlight! We tried to get some pics of all three, but none were really willing to cooperate :)

This is the best we could do with all three!

My little swimmers

Leah is curious about the other kids...Isabella just wants to know why Leah's leg is on top of her!

Daddy and Leah about to go in the water

Grandma and Isabella

Kai having fun in the water

Wow...mommy sure looks pale next to Grandma!!

Aunt Deanna let us borrow Kai's floatie! So relaxing!!

And...we couldn't even wait to get home before we fell asleep :)

Grandma took some more pictures, so we may have some better ones to post later!!

Right on Track

The girlies had their 9 month check-up today. Here are their stats...

Leah weighs 17.6 pounds, she is 27.75 inches long and her head is 44 inches! That puts her in the 22nd percentile for weight, between the 25th and 50th percentile for length, and...get ready...the 95th percentile for head. Lots of brain in there!!

Isabella weights 16.6 pounds, she is 27 inches and the her head is also 44 inches. That puts her in the 10th percentile for weight, the 25th for length, and the same 95th percentile for head.

She said everything else seems like they are right on target for their age!

The best part of the visit was that we didn't have to get any shots! Yea!! Next time we get 4 though...wish she hadn't mentioned that part!

The doctor also said that we can start feeding them table food. I am still a little nervous about this! We just started feeding them Gerber puffs and they had a hard time at first (they would choke on them), but are getting better, so I guess we will progress with other things soon. They still really don't have teeth other than a little nub of one that has pushed through, so I don't really know how they are going to chew, but I guess we'll find out!!

OUCH!

Both girls have FINALLY cut a tooth. They have both been pretty miserable because of it, but Leah has really been awful. She has no voice because she has been crying so much. It is so sad...I just want them all to come in at once and get it overwith! I can't imagine going through this many more times....uggh!

On another note, we started with a new babysitter today while I am at summer school. The girls seemed to do pretty well with her, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that this continues!

We have their 9 month appt. on Friday so I'll post more after we do that....

One more!