Happy Valentines Day!

4 Months

4 Months have come and gone and the girlies are doing so well. Every day is so much fun with them. They are so calm (unless they are hungry) and they LOVE to laugh and smile. They are not easily bored...they can sit and stare at their hands and be entertained forever. They are starting to show their own personalities. Leah is much more laid back (like her namesake) and Isabella is more excitable. They have their own unique facial expressions too. Leah LOVES to stick out her tongue and Isabella likes to put her lips up like Elvis. They both are talking a lot. They are trying out all kinds of different noises and will have a conversation with you if you repeat what they say. They are both completely addicted to pacifiers (remember that i said I will NEVER let my kids suck their thumb or use pacifiers..ha...good luck with that). They are sleeping through the night pretty well. They go down at 8 and wake up around 4. From 4-5:30, we get up about every 15-30 minutes and shove the pacifiers back in their mouths so we (we meaning tricia) can get an extra hour of sleep. Then they get up at 5:30, eat, play for exactly an hour and a half and are back to sleep for 2.5 hours. It has been so nice to have them down at 8 so we can have a little free time (and right now, by free time I mean time to clean bottles and go to bed!). Both girls can roll over consistently from their front to their back, although Isabella has mastered it a bit faster than Leah. Leah is really trying to get from her back to her front. She has come close many times! With this ridiculous snow storm we have had, I have been able to learn so much more about my sweet girlies. It has been such a blessing to be home with them for eleven straight days!!! I will gladly make up the time this summer to have this time with them now! They are the best! I have included a lot of pictures below to demonstrate some of the things I have talked about. Leah & Dad taking a nap...look how big she is!

Bath time! Isabella about to fly away!


Leah and her friend...her hand! She LOVES to suck her fist.

Leah

Isabella after bath. Check out her belly button. Believe it or not, it has actually gotten smaller, but you really can't tell in this picture...it looks huge :)

Leah is in the background

Curiosity

This is what we see most of the time from both of them...big adorable smiles!

The addiction. The pacifier. The sleep aide. The soother. The addiction :(

Isabella, just hanging out and looking pretty!

I love this picture because it shows their personalities. Leah is just relaxed and playing with her tongue and Isabella is about to start talking and kicking!

Isabella's head-shot

And, Leah's head-shot

*We go to the doctor on the 22nd for their 4 month well-visit...we'll update their stats then!

Blizzard of 2010

Wow...we sure got a lot of snow! 30 inches!!! So great to have some extra time with my girlies! We have done nothing but play, eat and sleep! Well...Abuelita (Cesar's mom) gave Cesar and I some time off and we went out and played in the snow! It was a fun, much needed, mini date! Here are some pics of how deep it was!

New Pics

It's been a great couple weeks at our house. We put the girls on a new schedule and they are doing pretty well with it. They now eat every 4 hours and sleep 8 hours at night...woo-hoo! We have also had Cesar's mom here with us which has been great. The girls are really enjoying time with their Abuelita (as you will see in the pictures!). Here are a few of our favorite pictures from the last couple weeks!

3 month videos

Finally...I got the other two videos to upload! Here they are! Oh, and we went to the doctor yesterday...Leah is a porky 10lbs 14oz and Isabella is growing just as well at 9lbs 15oz. They are going to catch up to their cousin soon :)

I love this video because you can see how strong they are getting. I can't beleive I missed Leah rolling over (you'll see what I mean), but they are both rolling over now.

Oh..and this may be very boring for anyone other than a grandparent...it's just the girls playing :)

3 Months!

Wow, has it really been three months already? Time has gone by so fast (and so slow!). Some days felt like they were never going to end, but now I can't believe the girls are 3 months. They have changed so much since we brought them home from the hospital. They are now so much more alert, they are SO joyful, love to smile and laugh, and are just so fun to be around. Isabella's stomach is so much better, she almost never has issues anymore. They both still throw-up all the time (as you will see in the video below), but it doesn't seem to bother them, so we aren't too worried about it.

I went back to work last week. That was EXTREMELY difficult, but we have a great Nanny (Kelly). It is so great to know that if I have to be away from the girls, they are at least in good hands!

We took a few videos on their 3 month b-dayI will put the first one on here. For some reason I can't get the other two to upload..I'll work on it tomorrow! Hope you aren't afraid of a little baby barf :)

Dont' do it Leah!

So, thankfully, I have never been addicted to any illegal substances. I have never really liked alcohol, never tried drugs and smoking has always discusted me...However, I did go through MAJOR withdrawl from one thing in my life...SUCKING MY THUMB. It was just so tasty, comforting, and convenient. I can still remember how dificult it was to stop the sucking! I just thought I couldn't survive without it! SO..I vowed to NEVER let my children suck their thumb. I wanted to save them from all the pain and torture of trying to quit the thumb Well...it turns out, I am a sucker (no pun intended) for a cute sucking baby! Leah has discovered her thumb. It started out as just sucking on her hand whenever it came near her face, but now, she goes straight for the thumb and jams it in her mouth. I caught her in the act today and as you can see, she doesn't really know what to do with the rest of her hand! She just looks so darn cute, I have to let her keep doing it! Hopefully this will just be a phase and she won't get addicted like her mommy!

2 Months!

The girls had their two month doctor's visit today! They are both doing GREAT! Isabella is 8lbs 9 oz and Leah is a porky 9lbs 3oz! They are both on the growth charts now. Woo-Hoo! They are the same length, 21.5 inches long and they say their heads have the same circumference, but I don't know what they are measuring...CLEARLY if you look at them, Leah has a much bigger noggin! They are still really suffering from reflux, so the doctor suggested adding a little cereal to their bottles to see if that helps (it will hopefully stay down better since it will be heavier). We are hoping that works AND hoping just as much that it will encourage them to sleep through the night a little better...we'll see....

First Big Snow!

Wow! We got a lot of snow...around 19 inches they say. It was very beautiful and fun to be snowed in with the family for the weekend (well...not exactly snowed in as Cesar went out and "played" in the snow with the car all weeeknd). Can't wait for the girls to be older so we can all go sleding, make snow angels and build snow men.

Cookie Baking

This year, Deanna had a great idea to start an annual Christmas cookie baking day. We thought it would be a fun thing for the kids as they get older. So, the girls and I packed up and drove out to aunt Deannas. We were going to make 7 types of cookies...all of our favorites. Well, the girls and I didn't get there around 11:00 by the time we woke up, ate and got everything in the car and ready to go. We were there for a good 10 minutes...and it was time for them to eat again, so we fed the kids (which takes about an hour and a half for the girlies). Then, it was time for mommy to pump. So, I finished that and Deanna made a couple batches of 7 layer bars. We started to make sugar cookies and, oops...it was time for the girls to eat AGAIN (do you see a pattern..). So, I fed the girls, pumped and then tried to help out with the sugar cookies. I made about 5 cookies and put them on the cookie sheet and my friend called, so I answered and tried to hold Leah, talk on the phone and cut out cookies. What a great multitasker I thought I was...until I looked around for my cookie sheet. Deanna had gone upstairs to change Kai but I thought, "well, maybe she took it with her." OK, so I am a bit tired and have irrational thoughts sometimes. Then, I stood up to replace Isabellas pacifier and that's when I found my cookies. They were UNDER MY BUTT...I had sat on them! Oh my...that pretty much sums up our cookie day. By the time we finished we had made 2 types of cookies plus the sugar cookies, which didn't get decorated. Wow...life with kids is a bit more complicated. BUT....it was a super fun day despite the fact that we didn't quite reach our goal. We also got some pretty cute pics of the kids. Deanna bought them all these adorable shirts so we thought we would try to get some good shots...here's what we got!

Aww...Kai trying to kiss Isabella

Ooops...now he's trying to EAT Leah...we have about 20 shots of this :)

"Look at my legs mommy!"

"woo-hoo, I can get them even higher!"

We finally got one where at least all the kids were looking!

CAN'T WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR!!!!

Thanksgiving

On Thanksgiving we took a little trip to Aunt Gaby's house to say Hi. We couldn't stay for long because the doctor told us not to be around little kids at all, but it was nice to get out of the house with the girls.

Aunt Gaby & Leah

Cousin Paulina & Isabella

The day before Thanksgiving we took a trip to Deanna's to meet up with Uncle Sam and Christine. What a great time we had catching up with them!!

I just love this outfit Kai was wearing :)

Play Date

We had a play date with cousin Kai on Tuesday (translation=Deanna came over to help me keep my sanity). Here are a few pics that Deanna took.

I love this picture! They are already becoming friends!

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Leah pretending to suck her thumb



Already fighting...wow, we are in for it!