Sunday best

This beautiful dress was given to us by our friend Ann Loiselle.  Isn't it adorable?

Dun gave Carter this outfit several months ago, and this for sure was the last wear that it got.  Carter nearly snapped the buttons off.  He's getting so big!

Yardwork

Just a Saturday afternoon helping Dad with the yardwork.

Learning to crochet

I remember my grandmother trying to teach me to crochet when I was a little girl.  I'd like to say she was a bad teacher, but I think likely I was just an unwilling student because I never could get the hang of it.

Fast forward to the summer of 2011 when I got a hankering to make a baby blanket.  My mother picked up where Grandma left off and I learned to crochet.  I'm not very advanced yet.  All I can do is make blankets, but for now that's good enough for me.  My girlfriend Jennifer makes the prettiest crocheted flowers for use as hairbows.  Maybe someday I'll take my skills up a notch.

This morning Olivia got into my crochet yarn.  She made a big mess and I never could untangle the yarn, but she had so much fun playing with it that it was worth it.

Silly on Saturday morning

We were in no hurry today after we got dressed, so we just played around with the camera in the twins room. 

I feel pretty

I love dressing Olivia up.  Unfortunately, I'm too lazy to do it except on Sunday mornings.  We had time a couple Sundays ago for a quick photo shoot before we loaded up and went to church.

Creeper Carter

Yesterday Carter got promoted into the Creeper room at school.  To qualify for that room you must be a crawler and I guess perhaps a creeper too.  He started crawling the first week of June, but I think they waited to promote him until Olivia was ready since we had a strong desire to keep them together in the same class.

Six weeks later, Olivia's not crawling and Carter is long overdue for the promotion.  He really steamrolls the babies in the infant room as they aren't mobile and can't really defend themselves.  He literally crawls right over them.  So, we agreed to let him move up to the Creeper Room and leave Liv behind in the Infant Room and it's been wonderful. 

The creepers eat the same foods that the big kids eat and he has been eating "real" food like a champ.  They also have a structured nap time (11:30-1:30) in which all of the kids lie down on mats on the floor and the lights are turned out.  I told his teacher that Carter probably wouldn't stay put on the mat, but she assured me that he would learn and would indeed nap on the mat.  According to her, he has napped both days.

They also learn 4 vocabulary words in that class (5 if you count "no no"): baby, ball, dog, and cat.  So, we are supposed to work with him at home on those words.

He is just so happy in that room with the bigger kids.  The toys are much bigger and more mature and I know he was very bored in the infant room.  He has come home exhausted both days, and I'm told it's because they play hard in that room. 

I'm happy for him, but eager for Olivia to learn to crawl so that she can join her brother in the Creeper Room.

Food

This post is all about food, mostly so that if we're lucky enough to have a third child, I can look back on what Carter and Olivia ate and remind myself of what I should be feeding the newest one.

At about 4.5 months, we started solid foods.  It was not a success by any stretch of the imagination.  We tried rice cereal a couple times but put on the brakes for a couple weeks when they downright refused hte food.

Our second attempt was successful.  We blew off the rice cereal and moved to the Gerber first foods....squash and sweet peas.  They loved both of these, so we quickly added sweet potatoes, green beans, and apple sauce to the list of foods.  Since about 5 months old, we've been feeding them one serving of solid foods a night and they've been eating a serving at lunch at school.

Somewhere along the way they have tried just about every puree that Gerber makes and they love them all!  Their favorites are the orange ones: squash, sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes/corn, and carrots. They also love to have yogurt in the morning (yep, we added breakfast too!) and they could munch on puffs all day long. 

They also eat any kind of bread (pancakes, biscuits) and have recently started eating small non-pureed fruits and vegetables.  We'll be feeding them the food we eat before we know it!

4th of July at the beach

This year the 4th of July fell on a Wednesday, which is kind of a drag because it doesn't match up with a long weekend.  So since we didn't go back to Texas and since Dun had to fly out this morning (sniff sniff), it was just the four of us.  We decided to go back to the beach and it was even more fun than the first time.  The babies seemed to know what to expect and were much more comfortable in the water.  There was a little girl there who hung out with us a little bit.  She really enjoyed holding Olivia, which I let her do some in the water.  She was really very big and strong for only being 5 years old.

Beach babies

These two have been to the beach a few times before, but only to "see" it.  They've taken walks on the beach (read: been carried) but have never really experienced the beach before yesterday. 

Dun and I set out to give them their first beach experience and we did not disappoint!  At first we sat them both down at the edge of the surf.  Carter seemed cool with it but Olivia fussed and fussed, so we took them into the water and bobbed around.  They then saw the merits of the beach!  They delighted in floating around in the waves.

Afterwards I was very sentimental.  They will enjoy the beach countless times in their lifetimes just like we have.  Today was just the first of many wonderful days ahead.  They will play with their cousins at the beach, make new friends there, go with boyfriends/girlfriends, and someday take their kids to the beach.  And the best part is that the beach will never change.  It's constant.  I remember my mother telling stories about swimming at the beach in Italy when she was a little girl.  Although it was a different beach, the experience was the same.  Sand, sun, waves, and fun.