Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Jam-Packed November

**Today is a very important day...not because it is my birthday but because a year ago today I was crying in the emergency room when the doctor came in and told me I was pregnant!  Two weeks later we learned there were TWO babies and eight weeks later we learned they were TWO GIRLS!  This time of year will forever be special to me and I'm glad my birthday has become such a wonderful "anniversary" for us :-) **


This November has been crazy for us!!  We've had multiple doctors appointments for the girls, our first trip (1-day!) away from the girls, the Breaking Dawn release (ok, this one is totally just about me), Thanksgiving, and both our birthdays.  We started the month off by visiting Olivia's team of birthmark doctors for her monthly check-in.  All is well in this department and they figure they'll just see her now if any significant changes happen with her hemangioma.  They did inform us that the large ulceration (that is almost completely gone!) will probably have destroyed her hair follicles and she probably won't grow hair there...unfortunately because she is still a bald baby we cannot really picture how this will affect her hair growth...only time will tell :-)


We then celebrated Dad's birthday on the 14th with dinner at his favorite restaurant, Greenhouse Cafe.  Then, to celebrate both our birthdays (we're only 16 days apart) we took a one-day trip to Vegas to catch Love at the Mirage.  It was perfect, one day seemed too short to begin but by hour eight I was missing the girls so it worked out quite well!


The girls also had their 4-month check up on the 23rd.  More shots but both girls did fairly well.  The pediatrician suggested starting Olivia on one feeding of rice cereal a day to try and get her to take more formula.  I didn't really see how that made sense but after just one rice cereal feeding she is taking more formula!  So hopefully she'll make a big weight-gain :-)  She is just still so tiny weight-wise but above average height-wise!  Their pediatrician also suggested transitioning Emma to a regular formula (taking her off her milk-protein allergy one) to see if she could now tolerate milk-based formulas.  We are only on day 2 of that but it seems to be going well, fingers crossed!


Olivia also had her first appointment with the Facial and Cranial Plastic Surgeon this month.  For now she is helmet-free :-)  We go back in 2 months to have her head looked at again and hopefully now that she is more upright she'll never need a helmet.


Finally, to wrap up November we took the girls to see Santa.  Everyone was in a good mood while we drove to the mall and walked in.  However, once we crossed the threshold into "Santa's Workshop" things changed!  Emma freaked out and started crying when an "elf" tried to talk to her so I think this year started a tradition of "Emma Crying at Christmas" pictures that are sure to crack her up once she is older :-)

Dad's Birthday Dinner

4 Months Old!
Emma Rae: 14 lbs even & 26.1 inches (50% & 95%)
Olivia Marie:  10 lbs 11 oz & 25 inches (5% & 75%)

**I had three videos of the girls I wanted to upload but the video upload seems to be having issues...I'll try to get them on here soon!**

This is a Taylor Swift song that Alex and I have become addicted to:

First visit to see Santa- this Santa is the grandfather to THREE sets of twins!


Andddd totally unrelated to anything...we joke that Emma & Harper look more like twins than Emma & Olivia.  Obviously this is because Alex and I look exactly like the Beckhams =)



Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Pumpkins and Princesses

The girls have officially celebrated their first Halloween! We kicked off the festivities on the Saturday before Halloween, going to our cousins' for a Halloween party. The girls wore their costumes (Rapunzels from Tangled) and we went as a cowgirl and cowboy. The girls put up with their costumes for quite a while but 4 days later we are still finding glitter all over them! Now, I love my girls equally but I have to say Olivia was really into her dress, fluffing it out, picking it up, putting it back down again, she just cracks me up:

Early on Halloween we got the pumpkins ready to carve. We thought it would be funny to pick out the pumpkins based on the girls and this is what we ended up with :-)

Dad came up with the idea to do an "Angry Birds" theme so here they are!

We passed out candy for a while then took the girls to walk through the neighborhood. We put them in their Halloween jammies and walked around visiting with neighbors and checking out all the cool stuff going on around our house. This year there were several haunted houses with whole streets closed off to cars so that the kids could run around. We can't wait for the girls to get bigger so they can join in.

Overall it was a really great time and we look forward to all the other occasions and events we will get to spend with our girls!