Charlotte & Olivia Turn 9 Months

Wait....What...The twins are 9 months old??? I can't believe the twins have been in our lives for 9 months I simply cannot image my life without them- I even cannot image Kendal and Madison without their little sisters. Its strange how life changes so quickly but feels like its always been the way it currently is. I guess this is what one would call... Blessed...

Miss Olivia ~ perfect little Olivia I can't even find the words to describe the way you light up our lives. Your gentle sweetness is like none other and your precious noises fill us with a joy like no other. You have changed so very much during this last month you are becoming more and more like a mini-toddler and less like our little baby every day. You started crawling on May 4th, got your second tooth on April 19th, and said your first word "Dada" on April 28th. You also pull yourself up and can stand for several seconds unassisted. You sleep through the night ~ unless you are teething which seems like all the time! You love to eat and are eating a lot of different foods and have decided you would much rather have food you can pick up and mash with your gums over purees. Your favorite foods continue to be yogurt and applesauce. Your new likes are cottage cheese and veggie straws. 

You weigh 15 pounds 10 ounces putting you just over the 3rd percentile on the growth chart and you are 27.75 inches putting you at 58% on the growth chart. You are growing well and the doctor is happy with your progress. You take after your big sister Madison when it comes to height and weight. 

Your favorite thing right now is mommy a mamas girl for sure~ You love to play with your sisters but as soon as you see mama you start crying... A stage we are assuming with your age and constant teething~ But I'll take those cuddles anytime! Your favorite toy is the leap pad learning table. 

We love you so much Olivia Marie Grace

Sweet Sweet Charlotte ~ What a personality you have developed you are absolutely your big sister Kendal in so many ways. You laugh at every.single.thing we are alway coming up with funny things to do just to get you to laugh and then we do the "thing" over and over and over some more to hear that infectious laugh. You love your food, your big sisters, your twin sister, and pretty much anything you can get your hands on. You too would rather have food your can pick up and put into your mouth {mostly because you like to put more in your mouth than mommy does}. You love yogurt and applesauce just like your sister~ but your new favorites are turkey and chicken. This has also been a month of major growth for you. You still don't have any teeth but I suspect that will be changing in the next few days. You started crawling on April 27th, said your first work "Baba" on April 26th... quickly followed by Dada on the 27th. You also pull yourself up all.the.time and can stand unassisted for several minutes. You also sleep through the night like your sister again unless you are teething. Your favorite toy is your activity walker~which you only currently use to stand up on or play with... no walking with it... yet.

 You have grown so much and now weigh 18 pounds 2 ounces putting you in the 37th percentile and you are 29 inches putting you in the 92nd percentile for hight~ Just like your big sister Kendal! We can't believe how much you have gown and changed over the past month and we are so excited to see what the next month brings...... Walking.......perhaps?
We love you so much Charlotte Ann Faith

There is certainly never a dull moment with these two little ladies and we wouldn't have it any other way. I never knew I could love as much as I love all of my girls. {And of course I can't forget my husband just like the kids changed our lives for the better he too continues to change for the better~ I couldn't do any of this without his love and support. Our children are lucky to call him daddy, dad, or just plain dada....} Charlotte and Olivia we love you "so big" you have grown so much in the blink of an eye~ I want you to stay my babies forever; but I know that's not possible so I will settle for just a little while longer. I love you so much baby girls.

~ Mama

When one... or all of your littles get sick

So the past 3 almost 4 weeks in my house have been full of sneezing, coughing, fevering, ear aching, passing out, breath holding, and more!! It all started at Easter when Kendal started feeling bad, thinking that it was allergies we did the normal to help her feel better. Yea... so it wasn't allergies great lets get ready for the whole house to be sick!

A few days later Madison paid a midnight visit to my bedroom complaining of her ear hurting. Thinking that she just wanted to snuggle with mama I put her in bed with me. Yea.... so she didn't just want to snuggle with mama. She was in severe pain crying and pounding her head with with her hand. A quick conversation with the hubby determined we (I) should take her to the emergency room.  Once we were seen in the ER and a lot of crying and pain later it was determined she had a double ear infection with her eardrum close to rupturing!! Two days off school for Madison.

Then the twins... coughing, runny nose, sneezing, fever yea they had it all! But to top it all not 2 days after Madison was in the ER Charlotte decided she needed to check it out as well. She likes to hold her breath when crying- this is how we can tell she is really upset. While getting her ready for bed she bumped her head and she lost is crying hysterically AND you guessed it holding her breath. I was waiting for her to start crying again and when she didn't I turned her towards me and she wasn't breathing!! I completely freaked out and started screaming that she wasn't breathing- as soon as we moved her to start CPR she began crying again. Talk about getting your heart rate up in a hurry. {As a side note we have a family history of Long QT and problems with breathing}. So we (and this time WE) took her to the ER... turns out she had what is called a breath holding spell and as it turns out is pretty common among babies. The Doctor told us that when it happens to first take a deep breath ourselves and to make sure she is in fact breathing that she just passed out. We can also blow into her face when she is crying and trying to hold her breath to get her to take a breath. So far we have only had one other episode of her doing this. Ugh... so now its a balance of picking her up as soon she cries for fear she will pass out or letting her cry because she needs to know its okay to cry and she will survive... we are getting there.

In between all of this sickness that took over our kids; hubby and I managed to stay healthy! Kendal and Madison are back to healthy little mamas while Olivia and Charlotte continue with fevers off and on. I think these are related to teething (I hope these are related to teething) as during the 4 week sickness they both and ear infections. This past Tuesday Olivia decided she needed to see the inside of the ER (my twin sister did why can't I... what a tude she has!!).... Our doctor suggested we take her because her fever was close to 102 for the better part of 24 hours and her skin turned a beautiful shade of purple/blue!! I called the doctor and she said we (I) better take her because it could be a lack of oxygen!!! Turns out she was just fine (of course) and likely has a viral infection causing the fevers but no real reason why she turned into a smurf!!

I am so hopeful all 4 of my girls will stay healthy and we don't need any more trips to the ER!!! I would also like to ask that two little twin girls get their teeth sometime soon... thank you. Its been a very interesting month and on Sunday the twins turn 9 months I'm so blown away with just how fast they are  growing and changing every singe day.

Go to Meals {Toddler}

I am so excited to have a guest blogger today! Jessica Motley ~ she is a twin mama to 18 month old boy/girl twins {Jayleigh and Jaxson}. You can find her on IG at "themotleytwins". I needed to have a mama with toddlers give us some of her go to meals and Jessica fit the bill perfectly!

Aren't the just adorable!

Here is her post:

I’m going to talk about my go to toddler meals for my twins. I am a first time mom, so I am learning as I go along! My kids are not too picky (thank goodness) which makes them perfect little experimenters. I’ll talk about how we transitioned from purees to bite size pieces and our go to meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner & snack.

The Transition

The transition from purees to “hand fed” meals was really all about timing. I watched for signs that my kids were ready to try to feed themselves. They started grabbing at spoons and their coordination was a little more on point. At first we just tried it at snack time so that we could be sure they ate all of their purees at meal time. Our go to snack was the yogurt melts because we could break them apart and give them even smaller pieces and they dissolved quickly. Once they mastered that we started cutting small amounts of food up to let them try feeding themselves at meal times. (A good tip we discovered is that we keep a ceramic knife (with a cover) hidden down in their diaper bag so that wherever we may be eating we have a good sharp knife to really cut their food up.) Then that became the only way they wanted to eat! These days we are attempting to master the spoon and fork. We generally just give them a utensil at every meal and encourage them to try using it. So far it has been going pretty well. They love the independence it gives them and now they rarely ever let us feed them anything!

Go To Breakfast

At our house, breakfast is really the one meal that is always quick and easy. I don’t feel like waking up before the kids to make something and my kids are too impatient to wait for me to make anything! When they wake up they are hungry-NOW! (They have the patience of their mother!) Our number one go to breakfast food is pancakes. They are ridiculously versatile and easy to make. I will buy a box mix and make the entire box at one time. I have a large family griddle that I use and it takes about 30 minutes or less to make a whole box. The best part is that you can add any kind of fruit that your kids like to eat! We love banana*, blueberry, and apple cinnamon pancakes (pancakes with applesauce and cinnamon added). Once the pancakes have been made you can stack them and put them in a gallon sized freezer bag and throw them in the freezer. When you are ready to eat them, just take a few out and put them in a microwave with a small bowl of water (it helps keep them from drying out) and cook for 30 second intervals until they are the perfect temperature. Usually we pair them with fruits that we have (either in the fridge or freezer) and voila! An easy and quick breakfast! The freezer method also works well with muffins, too! The other easy breakfast we keep on hand is single serve flavored oatmeal packets. The kids love them and love that they get to work on their spoon skills.

Go To Lunch

For lunch we also live off of easy meals. Some of our mainstays are pb&honey sandwiches, quesadillas, pizzadillas*, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, and leftovers. We try to pair more fruit and veggies with sandwiches and chicken nuggets. Quesadillas and pizzadillas are great because we can throw in some veggies and the kids don’t really notice them. Hot dogs make a quick meal because, just like the pancakes, you can make a large batch and then freeze them. Another thing that we make a lot on our own is squeeze packs. They are really easy to make and it makes sure that we know exactly what they are eating. We use the Infantino Fresh Squeezed Squeeze Station and Squeeze Packs to make them. We chose the disposable kind because the reusable kind never really came clean, no matter how hard I tried. Our favorite combinations are sweet potato/apricot, butternut squash/pear, and carrot/apple. It is really easy to buy big tubs of yogurt and applesauce and use those to fill the packs. Once the squeeze packs are filled, I throw them in the freezer. Then every few days I put a few in the fridge to defrost. It’s fun to experiment with different combinations of flavors and my kids are always anxious to try them out!

Go To DinnerDinner time is our family time. My husband works from home and thankfully his break is at 5:00, so I try my best to make us all a nice dinner so we can sit down and enjoy each other’s company. As a general rule, my kids eat whatever we are eating and if they don’t eat it, then it is a long time until breakfast! Now before you start thinking I starve my kids let me say that this rarely happens. I can probably count on one hand that my kids wouldn’t eat what I made for dinner. My plan of attack is to always make at least one item I know they will eat. I always encourage them to try everything on their plate, but never force them to eat it. Varying their meals has widened their tastes and I usually get no complaints. Some good go to sides we use are roasted carrots, sweet potato, mac n cheese, and sweet peas. Plus, any of the frozen veggies make a super quick addition to any meal and give us the opportunity to try all types of vegetables without worrying that the food will spoil before we get to cook it. Hopefully their willingness to try all types of foods will continue!

SnacksMy kids (and dogs) live for snack time! We generally do 2 snacks a day, one between breakfast and lunch, and then another between lunch and dinner. The biggest lifesaver I have for snack time is a travel cup that helps prevent them from spilling their snack. We are always on the go and these cups help keep my sanity. Some easy snack foods are:

Squeeze packs
grapes
blueberries
pretzels
yogurt
graham crackers
goldfish (my kids’ favorite!)
cheez its
puffs
apples
blueberry cookies*
teddy grahams
Lance crackers
banana
Any type of cheerios

Hopefully there were some worthwhile tips for you here and I have also included a few of my recipes that I have or have found on Pinterest that were winners in our book! If you have any recipes or tips I’d love to hear those too!

Healthy Banana Pancakes2 eggs

1 banana

½ c oats

¼ c apple sauce

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp cinnamon

Blend oats until ground. Add other ingredients and mix until blended. Cook on a buttered pan.

Pizzadillas

Large flour tortillas

Pizza sauce

Pepperoni

Mozzarella cheese

Any other pizza toppings you like to use

Spread pizza sauce on a tortilla. Stack on the toppings you would like to use. Cover with a second tortilla and cook in a pan on the stove. Cook until heated through and cheese is melted.

Blueberry Oatmeal Cookies

1 c instant (quick-cook) oats (measured correctly) 3⁄4 c whole wheat flour (measured correctly)

1 1⁄2 tsp baking powder

1⁄2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

2 tbsp coconut oil, melted 1 egg, room temperature 1 tsp vanilla extract

1⁄2 c honey

1⁄4 c dried blueberries

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oats, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together the coconut oil, egg, and vanilla. Stir in the honey until thoroughly incorporated. Add in the flour mixture, stirring just until incorporated. Fold in the blueberries. Chill the dough for at least 30 minutes. (If chilling longer, cover with plastic wrap, ensuring it touches the entire surface of the cookie dough.)

2. Preheat the oven to 325°F, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat.

3. Drop the cookie dough into 15 rounded scoops on the baking sheet. (If chilled longer than 1.5

hours, flatten each slightly.) Bake at 325°F for 13-15 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet for at least 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.

Notes: It's really important to measure the oats with the spoon-and-level method (like with flour; see link in ingredients). If you scoop the oats into the measuring cup, you end up with 1.5 times as many oats, which will result in very dry cookies.

To make your own instant oats, pulse 1 cup of old-fashioned oats in a food processor 5-8 times.

Melted unsalted butter or melted margarine may be substituted for the coconut oil. Regardless of which is used, be sure that the egg is at room temperature before whisking it in. A cold egg added straight from the fridge would rapidly cool the fat source, resulting in small blobs of semi-solid coconut oil or butter.

Thank you so much Jessica for your help and great tips AND your recipes! 

~Kristy

Go to meals {Baby & Toddler}

Our second most popular request was go to meals for baby and toddler! Since I don't have a toddler or have had one in 7 years I have asked another twin mama with toddlers to contribute her go to meals! In this post I will share my go to "meals" for the babies and tomorrow we will have go to meals for toddlers!! 

For starters I have always made the girls baby food I find that it is the most cost effective. I started feeding the girls "solids" around 5 months and we started simple with oatmeal, sweet potatoes, and carrots. The didn't really care for the oatmeal - but a tip with oatmeal and rice cereal...I made it a little on the thick side only because my experience has been that they eat it better when it isn't so runny. 

 Ok so wow my table was pretty messy!! - Guess that is the point right... of this perfectly imperfect life??

This was their first time having oatmeal!!

When we started feeding them solids we started with once per day for about a month then moved to twice per day for about the same duration then onto three times per day. 

Charlotte eating her carrots! Look at that baldy!!

We used the bumbos pretty frequently during the beginning.. mostly because we didn't have highchairs yet!! But they did great in them and they were perfect for setting where ever was convenient for us. 

Now onto what our go to foods were and currently are.

When we (and by we I mean me) started making baby food I stuck to the standards- sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, peas, squash (Summer and yellow). At first I was afraid to make fruit so I continued to buy pre made purees and stick with the veggies. 

They did great with all of the above foods. I was making the veggies around every 2-3 weeks just depending on my storage and how much they would eat. 

As they hit 7 months and were eating more regularly (3 times per day) I started to experiment with different combinations of foods and I ventured into fruits. I went to pinterest as well as another twin momma's blog Life moments with the Massey's (aka 3 Ladies and their Gent) Here to get some ideas. 

At first I kept with the tried and trues- (what they already had and liked). When starting with the fruits I had already had somewhat of an idea what they liked from the store bought baby food so I felt comfortable trying certain things. With the veggies I added a few new items as well as tried mixing some. 

Here is what I made:

Strawberry Applesauce

Peaches & Mangos

Spinach with Raspberries

Carrots & Avocados

Green Beans

Strawberries & Bannans

Broccoli & Rice

Mostly for the fruit I bought frozen with the exception of strawberries, bananas, and apples. I found it was much easier than cutting everything to go into the steamer. Also, for the veggies I buy the broccoli, green beans, and peas (when I make them) frozen. 

Everything was a hit "except" the broccoli and rice- they love broccoli but when mixed with the rice they weren't a big fan. I also found that after it set it was very much like the consistency of paste- yeah not a good combination. Also, I have found that the babes don't really care for bananas added to other foods (at least when I make them :). They really really loved the strawberry applesauce and I have to say so did it!! It was so amazing. 

This group lasted about 3 weeks so another shopping trip was to be had. Again we tried some new things and some oldies but goodies. 

Banana, blueberry, green beans (I guess I didn't learn with the bananas)

Spinach, Arugula, and Apple

Sweet Potato and Mango

Cantaloupe and bananas (again with the bananas)

Strawberries with peaches (and a touch of greek yogurt)

Apples and peas

Broccoli 

Butternut squash

So Clearly this time around I thought I would try the bananas again, but they still didn't work out as anticipated. Neither of the girls really cares for peas so I wanted to try and add something they really like to the mix so I added apples and they love it! YAY! win for mommy! I added some greek yogurt to the strawberries and peaches because the puree was a little too thin plus they love yogurt. The spinach and arugula was a pre mix bag. 

Total cost - $31!!!

Storage options then I will discuss some of my lessons learned!

One of the early pinterest posts I read recommend the use of small glad containers and I love them they are perfectly portioned for my hungry babes. I also like to use the ice cube trays - they are perfectly portioned and easy to pop in the microwave. The other containers shown are store bought and I feel are perfect for littles just starting out eating solids because they don't eat all that much. With the girls now I have to use two of them at a time. 

I put everything I make into the freezer and pull out what I need for one-two days. 

Now some lessons learned

1. My babies don't like bananas useless they are fresh or in store bought purees...Of course your littles may be different this is just my experience so give it a try you never know!

 2. I started out using the baby bullet (simply purees the food) to puree however I now use my food processor. I found that the baby bullet worked ok but it takes too long for my taste especially when I am making a boat load of baby food. My food processor works so much faster and now that I am making the purees a little thicker the food processor is perfect.

3. You will need to steam the frozen fruit- however only until it is slightly tender and no longer frozen. I made the mistake the first time steaming it until it was "soggy" and this really made the purees very runny.

4. Strawberries don't need to be steamed

5. Olivia always makes a face when I give her something new but then the second bite is a little less of that same face and by the third bite she is enjoying the new flavor. Give your littles a chance on new things. Like I mentioned with the peas I wanted them to get the benefits of the veggie but they do not like them at all so I tired to add something sweet and it worked!

6. I do give the girls yogurt - I started with the gerber yogurt in the baby food isle.. the loved it.. make sure you refrigerate. I recently bought some baby yogurt in the yogurt isle and a big hit as well. I am also willing to mix purees with plain greek yogurt. 

It has been a crazy few months making baby food but it has been very rewarding and I feel good about what I have done for my girls. We are venturing into new foods and letting them try some foods we are eating. So far they love... cottage cheese, pasta, bread, and mashed potatoes. They are growing and changing so fast I feel like its just going to quickly... please please slow down!!

Toddler go to meals up next! 

Bringing home baby {or babies} part 2

Now bringing home twins! Again- the twins were a scheduled c-section at 38 weeks of course they came at 34 weeks 6 days! Charlotte came home with us at day 5 and Olivia had to stay in the NICU for 4 more days. My Dr. kept telling me that I wouldn't know it then but I would be happy to only be taking one baby home at a time. Of course I thought he was crazy I couldn't stand the thought of leaving Olivia in the hospital. I tried to shift my thoughts to "taking Charlotte home" rather than "leave Olivia there". It was hard but I knew Olivia would be taken care of and it was now my (our) job to take care of Charlotte.

Charlotte headed home

Charlotte

A quick side note about nursing the twins- I wasn't able to do it. The Doctors said it would be too hard for the babies to try and latch and then nurse. So I pumped every 2-3 hours most of the time the breast milk I was able to get was mixed with formal for the girls.

When we brought Charlie home I continued to pump every 2-3 hours and bottle fed Charlie. I saved most of the breast milk for Olivia because I felt she needed the most so that she could come home. Charlie did fantastic at home- she woke every 3 hours to eat and she ate very well. NICU babies are on a very specific schedule, she pretty much kept to the same schedule. The days were pretty hectic taking care of our older girls and going to the hospital to see Olivia. I can't really say it was easy and we worked it out because well honestly we didn't we just went with what ever worked at the time and that was the best we could do. Once Olivia came home and our family left we were able to get into a much better routine. The older girls were at school so we were able to establish a pretty decent day time routine {mostly consisting of eating and sleeping}. I tried very hard to keep the twins on the same schedule for eating {of course they slept a lot so they pretty much were always sleeping at the same time}. However, it was very important to work on keeping them on the same eating schedule, because I was exclusively pumping every single time they ate. I had to make sure they were eating at the same time. They were getting bottles of formula mixed with breast milk. If I fed them at the exact same time they mostly were propped on the boppy or on a big pillow. After the first few weeks I let them go around an hour apart on eating, I found that it was somewhat easier to feed one at a time. At night we didn't wake them to eat, now I can say it didn't happen very often that they didn't wake {that NICU schedule again}, but if they didn't we left them... and they were fine. Hubby was  big help during the night as well. He did have to go back to work which meant he had to be up at 430 in the morning. We worked out a schedule that made sense to both of us and allowed us to both get some consistent hours of sleep. A few times hubby was a rock star and pulled an all nighter for me so that I could sleep the whole night!! Yea he's a keeper!! 

I pumped every time we fed the babies except ones during the night I would take a break.. to get "some" sleep. Once again I didn't produce much milk so we always had to mix with formula... and they did just fine. I have to say with twins it takes longer to establish a good routine add to the fact that we had two older daughters in the mix as well. That being said the Kendal and Madison were absolutely wonderful (see previous post about the amazing big sisters) they helped out so much- they fed the babies so I could make dinner or the cuddled the babies so I could get a break, it was amazingly wonderful {and still is}.

Olivia before leaving the hospital 

Together at last! {Olivia on the left Charlotte on the right}

The most important thing we did with brining home all the girls was get into a schedule/routine as soon as possible. I think at times its the only thing that saved my sanity. I also know that with Kendal we were so scared of messing up I don't think we enjoyed her as a baby as much as we could have. We definitely learned with Madison that it was ok to do what "we" felt was best for her even if it wasn't by the book, this allowed us to enjoy both of them so much more.

Bringing home the twins was an adventure itself but I truly believe all of our babies came when they were absolutely supposed to at the exact right time for us and our family and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Charlotte

Olivia

Maddy watching the babies