16 months old! (And other updates)

The girls are 16 months old today. 16 months!

Look how grown up they look! Definitely not little babies any more. More like little girls each day!

Here's Miss Olivia....

And Miss Brianna....

Every single day I am amazed at how much they learn and change. They have started to really understand cause and effect (i.e. - if I throw my favorite blanket down the laundry chute, no matter how much I cry, it's not going to magically come back to me), and they are getting better every day at following instructions (pick up your blocks please, go get your shoes and coats so we can go outside to play, etc.). What little sponges they are!

So what else is new with the girls?

Eating
Both girls have been doing relatively well with eating, but I can definitely tell they are eating less than they used to. If we are lucky they will eat really well at one meal a day. The rest of the time they play with and pick at their food and have fun throwing it down to the pugs patiently waiting below for any spare scraps.

For our meals we make one main course (baked chicken, spaghetti, pot roast, etc.) and then we let the girls choose their own sides from what we have available. So, they may get to choose between sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes, and they get to choose which fruit they would like (cantelope, grapes, strawberries, or pineapple). They absolutely LOVE getting to choose.

They don't normally eat all that much of what is served to them, but they are still growing like crazy, so I'm not concerned. They refuse ALL veggies now, which is sad, but I have heard from lots of mommas that this happens, so oh well. Hopefully they come back to loving their veggies again in a year or two. We can hope!

The girls favorite foods, hands down, are:
Olivia - Spaghetti, goldfish crackers, yogurt, grapes
Brianna - Spaghetti, goldfish crackers, yogurt, cantelope, ice cream

Talking
Both girls are making leaps and bounds in the talking/vocabulary department. We are still doing several relatively basic signs with them, but for the most part, the girls are able to verbally articulate what they want (which translates into them signing and saying the word at the same time).
Our newest words that we have mastered (both in speak and sign) are "please" and "thank you". Bri is obsessed with (speaking) the words "this", "that", "those", "tickle tickle tickle" and "more", and Livvy is pretty obsessed with "Bailey", "Baby", and "up". So interesting the differences between the girls!

Brianna has been pretty hilarious lately with her speaking. In the bathtub at night she has been giving us full dissertations about heaven only knows what! She stands up with absolute authority and just goes off in (mostly) baby babble about something. This often goes on for several minutes. I really need to try and get it on video. Livvy will randomly jump into the conversation and give her two cents worth (again, usually mostly baby babble), and Bri will acknowledge her point then keep right on going. It is really stinking hilarious! Did you all see the youtube video of the twins chatting it up with each other last year? That's very similar to what goes on in our bathtub at night. Too funny!

Nap time
Nap time has been a little rough the last two weeks or so. It used to be that every day you would have the exact same routine for nap time...eat lunch, change diaper, get laid in cribs. Sleep 3 hours. Wake up. Have a snack.

Yeah, not so much now. The time that they go down for naps differs, and 3 hours is definitely a good day, not so much a standard. I would say on average we are getting somewhere between 1.5 and 2 hours. Sometimes less, sometimes more. One girl usually sleeps longer than the other.

On Saturday Brianna fell asleep in the car on the way home from Target (10-15 minutes MAX), and she didn't take a nap at all after that. Sure, we still laid her down in her crib after lunch, but she just played in there. She never did go back to sleep. Oye! Note to self...be careful about letting the girls fall asleep in the car...you can lose a whole nap out of the deal! Eek!

Potty Training
I am making our first real attempt at potty training on Saturday. I feel relatively prepared with two potty chairs (naturally), long sleeved tshirts and leg warmers (so no need for pants), pull on diapers (just in case I decide to go this route vs. letting them run around naked), and lots of tasty treats (for bribery - lol).

They are very interested in the potty chairs, but they have no understanding whatsoever of their intended purpose. At this point they want to stand in them and on them. I actually took them away last week and hid them underneath a desk in the spare bedroom so they weren't tempted to play with them. I don't know if that was the right thing to do, but I didn't want them to get into the habit of thinking that it was okay to play with them instead of use them for potty!

So...wish us luck! We are prepared for a total fail, but it would be cool if that isn't what happened. I have no desire to have three kiddos in diapers at the same time, so we shall see! =)

"Baby C"
I haven't given an update on Baby C, aka Little Man, recently so here goes! I am 23 weeks along this week (I know, I know, you want pictures! Patience! They are coming!), and little man is growing nicely. When I was into the OB on February 2nd, he was weighing in at about 1 lb. Right on track for where he should be. I have to say that I find this just a smidge funny...the girls were always measuring ahead, ALWAYS, and now I have this "average" sized little boy inside! HA! So I am going to have massive little girls, and an average sized little boy...go figure!

I think for the first 20 weeks or so of pregnancy, I didn't feel or appear all that much different than I did with the girls. Sure, with the girls I was sicker, and for longer, but really, up until 20 weeks that was the only difference. Then, after 20 weeks with the girls my tummy really started to blossom and I really looked pregnant. With this little guy, I look pregnant, but I feel like I have been just about the same size for the last couple of weeks. No growing by leaps and bounds here. I think from this point forward, this may be the biggest difference between my twin and singelton pregnancies.

Here is a current picture of me - 23 weeks with Baby C -

And here is me at 23 weeks pregnant with the girls...I think I looked bigger with the girls, right?

Strangely enough, I am having some high blood pressure issues already with this little man (concerning to me since I had Pre-E with the girls and I know what to watch for, and this is happening WAY earlier than it did with my twin pregnancy), but the OB's PA doesn't seem too incredibly concerned at this point. I am anxious to see what the OB thinks. They did some blood work Thursday last week and I had to do the icky 24 hour urine on Friday "to get a baseline" and to make sure that everything looks okay that way at this point...I should find the results from those tests out tomorrow when I see my OB. Little man looks great of course...so it's just me and my defective body that's throwing a fit already! HA!

Okay, so that's all I know peeps. Happy Monday! I hope you are having a great start to your week!

Until next time-
Megan