Birthday, Playard, Messy Eaters, CUTENESS!

I mentioned in the last post that we didn't have any plans for my birthday. Well, I was just hanging out with the girls when the doorbell rang. Let's just say I had to throw on my LSU Snuggie to answer the door. I just opened it a crack and saw a whole group of ladies from my ward (6 of them) standing at my doorstep and they were all wishing me a happy birthday! I giggled and asked them to give me a minute and ran and got dressed and went back to the door. I was embarrassed that I hadn't been fully dressed. Imagine my horror when I realized they had food and all wanted to come in and have lunch--my house wasn't as clean I like it to be when people come over. But, after getting over my pride and realizing how ultra-sweet it was for them to surprise me with a birthday lunch (and them reassuring me the house wasn't that bad and they didn't care, anyway), I was able to relax and have a really nice time. They brought Mexican soup, homemade rolls, the cake pictured below and a couple of gifts. Everything was so yummy! I had to laugh at the cake because my Maw-maw made me American flag cakes for my birthdays when I was little. That night, Jared brought home Mexican take-out so I didn't have to cook dinner and we ate after then girls went to bed. It ended up being a great birthday.
Here's the playard I mentioned before; it's a North State Superyard XT Gate plus extension kit. It's hard to tell in the pic how big it is; from the wall to the panel that's parallel to it is 5' 3" and it's 5' 7" the other way--and there's still another panel that isn't being used because then it would REALLY take up too much room in the living room!
Just a couple of fun pics of the girls eating carrots; this one of Makenna cracks me up!:
And Avery rubbed the carrots all over her face, had it caked on her eyebrows and even had it on her eyelashes--you should click on the pic to see a larger version:
The girls are fed food three times a day plus 5 bottles. So far, they are eating rice cereal (always mixed with bananas or pears and some apple juice and for or just a little added to other fruits and veggies to thicken them a little), sweet potatoes, squash, green beans, and carrots. Their favorite is the rice cereal with banana or pear and the sweet potatoes with apples. It's so nice that they to try to "help" me feed them, ha ha; even better when they try to help me feed each other. They are always pulling their bibs off and trying to pull each other's bibs off, as well. When any of the pets are around, they get totally distracted, which makes it hard to feed them. Sometimes when they're really hungry, they cry the whole time the spoon is not in their mouth--really fun when both of them do that! It's hard not to get messy while feeding two because, after you give one a bite and you think they are swallowing it, you go to give the other one a bit and the first one starts dribbling food down her chin or onto her leg or puts her hands in her mouth, etc. Feeding time is always interesting!


These are the onesies I painted for the 4th of July; I just barely got around to taking better pics of them yesterday. I love that I got them both smiling. Usually, Avery smiles but Makenna gets mesmerized by the camera and just stares at it like a deer in headlights (although she smiles really easily when the camera's not around, of course!):
Makenna really wanted to get at Avery's flower!:
These adorable outfits were given to us by Aunt Michelle's family; Makenna was obsessed with the booties:
Jared noticed at church this past Sunday that Makenna had cut two teeth the previous night! So now they both have two bottom teeth--but Avery's are much bigger. It's near impossible to get a picture of their teeth--and Makenna's are too hard to see in a photo--but here's the best I could get yesterday of Avery's:
CUTE, RIGHT? :)

Um, what else? I weighed them both on my scale the other day and Makenna is just over 16 lbs. and Avery is right around 15 lbs. Avery is starting to rock on her hands and knees a tiny little bit. She never does it long enough for me to get a photo or video of it. I'm sure it won't be long before she's crawling, though! She is also moving forward more in the walker. It was so cute this morning when she "walked" quite a few feet to get to where Makenna was in the bouncer. They sat and played together for quite a while. They are such good, sweet girls. I can't believe they will be 7 months old next week!!