Chatterbox, silliness, and waving

Just some random cuteness for your viewing pleasure--mostly Makenna chatting away like she often does. If you watch the whole thing, the girls will wave "bye" to ya! ;)


FYI:
*On 3/20, Makenna signed "more" for the first time; she wanted more oranges. :) She is now also signing "please" and "milk". I had given the girls some goldfish crackers while I washed their bibs and trays after lunch the other day. I turned around and she was signing "more". It was so cute! I'll try to get it on video soon.

*In the last week or so, Avery has started doing this thing when she doesn't want to do something, if you're trying to take something away from her, or if she is just upset about something in general--she says, "No no no no no..." It's kind of funny but I have a feeling it's gonna get old soon. I finally got her to sign "more" this afternoon by bribing with chocolate animal crackers, ha ha! Usually, she just screams for what she wants when I try to get her to sign "more" or "please" before I give her something. Stinker. We'll see if she starts signing more.

*Recent Facebook posts:
*3/12: Avery has a sippie cup in each hand and one hanging from her mouth.
*3/14: Playing outside with the fam.. :) Makenna is picking out just the rocks from the wood chips at the playground and Avery is picking up leaves from the ground.
*3/18: Both of my girls have top molars cutting through. Fun times! :)
*3/18: Someone should invent a contraption where baby high chairs can be placed on a grate and all the food that falls (i.e., thrown on the ground) goes through the grate and into a trash receptacle so the food can be easily thrown away, used for compost, or used to slop pigs (ha ha). My kitchen floor is NEVER EVER clean!
*3/18: Makenna is sitting in her high chair waving at everything around the room. Cute.
*3/20: The twins are 15 months old today!
*3/20: Makenna signed "more" at lunch today for the first time (not on her own, I prodded, but neither one of them has ever been interested in doing any of the silly signs mom does, ha ha). She also tried to say "belly button" during their bath tonight. It was so cute!
*3/21: The twins' 15-month stats: Avery=29 3/4 in. (25-50%), 20 lbs. 5 oz. (10-25%); Makenna=30 in. (25-50%), 22 lbs. 1 oz. (25-50%). They did pretty well after their shots--helps that we played at Aunt Kiki's for a while after she came and helped us at the appt. Thanks, Kiki!!!

Looking forward to Easter! I bought their dresses and will do Easter pictures soon. Will post them as soon as I can! :)

Another day at the park!

It was another warm day today and Jared was off of work, so we hit the park again. It's so much fun to take them and they love it, of course!

{Makenna's waving to Daddy}:

{Avery LOVED walking everywhere by herself!}:

{The red marks on Makenna's forehead are from falling while walking in our front yard before leaving for the park--our yard has a little hill and she did a face plant trying to walk on it. Oops.

Here are a couple of videos of them on the swings--lots of squealing! :)



So much fun!!!

Snow, Park, a Birthday, a Wedding...

On 3/1, I noticed the snow was coming down really hard and went to let Praia in, thinking she was probably hunkered down in her dog house but, nope, she was just lying out in it, letting the snow pile up on her!:

On 3/5, Jared was off of work and it was a warmer day, so we went to the park, where the girls loved swinging on the swings. We also went to Sam's Club and to eat at Cracker Barrel. A fun family day!

This is at Cracker Barrel:

It was a fun, busy day and the twins were exhausted that evening. Makenna fell asleep sitting on Jared while watching TV, ha ha:

To wake them up a little so they'd stay awake enough go to bed that night, Jared played horsey with them. Avery wasn't so sure (she looks terrified in that pic, ha ha!) but Makenna loved it:
On 3/9, we got to go to my niece, Carma's, 7th birthday! A Smurf party! Kiki did such an awesome job with the cake and all of the Smurf-themed treats and decorations. The twins were a little over-stimulated by all the loud kids running around; Uncle Michael named them the Grumpy Smurfs.
Look at their new, first tennis shoes--this was their first day wearing them! They did a great job walking in them. And looked adorable, too! :)
Avery's favorite part of the party was playing with all the tissue paper after the gift opening:
Carma got a Wii Smurf dance game that we played after most of the kids left. The girls were in a much better mood, then, and were having fun dancing and running around:
On 3/10, we went to a cousin's wedding reception. We barely got to visit with anyone because we spent the entire time chasing after these two!:

They sure did look cute, though, in their new dresses and first "big girl" church shoes. :)


Some Facebook posts the past couple of weeks:

2/24: I don't know what the twins are saying but they're having some kind of discussion, hollering across the room at each other (in their cribs post-nap).

Makenna just fell walking and stood up by herself. Then Avery walked into her and knocked her down again. Ha ha!

Kiki posted this pic of Avery, taken at her house on 2/25:


2/28: Makenna has been walking around for a while with the head of a little plastic dog in her mouth; she is always doing silly stuff like that.


3/1: Poor Makenna has a top molar cutting through. What a Grumpy Gus! Avery may be working on one, too. Two babies stuck to me like glue but I don't mind.

We just went grocery shopping as a family and the twins were trying to catch the falling snow as we left. :)

3/3: I wish I knew what Makenna was saying. She has been telling me a story for the last 5 minutes--looking straight into my eyes like I know exactly what she's talking about. So cute!!

Makenna has a new obsession with hats--she keeps putting them on and walking around and loves when we say, "Oh, so pretty!" I need to get it on video tomorrow. I've taught the girls how to tickle feet (preparing them for the next time we see Paw-paw, ha ha!); Avery keeps tickling my feet and says, "ticka ticka!" I love it!

3/5: It's a little warmer today so we just took the twins to the park and they had a great time on the swings. They are so much fun!

3/7: Cute: Makenna starting to wave "hi" or "bye" all the time now. Not so cute: Makenna pulling Avery's hair when she's trying to get Avery away from a toy she wants.

3/9: I bought the twins some (super cute) tennis shoes yesterday and they're practicing walking in them. They weren't so sure at first but they're doing great now.

Kiki posted this on 3/10:
"Kenna and Avery were over stimulated. Michael asked "who invited Grumpy Smurfs". hahahah"

I'm still on the search for our new home. Please pray that I find it soon before I go totally nuts! :)

Feb. pics

Some of my fave pics of the month so far:

{These were actually taken on 1/30--they're watching Sesame Street, of course! And teething!}:

{Before I moved that shelf up to accommodate some storage bins I bought, the girls would often climb up in there, like Makenna did here--they loved it, even though they would be squished and would keep hitting their heads!; 2/2}:

{Super Bowl Sunday at Kiki's house (dinner and fun), 2/5}:
{What 2 babies can do to their room in just a few minutes when left to their own devices--pull everything out of the changing table cabinet and fling it across the room, drag blankets out of the bottom crib drawers, fling burp rags out of a basket, etc., 2/10/12}:
{The girls LOVE bath time. Avery tries to climb in, while laughing, before we can even get her fully undressed, 2/13}:

We didn't do anything on Valentine's Day because Jared was only home for an hour after work before he had to go to bed to get up really early the next morning. The girls liked the Valentines they got from their cousin James. :) And Jared brought me some flowers and a treat. We ended up going out to eat at Rodizio Grill this Tues. to celebrate V-Day. The girls loved all the different foods! Although Makenna made faces at the olives Daddy gave her. :)

Videos!

Has it really been a month since I last posted? Wow. I was sick for 1/2 of the last month--still coughing just a bit 5 weeks later! The girls really started walking last weekend. Last Friday (2/17), Avery started to walk around on her own a bit without any help or urging from me. The past couple of days, she stands on her own without any aid from furniture quite a bit. She is walking more than crawling already! Makenna also took off on her own last Friday. I wrote on Facebook (after writing that Avery had started walking on her own), "Now Makenna just walked across the room to steal a book from Avery, ha ha!" Makenna doesn't stand without help yet but she is starting to walk on her own more and more--just not quite as much as Avery does. I've taken quite a few videos the past few days. :)

Avery still does that kind of sucking thing to her blanket to fall asleep and to any stuffed animals and other soft things she picks up. It's pretty cute! [taken 1/19]:


Makenna does some really silly things. She likes to push stuff across the floor as she's crawling--anything that will slide across the carpet. And she crawls around with stuff in her mouth, like this packaged CD that came with a toy [taken 1/19]:


This one shows Avery pure joy at learning how to walk. Every time we would help her practice, she would laugh the whole time [taken 1/29]:


This one is sure to make you smile. The girls playing and laughing together [taken 2/1]:


Here's a montage of the girls walking, all taken since last Friday:


Here is Makenna doing raspberries and Avery craking up at her. I love moments like this! [taken 2/21]:


Facebook posts (since I post more stuff on there daily but not everyone who reads this blog is on FB):

1/30: "Avery is taking a few steps here and there and has stood up on her own a couple of times without the aid of a couch or anything. So close to walking! She LOVES when I help her stand and walk--she laughs the entire time. So cute! Makenna likes playing peek-a-boo and loves when Daddy holds a blanket up like a tent; yesterday, she got mad when he wouldn't hold it up anymore. She's quite the drama queen, ha ha! I love my girls!!!" "Makenna took a few steps this evening, too! :)"

2/1: "We used up the last of the baby formula today! Been weening the twins off of it for the past month. Now to ween them off of bottles and decrease the milk intake just a bit!"

2/2: "Every time Makenna sees me rub lotion or sanitizer on my hands, she rubs her hands together, too. :)"

2/3: "Had fun going to Ikea with Kiki and Wy-wy (my nephew--he's so stinkin cute!), then visiting our sweet friend, Jamie. Now I'm waiting for my other sister to come over and hang out. :) BTW, I'm so thankful for two little angels who are so easy to take places, even when they don't get their normal nap in. I love them so much!!!!!"

2/12: "Avery has 2 bottom molars peeking out--one on each side!"

2/13: "If my scale is correct, Avery now weighs 19 lbs. 4.8 oz. and Makenna weighs 20 lbs. 12.8 oz. I thought for sure Avery would weigh 20 lbs. Guess we'll have to hold up just a bit longer to get forward-facing car seats."

2/15: "Poor Makenna has had a fever since last night. She won't eat much and is doesn't feel well at all. :("

2/16: "Yay! Makenna is all better today--fever completely gone. I wonder what that was about?" "Makenna is back to her old shoving-her-face-with-food (literally) self. How do you teach a toddler to not stuff their mouth with food to the point of gagging??"

2/22: "Makenna gagged herself on too many animal crackers and threw up on me, causing me to throw up a tiny bit. Lovely. At least I made it to the toilet."

So that's been the last month for us in a nutshell. I'll try not to wait so long to post again. I still need to post some pics. Maybe later tonight. Maybe. :P

Jan. 2012

Now that January is almost over, I figured I'd better post about it. It's been pretty uneventful all month. We haven't gone very many places or done much of anything (unless you count my house hunting forays with my friend/realtor--Jared and the girls came and saw a few of the houses with us one of the days). No luck just yet. We've had Jared's mom and brother stay with us a couple of weekends, which is always fun. :) The girls have been a little grumpy (teething--Makenna had her first molar come in yesterday!) and had boogery noses all last week. Then, I got sick this weekend (started coughing and having back and neck pain/spasms on Sat. and had a migraine from Sat. evening to Mon. morning) and have been coughing since then. Jared's been plugging away at work and I appreciate him for that. Here's some pics of us just hanging out here at the house:

Grandma came over on 1/1 (the day after we got home from Louisiana) to give us all our Christmas presents:

On 1/4, I wrote this on Facebook: "We had some fun family time playing in a big box tonight. :)"

LSU played in the National Championship football game against Bama on 1/9. I won't even talk about the game. It was BAD! But, hey, we were 13-0 going into that game and one of the teams we had beaten was Bama. Not too shabby of a season. [I can say that now that I've had some time since the game, ha ha!] Timmy and Nikki came and watched the game with us. The girls (Avery is in this pic) liked hearing Uncle Timmy play my guitar:
And Makenna was having fun playing in her box before the game:
Jared took these pics of the girls sitting in my lap during the game:
These pics were taken 1/11; the girls are doing one of their favorite things (although they are usually sitting in my or Jared's lap when they do it):
---watching Sesame Street! :D
These were taken 1/12; I know I take a lot of pics of them eating. I just think it's so cute! Here, they're eating "fake lasagna"--whole wheat macaroni, spaghetti sauce, and cottage cheese:
These were taken 1/13--eating more "fake lasanga" and laughing at Daddy:

Now that they are 13 months old, I finally got around to decorating some 12 month onesies:We haven't had much snow here this winter but we got a pretty good blanket of snow on 1/23, so I took some pics of the backyard:
And little Cleo making her way through the snow. Jared left her out for a few minutes later that day and she had huge clumps of snow stuck to her fur all underneath her from it dragging as she traipsed across the yard:
Taken from our front door--kids building a snowman and playing in the snow in the park across the street:

From Facebook on 1/6: "Every time I tell the twins, "Eat your food!", Avery smacks her lips together a few times. It's pretty cute!"