Half Birthdays!

Kylie is 2 and a half years old. Say What!?

 

Emily is half a year old.

 

 

Our girls are amazing. They are hilarious, frustrating, beautiful, tiring, and oh so loving. I love that they will always share birthday and half birthday months. I hope they love it too as they grow up.
 

Emily adores her big sister.

 

Kylie has hit the terrible twos, even though we were for sure she hit them at 18 months and then again a few weeks after Emily was born. Nope, she definitely has it now. We are tested daily and most days several times a day. She has figured out how to procrastinate on top of procrastinating going to bed. We already get ready for bed, then read books, then snuggle (one of her more recent additions to the bedtime routine which we originally thought was adorable), then sing 5 songs (the SAME 5 songs, in the SAME order EVERY night) once she's in the crib. Oh and then we're asked to stay for a minute. Phew. On her 'testing' nights, she'll say she needs some water, needs to go potty, or needs some 'rub' (vicks vaporub) and pretend she feels sick, and the list can go on and on. Love her dearly, but those nights (and nap times) can get really exhausting and almost always you can catch us on google researching some rendition of  'toddlers and sleeping.'

 

 

Emily hit 6 months and decided she was going to start having separation anxiety with a side of stranger anxiety. Kylie didn't really start that until closer to a year. She's really not terrible and it helps when Kylie's in a good mood because she will run in to make her happy if I'm busy doing something else, like attempting to do laundry or make dinner. We noticed this first after the holidays when she wasn't too keen on other people holding her and then it really started once we put her in her room at night, cold turkey on the pacifier and swaddle. She really wanted us there to soothe her. That being said, sleeping has been a slight roller coaster for Emily this past month. Cold turkey on the pacifier at night just took a couple of nights mainly, but she still struggles putting herself to sleep if she's already too tired. She would rather sleep on us, which I understand. I usually have to either pay close attention and put her down before she gets too tired (about 2 hours after her last sleep) or wake her up enough in order to put her down happy. Otherwise it's a fight and lots of tears, and a tired mommy for about an hour. Teething seems to play a part in all of this as well. At least we hope. That gives us hope for future nights of sleep.

 

The perfect scrunchy smile.

 

Kylie has become a little bit more picky with eating. She has started the 'I don't like it' before she even tastes something, even things that she has previously eaten and loved. Stinker! However, she continues to love all fruits, pizza, and her most favorite of all, milk. If we go somewhere to eat and ask her what she would like, she responds with 'milk.' Emily has loved being a big girl and eating solid foods. She has had rice and oatmeal cereal, green beans, peas, carrots, apples, prunes, pears, and bananas. We would have given her more by now, but she has been having constipation issues with each new food. We have slowed the amount of food we are giving her to try to get her system back to normal. We've been continuing to feed her prunes, pears, apples, green beans and very milky cereal on occasion. She misses her 3 meals a day, but she is not her normal super happy self when constipated.

 

Kylie now sits in regular chairs everywhere we go and requests to walk if we go to the grocery store. Difficult at times, but it's a good learning experience for her to walk next to me and help with the shopping. Emily now sits in high chairs at restaurants, the seat in shopping carts, and is just about to grow out of her infant carrier. Her feet hang off by a few inches already. And she is too heavy to carry in it, even though we still take her in and out of the car in the car seat. We've (mostly my back) decided that we're just about done with that thing. Emily sits up like the best of them and has started pushing up on her arms and turning to see things when on her tummy. She prefers not to roll over (as did Kylie), so next up is crawling!

 

I love the lighting in this picture. Adorb.

Both girls checked out perfectly at their well checks. Kylie weighed 26 lbs, 8 oz (up about 2 lbs from July) and grew about 2 inches. The pediatrician said she hasn't grown much, but is still on her growth curve (which is for tall and skinny!). Emily weighed 19 lbs, 10.5 oz (95%) and was 27 inches (90%) at the check up. I think she's actually longer, but it's hard to be accurate when they wiggle so much. Just for reference, Kylie wasn't 19 lbs until she was a year old. Yep, Emily is staying her course! We're thinking she'll start leveling off once she moves around more. Just a prediction, Kylie will have Daddy's body type and sorry Emmy, you'll probably have Mommy's. But none the less, maybe they'll be athletic! I'd love to watch some girl's volleyball! (but let's not get carried away... they need to stay babies for almost forever please.)

 

 

 

For Christmas, I received a new awesome camera from Casey. LOVE it.  I mean I really love it. I've done a few photo shoots of the girls this month and hope you've enjoyed the pictures so far. Here are a few more of my favorites of my two favorite girls!

 

 

My Kylie!!

 

 

 

My Emmy!

 

 

and lastly..

Really? Is this what we look like when trying to take pictures of babies? Haha!

Oh and just a last little tid bit, I love that our pediatrician actually recommended not seeing any families and families with kids until late April. Strictly because of this horrible flu season. Haha! I'm kind of considering it... ;)

 



 

Emmy is 5 Months!

This is a little behind, but decided I better do a quick update of Emily now that she is 5 months old and well almost 6 months old! A lot has happened in this past month with Christmas and New Years and all the traveling and parties and family time that goes with them. It's been great, super fun, but honestly I'm kind of glad we can jump into a normal routine for a change. I think we need it. The girls are much happier when they have a 'normal' day at home, which means I am much happier too!

So Emily turned 5 months just before Christmas. We started her on rice cereal and it took her a few times to get used to the taste of it, but now she's pretty much obsessed with real food. For the first couple of weeks, being the second born with a pretty demanding 2 1/2 year old sister, I wasn't as rhythmic with feeding her. One day she'd get cereal for breakfast, but not dinner, the next day I would never get around to it, then the next she'd get it twice like I'd planned. (Side note: This was also deep into Daddy traveling for work each week for a couple of months. Mommy was exhausted and sometimes other things were just more important. It wasn't necessary that she eat it everyday at that point.)



Blowing bubbles and getting Daddy frustrated.

 

Finally a couple of weeks ago, I decided to make 'meals' happen for her and started oatmeal too. She loves the texture, opposite of Kylie, plus she didn't get a reaction to the oatmeal like big sis! She has been getting cereal (about an ounce of milk mixed and she likes her cereal pretty thick) for breakfast and dinner. A week ago, I started her on green beans for lunch and she loves them. I mean loved even the first bite. Planning on starting peas tomorrow and then a fruit a few days after that. Emily loves real food so much that she will fuss and whine until she gets it. She loves sitting in her high chair, but can't stand if you are eating something in front of her and not feeding it to her. I should probably get some of her reactions on video. Once again, second born, not getting as much video of her!

 Mmm, Geen Beans!!

Emily had, I say HAD, been an amazing sleeper from day one. We were always slightly boasting about the fact that she slept through the night. That pretty much changed this past month, sadly. She started teething and started not liking her swaddle, and then also started loving her pacifier. (Side note: Yes we should have weaned her from the swaddle earlier on, but she was sleeping so gooood with it!) She never needed her pacifier at night and I refrained from giving it to her very often.That's all changed now. She isn't swaddled because she would cry until we let her out of it, so we're trying to figure out how she best sleeps. She naps on her tummy, so we've been putting her to sleep on her tummy too. Recently, she wakes up every 30 minutes or so crying. Sometimes you can give her the pacifier back and she'll quietly go back to sleep, but mostly not so much. I've resorted to letting her sleep inbetween us in bed, so I could easily soothe her without getting up all night long. And then there's the teeth. It's so hard to know when we should give her tylenol. I started using those teething tablets that dissolve in the mouth. She likes them and usually calms down after I give them to her, but that can't be what's making her not sleep every night! Obviously we haven't figured this out yet, but hopefully by the time I write her 6 month update, we'll all be sleeping some at night.




Loves those toes!

Well now that I talked your ear off on feeding and sleeping, what else do babeis do!? Play! Yes she loves to play. Around Christmas, she started liking to be up more. Up in her high chair, so she could see everything that was going on, or in her bumbo seat. She wasn't quite able to sit up with out falling over at Christmas, but around New Years (or 2 days before really) she wanted to be sitting up. She could sit up on her own for a few seconds one day, then the next was a minute, and each day, even throughout each day, would get stronger. Now she can sit up, no problem. And if she leans forward too much, generally reaching for a toy or her pacifier, she'll glide down on her tummy. She is very happy sitting up and playing with toys. We need to get more toys down from the attic now! Since the other paragraphs had one.. (Side note: Yes Emily spits up when she sits up. Lol. It's gross and always gets everywhere, but she's happier sitting up and spitting up, than laying on her back trying to prevent the spitting up from happening. Poor baby. Can't wait until this is no longer an issue.)




Big Sister helping E stay up so Mommy could get dinner started.

I guess I should say a few stats for the record. Around 5 months, Emily was somewhere between 18 and 19 pounds. (She's about 19 right now.) She is probably around 28 inches long. Just measured her using my camera usb cord and a plastic ruler. More than likely not very accurate. She should probably be in size 4 diapers (we already went through a pack some friends gave us..), but Mommy bought another big box of 3's because it seriously had over 20 more diapers in it for the same price as the 4's. And she still technically fits in 3's. Getting snug, but it's totally fine. She's getting more hair finally. She has less than Kylie did at this age. She is mostly wearing 12 month clothes (Thankfully we got some 12 month winter clothes for Christmas. She has just about grown out of all the winter clothes we had for Kylie.), but can still fit in some 6-9 month things. She does have a couple of 18 month things that fit also. Craziness. (Another side note: at 6 months, Kylie was 15lbs, 7 oz., 25.5 inches long, and in 6 month clothes.)

Kylie took this! Emmy's first Christmas!

 

Other than the new sleeping issues and teething issues (she does not like teeth cutting apparently, and really no one should!), Emily is a very happy baby. She loves to play with you face to face and loves her sister dearly. One of my tricks to getting Emily to calm down, is have Kylie come over so Emily can see her. Seriously, Emily will calm down instantly. So awesome!





Driving back home from Austin, I heard giggles and looked back. This is what I saw. Heart melted.

Happy 5 Months Emily! And Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! :)