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... ;)