8 Months!

Charlie and Lily are 8 months old today! I can hardly believe it! To think that the two little chunks above started life at 1 1/2 lbs each - amazing! Charlie and Lily are growing and advancing every day and making us so proud! Sure, we wish they would sleep a little better at night, and the rivers of drool make for some messy days, but we couldn't be happier with our sweet babies. We have so much fun with them each day and are so thankful to have them in our lives. Charlie and Lily will see the pediatrician on Tuesday so we will have some updated weights and stats then!

In the meantime, take a look at these pictures for comparison! This one was taken after the babies had been home from the NICU a few days. They are three months old here.

This picture was taken a few days ago. Look at the difference!

Really, could Charlie be any more adorable?!?We had another snow day this week, which meant that Mommy and Charlie had to get in the kitchen to do some baking. Charlie was excited over our choice of cake flavors.

Charlie and Lily had a visit from Aunt Jill this week too. She's a lot of fun!

Lily loves her pink and purple exersaucer! She'll sit in it for extended periods of time, which is rare for Miss Lily. Thank you for passing it on to us, Elena!

Baby chicken fight! Boys are so weird.

March for Babies Update

Wow. We've been saying for as long as we've been doing this blog that we have some amazing friends and family, but once again everyone is proving us right. We are thrilled with the response we've gotten from our invitation to join Team Three Cheers for Babies in the March of Dimes March for Babies Walk on April 25th. As of now, we have 28 team members and $1,540 in donations for March of Dimes! And we're just getting started! If you are interested in joining our team or making a donation, please visit our website. And to all our wonderful family and friends already registered - thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Grandma's Birthday

This past Saturday, Charlie and Lily threw Grandma a birthday party. Wasn't that thoughtful of them? They are such gracious hosts. Charlie and Lily invited Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle John and Aunt Rebecca over to celebrate, but thankfully Uncle John and Aunt Bec were kind enough to offer to do all of the cooking - the babies aren't allowed to use the stove just yet, even with their extensive Food Network viewing. John made his awesome homemade ravioli, sauce and meatballs for dinner, and Bec made delicious tiramisu for dessert (check out their cooking blog here!). Charlie and Lily helped Grandma blow out her candles and open her gifts after dinner, but the festivities couldn't last long after that since the babies need their beauty sleep. Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Charlie hanging with his buddy Uncle John and Aunt Bec before dinner.

Entertaining is hard work! Even the best of hosts needs a nap now and then.

Look how big Charlie is getting!

"Mommy, I swear, if you don't put that camera away right now you are going to be very, very sorry."

Counting Down to Spring

We love each and every second that we spend with Charlie and Lily. But that's not to say that our lives haven't begun to seem like the movie Groundhog Day - when you're not really allowed to leave the house, things tend to get a bit monotonous. It's okay though - February is almost over and we can almost smell spring. Soon we'll be out and about with Charlie and Lily, and then there will really be no stopping them! Until we can see all of you in person, here are some more pics :)

Nikki, a former student of Joe's, gave the babies tie-dyed onesies. Charlie is lovin' his!
Lily is not so sure that this look is for her.

Lily was a lucky little lady on Valentine's Day. She told Daddy that she wanted a unicorn (actually, she asked for 3 unicorns) and Daddy delivered! He went to the Build-A-Bear Workshop all on his own and built Lily a beautiful unicorn he named Miracle. He even gave Miracle a bath in a sparkly tub and brushed her mane before bringing her home from Build-A-Bear, just for Lily. He also got her two more tiny unicorns to make 3! Lily loves them all, but she loves her Daddy the most!

Joe also got Miracle a special shirt made.

Charlie got some gifts too, from his Valentine, Mommy. One of his special gifts was to go on a "date" with Mommy to Crackers's house. Charlie loved soaking up all the attention - just Charlie to get all the snuggles from Mommy and Crackers!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Now consider one love in the midst of the crowd - an affectionate love, neither timid nor loud. A love that appreciates fire, and grace. A love that adores one remarkable face. A love that is steady, devoted and true - consider my love for incredible you.

- the great Sandra Boynton

Happy 1st Valentine's Day, Charlie and Lily. We love you!

Eyes on the prize

Lily has learned another new skill! In the last few days she's been not only focusing on objects in front of her but reaching out and grabbing them! For weeks she's been eyeing the crafty red bird hanging from the playmat and this week she finally got her hands on him. She is so cute - she focuses so hard that she goes almost cross-eyed and then looks so proud of herself when she gets the bird in her hand. Tonight she sat in her bouncy seat holding and examining a stuffed flower rattle from her Aunt Jill. A few times she dropped it and kept staring at her hands like, "I know it was just here..."

We've been in the throes of a winter storm for the last few days, which has actually been nice because Joe had two days off from school and got to spend them with us. It was really nice to have time with the four of us together and to give the babies some one-on-one playtime and feedings. We're bummed that he has to go back to school tomorrow, but luckily Monday is a holiday so we'll have a long weekend together!

Lily finally catching her nemesis, the red bird.
Charlie and Lily - happy in coordinating stripes.

A Charlie smile caught on camera! This boy seriously smiles ALL the time, but as soon as we pull out the camera he stops and gets all serious. The other morning I was actually trying to take a picture of Lily in her "A Star is Born" t-shirt (although she didn't cooperate) and Charlie just didn't realize when I started photographing him instead. Look at that face!

Our little supermodel strikes another pose.

It's crazy Charlie! I had Charlie all swaddled for his nap this afternoon on the pack-n-play changing table and dropped something, so I strapped him on while I bent down to get it. Joe and I laughed looking at him, all wrapped up like little Hannibal Lecter.

Plain or Peanut?

More than 2 1/2 years ago, right after Joe and I decided that we wanted to start trying to conceive, we took a little overnight trip to Atlantic City to celebrate my birthday. While there we stopped in an awesome candy store on the boardwalk called It's Sugar, where I came across the most adorable yellow M&M onesie. I'm a pretty superstitious person and ordinarily I never would have made a purchase for a baby we hadn't even conceived yet, but I really just couldn't resist the onesie! So I snatched it up and brought it home, and come the same time the following year we still didn't have a baby to put in it. Five months after that though, we learned we were expecting triplets. But then there was the problem of only having one M&M onesie. My MIL was kind enough to stop back into It's Sugar on a trip to AC and two more onesies - a green and a red. The onesies were size 6 months, so even though Charlie and Lily have been with us since June I had to bide my time before I could finally use them. I knew Charlie was destined to be the yellow peanut M&M, but I had to choose between green and red for Lily. I finally decided on red, since she is the perfect foil to our mellow Charlie - the plain M&M to his peanut. So there you have it - our two little M&Ms! I think they're pretty sweet ;)

Lily and Mommy having some girl time.

Got love? Charlie does!

Happy Lily, rocking her pretty pink hat.

Doctor Day

Busy day yesterday! Charlie and Lily kicked things off with a visit to the pediatrician for their monthly Synagis shot. Our appointment was at 9:00 am, so naturally Charlie and Lily decided that THIS would be the morning they would sleep past 7:00 am. I woke up at 7:20 am shocked that they were still asleep, then panicked because we had to be out of the house in a little over an hour. I got them up and since Joe was home we managed to get everyone up, dressed, fed and out the door on time. The shots were fine and both babies had great weigh-ins. Charlie was 14 lbs 8 oz and Lily was 13 lbs even. For their adjusted age of 4 months, I think these are pretty good weights.

A little later in the day Joe, Charlie and I made the trek to Long Branch to see the GI doctor recommended by blog reader Karen, while Miss Lily spent the afternoon at home with Crackers. The doctor that Karen recommended was unavailable but we had been lucky enough to get an appointment with his new partner, Dr. Rakitt, who we loved. She was so patient and thorough - she spent a solid hour in the exam room with us and even watched Charlie take a bottle. However, we didn't make too much progress. About a week ago the pediatrician upped Charlie's dose of Zantac, and since then he has shown improvement. So Dr. Rakitt suggested that we wait another week and a half and see what happens. If Charlie does not continue to show improvement or if he gets worse again we will go back to see her and she will do a barium swallow study to see if he is having problems with his sucking/swallowing. She just didn't want to subject Charlie to any radiation for the testing if it wasn't necessary, and we agreed. She was confident that Charlie's issues are nothing serious, which made us happy. So now we'll just wait and hope that he keeps improving and we don't backslide to where we were two weeks ago! But as shown by his weight gain, he's eating enough regardless, it's just that we want him to be able to comfortable and calm while eating. After all, food should be enjoyable!

Just one new pic today - my two little clowns. "What?!? I'm not touching her. Really..."

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

That is what Miss Lily has been doing this past week. Rolling, rolling, rolling. She mastered the art of rolling from her back to her belly and now she does it ALL THE TIME. The second we put her on her play mat she rolls right over. When she gets annoyed that she's in the pack n' play? She rolls over. She's quite good at it. The only problem is that she hasn't yet learned how to roll from her belly to her back. So she rolls to her belly, lays there for a few seconds, gets mad that she now is stuck and screams until Joe or I come to flip her back over. Then, two seconds later, we do the whole routine again. I can't wait for her to learn to roll the other way! No rolling from Charlie yet - I swear he watches Lily and thinks, "Well, that doesn't look like much fun. Listen to her scream!" Charlie's newest tricks include blowing "raspberries" and growling like a zombie. He will just look at us, grin and make this hissing/growling sound - "Hhhhhaaaaaa!" It's too funny! He'll also respond with it if I make the noise to him. He cracks us up!

Tomorrow we take the babies to the pediatrician for their next Synagis shots. We're looking forward to getting some updated weights on them! They are both getting so big. Charlie is already close to growing out of his size 6 month clothes and Lily is almost out of 3 months. Then in the afternoon we're taking Charlie to the GI doctor. Hopefully he can help figure out what is going on with Charlie and get it straightened out for good!

On Friday we received a very nice surprise in the mail. A package came from blog reader Melissa and her family. Melissa sent us a beautiful letter, picture of her family (she's the mommy of boy/girl twins) and a donation to our team for the March for Babies walk. She also included gifts for Charlie and Lily - personalized tag blankets. Melissa said her babies love their blankets, and Charlie and Lily have been enjoying theirs as well. The tags are perfect for grabby fingers! Thank you, Melissa! You are too sweet.

The beautiful blankets from Melissa and her family.
Charlie and Lily showing off their gifts. Lily says, "This is pretty, like Lily!"

Yet another picture of Charlie's sweet face.

Lily and Grandpa Fred, deep in conversation.

The Food Network is back on our TV! Charlie, Lily and I celebrated by watching a little Paula Deen together before bed the other night.