Life With Twins, Month 1

Our twins are almost a month old already! They are changing and growing so quickly.

 Our pastor says Felicity looks like a tiny teenager. She has this adorable tiny pixie face, and big expressive eyes. She looks attentively at everything around her. She loves to be held and to stare at your face.

The girls love to be near to one another. I never thought I'd co-sleep them, but alas they made that decision for us by being much happier together than apart.

 Getting out and about! The twins' first real outing was a nature walk. :)

 Our first picture with me and all my kids. I thought it would be weird to say I have 3 kids, but it's not. We seem to have transitioned pretty smoothly!

 Ruby doing tummy time. Her hair has some red highlights. Her eyelashes and eyebrows are white-blonde. It will be interesting to see how these girls look in a year or two! :)

They look bigger already! They are both nursing so well. They are strong, determined little girls. :)

 We fit all 3 kids in our Honda Civic!

3 week old photo :) They are finally starting to get on the same schedule and eating, waking, sleeping about the same times. It was great to get a photo of both with their eyes open!

 Both girls have very dark blue eyes. I keep wondering if they'll turn brown but so far the opinions I've gotten are no. Their eyes look a lot like mine and my bother Rick's did as babies, a dark blue gray that stayed dark blue.Felicity's hair is just like mine was as a newborn as well. It sometimes looks to already have a reddish tint to it. We all wonder if it will turn strawberry-blonde just like mine did. Felicity also has white-blonde eyebrows and eyelashes. Their skin tone is very much like my side of the family's, nothing like the very fair with pink undertones that Connor inherited from his daddy. :) The girls look kind of dark next to Connor actually. :) Too funny. I can't believe how different all of my kids look from each other!

Ruby is our mellow child. She's so relaxed, quiet and undemanding. What a sweet little angel she is!

Both girls behave very much as they did inside the womb. Baby A, Felicity, is active and energetic. She's a good girl, happy and curious and strong, doesn't fall asleep quite as easily or quickly as Ruby.

Baby B, Ruby, was always calm in utero. She sleeps far more quickly and easily and is more of a challenge to wake up to get her to eat. She sounds like a little kitten when she cries. She makes the cutest little squeaks and grunts in her sleep. We call her our little kitten. :)

Felicity is my little peanut. Although she has gown to be a bit bigger than Ruby, she'll always be a peanut to me. :)

We are blessed. Neither baby cries much unless she is hungry. That's about all that makes them cry, Felicity especially as she is quite demanding about food. But other than that they do not cry much at all.

Connor loves being a big brother. He always wants to hold them.  He helps by putting dirty diapers in the diaper pail, and giving the babies their pacifiers. He's still learning to be quiet when the babies are asleep. :)

I'm still nursing the girls successfully. We supplement 1-2 ounces of formula at night every one in awhile per the pediatrician's okay. Sometimes by evening I am just depleted and the girls seem insatiable. It was very frustrating for awhile and that little bit of formula to top them off has made all the difference in the world! No guilt...when you have twins, you just do what you've gotta do. 99% breast milk is still good in my book. :) Formula has had no ill effect on their digestion and has kept them happy and helped them sleep 3-4 hour, almost 5 hour stretches at night. At almost a month old, they are right on track at least compared to Connor. Connor slept 4 hour stretches at 4 weeks old. So we are quite happy with how eating and sleeping are going.

I stay home almost all the time due to frequent nursing; that's tough on me. Thankfully between Nick and his parents, Connor gets taken out every day to do something fun and just get out of the house for awhile. That gives me peace and quiet too, something I am so grateful for.

I am starting to get the kiss out for walks at night after dinner. It's light outside until almost 8pm and the weather is perfect much of the time now, not too hot or too cool. It's very nice to get out even for a short walk!

Overall, things are going well. Thanks to all of the help we have from family, and the fact that we have easy babies, this isn't quite as scary or difficult as we once feared. :) It's a lot of work and tiring, but we still feel very blessed and excited about our future. Our family is complete. :)