Saturday, December 19, 2009

Ones, Twos, and Threes

My friend Russell put this link in a comment of one of our blog posts. I thought it was too funny to not promote to the front page.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Our Day of Shopping With the Twins: Our Twins Are Serious Chick Magnets

Amy and I took the twins Christmas shopping for several hours today. I noticed a pattern today with every place we went. Our twins are total chick** magnets! My advice for all my single male friends is to get a pair of twins (not ours), dress them up cute (you probably need a woman to help with this part), and take them shopping (pretty much anywhere there are women will do).

When the four of us would walk into a store, Amy would run off to find whatever we were looking for while I would try to not break anything as I maneuvered the kids around in their massive stroller. At every single store, it only took a handful of seconds before I had company. Some strange woman would come right up to me and talk to me and the twins. At two stores today, one of the store's staff called over multiple other people to come check out our babies! And at one of those two places, five members of the staff were talking to me and the twins while Amy noticed an annoyed customer looking for some help.

Some of the ladies would stay and talk to me for ten minutes while Amy was shopping. I heard about their kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, cousins, or just some other children they know. You could tell most of the ladies wanted to pick up our kids so they could hug and kiss them. Thankfully, everyone restrained themselves. (Well, almost everyone...one woman did grab a hold of Caden's feet. :) But I guess that isn't really big of a deal.)

One thing all these women had in common was they all loved the hats Caden and Caroline were wearing. When we go out in public, we normally have the twins wear their special twins hats that Grammy gave us. The hats are pink and blue and say "1 of 2" and "2 of 2." (These hats nicely prevent the problem of someone thinking a child is of the opposite sex even if they are mostly covered up in their stroller.) Today was no exception and our twins were sporting these hats. Here is a picture from a couple weeks ago of the twins in their special twin hats.
I'm wondering how long all this extra attention is going to last. It actually makes shopping take longer. :) Amy has told me about this phenomenon with her trips to Target and HEB. Despite her warning, I was shocked at just how many people (and by people, I almost exclusively mean women) would come talk to us. If I had to take an honest guess at how many people came and talked to us today, I'd say thirty!
** By "chick magnet", I mainly mean "grandma magnet", "mother with kids there magnet", and in one case, "great-grandma magnet."

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

A Couple Quick Videos

For my birthday, I got a cool little camcorder called a Flip Ultra HD. It is really easy to use and lets you quickly take videos. It only takes one second to turn it on and start recording so it perfect for capturing all the cute/funny things kids do. We keep it on the coffee table so we start it up whenever is necessary.

Here are a couple short video montages of the twins over the last couple weeks. Nothing special...just a few things they've done that I like.

Caden

Caroline

Monday, December 7, 2009

"Firsts" for the Twins

After the twins two month checkup, we have had several "firsts" for our kids:
  • Went out to eat at our first restaurant. Mommy is sad that their first restaurant was Denny's. The host tried to give us two kids menus with crayons. Amy told him they didn't need those yet. Our waitress thought this was very funny. The kids were great at Denny's.
  • Went out to eat at Pappasittos. (Mommy wishes this was our first restaurant and might claim that it was.) Grandma went to Pappasittos with us. Again, the kids couldn't have been any better.
  • Caroline slept in her crib in her bedroom for the first time. Until then, both kids have slept every night in their twin pack in play.
  • The first night Caroline slept in her crib, it was the first night she slept through the entire night (from 9:00pm to 5:30am). Sadly, this was by far the best she has ever slept and she has not duplicated the feat yet.
  • Went out in snow for the first time. No one in our family was impressed by this Austin version of a "snow storm."
  • Went to church for the first time. Caroline made it all the way through the service. Caden made it about 45 minutes then needed to go outside for a few minutes to burp and spit up all over daddy. Both kids loved the music.
  • Caroline made her first trip to HEB with mommy. She never opened her eyes on the trip.

We are looking forward to a whole lot more "firsts" with the twins. I'm sure there will be more than we will ever possibly remember.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Two Month Checkup

The twins had their two month checkup today. Everything went very well and the kids seemed very happy to be there. They love looking around and taking it all in.

This checkup is when the twins got several vaccinations including a squirt of stuff into the mouth and a couple shots. That means they can start going out into the public a little more (though it is still flu season.)

Our little Caden was given his two shots first. He took them about as well as you could possibly hope. He cried for a couple seconds but got over it very quickly. (This is actually the first time he has cried when given any sort of shot/prick to take blood.) And even though he cried, I honestly think the crying was more because he was hungry. Caden was more than an hour behind when he should have eaten. Right after getting his shot, Amy gave him a bottle. (Amy did not want to be anywhere near the kids getting their shots. It just makes her too sad.)

After Caden got his shots, our little Caroline was up. We were pretty sure she would not take it as well as Caden and man, oh, man, she did not disappoint. The nurse gave her the first shot and Caroline started crying loudly. The moment she was poked with the second shot, Caroline let out an incredibly high pitched, ear-piercing scream. It is hard to believe such a loud noise could come out of such a little girl. Sounds like that normally come out of emergency broadcast sirens trying to notify an entire city of a tornado. I'm sure the kids in the waiting room were scared to death that they were going to get the same treatment as her. When it was over, the nurse said, "you can sure tell who the little girl is."

Here are their stats from this visit along with the previous couple visits.

Caroline

two month:
weight: 11 lbs 12 ounces and 75th percentile
height: 23 inches and 75th percentile

one month:
weight: 9 lbs 1 ounces and 50th percentile

height: 20.5 inches and 30th percentile

two week:
weight: 7 lbs 10 ounces and 25th percentile
height: 20 inches and 50th percentile

Caden

two month:
weight: 10 lbs 4 ounces and 25th percentile
height: 22 1/4 inches and 25th percentile

one month:
weight: 7 lbs 13 ounces and 5th percentile
height: 20 inches and 5th percentile


two week:
weight: 6 lbs 4 ounces and 5th percentile

height: 19 inches and 6th percentile

You can see how much the twins are growing and how they are gaining ground in the percentile category. Pretty impressive for twins born four weeks early! Their mother is doing an excellent job providing them food!