Can they really be seven months? How is that even possible? The saying "the days are long but the years are short" is mostly true for me. Honestly, though, sometimes the days themselves just fly by. I don't know how many times I've looked up and been surprised by how late it was in the day. When the daily routine resets itself every 2.5 hours there's a lot to be done and hardly any free time to do it. As always these two cutie-patooties keep me on my toes.
This past month has actually seen a fair amount of sickness for both kiddos. In early August they both came down with a cold that did a little settling into their lungs, Jake especially. So they were both on four times a day nebulizer treatments for a week. I'll be an honest Mom and state that Beth got a few treatments but when her cough didn't progress to a nasty sounding one we stopped her treatments with no ill effects. And I could never seem to get more than three treatments in for Jake but since his cough eventually went away those seemed to be enough. Then at the end of August they developed Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease. That. Not fun. Although it did give me a set of 7 month pictures that are to die for. As for good things this month, Jake learned to roll over back to front (and Mom is super happy as he doesn't cry to be repositioned nearly as much), blows raspberries, and fell asleep by himself without being rocked or driven. Granted, he was super sick and tired and passed out on the floor, but I'll take it! Both Beth and Jake are mastering the previously learned skills. So much so that they no longer stay in one spot on the floor. They've mastered rolling in both directions so I never know where they'll be when I come back from leaving the room, which is super awesome right now. I refuse to think about crawling yet. :-) All in all my babies are developing wonderfully,
"Birth" - First night at home around 5 days old.
One Month Old - Wondering who this other person is.
Two Months Old - Looking like their own person now.
Three Months Old - Getting their own personalities.
Four Months Old - Beth poses for her picture while Jake is totally over the camera.
Five Months Old - I got them on the same side as before! Starting to really enjoy baby life.
And the official 6 month photo where they both refuse to smile at the same time no matter what I do. This was the best of the bunch! I do like how it shows the difference in body types between the two. You can see that Beth is just tiny compared to Jake, especially their chest and waist size differences.
They're so excited to be 7 months old. LOL.
A close up of their faces where you can see the painful HFM spots. They also developed a number of blisters inside their mouths. Ouch. :-( Jake's fingers and toes got blisters that looked like water blisters whereas Beth's stayed more flat and red but hers peeled a lot worse than his. I'm just thankful we're on the other side of this nastiness and that none of the rest of us caught it again.
This picture is one I will laugh at for years to come. The anger and unahppiness they are both expressing towards me is just precious. The days leading up to this picture were a special type of hell, though. But Mommy still loves you!
After roughly three years of zero family vacations, our family was ecstatic to plan a vacation to Lincoln City, OR. We invited Nate's parents and Grandpa to join in for part of our trip and then planned for a day or so on our own. It was nice being able to drive to Portland, spend the night, then finish the drive to the beach the next day rather than tackling the 6.5 hour drive in one day. Especially since that drive would have easily doubled to 12 hours as the twins are not enjoying the car trips these days, which means no one enjoys the extra long rides. :-) I think the thing I was most looking forward to about this vacation was the "freedom" (as much as three children can give you) of doing what we wanted when we wanted with no real plans. With twins, a schedule (or at least a routine) is a must. I wake up and hit the ground running and in a particular order. If I vary the routine (which does happen occasionally) I know that I'm going to end up with babies who are fussy from a lack of nap or screaming because they're hungry and we're somewhere where feeding nursing twins isn't a real possibility. So being at the beach I still had to keep in the back of my mind their nap and nursing schedules but it was nice not having to do the errands that normally need to be done in between those times. It was also really nice focusing a bit more on what Abby wanted to do as she's been so good about having the babies needs go before all of ours in so many things right now.
Abby creating a baby train through the kitchen. When she found the sit/stand walker she had a blast being just like Jake and Beth playing with their walkers. The babies had a blast being pushed along.
Our first day was centered about playing on the beach and in the hotel's pool. We had a leisurely drive down to the coast as our check-in time at the hotel wasn't until 4pm. It was nice especially because when Jake got fussy we just stopped and ate lunch and gave the kids time outside their car seats. Due to our numerous Portland trips we have learned that screaming babies equal grumpy parents (while Abby is the best of all of us happily watching her videos or staring out the window).
I was a wee bit excited to be on the beach ON VACATION!!! Abby and I headed off on our own towards the ocean, thinking we'd go splash in the tide as it came in. However, to get to the ocean we had to cross this "river" that was created. I was surprised at how warm the water was considering the ocean is freezing cold. However, I forgot that Abby wasn't as strong walking through the water as I was and about halfway across the river she took a header into the water, clothes and all. i laughed, figured we were on vacation, and let her start swimming in her clothes. Nate, holding the babies in a safer, less wet location, took one look at us and started wondering if I'd gone insane. :-) After a little bit of play in the water, and a change into dry clothes, we built some sand castles and flew a kite before calling a pause on the beach and heading into the hotel for a less windy adventure.
Our first touch of the beach!
We quickly jumped from beach to pool where everyone could enjoy some water fun. These floaties for the babies were wonderful! They kept them above water but allowed for me to not be holding both of them 24x7. Definitely worth the investment!!
We were we rebels as we allowed Abby to do knee dives into the pool when no one else was there. Breakin' the law! I'm amazed at this picture that Nate took as it shows Abby in pretty decent form. :-)
My Abby is just the sweetest big sister to her siblings. Here she is holding Beth and showing her the ocean outside of the window and telling her about all the fun they're going to have when they get down to the beach again.
Our second day at the beach was centered around visiting the Newport Aquarium. I'd been years ago and remembered it being a fun, but small sea animal adventure. Since Abby loved the previous aquariums we'd seen I knew she'd have fun with this one no matter how small it was. Imagine my surprise when the exhibits just kept going! While it wasn't the biggest aquarium I've been in there was more than enough to see to keep a five year old (and a few adults) entertained by the underwater creatures they saw.
Our first stop at the Newport Aquarium was the wind simulator. For a $1.00 we got a minute or so demonstration of 125 mph winds. Abby thought it was a hoot how our hair blew around. I'll admit that I enjoyed myself as well. :-)
Such a sweet picture of Abby and her Great-Grandfather.
This fish was enamored with Abby! As Abby moved along the glass (up and down, left and right) the fish would slowly change direction until it was in front of Abby again. I can only wonder what it must have been thinking from its side of the glass.
Giving the fish a side-eye. :-)
This girl just cracks me up. We're in the shark tunnel and there's cutouts in the floor where you can see the sharks swim below you. Abby wanted to get closer to the action so she lay down on the floor to eye all the sharks swimming under her. As I found myself bending over backward to watch the sharks swimming over me I can't make fun of her for doing this!
Watching the pelican demonstration. I was very impressed with Abby as she raised her hand to answer one of the questions. I was always too shy to do this so it warms my heart that she's so sure of herself that even at 5 years old she's putting herself out there. I really hope this aspect of her personality doesn't change.
My sweet picture poser. She saw this walrus and said it was the perfect spot for a picture of her and her new stuffed Octopus (courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa Carstens) Sally. How she came up with the name Sally I don't know but it was an immediate answer when we asked what her name was.
At the end of our Aquarium trip we all agreed we'd had enough excitement for one day and wanted to just head back to the hotel and swim and then walk along the beach that night. Abby again entertained us with her swimming antics and the babies splashed with delight. Then we headed to the beach where we discovered that whipping winds and blowing sand do NOT make for happy babies. :-) Nate and Abby built a sand castle while I held two screaming kids (trying to nurse to keep them happy), but eventually I threw in the towel and begged to go back to the hotel. We enjoyed a takeout meal in our hotel room and spent the rest of the evening snuggling our three kids and watching cartoons on TV.
Our final day at the beach was just our little family (as Nate's extended family had gone home the day before). We'd hit Nate and Abby's "must do's" (the beach and the aquarium) so today was my day to decide our agenda. As we'd hit Lincoln City and Newport I decided to make it a trifecta with visiting Depoe Bay. My goal this day was to just walk along and view the coast and get some saltwater taffy (a coast staple). I think my favorite part of this day was watching Abby's excitement when she spotted a real life whale, for real life. :-) And seeing how big her eyes got in the candy store when I said she could have as much taffy as she wanted.
Beth trying to be a big girl and sitting in a high chair for breakfast. Abby, Beth, and I came down to breakfast as a girl's morning (Nate was working while Jake napped) and she kept grabbing at the food so I thought we'd give this a try. It lasted almost all of breakfast so I can see that soon it'll be in our dining future!
Whale watching at Depoe Bay. I was surprised to actually see a whale as my previous visits hadn't had the same luck. It was nice just being still and staring out at the ocean. Of course Abby was bouncing around but did do so in a manner that we didn't have to jump in to rescue her from a face first fall down the cliff. :-)
We all agreed that our time at the beach had been a wonderful break from reality, but home was calling and it was time to go back to it. We again shortened our trip by stopping at Nate's parents for an overnight break to see the family before venturing down the road to our own home. Little did I know that one last adventure still awaited us. One of our more frequent stops along the Gorge is in Arlington as they have a nice play area as well as a great swimming area during the summer months. After playing on the playground for a while, Abby asked if she could get in the water and we readily agreed as Jake and Beth needed to nurse and, frankly, I was enjoying the longer bout of stretching my legs. Nate took Abby over to the swimming area while I finished nursing. When I joined Abby he was looking intently into the water near the dock. As I glanced out that way I saw my teeny, tiny, five year old swimming all.the.way.to.the.dock.by.HERSELF!!! Now, I know she can swim as we've done swim lessons since she's been very little, but that's always been in a controlled pool situation. Never out in open water. And for sure not by herself. I could tell that Nate was also nervous as he immediately turned to me and said that she'd started walking out into the water and then just never stopped, eventually going into a full on swim before he could say anything to her. We both kept eagle eyes on her as she made it to the dock, then proceeded to jump off the ladder into the water and climb back up. When she got tired of that she swam her little self back to the beach. Took a break. And then swam back to the dock again! It's no wonder I have grey hairs sprouting up. :-)
This is how far she swam ON HER OWN!
When we got home Nate and I both talked about how wonderful the trip was, how great the kids did, and how much we needed that relaxing week of no schedules, no deadlines, and just a focus of fun for the family. After years of not having a vacation due to various reasons this was a wonderful way to break that streak.
