Monday, July 21. 2008
Week 33
Another week has gone by and we have made more progess on settling into the new house. It's been slower going since I started my new job this past week (which has been going pretty well so far). I've now replaced every bulb in the house that I can with energy saving bulbs. The only ones I haven't yet are the recessed lights in the great room. The reason I didn't yet is because the ones I bought are not dimmable and the lights in that room are all on dimmers. Since we use the dimming feature all the time at night when feeding the girls, I won't replace them until I can find decent dimmable energy bulbs.
Kris has discovered a whole bunch of fun critters that inhabit our neighborhood, and love to frolic on our lawn. Some of the critters – the chipmunks – even live in our lawn. Lately, Kris has been seeing a couple bunnies running around our lawn on a daily basis. She did her best to capture a few photos. She's also affectionately named the fella you see here, Thumper. The chipmunk that's always around is named Chip. Clever Kris... Clever... 
Kathryn is doing really great with her mobility. She's still sooooooooo close to crawling. I think at times she frustrates herself that she's not able to crawl just yet. We can see it in her face, she really wants to do it but she just can't yet. She'll get there pretty darn soon. Karina is doing really well sitting up now too, and can sit on her own for pretty long stretches. Kathryn's biggest improvement this week, though, has been that she can now sit herself up - she now goes from semi-crawling, to laying down, to rolling over, to sitting herself up pretty easily. It's pretty neat to see her progress week to week. She's doing amazingly well. She continues to do her 'yoga moves' too.
Yesterday the girls tried pear for the first time and they LOVED it! Pear seems to be right up there with applesauce, which is apparently in a neck and neck race for favorite food. They also tried oatmeal cereal this week and did alright with that as well. It's no pear or applesauce, though
Friday night, we headed up to Hampton Beach (in New Hampshire for those that don't know) to hang out with Jen and Steve. Jen's family has a great house on the beach up there, and every year Jen has all her college friends up there for a weekend getaway. A few years ago, we made plans to go up for a weekend, just the four of us. Since then we've been going up there every year with Jen and Steve. It's great fun to just relax and get away from home for a weekend. A sort of mini-vacation. This year was, of course, the first weekend we made the trip with all our girls! Grace was there, and Karina and Kathryn came up with us. It's an old house and is not air-conditioned so we were slightly concerned about how the twins would handle the heat, but fortunately, it wasn't that bad Friday night and Saturday morning. The house is right off the water, so there's a great breeze that blows through the house, keeping it pretty cool inside. We only stayed till mid-afternoon on Saturday and then headed back home. The plan was to go to the beach with the girls for the first time, but by the time we all got our act together it started raining a little. We opted to just head home, but Jen, Steve, and Grace did go to the beach after we left for about a half hour, and Grace had herself a good time. Kris is having her annual college girls trip up to the house in a few weekends and she might take the girls up then... so they might still get into the water up there soon enough
Yesterday, we decided to have Grammy and Grampa come over since they will be headed to sunny Florida later this week and will be gone for a few weeks. The girls played with them and had a good time, and eventually got tired and went down for bed. When they finally went to bed, we had a nice dinner.
The weekend has completely flown by with our trip up to Hampton, working on the house, and Grammy/Grampa coming over. I can't believe I'm back to work already!
[Thumper Photos]
[Hampton Photos]
[Week 33 Photos]
Kris has discovered a whole bunch of fun critters that inhabit our neighborhood, and love to frolic on our lawn. Some of the critters – the chipmunks – even live in our lawn. Lately, Kris has been seeing a couple bunnies running around our lawn on a daily basis. She did her best to capture a few photos. She's also affectionately named the fella you see here, Thumper. The chipmunk that's always around is named Chip. Clever Kris... Clever... 
Kathryn is doing really great with her mobility. She's still sooooooooo close to crawling. I think at times she frustrates herself that she's not able to crawl just yet. We can see it in her face, she really wants to do it but she just can't yet. She'll get there pretty darn soon. Karina is doing really well sitting up now too, and can sit on her own for pretty long stretches. Kathryn's biggest improvement this week, though, has been that she can now sit herself up - she now goes from semi-crawling, to laying down, to rolling over, to sitting herself up pretty easily. It's pretty neat to see her progress week to week. She's doing amazingly well. She continues to do her 'yoga moves' too.Yesterday the girls tried pear for the first time and they LOVED it! Pear seems to be right up there with applesauce, which is apparently in a neck and neck race for favorite food. They also tried oatmeal cereal this week and did alright with that as well. It's no pear or applesauce, though
Friday night, we headed up to Hampton Beach (in New Hampshire for those that don't know) to hang out with Jen and Steve. Jen's family has a great house on the beach up there, and every year Jen has all her college friends up there for a weekend getaway. A few years ago, we made plans to go up for a weekend, just the four of us. Since then we've been going up there every year with Jen and Steve. It's great fun to just relax and get away from home for a weekend. A sort of mini-vacation. This year was, of course, the first weekend we made the trip with all our girls! Grace was there, and Karina and Kathryn came up with us. It's an old house and is not air-conditioned so we were slightly concerned about how the twins would handle the heat, but fortunately, it wasn't that bad Friday night and Saturday morning. The house is right off the water, so there's a great breeze that blows through the house, keeping it pretty cool inside. We only stayed till mid-afternoon on Saturday and then headed back home. The plan was to go to the beach with the girls for the first time, but by the time we all got our act together it started raining a little. We opted to just head home, but Jen, Steve, and Grace did go to the beach after we left for about a half hour, and Grace had herself a good time. Kris is having her annual college girls trip up to the house in a few weekends and she might take the girls up then... so they might still get into the water up there soon enough
Yesterday, we decided to have Grammy and Grampa come over since they will be headed to sunny Florida later this week and will be gone for a few weeks. The girls played with them and had a good time, and eventually got tired and went down for bed. When they finally went to bed, we had a nice dinner.
The weekend has completely flown by with our trip up to Hampton, working on the house, and Grammy/Grampa coming over. I can't believe I'm back to work already!
[Thumper Photos]
[Hampton Photos]
[Week 33 Photos]
Sunday, July 13. 2008
Week 32
It's been an incredibly busy couple weeks, and lots has happened! As most of you now know, we moved1 into our new house last weekend. A BIG thank you to Niral, Dave, Randy, Steve, and Grampa for their help! We are still in the process of unpacking and settling in, but for the most part we're doing very well. The girls adjusted easily to the new house, but the cats didn't do do so well. They took a little longer than expected to get used to the new house, especially Grady... but they're doing much better now, a week later.
My brother came down on Saturday (visiting from California) to help with the move, and my parents came down on Monday. All three of them stayed until Wednesday afternoon. While they were here, we got a LOT of things done around the house. My dad and brother were incredibly helpful in putting together the patio furniture and grill, changing various light fixtures in the house, unpacking (as was my mom for this one), etc, while my mom was more than happy to watch the girls. Once Wednesday afternoon rolled around, we were left to ourselves to continue unpacking.
We love our new house, but there are a few things we are still getting used to. For one, there are too many stairs to deal with. Most of our time is spent in what we've been calling the "great room". It's a large family room above the garage. To get to it, though, you have to go up 7 stairs. So whenever we want to go to a bedroom from the great room, we have to go down the stairs, then up a full flight of stairs. On top of that, the washer and dryer are in the finished basement, which adds to the number of stairs to go up and down. Traversing all these stairs all the time gets to be a pain. Ah well, we'll get used to it... and maybe lose a pound or two? We're also developing our green thumbs as we have a lot of beautiful plants and flowers that surround our house. My mom brought us five plants, and she showed me how to plant them and gave me tips on taking care of what we have (she's definitely got a green thumb!). I picked up a lot of tips from her, and hopefully I can keep the lawn and garden looking good.
Ok, enough with the house... on to the girls! The week before last they tried sweet peas for the first time. They weren't fans... especially Karina, she was NOT fond of the peas. She literally started gagging, eyes watering. Last week they tried applesause and they both seem to love it! So at this point they will eat the stage 1 sweet potatos, bananas and applesauce. It seems like they need to be in the right mood for it though, because Kris says sometimes one or both girls will push the food out with her tongue instead of eating it, while other times they eat really well.
Both girls are able to sit up on their own now, although Karina only lasts about 10 seconds until she leans over one way to reach for something and she topples over. Kathryn seems to do much better and can sit for minutes, playing with toys, reaching for them, etc. Kathryn is this close to crawling, which is pretty cool. She is constantly getting on all fours and trying hard to crawl. She's mastered every part of crawling, except for the part where you move your hands to get that forward motion. Instead what she generally does, is scooch her legs up and then lunges forward... usually face planting into the floor. She doesn't mind it though. She's constantly rolling around and moving via this half-baked crawling method, so much that her knees are always red. She's giving herself rug burns from moving around so much!! We are at the point where we need to seriously consider getting our baby gates installed (and purchased, for that matter). She is going to be correctly crawling in a week or two, I'd say. Until then, though, here's a video of our li'l Kathryn trying oh so hard to crawl...
Kathryn tries to crawl 2
Something else Kathryn started doing a week or two ago is grabbing her bottle when we're trying to feed her and just play with it. She'll take it with both hands, sometimes just one hand, look at it, make noises, and then she'll actually put the bottle in her mouth and drink from it! It's pretty cool... and cute... Here's a short video of her doing this...
Kathryn feeds herself
When the girls are playing with each other, if Kathryn gets too close to Karina's head, she will just grab her hair with both hands and just PULL! Kathryn just LOVES pulling hair. She actually did it to Karina earlier today and poor Karina started bawling. I'll put her up on my shoulders, and all she does is grab at my hair and keep pulling. I don't mind it as much, but when she grabs a fist-full of Karina's hair, it's not pretty. Karina, for obvious reasons, does NOT like it. Kathryn also pulled Grace's hair when Jen and Grace came by on Friday. We're going to have to keep a close eye on her. Karina pulls other people's hair (like Mommy and Daddy's) but not Kathryn's for some reason.
As you may know, I was off of work this whole week to work on the house and settling in. It's been an incredibly productive week, and it was nice being home all day every day, but it's back to work tomorrow. What a lot of you may not know is that I'm actually starting a new job tomorrow. I'm pretty excited about this new endeavor, and hopefully it's a rewarding experience in which I can learn a lot.
[Week 32 photos]
[Biren mowing the lawn photos]
[Jen & Grace visiting photos]
1 There are a few new photos in the Big Move gallery I posted last week, courtesy of Randy. Thanks Randy, for the photos!
My brother came down on Saturday (visiting from California) to help with the move, and my parents came down on Monday. All three of them stayed until Wednesday afternoon. While they were here, we got a LOT of things done around the house. My dad and brother were incredibly helpful in putting together the patio furniture and grill, changing various light fixtures in the house, unpacking (as was my mom for this one), etc, while my mom was more than happy to watch the girls. Once Wednesday afternoon rolled around, we were left to ourselves to continue unpacking.
We love our new house, but there are a few things we are still getting used to. For one, there are too many stairs to deal with. Most of our time is spent in what we've been calling the "great room". It's a large family room above the garage. To get to it, though, you have to go up 7 stairs. So whenever we want to go to a bedroom from the great room, we have to go down the stairs, then up a full flight of stairs. On top of that, the washer and dryer are in the finished basement, which adds to the number of stairs to go up and down. Traversing all these stairs all the time gets to be a pain. Ah well, we'll get used to it... and maybe lose a pound or two? We're also developing our green thumbs as we have a lot of beautiful plants and flowers that surround our house. My mom brought us five plants, and she showed me how to plant them and gave me tips on taking care of what we have (she's definitely got a green thumb!). I picked up a lot of tips from her, and hopefully I can keep the lawn and garden looking good.
Ok, enough with the house... on to the girls! The week before last they tried sweet peas for the first time. They weren't fans... especially Karina, she was NOT fond of the peas. She literally started gagging, eyes watering. Last week they tried applesause and they both seem to love it! So at this point they will eat the stage 1 sweet potatos, bananas and applesauce. It seems like they need to be in the right mood for it though, because Kris says sometimes one or both girls will push the food out with her tongue instead of eating it, while other times they eat really well.
Both girls are able to sit up on their own now, although Karina only lasts about 10 seconds until she leans over one way to reach for something and she topples over. Kathryn seems to do much better and can sit for minutes, playing with toys, reaching for them, etc. Kathryn is this close to crawling, which is pretty cool. She is constantly getting on all fours and trying hard to crawl. She's mastered every part of crawling, except for the part where you move your hands to get that forward motion. Instead what she generally does, is scooch her legs up and then lunges forward... usually face planting into the floor. She doesn't mind it though. She's constantly rolling around and moving via this half-baked crawling method, so much that her knees are always red. She's giving herself rug burns from moving around so much!! We are at the point where we need to seriously consider getting our baby gates installed (and purchased, for that matter). She is going to be correctly crawling in a week or two, I'd say. Until then, though, here's a video of our li'l Kathryn trying oh so hard to crawl...
Kathryn tries to crawl 2
Something else Kathryn started doing a week or two ago is grabbing her bottle when we're trying to feed her and just play with it. She'll take it with both hands, sometimes just one hand, look at it, make noises, and then she'll actually put the bottle in her mouth and drink from it! It's pretty cool... and cute...
Here's a short video of her doing this...Kathryn feeds herself
When the girls are playing with each other, if Kathryn gets too close to Karina's head, she will just grab her hair with both hands and just PULL! Kathryn just LOVES pulling hair. She actually did it to Karina earlier today and poor Karina started bawling. I'll put her up on my shoulders, and all she does is grab at my hair and keep pulling. I don't mind it as much, but when she grabs a fist-full of Karina's hair, it's not pretty. Karina, for obvious reasons, does NOT like it. Kathryn also pulled Grace's hair when Jen and Grace came by on Friday. We're going to have to keep a close eye on her. Karina pulls other people's hair (like Mommy and Daddy's) but not Kathryn's for some reason.
As you may know, I was off of work this whole week to work on the house and settling in. It's been an incredibly productive week, and it was nice being home all day every day, but it's back to work tomorrow. What a lot of you may not know is that I'm actually starting a new job tomorrow. I'm pretty excited about this new endeavor, and hopefully it's a rewarding experience in which I can learn a lot.
[Week 32 photos]
[Biren mowing the lawn photos]
[Jen & Grace visiting photos]
1 There are a few new photos in the Big Move gallery I posted last week, courtesy of Randy. Thanks Randy, for the photos!
Tuesday, July 8. 2008
Week 31
Sorry for the late post folks. Unfortunately I haven't had time to type up this past week's happenings as we've been incredibly busy with the move and settling into our new house. To hold you over until next weekend, here are this past week's photos of the girls and photos of the move.
Monday, June 30. 2008
Week 30
Sorry for the late post this week, but Kris and I spent a lot of time working on the house over the weekend. I primed the nursery on Saturday and then we both put down the first coat of paint yesterday. We also spent a lot of time unpacking the kitchen boxes we've brought over. Kris spent some time cleaning as well. Things are coming along with the house, we've moved a lot of stuff over there, but we still feel like there's a lot left to do. We only have this week left before we move in on Sunday.
This past week, the girls "graduated" to a new diaper size! They're up to Pampers size 2 now. Another sure sign they're getting bigger and bigger! Another sure sign is their actual weights. The girls had another well-baby checkup this past Monday and Kathryn weighed a smidge under 15 lbs while Karina was about 14.5 lbs. The girls also got a shot at that visit, but because it was only one they did much better. I mean, they cried, but neither of them had a fever that night or the next day like they have in the past. This is proof enough for us that we should be spacing their vaccinations apart more so than pediatricians generally recommend them to be. They were slated to get a total of 3 shots this past visit, but we asked if we could space them apart since the girls (Kathryn more specifically) don't do so well with all those shots at once. So the girls will go back next month for the other vaccinations.
On Monday, Kris introduced the girls to sweet potato baby food! I think they liked it a lot better than the rice cereal. They're still getting rice cereal almost every day, but now they get to have something a little tastier. Friday, Kris tried out banana baby food, and they seemed to like that as well! So far, they're not showing any signs of being allergic to any of this, so that's really good. We'll keep introducing new foods to them every few days. Spacing it out like that allows us to narrow down any potential allerges if they start showing symptoms. Here's a video of Kathryn enjoying her bananas... more specifically, she's just smacking her lips a lot... I guess one might say those were some "lip smacking bananas"! Kathryn smacking her lips
Last week, I mentioned Kathryn's teeth were coming in, but I failed to provide video of them like I did for Karina. So, to make up for that, here's a quick video of Kathryn's teeth!
Kathryn's first two teeth
Kathryn has been a jumping lunatic in her Jumperoo lately. She will literally jump non-stop in the Jumperoo for over an hour straight squealing with delight! She just can't get enough of jumping and bouncing... but jumping up and down like that for an hour will surely tire you out... So from time to time, she'll take a break and suck her thumb for a bit, but then it's right back to the jumping! Check out this video as Kathryn tuckers herself out from relentless jumping. This video was shot over the span of about 20-30 minutes, but I've edited it down to about a minute... and keep in mind that before I started taping, she had already been jumping for about 45 minutes!!
Kathryn in the Jumperoo
[Week 30 Photos]
[House photos]
Sunday, June 22. 2008
Week 29
Things have been pretty crazy and busy around here lately as we begin moving things to the new house. Kris has been going over to clean and I've been going over to spackle holes and move boxes. We have been really lucky to have Kris' parents helping us too. Grammy has been helping with cleaning and organizing, and Grampa has done some spackling and A LOT of landscaping and lawncare for us. He knew that we would be focusing on the move and wanted to make sure that the outside looked nice - and it really does! The challenge for me will be to keep it looking as good as it does now! Thank you again Grammy and Grampa! Today, I mowed the lawn for the first time in my life! I think I did a pretty good job, and it only took me about an hour. I will say that I'm very thankful that I listened to the advice given to me by many different people... that advice being, whatever you do, get yourself a self-powered mower! With all the slopes I have to deal with, I'm glad I did. One important lesson I learned – the hard way – while mowing is that you shouldn't mow with your mouth open, because you'll end up swallowing mosquitos or other airbourne insects. It's quite disgusting. In baby news, Kathryn is just a rolling lunatic. She'll just roll all over the place like a log. She is able to rollover from back to tummy and vice versa with such ease now. Karina, on the other hand only seems to roll over from back to tummy. She will lay there on her tummy for long periods of time, just looking around or playing. She has on occassion rolled over to her back, but it's quite infrequent. We have to watch Kathryn now, though, because she's quick - the next thing we know she's on the other side of the living room!
Both girls babble a lot now too, but Karina has more "formed" babbling, if that makes sense. Her babble sounds more like words than Kathryn's. Both girls like to squeal a lot too, it's very funny to listen to them. They also like to play with each other now, and definitely notice each other. Karina will stare at Kathryn pretty often as she's playing and if she sees Kathryn having fun, she'll get the biggest smile on her face. We've also seen them touching each other's hair, ears, face. It's pretty cute how much they seem to love each other. We have breathable bumpers on the cribs so they can't see each other in the mornings when they wake up in th enursery, but Kris will go in and pick up one of the girls and bring her over to the other crib, and both of them immediately light up with BIG smiles! I do have a video for you this week. It's one of Karina babbling. Kris was getting ready to give the girls their baby cereal a few days ago when Karina started making all sorts of funny noises, so Kris picked up the camcorder. As you'll hear it's babble that sounds like the word "dada". She kinda just repeats "dah dah dah dah" a LOT. At one point in the video, I swear she says daddy! Take a watch and see if you agree...Karina says "dada" and plays with her feet
Yesterday, we went up to Maine for my friend Brian's wedding. It was a beautiful location on a beautiful day. They had the wedding (ceremony and reception) outdoors at Grey Stone Manor in Cape Neddick, Maine. The views and house were just amazing. Grammy and Grampa watched the girls while we enjoyed ourselves at the wedding and they said that the they girls were really great the whole time! Kris and I have been dragging all day today because we're just not used to late nights out anymore. [Week 29 Photos]
