Saying bye-bye...and hello

I've uploaded a couple of videos of the girls waving: youtube.com/ajandmegan . They are becoming more mobile every day, and continue to make me smile all day.

In addition to waving bye-bye, Jenna and Lydia are saying hello to bottles. At our nine month appointment, Jenna was 14 lb 6 oz and Lydia was 14 lb 4 oz, which is quite small for their age. We discovered that they weren't getting enough milk from nursing even though they acted very content. We tried supplementing with formula, but Lydia especially really didn't like the bottle. She screamed, pushed it away, and refused to drink each time I tried. So...to eliminate confusion, we are weaning them. We switched cold turkey (from four nursing periods per day to none) so that they could learn to use a bottle without wondering if another option might be available later. AJ was great and came home at random times in order to feed them bottles yesterday (it's much less confusing coming from Daddy than Mommy). Lydia resisted for two feedings then drank 12 ounces before bed last night! Then, this morning they both drank plenty of formula while I fed them bottles! Victory! Weaning so quickly has been a little painful for me, but not as bad as expected which verifies that I didn't have all that much milk anyway.

In other news, AJ runs the White Rock Marathon this weekend and is attempting to run it under 3:10 in order to qualify for the Boston Marathon. He has been quite disciplined about his training, and I think he's going to meet his goal! The girls are ready to cheer for Daddy in their running clothes.

We made it!

We made it through our first fight with the stomach bug. Our poor girls felt sick for an entire week, and one night was especially eventful because all three girls in the house were throwing up all night. Good thing I have such a great husband who took good care of all of us. Jenna just wanted to snuggle with her Daddy, and Lydia was my little cuddle bug for several days. We're glad they feel better, but we loved our time with our snugglers.



Despite our sickness, we made it to Arkansas for a fun Thanksgiving with AJ's family. Unfortunately, we got four people sick after being around our girls--sorry guys!

We had a great time playing with cousins, working in the kitchen with Grandma, playing games, and watching football!















It seems that the girls traded personalities during their sickness. This was Lydia's constant frown for over a week, which was very unusual because she's usually the smiley one. Jenna is enjoying her days in the spotlight while she waits for her sister to get her smiles back. Another highlight of our time in Arkansas was our trip to the Christmas tree farm. Here's one more sweet cousin picture of the kids in the wagon we used to haul the tree to the truck. We love you and miss you already!

Nine months...and we're crawling

Jenna and Lydia are now nine months old, and they both crawled (well more like inched like a snake) for the first time on Sunday. We could tell they were beginning to want to move, so we got out the camera before we really encouraged them to try. Jenna tried first and did a great job. Lydia remembered that she and her sister are identical and decided that Sunday would be a good day for her to crawl as well. She also got her second tooth on Monday. This is Jenna's toothy grin that I caught on Sunday.

We're looking forward to Thanksgiving Break! We are going to Arkansas and will see lots of friends and also have several days at AJ's parents' house. It will be fun to watch the cousins play together.

October Highlights

We've had a good month with both of our families coming to visit, time with friends and MCA students, and enjoying our girls.




My parents came the weekend we returned from our New England trip and helped me get re-organized while AJ was at a state cross country meet. We discovered that the girls have enough hair to put into a small bow, and Grandma made them halos to wear with their angel gowns. It was a fun and productive weekend with them.


Jenna (L) / Lydia (R)


Jenna (L) / Lydia (R)


Ben (AJ's brother), Maggie (Ben's girlfriend), and Sarah (our friend from Camp Travis) hanging out with Jenna. They came out with AJ's parents for a weekend. We played lots of Speed Scrabble, some cards, and enjoyed meals together and plenty of talk time.


Playing cards--one of my highlights of the weekend.


Grandma with Jenna (L) and Lydia (R) wearing their cute outfits from Aunt Alissa.


Four of us squeezed on to one couch to look at pictures. Lydia was sitting on my lap, and just kept touching Grandpa's arm to tell him how much she loves him.

The girls are still not interested in crawling or pulling up, but Jenna is beginning to roll all over the room when I set her down. Jenna has been full of tricks this week: pulling her sister's hair, biting Lydia's fingers, and just rolling around until she finds something to get into. Here's a video of them trying out their new favorite toy.

New England Trip

Last week we took a fabulous trip to New England. We wanted to go in the fall to see the beautiful colors, and it was a great trip.

We flew into Boston then drove to Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. We especially loved our drive through the Green Mountains in Vermont and Acadia National Park in Maine. The girls did great on our trip, and AJ was such a hard worker as he hauled all of our things in and out of hotels each night and sweetly helped with all of the baby tasks. The way he serves us reminds me of the things that first made me fall for him! The girls got to eat their fruits and veggies in several unusual places like looking out on the Atlantic ocean, at a cider mill, and in an airport. They also ate their first ice cream during our tour of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory.

It was so fun to have a week of family time seeing such a neat part of the country. We're thankful for the opportunity to travel so much!



The girls' first flight. On each flight we sat
by very sweet and understanding people.


Vermont


Vermont


New Hampshire


Jenna and AJ at a waterfall in NH


Our breakfast spot on Tuesday morning:
Thunder Hole at Acadia National Park


Jenna (L) Lydia (R)




A lighthouse along the Maine coast

Teeth!

Jenna's first tooth appeared last week, and Lydia's came in yesterday. Both are on the bottom, but Jenna's is on the left and Lydia's is on the right. They've been a little fussy but not bad at all.

They're both really good at eating from a spoon now, especially when it's a favorite food like bananas, sweet potatoes, or applesauce. That food is making them grow! They feel heavy when I pick them up, and we've finally outgrown most 0-3 month sized clothes.

Recently after changing them into their pajamas, we left them alone for a few minutes. Here's what we found when we returned! They had pulled the blanket on top of their heads and Jenna was peeking out!

Here's a couple recent pictures of our sweet girls who are almost eight months old.

Lydia is on the left, and Jenna's on the right.

A runner and a jumper

Jenna is in the front, and she's very fast when it comes to running in place. I think she wants to pace Daddy in his marathon that he's running in December. Lydia prefers to jump. Maybe she'll ask her Grandpa Blackburn to coach her in the high jump someday.

You found us!

Thanks for making the switch with us to our new blog. I was encouraged to make a change in order to be safe about what is available online about my family. My desire is that any family and friends that want to keep up with us can find us, so please e-mail me at meganperea@gmail.com if you know of anyone that wants to be included. Thanks! A fun video is coming soon!