Easily Amused

It's so funny how excited I get about the little things these days. Okay, I've always been very easily amused, but life with twins has taken that to an entirely new level. Every day they are saying new words, signing new words, loving new foods and doing tons of new things. New words they are saying this week include Mess, Please, Rice, Nemo (as in Finding Nemo), Red, Orange, the letter "O", Turtle, Bye-Bye and Mine! Not only do they say "mine", but they point to themselves as they say it, so they understand what it means. I've added a few more words to their signing list too. They follow two commands at a time, like "Get your blanket and bring it to Mommy" or "Find your water and put it in the diaper bag". They are also signing two or more words together and signing mini sentences. Like, "More Banana Please" or "Daddy's Car".

The most exciting thing that happened this week was they went down in their cribs for a nap! This has never happened before. (Have you noticed that the most exciting things that happen in our house have to do with sleep?) Since getting rid of the swing, I have been putting them down for their mid-day naps in their infant car seats. Usually in front of a Baby Einstein DVD. Every once in a while I would try to put them in their cribs, but they would cry and cry so I would eventually just go get them and then nap time was all screwed up for the rest of the day. Well, yesterday I had it with the short naps they were taking (which makes for very grumpy toddlers at about 4pm), and I put them in their cribs, turned some soft music on, told them that they were going to lay down and take a nap, gave them kisses, and left the room. Killian cried for a while, I went in to check on them once, and within 10 minutes they were both sound asleep! Oh My Gosh! I thought I was in a Twilight Zone or something. They were actually taking naps in their cribs in the middle of the day! I wanted to call everyone and tell them what an amazing feat this was! I did call Chris and tell him - he didn't think it was as cool as I did. LOL.

The nighttime sleeping is going well, although they've been waking up at about 4:30am the last few days. Needless to say, by 3:00 in the afternoon I'm wiped out. Payton had a bit of a setback with the going to sleep in her crib a few nights ago, but it was short lived, and she's back to laying down and going to sleep at bedtime now.

We haven't dropped that morning bottle yet - I actually haven't even attempted it. I'm not looking forward to how that's going to work. The pediatrician says they should be off the bottle by 18 months, so I still have about 4 weeks before they hit that age.

I took a day off work last week and we all went to the Aquarium of the Pacific . K&P LOVED putting their hands in the touch pools and touching the starfish, sea urchins, rays and sharks! Yes - they touched the sharks. They loved it! :) Besides the touching pools, I think Payton's favorite exhibit was the puffins, and Killian's was watching the SCUBA diver. Jacey and Bryleigh fed the Lorikeets and they had birds landing on them. Killian really wanted to touch one of the birds, but he didn't have sugar water, so they didn't want anything to do with him. I'm pretty bummed I didn't get many pictures of them enjoying it. It's hard to take pictures while trying to keep them from diving into the touching pools at the same time. I bought an annual family pass, so we will be going back a lot this year. I'm sure I'll get some good pictures eventually.

Oh, and thank you so much to my friends Tanya and Jill who took me out to dinner for my 32nd birthday! I had an awesome time! I love you guys!