Easter 2011

The best picture we got of all 3 boys Easter Sunday.

The Easter Bunny came to our house!

Jacob seemed excited about getting a VeggieTales movie in his Easter basket.

This year Jacob participated in his first Easter egg hunt, and then 2 more!

The first Easter egg hunt was with friends and Jacob had not a clue what he was doing. After A LOT of coaxing he finally picked up an egg, but when it opened up and he found candy inside that was all he cared about. I got him to pick up 1 more egg but he was done at that point. Then we realized that we needed to teach him how to "hunt" for eggs. It took a few practices, but we finally got him to pick up eggs and put them in a basket we carried around for him.

The second egg hunt was a community hunt at a local church. Jacob actually did pretty well and got 6 or 7 eggs. His third egg hunt was with Justin's cousin's kids on Easter. I think he was done with egg hunts at this point. He kept wanting to play with leaves instead.

Leaves in the basket, egg outside on the grass

We're glad we were able to spend Easter with family (especially since that means more people to hold babies).

Blessing Day

On April 10th, Justin gave each of the babies a name and blessing at church. If you aren't LDS, you can read about what that is here. Here are some pictures that we took that day.

Jeremy in his blessing outfit

Joel in his blessing outfit

Two months old

The twins hit 2 months on Saturday!

Joel at 2 months:

Jeremy at 2 months:

In my last post I wrote about what good babies we had. We have learned that they were just tricking us into thinking that twins were easier than people had led us to believe. To say the last month has been hard would be an understatement. More on that in a minute.

Yesterday the twins were all measured:
Joel weighed in at 10 pounds 9 oz (26th %-tile), measured to be 22 in long (15th %-tile) and had a head circumference of 37 cm (5th %-tile).
Jeremy weighed in at 10 pounds even (15th %-tile), measured to be 21.5 in long (6th %-tile) and had a head circumference of 37.5 cm (10th %-tile).

The big milestone for the last month is that both the babies have started smiling. We really thought that Joel would be the first because he was the first to start following objects with his eyes and was the most alert. But Jeremy beat him to the punch. Jeremy gave me a great smile on April 14th. Joel gave me a smile on April 19th. However, I do have to say on Joel's behalf, I think he has thought he was smiling long before that. He has long been giving us the funniest faces with his eyes wide and his mouth forming on "O". I think he thought he was smiling all that time.

So, what changed in the last month to make us realize just how hard it is to have twins? They got super fussy. And sometimes it wasn't just fussy, it was all out screaming. According to the doctor yesterday, they aren't colicky because a colicky baby is happy in the morning and sometime in the afternoon/evening they start screaming uncontrollably until sometime that night when they pass out from exhaustion. This is not what our babies do, therefore they are not colicky.

It is hard to find a time when our babies are happy. They spend a lot of time fussing. And at no set time the fussiness would turn into screaming. We typically have screaming at some point in the morning and in the evening, but it is not something you could set your clock to. When they are unhappy, they really want to be held close, but it is hard to find the right position for them. And it is impossible to hold both and calm both at the same time. Sure, you can hold them both - but you won't calm either of them down that way.

Some of their other behaviors are pointing to reflux, although they are exhibiting different symptoms. We put them both on Zantac yesterday and are hoping to see some improvement over the next few days. Fingers crossed, because I have to tell you - our house is not very fun these days.

Fertility Clinic picnic

Every year the fertility clinic we have gone to throws an annual "baby shower" for all the people they have helped have kids. It is their way to see all the families that they have helped to create. This isn't just for the ones who have had babies over the last year, it is for anyone who has ever had a baby through their services. We went when Jacob was a baby and thought how great it would be when Jacob was a bit older.

Besides the fact that it was his nap time, I think he had a great time!

Petting all the animals (although he really just wanted to play with the feed):

In the bounce house:

Swinging like a big boy (I snapped this picture probably 1 minute before he fell off the swing on onto his face - poor kid):

Riding the train:

Thanks to my mom for going with us so that someone could be following Jacob around and we still had 1 adult for each baby!

One month old

So, I know that the babies will actually be 2 months old in 9 days, but I am finally getting around to posting about them being 1 month old. I hope I can keep everything straight and only tell about things up until they were 1 month old.

Joel

Jeremy

Stats:
Joel weighed 8 lbs 3 oz (20th %-tile!!!!), was 20 in long (5th%-tile) and head circumference of 34.5 cm (under 5th %-tile).
Jeremy weighed 7 lbs 11 oz (10th %-tile), was 19.5 in long (under 5th %-tile) head circumference of 35 cm (5th %-tile).
These all are pretty good to us since Jacob didn't make it onto the growth charts at all until he was 2 months old. And both babies outgrew preemie clothes soon after they hit 2 weeks old.

These babies are such good babies. Joel gets some good awake time in every day or so, Jeremy not so much. That boy just likes to sleep.

They got their first baths (and a few more) and it seems like Joel seriously dislikes bath time. Jeremy is a lot like Jacob was - seems to enjoy being in the warm water but take him out and be prepared for the screams.

Joel's first bath

Jeremy's first bath

They are pretty good about eating on schedule (every 3 hours during the day) and we have started letting them just sleep at night until they wake us up. They have gone for a few longer stretches at night before waking up, but the bad news with letting them just sleep is that it means that we don't have a set schedule from day to day. One day they may be up eating at 6am (which determines the eating times for the rest of the day) and other days it may be 7:30. So it is really up in the air still.

Other than that there isn't much more to say about these little guys (I'd hate to give away what's been going on over the last 3 weeks).
Jeremy on the left, Joel on the right