The girl's first word caught on video

I never officially uploaded this to the girl's webpage, so here it is for your viewing pleasure :-)

Official first word! (besides mom and dad)

Good morning!


Mina is in dads lap.

The girls both said a version of "more" last night at dinner! They already could sign more, but now they have started to say it too! I have video, but I'd like to clean it up first. It's really cute, they both have their own way of saying it. Mina's is kind of long and Evies is very quick. I'll try to clean up the video tonight and post it tomorrow. Any guesses as to what their second word might be?!?

Word count: mom, dad, more
Sign count: all done, shoes, eat, milk, bird
Signs we are working on: walk, bath, dog, sleep, water, hurt, help, dirty, diaper change
Sounds they like to make: lederlederleder, bwwwaaakkkkkk, !ooh!
I think I'll put that list on a page so I can add to it and track some of that stuff :-)

We also had a few other firsts this weekend - dad went to his first major league football game with some of his coworkers. He had a lot of fun, despite the fact that the boys lost.

The girls had their first encounter with the kids club at 24 hour so that Nita and mommom could go to Zumba. They seemed to have fun. They love getting to meet new people and within a minute of them going inside they had already made new friends.

The girls also had their first visit to Starbucks. They recommend the pumpkin bread :-)


Mina says Starbucks is no.1, Evie says "true dat yo!"

Mommom made her first attempt at granola bars. I used this recipe, substituting the peanut butter for Sunbutter, adding flax meal and leaving out the raisins (we forgot to put them in the grocery list). I think they were quite delicious and the girls seemed to agree. I'll definitely be making them again!


Mina left, Evie right enjoying moms granola



Evie and momom

Ugh, I do look as tired as I feel!

Hope you guys have a great Monday!

- Via BlogPress on my iPhone

First Feeding

So this past Saturday was the girl's first encounter with anything other than milk. We managed to document it in the video below:

I know I have a really big gap between posts, I am working on a 'catch up' post and hope to get it up soon :-) I've been letting that keep me from posting the latest and greatest - but I won'g let it stop me anymore.

Over Two months without an update!

So it’s been a long time since we’ve updated our berry blog, but that doesn’t mean that things haven’t been moving along for us.  Really we’ve just been busy trying to settle in to our schedule and getting ready for the girls to start their Montessori school (they start on the 13th).  Some of the highlights:

    *          Aunt Trish came to help out (Auntie Trish is hard to catch on camera)
    *          We started our cloth diaper journey (we’re really loving it so far)
    *          Mom and Dad went to classes for the girl’s baptism

double berry goodness

    *          The girls had their first pediatrician’s appointment.  Mina weighed 6 lbs 2 oz and was 19 3/4 inches long.  Evie was 5 lbs 12 oz and was 19 3/4 inches long.

Froyo visit

    *          We took our first trip out of the house - for froyo

Grandmom Leane double burp pose

    *          Grandmom Leane has been helping us a ton
    *          The girls enter the system – we receive their social security cards

Off a walking we go

    *          We went for our first ride in our jogging stroller

First Play date

    *          The girls got to have their first play date with Miss Clara

Mia and berries

    *          Granddad Richard and Miss Mia came to help out

Evie boppy berry

    *          The girls made an appearance at their first Bluepers softball game

Granddad Richard with berries

    *          Seth & Granddad cut tons of dead leaves off a massive tree in the back yard

Evie the game show host

Mina the Flamenco Dancer

    *          Magnifico reveals what our girl’s are going to grow up to be – Evie a game show host, Mina a flamenco dancer

Aunt Lala and Unkie Monkey with Berries

    *          Grandee, Unkie Monkey, and Aunt Lala came for a weekend to help out

Auntie Trish captures some fun photos

    *          Auntie Trish came for a weekend to help out
    *          Our great friend Larry took pictures of the girls for us

    *          The girls started sleeping together in a crib in their room

Yin/Yang Twin moment

    *          The girls had their second pediatrician’s appointment (with bonus immunization shots).  Mina weighed 7 lbs 8 oz and was 21 ½ inches long.  Evie was 7 lbs 4.5 oz and was 21 ¼ inches long.

Snuggleberries

    *          Mommy had her follow up appointment with her OB and was released for all activities, she still is on meds for her blood pressure
    *          Mommy started swimming again (1-2 times a week)

Grandee, Mom, Berries

    *          Grandee came for a week to help out
    *          The girls attended their first knitwits
    *          The girls got to go up to Mommy’s work to meet all her coworkers
    *          Daddy was put back on the job market

Berries with Grandma Pam and Grandpa Jack

    *          Grandma Pam and Grandpa Jack came to help out for a week
    *          The girls had their first visit to IKEA

double daddy changing system

    *          Mommy and Daddy had a week or two flying solo
    *          The girls started sleeping 4 hours between their feedings at night
    *          The girls outgrew all their newborn clothes!

Mina Smile

Evie Smile

    *          We've seen some real smiles from the girls
    *          Mommy started back at work

Mina Spider booty

    *          Grandmom Leane came back to catch us up before the girls start school
    *          Mina saw the Dr. to have her umbilical cord site recloterized, Mina had her weight checked at the Dr. – she’s over 9 lbs!
    *         Daddy accepted a new position at SoftLayer in Addison (Starts September 13)
    *         The girls have started mimicing us (especcially when daddy sticks out his tongue).
    *         The girls lift up their heads really well (with great neck control) and have started grasping things
    *         We've finally managed to take all our feedings from mom over the weekend - boy is it nice to not to have to worry about bottles 24/7!  This definitely helps us all out!

Three months

    *          The girls had their third pediatrician’s appointment.  Mina weighed 9 lbs 7.5 oz.  Evie was 9 lbs 2.5 oz.  The pediatrician is beyond impressed with their weight gain and says we can feed on demand now and don't have to wake them for feedings any more.

Now that you all are caught up, here’s the plan for the future – I’m going to start a new feature – “TWIN TUESDAY”.  Every Tuesday I am going to do a quick update on what our family has been up to and post at least one photo.  Hopefully this will keep mommy from slacking off on the blog.

11 Days Old Llittle Berries Update

I just thought I would post a little update for everyone since I had a few minutes (such a rare thing these lately).  Things are gong well for all the berries.  We've just been staying busy with our visits to the hospital to see the girls and pumping (they say pumping takes dedication - man what an understatement!)

The girls are gaining weight daily.  They were back up to their birth weights in with in a week from birth.  Right now, Miss Mina's is at 4 lbs 7 oz (started off 4 lbs 2 oz) and Miss Evie's 4 lbs 3 oz (started off 3 lbs 15 oz).  We've been able to start breast feeding and bottle feeding which is one of the major steps for them to be able to come home.  In order to come home the girls have to be able to have 5 full bottles without help in one day and go 5 day without any alarms going off (they're mainly monitoring their heart and respiratory rates).  The alarms they are counting are when they both drop and the girls don't recover self recover.  The majority of multiples don't go home together so they may come home on different days, so that is something we're trying to prepare for.  Really though, both little ladies are doing wonderfully and but are both getting stronger every day.

I've got to say NICU is the hardest things I've ever experienced.  I feel like a visitor in my own daughter's lives right now It really just doesn't seem right.  It's not really something I really anticipated :-(  But then again, I don't know how one would go about preparing for it.

Seth and I know the girls are in the best hands possible.  The people at Presby Plano's NICU have been amazing.  They've helped us so much in preparing for our girls care and understanding how their needs are gong to be a little different than term babies.  I would never wish a NICU stay on any parent, but if this is the place to go if anyone needs it.

Here's some pictures from our morning visit today :-)

Double Roo Daddy

Miss Mina sleeping girl

Mommie and Evie Rooing away

Big news

Our water broke at about 2:45 this morning. We just made it to Labor and Delivery and are getting checked in. Will keep you posted.

24 weeks belly profile pic

So today the girls are supposed to both be the size of a large papaya :-D That's quite a coincidence since I had a papaya smoothie yesterday!
The best thing about week 24 though is that the babies are "legally viable" now. This means that they would have a reasonable chance of survival outside of their womb in an intensive care unit. It'll only get easier for them from here :-D

OB appointment on Monday at 3pm! Stay tuned for the update!

5 months - say hi to Daddy!

Seth got to feel one of the little ones kick for the first time today. He thought he had felt one before, but this time there was no doubt about it. His eyes lit up with pure joy. I love my hubby.

16 Weeks and 3 Days OB visit

Looks like they're both little girls! They were playing footsie with each other too!

Footsie

Baby A's a girl!!!

Baby B's a girl!!!

They're both girls!!!

Baby B profile

Baby B looking at us

Baby A Profile 1

Baby A Profile 2

Birthday surprise

Since today is my birthday I thought I might share some news.

I had originally wanted to wait a little longer to start spreading the news, but my darling husband couldn't contain himself and posted something on facebook (really I can't blame him too much). I am sure has already started to work its way around, so some of you may already know this via social networking...

Seth and I are about to go through a major….. MAJOR life change.

It looks as though we are expecting, not one…. but two additions to our family (and no, they are not new little birdies).

See the photo below if you want to see what I mean. :-D

Not only are we pregnant, we've got twins!