A Road Well Traveled: 6 months

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Easter..... 6 months....

We had a pretty low key Easter. Since all of our family is out of state, we decided to have a few friends over for dinner. We cooked the usual ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, etc.

The day before, we went to the mall and saw signs for pictures with the Easter Bunny and just couldn't resist! I guess I'm glad that I dressed them in something cute!

Evy (left) Easter Bunny (center) and Charlotte (right)

The Easter Bunny sent us a nice basket full of awesome stuff!!!

Basket from the Easter Bunny

The girls look so cute in their hats!!

The girls had their 6 month checkup on Friday, April 13th! They are getting so big.... I just can't believe it.

Evy:

Height: 26 1/4 inches 70th percentile
Weight: 18lbs 10oz 91st percentile
Head: 45.8 cm <97th percentile

Her head continues to grow bigger and bigger! The doc said that she is just "making her own growth curve" and that we shouldn't be worried about it as long as her growth actually makes a curve and doesn't just go up and up.

Charlotte:

Height: 26 inches 55th percentile
Weight: 16lbs 15oz 74th percentile
Head: 43.4cm 91st percentile

I was so curious to see how the measured up compared to one another... it is becoming increasingly more obvious that Charlotte was quite a bit smaller than Evy.

6 months!! Evy & Char

My two wiggly worms

They were really more interested in trying to eat the bear instead of getting their picture taken! Poor Mr. Bear!

These days the girls are wearing 6-9 month clothing and eating between 6-8oz at each feeding. I don't anticipate they will be wearing that size much longer because many of their onesies are getting tight already!! They are eating solids once per day but I am supposed to increase that pretty soon as well. So far the favorite food is avocados! Today, I made them a yummy combo of avocado, banana, and oatmeal. They loved it! I guess they are supposed to eat some type of cereal at each meal since it is iron fortified, but that's boring so I pureed their combo with 4oz of formula as well to bump up the iron content.

They are both rolling all over the place these days. Charlotte can even get up on all fours with her butt in the air, but she hasn't started crawling yet. She is totally the more mobile child and I predict she will crawl and walk first. Evy gets around okay too, but she is more content just hanging out and rolling around. Evy was first to really be vocal and Charlotte has now caught up to her. Charlotte likes to "blow raspberries" AKA make spitty noises a lot and Evy likes to scream to get your attention. Its not an "I'm mad" scream.... its more of a "Pay attention to me!" type of scream. All of their noises are pretty cute nonetheless. They are very close to being able to sit up on their own. They can sit for a moment or two but that's about it. Charlotte tries to sit up on her own kind of starting on her side... its pretty cute.

They are still sleeping from 6-7pm to 6-7am. They don't usually wake up in the middle of the night but the last couple of weeks have been different. Evy has a cough and a runny nose and has been waking up in the middle of the night. Its not just a little fuss either.... its a PICK ME UP NOW cry
that means serious business. I have just been picking her up, sucking out her nose, and holding her for a bit before I put her back down and she falls asleep. We had friends over the other night and neither of them would go to sleep until the house was empty. They are used to some noise, but I guess it was just too much for them to handle. As soon as everybody left, they fell right asleep.

They have both started to have a little bit of "stranger danger." When people look at them they like to get right in their faces and talk to them..... well they don't like that I guess! They have started screaming bloody murder when our friends that they don't know get too close. Its not terrible yet and I can only imagine that it will get worse. As long as they will let the nanny take care of them without any trouble, we are good.

So, in the last few weeks they have started eating a lot of different foods as I mentioned before. Well, bananas are easy because I don't have to cook them... I can just throw them in the baby food pureer thingey and off we go. FYI, too many bananas will make baby constipated and very cranky. The other day pureed up a whole banana intending on feeding it to both girls. Char was sleeping so I just fed Evy.... and she ate the whole banana! I am supposed to give them the same food for 3-5 days to see if they have a reaction so I fed her bananas for 3ish days. Well, she cried and cried and cried until we figured out that she was constipated and miserable. I quit feeding her the bananas, gave her some prune puree and got things moving again. (But not before she had super hard poo poo and a terrible diaper rash.) We called the pediatrician since the butt rash got super bad and they gave us a miracle solution for clearing it up!

Aquaphor
Malox or Mylanta (not mint flavor)
Lotrimin AF (not the ultra)
Polysporin (only for open sores)

We couldn't find the Mylantaaquaphor to the other stuff) and it worked like a charm! I highly recommend this mixture if you have some serious diaper problems.

I wasn't really sure when AF would show up again so I made an appointment with the REs office to get things started again. I was supposed to go in on Friday for BW and an U/S to see where my body was in the cycle to see if I could get provera to start things but AF started by itself on Tuesday! I was a little surprised because I hadn't had a period since January of 2011! But, it did save me a few bucks from having to go get tests done. I started BCPs and am currently taking the BCPs, Metformin, PNVs, Synthroid, and Folgard. Geez, seems like a lot of meds to be taking while in the holding pattern if you will. The plan is still to go for a transfer sometime in early July. If it works, great! If it doesn't.... I have to tell myself that I won't be upset because I know it will take us a while again to have money for another cycle. We have 7 frozen embryos (some from day 5 and some from day 6.) The RE seems optimistic so I guess I should be too. Its just hard to have faith in the frozen transfers because those have turned into so much heartbreak in the past. We had positive HPTs both frozen transfers.... and 2 m/cs. Ok! Enough about that. Here's some pictures from the past month or so!

Grandma and Evy

Grandma and Charlotte

Evy

Charlotte

Grandma and Evy

Charlotte

Sleepy girls... Charlotte and Evelyn

Char & Evy

Evy

Charlotte

This is how they typically like to sleep... Evy with her thumb and her blankey and Charlotte on her tummy

Sometimes they fall asleep in the funniest positions!

Charlotte was way more into playing with her oatmeal than eating it

I wanna play with mine too! Evy

Let's play!! Char and Evy

I'm going to get you kitty!! Charlotte

"Cute girl seeking adorable little boy. Must have hair and like strained veggies. No mama's boys please!" Charlotte

Just playing with toys and watching the doggie! Evy and Charlotte

Evy

Charlotte

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Spring Break!

Last week was Spring Break for my school district and I must say that the week was AMAZING! The first part of the week I pretty much just hung out and didn't do much of anything. It felt great to just stay home and hang out with the girls. Tuesday I went out for a bit and got a pedicure with my friend from work. My toes were in desperate need of some TLC! I guess they have been neglected since the kiddos were born.

Wednesday I picked up my mom and sister from the airport. They came and stayed for six days! Yes, that seems like a lot of time but it really went by quickly. We pretty much just hung out for most of the day on Wednesday.

On Thursday we all went hiking at Red Rocks. My sister and I took the girls in front carriers and my mom walked with the dog. It took us until about noon to get ready to go, but it was worth it. The trail we took was 1.4 miles and felt like just the right distance. That day was very HOT outside too! We had record temperatures last week..... temps in the 80s! Can you believe it? Colorado in March! (Today was back to reality though... it snowed a few inches!)

Emily with Charlotte, my Mom, Me and Evy

Friday we went to this Flea Market type place with a Farmer's Market. It was pretty fun, but a lot of the booths weren't open since it was Friday. I had a huge craving for the kettle corn that they usually have but that booth wasn't open and I pretty much had a fit like a little kid LOL. They also sell these drinks there that are FABULOUS! They are called Micheladas... I had never heard of them before but its basically a Bloody Mary made with beer. They put yummy seasoning salt in it and you add your own hot sauce. Sounds weird but tastes awesome. They had one booth there that had lots of awesome clothes. I think I spent about ten bucks and got an express dress and a couple of really cute tops! I kind of had to stuff myself into the dress but that's okay... hopefully it will fit eventually.

Saturday we went out for lunch at Noodles and then went to the thrift store. We all loooove thrift stores! Most of the stuff is junk but there are usually a few treasures! I ended up with a shirt, pair of shorts stil with tags on them, a baby gate, and a cute plate and cup set with Winnie the Pooh on it.

Sunday again we just hung out at the house. My mom had to get some homework done and I decided to do some yard work. I think my neighbors were getting sick of looking at all the leaves in my front yard gardens so I took care of that. I guess I was a little busy this fall to do any raking in the yard LOL.

Sunday evening my sister and I took the girls' six month photos! They turned out really great. I'm sad that Brian wasn't here so that he could be in them... but maybe at 9 months we can get another nice family photo.