Mama's Little Pumpkins

Happy Halloween from our family to yours!

So thankful to be celebrating this year as a family of four!

Love my little pumpkins so much,

and I am looking forward to many more Halloweens as they grow up!  

Mama's Little Pumpkins

Parenting Twins -The First Year (Month Seven)

I am once again a week late on getting this month’s post up.  On the 22^nd our little guys turned seven months old!  Personalities have really started to develop, as our pictures will show.  Aaron has proven to be our serious one, while Ethan is definitely our silly little guy!  

There have been so many firsts for the boys this month as we entered the busy fall season.  We’ve taken them to the apple orchard, the pumpkin patch and the zoo, and now we are looking forward to their first Halloween!

Aaron also got his first tooth this month!  He actually got two teeth in one week. Ethan has two shiny bottom teeth and is working really hard at cutting a top tooth. I'm waiting for it to poke through any day!  

As far as development goes, we have seen HUGE progress in sitting up independently this month!  The babies pretty much got the sitting up thing under control.  We still surround them with soft pillows, only because we don’t have carpet in our house and they still wobble over from time to time.  Three or four weeks ago, neither baby could not sit up independently at all, so they’ve come along way this month.

We are also pretty sure Aaron is going to start crawling soon.  He can move 360 degrees when put on the floor and can also scoot himself a few inches.  As soon as he figures out how to stay in crawl position, he’ll be on the move!  I think it’s time to baby proof the house this month!  YIKES!  We’ve been looking forward to this and dreading it all at the same time! 

Ethan has no interest in crawling.  He still won’t stay on his stomach.  I’ve said all along that he will probably skip crawling and go straight to walking once he figures out how to pull himself up.  His legs are strong.  He stands in his exersaucer without leaning on it for a good while, and he can bounce the heck out of the jumperoo for 30-40 minutes at a time!  But for some reason, he will NOT stay on his stomach!  He rolls to his back as soon as he is put on his tummy.

Sleep patterns this month are pretty much the same as last month.  Ethan goes to sleep at 8:30 and wakes up at 7:00 almost every single day.  Aaron goes to sleep at 8:30 and wakes up after 4-6 hours most nights.  We still have to pull him out of the nursery when he wakes up, because he is loud.  Once I get him back to sleep we try to put him back in his crib, but honestly there are some nights where we fall asleep before he does, and the next time he wakes up, usually around 5am for a bottle, we realize we still have a baby in our bed.  So there is still some work to be done with Aaron, but compared to where we were when he was 4-5 months old, we’ve made great progress.

The babies are also eating more this month.  I pretty much make all of our baby food unless we are out and about somewhere.  I’ll try to get a blog post up about making our own food sometime.  There isn’t anything they won’t eat, and I’m looking forward to starting them on soft table food in the next few months

I want to finish this post by saying that this is the first month where I think I can say that this twin thing has finally gotten easier!   That’s really another post for another time.  I’m not saying we don’t have crazy days around here or that I’m suddenly no longer living with sleep deprivation.  I’m just saying it’s gotten easier…that’s all:)

Week Twenty-seven

Week Twenty-eight

Week Twenty-nine

Week Thirty

Babies' First Trip to the Zoo

We completed another first for the babies this weekend.  They had their first trip to the zoo! 

It was a beautiful day for the zoo this past Saturday.  The weather was perfect!  Plus, the annual ZooBoo is the last few weekends in October, and the zoo is decorated for Halloween. 

A friend of ours works at the zoo and told us that if we ever to take the babies to the zoo sometime, he could get us free tickets.  Now that the twins are seven months old, we decided to take our friend up on his offer. 

At seven months, the twins were indifferent towards the zoo just as we expected them to be.  They had a good time, probably because they like to be outside and got to ride in their carriers for a couple of hours.  Mom and Dad likely had more fun than they did:)

The babies were very aware of the animals that were close up, but as expected for any seven month old, they were not aware of the animals that were farther away and camouflaged.  Their favorite part of the zoo was the aquarium!  

DIY Thing 1 and Thing 2 Baby Costumes

Yesterday I posted a few pictures of our twin boys in their Halloween costumes here.  Today, I want to share how I put these costumes together.

I knew I wanted the babies to be Dr. Suess’s Thing 1 and Thing 2 for their first Halloween as soon as we found out we were having twins.  After seeing the average cost an infant costume for Thing 1 and Thing 2 was $30+ per baby, I decided I could make (or put together by buying items separately and getting crafty) the costumes myself for a fraction of the cost.

As I was putting this costume together, I thought my idea was pretty original.  Not the Thing 1 and Thing 2 idea (that's a common twin costume), but I did think my idea about making the costume, particular the wigs, was a creative idea.  Little did I know others had the exact same idea, as I soon found out when I was looking through Pinterest.  So if you are reading this and saying to yourself, "Wait a minute, I've seen this before", that's because you probably have.   

Whether or not I was the first to throw this together or the ninety-first doesn't really matter to me.  I'm just happy that I was able to dress up our babies for their first Halloween without breaking the bank!  I'm also thrilled that they cooperated for a few pictures!

So here is how I put this costume together.  Originally, I was going to make/craft the entire costume.  My initial thought was pretty simple when it came to the costumes.  I was going to…..

1)    buy red onesies and iron on Thing One and Thing Two decals

2)    make red and white striped leggings from adult women’s socks

3)    hot glue blue boa on a baby hat to make the wigs

For step 1, I found these iron on decals on etsy, but I had a hard time finding plain red onesies.  I ended up not making the shirts and purchased them instead, because it was easier and cheaper.  I hit the jackpot when I stumbled on these Thing 1 and Thing 2 onesies marked down from $16.95 to $5.98.  At $6 a piece, these would not only work as part of the costumes but could be worn anytime with a pair of pants.

For step 2, I thought it would be really easy to cut the feet off of women’s red and white striped socks and make leg warmers for the babies.  I found all sorts of adult women’s striped socks on eBay with free shipping for less than $3 a pair.  The problem was the socks were from China.  By the time I received my order, Halloween would be over.  All of the other socks were going to be $5 or more a pair, no matter where I purchased them.  After finding actual red and white baby leg warmers here on Etsy for $5 a pair, it once again became easier and cheaper to buy the leg warmers already made.  I had to pay a couple bucks for shipping, but I justified the cost of these leggings by 1) using them again in some Christmas pictures and 2) passing them down to babies of either gender if we are so blessed to have more little ones in the future.

For step 3, I finally got to get my craft on!  I bought two baby winter hats at Wal-Mart for $1 each and two strands of fuzzy blue boa from Hobby Lobby.  I bought the boas at separate times, so I could use my Hobby Lobby app and get 40% off of one item.  Originally costing $4.99, the boas cost around $3 each with my coupons.  I then hot glued the boas around the hats, and that’s pretty much it! 

A few tips about gluing the boas:

- since the hat was stretchy and the boas were not, measure the boa around each babies' head first before gluing to the hat

- I found it easiest to measure, cut and glue one layer of the wig at a time, by starting at the bottom and working my way to the top

- again, because the hat is stretchy, you have to glue the boa on loosely, almost as if it is ruffling to the hat.  If you glue the boa on flat to the hat, you will have excess boa and the hat won’t fit the baby’s head

Our Twins' First Halloween Costumes - Thing 1 and Thing 2

It’s the week of Halloween, so I’m showing off my little cuties in their Halloween costumes! 

I knew when we found out we were having twins that I was dressing them up as Dr. Seuss’s Thing 1 and Thing 2 for their first Halloween.  Seriously, are these babies cute or what!  I love the way our little fellas look in this costume!

I wouldn’t say I’m a huge Halloween fan.  I prefer Christmas and the Fourth of July over Halloween.  I do, however, love the autumn season.  I love the leaves, pumpkins, hay and harvest, but I could do without the witches, goblins and ghosts that come with October 31. 
 That's just my personal preference though.  

Regardless of my holiday preferences,  I think this American holiday celebrated on the last day of October can be a lot of fun…..especially for kids!  I have fond memories of getting dressed up this time of year as a child, going to fall parties and going Trick-or-Treating.  And so we plan on doing the same with our little guys.  I look forward to dressing them up every year and enjoying all of the Halloween fun with them!

Here are a few pictures of our twin boys' first Halloween costumes.

Babies' First Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Cooler temps, falling leaves, football and PUMPKINS!

I love this time of year!  We took the babies out last week for their first trip to the pumpkin patch!  This will be an annual event for sure and is something I may look forward to more than they do for the next several years to come.

We knew the boys wouldn’t be able to do much at the pumpkin patch this year, and we were ok with that. They couldn’t play the games or eat the food, and in the future they would have no memory of this day..  Yes, we wanted to take them out to explore their surroundings, but this year’s pumpkin patch trip was more for us and our memories with our little guys.

To be honest, the only reason we took them this year was to…

….ONE…. start a family tradition and

….TW0… take lots of pictures!

Because seriously, any baby is cute....A baby with a pumpkin is even cuter….and two babies in a pile of pumpkins is just the cutest!

And so, after the boys woke up from their morning nap, we got them dressed, loaded them in the car and made our way to Stony Creek Farms for a fun-filled family day of pumpkin picking.   As we expected the place was packed, seeing as how it was a weekend and one of the only nice weekends (weather-wise) we had in awhile. 

Nonetheless, we paid our $5 for parking, parked at what seemed like forever away when you are carrying babies and made our way to the ticket booth to get tickets for our hayride.  The line was, as usual, super long.  We waited it out and paid $2 for our two tickets, and then we made our way to the barn and got in line for our hayride.

HAY…..the babies had never seen HAY before, and they were SO VERY enamored with the stuff!  The LOOK of it, the FEEL of it and yes, even the TASTE of it!

And then we made our way to the pumpkin patch with two babies and a camera in hand and did what we had set out to do in the first place…

Take lots of pictures!

For every one good picture there were five bad ones.  Such is my life with twins!  But overall, I was happy with what pictures I could salvage.  Mind you, I’m far from a professional photographer.  I’m just a mama who likes to flash a camera in front of her kids’ faces whenever she can.  Below are a few of my favorite pictures from our day.

Overall, pumpkin picking was a fun first time memory for our little family, even though we couldn’t find baby pumpkins in the pumpkin patch.  Not able to carry (nor willing to pay for) two giant pumpkins and two babies, we got back on our hayride and bought two small pumpkins at the farm’s store for a couple dollars each before heading home:)