Spring Has Sprung! -3/22/14

The girls donned some colorful outfits for their 11 month pictures in honor of spring.  The weather here, quite literally, continues to be either snow or 70 degrees, alternating almost daily.  Soon enough it should be consistently nice enough to go for more walks!

Speaking of walking, we're not quite there but Brooklyn is just about standing up on her own and shouldn't be far away from walking.  She regularly gets to the second step on the stairway and Madison is quite good at the same despite not being able to even crawl yet.  As stated before, not crawling is not synonymous with immobile as she gets around very well by scooting, stretching, and pushing. 

Madison wasn't able to wear her "11 month" sticker as she continued her 10 month trend of trying to eat it. 

Following doctor's orders, we had avoided swimming a lot longer than we would have liked too but we finally did this week.  Considering how exciting bath time is, we knew swimming would be a hit...and it was!  Their friend in Atlanta was nice enough to send swimsuits for them to use. 

As usual, Madison took just a little longer to warm up to the idea but ended up loving it.  Both girls took a shot at some dunking too and never complained.  Madison even started to get the hang of closing her eyes and holding her breath, at least it seemed like it.  :)

Story time continues to be a hit, and often takes place before bed or naps.  Mommy's graduate-level education in literacy reflects in the girls unlimited supply of books.  A long-time favorite is the "Smile" book which has no more than about a dozen words with pictures of smiling babies.  It can turn this cranky babies into amazingly happy ones in a heartbeat.

Meals continue to take up about half the day, which is no problem if you ask the girls.  They will eat anything!  Dad might have to find another job to keep Brooklyn fed.  

In this picture, Madison was excited to recently try on some clothing from when Mommy was a baby.  I think this was a "selfie."

The non-toys are still at least as exciting as the real toys.  As long as dad is driving, cardboard boxes definitely fall into this category.  Any vehicle to cruise around in is fine by them.  They especially love the pink shopping carts the Gigi bought.  Shopping cart drag-racing is a regular occurrence when Dad gets home from work. 

On the move! -03/04/14

The weather here has been 60 degrees or 16 degrees lately but when it's nice the girls head right back to the park.  As has been seen before, Brooklyn particularly likes taking flight while Madison patiently awaits the next activity.  

Brooklyn is on the move!!  After a solid 4 weeks of getting onto "all fours" and practicing many yoga-like moves, she has finally put it all together and cruises the house.  What began as a frog-like flop is now a coordinated and speedy crawl.  Immediately she also began transitioning from sitting to stomach, and then back again.  She also appears to be very close to trying to pull herself up.  The cribs have now been lowered a notch as a result!

Meanwhile, Madison is practicing life as a baby princess, day-dreaming about her prince and practicing her "princess wave." 

Even though Madison isn't crawling just yet, she often has Mom and Dad wondering how she got from A to B when they turn their backs.  She also transitions from sitting-to-stomach but not yet back again.  She continues to roll her way across a room to get something she wants or will just stretch an amazing distance to reach for something that hardly appears to actually be within reach. 

Why crawl when Dad can push you 5x faster in a pink shopping cart though?  I guess we'll continue to ride in the cart until we figure out how to push it. 

Babies at a bar?....yup.  Mom and Dad need an occasional break too so during a nice 3-week long stretch of time off that Dad had recently, they made a few outings including scoping out the newest neighborhood brewery.  The girls were very easy-going but repeatedly yelled "Hey, we're babies at a bar!" many times in search of attention.  Fortunately, no one seemed to mind.