New Wagon

Grandma and Grandpa gave the boys a really cool wagon for their birthday - it's called a Choo Choo Wagon because it connects like a train and is a completely different ride compared to a traditional stroller!  Each baby gets his own separate car; right away they each wanted to take a favorite toy with them in their car.  They love being pulled around the main floor of the house - during the last week we've found that this works well especially before dinner when they tend to be crankiest.  The best part of this wagon is that we have a 3rd orange car to attach when the newest baby West is big enough to sit up and ride too!  That's the beauty of the wagon - it's perfect for walking 3 little ones.  I first heard of this when searching triplet forums to find out what the most recommended stroller for 3 is out there.  A lot of triplet moms mentioned this wagon saying it has been so much better for many situations where a heavy, bulky triple stroller is a pain and definitely not as fun.  Of course it's not meant for off-roading, but great for daily walks or outings where we'll want the flexibility to pull all of them at once!

Synchronized Walking

Oliver's been putting in more time pushing the choo choo train and his other walker now that Owen is taking short little walks around the playroom on his own.  This was a funny video I took of them yesterday - I was helping Owen walk away from me and turn to come back, when out of nowhere Oliver pulled up alongside with the walker.  They went to the end of the room and then both turned perfectly in sync to go the other direction.  Hmm, maybe it was a moment of twin instinct :)

Twins' First Birthday!!

Happy 1st Birthday Owen and Oliver!!

This past weekend we celebrated the babies' first birthday and it was tons of fun!  Get ready, there are a lot of pictures in this post! 

The boys wore their special 1st birthday shirts, and it was hard to capture a picture of the two birthday monkeys in these new shirts because they were so anxious to play.  Notice the birthday scratch Owen gave Oliver on the cheek after Oliver tried to take his Valentine monkey away.
















After their morning nap we took a big trip...to Wegmans!!!  I mean, who wouldn't want to go to Wegmans for the first time on their birthday?!  The boys got to ride in their new car (we've said bye bye to the Eclipse forever) and new big boy carseats for the first time.  Notice the "Customer With Child" parking space, haha!  They really enjoyed the shopping cart ride - Wegmans is the only place I've seen that has a double seat and belts up front for them to share.  I didn't realize how stimulating all the smells, colors, and people are in a grocery store can be.  Check out the aisles from a baby's perspective.

We picked up their cakes and balloons and went home for some festivities... after another nap.  One of the birthday boys decided he didn't want to nap, and so stayed up to play while his brother slept.



























We served cake after their afternoon milk snack - Owen had a chocolate cake with custard filling and Oliver a vanilla cake with strawberry filling.  I don't think Owen ever got past the icing and to any of the cake.  He was upset by the messiness of it all, particularly after icing got all over his elbow, topped off by us putting a strange hat on his head.  Oliver liked his sweets - he ate a whole piece and kept looking at Owen and wondering why he didn't like his cake and hat.

Next it was time for a bath and then some presents.  They boys loved the talking Elmo Megan gave them.  Oliver kept trying to bite Elmo while he was still in the box!  Then Owen took a turn trying to "talk" to Elmo.  We also let them try out a new pop-up tunnel that Ryan picked out for them.  Oliver loved crawling through it, but Owen has yet to venture inside.  We've tried putting all his favorite toys in the middle, but he's still too scared to try it!



Valentine's Day

For the babies' first Valentine's Day, they wore their new bibs from Grandbobby and Dee while drinking their morning milk.  Mommy and Daddy gave them Valentine's stuffed monkeys.

We took some cute pictures of Owen going through his morning routine of searching through the bars of his crib for his favorite toys after he's done with his milk.  Everyday he goes over and reaches in to get his blanky and/or his Bear Bear.  Owen has shown more attachment to blankets and certain stuffed animals than Oliver has to this point.  Notice he is up on his tip toes even though it's not really necessary.  He does that when he's excited about something. 

One thing Oliver has become increasingly attached to over the past couple of weeks is his WubbaNub.  If it's out of sight he seems to forget about it, so we try to only use it for bedtime and naps.  But if he manges to keep hold of one in the morning or later in the day, he'll go about his usual playtime or other activities with it hanging out of his mouth and doesn't want to give it up!  Sometimes it'll come down to a struggle between he and Owen where they keep forceably pulling it out of each others mouths and putting in their own. 

Valentine's Monkey :)

Owen's First Steps

After putting in about a month and a half of hard work pushing his choo choo train around, Owen decided he's ready to walk on his own!  Yesterday, he started taking his first unassisted steps and was so excited about it.  He is really proud of himself and smiles and squeals when he takes a few steps.  And just in time for his 1st birthday tomorrow!  We told Oliver yesterday that he only has 2 more days to learn too, haha.  But I don't think it will be long for him to follow suit - you could tell he was getting a little jealous of the attention Owen was getting, and started trying to get some extra attention for himself!  You can see at the end of this video how he rolls a toy truck under Owen's feet as Owen is trying to walk toward Ryan.  

Expanding Appetites

The boys are really getting into finger foods (other than puffs) lately.  I'm happy about this because I think they were getting addicted to puffs - going through a container of these in less than a week, which isn't that great because as our pediatrician told us, they're just puffed up air and not really nutritious.  But I've figured out that the fascination has become more with being able to feed themselves now, and it doesn't matter too much what the food is.  So we've been giving them pieces of fresh banana or blueberries along with their morning oatmeal, pieces of cheese with their lunch baby food jars, and for dinner (this is the fun one where I try to mix it up a bit) they've had tortilla pieces with avocado, peas, broccoli bites, mixed veggies, and edamame beans.  Surprisingly, they didn't like the pasta I offered the other night.  Here they are eating some peas when this concept was a little newer.

Owen is still a little more picky about what he eats.  When I first put out a selection of peas and broccoli, he tried the broccoli once and spit it out, then specifically skipped over all those pieces and ate only the peas.  He even resorts to taking his choice foods from Oliver's tray, who doesn't seem to mind.

One last feeding feat has been getting them to hold their own bottles, a skill that will become quite valuable (for us) once the new baby arrives.  Oliver became a pro at this pretty quickly, and while we've seen Owen do it a few times, he prefers to sit back, relax, and have someone hold the bottle for him still, especially when he first wakes up and at bedtime. 

Hunting

Somebody's hunting giraffe...

Oliver's New Crib

Oliver has a new crib...for now.  It's really the new baby's crib setup in the room next to ours, but we've been putting him to sleep in it for about a week and it's really made a difference in getting both boys back to sleeping 12 hours through the night again.  They started waking up (and waking each other up) around 9-10 months, mostly due to developmental milestones.  Apparently babies' brains work really hard when they learn new skills and cause them to wake up at night and sometimes practice their new tricks!  There were a couple of instances, around the time they learned to stand, where we caught Owen "sleep standing" on the monitor.  He would just get up and hold on to the rail of the crib in the middle of the night and then lay down and go back to sleep!  Well after all this night waking, we all got sick and it was downhill from there with babies sleeping in our bed, etc.  But the new crib has been a lifesaver and gotten us all back on track!  Now we just need to break it to Oliver that he can only have his own room for another couple months while the new baby stays in a bassinet in our room.  The funny thing is that he's grown attached to some of the familiar animals he liked to sleep with in his other room - this is what we found when we woke him up a couple days ago.

Up To No Good

Since the babies are still too young to understand why we tell them "no" or to be disciplined, the only way to get them to stop doing most things we don't want them to do is to take away (as in completely out of sight) whatever the desired object is at the time.  And boy, when they get fixated on grabbing or knocking something over, there really is no other option!  Even after picking them up and moving them completely across the room and showing them a new toy (several times) they turn right around and speed back over to whatever it was they were working on before.  Favorites recently have been corner lamps, wires, space heaters, and ... the diaper pail!  Some days they want nothing more than to knock it over (gross!).  You can tell Oliver knows he's doing something we don't like in this picture!

They are both also fascinated with the bars under the changing table in the playroom, climbing and hanging like little monkeys underneath it.  Even though the wooden blocks at the bottom are covered with rolled-up towels, it's still not the safest game and we try to encourage them to do something else.  "But it's so much fun to climb mommy!"