Year One – Page 11

First Avocados!

September 6, 2013 by Rebecca Whitehead

After three days of sweet potatoes, the girls were understandably ready to try something new. I decided upon the almighty avocado as their next adventure.

While Samantha didn’t seem to care for sweet potatoes, she absolutely loved her first avocado. After her first bite, her eyes lit up with joy and she started grabbing for her spoon. Whenever I gave a spoonful to Amelia, Samantha would watch with disdain and start to whine until she got another bite.

She melted down shortly thereafter, but at least she got a few good spoonfuls in.

Amelia enjoyed her avocado so much, she decided to feed herself.

Yum!

Avocado smeared all over you is such a hot trend right now.

Didn’t your mother teach you not to play with your food?

Between the girls’ daily solid meal and their drool, I’m going through an average of 30 bibs a day and at least three outfit changes. For today’s feeding, I decided to save some laundry and strip them down with a bib on over their bare chests. No mess on their clothes, although it took a ridiculous amount of wipes to get them clean. The girls loved every second of it!

Lots of love,

Filed Under: Milestones, Year One

First Sweet Potatoes

September 4, 2013 by Rebecca Whitehead

Over the weekend, the girls tried real solid foods for the “first time.” I had the girls’ spoons, bibs, and high chairs all ready to go and was so excited to prepare some sweet potatoes for the girls’ first taste. “I can’t believe they will be trying their first food!” I exclaimed, excitedly.

“Ummm…yeah…” said Jake, guiltily. “This technically won’t be their first food…”

Apparently, Jake had given the girls a taste of pear and watermelon last week without my authorization, and, not surprisingly, they loved it. GRRRRR!

“I was eating some fruit and they looked interested, so I gave them a lick,” he explained.

Oh well. I’m just going to pretend that didn’t happen, and put sweet potatoes down as their first food. I’m not counting the rice cereal they had last week as a first food either because it has no nutritional value and they hated it!

I haven’t bought a baby food maker yet (one that will steam and puree fruits and veggies), so I just stuck a sweet potato in the oven, mixed it with some breast milk and mashed it up for the girls. Easy peasy. I’m looking at buying the Cuisinart Baby Food Maker, but I’m going to hold off until I see how the whole eating thing goes and how long it takes to prepare the food. Right now, they are eating so little that it’s super easy to prepare their veggies myself.

Samantha has been super interested in everything we eat since she was about four months old. She’ll lick her lips and watch like a hawk as our forks go from the plate into our mouths. She seemed excited to try her sweet potato!

First taste.

Hmmmmm….interesting consistency….pretty bland taste-wise…

Blech!! What is this stuff?

You seriously expect me to eat this?

After a few more bites, she kept spitting out the sweet potato and then completely melted down. She had had a bottle about an hour prior, so I didn’t think she’d be starving, but I guess I was wrong! We will have to work on the timing with her. I’m really surprised she didn’t enjoy her first bites more…I definitely expected her to love it!

Samantha was pretty content just playing after that.

Amelia’s turn!

I like it!

Give me more!

Amelia loved grabbing her spoon and smearing the sweet potato all over her mouth, face, ears, high chair, etc.

Delish!

Then, she grabbed the bowl so that she could really dive in.

Nom nom.

While Amelia was pigging out, Samantha enjoyed playing with her empty spoon.

Sweet potatoes, day two. “I can’t believe I’ve waited five and a half months for THIS!” said Samantha.

I’m not sure how much of the sweet potato actually ended up in Amelia’s stomach, but she sure had a good time.

The biggest winner in all of this was Bandit. As soon as he figured out the girls could fling their food around the room, he was right there where all the action was happening. I think he’s found a couple of new best friends!

Lots of love,

Filed Under: Milestones, Year One

5 Month Photo Dump

August 19, 2013 by Rebecca Whitehead

We are headed off to Utah (hopefully) after Samantha’s helmet appointment and Amelia’s appointment to make sure her sore throat hasn’t gotten any worse in the morning. We are all packed and ready to go, despite that constant nagging feeling that I could be forgetting something (“Jake, did you grab the infant tylenol…and the boppies…and monitor…and?” “YES FOR THE HUNDREDTH TIME!!”)

Before we head off on our trip, get ready for a billion photos of the girls at 5 months. According to iPhoto, I officially have 9,832 pictures of Samantha and Amelia. I tried to edit these ones down, I really did!

Ready? Here we go!

My favorite picture of Samantha:

Peekaboo!

My favorite pic of Amelia:

I love how blue Samantha’s eyes look in this photo, despite the drool!

Some bloopers:

Playing pre-photo shoot

GET OUT OF THE WAY OF ME AND MY PIANO, AMELIA!

YAWN.

NOM. NOM.

Samantha is soooooo done.

Scary giant Bandit!

I want to touch your face!

I want to eat your arm!

Hold me close, sister! I’m scared!

Lots of love,

Filed Under: Milestones, Year One

Baby Olympics and 5-Month Birthday

August 12, 2013 by Rebecca Whitehead

I know I say this every month, but these past five months have really flown by. I can’t believe the girls are already five months old and are learning and growing at lightning speed. Maddie’s last day here was Saturday, so to kick off the girls’ birthday weekend, Maddie put together the “Baby Olympics.”

Maddie told us that when her twin sisters were young, her mom and dad used to compete to see who could change diapers the fastest, who could bathe the babies the fastest, etc. Thus the Baby Olympics were born. Maddie made cute signs for all the events and came up with some extensive rules for each game. First off, we drew names to find out who our teammate would be–I drew Samantha!

Go team mommy and Samantha!

Our first event was diaper changing.

I won by a split second, but Jake received extra “style points” because he put Amelia’s diaper on more neatly. Neat schmeat.

Next was outfit choosing. We were given five minutes to choose an outfit/accessories and five minutes to dress. Judging was based on matching, cuteness, wearability, and originality.

I was obviously a shoe-in for the win, but Jake really impressed the judge with his thoughtful selection and ended up winning this one. Bribery? Nepotism? I think so.

I still think I should have won. I mean, c’mon…how can you not let the baby with the helmet automatically win?

The necklace I chose for Samantha was deemed a choking hazard, and sadly, I was disqualified!

Next was the stroller race. The rules stated that we had to keep both car seats in the stroller, but only had to push one baby around the sidewalk to the gate that leads out of our neighborhood, cross the street and weave back and forth across the brick driveway to cross the finish line. Jake and Amelia went first, with Maddie and Bandit running alongside, timing him and watching out for safety violations. I went next and surprisingly beat Jake’s time by a few seconds! I also received extra points for being extra cautious…apparently Jake had several safety violations along the way. I guess all that practice maneuvering the stroller through stores and on walks everyday really paid off! I’m sure our neighbors thought we looked pretty crazy running wildly down the street with the baby and stroller.

Following the race was the laughing contest to see who could make the baby laugh first. Samantha was getting over-tired at this point and began crying before the event even started, so I knew I didn’t have much of a shot. Jake is so much better at making the girls laugh than I am even when it’s not a competition! He quickly got Amelia to giggle with one look and thus won this one fair and square.

Our next event tested our knowledge of nursery rhymes. We had to draw five random nursery rhymes/lullabies out of a hat and sing them. While I won the event with 100% accuracy, Jake failed miserably, although he did earn some extra “creativity points” for making up words he didn’t know. My favorite was his rendition of Baa Baa Black Sheep…”One for the dude and one for his ugly wife who lives down the lane.” He was also allowed to recoup some points by singing a few songs in Spanish, but it wasn’t enough to clench the win.

Our last event was getting the girls to go to sleep the fastest, which I had already won while singing nursery rhymes. After all the points were totaled, I reigned victorious (duh) with 120 points, with Jake a close second at 100 points. We absolutely loved the Baby Olympics and hope to add some more events next time– bathing, loading the diaper bag, and guessing weights!

It was a lot of fun and a big help having Maddie stay with us. As her reward for helping out with the girls all week, Jake took her to LA to see the Hollywood Walk of Fame and hang out at the Santa Monica Pier before she hopped on her plane back to Alaska. She’s already planning on returning next year and told us if we ever want to go on a cool vacation (her suggestion was Hawaii), she would come with us and be our nanny on the trip haha.

Today was a gorgeous day and I found some adorable swim suits at Baby Gap on sale earlier this week, so we decided to let the girls take a swim for the first time!

Amelia’s new pool do!

The girls were super excited to go swimming, until we told them it wasn’t in the big pool, but in our little kiddie pool on the patio. “WE AREN’T LITTLE BABIES ANYMORE!” they whined. “WE WANT TO GO IN THE BIG KID POOL!”

The moment we plopped the girls down in the water, they started screaming and throwing a fit.

Samantha did not like it ONE BIT!

We filled the pool earlier that day in order to give it a little time to heat up, but I think since the girls are accustomed to their warm bath water, it was a little too cool for them. Once they acclimated to the water and after we threw some toys in, they were in better moods and entertained themselves for a while.

I just die over these swim suits. So glad I didn’t buy the ones at Target I saw before going to Baby Gap–the Gap ones were way cuter and less expensive.