Here are the girls’ 10 Month Favorite Things, plus their 10 Month Stats!

1. BabyJogger Summit X3 Double Jogging Stroller. Need I say more? I think enough of my previous posts have been dedicated to my love for this stroller, so I won’t go into too much detail. It’s probably not the girls’ favorite thing ever since they generally don’t like being confined at all, but I think they are way more comfortable in it than in our little double umbrella stroller. The suspension on this thing is amazing, I love the feature that locks the front wheel in case I’m going over any rough trails or rocks, and I love the foot break and hand break features as well. It glides over any kind of terrain and is super light-weight. By far my favorite baby product of all time.

2. Mega Blocks Lego Table–This was a gift from Ana and her family and she knew exactly what the girls would love! They will spend twenty minutes (an eternity in baby time) taking the legos off this thing and putting them back on. It’s also the perfect height at which the girls can pull themselves up, which is one of their favorite things to do right now.

3. Homemade Jungle Gym. Jake spent a lot of time perfecting this jungle gym for the girls’ Christmas present. He initially looked around online for some baby monkey bars, and when he couldn’t find any, decided to make his own.  It’s simple, but effective and fun. The girls love pulling themselves to stand and trying to grab whatever toys we dangle from the bars. When Jake gets home from work, his favorite activity is to help the girls swing and “do gymnastics” on the monkey bars. Everyone who stops by our house always asks where they can get one…maybe Jake should start a side business!

4. Personalized Board Books: Jake made me one of these a few months ago entitled “Why We Love Momma” so for Christmas, I made one called “Why We Love Daddy.” The website where you upload the photos and text is super easy to use and it’s fun having the girls read board books with pictures of our family and a story to match.

5. Baby Lit Books– This is another one of those things that might be one of my favorites instead of one of the girls. This company takes the classics and makes them into adorable, baby-friendly board books. Grandma bought the girls A Christmas Carol, Jabberwocky and Alice in Wonderland for Christmas and they are definitely my favorite books to read the girls. Next on our list is to get the Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Anna Karenina board books!

6. Summer Infant Tiny Diner Place Mats– These placemats were a lifesaver with all the traveling and going out to restaurants we did this month. We could just throw them in the diaper bag, whip out at a restaurant and voila, the girls could eat on the table without me freaking out about sanitizing every surface. I’m sure other people saw us with the placemats and thought, “Yep, first time parents,” but I still think these are amazing! The only pain having to put the dirty placemat  back in the diaper bag to be washed at home, until we discovered some disposable baby placemats at Wal Mart that solve this problem.

Ten Month Stats: 

Samantha: 25.5 pounds, 31.5 inches tall (above the 95th percentile, as per usual)!

Amelia: 23.2 pounds, 30.5 inches tall (also around the 90th percentile)!

Firsts and Milestones:

Third road trip to Utah

First time sledding and playing in the snow

First Christmas

First New Year’s

First time on the baby swings

First time playing in the sand at the beach

Started babbling and interacting more

Started waving hello and goodbye more

First time up at Park City

First time being baby sat by Grandma and Grandpa while we saw a movie

Cruised around on the furniture all day long

Hated: Baths, diaper changes, being put in car seat, being spoon-fed

Amelia:

Started clapping her hands

Started making more funny noises

Started walking with the walker toy

Ear infection while in Utah 🙁

Started standing up in the bath tub and refusing to sit down!

Crawled everywhere with a sock in her hand or mouth

Favorite foods: Cuties, bread, cheese, lasagna, butternut squash, Cheerios

Samantha:

Started making more funny noises/popping her mouth open and closed

Started walking with the walker

Started standing up in the bath tub and refused to sit down!

Loved to crawl everywhere with a measuring spoon or cup in her hand

Loved to steal toys and pacifiers from Amelia!

Favorite foods: Cuties, bread, cheese, lasagna, butternut squash, sweet potato/apple combo

Feeding: Both girls started consolidating their bottle feedings this month. Instead of snacking on 3-4 ounces every few hours, the girls had a pretty regular schedule of drinking a 6-8 ounce bottle every 4 hours during the day. Since I dropped pumping to two times a day, they only got about 20% breast milk and 80% formula.

The girls continued to try new foods this month and, for the most part, hated being spoon-fed. For breakfast, they ate oatmeal and prunes/applesauce/peaches and some cut up banana and cutie oranges. Sometimes they had some scrambled egg yolk and pieces of toast as well.

For lunch, the girls had some kind of pureed veggie or fruit (if they allowed me to spoon-feed them, which was rare), as well as steamed and cut up sweet potato, pears, apples, carrots, butternut squash, or smashed blueberries/raspberries. Their absolute favorite food was cheese, but I’m fairly certain they have a lactose sensitivity like Jake because they would get really gassy and sometimes fussy at night whenever they had cheese or yogurt. I stopped feeding them dairy all together for a while, but our ped said to reintroduce the dairy a little at a time.

For dinner, the girls had steamed or pureed veggies as well as some pureed or cut up chicken, turkey or beef. Their favorite foods were noodles, lasagna and anything the grown-ups were eating!

Sleeping: We finally got the girls off of the three-nap schedule over Christmas break, so they started taking two naps of 1-1.5 hours each, one at 10 a.m. and the other around 2:30 p.m. For naps, I discovered that putting them in their boppies on the floor worked a lot better than having them nap in their cribs and it’s helped them nap longer as well. I get stuff done around the living room where I can supervise them and they sleep the whole time since they can’t hear me with the white noise on.

At nighttime, Samantha decided to wake up at random times, while Amelia usually slept through the night, unless awoken by her sister. For the most part, Samantha woke up once a night (sometimes twice) and would go right back to sleep once we popped the pacifier in, but sometimes, she would cry until she was held and then fell back to sleep. She definitely has some ingrained sleep habits we are trying to break, but it has been tough! Bed time was 7 p.m. and wake-up time was 6:30-7 a.m., except when we were on vacation in Utah, in which case the girls slept in until 8 a.m.!

Diapers: Size 4

Clothing: Samantha wore anywhere from 18 month to 2T while Amelia wore 12-18 month clothing.

Teeth: Still two teeth each!

Fave songs/games:

Lots of Christmas carols this month, especially ones in French– Noel Nouvelet, Il Est Né le Divin Enfant, Un Flambeau Jeannette Isabella

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Flying Trapeze

Do You Know the muffin man

Pat a cake

This little piggy

Fave books:

Peekaboo Christmas

Mr. Brown Can Moo

Moo Boo La La La

Peek a Who

The girls had so many firsts and milestones that they experienced this month and all of it was fun to watch!

Lots of love,

1. Cloud B Twilight Constellation Night Light: We’ve had this for ages, but never really used it consistently for bedtime until this month. We eased the girls into their bath time routine by dimming the lights and turning on this night light for the twin who wasn’t being bathed. After bath time, we brought the turtle with us into the living room where the girls like to look up at the stars and moon projected on the ceiling as they drink their bottles. I think Jake and I enjoy looking at the stars just as much as they do! The best part is, we are borrowing this from a friend, so it didn’t cost us anything.

2. Tunnels: We bought two tunnels at a garage sale for $5 and it’s one of the best purchases we’ve ever made! The girls love crawling through them and so does Bandit.

3. Fisher Price Walker: Another borrowed toy, hooray! Once the girls began pulling themselves up to stand this month, they were all over this walker. They couldn’t walk with it yet, but loved pulling up on it and playing with all the little switches and buttons.

4. Star Kids Snack and Play Travel Tray: This was such a lifesaver on our road trip to Utah. I put some finger foods and puffs on the tray for the girls to eat/play with during the ride and it helped keep them busy. It was also useful for keeping small toys on their lap. Too bad I was so sleep-deprived when we returned from vacation that I stuck the trays in the washer without thinking about it and believed them to be ruined (they have cardboard inserts that are now soggy). We cut open the fabric, pulled out the soaked inserts and are going to cut some cardboard of our own to put inside. I guess not all is lost.

5. Fisher Price Activity Table: Yet another borrowed toy…so worth it! This was by far the girls’ favorite thing this month. Every time they woke up from a nap, they would immediately wiggle out of my arms to go play with this thing. Samantha’s favorite part was the little computer screen that flips up and down…she would push Amelia away from it if she had to so she could play.

6. Munchkin Backseat Car Organizer: We bought two of these little mesh organizers for our road trip to Utah and they made things so much more organized on the ride. I kept my phone, snacks, bottles, wipes and anything else we needed at the ready. So much better than keeping everything in bags at my feet on my floor.

7. Tiny Love Take Along Arch: We actually bought two of these a while ago for the girls’ high chairs when they were first sitting up in them to keep them busy while I cooked in the kitchen. They worked great for the car too. In addition to the toys already on the arch, the girls liked swatting little rings and dangly toys we put on there. I suppose it was better than staring at themselves in the back-seat mirror for the ten-hour trip (although, they did enjoy looking at their reflections for a little while!)

9 Month Stats:

Samantha: 24 pounds 2 oz. 30.5 inches tall…the first month Samantha didn’t gain substantial weight. Still above the 95th percentile in height and weight though!

I may have mentioned before that I LOVE GRAPHS. The Baby Connect app on my phone is where I keep track of all the girls’ info at doc appointments and it creates so many cool graphs/bar charts for me. Baby Connect–you are my hero.

As you can see, Samantha’s projectile is pretty much straight up. (Hers is the blue line).
  

Amelia:  21.4 pounds 29.5 inches tall (above the 95th percentile for height, 85th for weight). It was the same thing with Amelia; she didn’t gain much weight or height from her 8 month birthday (hers is also the blue line).

At Samantha and Amelia’s nine month appointment, our ped said the slow-down in weight gain was totally normal and due to the fact that the girls were eating more solids/less bottles and moving around a ton. (Obviously, we weren’t worried anyway since the girls are so chubby and tall!) I also think Amelia lost a little bit of weight when she was on antibiotics after her ear infection. She was having diarrhea a few times a day due to all that good bacteria being killed off from the antibiotics. Not fun.

9 Month Firsts and Milestones (November 11-December 11, 2013): 
-Started saying “dada”
-Tried cheerios and loved them…mostly played with them at first, but eventually got coordinated enough to pick them up and eat them.
-Started finger foods and loved them–first time eating chicken (didn’t like so much), pasta, cheese, and steamed/cut-up sweet potato, carrots, pears, etc.
-Began hating being spoon-fed toward the end of the month
-Pulled up to standing
-Second road trip to Utah
-First time going inside a McDonald’s while on our road trip
-First Thanksgiving
-First time trying turkey and pumpkin pie
-First time seeing snow
-First time playing piano at Grandma’s
-First ear infection 🙁
-Loved to pull up on furniture, the gate at the top of the stairs, bookcases, and anything they could get their hands on
-Loved exploring every room and pulling out everything from drawers and shelves. Favorites included mommy and daddy’s dresser drawers, baby room drawers, pulling diapers and folded blankets out of baby closet, pulling books of baby bookcase and trying to pull down the trash can in the laundry room
-Loved “helping” with the laundry
-Loved looking at themselves in the full-wall mirror in the master bedroom
-Loved playing with pots and pans, spoons, and tupperware in the kitchen

Samantha:
Perfected her crawling and moved up to advanced crawling
Loved pulling up on the tub
Loved crawling after Bandit
Hated diaper/clothing changes
Got her second tooth!

Amelia:
Started crawling at the beginning of the month and graduated to advanced crawling by the end
Loved clicking her tongue after she heard daddy make a funny noise
Hated spoon feeding
Loved crawling around with socks or wipes in her mouth
Hated wearing hats
Hated diaper changes
Still two teeth

Fave foods:
Samantha: pasta, cheese, prunes, pears, sweet potato, butternut squash, noodles, squished meatballs
Amelia: pasta, cheese, pears, Cheerios, sweet potato, bread, noodles

Feeding: Lots of finger foods this month and less purees. The Babycook remained super useful as I used it to steam all their fruits and veggies to be cut up. The girls took in less bottles this month, but more at a time, drinking about 5-6 ounces every 3-4 hours during day for a total of about 25 ounces each (I was pumping 3, sometimes 4 times a day, so they were getting about 70% formula and 30% breastmilk). The week they were sick with their ear infections/had tummy troubles from the antibiotics, they ate practically nothing…a few bottles, some cheerios, bananas, bread and pedialyte were about all they would eat.

Diapers: Size 4

Clothes: Samantha wore anything from 12-18 months depending on the brand, while Amelia wore anything from 9-18 months.

Sleep: 3 naps a day, usually 1 hour to 1.5 hours each

Bed time: 7-7:30 p.m.

Wake-up time: The girls woke up a lot at night this month! They would go right back to sleep once we popped the pacifier back in most of the time, but sometimes they wanted to be held or rocked back to sleep, and occasionally, they’d want a bottle. We definitely created some sleep associations that are now hard to get rid of! Usually, it was one or the other who was up…the girls definitely planned it out beforehand, I’m sure. Most of the time, it seemed like the girls had been practicing sitting/standing/crawling in their sleep because we’d find them crying, but mostly asleep while crawling around their crib or standing up. After one or two nightly episodes of waking up and falling right back asleep, their real wake-up time for the day was between 6:30-7 a.m.

Favorite songs:
Twinkle twinkle little star
Do as I’m doing
Castle on a Cloud
Itsy Bitsy Spider
Los Pollitos Dicen
Head Shoulders Knees and Toes

Favorite books:
They completely tore up/destroyed their beloved Wiggly Caterpillar book, so we had to find some new favorites which were more durable!
Peek-a-Who
Where’s Spot
Madeline
Guess Who

Favorite Games:
Itsy Bitsy Spider
This Little Piggy
Pat-a-Cake
Dancing Daddy
Flying Trapeze

Month 9 was our first month with both girls fully mobile, so to sum up in three words it was crazy, exhausting fun!

Lots of love,