Merlin Magic Sleep Suits

Alexis and Amelia loved to be swaddled. It was the only way they slept for more than 6 months. When they started rolling over from back to front (around 3 months adjusted age), we knew we were in trouble, because we'd have to give up the swaddle soon. We tried swaddling them with one arm in and one arm out as a transition - it worked okay, but they didn't sleep great and we also weren't sure it would give them enough freedom to flip back over if they managed to get onto their tummy.

Luckily for us, one of my friends from a facebook mother's group recommended the "Merlin Magic Sleep Suit," and even sent us two of them that she wasn't using anymore.  They look like giant snow suits, so at first it was too hot to use them. But when the weather cooled down, we tried them out and immediately understood the name. They are MAGIC.

At night, our over-tired, fussy babies would cry at every little thing. And then we put them onto their new sleep suits and they both immediately stopped fussing... before the suits were even fully on! By the time we got them on, both babies were grinning from ear to ear. It was SO WEIRD.  That doesn't happen every night, but it happens a lot. They really really love them. I always say it must feel like they are laying on a cloud or something.

Look at how much they love them (note that this photo was taken at a time of night that you don't normally get many smiles!)

In the mornings when they wake up, they are so happy and just love to play in their suits.  They also love to play with each other, and the suits prevent them from injuring each other.  Look at them ooh and ahhh over the pretty girl looking back at them:

Pumpkin Patch

Another thing I've been really excited about since the girls were born was to take them to the pumpkin patch! Such a fun place, but a lot less fun without kids to bring along.

The girls loved their first visit to the pumpkin patch in Livermore.  Since Daddy skipped the trip to go watch football, Uncle Micah filled his shoes and got some baby-wearing practice. Always a good skill to have!

Mikayla had a great time with nanna on the "Joan's farm" tractor!

The girls practiced sitting... on pumpkins!

The cute "cousin" photo was... not a success. Mikayla still needs some practice holding up babies.

Then the girls practiced sitting in a wheel barrel. With pumpkins! And Mikayla! Mikayla can't resist hugging her adorable cousins.

 

So fun! Can't wait till next year when they can pick out their own pumpkins!

Angela's Wedding

My cousin Angela got married recently, which was super exciting for everyone. The girls were especially excited to attend their first wedding! We had our night nanny come along to help us out so that we wouldn't miss the WHOLE wedding, which ended up proving very useful.

It was a beautiful wedding. Beautiful couple, beautiful venue, beautiful families! Since my cousin is a professional wedding planner, none of us were surprised that everything was perfect.

Anyway, for such a special event, the girls needed some extra special outfits. Right? We took the opportunity to add some pink poof to their wardrobe.

Pleasanton Highland Games

You are going to see a theme here in the next few posts... they all are really outdated.  Sorry.

We went to the Pleasanton Highland games with the babies on Labor Day weekend.  I had been looking forward to it for months! Growing up as a Scottish dancer, I went to the Pleasanton games almost every year.  And recently, I've started dragging Boris along to it every year since it's so close. Then this year, we moved just a few blocks from the Pleasanton fairgrounds.  I couldn't wait to bring the babies! We bought little mini kilts for them and everything.  They weren't quite as excited about it as I was (read: lots of screaming), but I still thought it was a successful trip. Just a bit shorter than I would have liked. We got to watch some dancing, see my old teacher Kyla and her kids and husband, and some of the dancers I used to dance with.  Great fun!

I'll be honest about the real reason it took me so long to write a post about this trip... I was unsatisfied with the amount of adorable pictures we had from the trip, so I demanded a photo re-shoot.  That was accomplished eventually, so here they are in their adorable kilts!

Flipping over!

It's official - both babies can flip over in both direction. AHH, THEY ARE MOBILE!

As per usual, Alexis was first. She got so frustrated when she couldn't get onto her belly and just tried and tried until it finally worked. Amelia was perfectly content laying on her back calmly for another week or so. Then she just calmly flipped over. Amelia is definitely the tortoise - slow and steady wins the race.

Here's Alexis flipping over:

And here's a short video of the girls displaying their relative strengths: Alexis flipping over, and Amelia "talking."

Bloopers

Every parent has them…. those photos that didn't quite turn out how you planned, with hilarious results. Most of the photos below were not quite "Facebook-worthy" for one reason or another (although some made it onto Facebook anyway), but were too good not to share with the world.

 

 

 

 

 Don't miss the vomit spewing out mid-photo on this one: