9 Months

Emma Cate and Holden,
You are NINE months old!

What our life is like:

Our routine is staying the same. We've got everything the way we like it! I wake up at 5:40 and pump. I'm pumping around 18 ounces each morning. My supply is still decreasing but I'm working on it, regardless, you are still getting 100% breastmilk. We use the freezer stash when I don't produce enough. We wake you up around 6:45am for a diaper change. We've made the switch to Kawaii diapers at night and love them!. You sleep 12 hours and are still super heavy wetters. We have to make sure we put them on really well the night before! Holden likes to wake up early and "cry" for us. Usually the paci does the trick and we can continue getting ready. Emma Cate is our sleeper and waking you up each morning is so much fun! You have the best sleepy faces.

We switched to 3 bottles instead of 4 this month. You both did great with the transition. You eat an 8oz bottle at 7am and then a solid around 8:15am. So far you have tried bananas, oatmeal, prunes, apples, green beans, avocado, lentils, sweet potato, peas, yogurt, pears, carrots, zucchini, bulgar, salmon, oranges, raspberries, spinach, and butternut squash. You both love fruits and don't like veggies very much. Holden does love his peas though. They make Mommy gag! Emma Cate gags when she is fed veggies with the exception of sweet potatoes. Your morning meal is usually fruit with yogurt and veggies at lunch time.

Lots of new developments this month! Holden continues to be our wild man! He learned to crawl at about 8.5 months but only does one or two crawls at a time. He much prefers to roll everywhere and then scoot on his tummy. He is pulling up on everything! He loves to get in bear crawl position and can go from crawling to sitting and back to crawling. You are both able to feed yourself puffs this month! Holden grabs them by the handful and stuffs his mouth while Emma Cate picks them up one by one and eats like a lady. Emma Cate is still doing GREAT in PT. She started rolling over this month! She doesn't do it a lot, only if she REALLY wants to see something. She is very happy observing. She still doesn't love to be on her tummy but is getting better. She is very interested in things going on around her. She also really likes to stand when you hold her hands or around the coffee table. Emma Cate is a talker and a singer. She definitely says dada and ata a lot!  In the car she likes to sing along with any music.

You both nap from 8:30 or 9 until 10. Around 11 you eat another 8oz bottle and at 12:15 you have another solid food. You nap from 12:30-1:30 and then have another bottle at 3pm. You nurse at 6:45 and are in bed by 7 or 7:15. With daylight savings time, you like to stay up a little later since it is so light outside. Our night time routine includes a bath every other night followed by nursing. You both love to play in the big tub and when we've got sometime we let you hang out in there. We still use the sink baths on a lot of nights.

Holden is looking more and more boyish. He really filled out this month and I can't wait to get his stats at the doctor on the 27th. He went from chicken legs to chubby legs :) He seems so solid now! . Emma Cate is still our petite little girl. She hasn't been eating as much as Holden (boy will sometimes take a 10oz bottle in the morning and cry for more!) She loves to smile and show her gums while breathing through her mouth to make noise. We call this her big girl smile!

Emma Cate:
Nicknames:  P (daddy's nickname for you), Emma Tate, Taters (we use this one the most), Cate, Tatie Boo.
Weight: will update on the 27th
Height: ""
Hair: Can't decide between brown and blonde but still very bald
Eyes: Blueish grey
Clothes: You seem to be the same as last month. Not a huge growth spurt for you
Eating: 7 or 8oz bottles 3 times a day. You nurse before bedtime. Two solid feeding a day, normally plain greek yogurt with pears or bananas for breakfast and a fruit or veggie for lunch. Mommy made you spinach, mushroom, onion, and bulgar pilaf with salmon and you actually ate it! (brother did not)
Likes: watching mommy cook, your bottle, standing up, watching Holden, looking in the mirror, talking, being tossed in the air, being tickled around your neck. Loves singing and "talking", loves when we point at her and say "YOU" and smile. Likes to feed herself. LOVES mardi gras beads (man I'm in trouble!). Likes bouncing on the PT ball, being sung too
Dislikes: tummy time (but its getting better!) and putting her hands in front of her
Development: Sits up, pushes up through hands, rolls over without assistance (yay!), scoots backwards, wants to feed herself, you've also started blowing raspberries and sticking your tongue out. You think you are adorable when you do this.
Words: hey, dada, ata
Teeth: we can see a little white but nothing that has broken through yet

Extra: I was feeling a little discouraged with you progress in physical therapy this month but then all of a sudden at the end of the month you amaze me by being so active! You can roll over (you don't really love it), and will play on your tummy. You are sooo snuggly and LOVE being held. You know that I am your mama and I love it. You will put your hands out to come to me when someone else is holding you. You LOVE your daddy and light up when we enters the room. You cry easily but change to a smile when given a toy or being sung to. You really notice the world around you and love to look around. We went on the swings for the first time this month and you love it! I love when we nurse before bed. When you are full you roll over onto your back and just smile at me and babble. You are just adorable!

Holden
Nicknames: Holdy and Holds, Spatcho, and Terry for the pterodactyl noises you make.  You go by Holden most of the time.
Weight: will update on the 27th but you definitely chunked up this month
Height: ""
Hair: blond. It continues to grow. and I think it's getting a little darker.
Eyes: Bright blue
Clothes: Definitely 9 months. Most of your 6 months are too short in the stride.
Diapers: Bumgenius 4.0 and freetime and KaWaii at night.
Eating: 8oz bottles 3 times a day and nursing at night. Your nursing has gotten so much better and its one of my favorite times with you. You love to "pet" me while you nurse and play with my hair.
Likes: dancing, being naked, standing up, you love exploring and rolling everywhere. You love your lovie and holding blankets up to your face. You love your tambourine and any toys that make noise. You love to steal toys from your sister. You also love to pluck her hairbows from her head and chew on them. You also love the remote and Mommy's iPhone. New this month, you like paper and magazines, and mommy's big necklaces.
Dislikes: being hungry (boy likes his bottle!), being tired (you are a bear when you are tired), being held still. You love to explore!
Development: went from crawling to sitting this month and back to crawling. Beginning to pull up on things like mommy's legs and the NC State footstool. 
Words: not yet!
Teeth: not yet!

Extra: Holden you are so funny. You are into everything and always do it with a smile on your face. You are a very determined little boy and on the move! You are no longer my little snuggler. You push away from me ready to go to your next adventure. You are a crazy little brother and I can see that you will probably drive Emma Cate crazy in a few years! When you are tired it is all over. You have a few of your own separate "nap" times where you need about 15 minutes in your crib to sort things out :) You still LOVE socks and chewing on them. Daddy puts the socks over your hands and it freaks you out. You LOVE puffs and love shoving them in your mouth and hiding them in your cheeks. You bang the table when you are out. You are such a little boy. I love your sweet smile and love being your mommy!

pump it up

Haha I just laughed at myself for that corny title! I thought it was a good time to do a pumping update. Around 8 months my supply was really dropping and I thought it was going to be time to quit breastfeeding. I'm one of those people that is doing it for the health reasons of my kids, because it wasn't too hard, and boy is it cheap! After 8 months of pumping 5 times a day, I was just getting a bit tired of it. On the weekends I would drop down to three pumps a day just to get some time back and to be able to go out and do things.

After a very dismal output this past weekend I decided that at 9 months I would hang up my flanges and switch the kids to formula. I headed to the store to look at the selection and get an idea of how much this would cost us. Holy Moly. $70/week for formula? That's $280 per month. That is way more than I am willing to spend. That is my new motivation to keep on pumping. So here I am back on pinterest and blogging to pass the time pumping :) I am still not making a enough for my kids but luckily I still have a bit of frozen stash. I am doubting that I will make it all the way to 12 months but we'll see!

We have a crawler!

Holden decided to crawl for the first time yesterday afternoon at Emma Cate's physical therapy! The kids went to the 2pm session with my mom and I arrived about 30 minutes after the session started. I walked in and my mom was so excited to tell me that Emma Cate rolled over and Holden had crawled (Holden isn't in PT but tags along with us :) ).

Holden was a crawling machine and even did it for Daddy when we got home! I'm going to try and get a video tonight! I'm sure our world is about to change!

Favorite Vacation Spots

Linking up with Kelly's Korner for SUYL! Vacations are currently a thing of the past but man do I miss them! I have several favorites. Here they are:

1. Jade Mountain Resort, St. Lucia
We honeymooned here and it was simply amazing. I would go back if I won the lottery. It was worth every penny. We ate gourmet food, played tennis, scuba dove, drank, met fun interesting couples from all over the world, hiked, rode mountain bikes, ate coco seeds, laid in the sun on the beach, swam in our private pool, took a helicopter tour, snorkeled, took a sunset cruise, and enjoyed being in love :)

2. Verana Resort, Yelapa, Mexico

This is a tiny boutique hotel we visited for our second anniversary. It is much more afordable than Jade Mountain and we still had to much fun! We were able to explore the local town of Yelapa, kayak, boat, had amazing food, met great people, and unplug!

3. Excelsior Hotel, Amalfi, Italy 

You cannot go wrong in Amalfi. The town in beautiful. We stayed in a quaint resort. The resort was older but still beautifully situated in the hills and within walking distance to the small town above amalfi where we enjoyed real homemade italian cuisine at a restaurant connected to the owners' home! 

Day in the Park

I love Freedom park. We go there almost weekly as long as the weather is nice! Jay and I used to go on picnic dates before the kids came along. I took them there when I was a SAHM to walk off the baby weight with my friends. It is so fun to bring them to the playground area now to use the swings! It was 70 and sunny the other day and we took full advantage! Daddy stopped by on his way home to work to listen to his giggly babies!

Crazy

I am such a crazy blogger and always doing these catch up posts. You can always tell when work and home are busy because of the lack of posts. Today at school we're chilling out a little so I have a chance to catch up a bit! I also have a huge stack of tests to grade but I'm putting that off until Monday :)

We've had some fun things happening lately! First up, the kids:
Emma Cate is officially a roller over. I have yet to see this but she has done it for my mom. The first time she rolled over was because she heard the big wheel on the price is right and wanted to see what was going on. My Grandmother and I used to watch the price is right together (and supermarket sweep (anyone remember that?)) and I thought it was fitting for Emma Cate to roll over to watch the show :). Holden is a wild man! He still isn't crawling but prefers to roll EVERYWHERE. I find that kid under furniture all the time. His onesies are becoming my swiffer mop :)

The weather has been great and the twins are loving being outside. They went in the swings for the first time and loved it! I am loving this age and how much they are enjoying new things.

How we spend our Saturday mornings

I tried the outfit of the day thing. It didn't stick but I'm loving this necklace my mother in law got it.

We spent Sunday afternoon at the park with Aunt Bo. So fun to have her in town to hang out with us. The babies have started separation anxiety recently and I always feel terrible that they cry when other people hold them :(

If you look closely you can see people dressed up at mid evil characters. They were performing? a (what I now have learned) live action role play or larp. I think this is hilarious and made my sister stand in front of me so I could take pictures. Seriously, they were jousting and sword fighting in the middle of the park...

This little stinker will roll on her side, smile at me, then flip onto her back! Can't wait to see her roll all the way!

Holden is into planking. He does this all the time. I think he's going to bear crawl instead of regular crawl. He is so funny!

Both of my babies LOVE paper. They love to chew on it and make noise with it!

One of the 5 (I know, I'm crazy) bathing suits I ordered for the babies came in this week! No, I'm most likely not going to let my little girl run around in a bikini (I'm planing to use the bottoms and put her in rash guard tops to protect her from the sun) BUT how freaking adorable is she! Ah! I cannot wait for summer. We are headed to Florida for a few days over spring break and hopefully we'll get a chance to play in the gulf and use our new suits!

on our way home from church. too cute in their bunny bibs!

Playing in the front yard with Daddy and Big Poppy who surprised us with a visit on Sunday afternoon.

this is how I find Emma Cate in the morning. Baby HATES when I turn on the lights. She hides her face.

first time on the swings with Gigi. They LOVED it!

Someone LOVES his Daddy (or just his hat). Jay normally gets home from coaching baseball AFTER the kids have gone to bed so daylight savings time allowed them to stay up a bit later and he got to see Holden for a few minutes!

Holden LOVES hats!

just a boy and his bottle and his dog. I LOVE how the pups keep the kids company! And yes, Holden is wearing christmas jammies. These Hannah Andersson jammies are my favorites and we're not packing them away until they outgrow them. Zippers are WAY better than snaps!

A few weeks ago our washer broke and we ALMOST bought a new one. Luckily a friend recommended a repair guy and now its good as new! We were excited to save a few hundred bucks! The same night the washer broke, our disposal broke too and leaked everywhere. It was a really fun evening. My husband installed a new one we had laying around the garage (our garage is a PIT of stuff!) and my Dad helped him get it working. 

Last week I got the stomach bug and it was not fun! I went to the doctor and after some blood work they thought that I may have appendicitis so they sent me to the hospital for a CT scan. It was a big waste of my time (I just knew I didn't have appendicitis) and I froze to death in the waiting room for an two hours by myself waiting for the test and then for the results. My mom kept the babies and I didn't interact with them (or her) for an entire day to avoid getting them sick. It worked and now we are all healthy!

We spend last weekend in Asheboro for my husband's birthday. We had a fun time celebrating him! It's a good thing our families still celebrate us because Jay and I are both not really birthday people. We laughed because we just don't have time to buy each other gifts or cards unless we buy it online. The only time we are by ourselves is when we are on the way home from work and neither one of us wants to waste time shopping, we'd rather be at home with each other and the kids. My gift from Jay was a trip (which we still have to take) and my gift to him is that I'm going to not spend a lot of money this month. Ha!


We also celebrated Daddy's birthday in Charlotte with an individual sized key lime pie that Gigi bought for him.

We also did a little redecorating in our family room. I got some new bright pillows and some art from Ikea. I am working on finding a new cheap rug and bought 20 some frames to create a huge gallery wall of pictures of the kids. My goal is to get the gallery wall done this weekend. I'm pretty pleased with how it all turned out :)