5 months old!

Hard to believe that Ben and Maddie are turning 5 months old this week. Wow. They don't seem like "babies" anymore. There isn't quite the right term for what they are now -- they are more like toddlers, but not quite.

They roll around all the time and seem to love touching each other -- kicking, holding hands, etc.

Today they were rolling around on the floor -- in their matching "The apple of Daddy's eye" and "The apple of Mommy's eye" outfits -- and they just kept rolling into each other.

From May 2009

You're probably wondering who had which t-shirt, right? Well Maddie has the Daddy shirt and Ben has the Mommy shirt. For some reason, Ben and I seem to be closer and Maddie and Jamey are closer. Interesting, huh?

We had another great sleep night last night. I didn't hear a peep out of them until 5 a.m. And that was just Ben whimpering, but still sleeping. If I weren't a light sleeper, I probably could've kept sleeping until at least 6 a.m. Oh well. They got up at 6 as usual. No nighttime feeding! Yeah!

Ben is doing great with the rice cereal. He gets super excited when he sees me putting his plastic bib on. He knows what's coming!

Maddie, on the other hand, scowls at me and gives me this, "not this again, Mom?" look. She's letting me put the spoon in her mouth a few times, but still not really going for it. UGH.

Visitors!

My good friend Janelle (a Wisconsin native, who lives in the DC area and was a good friend of mine while I was out there) came for a short visit and got to meet Ben and Maddie.

From May 2009

And my aunt Ann brought her granddaughters, Ava and Emily, for a visit this morning...

Here's Ava with Ben:

From May 2009

And Ann with Maddie and Emily:

From May 2009

And Jamey's grandparents, Jack and Liz, arrived today for the long weekend:

From May 2009

From May 2009

First boat ride

We took the babies out on their first pontoon ride this afternoon, along with great-grandma and great-grandpa. They are now completely sacked out on a late afternoon nap. I think all the new sights and sounds really wore them out.

Speaking of which....there's something about the air up here that makes everyone sleep so well. The babies joined the club last night. They slept from 8 pm to 6 am without waking up at all!!! Mom was soooo thrilled to sleep through the night. Plus, since I was at the cabin (where I always sleep like a rock), I was out cold all night. (I suppose it's possible one or both woke up at some point and made some noise and I simply didn't hear them!).


Here's Jamey with Maddie:

From May 2009

Here's me with Ben -- cute hat, huh?

From May 2009

And Jamey again with Maddie and her cute sun hat...

From May 2009

Rice cereal

So, we've been trying to get the babies started on rice cereal (per our pediatrician's advice) and Ben is doing pretty well, but Maddie isn't so keen on it.

Here's Ben chowing down this morning...

From May 2009

And here's Maddie....most of it didn't make it into her mouth, as you can see...

From May 2009

Big adventure

So, we're heading to the cabin tomorrow morning for the babies' first visit to the cabin -- my favorite place on earth!

Needless to say, we're going to have a full car with all the stuff for the babies. Actually we might end up taking two cars -- the truck and the Prius -- or maybe just the truck.

We're planning to stay until Tuesday morning. A nice long vacation.

Then we have to get back so Jamey can keep working on the rental property. He MUST get it done and rented by the end of June when I go back to work.

I haven't been to the cabin since last Labor Day. I was too big and uncomfortable to go up last fall when Jamey did all the closing up for the winter. So I'm really looking forward to going.

Awesome photo of Maddie

....Jamey took this morning. Wow.

From May 2009

Scrapblog

I'm working on an online scrapbook for Ben and Maddie on a site called Scrapblog. It's essentially going to be a baby book documenting their first year, with 1 or 2 pages for each month.

You can see what I've got so far, here.

Tucker the Turtle

Ben and Maddie's favorite toy these days is a plush Lamaze toy called "Tucker the Turtle." It has a mirror on its belly and bells in its feet, so if you shake it over their head while they're laying on their backs, they just giggle and go nuts. I got it for something like $1 at a Moms of Multiples sale this spring. The other day I was curious if it was still being sold and how much it cost.

Much to my surprise I found a $25 price tag for it on Amazon!!

It sure would be worth that money, but boy am I glad to have gotten the cheaper version.

Here's Ben playing with it this morning...

From May 2009

Today's photos

Here are a couple pictures I took today....

From May 2009

From May 2009

And here are Ben and Maddie with Ezra Wiese, my friend Dani's new baby. We met up with them in Rochester yesterday and we took over my brother's living room for a few hours! It was all baby chaos!

From May 2009

And finally....
Jamey took these photos this morning of our beautiful crab apple tree in our front yard. It looks just spectacular like this for just a couple weeks each year. Boy do I wish it looked like this year-round!

From May 2009

From May 2009

From May 2009

My first Mother's Day

We spent my first Mother's Day at my aunt and uncle's in Stillwater for lunch. The babies did momma proud by being cute for a few minutes, eating and then promptly going to sleep for two hours while the adults ate lunch!

The babies (a.k.a. Jamey) got me a figurine set from the Willow Tree collection of twin babies. It's called "Two Together: Love in abundance"

My "real" present, though, was yesterday from Jamey's aunts. They came over and babysat all day while I got out of the house. I went to the gym and ran errands. Not exactly a "spa" day, but it was really nice to get away from changing diapers and bottles for an extended period of time.

I still don't quite feel like a mother just yet. Maybe it won't fully kick in until they start calling me "Momma." Right now it's kind of like somebody brought up these kids and said, "here...take care of them." :-)

But it's settling in more and more everyday that I am a Momma and I have two very precious angels. I don't know what I did to deserve such fabulous babies.

Maddie and Ben seem to be getting cuter by the day! Here are pics from our first Mother's Day....

From May 2009

From May 2009