Away We Go

Fletch watched his sister crawl for long enough and decided it was his turn this past Monday. On Friday, I took the babies outside and he tried to make his get away through the grass.

It's adorable watching them follow us around the house. It's like having two little dogs, but way cuter. Guess it's time to babyproof now that we have two mobile babies.

Father's Day

I’ve been racking my brain to come up with some clever title and ideas for this post, but since nothing is coming to me, I’ll just do a recap. Father’s Day was yesterday, and it was great.

We took the babies on their first swim, and they really liked it. I think they liked being held in the water more than the floats, but they just looked so darned cute in their police car and flowery raft. Here are the videos we captured:

Eric is such a wonderful dad and sometimes seeing him with the babies just melts my heart.

On Sunday night, we had a cookout with Eric’s parents, after the babies went to bed. Oh, and Saturday was good too. We ran 10 miles in the morning and then went to a “playdate” in the evening at Reverend Gentle’s house from National City. The babies loved being in a new environment and seeing other kids and people. And, it was great for Eric and I to hang out with some folks. Last time we were at Reverend Gentle’s house, was the day before the babies were born. What a difference a few months make!

In other news, Fletch is now crawling and getting himself into a sitting position on his own. Yay! I think he’ll be a much happier boy now that he can travel around the room like Piper. We’ll get some video this week to post.

That’s it from the Woodard household. Have a great week!

9-Month Birthday

Happy 9-Month Birthday, Piper and Fletch. Another month has flown by, and the babies are doing great. This past month has brought lots of changes. Both babies are finally sitting unassisted and love sitting on the floor playing with their blocks and other toys. Also, in just a few short days, Piper has gone from barely sitting to crawling and getting herself seated on her own. She's also babbling a lot more, and I even heard a few "ma-ma-ma's" this weekend. Fletch is almost crawling but not quite. I think he gets really frustrated when he sees Piper moving around, but he can't, so he's working hard at it. We tried to take cute 9-month/Memorial Day shots of the babies but they just wouldn't hold still, so these are all the shots we were able to get.

Here are the photos from their 9-month photo shoot.

Over the long weekend, we finally were able to get to the new spray park, and it was awesome. We took the babies over on Monday after their morning nap. Piper loved it, and Fletch seemed to like it but was a bit more apprehensive. The spray park is zero depth so the babies could sit in the sprinklers and just play around. It also kept Eric and I cool. After about an hour in the water, we had a picnic at the park, and then head home for afternoon naps. It was a great way to spend the afternoon. Here are some pics:

We have their 9-month dr's appointment tomorrow, so I'll report out on there stats after that. It will be fun to see how much they've grown in the past few months.

On The Move

We have a crawler! Piper started really crawling this morning, as you can kind of see in this quick video that Eric shot. Bar the doors and keep everything above waist-height because this girl is going to be a dare-devil and explorer. The fun begins...

Time to Think

When you’re on bedrest you have lots of time to sleep, read, and become hooked on quality shows like this and this (I was seriously obsessed with MvF. I have no idea why b/c now it grosses me out. Maybe I thought I could out-eat him at that time). Mostly though, you have time to think, and a lot of those thoughts are devoted to what life will be like with the babies. This weekend, we were so blessed to have a weekend where all those thoughts came to life. It was just wonderful to be home with the babies and spend so much time together as a family.

On Saturday, the weather was glorious. Unfortunately, our health wasn’t, as the babies and I all had colds. So, we stayed home in the morning except for a long walk around the neighborhood. After naps, we walked across our neighborhood to the new spray park to check it out and have a picnic. The babies loved being outdoors and rolling around on the sheet. After coming back home for naps (yes, our whole life revolves around their naps), we broke out the wading pool and bathing suits, and the babies had a great time splashing around. I think it even helped them forget about their colds. After all that fun, the babies went to sleep while Eric and I enjoyed our latest obsession: Battlestar Gallactica (yes, we’re nerdy) and pizza. A perfect day and night.

On Sunday, I was feeling better, so I took the babies for a run in our hilly neighborhood. I may have missed our long run with ARRC, but pushing nearly 40 pounds of babies up and down some of the biggest hills in Fairfax County definitely made up for that. We all came home for naps and relaxing before heading out for a farewell lunch for our friend Steve Moore. The babies did a great job with all the people at the lunch that wanted to see them, putting on quite the show of smiling, giggling, grunting, and babbling. After getting home from that, we just relaxed the rest of the day and prepared ourselves for the week. I couldn’t have asked for a better weekend.

In between all this fun, we had some minor milestones. Piper finally decided she would stop trying to crawl long enough to learn to sit unassisted. Yay! This morning, I even found her sitting in her crib. She’s also started babbling more with consonant sounds. Fletch is still making mainly yelps and grunts but you can tell he’s on the verge of telling us something.

P.S. I realize with this post that I’ve become a once-a-week blogger who only does weekend reviews. I’m going to try to get a more frequent routine down soon.

Tulip Time

My two favorite things about spring in the Washington, DC area are the cherry blossoms and the tulips at the Netherlands Carillon near the Iwo Jima Memorial. This weekend, we took a trip to long walk to see the blooming buds, and had a terrific time. It was a perfect spring day, and the babies loved riding in the stroller, taking in all the people and sights. We had such a great time.

In addition to that bit of wonderfulness, the babies hit a terrific new milestone this weekend—they’ve learned to hold their own bottles and feed themselves. It’s incredible. We hand them the bottle, and they go to town on it. I can’t tell you how much stress feeding them caused me the first few months and weeks. Each feeding took at least hour, so there were some days when I spent 6-7 hours a day feeding them when I was on maternity leave. I know that crawling, walking, and talking are all going to be big milestones and steps on the way to independence, but this latest development felt huge to me. I’m hoping to get a picture of them eating sometime soon.