Oooohhh these babies...

I feel like I blinked and all of a sudden instead of what Caleb affectionately referred to as "baby zombies," we have actual REAL little people in our home now. Funny, opinionated, curious, sweet, cuddly little people. I can not believe how much Riley and Harper have changed since they were born, and I'm finding I can't get enough of them recently! A good thing really, since we are all with each other all day long. :)

Here's a quick update on a few of the girls' current likes and dislikes...

Harper's Likes
Nursing (or a good bottle...really, any nipple will suffice)
"Naked baby" time
Walks and car rides (especially, napping while on these outings)
Baths...more specifically, splashing water all over mom's shirt while bathing
Seeing her daddy walk in the door
Having her dad sing "The Heart Will Go On" from Titanic (don't ask me why he started singing this to her, but she LOVES it. But only if he is the one singing...I've tried this with her and get nothing)
Sleeping (she is definitely the easier of the two with naps during the day)

Riley's Likes
Drinking from a bottle (whether she is getting breast milk, formula, or more often than not, a mix of both)
Music (while her taste remains somewhat indiscriminate, she seems particularly interested in the classical station on Pandora)
Having her diaper changed....oh the joy!

Standing
"Naked baby" time
Walks and car rides (as long as the car doesn't stop for too long)
Dancing to commercials, songs we sing to her, really anything with a beat...ESPECIALLY when we sing "Rockin' Riley" (to the tune of "Rockin' Robin")
Sitting at the table in a lap and watching us eat

Harper's Dislikes
Having Riley inadvertently pull her hair or poke her in the eye, which unfortunately, has happened a fair amount recently
Having to wake up early from a nap because her sister did and is hungry (and for mom's sanity everyone must stay on the same schedule)
More often than not, the last hour before bed

Riley's Dislikes
Nursing (our recent struggles with this may follow in a separate post)
Sleeping on her back (she has recently started flipping onto her side and stomach mid-nap, which stresses me out)
Staying in one spot (she frequently rolls off activity mats and blankets onto the hardwood floor)

Additional Updates on Harper: One of my favorite things...she acts absolutely shocked and delighted every time I go in to get her in the morning, like she can't quite believe her luck in my coming to get her. SO cute! Although she seemed to discover she has a voice about a month or so ago, she continues to experiment with it, and has been making this crazy screeching noise recently. Not an angry screech necessarily, just REALLY loud. :)

Additional Updates on Riley: Although both girls are now rolling from stomach to back and vice versa, Riley has become a little roly poly as of late. I can lay her down on her back on an activity mat, turn around, and five seconds later she is on her belly and has completely scooted off the mat and onto the floor. She's also recently been trying to escape from her swing and bouncy chair, but thankfully was buckled in so has been unsuccessful thus far.

We are definitely in a nice routine around here, and both girls are sleeping from about 8/8:30pm - 7am each night. Riley is still sleeping in her swaddle with her arms out (so she doesn't suffocate when she flips her little body over at night), and tonight is the first night we are trying Harper completely unswaddled, so we'll see how that goes. So far, so good!

I need to get to bed, but promise to post some pictures and videos of our baby girls very soon!!

P.S.

Not sure what's happened to our blog background. Apparently it's decided to turn grey?? Sadly, I don't have time to mess with it, so it will just have to stay this way for now. Just know I did not purposely pick a boring grey background.

Riley Laughing

My mom caught this video of Riley when she was still in town. I've watched it like, 100 times, and it still makes me smile. :)

Sorry for the poor quality (this was shot via cell phone in the car.)

4 month checkup

Harper and Riley had their 4 month pediatric appointment yesterday, and both girls checked out great!

Stats for Harper:

Height: 25 inches (75th percentile)

Weight: 14 lbs, 6 oz (55th percentile)

Head Circumference: 41.5cm (75th percentile)

Stats for Riley:

Height: 23 inches (5th percentile)

Weight: 11 lbs, 3 oz (5th percentile)

Head Circumference: 41cm (60th percentile)

Both girls are gaining weight well and are on track with regard to their development (sitting up with support, tracking our movements, babbling and cooing, reaching for and grasping objects, etc.) and the PA we saw had no major concerns. (Harper's head is still a bit misshaped, as she tends to favor laying on her right side, so we were given instructions to do neck stretching exercises with her and encourage her to spend more time looking the other direction.)

The PA gave us the go ahead to start them on baby cereal anytime between now and 6 months. She indicated that one of the signs the girls might be ready is if they lick their lips in anticipation when they watch Caleb and I eat, which is a funny image. I haven't seen that happen yet, but we'll have to watch for it. There was one incident a few weeks ago where Riley was sitting in my lap cracking up while watching me stab my salad with a fork, but I'm not sure that enthusiasm was related to actually wanting to EAT the salad...

Speaking of cracking up, both of our sweet girls are becoming more and more smiley and giggly every day, ESPECIALLY in the morning. They have the cutest little smiles ever, and are generally in pretty good moods (with the exception of the occasional few "witching hours" before bed.) They are still on a relatively consistent schedule at this point, and are taking 3 naps a day for a total of between 4-5 hours. The glorious development of them sleeping through the night also continues, as we are now up to 9 nights in a row of them sleeping from about 8-9pm all the way until about 7am. Sooooo fantastic. :)

LOVING Grandma's Visit!

My mom has been in town since last Monday, and we SO enjoy having her here!! The girls have been soaking in lots of special playtime with Grandma, while Caleb and I are taking advantage of being able to sleep in, go out to dinners, see a movie, work out, etc. It has been fantastic! We will be sad to see her go back to Oklahoma next week, but will be anxiously awaiting the next visit in early May!

We're also looking forward to spending some quality time with Grandma and Grandpa Stephens later this month too! :)

New pics...

Ready for church...

Yet another attempt at a photo shoot....

Cute hats made by my talented momma...

Riley showing off her tummy time skills, and Harper exhibiting her increasing ability to sit up in her Bumbo seat without toppling over.

More photos in the brown chair. A perfect spot for baby propping.

16 weeks

Last Wednesday, our sweet baby girls turned 16 weeks old. Caleb and I have been eagerly anticipating this day for, oh, about 16 weeks. Why you ask? Well, because this was the age we had been told was the minimum for Cry it Out sleep training, which we fully expected to implement as soon as possible. Not that nights have been overly difficult around here recently...in fact, since mid January, Harper and Riley have been going to bed relatively easily and only waking once in the night to feed (around 3-4am), and then going right back down. So we can't REALLY complain.

Anyway, despite their progress in both going to sleep (without any sleep props other than being swaddled) and getting down to only one feeding per night, Caleb and I have still been anxiously awaiting the day when we can once again get a full night of uninterrupted sleep. I can not count the number of times the phrase "only 10 (8...5...3!!) more weeks until we can do cry it out" has been uttered in our household, particularly during the wee hours of the morning and more often than not, by Caleb. (Understandable, since the girls have more recently been waking up between 4-5am, which is often just shortly before Caleb has to get up for work, which makes it difficult for him to go back to sleep.) ANYWAY, I digress...

During the past few weeks, I've become more and more nervous about the prospect about actually implementing Cry it Out, in large part due to Riley's weight. We haven't had a doctor's appointment in about a month, but last time we went she only weighed 9 lbs, 3 oz. I recently read somewhere that babies have to be at least 12 lbs to have the stomach capacity to handle sleeping through the night without that extra feeding, and although Riley has been eating better with her Prevacid prescription, I'm not sure she's quite there yet. And I definitely didn't want to expect her to learn how to soothe herself to sleep if she wakes up starving...especially if her little stomach isn't large enough to hold enough milk to get her through the night. So despite Caleb's protests, I convinced him that we would at MINIMUM need to wait until the next doctor's appointment on March 12th to see what Riley's weight is (and discuss concerns with the pediatrician) before doing Cry it Out.

Well, there is apparently no need, as Harper and Riley decided on their own to start sleeping through the night last Wednesday. At EXACTLY 16 weeks. At first I thought it had to be a fluke, but they have slept through the night for the past four nights now, so I'm hoping this is our new pattern. Is this coincidence? Or our babies' way of rebelling against the idea of having to Cry it Out? Either way, we'll take it! :)