hopefulandhungry

***This is a long post as I feel there is a lot to catch up on! Feel free to skip ahead to the photos!***

Jemma and Zoe are over a half year old now! My gosh, it’s amazing how much they have changed and grown since they were born in July. They are so interactive, smiley, giggly and just so much fun!

Jemma now has 4 teeth, all on the bottom, she was continually biting her lip and making this face, but now that the teeth are in, she seems to have gotten past the habit. Zoe still only has 2 lower teeth and we don’t see any others popping through yet. We are brushing their teeth every evening after bath time, both girls don’t mind at all. Mama wants to see them get into the brushing habit early, as a dentist, I don’t want them to have to visit me at all except to have their teeth cleaned.

Zoe is rolling back and forth constantly now and log rolls herself all over our living room. She is pushing up on her hands and I think will be crawling in not too long (uh oh!). Jemma, on the other hand, is perfectly content to lie on her back. She is capable of rolling onto her tummy, but prefers to be on her back. I don’t think we need to worry about her moving too soon.

The girls are now thoroughly enjoying solids. We tried the Baby Led Weaning method, but it wasn’t going as well or as easy as we thought, so we’ve focused more on purees and are spoon feeding. We give hand held foods occasionally and will probably go back to the BLW in time. They have pretty much enjoyed everything we’ve given them-applesauce, peaches, peas, squash, sweet potato, prunes, and avocados. We captured a video of Zoe while we were on vacation and she was just ecstatic eating peaches and peas, screaming, giggling, and pumping her little arms up and down. Zoe, unfortunately, has had some issues with constipation. I think with the introduction of solids and us changing them to the next level of formula (with more iron) has contributed, we’ve managed it pretty well with prune juice (mixed into her bottles) and hopefully won’t have to resort to other methods. The girls are definitely having more solid BMs now.

Jemma and Zoe are still continuing to sleep 12 hours a night and aren’t napping all that long during the day. We are trying to transition from three to two naps a day. A late morning nap and an afternoon nap and dropping the mid-day nap. They are still great about sleeping in the car and often times in the stroller if we’re on a longer walk.

We recently took six month photos, of both the girls and of our family. We made sure to schedule a morning session as the girls are happiest in the morning. They did great, Zoe’s smiles were a little easier to get, Jemma was in the middle of her lip biting phase and a bit more pensive. Our photographer Stephanie is awesome! If you live in the Seattle area and are looking for a photographer, we highly recommend her.

Another big event is that we took the girls to Hawaii right before their seven month birthday. We spent a week in Maui and the girls did great! We rented a condo in the Kaanapali area and were within walking distance to Whaler’s Village. The girls did great on the airplane ride and probably surprised the passengers around us (who were likely scared when they saw us coming). We purchased one extra seat so that we could bring one of the carseats onboard, which freed up our hands from one baby occasionally. We tried to give the girls their bottles on take off and landing and they didn’t seem to have any troubles with their ears. While in Hawaii, we tried to keep them on their same Seattle schedules as much as possible. It meant a lot of condo time for us, and only one day at the beach, but it was great to spend all day with them for a whole week. We miss them so much while we are at work, so getting to spend so much time with them was wonderful! Also, my front office employee’s aunt is a nanny on Maui, so we hired her twice while we were there. One day she came so that Hubby and I could go to the beach and then out to lunch and another evening so that we could go out to dinner. The girls went to the pool twice and had mixed feelings about it. We did have to get a little inventive at the condo, since it had tile floors everywhere but the bedrooms, we pushed the two sofas together to make a large area where the girls could safely roll around and we had to resort to baths in the kitchen sink since Jemma especially hated being in the shower.

Sitting on the sofa of the condo

Asleep in the couch fort

Ready for the pool

Out to one of our favorite breakfast spots-The Gazebo

Seven Months!

In highchairs!

I’m still pumping, down to twice a day which is very manageable. I no longer feel tied to my pump and can go about my day without feeling like I have to pump every few hours. My milk supply has dropped pretty drastically since I went from three to two pumping sessions a day. I plan on dropping to just a single pump a day by the end of this week. Hubby and I are going to a wedding in Arizona the first weekend of March without the girls and I’d like to be done pumping by then. The girls are still getting one breast milk bottle a day and will hopefully continue to do so until they are eight months.

We are enjoying spring like weather here in the Northwest, we are lucky compared to the East Coast getting slammed with snow. We are enjoying walks and some outdoor time.

Happy Sunday!

xoxo