8 Months Old!

Hard to believe, but Jack and Ben are 8 months old today! Time is going by so quickly and they are growing so much! These hats have their names on them, and I bought them before they were born to help me tell the boys apart. The boys were so tiny, however, that they were swimming in the hats. Now, I can barely get them on their heads!

Ben and Jack


Jack and Ben

I don't usually dress them alike, but these little shirts say 'Best Buddies.' I couldn't resist. I thought about how nice it is that they will always have each other and always have a best friend. They are very lucky little guys! I do wish that Mairead had a sister because my sisters are so special to me, but she will have a special girl cousin very soon, so that is comforting to me.

I think they look so much alike in this one. Identical, you might say.

They are even wearing shoes now. Although, Ben is Shoe-dini and wears them very briefly. Then, he chews on them.

Do you know hard it is to get one picture with both babies even looking at me? Let alone smiling!

Ben and Jack

Jack and Ben ignoring me while trying to see the tv that is in the other room.

I took this one of Ben for a reason. When he was 2 1/2 weeks old and had just come home, I took a picture of him next to this same doll. That picture is below...

Can you believe how tiny he was? And this was at 2 weeks old when he had gained a lot of weight. Jack was tinier still! They have come so far, and while I still worry about them constantly, I know they are doing great and they bring us so much joy.

When people see that I have twins they very often say, "Oh, looks like Double Trouble!" and I smile and nod politely. Lately, however, the boys are living up to this comment. Ben is crawling all over the place and actually trying to pull himself up onto things... like the cable box, Mairead's little chairs, the footrest on my dad's chair... he is a daredevil and he is everywhere! Jack is another kind of trouble- he is so deliberate and goes after exactly what he wants. He is not crawling yet, but he can scoot really well and has a very long reach. He steals Ben's toys, grabs the jar of food during feedings, and always has this look on his face like he is formulating some kind of plan. We are in for it!

Their sister is handling them very well- she is very sweet to them. When one baby is in the swing, she goes over and presses the button to make the swing play music. She brings them toys (just not HER toys) and covers them with blankets. It's adorable.

She is learning so much, too. She is really into shapes right now, especially oval, for some reason. She has to tell us what color everything is, or what it is. Dave takes her to Hannafords and she announces the name of every item she can identify. I wish I had a video camera that I could use for the blog because the stuff she says is a riot. I am looking into getting a device to convert our camcorder videos to usable files, so we'll see if I can swing that.

We are so thankful for our amazing children. Thanks to all of you for checking in!

But Mom.... I had to check my email!

Yes, she is on top of the dining room table.
Yes, she opened the laptop by herself.
Yes, she is pressing buttons and making the screen change.
Yes, I took pictures before making her get down.

Yes, Dave and I have our hands full. In a good way, of course!

Happy Halloween!

So many pictures! We had a lot of fun for the boys' first Halloween (Mairead's THIRD!) and the kids looked adorable in their costumes.

First, could they BEE any cuter??? We are still not great at sitting up for extended periods, and getting BOTH to sit up at the same time is nearly impossible. Especially since they just want to roll off and explore.

They loved being outside. It was more than 70 degrees on Halloween! That wasn't what I planned when I bought these nice snuggly warm costumes!

Getting a picture of all three kids is NOT an easy feat. So, we have to take what we can get. Even if it means that no one smiles or makes eye contact, or that we have to bribe Mairead with lollipops.

I think that Jack is on the left and Ben is on the right. But if my life depended on it... I'm not quite sure!

In this one, I KNOW that Ben is on the left and Jack on the right. This picture was taken at the Halloween party we went to. There were so many babies there! Mairead and Ailish were the big kids, and there were lots of little ones about the same age as Jack and Ben. It was great to see everyone and we had a lot of fun. Thanks to the Luz family for inviting us for a great afternoon!

Mairead as a ladybug (sometimes she called it a butterfly, but close enough!).

She loved her costume. She wore it during her nap and pretty much all day. She would not take off her shiny red shoes (from my aunt, Judy) because she loves them so much.

No, I don't actually have triplets- this is our friend, Brady! Brady is Jen and Chip's little boy and he is about 6wks older than the boys. He is also much quicker on the draw and can get a toy away from even Jack, who is a known toy hoarder.

Mairead's favorite part of Halloween was running through leaves and throwing them up in the air (it was very windy!). She would then close her eyes and yell, 'whee!' as they rained down on her.

Ben was hiding out under my witch hat.

Dressing, preparing, and arranging three kids under three for Halloween pictures took four adults, and we still couldn't get all three to sit up, sit still, and smile for a picture together!

The only not so fun thing about Halloween is that we took the boys to get their H1N1 vaccine about an hour before the party. Not the best timing, but we took what we could get. Now, all three kids have had flu shots and H1N1 vaccines. Here's hoping we can avoid anything serious. I will say that the shots seem to be disagreeing with the boys. They have been fussy and have had very runny noses since then, so they are not happy. Neither is Mom since I was up all night with them. One or the other was awake pretty much all night- poor things. Poor Dave had to get up for work today after a much interrupted night's sleep. I am hoping they are just having a reaction to the shot and that they are not getting sick. Keep your fingers crossed!

On the day before Halloween, we had a very special delivery in the mail! Grandma and Grandpa sent some Halloween treats for the kids. Mairead loved opening the box and exploring what was inside-- some of her favorite things! Crayons, coloring books, a 'lift the flap' book (she loves those), some cute tights, and the best thing of all- three little rubber duckies dressed up for Halloween. She LOVES them. When she wakes up in the morning, she walks around asking, "ducks? ducks?" until we find them. Same thing after a nap. There are three ducks and while I am sure that Grandma intended for each grandchild to have one, Mairead has definitely commandeered the little guys. I'm sure she will share a little bit with Jack and Ben.

Here's Mairead exploring her box of treats!

Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa! And, happy Halloween to you all!