Hitting Some Milestones

Hattie and Tille like watching tv, and especially kid shows.  When we watch jeopardy, they both stop whatever they're doing and jerk their heads to the tv when the final jeopardy music comes on.  When we put on kid shows, they recognize that the talking and music are aimed at them and they'll pay really close attention.

I love this video so much. Hattie and Tille didn't know we were watching them, and they were hugging and cuddling on the floor for a while before I got my phone out to record.  Of course, once they saw my phone, they stopped what they were doing to come investigate.

Two weeks ago (July 3), I noticed that Tille had an actual tooth poking through her gums.  I got excited and told Matt and he said he had felt it a few days earlier.  I think it had started breaking through earlier, but it didn't actually show until the 3rd.  For months, every time the babies have been extra drooly or fussy or had a fever, we've thought, 'well this it, they're teething now'. And then nothing happened.  So I was pretty excited to finally see an actual tooth.  A few days later, the 6th, I felt Hattie's first tooth coming through.  Interestingly, Tille's tooth is her front left bottom; Hattie's is her front right bottom.  Also, Tille's hair swirls clockwise; Hattie's swirls counter-clockwise.  So maybe mirror twins?  Anyway, neither of them likes me putting my finger in their mouth or holding their mouth open, so I've still only gotten a few glimpses of their teeth, but I'm glad they're finally coming in.
The same week (I think the 3rd again), I was trying to get Hattie to stop digging through the recycle bin in our kitchen, when suddenly she was standing on her own.  It took me a few seconds to grasp it.  I looked and looked to be sure she wasn't holding anything, and sure enough, she was standing all on her own.  For the next week or so, she would do it every now and then, and every time it kind of freaked me out.  She's not sure what to do when she gets up, so she just stands there smiling, with her legs wide apart and her hands out.  Since I'm not used to her being upright, it looks almost foreign and unnatural.  But now that we're getting used to it it's really cute.  Last Friday (July 13th) I had been home from work for about 20 minutes.  Matt's sister Kathryn had been babysitting and was there sitting on the couch.  Hattie was over by her, and then stood up and took a couple steps towards me.  I'd seen her kind of move her feet while falling before, but this time they were actual steps while she was upright.  Yay!  She was so excited and proud of herself.  For the next 15 minutes-ish, Hattie kept trying to stand up to walk some more, but she was so excited she couldn't stop bouncing her legs to get balance.  I love seeing her so proud of herself.  Since then, she's taken a few more independent steps, but mostly she's focusing on standing and balancing right now.  Tille has started standing a little.  She hasn't been able to stand for more than a couple seconds at a time, but she's starting to practice.  I think they'll both be walking within a week or two.  Yikes!  And Yay!
Last Thursday the Michigan and Draper Glausers had arranged to have swim lessons at a neighbor's pool in Draper.  I invited myself and the babies along.  I've been wanting to take them swimming for a really long time, but we just haven't found a good time for it yet.  Either the pools are closed, or somebody is sick or we're too busy or the weather is no good. So I took work off for the day and went swimming with the babies.  Grandma and Grandpa held Hattie and I held Tille.  They were a little unsure, but ultimately had fun.  Hattie got right in and was splashing and kicking.  Tille clung to me, but as long as she felt safe on me she was smiling and kicking.  It was a good time.  I thought we'd only last 20 or 30 minutes at the most, but we were in the pool for 1 1/2 hours, with the girls having fun the whole time.  I'm glad we finally got them into a pool.  Hopefully we'll find more opportunities before the summer is out.

Grandma, Hattie, Me, Tille

Hattie loves to clap lately.  She claps for herself when she stands or walks, when Tille makes her happy, when somebody comes in the room, etc. She also loves waving to people.  A few days ago at the grocery store, Matt had Hattie in his cart and I had Tille in mine.  Matt said Hattie waved at everybody she saw.  Meanwhile, Tille talked to everyone we saw.  All through the store, she just talked and talked, telling everybody her story.

Hattie trying out Grandma's sunglasses

Hattie on left, Tille on right

Hattie's showing some attitude while she stands (and claps for herself)

Sometimes in the morning I'll take the girls for a walk around the neighborhood.  They usually just sit and chill and watch the houses go by.

When we put the babies in their cribs, they ALWAYS IMMEDIATELY flip to this position.  It doesn't matter how we lay them down, they roll right over and into a ball.

The girls sporting their first pony tails (Hattie on right, Tille on left)

They're getting pretty good at going upstairs. Not so much downstairs, but they try.  A few days ago, I had brought both girls upstairs, and with my hands full I couldn't close the door behind me.  A few minutes later Matt found Tille 3 stairs down, headfirst, trying to get down by herself.  Scary!

Hattie's so proud of her new skill

Both girls like to make squishy faces and breathe heavy.  It's a little game they play with us.  They might start and we'll do it back, or we'll start and they'll do it back. (Tille in red, Hattie in white)

The babies fell asleep eating on me. I had to take a picture of the cuteness.  Hattie in yellow, Tille in pink

9 Months!  Tille in white, Hattie in red

Everybody is wearing their soccer shirts!  We're fans of the Arsenal Gunners in our house.  It's a team in London.

The babies are both super ticklish.  Just a little squeeze gets them giggling.

Hattie waiting nicely for lunch

Tille trying to stay awake for lunch

She didn't make it

Hattie passed out pretty hard here

Tille is so flexible!

The girls love to read the grocery store ads with me on Tuesdays (Hattie in yellow, Tille in green)

Hugs!

I love these outfits! Look at those ruffle bums!

Here's Hattie being flexible

The girls love playing with my shoes. Mostly the red ones. (Hattie in short sleeves, Tille in long sleeves)

I found these cute outfits in a box in the closet. Probably 85% of their clothes come from a box in the closet that Jenni sent us from her girls.  Every couple of weeks I'll go through the box again and pull out the clothes that fit.  I think these pajamas are super cute.  I've also found a bunch of dresses that will fit in the next month or two. Thanks Michigan Glausers!

On the nights that Matt has HOA meetings, I'm on my own at bathtime.  This means that one baby has a few seconds to make a run for it while I get the other baby out.  Hattie took full advantage of that situation the other night, and this was the result.  She's so funny.

A couple weeks ago Matt and I were watching tv and the girls were doing their own thing.  We kept hearing giggles and laughs behind the couch, so I sneakily hung my phone over the side of the couch to try to record the girls.  This is what I caught.  They were just having a blast playing with each other.  This was kind of the tail end of it, so they weren't laughing as much in the recording as they had been, but it's still fun.  Side story- Hattie and Tille have never been big on binkies.  For a couple weeks we could give them a binkie to calm them down, but they would only suck on it for a few minutes and then they were done.  Now they only want a binkie if they can take it away from another baby.  But over the weekend they found their old binkies and started sucking on them, just for fun.  I was in the kitchen yesterday and the girls were playing on the floor.   They were cracking each other up, so I looked over and Tille was sucking on the binkie and making faces, and Hattie thought it was really funny.

The girls love to dance.  Anytime they hear anything even resembling music, they dance.  The other day Matt was doing dishes or something and they danced to the scrubbing noise. Here they are getting down to some reggae.

Matt got these pictures of the girls a few days ago.  Hattie above, Tille below.  They posed so perfectly!

We blew up the wading pool and let the girls try it out on Saturday.  It was smaller than the bathtub, so I don't think they were thrilled by this.  They spent more time crawling out and eating sticks and rocks on the driveway than they spent in the pool.  But it was something new for them to try.

We still have several outfits in the closet that I've been anxiously waiting for the girls to grow into.  These are some of them.  They might still be a little big, but I think they're adorable.  I couldn't get a great picture of the girls in them, and they hate wearing headbands, but trust me, soo so cute.

10 Months!  It's getting a lot harder to take these monthly birthday pictures!

This is the girls and me 37 Weeks and 1 Day into pregnancy (the day the babies were born), and 37 Weeks 1 Day out of pregnancy.  I think they look better on the outside.

Hattie and Tille love to give each other kisses.  More and more they'll give Matt and me kisses now too.  They'll come up to us with their mouths wide open and suck on our nose or chin.  I'm pretty sure this is their kiss.
I've added some videos below, but I don't think they're loading right.  I'm just going to leave them and try fixing them later if they don't work.  The first is the babies' favorite game to play with Matt.  He'll come stomping and roaring at them and they'll break out in giggles and try to get away.  Every time.  So cute. The second is Hattie playing peek a boo.  Tille has started it now too, but I don't have a video of her yet.  Any time I pull my phone out to take a video or picture, they stop what they're doing to look at me.

It's been a year since we bought our house, so we decided to buy another.  It's a real fixer-upper.  Okay, so we actually bought land in the Uintahs, and it happens to have a couple of old trailers on it.  We first looked at the property back in September and then thought about it all winter and bought it a few weeks ago.  We went up this week to look at it again (it had snow when we went before so I stayed in the car with the babies, so I wanted to see it better).  I think the trailers will work for now to sleep, cook, etc in.  But our plan is to eventually have some sort of cute cabin on the land.  The big trailer has 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, living room, and kitchen.  The second has a bathroom, bedroom, and living room.  They're pretty gross (been there for about 60 years), so we're going to go up in a few weeks to scrub them.  I'm excited to have some land just an hour and a half away, where we can just go get away for weekends whenever we want.  I think it'll make for some great kid birthday parties in a few years. 

The Latest

Here's a little update of what's been going on at our house lately.
Last week Hattie came down with a fever. We thought it was from teething, so we gave her Tylenol and cold things to chew on, and tried to keep her cool.  It was so sad.  For a few nights, she just wanted to be cuddled all night.  I spent a couple nights on the couch holding her, kind of sleeping, kind of not.  One of the nights (it's all a blur) I fed both babies around midnight. Then one woke up an hour later so Matt fed and cuddled her.  Then the other woke up an hour later so I fed and cuddled her, and by the time she was back to sleep, the other one was crying, so I fed and cuddled her again, and that's kind of how the entire night went.  Finally on Friday night we were exhausted, so Matt and I agreed to let both girls sleep in their beds all night.  There was a lot of screaming that night.  We'd feed and cuddle a baby if she had slept at least one hour since the last feeding. Too often, they'll seem to be asleep but then wake up crying 10 minutes after we put them in bed, so we let them cry through that. Saturday morning, we were comparing notes of the night before, and we realized Tille slept from about midnight til 6 or 7, and Hattie only got up twice and went back to sleep after eating and crying for a bit. Much much better!  Saturday night Tille slept even longer and Hattie also did better.  I hate to jinx it, but we might be turning a corner with their sleep.
Anyway, back to Hattie and her fever.  I think it was Wednesday night, Matt put her to bed right after I got home from work. Usually she'll cry for 5-10 minutes before she falls asleep.  But she was quiet.  We each checked on her a couple of times, and she was just sitting in bed, staring blankly around the room.  She was bright red with fever and just looked so sad.  She got lots of extra cuddles last week.  Her fever went away on Thursday and we thought all was well.  But then she woke up with a nasty rash on her face Saturday morning, and it spread all over her body throughout the day.  It looked awful.  She didn't seem to be feeling too sick, other than screaming for no apparent reason for just a couple of minutes every now and then.  After some research, I think she had roseola. I could be wrong, but that seems to fit the best.  She looked a lot better this morning.  Her rash is super super light and she was in a much better mood.  Now we're just waiting for it to hit Tille.  The babies share everything, so I can't imagine Tille will avoid catching this.  The incubation period is 1-3 weeks, so any day now :(
Since Hattie was covered in rash and we expected Tille to get a fever any time, Matt stayed home from church with the girls (I play piano in Relief Society, so I had to be there).  After sacrament meeting, I checked my phone and Matt had just texted to let me know Tille had been stung by a bee and should we be freaking out?  We had the windows open on Saturday because the weather was so nice, and a bee/wasp/hornet had gotten inside and died.  Tille found it and when she picked it up, she got the stinger in the palm of her hand.  Matt said she screamed for a few minutes, but then was ok.  I did some quick googling in the chapel and found that we just needed to watch for a reaction.  But she's fine and didn't even remember it when I got home and looked at her hand.
A couple weeks ago Matt and I went to the dentist for the first time since we moved.  A little back story- Matt got his wisdom teeth removed when he was a teenager.  All four were impacted and it was awful.  His dentist just gave him a local anesthetic, which didn't work.  Matt kept telling his dentist that he could feel everything, and the dentist just ignored him.  And then, as the dentist was digging to get a tooth out, one of his tools broke off in Matt's gums.  And he felt it all.  So yeah, pretty awful.  Back to a couple weeks ago.  Matt doesn't enjoy the dentist and wasn't looking forward to this visit.  And then, the worst happened.  The dentist took some xrays and told Matt two of his wisdom teeth had grown back and would need to be removed.  I didn't even know wisdom teeth COULD grow back!  And of all the people for them to grow back for, it had to be Matt, who had the worst wisdom teeth story I've ever heard.  So last week Matt went in and got one of his wisdom teeth removed again.  He said it actually went pretty well and he likes our new dentist.  Phew!  I was scared for how bad it might be.  He'll go back in a few weeks to get the other one out.
Anyway, last week was rough in our house.
Here are a few good things.  I've noticed lately that Tille might like to be tidy.  I don't know if I'm reading too much into this, but I've seen her try to put blankets that fell on the floor back on the couch, when she pulls the kitchen towel off the oven door she'll try to put it back, sometimes she puts toys back on the shelf.
On weekend mornings when all we want to do is sleep but the babies are ready to play at the crack of dawn, one of us will get them up and put them in the living room and they'll play while we pretend to sleep on the carpet.  My favorite is when I'll be lying there with my eyes closed, and then I'll open them and a baby will be an inch or less from my face, just smiling big at me.  It's so cute!
I've noticed Hattie and Tille playing more with each other.  A few days ago we'd all been in the kitchen, and then Matt and I went to the living room.  We could hear the girls crawling over to join us.  And then, from behind the couch, I could hear one crawling and one giggling.  Then Hattie came into view.  She would crawl a few inches, then turn around to look at Tille and giggle, then go another few inches and giggle some more. A few days ago I was feeding both girls in their high chairs when they took a break to hold hands and giggle with each other.  It was just the cutest.
And a few days ago, I was feeding them both in their high chairs.  Every few minutes, Tille would get a really serious look on her face, and then fart.  Then she'd look serious at me for a few seconds, and then she'd crack up.  And that made Hattie crack up.  Safe to say they got my sense of humor.

Hattie and Tille like to chew on baby carrots.  I think it feels good on their gums. Hattie is on the right, with the carrot in her mouth.  Tille has the carrot in the picture below.

Meal time! Hattie doesn't like oatmeal, Tille doesn't like bananas, and neither of them likes pureed green beans.  But they love sweet potatoes, baby food mac and cheese puree, rice cereal, applesauce, and cheerios!

Hattie's just chillin' in the stroller.

Tille's enjoying the sunshine (and learning to smile for the camera)

I love these dresses the girls wore last Sunday.  We have lots of super cute clothes that I've been waiting for the girls to grow into, so I'm really trying to get them into the rotation before the girls blow right past those sizes. This is Hattie playing with her play table.

Tille loves technology.  She kept turning the cable box on and off, so we had to turn it to the side so she can't reach the button.  She'll find our cell phones and the remote control no matter where we put them.

This is how we spent Sunday School last week.  A minute later, Tille grabbed a handful of the moss in the tree pot.

I gave the girls slices of zucchini to chew on while I made dinner the other night.  It kept them busy the whole time. (Tille in pink, Hattie in white)

Poor sick Hattie with rash all over

Tille was trying not to go to sleep, but was too tired for selfies.