Hello!

Hello blogging buddies! It has been a while since I have updated by blog besides with pictures. Life is great...never boring that is for sure. Lindley Kate and Ellie are changing so much,it is crazy how fast kids grow and how fast time flies. I am sad to report that we are still sleep deprived in this house. It has gotten a lot better but we still have quite a bit of interrupted sleep. We have read a few books,sought advice from other parents of mulitples but nothing seems to work. Let me start with saying...the girls go down to bed great, no issues. Our issues arise from about midnight -2am. Ellie is a noisy sleeper. She talks, moans etc...when she turns over. Occasionally she goes back and forth from sleep to being somewhat awake and lets out a really loud cry. Sometimes she self soothes and finds her paci, puts it back in her mouth and then falls back asleep and sometimes we have to help soothe her, rub her back etc. In an effort to see if she can put her self back to sleep since rarely she is actually "awake" we let her cry it out a little. Nothing extreme but we try. We have read in many books about multiples that they tune out the noise of the other but awake to movement which is why you have to separate them into different cribs. Well in our case they are WRONG! Any crying beyond a minute,wakes the other one up! The other one being Lindley Kate. So now we have two awake babies but Ellie falls back to sleep easily. LK on the other hand,greets us with a kick in the bed, a smile and a giggle. It is rather cute but so not amusing at 2am especially bc she does not fall back asleep very easily. It is a viscious cycle bc she begins to get upset once she realizes we are not here to get her out of bed and thus begins to cry.Oh no, here we go again...now Ellie is asleep but not in a deep enough sleep to keep from being aroused. So depending on the night we, either rock Lindley Kate and try to get her back to sleep, which doesn't always work...some nights she is just wide awake! So out of desperation we bring her back to bed with us because we are super tired. However we don't like the family bed...I dropped her out of my arms when she was a month old and off the bed she went tumbling. It was not a fun experience and because of this I just don't sleep well when either one is in the bed with us. It has gotten so much better though...the wake ups are not as frequent. We just really look forward to a night of uninterrupted sleep!

Both girls are rolling around everywhere. Still not sitting up or crawling but neither are far off. Ellie is agile, quick and has mastered rolling everywhere, scooting on her belly to get to what she wants. She probably weighs about 2 pounds less than Lindley Kate now. The difference is very noticable these days.I must flip Ellie back on her back at least 2o times while I am changing her. She is fast! LK has just now become more comfortable on her belly and scooting around to get what she wants. We always laugh bc it looks like she is in slow motion compared to Ellie. However, miss steam roller will gladly push Ellie out of the way to get what she wants. It is quite a site to see. They have definitely taken to each other and are very aware of the other these days. They look for each other in their cribs if I am changing one on the changing table and they coo back and forth at one another. It is so precious to hear laughter on the floor while I am in the kitchen and to look over and see them giggling back and forth at each other! They usually want the same toy and tug of war ensues frequently. Most of the time, Ellie wins bc she is a little more coordinated however sometimes, LK makes off with it. Ellie gets frustrated and proceeds to grab LK's arm or hand and bite it with her gummy mouth...(no teeth yet, for either of them!) Thankfully, since there are no teeth, it doesn't hurt and quite frankly LK is so wrapped up in her toy, she hardly notices that Ellie had her hand or arm in her mouth. These days, anything Ellie comes in contact with she bites down on...I can already tell, I have a lot to look forward to coming up!

We are heading to VA for Thanksgiving on Monday and we are really looking forward to it! It will be nice to see my mom and Jim, Uncle Rus can meet the girls, and I have a lot of friends I want the girls to meet as well as we are going to try and connect with some of William's VMI buddies. We are flying which will be interesting but so much better than driving. It is funny....William really hates attention and the girls draw a lot of attention. There are times when it is annoying bc I am in a hurry and I just don't have time to answer every question they ask...but for the most part, I have learned to accept it. It doesn't deter me from leaving the house...staying cooped up gets really old. Getting out is definitely challenging and time consuming, so I really look forward to having William around and his help. Going through airports in the middle of the day,during several feedings is just going to be interesting. Not to mention, many people love babies but not so much on an airplane. What a shame! Oh well, he'll take it in stride but I know it is going to drive him crazy!

Ok, off to bed. Good night!