7 Months Old Tomorrow!

How is it possible...

 that seven months

 have gone by already?

 And guess who decided to sit all by herself on the eve of her 7 month birthday?

Katie-Bug!

Happy 7 month birthday, baby girls! 

Mommy loves you!

(Now, would you please return to sleeping through the night again?  If I keep getting up every 3 hours at night, I just might go nutso.  Thanks!)

Love,

M

The Many Expressions of Maddie-Moon!

Madison, or Maddie-Moon as we have been calling her lately, is our youngest.  I guess you could call her the baby of the family but I think Kate deserves that title as well :)  Maddie is usually a happy baby.  She loves to give you her mega-watt smile, complete with two fancy teeth on the bottom.  She spends her days cooing, grabbing her toes and charming just about everybody.  She's also the queen of making funny faces.  Here are just a few of my favorites...

Nice, Maddie.  Thanks for that!

I wonder what she's thinking here....

Can you tell that she's found her tongue and loves to show it off?  Can you also tell that I need to crop some of my photos?  Ha!  Who has time for that? 

I'm on spring break this week and am so happy to be home with my little ones.  I'm catching up on sleep, if you can call it that.  Both babies have been giving us a difficult time at night for at least the past month.  They have both been waking up very upset.  Kate has decided that she'd much rather sleep on our bedroom floor in the bouncy seat and Maddie has been talking me into nursing in the middle of the night again.  Seriously?!?!  Who needs sleep anyways?  I think they are paying us back for saying that the first 3 months with twins wasn't that bad. 

We had a nice Easter yesterday.  We were awakened early by Lauren, who was very excited to see if the Bunny had come and hidden her eggs.  She was thrilled to see that he had, so she had fun searching all over for them.  Then I made a big pancake breakfast and we took all 3 kids to church.  That was great too...until Maddie started passing gas BIG TIME in the middle of a prayer and again during the sermon.  I was laughing so hard (silently) that I nearly cried.  I'm sure she could be heard by most of the people around us.  Oh well.  What can you do?

After our busy morning, we came home and had lunch before we all enjoyed a family nap. 

I hope your Easter was wonderful!
Love,
M 

Starring Kate!

It's important to Chad and I that the babies each be treated as unique individuals.  We try to avoid referring to them as "the twins".  Technically since they are fraternal, they're no more closely related than any two siblings are.  They simply grew inside me at the same time.  So...in the spirit of treating them as individuals, this post is all about Kate!  She's a sweetheart and has truly amazed us with her strength and determination.  She was our smallest baby at birth and has been growing by leaps and bounds!  When you hold her, she loves to grab your cheeks, give you a GIANT smile and come in for a huge, open-mouth smooch.  But be warned!  She'll quickly move her hands to yank your hair.  She's tricky like that.

 

Gotta love the double chin!

Have a good night!

Love,

M

Guess Who Is Six Months Old?

Kate and Madison are officially half a year old!  That time has flown by.  Wow.

Mommy's Little Katie-Bug.

"Maddie-Moon"
 (She has somehow acquired this nickname from a song off of a classic movie...Dumb & Dumber.  Don't ask.)

Our unseasonably warm March (84 degrees!) allowed Chad to get an early start on playing on his tractor  cutting the grass.

Our nanny was sick yesterday, so I had an unexpected day off for the twins' 6 month birthday!  We celebrated with a mini-photo shoot done by Mommy.  We have a real photo shoot scheduled during spring break with the photographer who did their newborn shots.  I'm excited for those! 

What's new with everyone?  Chad is busy drawing up plans to build a deck himself, Lauren is keeping busy in make-believe land and spends her days pretending to be Rapunzel.  Mommy is quite proud that Lauren's also begun learning to read!  I brought home several beginning reader books from my classroom that she can already breeze right through and have created several fun practice booklets for her.  Maybe that's a perk of having a Mom who is a kindergarten teacher and reading specialist?

Madison has two new pearly whites!  Poor Kate.  She was the first born of the two of them but since then, Madison has been first for everything else.  First to roll over, first to babble, first to find her toes (and suck on them), first to sit without support and first to get a tooth.  Maybe Kate will be the first to walk??  Oh, wait.  She was the first to sleep in a bouncy seat in Mommy and Daddy's closet.  Woops.  Probably don't need to broadcast that! 

I will try to post new pictures of the twins from my impromptu photo shoot later this weekend.

Happy (early) Easter!
Love,
M   

We have a sitter!

Tonight, Madison sat by herself for the first time!  Here she is!

 Maddie also recently modeled a tutu made by a friend of mine.  Poor Kate missed out on the fun because she was napping.

 First walk in the new double jogging stroller!

Good night!

Love,

M

Birthday, Engagement and Other Big News!

We've been busy, busy, busy!  It's been a llloooonnnngggg time since I had the chance to sit down and do a blog post.  There are lots of pictures for you  :)  What's new with us?  Well, lots!  First of all, our first baby girl turned FOUR YEARS OLD on January 14th!  Where has the time gone?  It seems like just yesterday that she came into our lives and changed our world forever.  She celebrated in fashion with a big birthday bash at her favorite local "hangout"...the Children's Play Gallery in Delafield.  We went there for her third birthday too but this was her first real birthday party and she had a blast!  Her Aunt Holly and Uncle "Big" Matt were able to join us, as they were visiting from Japan.  I probably hadn't mentioned on the blog that they are living there right now while Matt works for Nissan in Japan.  Shortly after their visit, Matt proposed to Holly and now another Lucas family wedding is in the works! 

The babies are doing very well.  At their 4-month-old checkup, Madison weighed in at 13lbs 12oz (50th percentile for her weight).  Kate weighed in at 11lbs 11oz (10th percentile for weight but at least she's finally ON the growth chart!).  Both babies have begun rolling from their tummies to their backs, are cooing like crazy and have just started to try to reach for their toes when laying on the changing table.  They are super happy babies, smiling and "talking" our ears off!  

The title of this blog hints at other big news.  After teaching kindergarten for 8 years, I have decided to take some time off to stay home and be with my girls full-time.  I turned in my official resignation letter on February 15th but will stay in my current position until the end of this school year.  Then I become a full-time stay-at-home mom!  I am SO excited about what this means for our family and about the active role I'll be able to play in Lauren's schooling when she begins 4K in the fall.  In order to help make up for my loss of income, I'm going to try to do some tutoring in the evenings.  I have my Reading Teacher license, so I think I could easily find some local kids to tutor in reading.  I'm also considering watching 1-2 children (in addition to my own) a few days per week.  I am so happy and thankful to have the opportunity to do this.  I am nervous about quitting my job but I know this is a decision I can't possibly ever regret.  

And now for the real reason you're here....enjoy the photos!  

The babies enjoyed a dark, quiet nap at Lauren's birthday party!



Making cupcakes with her EZ Bake Oven.  And with Boppa and Madison :)



These fraternal girls even have very different hair.  Kate on the left, Maddie on the right.





Westin was supervising tummy time!



4 months old today!



Hope you enjoyed our pictures!  I posted earlier today too so scroll down to see pictures taken just this week :)

Love,

M