Happy new year! And five months old

The first holiday season with Jake and Abby was an absolute whirlwind...and it was probably the quietest one we'll ever how, so I can't imagine how crazy next year will be!

What was supposed to be a low key Christmas Eve with just the four of us, due to the pediatrician's recommendation that we sit out the big holiday parties to minimize the chance of picking up germs, turned in to me sick in bed with a horrible cold and Jeff taking care of all three of us. He did a great job, of course, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to trade his own day job for mine any time soon.

We had a wonderful Christmas morning at my parents' house then came home to spend the afternoon together. I was SO excited for the babies to wake up from their afternoon nap so we could "open presents together"...obviously I understood that they wouldn't actually be opening anything, but I was excited for them to be awake and present while we opened things and showed them. They wouldn't wake up! They took the longest nap of all time! Finally Jeff and I just started tearing in to things because we got bored waiting for them. Again, probably the quietest that this will ever be for us, and Jeff and I had a blast.

We had some friends over for New Year's Eve and I learned an important lesson that night...drinking too much champagne is NOT worth it. I was barely functional on New Year's Day. Never again! We hit another great sleep milestone on New Year's Eve - babies went down to sleep around 7pm, and although we had to go in there several times throughout the night to replace pacifiers and help them back to sleep, they finally dropped their 3am bottle and didn't eat again until almost 7am. We thought maybe it was too good to be true, but so far in 2012, no 3am bottle. We have gone from feeding babies 14-16 bottles a day to only 8 bottles a day in three months. Amazing!! So we're here - sleeping through the night has finally arrived. It is just as glorious as I hoped it would be.

Waiting for our shots

We celebrated their five month birthday on Friday, January 6 with our monthly trip to Wheaton Pediatrics for RSV shots. Jeff and I have always taken them together before, but since I'm an accounting widow until spring I had to go it alone this time. I was super nervous, but also excited to see if I could do it. It went great! Although I was more than a little bit annoyed to be kept in the waiting room for more than half an hour (who does that to a woman alone with two infants?!), everything went smoothly and I think I impressed a few nurses with how easily I managed Jake and Abby. I know that I horrified one in particular. She asked me if I wanted her to bring in another nurse to help hold the babies after their shots, and I said no, that Abby would be fine and I would hold Jake because he would NOT be fine. Sure enough, Abby cried for 30 seconds, then went to sleep when I put her back in her car seat. Jake wailed for a solid 3 minutes, then whimpered for a good long while after that.

We got another great report from the pediatrician - Abby is up to 10lb 15oz, and Jake is up to 13lb and...to be honest, I don't remember how many ounces, which I guess means we have stopped thinking about weight gain quite so much. It seems a long way from our NICU days!

Our five month photo shoot was easily our best yet. Now that the babies can stay awake longer it's much easier to get some good shots of them smiling! Here we are in all of our five month old glory:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From our gag reel!

THAT'S more like it!