8/9 months

I missed posting about the babies at eight months due to Christmas/moving and now they are nine months. I would skip it altogether, but they have changed a TON these last two months.

At eight months both girls started to crawl. Joyce was first and Lydia started shortly after. Joyce is a bit more coordinated about it, Lydia still has a, shall we say, unique crawl. Both girls have gotten very fast. Lydia was the first to pull herself up to stand and now they both stand and shuffle along the furniture. Their favorite thing is to pull themselves up on me or on each other. Pulling yourself up using an unstable baby as your base is never a good idea:) (sorry about all the iphone pictures, I haven't gotten out my camera ever since i got it)

This month I stopped nursing them.  I'm a little sad about it but it was definitely time. Starting in December I started supplementing more and pumping for feedings because they were getting too big to tandem feed.  I still tandem fed them at 5AM so they would sleep in, but with the move I often wasn't home/didn't have time to pump, so my supply slowly dwindled. By the time we got here I was pumping once at night and breastfeeding them in the morning.  With the stairs I decided to finally drop that morning feeding and then stopped pumping when I just wasn't producing enough to make it worth it. I am amazed how much formula I go through now! Both girls can hold their own bottles which makes life a lot easier.

When we moved to UT I also started feeding them three meals a day. Joyce is definitely more picky and will refuse some foods, but Lydia will eat anything:) I haven't been making my own purees since we got here because we don't have a microwave yet. We left ours in CA because we thought there was one in the house already, but there isn't and I'm too lazy and cheap to go buy another one-so we're just doing without right now, which is surprisingly easy.  Neither baby has mastered the pincer grip yet but they do eat some finger foods like graham crackers, puffs, yogurt melt and banana.
We went to the Dr for well checks yesterday and I learned that both babies are 50% for both head and length and only 5% for weight. The Dr wasn't worried because they were both light and had steady weight gain-but they both weigh only about 17 lbs! I thought they were tiny! 

Joyce:
My Joyce is adorable. She is very adventurous and likes to explore. She shows her affection by crawling up to you and bumping her head against you. You know she loves you if you get a forehead bump. She has been sick lately and the Dr confirmed she has a double ear infection. This has made her pretty cranky for awhile so she usually gets held more than Lydia. When she is miserable and feeling sick she will put her head on my chest and shake it back and forth. It is sad but I frequently love it too. She laughs a lot more than Lyd, usually at something Lucy does. She has three teeth-- two bottom teeth and a canine on top.  I hadn't noticed the canine until a nurse pointed it out yesterday-it has been their awhile too!  Her smile is precious and we see it a lot more often then we used to.  She is a momma's girl-she has a definite preference for me and gets very excited when I come to get her-either from bed or from her dad:)

Lydia:
My Lydia is adorable too. She has an incredibly cute groggy face when she first wakes up in the morning and it always reminds me of Katy. We have a picture of Katy as a baby with the exact same groggy look- I swear they could be twins:) Lydia is a bit more self sufficient then her sister-by which I mean she can go play without checking in with me and if I am sitting somewhere she doesn't need to be on top of me-although she frequently likes to be.  She is a very good at pulling herself up and prefers to stand rather than sit or crawl. I love her grin. She loves her binkie. I typically only give them to the girls when they're in bed or in the stroller/car seat. She gets excited when she sees one and will grab it incredibly fast. She loves to steal one out of her sisters mouth as well. My favorite thing is when I catch her with a binkie in each hand and she alternates which one she sucks on. 

groggy:)