Seeing Double: 8 Months Old: The twins' first Christmas!

Cameron and Lucy turned 8 months old on January 4th. I can't believe it either! In 4 short months they will be a year old. Time to start planning their first birthday! ;-) There have been some tough moments during the past month but it was also lots of fun.

They don't have another official check up until their 9 month appointment but we had to take them to the doctor on NYE. Lucy weighs 16 lbs 1 oz and Cameron weighs 16 lbs 12 oz. He loves his food so I'm not surprised that the size gap is betting bigger between them. We'll find out their heights again in February. They still have 5 bottles a day with almost 5 ounces in each. During a few LONG nights this month, they each got a 6th bottle but that's not the norm for them. They get oatmeal cereal for breakfast, about four ounces of fruits/veggies for lunch, and then rice cereal with a little more fruits/veggies for dinner. Both of the twins enjoy all their fruits and veggies. We still do the single ingredient jars and recently started them on the combo ones as well. We let them try puffs this month! The first attempt was quite comical until Lucy started to choke on a puff. I called it quits on the puffs at that point but let them try again on another day. Subsequent attempts went better and they can actually get some in their mouths. I can't say they really get excited to have them but one of the purposes of the puffs (they're like cheerios) is to help them improve their fine motor skills. They seem to be improving! ;-) We let them try sippy cups this month as well. The sippy cups did nothing more than make them a little mad. Cameron particularly grew quite frustrated with the sippy cup. He didn't seem to appreciate the fact that the cup took extra work and only contained water!! Poor baby. He was rewarded with a bottle for his efforts!

Cameron came down with RSV and bronchilitis. He started with a cough on Christmas Eve and then had a fever for a few days. By Friday evening he had a severe cough with wheezing and rapid breezing. I took him to the ER and Jeremy joined us later when my sister and Ben came to stay with Lucy. They gave him a breathing treatment and started him on steroids. We were sent home with a nebulizer and more steroids. As I'm writing this, I'm listening to him play with Jeremy in the family room while Lucy naps upstairs. He is pretty much back to his old self now, thank goodness!! With RSV he became super hoarse and had a very hard time sleeping. Some nights it felt like we had reverted back to when the twins were a month old. Lucy caught a cold right around the same time but her symptoms were not nearly as bad as Cameron's. She had a cough and sniffles but that's as far as it progressed. She also had a virus with a fever of 102.7 at the beginning of the month which landed her in the doctor's office. Gotta love winter!! :-)

Neither Cameron or Lucy has figured out how to crawl yet. They're close though! Cameron still scoots on his face and manages an inchworm crawl. Lucy has figured out how to roll all over the family room and change her angle when she wants something out of reach. They can stand really well when someone is holding their hands. Cameron loves to climb on people. Lucy can hold herself up on furniture for small amounts of time. Cameron is a bit more wobbly. They can both sit alone for as long as they please!! It still amazes me to walk into the room and see them sitting playing with toys like they've been doing it for months! It's really cute. They love their jumperoos and like their exersaucer still. They seem to grow tired of the exersaucer the quickest though, since they can't jump in it. They love to talk and have learned to incorporate some consonants in with their vowels. Cameron can almost say mama. He talks with such force sometimes it hilarious. His little face gets very determined and then he yells his "words" with excitement. Lucy screeches like a little owl. She yells at Charlie and loves to shout while jumping in the jumperoo. It really sounds like they say "hi" sometimes. I love their little voices! We took the hammock insert out of their bathtub this month since they are both such expert sitters. They love to play with rubber ducks and other sea creatures in the tub. Lucy gets very excited about the toys and splashes water all over the place. Cameron is more cautious in the tub. He selects his floating rubber toys carefully and then tastes each one. They have learned how to make some of their toys work and their little minds are developing like crazy. They can turn pages in books, push buttons to make music, and pull the lever to make their race track start. Cameron loves to make the race track go round and round! Lucy is drawn to little toy phones. If someone says "up?" to either of them, they will get excited and lift their arms up so they can be picked up.

We had some good Christmas festivities this month and some that were cancelled due to sick family members. We got them together with their buddies Jonah Hunt, Reagan Rudicil, and Jameson Weber for a Christmas celebration at the Weber's house. Their parents were there too of course! We took the twins to the Christmas Eve service at our church. They did great!! They got a little fussy towards the end but their bottles helped them hang on until church was over. My grandpa and cousins Kaci and Abby joined us as well. We all came back to our house afterwards for dinner and gifts. We opened gifts at our house Christmas morning and spent the rest of the day at my parents' house. Santa was very good to the twins this year! He brought them books, clothes, and lots of toys. We did a late Christmas with uncle James (Jeremy's brother) and then had nana Mary Jane (Jer's mom) and Bussy over another day. I included some pictures from the Christmas festivities below. We had planned on taking them to the Christmas lights celebration at the zoo and also to meet Santa but with the amount of sick days we had, we didn't end up doing either one. Pretty sure Lucy appreciated NOT meeting Santa. She's decided mommy is her favorite person this month and stranger danger is in full force. She fusses and cries when she doesn't recognize someone. As her doctor said, it's actually an important developmental milestone that she's experiencing. Sounds good to me :-) They started going to Little Jewels Learning Center this month. Our childcare needs changed so we switched them to Little Jewels. So far, they seem to love it!! Their teachers are very sweet and the twins are exposed to new and different things. It's fun going to drop them off or pick them up and see several other little ones who are about their same age. I'm reminded each day they are at daycare and even each day at home, just how different each baby is! Each one is absolutely perfect of course but so very different. Cameron and Lucy have grown and changed so much over the past 8 months. They have many similarities and look somewhat alike but overall they are so very different!! We love them both to pieces!!! On to the 9th month...

Opening their stockings Christmas morning! Ooh, what did Santa bring?!