Half a Year Old

 I can't believe that W & E are already 6 months old!! The time is flying by (just as everyone has told us it would).  In the hospital I took weekly pictures of their growth. Now I am taking monthly pictures. I did include a picture of each baby when they were two weeks old. It's amazing to see how much they have grown over such a short period of time.

What are we up to?

Erin- Is hold her head up during tummy time. She loves to smile and is starting to make a few noises. It seems like she will laugh out loud any day now.  She is drinking more from a bottle (approx. 50 ml out of the 125-130ml she gets every 3 hours. The rest is fed by her feeding tube.) She notices herself in the mirror. Erin discovered her mobile the other night and loves to watch the animals go around and around. Erin loves to stand up when we hold her. She LOVES her daddy and looks at him with the most adoring eyes.

Will- He loves to study people's faces (he used to do this in the hospital too). He will watch people walk around.  He is very curious about everything. Will smiles a lot and makes more noises than Erin.  During tummy time, he lays on the floor and sucks his thumb. He hasn't yet figured out how to hold his head up. He is a great eater and eats 125-130 ml every 2-3 hours (except right now- he's been sleeping for 5 hours and momma wants to get these blogs done so she isn't waking him to eat ;-) He loves his thumb and chewing on his hands (even when he isn't hungry).

Feeding Time- Both babies get a 50/50 mix (50% formula and 50% breast milk- which I am still pumping).  They are picky eaters and won't drink any milk that has been frozen and then thawed again. I'll do another blog entry soon about my picky eaters.

This picture was taken June 2, the day Erin was discharged from the  hospital. I put the same outfit on the kids for their 6 month picture so we could see how much they have grown.

5 month picture



Weekend at Grandpa and Grandma's House





Grandpa painted the welcome sign that greeted us when we arrived.

Last weekend we made the trip to Walled Lake (where I grew up) to spend the weekend with my dad and step mom and attend the graduation party of Anna Baumgarten (who I started babysitting for when she was 6 months old.) Will and Erin met their older cousins and uncles. Aunt Amy and Aunt Jackie came to visit when W & E were just three days old. They haven't seen one another since that day. We had an awesome weekend and were sad when we had to pack up the car and make the two hour drive west to Grand Rapids.

Grandpa walks twice a day and was so excited to have some company with him this weekend.
  W & E loved the walks too.



Grandpa Snuggle Buddy

Playing with cousin Lauren and Uncle Jerry

Lauren was soooo excited to meet her baby cousins. She couldn't wait to hold and play with them.

Aunt Amy and Aunt Jackie loving the snuggle time.

All of the Michigan cousins. We are just missing Joe and Nick who live in Louisville.

Will is putting the moves on Kit.

Sarah and Amanda were reading Will his new Michigan State word book.  It has pictures of MSU landmarks with the word telling what they are. It is a great book that we will get a lot of us out of.

Go STATE!

Smile!

I've been having some fun dressing the babies alike and taking pictures. Here are a few of the pictures that I took.  Some of the pictures are blurry. I guess I should be using my good, expensive camera instead of the cheap camera.

Erin is trying to suck her thumb. So far, she is just sucking the side of her hand near her thumb.

It's so exhausting to be a model.

Will- 'Grandpa, they did it again!'
Grandpa- 'Did what Will?'
Will- 'Took 3,000 pictures of me with my sister.'

Tummy Time- Will lays there and sucks his thumb while Erin picks up her head.

The Many Faces of Will

Our sweet baby Will has some of the best facial expressions.  Here are just a few of his sweet faces.  Sometimes we get the concerned look or 'you've got to be kidding me' or 'really mom?'.  You might have noticed some of those faces in other pictures.  Will is smiling a lot. He is starting to make noises too. It is so much fun!

Bikers for Babies

I have created this fundraising page to raise money for March of Dimes to fund research to help moms have full-term pregnancies and research the problems that threaten the health of babies. After the birth of our twins at 25 weeks and experienced all that the March of Dimes does for preemie babies, I thought how can I help? B...ikers for Babies! Typically reserved for motorcycles, I am going to bike the same course… 60 miles to help raise money for this amazing organization! My goal is $5000.00 by September 11!

If all our facebook friends donate $7.98, we can raise $5000.00 for March of Dimes with no other donations!!! I know budgets are tight, but we are talking about 2 cups of Starbucks, or a Supersized Big Mac Extra Value Meal! Please donate what you can! If everyone donated $10.00 we could raise $6290!! If everyone donated $20 we could earn $12,580!!! A little bit of money can make a huge impact.

If you want to ride your bike or motorcycle go to the link and join Team Will & Erin!  Come out and ride and have some great food!  For the motorcycle guys an extra $10 donation will get you unlimited passes down the drag strip!!!  See what you can really do on a 1/4 mile!

Just so you know what your money can do...

•$5,000 pays for a one-year supply of Parent Care Kits, providing essential information and support that families need when their baby is in the NICU.
•$3,000 provides the Close To Me program to 160 families in a hospital, bringing information and resources about the importance of skin-to-skin contact.

•Each $1,500 provides memory boxes and bereavement materials to 50 families.

•Each $1,000 provides 350 children’s books for parents to read to their babies.

•Every $500 provides 35 families with an educational kit to help siblings cope with the NICU.

•Every $250 provides 25 families with a disposable camera, photo album and frame so they can take and display pictures of their baby while in the NICU.

•Every $100 will provide 2,000 families with information about shareyourstory.org, the March of Dimes online community that supports families with a baby in the NICU.

Nothing Much

Another week has flown by! Here are some pictures to show you what we have been up to.

Mark and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary on July 7.  We ordered takeout from our favorite restaurant Bonefish Grill and ate it on our fancy China.  We drank what we thought was an expensive bottle of wine (turned out to be a $4.99 bottle from Trader Joes) and enjoyed the night on our patio with the babies (who slept the whole time). It was a perfect anniversary!

I went in to wake Will for his 3 am bottle and found him sleep like this. I had to take a picture because he was so cute!
The cord you see is Will's Apena Monitor. He is having fewer and fewer alarms.  Hopefully, we can get rid of it sooner than later.  It is a pain in the butt to have to haul around with us.

Hanging out on a nice and warm summers day.
Erin weighs 11 lbs
Will weights 9 lbs. 9 oz

I looked over at Will and Mark and they both had the same expression on their faces. 

Daddy thought that this would be a great way for Will and Erin to play together.  You can tell by the expression on Will's face that he isn't so sure about daddy's plan.

Will and Erin had their friend Brooke and her parents over for dinner.  Brooke was born at 28 weeks and stayed for almost 90 days in the NICU. She was in the room two doors down from Will. We got to know her parents and enjoyed our dinner with them tonight.  Brooke is the one is Erin's bouncy seat.  You wouldn't know that Erin was the youngest one in the picture because she is the biggest baby of the group.

On Sunday, we had to get out of the house before mommy and daddy went stir crazy! Daddy took us to Millennium Park (a local park, beach, lake, trails, etc) where there was a water ski competition. We enjoyed watching the skiers, boats and people. Erin and Will got some posters autographed by the skiers. It was a hot and humid day, but it felt so good to be outside.