The boys experience fall

While we've been in Illinois, the boys have had their first experience with fall. Here's a few pictures we took with them with the beautiful leaves.

This picture cracks me up. Look at Carter and Brandt's faces!

Time with Family

This first week as been full of visits with friends and family. On Saturday we went out to breakfast with Dao, Jeff and Lizette. Afterwards they came over to meet the little guys.

Here's Carter and Uncle Jeffy!

Brandt with Dao

Jeff showing Carter his super cool watch

On Sunday and Monday, Grandma and Grandpa Groen came over to see the boys. Boy, do their great grandkids love them!!

I thought this picture was cute of Brandt. He had a fun time hanging out with their Great Grandma Groen.

Carter with Great Grandpa Groen

Grandpa and Great Grandpa Groen with the boys. Three out of the four generations of Groen men!

Grandpa Groen feeding Brandt

The boys were crabby one night so Eric and his dad let them gnaw on a sugar cookie. They loved them! The next day we went out and got them some teething biscuits.

Health Update

Two weeks ago I had another CT scan done to see if my spleen and kidney had gone down in size. Last week I went to see the hemotologist/oncologist for another check up and to get the results from the CT.

Good news! My spleen and liver have gone down! Also, they did a CBC and my white count was up to 5.4!!!!! That is well within normal limits! Dare I say the weird blood problem is gone?:)

Praise the LORD!!!!

Trip to Illinois

Eric is doing a two week anesthesiology rotation at Illinois Masonic Hospital. We'd planned to all come out so all the Illinois family could meet the boys, but due to my sickness and our apprehension of traveling with twins, we kind of nixed the idea awhile ago. Since my weird blood problem seemed to have gone away, I was feeling a little more comfortable with the idea of heading across country. Eric and I discussed it again and said, "What the heck? We've got to do it sometime so let's just do it!" So a few weeks ago we decided that we'd all come out and we've been so happy we did it.

The flight here could not have gone smoother! We were even two hours delayed and the boys were great. Grandpa G treated the boys to not only their first airplane ride, but a first class ride! As soon as we boarded with the rest of the families, we sat and watched everyone else board. You could tell the business people around us were thinking, "Oh no! Two infants. This is going to be miserable."

Eric and I had prepared for the worst. I'd packed tons of spit-up cloths, tons of bottles and some toys to entertain them with. Before we'd even taken off, both boys were asleep. We gave the boys a bottle during take-off and then Carter immediately fell asleep and slept almost the whole flight. I was holding Brandt and he was a little bit different. He was too excited with his surroundings to sleep. He was busy flirting with my seatmate and standing up (he still loves to stand and can do it as long as someone with hold him up). He was just a joy and the flight attendents loved him. One flight attendant held him so I could eat my breakfast. Near the end of the flight, another flight attendant came over and asked if it was their first flight and wanted to know their names. He came back and gave me a certificate for each that was signed by him and the captain! It was so special!

When the plane landed and got up to deboard, several people turned around to tell us how well behaved our little boys were. Wheew! What a relief!

Here the boys are before we left for the airport. They are wearing the outfits that our family friends, Carol and Larry Turoff, gave them. They were perfect as they had matching hoodies the boys wore as soon as we landed.

Uploading video HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been unable to upload videos lately. Has anyone else had the same problem? Blogger just says that the video is being uploaded but it never finishes. My videos aren't very big (~2 min). If anyone else has had the same problem and knows how to fix it, please let me know.

THANKS, my fellow bloggers!

Video of boys talking

The boys started talking to each other again this morning so I quickly grabbed the video camera and caught the tail end of it.

Talking again...

On Sunday, the boys were talking again. I think it's so cute!

Brandt Found His Fingers

As I mentioned before, Brandt has found his fingers and likes to suck on his index and middle finger. I think it's so cute. Sometimes I'll find him sleeping in his bouncy chair like this.

Hangin Out

The other day, I had the boys propped up on a boppy to do tummy time and they started talking to each other! It was so exciting! They know each other are around, but they hadn't interacted with each other until then. After they had their little conversation, they proceeded to roll off the pillow and roll over.

Here I was playing around and put my glasses on Carter. Look, it's a little Eric!

Sara Sullivan

I found out about this blog a few weeks ago and hope you will read it as well. It's about a woman about my age who suffered with breast cancer and passed away the week after her little girl was born. I didn't know this woman, but I surely wish I had.

http://bandssullivan.blogspot.com/

Boys in their baptism outfits

I didn't think I got enough pictures in the boys' baptism outfits, plus I didn't ANY of the beautiful white blankets Grandma Fase made for the boys. So, I dressed up the poor little guys and made them to a photo shoot for me. In some of the pictures, Carter has on a shoe with no laces. They had come out and I didn't find them until midway through the shoot. Oh well!

Teeth!!!

Carter has been acting a little bit not himself lately. I thought it was because he was missing his daddy:) He's just been crying more lately, not napping as well and been more clingy than usual. On Tuesday, I was letting him gnaw on my finger when I felt something sharp. His first tooth came through! Then on Thursday, the second came through!
Below are his first teeth. My baby's growing up!!

Here he is, Mr. Toofy!

Rice Cereal

Before I left for Dallas last week, I gave the boys cereal. I thought I'd skip putting on a bib since the boys' outfits were already dirty. Big mistake! Boy, did they get dirty! I had to give them baths afterwards.

Four months old

Last Saturday, the boys turned four months old! Can you believe it? They are growing up too fast. They are getting cuter and cuter by the day. It is so much fun to see how their little personalities are shaping.

Carter is such a happy baby and a joy to be around. He still loves to have conversations. No matter if he's crabby, if you pick him up and start talking to him, he gets happy again. He just has such a happy disposition.

Brandt has developed a smile that will melt your heart. It's this big, toothless grin. When you start talking to him, he'll cock his head to the side, shrug his shoulders and give you this big, open mouth grin. He's also started this thing where he sucks on two fingers. It's too cute!

Both the boys have been giggling. I think that might be the best sound in the world. Love it! I'm going to try to get it on video.

This month we start on foods! Although we've cheated and given the boys rice cereal before, we are excited to officially start. The boys' pediatrician gave us a great schedule to introduce the boys to food. They start on rice cereal and then start oat cereal, barley cereal, then fruits, then vegetables and finally meats. This is going to be so much fun!

At their appointment, Carter weighed 17# 7 oz. Brandt weighed 13# 14 oz. We definitely think Carter is going to take after the Groens and be a very tall man.

Sleepers

Recently, we've been putting the boys in sleepers when they go to bed for the night. For awhile the boys would wake up early and I'd go in to find they'd wiggled out of their blankets and were freezing! We tried the sleepers and they started sleeping longer and are so cuddly when they wake up.

Really cute outfits

The boys receive these cute seersucker outfits from Eric's dad's friends, Jeff and Lila Hokanson. They wore these outfits when we went to the mall before Eric left for Dallas. Aren't they so cute??

This picture cracks me up. The boys were hungry when we got back and they look like they are yelling at me and saying, "Mommy, will you please stop taking our picture and give me a bubba?!!"