Road Trip: Part Tres

A few photos from this morning's hike.  Now we're off to ride the gondola.  

Afternoon Update--

Ok, we got back from the gondola.  The babies sort of enjoyed it, at least until the bumpy parts of the ride before and after the terminals.  We walked around the base of peak 8 and planned their future trips at the fun park.  Who wouldn't love putt putt, a maze, alpine slides, and of course, bungee cord trampolines.  This doesn't even include the part where they learn how to mountain bike while rocketing down the single track on peak 8.

We tried to get them to nap after the gondola ride, no dice.  There's just to much to do and they know it.  So we put them in the stroller and walked down main street.  Luckily they calmed down before we got to our favorite happy hour spot.  Lindsay peeled and ate about a million shrimp and we both had some tasty drinks.

Now we're back and ready to feed the babies, then ourselves.

Also, Lindsay found out there's a Target in Dillon, so we can move here.  Now if anyone knows anyone at any of the Denver TV stations, I'm quite sure I'm the next mountain bureau reporter.  Now we just have to convince the grandparents to move here too.

Justin

Road Trip: Part Dos

We made it to Breckenridge.  No one got sick, including Lindsay, yet.  The babies seem to be enjoying the cooler weather.  They're all decked out in their long sleeve gear.  Our giant car top luggage carrier even fit into the parking garage.  So things are going well.  We'll put some pics and video up in a bit.

Justin

Road Trip: Part Uno

Hello from Denver.  The twins are a mile high.  Since they can supposedly only see to a distance of a few feet, I doubt they've seen the mountains yet.  Give it a few days, we'll get them within a few feet of the mountains.

We drove to McPherson on Saturday.  That drive went well.  They made it the whole way without a break to eat.  Every baby book I've ever read says that infants don't react all that well to the disruptions of travel.  We thought maybe our kids were beating the odds.  At least on the short drive to Mac town...

Then we trekked our way across Kansas and half of Colorado.

They weren't really all that fussy in the car, at least until we got within 20 minutes of our scheduled feeding stop.  Then all hell broke loose.  But every time we'd get them settled right after a bottle.  Back in the car and away we'd go, with little fuss.

After checking into the hotel they got some much needed happy play time.  They loved it.  I shot some video, we'll try to put that up soon.  After that we went to Tokyo Joe's, my most missed Denver food spot.  The babies apparently are not as fond of the Asian bowl concept as I am.  They literally took turns shouting.  Olivia belted, would calm, and pass the torch to Owen.  Back and forth.  It continued on the car ride back to the Courtyard.

It's now 8:53 MDT.  They've been fed and are contemplating sleep.  So is Lindsay, it's been a long day.

Goodnight

Justin

Side note: I was trying to think of some fun activities for the week in Breckenridge for all of us to do together. I threw out the idea of all of us riding the chair lift up the mountain and hiking around up there.  Lindsay vetoed.

Happy play time

Here's a video I took the other day while O&O were playing somewhat happily.  We're packing for our first road trip right now, can't wait to get out to Colorado and see how the babies like the mountains.


happy play time from Justin Schmidt on Vimeo.

Baths and Bedtime

Last night was the first time I gave baths in the bathtub.  The baby tub was still in the big bathtub, but at least it wasn't on the kitchen counter! And, I love sleeping babies, so I snuck in and took some pictures after they fell asleep!

Owen:

Olivia:

4 Month Stats

Owen and Olivia had their 4 month visit to the pediatrician today.  Both are doing just great! Here are their new stats:

Owen
Weight - 13 lbs 1 oz (14%)
Length - 23 1/4" (3%)
Head - 17%

Olivia
Weight - 12 lbs 1 oz (15%)
Length - 23 1/4" (13%)
Head - 11%

They both received 5 vaccines and usually that makes for an awful afternoon and evening.  But so far, so good.  Olivia has basically slept all day, waking to eat and play for just a bit before falling back to sleep.  Hopefully she still sleeps all night!  Owen has taken a few naps throughout the day, but has been so fun and happy the rest of the time.  He is almost able to roll over from his back to his stomach, and so I had the video camera out for awhile.  But he didn't quite get it.  It will happen soon!

Hope everyone is having a great week!
Lindsay

Adventures with 2

These are just a few moments I captured this weekend.  Not terribly exciting, but things I'll want to remember down the road!

A group trip to Sams Club.  All four of us went!  There was barely room in the cart for the babies and all of the stuff we bought!

The new toy box.  Really, four month old's need a toy box?  Apparently, because the little toys had been piling up in all corners of the house!

My Mother may die when she sees that I am posting a picture of my dirty living room, but the amount of baby stuff is so overwhelming!  I pick it up about 5 times a day, but there are so many big toys that just have to stay there!  Now that the exersaucer is out - it's even worse!  Olivia was having the best time on the play mat when I took this!

Hopefully our blog posts will get a little more exciting in the weeks ahead - their first visit with parents as teachers, a visit to the pediatrician for their four month appointment, and a vacation!

Lindsay

4 months down

Olivia in a moment of pure joy after her first jump in the exersaucer.(not sure if that's the correct spelling, just roll with it)  

Today the Os are 4 months old.  So we decided to put together the exersaucer.  By we, I mean Lindsay.  I sat on the couch lazily.  It was fun.

Owen hasn't had a chance to try it out, he's been asleep for a few hours, which is nice.  This exersaucer thing needs about 40,000 aaa batteries, so if you're in the neighborhood with a pallet of those, feel free to drop them off.  

Justin

Angry all the time

Major development: Olivia is now the easy one.

This happened sometime in the last week or so.  I don't know why, but it did.  The twins went from being of about the same temperament, to polar opposites.  This is best demonstrated in the following video.

Here's the average day with Olivia.  She wakes up about 7 or 8 am, I change her diaper and put some clothes on her.  She loves every stinking minute of it.  Nothing but smiles and coos.  I feed her, which is much easier than it was just two weeks ago.  After a quick burp or two, it's on to happy playtime.  She will lay under her playmat for hours if you let her. She just stares up at the various shapes and animals dangling above her.  When she gets bored and I'm not around to jingle the toys, she'll figure out a way to do it herself.  Sure, she might spit up a time or two, but if she does fuss about it, the smile returns the instant I swoop in to wipe her off.  Back to happy time.

Owen is just pissed off if he doesn't have a bottle.  That's pretty much the only thing that holds his interest.  Sometimes he'll quiet down while being carried around, but I'm not a freaking kangaroo, no pouch.  What are you supposed to do with a very angry young man?

Justin

5 Years!

In honor of our 5 year wedding anniversary, I finally gave in and purchased the digital copies of our pictures.  I had so much fun looking back at them, so I thought you would like a little reminder of how great that day was!  As our parents approach their 36th anniversaries, I loved these pictures of them dancing that day.  Hope we are that happy in another 31 years!

Olivia the acrobat

All you parents out there, I need your opinions.  We do not have crib bumpers. After reading tons of articles and listening to our pediatrician, we avoided them because they aren't recommended anymore.  Miss Olivia is all over her crib at night.  She rolls over into the sides, her arms and legs end up dangling out the crib slats.  She doesn't get hurt, or even very angry, but I can't imagine that it's soft to bump in to!  I've looked into mesh bumpers, but that still doesn't really cushion the bumps! 


Any advice? 

Maybe Olivia needs to start gymnastics as soon as possible.

Thanks!
Lindsay

Baptism

We had a very busy weekend because the babies were baptized today!  They both slept great last night, but had a pretty rough morning.  Luckily, when we put them in their car seats to head to church, they fell asleep.  There were a few outbursts during the ceremony, but overall, they did very well!  It was great to have family in town for the event. 

I'm still getting used to the new blogger layout designer, so no photo tag lines today....so a few shout outs up front:

The amazing invitations were made by my Mom, or Mimi! 

The cookies at the bottom were made by my amazing cousin, Amalia.  Check out her blog - she makes darling, and great tasting cookies!  http://www.cookieconstruction.blogspot.com/

And at the very bottom - Congratulations to our friends, the Smith's, on welcoming new baby Camden yesterday!  I thought this picture of big brother Grady with Camden was adorable.  Hope they don't mind that I stole it from facebook!

Almost human...

After 3 nights, I finally feel comfortable saying that we may be over the hump. The babies have slept at least 8 hours the last 3 nights, and one night slept 10! This makes for much happier babies and parents! We weighed the babies at home this week, Owen was 12 lbs 7 oz, and Olivia 11 lbs 15 oz. I am excited to see how they are doing at their 4 month checkup in a few weeks.

It's so much fun to see them happy during every day activities. Here are some cute notes from this week:

1. When Olivia wakes up in the morning, she rolls her self to her back and starts talking (you know what I mean!) Such a happy baby!
2. Owen is still swaddled at bed time. He is always happy when I swaddle him and I think it helps him fall asleep. But by this morning, he had wiggled almost all the way out. It was still closed, but was around one foot. When I went to give him his binkie, he smiled, and it fell out. We did that about 10 times! Maybe it's time to quit swaddling!
3. Owen loves to have his diaper changed. It's probably my favorite time with him all day.
4. Olivia loves tummy time, and she pushes all the way up on her arms. She's going to be crawling before we know it.

I just loved these pictures of Owen with my Dad last week.

And Olivia's ruffle butt!

Owen about to wail

Olivia in the bumbo

A Weekend on the Farm

Ok, we weren't quite "on the farm", but to me, Deshler, NE feels like it! Deshler is home to about 800 people, and since both of Justin's parents grew up there, I swear he is related to all 800. We left Saturday morning, drove the 5 hours (with one feeding stop) and came back this afternoon. The short 24 hours was packed full of entertainment.

Yesterday was the family reunion for Justin's Mom's side of the family. There were tons of babies there! Not kidding - we dropped the kids off and left to take a nap. Ha! Then last night we ventured to the county fair. I have never been to a county fair, and it's clear why. But here's a picture of me participating. Yes, that's a funnel cake.


We awoke this morning and headed to the worship service at the county fair and then lunch at the downtown cafe. We had a pretty successful drive back, although Olivia started to get fussy near Topeka. We stopped to feed again, and she wasn't too happy the remainder of the drive. But funny, she fell asleep when we walked in the door at home, and has been asleep in her car seat for about 45 minutes now. Which conveniently allowed me to wash bottles, make formula for the next 24 hours and start laundry. I've become very efficient!

Unfortunately, that's the only picture we got of the weekend. We have lots of fun weekends ahead and we'll try to do better.

I almost forgot! Many of you aren't aware that Justin was quite the star reporter in Topeka. He has been waiting for the Union to approve his new position in KC, and they finally did! Here's his first KC story!

http://www.kctv5.com/video/24537217/index.html

Lindsay

A few pics from the weekend

Trying on our new KU hats for Fall! Check out Owen's face - he was having so much fun!

After a bridal shower

Owen Cracking Himself Up