Fall - September to November 2010 (NEW - Added Dec 6, 2010)
All three kids have had a pretty active fall. Ruby continues to love preschool, her swimming lessons and a fun weekly music class at theRuby’s practice on her balance bike paid off and she started riding her two wheeler (with no training wheels) in mid-October. By early November she was riding all the gravel trails in town and was even doing a little bit of actual mountain biking on a couple of the more beginner trails. She has had a few good wipe outs but she’s been remarkably resilient and tends to get right back on the bike. Her bike has been hung in the rafters in the garage because we’re now officially into ski season! We have gotten a tonne of snow early this year so the ski hill opened a week early. Ruby has been out 3 days already and after a wipe-out filled first run, she seems to have remembered most of what she learned last year and is enjoying it. In January Ruby will be taking ski lessons with a few of her friends on Sunday mornings so she’s really looking forward to that.
Lucy and Charlie have started to interact with each other more in the past couple of months. They love to chase each other around the house and they seem to have a real affinity for making each other laugh at absolutely nothing. They are definitely understanding more of what we say to them and they’re both becoming more verbal (it’s all jibberish but they talk A LOT). Their ability to play independently has also improved in the last little while. Charlie has a real fascination with Nicole's Fisher-Price Little People Village (old school version, from when she was a kid). She will sit for a crazy long time putting Little People into cars and swings and chairs, etc. Lucy’s obsession with books continues as does her love of rolling around the floor with anything soft – stuffed animals, pillows, blankets, Java if she’ll let her. All three girls really love music and love to dance. Ruby really enjoys dressing up all three of them and dancing together. It’s quite cute!
Lucy seemed to immediately enjoy being out in the snow. She has been keen to explore and doesn’t seem to mind falling down and has even figured out how to get herself back up in some situations. Charlie on the other hand was a little less keen initially. She basically stood in one spot and cried the first time she went outside in her snowsuit. She’s a bit smaller than Lucy so it’s not quite as easy for her to navigate through the snow but otherwise, she’s really enjoying it now too. All three girls have been having a blast tobogganing down our driveway and into our street (don’t worry, it’s not busy!). Dennis has had to do some creative snow blowing to make some paths for Java to go outside and sniff around and go to the bathroom. The snow has been too deep for her!
Late Summer - August to Late September 2010 (Last Updated - Sept 22, 2010)
Summertime
sure is fun here in Fernie...especially when you're a kid! Ruby
has continued her swimming lessons through most of August and is now a
"crocodile". She can swim with her face in the water for short
distances, can jump off the diving board into the deep end and swim to
the edge of the pool by herself, and she's starting to get the concept
of diving down (in the shallow end) to pick up things on the bottom of
the pool. Ruby has also spent a lot of time in the last few weeks
on her bikes. She has a super cool hand-me-down all-terrain trike
that she LOVES to ride but lately she's been practicing lots on her new
balance bike. It's a two wheeler bike with no pedals. The concept
being that kids just use their legs to propel themselves and learn how
to balance without relying on training wheels and essentially move
directly to a two-wheeler pedal bike. She really likes it and the
progress in a few weeks has been pretty amazing. Ruby now weighs
41 lbs and is about 43 inches tall. She continues to be a great
eater and is reasonably adventurous with new foods and dishes.
She won't always like it but is almost always willing to give it a
try. Ruby started preschool again at the beginning of
September. She goes from 9:00 - 11:30 AM Mon-Fri and abolutely
loves it. There are about 13 kids in her class this year with the
same two teachers so it's lots of fun. They do yoga on Tuesdays
and gymnastics on Thursdays (with actual instructors coming in) and
Ruby seems to be really enjoying both of those activities. I
sometimes wish I was in preschool...it's just too much fun!!
Lucy and Charlie celebrated their 1st birthdays on August 20. We
celebrated the fact that we survived this past year!! We feel so
fortunate that both girls are happy and healthy and growing really
well. As of mid-September (13 months) Lucy weighed 22 lbs and
Charlie weighed 20 lb 6 oz. Lucy continues to be a bit longer and
heavier but Charlie still has the rolls going on pretty good. As
my friend Sheri says...Charlie is made of pudding and Lucy is made of
rocks! They're both walking now. Charlie took her first
steps on Aug 13 and Lucy on Sept 7. Charlie is definitely a bit
faster and more coordinated given her one month head start. They
LOVE this new found freedom so it's becoming a bit of a challenge to
keep our eyes on both of them (they often head in different
directions!). They really enjoy riding around in the wagon so
that's our preferred mode of travel for them when possible. We
walk Ruby to preschool pretty much every morning so we look like quite
the motley crew with the babies in the wagon, Ruby on her balance bike
and Java trotting along with both of us. We certainly won't ever
sneak up on anybody! They also love hanging out in the
backyard. They don't even need any toys as they are completely
occupied with falling leaves, sticks and watching Ruby and Java
play. They also love to practice walking down the slope in the
backyard. They fall constantly yet they both seem to find this
hysterical. I guess they like the sensation of running down a
hill? The baby swings at the park have also been a hit as of late.
Although
both girls love books, it's definitely more of an obsession for
Lucy. She is constantly picking books out of their bin and
bringing them to you to read. Charlie's thing is putting smaller
items into a larger item (like a block into a bucket) and then carrying
it around and making as much noise as possible with it. Charlie
also has a thing for toilet paper, kleenex and diaper wipes (pulling
them out of their packaging, unrolling toilet paper, etc).
They're both obsessed with Java's water dish and soak themselves in it
on a daily basis. They're both starting to understand more and
more of what we say to them and they've started mimicking animal sounds
(duck, sheep, lion and elephant so far). Both of them are
teething like crazy right now. They each have 8 teeth and we fear
that their first molars and canines might be on the move at the same
time. Despite the teething issues, they're not sleeping too badly
(keep in mind our expectations are nice and low based on the last
year). With the move to the new house, they're now sharing a room
again which has gone much smoother than we thought. We now put
them down awake for both naps and bedtime at the same time and they
generally get themselves to sleep. Even when one wakes in the
night and cries pretty loudly, it somehow doesn't wake the other baby
up. We can't wait to see what the next few months bring as they
are changing fast and learning so much.
Password: stapledorf
Early Summer - June/July 2010 (Last Updated - Sept 22, 2010)
All
of our kids (Java included) have had a pretty fun first half of the
summer. Ruby celebrated her 4th birthday on July 18. It's
hard to believe she's already 4 years old. She continues to be a
pretty sensitive little kid but along with that comes some of her best
qualities - very generous, gentle with her sisters, thoughtful of
others, etc. She has a super positive attitude in general and
gets genuinely excited about even the smallest things. She
started back with swimming lessons in early July and continues to love
the water. Her confidence has skyrocketed lately with the combo
of lessons along with lots of time at the beach. Ruby continues
to enjoy playing with her sisters. Now that they're semi-mobile,
she likes to help keep us posted on where they are and what kinds of
trouble they're getting into! Ruby really got into the spirit
this Canada Day and even partly memorized the National Anthem (we had
practiced lots during the Olympics).
Lucy
and Charlie are hitting lots of milestones these days. Although
they seem to alternate doing things "first", they ultimately end up
doing most things at about the same pace. They can both crawl
quite efficiently now - it's amazing how fast they can go!
Charlie was probably the most relieved to start to crawl as she had
spent quite a bit of time on all fours desperately trying to propel
herself forward but could only manage to push with her arms and slide
backwards. They seem to have developed a bit of a shoe
fetish. They're mostly attracted to Ruby's crocs and like to lick
them and suck on the strap. Completely disgusting really.
Lucy has 6 teeth and Charlie has 5 teeth so they continue to do great
at noshing down pretty much all types of food at this point.
They're both good eaters but definitely have different styles.
Lucy prefers to utilize both hands and shove the food in as fast as she
can and Charlie is more of a diner, using one hand and taking her
time. We've learned to separate their chairs a bit more as Lucy
was constantly stealing Charlie's food off of her tray! They can
both pull themselves into a standing position from sitting and have
just started to "walk" using their toy push cars as support (I use the
term "walk" very loosely here!). Most of their play continues to
pretty independent but they are interacting with each other more now
that they are mobile. They've started playing peek-a-boo with
each other around the counters in the kitchen and when they catch each
other's eyes, they'll giggle and crawl frantically towards each other
and occasionally tackle each other. Their fascination with Java
has also been peaked with their new found freedom and they like to
crawl over to her and investigate her paws, ears, mouth, etc.
They also absolutely LOVE to play and roll around in Java's bed (and
they come out of it LOOKING a bit like Java with all of the hair).
Password: stapledorf
Spring - March to May 2010 (Last Updated - June, 2010)
Wow...time flies when you're BUSY! It's hard to believe that Ruby will turn 4 in less than two months, Lucy and Charlie are approaching 10 months and Java is now 11 years old!
As sad as Ruby was to see the ski season come to a close, she's pretty excited about all the things that the nicer weather brings. She's becoming a great little hiker and can hold her own for an hour to an hour and a half in the trails (with snacks and her magnifying glass to keep her interested!). We stop lots to investigate mushrooms on trees, moss, bugs, sticks...you name it, we check it out with the magnifying glass! Ruby's playing Timbits soccer and is slowly warming up to it. She's not a very competitive little kid so the part where everyone runs like mad after the ball is somewhat intimidating to her. She enjoys the drills where everyone has their own ball :) We've also started playing a bit of golf, just in the backyard. She really seems to enjoy trying to hit the ball and she's turned it into a cardio sport by sprinting after the ball everytime she makes contact! Ruby continues to love doing crafts (stickers, colouring, cutting, painting, etc) and she's becoming more keen on practicing her letters. She knows all of her letters and numbers and is slowly learning how to draw them. Her favourite letters not surprisingly are R-U-B-Y :) She's also discovered and loves activity books that have all sort of puzzles - mazes, matching games, etc.
Lucy and Charlie continue to thrive and keep us busy. As of their 9 month birthday Lucy weighed in at 19lb 5oz and Charlie at 18lb 1oz. They're both babbling and chatting like mad. Lots of da/ba/ga but unfortunately no "ma" yet. Lucy is the more vocal of the two and rivals Ruby sometimes in the volume department (scary really!). They're both doing really well with solid foods. They each have 5 teeth and they seem to really enjoy handling the food and feeding themselves so we're trying to give them lots of finger foods - cooked carrot, brocolli, turkey, ham, chicken, toast, noodles and orange are some of the most recent additions to their menu. They're both sitting up much better now and Lucy is on the verge of crawling. She can move from point A to point B, just not particularly gracefully. She'll roll, wiggle, pull and inch her way to her desired destination...it's exhausting watching her! Charlie is rolling more and more and is getting up on all fours and rocking in a stationary position. They definitely have different little personalities and they continue to look nothing alike. A little girl came up to me at the pool the other day (she had already met Lucy earlier in the swim while Charlie was sleeping) and asked if I was babysitting Charlie. Definitely not identical! Both Lucy and Charlie continue to love watching and interacting with Ruby. Ruby will play "pretend" with them (shopping, baking muffins, going to the beach, etc) and they are completely engaged as they watch her every move. They're also becoming much more interested in books.
Java seems more at ease now that there's less crying in the house. She'll even go and lay down on the blankets beside the babies now (she used to always do that with Ruby but hadn't with these two). Java continues to stay fit and healthy. She still loves to come on hikes and walks. She still loves to swim and as always, LOVES to clean up after the babies while they're eating!
All three girls are doing just awesome (if you don’t count Lucy’s brutal sleeping habits!). Ruby has suddenly taken off with her swimming lessons and is really enjoying the pool. She dunks her head for multiple seconds now, can swim with her life jacket on all over the deep end of the pool and will even occasionally jump off the starting blocks into the water. She’s started doing a bit of swimming with no life jacket in the deep water and will jump from the edge of the pool into the deep end. She’s now tall enough to ride the big waterslide at the Aquatic Centre and after weeks of contemplating it, she finally did it and now LOVES it. Ruby’s skiing is really taking off too. She’s getting pretty good at her turns and just in the past few days has finally grasped the concept of snowplowing to stop (Daddy couldn’t be happier as his quads get a monster workout when she doesn’t stop on her own). She still uses the harness most of the time, but is now starting to do a bit of skiing on her own too. She likes to go FAST so continuing to learn how to stop is definitely a priority!
Lucy and Charlie continue to grow like little monsters. The number of people that comment on “their size” considering they were twins is just hilarious. They’re both very quick to smile and giggle and they LOVE LOVE LOVE watching and observing Ruby. Ruby seems to thoroughly enjoy her role as chief entertainer and spends tons of time passing them rattles, doing dances, singing them songs, swinging them in the jolly jumper, telling them stories and dressing them up (usually with necklaces and bracelets, etc). They both have recently noticed Java so they also get quite a kick out of watching her roam around. They’re still not sitting up but they’re becoming more and more stable and strong. Lucy started rolling about a month ago and both of them love to lay by the fire just in their diapers and wiggle and squirm and stretch out. It’s a bit of a nightly ritual now. We started the babies on solids about a month ago, just a couple weeks shy of the 6 month mark. So far we’ve done rice and oatmeal cereals, sweet potato, acorn squash, carrots, yams, avocado and apple sauce. (BTW... the level of detail here is because these descriptions will serve as a bit of a baby book for the girls. No time to do a proper baby book!) Everything but the avocado has gone over quite well (we’ll try it again in a few weeks as I think the texture was a bit weird for them). They’ve actually got the hang of getting the food INTO their mouths a bit quicker than I would have expected. Ruby's love of helping in the kitchen has extended to her wanting to help make the baby food so that’s been a fun project for Ruby and Mommy to do together. Ruby also loves trying to feed the babies…entertaining to say the least.
