Well, it wasn’t long, but it just seemed that way! The day started off ok, but then we had a doctor’s appointment at the wrong time. By the time we got there, it was about time for their nap so they were crabby. Then they got examined by the doctor, which went ok. It was their 9 month checkup. Rowan is 18lbs 4oz and Elijah is 18 lbs. I could’ve sworn they were near 25 lbs, they are just so darn heavy! As for heights, I think Rowan was 28″ and Elijah was 27.5″. They are basically in the same percentile as the last time. 25% for height, 25-50% for weight and Rowan had 90% for his head circumference and Elijah was at 75%. Then when they had to get their shots, they had to wait a long time and they got super fussy. They actually didn’t cry too much with the actual shot, just a lot before hand. When coming home there was tons of traffic since a pole got knocked over. It wasn’t in the street, but you could see it was hit. At least the boys were sleeping very soundly in the back so I didn’t mind. When we got home, they didn’t want to nap and just kept crying and crying. I fed them their evening meal and Michael came home just in time to help. Rowan was super hungry and ate more than normal. After he finished his bottles, he still wanted more so I breastfed him. He usually doesn’t finish his bottles! I was so exhausted by that point so Michael took them for their walk so I could have a break. When they came home, I read them “The Little Red Hen”. They love that story, especially Elijah. Then we put them to bed. About an hour or so later, Rowan started crying a LOT. So we got him up, checked his diaper and it was ok, but he was still hungry. So I had to breastfeed him again! Man, that was so weird. But after that he was fine and went back to bed ok. It was probably due to the shot and not getting proper sleep during the day.

Their enthusiasm for cantaloupe has waned, they still eat it ok, but they end up spitting it up (or vomiting I should say) 5 hours later. Not a whole lot, but enough to gross us out.

Today was a very boring and normal day. We went for our walk to the video store and got “Monster In Law” and “Sahara”. Elijah had a hard night and woke up at around 2am. He didn’t stop crying so I checked his diaper, and sure enough, he needed changing. He usually doesn’t fuss about his diaper, but his poop was a large ball and I think it was uncomfortable to pass as well as have it sitting there. Sorry to gross you out! After changing him and giving him a small bottle, I just held him for awhile and we smiled at each other, it was a very bonding moment.

Today was a loud and whiney day. Mostly because I decided to do some “tough love” with them and keep them on their stomachs. The complain very loudly at first, but after about 10 minutes, the quiet down and figure out what they are going to do if I don’t sit them up. I noticed today how very loud Rowan has gotten!! I now understand when Shari told me all those months ago how quiet newborn cries are. Anyways, they do pretty well once they calm down and figure out that I’m not going to pick them up. They are getting really good at sitting and I can pretty much leave them on their own. Every once in awhile they will fall backwards or forwards, and today they seemed to fall more than usual.

Today for lunch I fed them some cantaloupe and this time I put some in the food processor. I made a large batch and they could not get enough! Rowan would open his mouth really big for me and would complain when I was feeding Elijah. He would grab at the bowl and let me know he’s ready for more. Elijah opens his mouth fairly wide enough for me to get the spoon in (which is wide for him). It’s still messy though. I took pictures of them when they were done and I call it their “cantaloupe face”. It’s really cute. I think they like cantaloupe more than bananas!

Speaking of bananas, I can no longer eat one in peace. They know what it is and they both will fuss if I don’t give them some. Today when I was eating one as a before dinner snack, Rowan said “ba-ba-na”. I was pretty shocked! I don’t know if that was an accident or not. I’ll see tomorrow. That would be funny if banana was his first word.

Our cousin Lynn gave us this learning drum and there’s a mode where the drum will play a pattern and you have to copy it. I usually don’t have it on that mode, but today it got accidentally set. On the first pattern, one of the boys, I don’t know which, played it exactly right. I was only half listening and was pretty shocked when he got it right! That, too, could be an accident.

We didn’t go for a walk today since the weather was bad. Og wellg. On the upside, our friends Ori and Mandy had their baby today! On a whim, I decided to go visit them in the hospital because I was so excited for them and wanted to drop off a gift. I gave them a Target GC and a newborn pack of diapers. I’m too practical. It was a really nice visit, David is adorable and didn’t make a peep the whole time I was there. Mandy looked great, not tired at all even though she was up pretty much 24 hours! Ori was a doting father, very cute! Every little move or sound David would make, he would immediately perk up and see what was going on. They were very calm and relaxed, I know they will be really good parents.

It’s pretty amazing to see how small David was, almost shocking! He was a 7.5 lb baby too, I forgot how small our guys used to be. It’s nice to step back and see how far we’ve come.

BTW, Rowan doesn’t have his top teeth yet. He’s working on it though.

Sorry folks for not keeping up with this blog as much as I should. I’m trying to “backfill” whenever I can. The days seem to just fly by! Even though I say “we didn’t do much today”, it is more like “there was a lot of chores and house crap that we had to do and I don’t want to bore you with details.” We went to visit my sister and Scott at her house for dinner. Scott’s parents were in town and they wanted to see the boys. We had a great time, it was nice to just hand over the babies and have other people entertain them for awhile. The boys were more fussy than I expected, but I think it was because it was a new place, strange people and a strange animal all descending on them. After they got used to the place, they became their happy usual self! We put them to bed on Shaun’s bed and they fell asleep pretty quickly. They are always so cute when sleeping, so angelic! During dinner, I fed them cantaloupe and they just loved it. Elijah kind of weirded out towards the end, but I think it’s because I gave him too big of a piece. Rowan just couldn’t get enough!

Can you believe the boys are 9 months today? Time flies by so fast! The boys took it easy on me today and woke up very late. We went to the Woodinville Cafe for lunch. It was the first time we’ve been there since we switched car seats. Since we had to wait, we walked around for awhile. There was a sad CD shop going out of business that we ventured into. I spent the afternoon posting stuff for sale, we’ve got to get rid of all our crap! We did our usual walk in the evening, man, it’s becoming a habit! :)

This morning after I fed Elijah, I felt in his mouth and much to my surprise he has his two upper teeth! It was quite shocking since it seems like it took forever to get the first two, I didn’t think it would only be a couple weeks to get the next set. Michael stayed home today and I dropped the boys off at daycare and went to work. The boys were so happy when I left them! There were a bunch of older kids there that were out for a walk whenever we first came in but whenever they came back, all four of them started crying. It was a mad house! The boys did well though, they didn’t start crying along with them, which they usually sometimes do.

I spent a lot of time at work working on this one bug and it turns out it was a 2 word fix. Go figure! It was really frustrating too. I am also moving offices, but didn’t want to today since I was already pressed for time.

After work we went to Theron’s to pick up some stuff and then we went to Barnes and Noble to pick up a programing interview book as well as a Flash book for me! We then picked the boys up and I forgot my camera, again! They did well again today, no surprise.

One thing good that happened today was Michael talked with someone who worked in our group that is in Denmark now. He really loves it there (w/Microsoft), the vacation and work life is so great. The only bad thing is that it’s super flat! No mountians for Michael! We’re not ruling it out though!!!

Waterbabies was cancelled today because they are having pool chemical issues. Bummer! I spent the afternoon making a little slide show web page using Flash. It always mystified me and since I’m trying to get my photography web site up and running, I needed to play with Flash. Man, it is a lot of fun! Here is what I did pretty quicky - use the blue ball controller to scroll through the pictures. Today the weather was good and Michael was planning to come home early so I arranged to use up my hot air balloon flight coupon. I’ve been trying since last April with no luck! I was able to get on the afternoon flight, thank goodness. Michael was a little late getting home and there was a TON of traffic since the new Costco opened (right near our house) and also Snohomish has a lot of Traffic on Thursdays since there’s soccer and the farmer’s market. I was 30 minutes late, but luckily, they didn’t leave yet. Everything went really quickly! Usually I’m always waiting around and we’re always waiting for the weather, but today everything seemed to go really smoothly. While we were taking off, this young guy approached me and asked if I knew much about cameras. Something happened with his so they were really bummed. Luckily for them, I had two cameras, so I let them use the smaller one. They couldn’t believe the generosity and the fact that I actually had two cameras. Taking off was really cool, you start off kind of sliding across the ground and before you know it, you’re way high above the ground. It really is a neat floating feeling, but it gets tired quickly, much like my paragliding experience. It was super loud whenever he was blowing the hot air, but then it was super quiet whenever it was off. You could even hear people talking on the ground! We waved to a bunch of people. The coolest part of the whole flight was when we touched the trees. We purposefully flew onto the tops of the trees and the girl next to me pulled a leaf off! We were lucky that we had a super long extended flight because we had a pilot trainee and he missed the usual landing spot. When we got back, we had champagne and a really yummy dinner (spaghetti and lasagne). I have the pictures here and a video here.

Today I decided to switch our web host to BlueHost.com. Our former provider was a great deal whenever we signed up but they have gotten old pretty quickly. Their stats report has been returning zeros for weeks now and they don’t seemed too concerned about fixing it. It is still a fairly good deal, $99/year, but we only had 500MB, which our site is now at 600+. The new site has 4 GIGS!!! WOW! And it’s cheaper too! I also have a lot more control over the site. AND, there is really cool stats! The only bad thing is that it is a Linux server, not windows so any hopes of writing aspx code or whatever is lost. But we haven’t written any so far, so I didn’t really care.

Needless to say, I spent the day downloading from the old site and uploading to the new. There’s a lot of stuff there!

I went to the eyeglasses shop to get replacement glasses. I should’ve gone sooner, but didn’t have the chance or energy. I picked Michael up because he is the one who will give the thumbs up since he has to look at me the most. I didn’t expect to find anything since I didn’t have any luck the last time I was choosing frames. But this time, within 15 minutes, I found two pairs! One was a green one and the other was brown. I asked everyone in the store and they all picked the brown pair. Then I asked Michael, who was keeping the boys occupied, and he picked the brown ones too. I was so happy! The people in the shop went crazy for the babies, they just loved them! Can’t wait for my new glasses!

Michael came home late today since he had to study for his interview on Friday. The boys and I did our usual walk to the video store and back.

We took the boys to “open swim” today at the pool and it was completely
empty. They did so well, many dips with no fussing and had generally an all
around good time! We’ll have to do more open swim times in the future!

The boys are all done with their swimming lessons for now, here’s what they can do!