i'm baaaaaack!!!

so no, i did not give up on the blog...just took a brief hiatus! it's just so difficult to find the time to create new posts, but i'm hoping to have found some new inspiration by having the blog revamped!

i just keep thinking about how wonderful it would be for the babies to have this to read when they're older as i've been one who on and off have kept daily journals since high school and love going back and reading about it.

i've got tons to catch up on, so i'll try and get some short entries in to catch up on the past few months!!

bear with me...

one-year checkup

well in keeping with tradition, i've got to share the babies one-year stats! zachary weighed in at 27 lbs 3.5 ozs (95th percentile) and measured 32.5 inches (above 97th percentile). zoe weighed 21 lbs 4.5 ozs (50-75th percentile) and was 31 3/8 inches long (above 97th percentile). per our nurse, we've got a football player and a model in our midst!! :) ha!!

we did have a big scare new year's day with zach. he didn't wake up till almost ten that day and was really fussy, which is really unlike him. i ended up putting him in our bed for a nap and layed with him hoping to make him more comfortable. well...he slept fine, but when he woke up i thought i felt him shaking, but wasn't certain. so i waited a couple more minutes to see if that was really the case and sure enough, he was. i grabbed him, ran upstairs to let jason know what was going on, but as soon as he saw him, he freaked out, and said he was purple! so there we were, me with zach, he with zoe...knowing we needed to get to the hospital, but so freaked out we didn't know what our next move was supposed to be!! we quickly got our act together, got the babies in the car and headed to the ER. i was an absolute mess...i really thought that he was having seizures!

at the end of the day, he had a temp of 104.9 and a double ear infection. even the doc was shocked that his temp was as high as it was, since to touch him you never would have guessed it. thank god that's all it was...my mind was just racing with a million worst case scenarios!! so ten days of antibiotics and my little guy was back to his normal self!! :)

as far as development goes, zoe is walking all over the place and into everything! i didn't know a room could get into such disarray in such a short amount of time! she really can communicate with us now by pointing and walking to everything she wants...it's nuts!
she's got this bad habit though of biting when she's mad. we'll be putting a stop to that very soon if she keeps it up!

zachary is officially crawling!! he does this army crawl and gets around pretty swiftly!! he's got these huge "strides" with his arms...looks like the next michael phelps! he's so proud of himself and now always needs to be where all the action is!

they are both starting to really acknowledge each other...it's so sweet and fun to watch. they'll call to each other, "hold" hands, pat each other...it's cute!

i officially stopped nursing in november and it just so happened that was when they both got their first bout with colds. perhaps coincidence, but sure seemed suspect! believe it or not, we battled it almost the entire month of december and then we had the ear infections to deal with in january. it finally seems as though we're on the up and up again!!

zach's first haircut

my little boy is growing up so fast!! :(

daddy and granddad took him to get to get his very first haircut with jimmy the barber. it just so happens that granddad has been going to jimmy now for almost forty years (having never gone to anyone else!) and daddy had his very first haircut with jimmy as well! we had to keep with lawless men tradition!!

before

during

after!!

the z's turn one!!!

zachary and zoe turned one on january 10th and we celebrated by having a monkey themed birthday party at their grandparents house! it was a beautiful day (although a tad chilly) and we had a great turnout! thanks to all of our (zach and zoe's) wonderful friends (and family) for coming out to celebrate with us!!

merry christmas!!

we ventured up to toronto for a week over christmas to visit my brother and stay with my brother's family. it was the babies first flight and the way up was much better than the way back. unfortunately, two lap babies are not allowed in the same row due to limited oxygen masks, so we had to sit separately on the flights. it was a toss up who would be the better baby, but i ended up with zoe and daddy with zach. zoe slept most of the way up, so it wasn't half bad. according to jason, zachary ate puffs out the wazoo, but he was just happy it kept him quiet! Because of the terrorist attach over christmas, coming home was a nightmare! we had to get to the airport that much earlier and with all the additional security, it was about a ten hour journey for the babies...LONG DAY!!!

we had a nice, relaxing and relatively lazy time up north. the weather was less than ideal, so we stayed indoors for the most part and played with cousin noah. it was unfortnate because we had plans to visit keri and amber in london, but had to cancel because of a snowstorm! :(

zach and noah checking each other out

zachary and uncle alan (my brother)

noah loves his goo foo! (jason)

christmas morning!!

happy halloween!!

our very first halloween was spent celebrating our good friend cate's first birthday!! zach was a frog and zoe a ladybug. neither was terribly fond of their costumes, but to be honest, i'm not sure i would have been either!

ladybugs zoe and leighton!

nine months

three months have flown right on by and the babies went in for their nine month check up friday. here's the latest...

zach is 25 lbs and 30 1/4 inches long...95th percentile for both weight and length.

zoe is 19 lbs 14 oz and 29 inches long...75th percentile for weight and 90th for length.

as you can tell, my babies are not deprived when it comes to food! what's crazy is zoe actually eats more than zachary...must be from all that crawling she's doing.

they are really starting to interact with one another which is so much fun to see. and they seem to "talk" to one another now...it's too cute! the doc warned us of what she called "twinspeak," but i guess we didn't really believe it until we saw it for ourselves.

on another note...i've officially begun the weaning process. it's pretty bittersweet...on the one hand, i am so ready to be done with nursing and pumping, but on the other hand, it's so hard to let go! i don't know what i'll do with all the free time that i'll get back from not having to pump! jason and i are going on holiday in about three weeks (to australia for dawn and simon's wedding!), so that's the whole reason i've started to wean. to be honest, i think the babies are more ready than i am. zoe has refused to nurse in the evenings for about a month now and zach just gets restless a lot quicker these days. that...and the fact that they both have six teeth a piece doesn't make nursing such a fun experience these days! :(

regardless, we are where we are, and although i'm rather sad about it now, i think it's time....at the end of the day, they will have nursed for about ten months. it was amazing while it lasted and i've got two healthy babies...so for that, i am extremely grateful.