Happy Eight Month Birthday babies!

Pictures:

* Eight month old babies (L-R: Ryan, Brooke, Jack) the boys are very interested in Brooke's new shoes. Jack wants to eat them as Ryan watches. Poor thing, having annoying brothers doing annoying things has only just begun!

* A sweet picture of the babies. I don't think they will fit in the chair next month :-( Notice the shoes had to come off so they would pay attention to the task at hand...

* We had to have Kyle lay along the back of the chair because he no longer fits!

I cannot believe that our babies are eight months old. Time truly does fly, I guess because I never have time to sit and think about anything these days. Our week days are rather busy:
6:30 am Wake up/shower before anyone wakes up

7 am Babies/Kyle start to wake up/play in our bed

7:30 am Line 'em up, change diapers, give Jack & Brooke their medicine

7:45 am Load them in their carseats, head to Miss Cheryl's

8:00 FREEDOM :-)

5:15-5:30 Walk/drive to Cheryl's to pick up the crew (will it EVER be summer?!?!?)

6:00 pm Pray that Ed will be home soon, then load everyone in high chairs for dinner - Stage 1 vegetable and fruit and Cheerios/stars (to make time pass faster while I'm feeding everyone!)

6:30 pm Bottles/play time

7:30-8:00 Start bedtime routine - diaper change, pj's, bottle, BED!

Life is getting easier (thank goodness!). All the babies are:

* Sitting up

* Wearing 6-9/6-12 month clothes

* Wearing size 3 diapers

* Drinking approx 35 ounces/day

* Eating two meals /day

Ryan

Our sweet, gentle boy seems to go from last to first in milestones. He was the slowest to learn to eat food, now is our superstar eater. He loves his Cheerios, it's so cute watching him concentrate on picking them up and trying to get the fist (which holds the Cheerio!) into his mouth. Ryan is also the best crawler these days. He's doing what I like to call the "inch worm army crawl". Very cute, I need to get it on video. My good boy goes to bed with his paci - still swaddled! - and sleeps through the night like a superstar. When he wakes up in the morning he'll be talking away, playing with his stuffed animals. He gives you a huge smile when you come in...what a great way to start the day! I'm still giving him his lacto-free formula...I don't want to mess with a good thing!

Brooke

Our little diva loves to be held and gets very upset if you ignore her. She is definitely the talker and her verbal skills are more advanced than the boys. She's doing d and b sounds and will talk to anything/anyone. However, Brooke has developed a fear of people that she's not familiar with or hasn't seen in awhile. When she sees someone, she'll start crying and looking around to make sure there's a familiar face close by. Brooke is not as muscular as the boys but can still sit up quite well. And her sleeping habits are not so great lately. She'll cry when we put her in her crib (even if she's sound asleep in your arms) and I'm always afraid to leave her there to "cry it out" because I don't want her to wake up her brothers. Of course this means I cave and bring her in with me (where she sleeps like a dream!?). As we speak, she's in her crib sleeping...let's hope we're back to last month when she would sleep through the night in her own crib! Brooke is a great eater as well and it shows with her cute little plump belly that compliments her cute little sausage arms. She's the shortest but chunkiest. Kyle says to her "mommy wants to eat you up, Broot"! Makes me want to eat him up too when he says it :-) Brooke continues to be Kyles favorite.

Jack

His nickname should be smiley. Jack is always giving his signature open mouthed grin (see picture above!). Prevacid, despite the fact that it's my competition, is doing wonders for Jack's reflux. However, he is STILL spitting up!?!? The day Jack doesn't spit up will be a wonderful day in this house. We just switched his formula from soy to regular Enfamil because I couldn't take the horrible smell of soy spit-up. It's enough to make you sick, especially with the number of spit ups that we have every day! Jack led the way with holding his own bottle, army crawling and eating his cereal. Jack still has his loud scream when he wants something or just wants some attention. They have all learned that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, so Jack uses his scream to his advantage! He also sleeps amazingly well and goes down right away -swaddled!- and wakes up peacefully in the morning. It's fun to listen to the kids talking to each other in the morning before we get them out of their cribs. They're learning to push the buttons on their aquariums to make music, which is entertaining for a little while!

Kyle is still doing a GREAT job of being a big brother. Every night (well, most anyways!) he kisses the babies good night and says "sweet dreams!". It brings a tear to my eye. He had THREE babies dropped into his life and has adjusted quite well. As the babies are starting to be a little more mobile, Kyle's starting to wonder if they're going to take over his toys but I think we'll all survive that phase too. Here's hoping anyways!