9 months!

Harper
The Harpernator has a few new tricks up her sleeve: When asked what noise a bear makes, she roars! She loves to clap and give high fives and dance to anything that has a beat, including dad's coffee dosing (if you know what this is you and Michael have probably bonded over love for espresso).  Seriously, she loves to dance.  Usually she rocks back and forth until she gets close to doing the Humpty Dumpty.  Sometimes she does the Humpty Dumpty and it makes her sad.  She can be a sensitive soul.  If something makes a loud noise or almost falls over, it is scary and sad.  Sometimes she does not like it when Allie loudly bangs her toys.  She does, however, love Allie and thinks she is hilarious.  She gets a good belly laugh whenever Allie tries to crawl over her because she thinks Allie is trying to tickle her.

A few days before she turned 9 months old, here are her stats:

28 1/4 inches long (76th percentile in height)
17 lbs. 3 oz. (23rd percentile in weight)

So apparently she is "long and lean" though that does not come to mind with those rolls, belly, and big baby bottom.  She has two teeth (I think the first one came in at 8 months and the second one was not far behind) and she uses them to bite mom.  This is very bad. She gets very excited about nursing but may not get to do it much longer if she keeps using those chompers.  She likes real food well enough, but is also fine if Allie wants to eat most of her share.

Allie
The Allie-gator is a bird!  Also known as the Alliebird, she continues to cackle with delight at the next plan she has concocted.  She stands up on her knees, raises her arms in the air and makes noises like a mad scientist.  It is hilarious and adorable!  She also enjoys making bear noises on demand.  She will deign the lucky few with a wave.  Her crawl is more of a prance or strut with hands extended high and booty swishing side to side.  At first she led the A&H gang on their explorations around the house, but now she is starting to follow Harper around more often.  I usually find her doing chin-ups on the side of her crib in the mornings and after naps.  Changing her diaper should be an Olympic sport.  She likes to babble dah's, mah's, and bah's.

Allie's party trick. Can you tell she likes it?

 The Allie-gator is also very hungry!  Mealtime can be frustrating because mom does not have 4 hands.  She wants to feed herself -- no more of this baby bird stuff where mom feeds her!  I still have not found a food she won't inhale.  Meals have become much more enjoyable now that she feeds herself, as long as I can keep the chunks of food coming.  She is supposed to wear her eye patch for an hour a day but unless I successfully distract her, she often rips it off within five minutes (and looks very happy about this victory).

Her stats a few days before 9 months:
28 1/4 inches long (76th percentile in height)
16 lbs. 14 oz. (19th percentile in weight)

What we eat: hummus, avocado, almost anything mom is eating, chick-fil-a nuggets, lots of fruit, turkey, cheese, grilled cheese, oatmeal, yogurt, squash, animal crackers, golden grams, cheerios, and of course, blueberries.  I love that we are moving past pureed food and baby-food jars!

Who knew I could love two people this much?  Sometimes it floors me that God loves me even more than I love Allie and Harper.  Each day has sweet moments where I can't get over how amazing they are.  I have to be honest and say that many days there are also moments when I wish they would stop demanding more and more from me.  I basically have everything I've ever wanted and yet I still struggle with contentment in my role as a mother.  Part of me wants to be more than "just a mom," and the other half is afraid I wouldn't be able to handle the stress being a working mother.  That fear and uncertainty of what I would do outside of the home keep me where I am for now.  And it is a GREAT place to be! It just goes to show that I will always groan inwardly to be brought into the freedom and glory that is and will be mine as a child of God.

3 Girls in Tears

Today I realized that it is been a long time since both girls have been fussy at the same time.  I realized this because this afternoon they whacked me over the head with a 2x4 and it brought back memories of the 10 week old middle of the night scream fests.  Both ladies woke from their nap on the wrong side of the crib and the decibel level elevated until all three of us were in tears.  When I started crying, Allie stopped and looked at me like I had gone crazy. Her face read, "What the hockey stick, you aren't allowed to cry, too!"  After about three minutes of rotating who got bounced and patted, I resorted to breastfeeding off schedule (this shows how desperate I was because I have become quite the stickler for only 4 feedings a day).   They decided that they would bite me instead of nurse for comfort.  That was the end of that.
Even though I had already taken them on a run in the morning and a long walk at midday, the only option left besides wearing two baby carriers was to get out in the 90 degree heat for the third time today.  Sure enough, they calmed down by the time we got to the elevator and were happy as long as the wheels were rolling.   I wonder if there are many strollers that have gotten as many miles as mine?  I should be a twig by now with the amount of walking these blueberries demand of me.
I am thankful that I seldomly have moments when both gals are inconsolable.  70% of the time they are like this:

Happy Harper (she loves to dance, as you can see, to anything remotely resembling music):

Happy Allie:

Happy 4th!

Harper and Allie had a happy Independence Day.  They were happy to stay up way past their 7pm bedtime to see the fireworks.

5 Years of Marriage

Today, Michael and I are celebrating our five year anniversary.  I feel so blessed remembering our five years together.  Here's a photo journal: 

I'll start with the most fun day of my life, our wedding day.  Holding hands in the front of the church I grew up in, making promises until death parts us:

 

Headed to the reception for the best party of our lives:

 

Honeymoon at The Royal Hideway in Playa del Carmen:

 Moving to Austin, TX. Hook em! Making awesome Texas friends and loving all Austin has to offer, including three straight years at the ACL festival, football, Law School casino nights, and too many margaritas and chips and salsa.  I do miss Texas!

 

Two amazing European vacations to England, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic:

 

We drank lots of beer (that spoiled us b/c now we have to buy fancy beer)

Drank lots of coffee (and yes, those statues are doing what you think they are)

 

Hiked around the most amazing mountain we've ever seen.

And saw lots of amazing sights.

 We love to ski together and feel blessed we've had lots of opportunities:

We had a great year with Michael's family and new friends during Michael's clerkship in Jackson, MS.  Then we moved to Atlanta for Michael to start a permanent job and to raise our blueberries.   

I don't like getting too sappy or personal on a blog so I'll just say that our five years together have been so blessed by the Lord.  I love Michael more than I did on our wedding day and adding Allie and Harper to our family has deepened my appreciation and fondness for him. We have so much to celebrate!

Beach Babes

Allie and Harper are water babies! Last week they had their first dip in the ocean at Blue Mountain Beach near Grayton Beach and Seaside.  I was surprised that they liked the ocean and beach and loved floating in the pool.

Our friends the Hitchcocks, the Dutsons, and Becca Bunnell join us for our first trip to my grandparents condo.  Michael's parents visited his grandparents who live closeby and took us all out to dinner on Friday night at The Red Bar in Grayton, yum!  Then Saturday night, his parents babysat so that the adults could go out to dinner in Seaside at The Great Southern, also great.  I actually feel like I had a vacation.  These baby girls still had 3 meals a day plus 4 milk feedings, but at least we spent all day with friends and during their naps I caught some sun by the pool. See the album on the sidebar for more pics.

In other news, Harper has a tooth!  I've been thinking that they are teething for over 2 months, but finally one is here.  The lesson is to not blame fussiness on teething.  Also, last week they said their first consonants.  Allie is a bah bah bah girl and Harper prefers dah dah dah. Allie can sit up on her own and she is making attempts to pull up on furniture.

And finally, here's another sighting of multiple sets of twins at IKEA- five sets of twins=10 babies!

This playdate was fun, but I'm most looking forward to our moms of multiples get together on Thursday night for wine and poker.

They are plotting something big...

Have you seen the twin video that has gone viral recently?  Do you think Allie and Harper could compete? See our video here. 

If you want to see the translation of their conversation, you have to watch it on your computer, not a mobile device.

Swing Ding

We had a great weekend on Lookout Mountain for the Swing Ding.  What, you may ask, is the Swing Ding?  It's the yearly golf tournament at LMGC and Michael invited one of his oldest friends, Camp Craig, to play with him. I love that the family is included in 3 meals a day, and you can ride around and cheer on your man.

Camp and Virginia Craig

The Huffaker family at family night

Allie and Harper also got to sport their bathing suits in the baby pool on my parents' patio and at our neighbors' pool.

Allie in the baby pool.

Can't beat beer at the pool!

Aunt T-Lo is such a bad influence!

I must admit it has been a tough week since we returned.  I don't know if traveling is really starting to throw off their schedule or they are just in a transition stage.  Allie has been very impatient at meal time and Harper is acting like she has bad dreams at night.  Harper keeps falling asleep during her last feeding despite my best efforts and then when I put her down, she screams like a banshee.  For two nights we rescued her after about 20 minutes of screaming, but last night we had to let her cry it out and it took almost 2 hours.  I'm glad I had somewhere else to be and Michael had to sit there and listen.  Allie yells for her food until the moment I get it to her mouth and then I cannot shovel it in fast enough.  She does not want to pause between bites for Harper to have some.  This too shall pass!

On a more positive note, when it is not close to mealtime or bedtime, they laugh and smile and happily bang and chew on their toys.  Allie is officially mobile and is so close to crawling.  She travels at about a yard per minute with her army crawl.  Harper spins in circles with her belly button as the center-point.  When Allie is doing something really fun like tearing up magazines, Harper bangs her arms and legs on the ground and longs to join her but still hasn't figured out how to move forward.  We have also transitioned to a 4 milk feedings a day instead of 5 or 6.  Such a relief!