4 months old!!!

Well, believe it or not, the twins turned four months old this weekend. Crazy! This evening I attempted to get a good shot of them...this was a pretty good one. But as any parent will tell you, for every good shot, there are many that don't make it..so I thought I would include our "bloopers" from this photo shoot. Notice how in each picture, Lucas hardly changes expression while Liliana is hamming it up for the camera.

Ok, picture time over, Liliana is falling over and Lucas has had enough...

And just because they're twins, doesn't mean they can never get their own photo. It's hard not to think of them as a unit, so here is to their individuality...their own photo each.

And this one takes the cake! Love it!

More Free Stuff!!!

Well, not really free stuff, I guess, but sure got a whole lot of coupons. Today we got a lot of repsonses from the baby companies that we wrote to regarding their multiple birth program (remember the post about Gerber a little while ago) Well today, we got coupons for Beechnut food, Huggies diapers, formula, and many other things, including free samples of rice cereal which the twins are on right now. We spread the coupons out amongst the twins to give you an idea of how many we got...

Lucas holding the $5 similac coupon...

Lilana holding a Huggies coupon in each hand!

Memorial Day

Today for Memorial Day, we went down to see the local parade. Lucas was all raring to go after his (second) breakfast.

Liliana was still on the napping plan...

But eventually, we got her up and into the stroller, even if she was half asleep.

The parade was low-key, but there were bagpipes so that was fun.

The parade route ended at our church and we helped pass out lemonade and iced tea to the people who marched/played in the parade. Our church has a tradition on Memorial Day. Since the wars in Iraq and Afganistan started, they plant a flag in the lawn for each soldier who has died. This is just one of a few sections of flags. People are also invited to stop by and plant a flag in memory of someone they know. It makes for a sobering picture...

And finally, Lucas has taken to chewing constantly on his fist. Before he eats, after he eats, it doesn't matter, I think it is soothing to him. Anyway, here is a peek...

Baby Crack...

As a little experiment this afternoon...we broke out one of the Baby Einstein videos. It's actually a Baby Monet DVD which talk about the seasons. And sure enough it had the "zombie" effect that tv definitely has on children. It's so scary that at such a young age they can be so consumed by that screen. Very, very dangerous...perhaps we will put that away and save it only in times of real emergency...

just a side note...we didn't realize that all the Baby Einstein videos were able to be played in Spanish...at least there is a perk!

For those of you regular followers, my apologies for not posting in a week. To tell you the truth, not much has been going on. I have been trying to get the twins on a new schedule. They used to be on the schedule of eating every three hours, but as they are getting bigger, they are eating more and most notably, sleeping through the night..there is a God! So I was kind of letting them just do what they wanted, eat when they wanted and sleep here and there. But I found that when I was home alone with them all day, I was getting nothing done. So this whole week I have been setting them to a strict schedule, and it actually worked! They are also napping in their bedroom now in separate cribs. No more sleeping in the living room or in our room...at least during the day. The next move will be to get them into the nursery for the nights. They are sleeping from 11-6 most nights, so their really is no reason. It's more of an issue on my end I think.

Anyway, we all went to the beach the other day. Lilana and I hung out on the swings...

We so hoped they would be big enough to go on the baby swings, but we forget how small they are...we placed them in, and if she leaned forward, she was fine, but 3/4 of the swing was empty...

So then we tried both of them, one each way...Lucas is still working on head control..poor guy, his head is so big it's hard for him!

The twins have really taken to their new play gym.

And the newest update to our adventures in the non-stop baby noises that these two make...they squeal and coo and yelp..it's quite funny. Here is Lucas on the play mat.

Just some fun pics from today as we were hanging around the house...enjoy.

Free Stuff!

It turns out that many companies have what they call "Multiple Birth" programs, where they give free stuff and extra coupons to mothers of twins, triplets, etc. You need to write to them, provide copies of the birth certificates to prove you have mutliples and then they are supposed to send you stuff..or so I heard. Well, we got our first mini care package from the Gerber company the other day...it had two Gerber onesies, a loofa and sponge/bath brush kit (not too sure that is for the babies..might be for me), a free little photo album, some disney thank you notes (even Gerber knows that I need to seriously get a start on those!) and some coupons for free formula and baby food. I don't use their formula..the twins are supplemented with special formula for preemies, but the baby food coupon is good until New Year's Eve 2010...so we will probably use that. Who knows what other packages we are to receive!

Papi has been reading a lot to the twins these days..they say you can never start too early!

And finally, I found this pic from the first week in the NICU. It is so hard to imagine that they were ever that small...with the picture following this one, you can really see the change. It's amazing...and a miracle! They don't even look like the same babies!

Back to School

Here are some of the pics from our visit to Staples yesterday...



This is my office door...when I left, they put a picture of the twins on the door...look how small they look!



This is Ann..she is my office mate. And of course, Lucas is always looking up at the lights.



This is my boss, the math department chair, Frank. He doesn't like babies too much but he wanted to try out the stroller and he got Liliana to smile...




A shot from the volleyball game...

And finally, here is a video that I took. Nothing big, just wanted to try it out. I took it with my digital camera..it has a video feature that I have never used. Just wanted to see if it would work. If you can't play it, sorry...

Some thoughts on motherhood..

No pics today...sorry. I promise to have some tomorrow.
I thought I would write about an interesting thing I have noticed so far as a mother. In some ways I think it is a fault of mine, but then I start to rethink this. Recently, I have noticed that I don't think things through as thoroughly as I should when it comes to being a mother. Two excellent examples came two days in a row this week. Yesterday it was beautiful out and so, as I often do, I loaded the twins into the new double stroller and thought of where I wanted to go. I decided to walk to the beach. It's a bit of a lengthy walk..about 6 miles round trip, but it was gorgeous out and, let's be honest, the workout wouldn't hurt. I get down to the beach, just about 3 miles into our walk, and I notice storm clouds approaching. Instinctively I panicked. What was I going to do? What if it started to thunder and lightning? I didn't have a car. I had my phone, but Felix was still en route from Manhattan. I quickly turned the stroller around and walked at a extremely fast pace to make it back before the rain. It turns out I beat the rain by a few good hours, the looming clouds I saw did just that...loom. But I thought...how could I have gone out with two infants with no access to a car or other form of protection from the elements? Why didn't I check the weather before I left? I often used to go running, and sometimes I did get caught in the rain (although never in a thunderstorm), but with two young babies it is quite different.
The other example came today. I went to visit my job today. It was great to see my colleagues and my students. The twins were a great hit! At school I mentor a boy whose name is Charles. Charles is from Brooklyn and is in our A Better Chance program at school where inner city youth come to Wesport to live and attend Staples High School. As a black student in a predominantly white school, Charles made the transition quite well and after four years at our school was recently accepted at Cornell with an amazing scholarship. Charles is also the captain of our volleyball team-a team that has gone undefeated and won the state title like 6 years in a row now. Today was the last home game (before the playoffs), so Felix and the twins and I went to see Charles play. He is phenomenal on the court, and I enjoy the games quite a bit. In the middle of the match, one of the Westport players spiked the ball, it bounced off the ground and hit the side of the stroller-more like the handle bar. The twins slept through the whole thing...but I sat there as we laughed it off and thought "Why on earth did I think it was a good idea to bring them here with balls that could possibly fly into the bleachers?"

I guess what I am getting at is that I think I need to think things through a bit better sometimes. I often thought that there would be a "mommy switch" that would just go off once they were born and I would know what is wise and unwise...but I don't seem to have that switch. Either that or mine has malfunctioned. Perhaps it comes down to the fact that I have always been more of an academic than a common sense person. Oh goodness Lucas and Liliana...how did you get stuck with me? :-)

Back on Track...

For those of you who check in regularly for pics, I apologize. We lost internet service for about a week (imagine that! however did we survive!) It's been a busy few days so let's get right down to it...





This weekend we went to see Pete and Christie in Boston. It was their daughter Caeley's fourth birthday party and also a chance for us to say goodbye to them before they leave for TN next week...we will miss you guys!





Caeley with her Uncle Rob

Connie and Wendy enjoying the trampoline...

Caeley and her cake...

Elaine (Christie's mom), Elijah (Caeley's brother) and Connie

For mother's day, Felix's family stopped over. Lucas didn't seem to into this pic with Tia and Abuela! Oh well!

Our First Trip to the Library...

Today was the first of many trips to the library with the twins...we had to get our windbreakers on first though..these were gifts from Fernando!

The Greenwich Library...

We just got a new jogging stroller for the twins. We still have our old stroller, but we can jog with this one..although they are too young for us to jog with yet.

Lots of room to grow inside. What is nice about this stroller is the big canopy so we never have t worry about sun in their faces.

The reason for our trip was to pick out Spanish learning materials for Nana.

And then it was home for lunch and naps for all as the rain started up again.

Finally some sun!

Nana came over yesterday and we took the twins to the mid-week concert series at our church. Afterwards, we enjoyed the walk home in the sunshine,which has been very rare this week. It was so nice that we decided to grill some hot dogs and sausages for lunch outside. Lucas didn't really seem to want to pose for this pic...


Liliana was fast asleep all through lunch..just enjoying sleeping outside in the breeze.



And for the first time since last June, Felix and I were able to work out together while Nana watched the twins. We took advantage of the nice weather to take a bike ride to the beach, do a quick run, and then bike back...ahh the good old days!