Charlotte and Lydia are doing well. They are also getting harder to tell apart. Lydia is still smaller than Charlotte, but she her face is filling out. She now has cheeks and a cleft chin that look like Charlotte's. Charlotte now fits newborn clothes. Lydia outgrew her preemie clothes, but she's not quite big enough for newborns so she always has extra leg room.
At night we will feed them and change their diapers and then leave them alone. They have learned that crying at night is pretty pointless so they usually go right to sleep. (Though there are nights where one or the other will cry- loudly) Overall we are starting to sleep very well. It is not uncommon for one or the other to sleep for about 6 hours at some point during the night. Now if only I could know when it would happen.
Lydia is in yellow and Charlotte is in pink in this picture. The girls are also starting to hold their heads up now. They look around like they can see us really well too. They are still pretty oblivious to each other.
I've learned how to use my chin as an extra hand. Here I am feeding Charlotte, talking on the phone, and cleaning the living room all at once.
Here is Brandon feeding both babies. Funny story about Brandon. At night I obviously will get up with the twin that is nursing. Brandon will usually get up with the bottle fed twin. The other night I heard a baby crying. When I got to the cradle I noticed it was the bottle baby for the night - Charlotte. I picked her up and started warming up her bottle. I went into the bedroom and asked Brandon if he would mind feeding her. I could have done it, but I figured Lydia would be up in a minute and I would need to feed her. Brandon stumbled out of bed and I climbed back in for what I thought would be a few extra minutes of sleep.Two hours later Lydia woke me up by crying. I noticed Brandon wasn't in bed with me. I found him laying on the couch with Charlotte next to him. I woke him up and told him to go back to bed. He put Charlotte back and them went into the kitchen. There in the bottle warmer was Charlotte's bottle. Brandon had fallen asleep while waiting for it to warm up. Brandon felt bad, but apparently Charlotte was fine just hanging out with her daddy. She woke up a few minutes later and Brandon fed her. 
Here's another funny Brandon story. The girls are going through the "period of purple crying" or what ever where they cry for no reason. It can be pretty annoying but we are getting through it. One of Brandon's coworkers asked him what it is like to be a parent. Brandon replied, "pretty good, but I swear a lot more. I say "Shhhhhhhhh it's okay" all the time."
Here's another funny Brandon story. The girls are going through the "period of purple crying" or what ever where they cry for no reason. It can be pretty annoying but we are getting through it. One of Brandon's coworkers asked him what it is like to be a parent. Brandon replied, "pretty good, but I swear a lot more. I say "Shhhhhhhhh it's okay" all the time."
It was really fun to cut out the cover and spine and then cover them with paper. I cheated and used paper that was already bound together for the inside. One day I'll have to learn how to bind the paper together. Emily and David also worked on books. It was a fun project.
I gave the book to Brandon for Christmas. He was shocked that I made it. He's going to use it as to keep track of his progress on his Goals for 2011.
I also enjoyed our tradition of holding hands and singing carols as we dance around the Christmas tree. This will be so fun to do with the girls next year.
All too soon the party was over and everyone started leaving. The girls had been so good the whole time that we decided to stay late and talk to Bryan and Kara. We were there until 1:00 in the morning. It was fun to hear Brandon laugh and joke with his brother.
Do you know how hard it is to get one good picture of two 7 week old babies? It took over 60 pictures to get the one we used. Here are some of the not so great pics.
