First Thanksgiving!

I'm a little late posting this, but I still wanted to share some pictures of Ethan and Mia's first Thanksgiving. We spent it with Mike's side of the family in Springfield, SD. There were a lot of little kids there, and they kept the twins entertained! Both Ethan and Mia had fun! They ate some turkey, ham, sweet potatoes (their favorite), corn, stuffing, and pumpkin pie!

Ethan laughing at Grandma Schmidt.

Great Aunt Sharman cooking the turkey.

No more ham!

Eating pie.

Both kids like bald heads. Who knew?

Ethan crawling after a plate of ham.

Mom, Ethan, and Mia.

Dad and Ethan wearing headbands. Cousin Noah would be proud!

Ethan and Cousin Shelby.

Ethan and Uncle Mark.

11 Months Old!

The kids turned 11 months old on November 19th! They both are growing up so fast. They seem to change almost daily. They each have their own personalities and it's fun watching them come out more and more every day!

Ethan has graduated from army crawling to crawling on all fours. Man, is he fast! He is getting into EVERYTHING! As soon as I open a cupboard or the fridge, he's over there. He loves getting into my cupboard with the canned goods. He has knocked over the recycling bin and the trash can. What a lovely mess that was! He loves to tear the toilet paper off the roll if he gets the chance. If he's really really quiet, it's not a good thing! He now pulls himself up on everything. He is so proud of himself too! He gets a huge smile on his face and looks at us to make sure we see him. The dogs aren't too excited about this since he can now reach them!

Ethan's 8th tooth came in last week. I hope we get a break from teething. He used to sleep through the night before he started teething but not now! He gets up 1-2 times per night. Once he gets a bottle, he instantly falls back to sleep, so it's not like I'm up half the night with him. The pediatrician wants us to let him cry it out, but I can't do that! If anyone has any suggestions for me, I'm all ears!

He has added a new phrase to his vocabulary. He loves to say, "he kiki" which means here kitty. He loves the cat! I can't quite say that she loves him though!

Mia is still doing her inchworm crawling. If she wants something badly enough, she'll make the effort to crawl over there. Otherwise, she's content sitting and watching her brother get into things. She laughs at Ethan all the time. They are some of my favorite moments! Mia is really affectionate. She gives tons of slobbery kisses. She is definitely my easy-going baby!

Mia still tends to be the aggressive one. She takes toys away from Ethan every chance she gets. Though, he is starting to stick up for himself more. I've caught him a couple of different times trying to bite her. He grabs onto her forearm and brings her hand up to his mouth! Mia doesn't have teeth yet! It's probably a good thing because that's one less weapon she has!

Mia also says some new things. When she sees food, she says, "num num." Before I feed them, I always ask if they want some num nums. It's funny how they catch onto things you say! She also says, "hi dada" whenever she sees Mike. She used to say dada all day long, but since I've started working, she now says mama all day long! That's my girl!

We thought it'd be cute to take them outside after the first snowfall. They weren't too amused!

Both kids love to play the piano!

Ethan knocked over the trashcan!

Ethan in my cupboard!

Mia in her winter coat and bunny hat. She hates the bunny hat!

Ethan knocked over the recycling bin!

One of their favorite things to do! They love their baths!

Poor Kids!

Both Ethan and Mia have had runny noses for the last few days. This is the first time they've really been sick. The last couple of days and nights have been awful with Ethan. He usually falls asleep around 8:30 and would wake up at 10:00, midnight, 4:00, and 6:30. After two nights in a row of this, I called his doctor to see if I could give ibuprofen instead of Tylenol. (I thought he had more teeth coming in and the Tylenol wasn't cutting it.) The nurse suggested we bring him in to get checked out because he shouldn't be that irritable while teething. Mike brought him in and the poor thing has an ear infection. He is now on amoxicillin for the next 10 days. Mia hasn't been crabby and is sleeping through the night, so I hope that she escapes without an ear infection. The doctor thinks that the upper respiratory gunk traveled to his ears and that's why they're infected. He said that Ethan will have another rough night tonight but should be feeling better tomorrow!

Goofy Pictures

I usually post the cute pictures of the babies, so I thought I'd post some of the goofy funnier ones!

Big cheesy smile. I was trying to get a picture of his 8 teeth!

Ethan fell asleep in his crib sitting up.

Another picture of him sleeping sitting up.

I had been trying to get Mia to sleep for an hour. I put her on the floor and 15 minutes later, she fell asleep on my feet.

I have no idea what she was doing here!

When Ethan sees the camera, he makes this squint face because of the flash!

He likes to climb all over Mia!

A funny face!

Look at the cellulite!

Another funny face.

Mom went back to work

...part-time, that is! I will be working every other weekend at Sanford Hospital in the NICU. I started hospital orientation on Monday and am doing the 8-5 thing for the next couple of weeks. The first few days were kind of rough on us all. Both babies seemed mad at me when I got off work, but the past couple of days have been much better. Mike is also adjusting because he is now in charge of the morning routine. It's been interesting so far!

Dog Poop

One of our dogs pooped in the house today. I didn't notice it on the floor, but Ethan sure did. He obviously picked it up because he had dog poop all over his hands! YUCK!

We Have Another Crawler!

Mia is mobile! She did an army crawl after the remote today! I thought that maybe it was a fluke because she only did it a couple of times. Later in the day, Mike had the kids downstairs and he yelled up the stairs that Mia was crawling after a Tigger stuffed animal! So, it's official! They're both able to get around by themselves.