Blake & Amanda: The 8 Month Old Update

Woohoo! My babies are 8 months old (5.5 adjusted.) They are really starting to develop their little personalities and it is so much fun to watch. They are great at grabbing things now and can even put their binkies back in their mouths, just not always in the right direction. They love playing with toys and chewing on everything, which brings me to the big scary thing.....

TEETHING. It seems like Everett is teething, although I can't be sure because after three weeks we've still yet to see a tooth make an appearance. But he's been super cranky, sometimes screaming in pain, and acting like his gums hurt for what seems like forever. Hopefully that darn tooth with show up soon and he'll start feeling better.

Last month I mentioned they had started going crazy with their naps and whatnot. I figured out that it was actually the four month sleep regression. It's been hard, but we've been making some progress. It's amazing how much happier Jensen is when I force him to take naps haha. Everett is doing so good with night sleep, he's doing up to 8-9 hours pretty often. Of course sometimes he's up in like 4 hours, but what can you do. Jensen is still up many times during the night, but we had a couple nights where he was only up twice, so maybe we're getting there. I will probably get some sleep eventually... Although there was one night where everyone slept until 3:30 except for me. I'm so used to them getting up so much that I woke up before the babies did and then couldn't go back to sleep because my body didn't understand what was happening.

After a little bump in the road where Ev refused solid foods for like 2 weeks, feeding them has been going great. My dad figured out that to get Everett to eat you need to eat in front of him too. Now their menu includes beef, beans, sweet potatoes, bananas, apples, oats, carrots, and mango. Everett still doesn't like apples, but Jensen is crazy about them so it works out. They are enjoying eating and think it's fun to be like mommy and daddy.

They're still really social little guys. Everett gives everyone he meets the biggest smile. Jensen loves watching kids run around and play. They prefer mommy and daddy but aren't usually too upset by other people holding them yet. They've started smiling at each other pretty often and Jensen laughs at Everett sometimes. It's the sweetest thing ever.

We went on a few adventures this month. I brought them to the zoo with my mom. It was fun to show them the animals and actually leave the house haha. Another adventure was their first appointment with an eye doctor. Preemies commonly have retina problems, but we got them checked out and their eyes seem to be doing just fine! We also ventured to a corn maze, which Everett liked so much he fell asleep. I had an adventure of my own today and yesterday as I took a quick break from maternity leave to photograph a wedding. It was nice getting back in the groove for a couple days and doing something besides feeding, diapering, napping, and just generally trying to get babies to stop crying all day long. Of course I missed them terribly, especially when I saw babies at the reception, and wished I could have mine with me.

Here are some pictures of Jensen & Everett's 8th month: