9 month checkup

The girls got their 9 month visit today. No shots! Horray:
Zoe:
Weight-17 3/4 lbs, 30%
Length-28 1/4 in, 75%
Head- 70%
Teeth- 2 bottom just coming thru

Zadie
Weight-17 1/2 lbs, 30%
Length-27 1/2 in, 50%
Head- 70%
Teeth- 4, her top 2 just came thru

Both girls are crawling quickly, standing on their own, walking with hand support and we think any day either one of them will take their first unaided step.
Zadie has been very very chatty lately and the baby babble from both is getting very cute. I'm going to try and record more of that audio.
Zadie is a great sleeper, she goes right down for naps and sleeps soundly, the only problem is that sometimes she gets hungry around 4am and if we go into the room and she sees us, it is all over. She'll throw a fit if we leave.
Zoe still is erratic in sleeping, she would rather entertain herself in the crib doing new flexibility moves rather than sleep, and she gets about an hour less of sleep a day than Zadie.
Their personalities are still different. Zoe is very interested in things and Zadie is very interested in people and faces. They sometimes wrestle, but it is usually just Zoe rolling over or grabbing Zadie, and Zadie doesn't do much to respond except by just crying. I have a feeling that will certainly change over time. Overall they are two very happy girls!

Learning the Wave

The girls have fun showing off their waves today. Check out the video:

Family Hike

When the going got long and rough on Yosemite, I had to hike with all 3 kids, here's how I managed the additional 80 pounds of kids.

SciFi Story

Zack made up a place and a little description while talking with his grandparents tonight. It goes a little something like this (summarized): There is a planet that is far far away called Nascoplat that has a blue sun and red sky and yellow water. The people are called Jibber-jabbers and they make silly noises. However there are no trains, cars, planes or boats on Nascoplat.
We were going to discover their mode of transportation, but then Zack's attention turned elsewhere. We may never know how the Jibber-jabbers got from point A to point B...

Baby signing time

We've started to watch some DVDs some friends gave us because the girls can start responding now, and guess who is addicted to the videos? Zack! Zack didn't seem to remember the hand signs he learned 2 years ago, but was very attentive to the video. He'd even correct some of the kids in the video that make signs slightly different than the correct way.
Zoe is already signing "milk" and Zadie is starting to catch on.
Also for those of you waiting to hear, Zoe hasn't taken her first steps yet, although she is constantly on her feet now and can free-stand. Only a matter of days...will she take her first steps before turning 9 months old a week from now?

Bottle Math

We go through a lot of formula now. The oversized formula cans at Costco have 1Kg of formula powder and each 8oz bottle requires nearly 35g, so that gets us 30 bottles per can. However with twins that drink at least 3 bottles a day each, that means a can only lasts us 5 days. So $110 of formula that I just spent on 4 jumbo cans is only going to last us 3 weeks. That's about $35/week on formula for twins at just under $1 per bottle, which seems like a lot, but I'm sure Jen would say that it is totally worth it not to have to breastfeed them anymore.

As a side note, I have now figured out how to bottle feed both twins at the same time. Failed attempts include: having both sit in high chairs (sitting upright isn't the most comfortable for them), having Zack feed one of them (he's got an attention span of 10 seconds), and feeding them separately (causing one to throw a fit while waiting). The trick so far is to sit on the floor with a baby on the outside of each of my thighs leaning back. This way they can't see each other and get distracted, and I look like some crazy type of gunslinger with upside-down bottles at each hip.