Little updates at 7 months

Megan and Ashely are our new babysitters and we love em!
Look at our matching outfits

Ella is up on all fours...but will she stay that way?

Again....does any need a Calvin Klein model..Nathan is ready to sign up

Ella loves being outside

Nathan new way of falling asleep

As you can see, life just keeps getting busier and more fun by the day. Some things are easier..such as now they are sleeping through the night and we are for the most part conquering going to bed without too much crying. But then there are other new battles...such as only wanting to take 1/2 hour naps and then being crabby, crawling all over and getting into mom's plants, and having WW III when we have to change their diapers or put clothes on them. Oh well.. I am sure all of you could say you lived through the same things. It is truly fun to watch them grow and interact. They now like to sit in the tub by themselves and splash and splash. They do pretty well with not being bothered by water in the eyes. They are eating like monsters. Nathan will eat anything that you give him. We have been doing more table foods and they think there pretty cool when they have "big people food." We are going to attempt another camping trip with friends this weekend. I am sure we will have more stories then.

Nathan is officially crawling

Nathan officially crawled on August 1st. We were just saying that we thought he would do it soon and then one morning he was crying for me and I told him to come by me and all the sudden I see him up on all fours crawling. He also is able to stand up by furniture and actually can take a few steps along side of the couch. Ella is not too far behind. She can stand up by this one toy we have and as you can see in the video, she is army crawling pretty good. She keeps up with Nathan and I am sure she will be crawling soon.

Our 2nd Camping trip and more..............

Ella's new smile

This is in the wrong order but you can see from the two pictures below, Nathan likes to crawl through his exersaucer!

Ella likes eating outside

Nathan even wipes his own mouth when he eats!

Nathan and mom

Ella likes her high chair

This is how we would contain them when they were getting to much into the dirt

Playing before we left for camping

Ella is excited to go camping

Well, we tried another camping experience this past weekend. Tim and I went by ourselves this past Friday night and stayed for two nights. It went as well as can be expected for camping with 7 month old twins. We realized how hard it is to contain them now that they can army crawl. They no longer wanted to stay on the blanket, but would venture to the edges and play in the dirt. They were pretty fascinated by it. We let them play with eagle eyes until we would notice them getting close to putting something or their hands in their mouths. The nights there went okay. I ended up feeding them at night if they woke in order to not wake the rest of the campers up and now last night ( at home) we suffered for it. We knew we did not want them to get back into the habit of getting up to feed so we let them cry it out. They were doing so good at night before and last night Tim and I endured crying from 2-4am. Ella started and then Nathan finished. Hopefully tonight will be better. We tried out our jogger stroller behind the bike and that worked out great. They like going fast and we did a couple different bike rides. All in all, we now know that life will never be the same as it was before the babies came. Relaxing and reading a book during camping now comes during their naps, but it was so fun to see them get excited by dogs walking by the campsite or seeing the fire at night, that we now prefer this kind of camping.

Ella also likes to crawl all over Nathan

Ella has a new smile

Here is Ella on her camping trip. For the last couple days, she has been doing a new smile where she lifts her nose up and squints her eyes and then sniffs. It is pretty cute. It is hard to catch on camera, but the first part of the video gives a little glimpse.

7 months old

"Somebodies" think they're big stuff standing on the couch

We are "oranging"it today!

Ella's idea of helping mom with the laundry

Coffee party with friends to welcome Anna Tooonstra into the world

"Angel with an attitude" and "Trouble is my middle name"

The babies are making supper tonight!

Ella's new way to fall asleep...dad says she takes after her mom who loves to also fall asleep on the couch!

Look at us. Were big stuff. Bet you cannot stand up by the couch like us!

Once again, Nathan pins Ella

Nathan very intrigued by this toys

Bright eyes

Anyone like to hire Nathan as a male model. He's got the pose.

Nathan's favorite toy..the nose sucker- outer!

Ella in her skirt

Just playing around

As you can see, we are getting bigger. Hard to believe we are 7 months old tomorrow. Time is flying by way to fast. New things we like to do are: stand by furniture, army crawl as fast as we can to a newspaper or plant, eat anything that our mom and dad are eating, drink from big people glasses (even if the water runs down our shirts till we're soaked), and watch any kind of animal. Ella gets very excited. She waves her hands in the air and almost gets tense with excitement. Tonight we took a walk and we got to see horses up close and she just loved it.

We "pooled" it

It was our first pool experience. As you can see Nathan enjoyed the pool so much he fell asleep on the floaty. Ella didn't care for the water and cried every time I put her feet in the water. It was a beautiful day and a nice and relaxing time to spend with friends.

6 month updates

Nathan loves to climb on everything including Ella

Ella doesn't seem to mind though


Ella gives us a pretty smile

Nathan enjoys a "sink" bath

I am a little late in getting out their 6 month appointment updates, but I thought better late than never. At their appointments on July 1, Ella weighed 17lbs and 15.5 oz (basically 18 lbs). She is 25 and 3/4 inches tall. Nathan was 16lbs and 7 oz and was 25 inches tall. My babies are getting so big (literally)! I have to say, I am so enjoying the 5-6 months. They are changing so much and able to do so much. It is hard to keep up with all their updates on their calenders. Some of the highlights include sitting up on their own. They will occasionally fall over if they are not concentrating, but for the most part they are very sturdy. Nathan is army crawling everywhere. If you put down a newspaper or the remote control, he will crawl to it like lightning. He can lift his butt high in the air, but always goes back onto his belly when he wants to get somewhere. I am just waiting for the day when he puts it all together and starts to crawl on all fours. Ella does more of what I call a wiggle worm crawl. She just reaches out her hand and wiggles to get at things. Amazingly enough she can get to toys or such if she wants to. They also both love to stand by things. They can stand by the couch without assistance for a good 5 minutes, but then if they loose concentration, their down fast. I now have my plants and all valuable things up high and we are putting up the gate by the stairs tomorrow. I am so used to be able to leave them in the living room while I quickly go do something, but I know Nathan is going to eventually find the stairs and want to try them out! They are eating about three times a day. Usually cereal in the am and night and vegetables and fruit somewhere in between. Today I was feeding them applesauce and cereal and I had a small amount on my finger and just like normal I licked my fingers to get it off. Gag me................. I literally went to the sink and washed my mouth out and then had to eat something to get the taste out of my mouth. I cannot believe how they just chow it down. They are good eaters. Nathan is a bottomless pit. He is such a good eater that he doesn't get very messy which is nice. Ella on the other hand has food everywhere. I do have to say this past week, she has been great at eating. She didn't always open her mouth and now you cannot "shovel" it in fast enough!!! They are really interacting with each other too. Tim found them one day just laughing at each other in their exersaucers. They also love to pull each others hair or grab each other's faces. Yesterday I was taking a walk with them and Nathan all of the sudden was crying. I looked down to find Ella yanking on his hat string, literally pulling his head down. I am sure this will only be the start of them irritating each other!!!!! Tomorrow we are going to my friend Dana's pool and so I will try and post some cute pictures of them in their bathing suits.

Ella looks like she is on the move to somewhere

What is this "green" stuff

Darin and Tricia were here for the 4th of July

Family Picture

"Cool Dude"

Only a month apart. Triple trouble!!!!

Ella and Nathan having fun at Tunnel Park

Who says I couldn't have had triplets

What's up for today...were ready to go

Brayden was a big help entertaining the babies

Nathan exhausted after a long day of playing

I'm a ham in these shades



Again..it has been awhile since I have blogged. We had a great 4th of July. Darin, Tricia, Brayden, and Breanna flew out from Minneapolis for a long weekend. It was so nice to have them here in Michigan and us not have to drive 12 hours to see them!!!! We spent a lot of time at Tunnel Park which is on Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan was still kind of cold so, but Darin and Tim did venture in the water and Brayden got his feet wet. Brayden was more interested in making sand castles and checking out other people's sand toys!!!! On Saturday, we went to the Farmer's Market and then the guys went golfing. At night we watched a movie after the kids went down for bed. Sunday night, we were able to get together with all of the Terpstra cousins. Darin had not seen some of them for 3 years or so. We were introduced to the newest little Van Dyke great grandbaby, Mercedes! What a cutie. On Monday, we went shopping (due to it raining outside). Of course Tricia and I found some good deals at Old Navy, but it was quite a challenge to try the clothes on with one toddler and 3 babies. Both Ella and Breanna had dirty diapers and so were stinking up the dressing room and they all started having melt downs half way through. Good thing the dads showed up and could entertain them somewhat so we could try on a couple more clothes! All in all, it was a nice visit and I was sad to see them go. Hopefully we'll make it back home at the end of August or September.