28 September

Ainsley was back to her old self again by the end of this week, so the dragon that surfaced last week seems to be on vacation. With Matt gone all week I was happy to have a sweet child back in the house. I can't say what happened over the last week because I truly don't remember anything unless it happened today. I successfully made it through the week without Matt, but it was hard. Two of the nights were horrible because Ainsley decided to join in the "let's wake mom up" game, which I expect 2-4 times a night from the twins, but not Ainsley. One particular night I went into her room to find her totally naked and her diaper off...as she was soaking wet and laying next to a pile of poop. We can no longer use diapers, only pull ups. Any time I put a diaper on her she takes it off...so pull ups it is!


Jack & Kara started to enjoy their play gym this week! Jack likes to swat at the orange thing. Kara likes to look at the flashing star but won't swat at anything that dangles. Jack was full of smiles today but I didn't have my camera around to capture it.

Kara, however, smiles non-stop these days so it is easy to get her on film! Here are a few of my favorites from today. She smiles the most when Ainsley is around. She just smiles and watches her big sister, it is really cute.


Ainsley likes to do anything and everything that I do. Tonight I had to wear Kara in the Bjorn for an hour to keep her from crying. So, then Ainsley wanted to wear the Bjorn too. Liza had her put one of her twin dolls in the carrier while she held the other twin doll. We were dying laughing!

Happy Birthday to CC! She turns 60 on Monday :-) WE LOVE YOU!!!

Three Months Old!

It is hard to believe that this week Kara & Jack will be three months old! Matt and I definitely feel like we are starting to come out of the fog finally. We are getting more sleep at night and having more fun with the twins during the day. Both continue to eat well and appear to be growing. We are so excited to finally have a fat baby (Kara)!!


Jack eats almost twice as much as Kara so we can't figure out why he is still so small compared to her. We think it might be because he poops four times a day!



Ainsley is officially a struggle this week. She better be going through some terrible two's or else we don't know what it is. She has taken to hitting mommy, throwing tantrums non-stop, whines at absolutely everything, says no more than we though humanly possible and enjoys throwing food at the table rather than eating it. Below is a picture of what she does when we say "don't touch your sister's face..."

Ainsley started gymnastics today. It is a class for 18months - 2 1/2 years called "mommy & me" class. She really seemed to enjoy it, it definitely wore her out. Everything was going well until she hit another little girl and then disobeyed me one too many times so I cut the class short :-)

Matt left for Austin this morning. We miss him already!!

Mid-Autumn Festival

Today in Singapore we celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival (a Chinese holiday), also referred to as the Lantern Festival or Mooncake Festival. Our apartment complex invited all of the children to gather at the pool with their lanterns and mooncakes. Below is Ainsley eating her mooncake (which she didn't like, but mom & dad did!) and then pix with her lantern. What is a mooncake? We have no idea, but it is really dense and sugary and delicious. The lanterns are supposed to be traditional paper laterns with candles, but for the little kids they have battery-powered toys that are called laterns because they have a light in them.



Today was also a celebration at the American Club for their 60th birthday. We bought tickets to the family fun events, but Ainsley really only enjoyed the balloons. They had some characters onsite like Barney and Spider Man but they scared Ainsley and she didn't want to be within 20 feet of them. It reminded me of my fear of those mascots at Chucky Cheese!


The twins had appointments with their pediatrician on Friday (12 weeks old). Both are doing well and growing at an above-average pace, but they are still very small for their age. Kara weighs 11 pounds and is 21 1/2 inches long. Jack weighs 9 1/2 pounds and is 21 inches long. Developmentally they are behind, but if you adjust their age for their preemie delivery they are doing quite well. We are proud of their progress and happy that they are healthy. Here is a pic I took right before we left for the appointment:


Ainsley has new words in her vocabulary and it is so much fun to watch her learn. To the untrained ear she talks gibberish, but we can usually decode most of it. This week she learned to say "love you" but it actually sounds more like uh-oo :-) She has a crazy obsession with shoes and toes. The most exciting part about leaving the house is picking out what shoes she is going to wear. She can also say please, thank you, night night, and the very popular umbrella (we say that word almost every day here). This week we bought her a new golf club set which she loves. The red overalls are her favorite outfit right now.


Here are some pix of everyone from the week. We finally got Jack smiling on film but I couldn't get Kara's big smile captured. I got one of her silly expressions that looks like a smile. I'll keep trying to get her smile because it is really cute.






Matt leaves for the states one week from today so we are praying for the twins to make progress on their night sleep so that the week is bearable for everyone left in Singapore :-)

Sleep is in Our Future!

Jack & Kara still aren't sleeping the 12 hour nights we pray for every day, but they are making progress! They sleep in separate rooms for now because they tend to wake each other up and they each have good nights, but never at the same time. Kara can now go 6-7 hours at a time and Jack can go 5-6 hours. Progress!!!! They are both growing and eating well, so we are pleased about that for sure.

Jack:


Chunky Kara:

Ainsley has a new tooth brush that she loves and now she enjoys brushing her teeth. We were growing tired of the daily battles with her to convince her that brushing her teeth was fun and the electric tooth brush saved the day!!

This is Ainsley's new toy that buys us about 15-20 minutes of silence each day, which is key during Jack & Kara's feeding times:

Matt & Jack -- the guys of the house all dressed in blue...

(I was reminded today that I forgot to post a link to the sandwich kisses w/Grandma & Grandpa D...see link at top!)

Happy Labor Day

Labor Day isn't actually a holiday for us in Singapore, but we pretended that it was! Matt took a vacation day and we spent QT with Ainsley. We ventured to Sentosa, an island just south of Singapore to enjoy the beach. Ainsley had fun playing in the sand, took her first swim in the ocean, and played in the water fountains.






Here are some various pictures of the kids during the past week. Kara is definitely putting on the pounds :-)

Ainsley holding Kara:


Ainsley holding Jack:

Kara bathing next to Ainsley:


Ainsley feeding her baby while dad feeds Jack: