One Small Step for Baby...

...One giant HURRAY from her parents.

Thursday, was HUGE for baby development. Ella stood up all on her own! In the middle of our front room.

Some Quick Updates

Below is Emily in her Star Wars "Jawa" costume. To me, she looks more like a Twi'lek with a hat. :)
Okay everyone, I'm getting back on track for the blog updates, so expect to see my usual 3 updates a week.

Three days ago, we noticed that Emily has started crossing her legs when she sits. Like yesterday she was on the couch and Sarah gave her a snack. She had her back against the back of the couch and her legs stretched out in front of her, then she crossed her legs at the ankles. Very cute!

Ella is our future rocket scientist, already using the calculator!
I can't remember if I've said this already, but one of Ella's favorite sounds is similar to the word "baboon." She just drops the double "o." It sounds like babn, which is close enough to baboon. I don't think Sarah or I ever said the word baboon to her before she started making this sound, but a couple days ago there was an animal in a video game I was playing that sort of looked like a baboon, so we pointed it out to Ella and said "baboon." She made her sound, and I thought it was funny. I don't know where she picked up the sound. It's interesting because I hear other parents say their children make sounds for certain common objects. If our girls have sounds for things, like blanket, or chair, or toy, I haven't noticed. I'll have to ask Sarah.

In the past week, the girls have developed a game they both love. In this game, they try to take the cap off anything, and then put it back on, and take it back off, over and over. This seems to entertain them endlessly. I drink a lot of water, and usually drink it from a bottle. The little 16.9 oz clear plastic bottles you get from the grocery store, or Costco, or wherever. They love to take the cap in one hand and either they want us to hold the bottle, or they will hold it in their other hand. I think it's great hand-eye coordination. The only thing that stops them is if the other one tries to take it, or we stop them. There is one problem with the water bottle caps - they are just the right size for the girls to fit in their mouth and could choke them. SO, we're going to have to find bottles with bigger caps, like Snapple or something. :)

That's it for today.

The Week Went So Fast!

I wanted to get some photos loaded this week, but the days have gotten away from me. :( So, this is my lame attempt to get a few pictures up and I will write more as soon as I can.


Emily on the left side of the picture, Ella on the right. Like two little birdies waiting for food. :)


Chris on his Birthday (7/16). Ella is on his right, Marilyn is in the middle, and Emily is on his left.


At Gary's house. Savannah and Joe go swimming!


Ella and me at Gary's. She's watching Savannah and Joe play in the pool. Next time, we'll go swimming, too.

In my absence

I'm sorry for my absence of late. I had to go away on business last week and didn't publish anything. It's been almost two weeks! Yikes! So much changed in the four days I was gone on business. I told Sarah when I got home that their faces look different. I notice their teeth more now. I think their upper side teeth have come in more. Their smiles look more grown up. I know that seems silly to say now, when they're not even 14 months old, but believe me, there is a difference. It makes me both happy and sad at the same time - to know that I lost four days with them, but to see them grow is amazing! I'll write more later this week, and upload some new pictures, I promise.

The Mind at Work

Quick update. This morning, Ella and I were in the front room (Emily was still asleep). Ella wanted to play with my slipper, so I took it off my right foot. She eventually slid it over to the front entryway. After a while, she came back and was looking at my bare foot. I started motioning to my bare foot, then to my left foot, which still had the slipper on it. I said, "slipper." After repeating that a few times, I pointed to the other slipper across the room and said, "Where's my slipper?" Finally, I asked her to get my slipper. I think I only had to say it once, maybe twice. She turned around, crawled directly to the slipper, and brought it right back to me and then handed it to me. Oh, man, that was so cool! I'm sure they've been able to put meaning to words for a long time, in fact I know it because of the sign language. But this is the first time that I've seen either of them pick up on something so quickly and act on a command. It's like I was watching her mind working. Love it!!

Now here's a random picture of the twins:

Ella fell asleep in her highchair after having dinner on on June 4th.

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall... (the Johnson Twin version)

Last night on the drive home from Sherri's after dinner, Sarah and I came up with a new song. It's called "99 Sippies of Water on the Wall." It was dark, and whenever we drive home after dark, the girls cry pretty much the whole 10 minutes it takes to get home. A couple weeks ago, Sarah and I discovered that if we sang to the girls, they quieted down. But we're getting tired of the same old songs - most of which we learned at Swim Lessons. So last night, we went through the usual bunch:
Sally the Camel
Little Fishy
Ella's Here Today
Emily's Here Today
Old MacDonald's Farm

We were almost home and the girls started crying again because we couldn't think of another song. I started singing 99 Bottles of Beer, as a joke, but I didn't want to sing that to the girls (something seems wrong singing a drinking song to babies - maybe that's just me). All of the sudden, Sarah or I said, "99 Sippy Cups of Water on the Wall." Even though that didn't quite work, it made us laugh, so we shortened it to Sippies on the Wall. And we only did 10 or less for the rest of the drive home. But it made us laugh and it entertained the twins.

Then today, Sarah was at work and Sherri was helping watch the twins. Around 11:00 it was nap time. I had both twins in my arms and sat in the Lay-Z-Boy. They were fussing a bit and crying, and I knew they were tired, so I started singing "99 Sippies..." Boy, what a great song! It's my new favorite. Ella was asleep by 75 and Emily was asleep by 60. Sherri came and carried each of them into their cribs. Again this evening around 6:00, same thing. Sarah and I split the twins to try and get them to take a last nap - I had Ella. I sat in my chair and sang the song, and she was asleep before Sarah had Emily asleep. This is great! :)

WALKING Update

I already added this as a comment to the WALKING post, but it doesn't publish the comment right on the blog page, so I'm afraid people will miss it. I wanted to update the post called WALKING from June 29th.

What I mean when I say walking is two things. First, she's actually taking unaided steps, and second, she is able to stand unassisted for enough time that we can see her learning to balance. I'll talk about the first one first, since that is the true walking. Picture this: I am sitting on the floor with my legs outstretched in a V shape in front of me. I hold Emily up to her full height (at that point we're looking eye-to-eye) and I lean forward so that her feet are on the floor between my left and right feet. At this point, I'm either holding onto her hands or her torso. I get her into as neutral a balance as I can - not leaning backwards or forwards - and I left go. She then takes 2-3 steps to me, and usually either falls forward into my chest, but several times she walked all the way to my chest without falling forward. Now of course, many times she didn't take any steps, but just sat down or started to tip one way or the other (I always caught her). And other times she only took a step or a partial step. But several times, again and again, she took steps on her own. I got some of it on video, so I'll see if I can post it.

Now onto the second part. Sometimes, I would let go and she would stand there 1, 2, 3 seconds before usually sitting down. Now that might not sound like a lot, but when you've had a baby who drops right to the floor the second you let go of her arms, it is remarkable to see her stand even for just half a second on her own. It's great, and Ella has been quick to show signs of this, too.

It's great to watch them both experiment with walking and standing. They are so proud of themselves, and so happy when we do it. Oh, I forgot to mention a third walking exercise. Sometimes we walk with them under our legs, and say I'm walking with Ella towards Sarah sitting on the couch. When I get 2-3 steps away, I'll let go and she'll keep walking to the Sarah. This is somewhat less successful than the other two methods above, mostly because our baby is holding our hands while we are holding theirs, and even if I try to let go, she keeps holding on until we get to the couch. But sometimes it works. :)