Genius Babies

Yes, I know. Every mother thinks her babies are the smartest. Here are some neat tricks that my twins just learned:

1) Chana learned how to roll over. I put her on the floor on her front today and she promptly rolled over onto her back. Her brother can't even do that yet, but he goes from back to front (which Chana can't do). Silly twinners.

2) Dovid figured out how to make the music turn on when you pull a handle over the vibrating seat. He actually grabbed onto the handle by himself and didn't let go for a few minutes. I'm attaching two pictures to show you:





As you can see, he looks very proud of himself. :-) I'm proud of him too! They're so "advanced" for being almost 4 months old (and preemie). Well, at least I think so. lol

MckLinky Blog Hop

This week's MckLinky Blog Hop theme is "three things you didn't know about me/us." The photographer who did our wedding decided to retire, and we bought ALL of our wedding photos on CD a few days ago, so I'm going to make this "three things" all about our wedding (Aug 27, 2006).

1) My husband has 3 brothers and 1 sister. They are all in this picture from the wedding, and I think Dovid looks like his Uncle Avram. From left to right, there's Avram (the oldest), Rebecca (the second oldest), Eliah (the middle child), Me, Shmuel (the youngest), Mom-in-law, and Joe (the second youngest and best man)



2) I had planned to only have a matron-of-honor and one bridesmaid at the wedding, because my sister-in-law wasn't sure she wanted to be "in the spotlight". But she didn't realize that without her it would only be my sister and my friend Melanie. She didn't walk down the aisle, but we wanted her in the "bridesmaid" picture nonetheless. From left to right, there's Rebecca (my sister-in-law), Shira (my sister & matron-of-honor), Me, Shmuel and Melanie (my best friend & bridesmaid)



3) In the Orthodox Jewish tradition, the bride and groom are not supposed to see each other for one full week before the wedding. This was SOOO difficult for us, as would be for any engaged couple. The first time we got to see each other was at the bedeken, where he put the veil over my face and gave me a bracha. Here are a few pictures from the bedeken, where you can see just how happy we were to see each other. Of all of the pictures from the wedding, these are my absolute favorites!

This is Shmuel's first glimpse of me in a week. He looks VERY happy. (And also like he's about to faint...)


The Rabbi is holding Shmuel up in this picture...lol Once again, Shmuel looks happier than I've ever seen him since.


Now he really looks like he's going to faint, but he's still beaming.


Oooh! Now you can see how happy I am to see Shmuel!


Shmuel is now putting the veil down. You can see how delicately he's doing it.


Looks like the Rabbi (on the right with the long beard) and our friend Moshe (next to the Rabbi) are laughing at Shmuel at how gingerly he's trying to put the veil over my face.


Yay! He did it!


This is Shmuel giving me a bracha. This is my ultimate favorite picture.

I Give Up

Right, so Dovid sleeping on his stomach wasn't a fluke... Last night I went to check on them before I went to sleep and there he was on his tummy again. So I flipped him. No sooner were my hands gone, but he flipped right back. Mind you he was still mostly asleep. lol So I flipped him again....and he flipped back. I did this three times before saying. "Ok, Kiddo. You win. Sleep on your back, but I'm at least going to move you to the center of the crib." (Because he was flipping himself all the way to the side.) Hehe what a cutie.

Chana has no desire to flip at all. She doesn't even try when she's on her back or her front to get the other way. *sigh* Well, some babies just don't roll over and just go straight to walking. lol Actually, when we had them on tummy time during Shabbos Dovid was scootching all over the place. He would bring his knees up to his chest and then scootch, like an inchworm. He was going pretty fast for someone his age, too. Chana was also trying to scootch, but not as much. They're so far advanced.

Bad Dovid...

Before I went to bed last night, I went into the twins' room just to check on them. Chana was sleeping peacefully. Dovid was sleeping on his stomach!!!! YIPE! So now I had two choices. 1) I could pretend I hadn't seen it and leave him that way so as not to wake him up. Or 2) I could flip him onto his back and hope he wouldn't wake up. Of course, I chose option 2. Even though I know the risk of SIDS goes way down once your baby can roll over, I still flipped him. I also just ordered the Angelcare Baby Motion Monitor to put under their crib mattresses. I'd rather not take chances now that he's sleeping on his front without my knowledge...

Au Pair

My husband and I decided that the best way to have someone care for our twins while we work is to get an au pair. The only issue is that we wanted someone who is Orthodox Jewish...and that's a near impossibility. Little did we know that we're ridiculously lucky people. We applied with Cultural Care Au Pair and they found us an Orthodox Jewish woman from Poland within a day. WOOOO!!! She is so sweet and we are SOOO excited to be welcoming her into our home in mid-August. If any of you are looking for child care, I highly recommend them. Not only is it the least expensive way of having someone care for your kids (less than $350 per week), but their fee is per family and not per child...which is especially good for those of us who are parents of twins (or more). Here's some info on the discounts they have available right now:

A brand new website and a special offer for new families!
To celebrate aupairvideos.com, we are offering new families a $350 application fee waiver and an additional $150 program fee discount for a total savings of $500! Use promo code *EMAIL ME FOR IT* when you apply to take advantage of this offer. Host families must be new to Cultural Care Au Pair, apply by July 18, 2009 and welcome an au pair into their home by October 23, 2009.

$250 LGBT Discount
LGBT families who apply by December 31, 2009 are entitled to a $250 program fee discount. Families must be new to Cultural Care Au Pair. Please contact *ME* to learn more about this discount.

$250 Host Family Referral Discount
Current families will receive a $250 program fee discount for each new family referred to our program that welcomes an au pair into their home (Discount will be applied when the au pair arrives in the home). Each family you refer will also enjoy a $200 program discount, thanks to you! Referral discounts can go beyond the $650 maximum discount allotment. Referrals must be received by September 1, 2009. For referring and referred families to qualify for the $250 and $200 program fee discounts (respectively), referred host families must welcome an au pair into their home by October 23, 2009.

If any of you are interested, let me know and I can give you a bunch of promo codes to get the maximum discount allowed.

That's it for my shameless plug, but hopefully you can tell how excited I am to have found this au pair. Seriously, she's the answer to my prayers from G-d Himself.


In other news, I bought a neat anniversary gift for Shmuel. It's called "Lovopoly" and this is what the board game that I designed looks like (don't worry, he won't see this because he doesn't read my blog):

MckLinky Blog Hop

I just found this and think it sounds like fun. This week the theme is "A Favorite Photograph". My favorite photos are the first ones taken of the twins. (Yes, I'm cheating and doing two photos because I have two kids.) lol Because of the emergency C-Section and the twins being in the NICU, I didn't get to see them in person for several hours...almost 12, I think. So, my hubby had them take pictures of the twins for me to see instead. That's why they're my favorite. :-) See how much they've grown!

Chana


Dovid

Rolling Over

It is official. Dovid can definitely roll over. We put him to sleep on his back (as always), and he got hungry tonight around 12:30am. So, I went to get him out of his crib, and lo and behold, he's full out on his tummy. Oopsie!! :-) I fed him and put him back to bed, and now it's time for Mommy to get some rest, too. I wonder if we'll find him back on his tummy in the morning??