babies blessing

Lonnie blessed the babies at church on Sunday. It was a special day! The babies were great. Making it easier on Lonnie, Maya slept through the entire thing and Max made only a sigh.

Maya Catarina

Maya in her blessing dress made of fabric left over from my wedding dress. The lace at the bottom of the dress was on my mom's veil when she got married. Thank you to Susan Combs and my mom who helped make the dress.

Max Elliott

Max's outfit was also made out of wedding dress fabric and was made by my mom. Lonnie hopes that the wedding dress fabric won't encourage him to wear a wedding dress when he gets married.

Thanks to our family members who made the trip down to Houston. John and Cookie Allred came from Danville, CA. Lynne and Patsy Mercer came from Bountiful, UT, and Rob, Zane, Ammon and Zaley Kaelberer came from Murfreesboro, TN.

All of a sudden, there are four of us.

Look at that focus!

In the past couple of weeks, they have both become serious thumb/finger/double fist suckers.

babies meet the alligators, alligators meet the babies

With family in town for Labor Day weekend, we decided to take the kids out for their first hike. There are several reasons we hadn't done this earlier: 1) Houston is REALLY hot this time of year, even at night. 2) Getting out the house with two babies is quite complicated. 3) Because the babies had a hard time getting started with breastfeeding, I was afraid of being away from the breastpump for more than 3 hours. 4) Making milk for two babies wears me out.

We were able to leave the house at about 9:00am. Surprisingly, the weather was not too hot. We went to Brazos Bend State Park, and we walked around 40 acre lake. It is a great park with lots of walking trails and trees covered in Spanish moss. It is also a wonderful place to bird watch and see alligators. The bigger alligators (10-14 feet) are easier to see in the spring, but we still were able to see several medium sized (4-6 feet) alligators and probably over 20 little ones.

Then while some of our group enjoyed touring the visitors center, I fed the babies under a big, shady tree on a park bench. (This mobile breastfeeding is great, it is ready anywhere and anytime.) After working up an appetite, we went to the Swinging Door and had great Texas BBQ. You gotta love a BBQ place that serves baked beans and potato salad as "vegetables".

When we got home, the guys watched football, I took and nap, and the grandmas and Zaley went to the mall.

It was a perfect Texas day.

Max in the carrier with mom.

Maya taking a nap with dad. The blankets were used to shield their fair skin from the sun, not to make them sweat more than they already did.

Small alligator lurking in the mossy water.

The lake was covered with huge lily pads and flowers.

babies meet the family

Max having a talk with his Papa (Alisa's dad), who spent much of the weekend trying to teach the kids to say "Papa". Maybe they'll catch on in another year or so.

Maya and Max during their first meeting with some of their many cousins.

Maya laughing with her Nana (Alisa's mom).

Proud Nana and Papa Allred.

Proud Grandpa and Grandma Mercer.

Grandpa Mercer holding both kids at once..."How are you supposed to do this?"

Maya having fun with cousin Zaley.

Max and cousin Ammon.

Labor Day Weekend Plans

Welcome Allred/Mercer Family,

We are so happy to have you all here. Thank you for making the long trip out to visit us and meet the babies.

Due to the fact that Alisa needs to spend most of her time feeding the babies we need your help. We appreciate your helping to make this and enjoyable and fun weekend for everyone. If your name is listed bellow you are responsible to that meal. You can ask others to help you out but you are in charge.

Thanks so much for coming to our to visit and thanks for all you help. We love you!

Friday
Breakfast: First one up and ready to eat please put out cereal, bread and bowls
Cereal Milk Toast Orange Juice
Clean up: Everyone

Lunch: Zaley and Zane
Sandwiches- PB &J Meat and Cheese Potato Salad

Dinner: Rob and Ammon
Mosticollii Noodles and Meat Sauce Salad
Cook Noodles, Heat up Sauce in Crock pot

Saturday
Breakfast: John and Lynne
Pancakes and waffles Maple Syrup, butter, PB, etc Orange Juice

Lunch: Out to Eat- Swing Door BBQ

Dinner: Zane and Zaley
Pork Tacos- Cook meat in crock-pot, w/can of tomato sauce, cumin and chili powder (Start in the AM)
Rice- Use rice cooker Black beans (canned)- heat on stove
Sour cream, Guac, Salsa, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese

Sunday
Breakfast: First one up and ready to eat please put out cereal, bread and bowls
Cereal Milk Toast Orange Juice
Clean up: Everyone

Lunch: Rob and Ammon
Sandwiches Leftovers

Dinner: Patsy and Cookie
Frozen Lasagna French bread Salad
Desert:
Cakes lemon water

Monday
Breakfast: Lonnie
French Toast and Bacon
Lunch: Leftovers

EVERYDAY: Snacks
Fruits and Vegetables (apples, nectarines, bananas, carrots) Leftovers

numbers

In the begining:

• We kept a basic 3 hour schedule, similar to the one the babies had in the NICU.
• Feeding time: 8 bottles day day x 45 mins each x 2 babies= 720 mins or 12 hours a feeding each day or 84 hours a week (thankfully for at least the first three months there were usually two of us bottle feeding the babies)

• Pumping: 30min(thank goodness for the double pump) 8 times a day= 240mins/4 hours a day/28 hours a week, plus extra time for occasional power pumping
• Diaper changes: 8 dipaer changes a day x 2= 16 diapers (at least) a day x 7 days = 112 diaper changes a week

5-7 months:
3 nap schedule

8:30am nap
12:00 nap
4:30 nap

Now:
2 naps a day

6:30am fisrt feeding followed by solids at about7:00
9:00am-11:00am babies first nap of the day
11:00second breastfeeding followed by solids
1:40 thrid breastfeeding of the day
2:00-4:00 babies down for second nap
5:00 Fourth breastfeeding of the day followed by solids
7:00 Fifth breastfeeding of the day followed up by a bottle
7:30 Babies in bed for the night

photos of the week

sleep and the olympics

We have been using our late night feeding times to enjoy the Olympic Games. In honour of all the gymnastics we have been watching Maya decided to roll over from here belly to her back for the first time. She did it four times yesterday! Max doesn't seem quite as interested because he is quite content laying on his belly. Maya on the other had really dislikes laying on her stomach and has decided to avoid her tummy time by rolling on to her back.

Max's big feat of the week is that he slept for almost 8 hours last night. (Maya has already had a couple of night's long sleep) I woke up several times uncomfortably wondering when they were going to wake up, but I was not going to wake them up.

We also had a weight check at the doctor's office yesterday. Both babies are over 11lbs.

Pretty amazing feats of strength for 3 month old babies born 5 weeks early at only 4 lbs.

I think they both deserve a gold medal.

What's in a name

Names are kind of interesting. Alisa and I had a fun experience of trying to think of two names at one time. Obviously, we were entertained by the thought of naming these kids enough to make a poll on our blog. (By the way, I was pretty surprised that Max was the most popular name on our poll. I knew Tyrone wouldn't win, but I didn't know that Max was so well liked. Even before doing the poll, we had pretty much decided that Max was the name we liked most. But I digress...)

I really like the names Alisa and I settled on for Maya and Max, even though both of their names are sourced from Alisa's life (at least I got to contribute the last name). The names Maya and Catarina come from Alisa's time living in Guatemala and falling in love with Mayan people and culture and, in particular, the Mayan community of Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan.

Alisa claims that I originally suggested the name Max, although I don't recall doing so (I did suggest many names along the way that were thrown by the wayside). (By the way, Max is not short for any thing, like Maxwell, Maximus, Maximum, Maximilliano, Maxedout, Maxer, etc. In fact, I kind of think it's odd when someone plans to call their child a certain name but give them a different first name and use their middle name [no offense to L. Tom Perry or M. Russell Ballard] or use a shortened version of the given name [Richard when they plan to call him
Rick or Dick].) Max's middle name is Elliott and comes from Alisa's great-great grandmother's maiden name. She also has a relative on the same family line whose name is Max Elliott.

We almost always refer to them by their given name, but occasionally we (or at least I) have used a couple of nicknames for them. Maya's is Butterball and came about because she often rolls up into a little ball when you pick her up. The butter part of the nickname just goes well with ball, but she also has soft, buttery baby skin. Max's nickname is Lil' Brudder and comes from a skit on homestarrunner.com about a one-legged dog named Lil' Brudder. So far with our twins, Maya has more volume in her cry, and Max has more endurance in crying. Alisa doesn't like me to say it, but Max tends to whine a little more. Thus, he got the nickname of Lil' Brudder because he's Maya's little brother, he can make it on his own, "he's got the heart of a champion", and he probably could power a small city with his whining. Lately, Max has been growing out of his whining so the Lil' Brudder nickname may get tucked away, but it certainly helped us laugh when he was whining away. After all, he's going to be a quarterback when he grows up. :)

-Lonnie

big smiles

We were having a hard time getting Maya to smile while we had the camera out. Every time I would hold up the camera and Lonnie would try to make her smile she would give us a straight face. Then when we would stop trying to photograph her she would have a huge smile come across her face. Lonnie realized that she smiled when he was making noise at the basketball game. When Lonnie would cheer Maya would smile. So it looks like she is a basketball fan. :)

trying to catch a smile

The babies have started smiling pretty regularly. It is amazing how wonderful it makes us feel.