Seriously...someday I'm going to get my act together and post more often.
Our biggest news since I last wrote is that Rowan is CRAWLING! Yep, she's been working very hard on it for a while, and finally last week she just took off. She's faster every day. She also pulls up and cruises along the furniture, finding things that she can grab and pull off. Like Mommy's Pepsi earlier today (whoops..). Occasionally she lifts her hands off the things she's using to cruise, but it's still only for a second or two. Still, it's amazing. Every step she hits, she just barrels on to the next thing. Meanwhile, Saoirse is not crawling yet, but she is pretty effective at getting around nonetheless. She uses a combination of rolling, creeping, and pseudocrawling. She can get up on her hands and knees, but hasn't figured out the next step yet.
The girls are really enjoying each other lately. Rowan had gone through a phase where she didn't want Saoirse to touch her at all, but she seems to be over it. They wrestle around, take toys away from each other. Rowan's favorite toy is always whatever Saoirse has. Saoirse used to just give in, but lately she's been standing up for herself more and pulling things back out of Rowan's hands. We step in if there's a lot of crying, but mostly we're letting them work it out on their own. It's just the beginning of them having to figure out how to live with each other. Saoirse seems to think lately that Rowan is the funniest thing ever (actually, Mommy and Daddy agree). Saoirse watches her like crazy, and laughs hysterically at things she does. Rowan will bounce up and down, and Saoirse just screams with laughter. If we help them, they'll imitate each other, bouncing and "jumping" while they both laugh and reach for each other. Watching them together is more fun every day.
Last weekend we took the babies to Ann Arbor for the weekend, which was a big adventure. We stayed in a hotel, and even went to a couple of restaurants with the girls. I think they enjoyed all four of us sleeping in one big king size bed, and liked all the attention they got when we had dinner and drinks in the lounge. They behaved for long enough for us to have dessert even!
crawling...
The girls latest tricks....
Rowan is constantly amazing us with her determination to get around on her own. She insisted on being upright and being held standing up from the time she came home from the hospital. She seems determined to walk ASAP, watch out when she succeeds...:) I thought everybody might like to see her latest achievement. This was a week ago, she's gotten even better at it now.
Saoirse's favorite new thing is eating solids. (that's using the word "solid" pretty loosely). Over Christmas break we started introducing pureed fruits and vegetables, and then grains. Rowan's pretty skeptical, not a huge fan of eating solids. But Saoirse took to it like she's been doing it her whole life. The only food we've tried so far that she refused was peas..oh well. But apples, bananas, sweet potatoes, peaches, oatmeal, rice...she loves it all. Here's a picture from last night, Grandma Donna is feeding her apples.
New friends...
Over the holidays we got together (finally ) with the Rothsteins at their gorgeous new house in Ada (outside Grand Rapids). We're so excited that now they live only 9 miles away from the Haack grandparents. As some of you know, Keith and Sarah are college friends of ours who also have twins. Andrew and Maggie were due only two weeks earlier than Rowan and Saoirse, although they ended up being born in March, compared to May for the girls. But they're doing great, and it was so cool to see all four of them together for the first time. The visits were a taste of what it would be like to have quads, and it made twins seem kind of easy.
Thanks for having us, Rothsteins, we had so much fun!!
Christmas
For Christmas, we all went to Grandma and Grandpa Papp's from Friday until Christmas day. The girls really enjoyed seeing Grandpa John, Grandma Donna and uncle Evan, who was also home for the holidays. Mom and Dad appreciated it a lot too, because it meant more help taking care of the kids.
On Christmas day, we went to Grand Rapids to visit Grandpa and Grandma Haack. The babies got some alone time with Grandma Betty and Grandpa Brian while Mom and Dad went to a party in Muskegon with some old friends. Thanks again.
We had a big Christmas for the girls this year. We couldn't fit all of their new toys into one car on the way home.
Grandpa Brian discovered some strange new noise that somehow tapped into the girls laugh center triggering a riotous belly laugh for about a half hour.
Uncle Blake and Aunt Katie visited with the girls on the second weekend, which was fun.
Finally, we finally got together with friends from college who live in Grand Rapids and have twins about the same age as ours. Interestingly, the last time we got together was on New Year's Eve in Chicago. The girls and Andrew and Maggie seemed to get along well, even if they did seem a little confused by having people their same size around. Thanks yet again to Grandpa and Grandma Haack for allowing us to enjoy the New Year's Eve by taking them overnight.
Hope everyone out there has a happy and healthy 2008.
