My sister, my friend.

I love watching the girls as they begin to interact with each other more and more. They are often sitting together on the floor, swapping binkies, toys, whatever is in their hands, and not a complaint in sight (or earshot) YET. I am not so naive as to think it's not coming...but I'm enjoying the current bliss. When one of them has been sleeping, and the other one has been up, and I take the awake one into the room to see the newly-awakening one, they both get such HUGE smiles on their faces when they spy each other. It's so adorable. When I put them down to sleep at the same time, they both immediately stand up in their beds and face each other, and commence a 15-20 minute "play session" before falling asleep. I love listening to them - laughing, jumping, "talking" to each other.

Of course, it's not QUITE so adorable when they are jumping up and down in their beds, laughing with each other AT 2:30 A.M., as they were this morning. That's never happened before, and I sure hope it doesn't become a routine!! I nursed Makayla, put her back to bed, then took Mackenzie to our bed, in the hopes Makayla would go back to sleep. Nope. By 3:15, she was screaming again. I handed Mackenzie, who was STILL awake, wanting to play, off to Darrell, and went to nurse Makayla again...she nursed for 45 minutes!!! I was having flashbacks to the newborn days! And was still awake! Oh. my. gosh. Teething sucks. She has two coming in on top. I had given her teething tablets and teething gel, to no avail. Finally, she accepted her binky, and I just rocked her to sleep. By 3:45, I made it back to my bed, where Mackenzie appeared to be asleep. By 5:00, she was awake. I tried for an hour to get her to go back to sleep in my arms, but it was useless, so by 6:00, we were up.

In other news:

• I made a pair of soft baby shoes for each of the girls this week - photos to come - and they turned out really cute. This time I used two layers of fleece for the soles, so hopefully they won't wear holes in them so fast. I also added some puff paint to the bottom, thanks to a great suggestion from my friend Allison, to add traction! (It was rather comical watching Makayla try to stand up on my friend's linoleum floor before the puff paint was added!)
• Makayla is MOMENTS from taking her first steps! Seriously - it could happen at any time. She is so ready! She can easily stand without holding on to anything for at least 5 seconds.
  
• Mackenzie has perfected crawling and is now pulling herself up on everything.
• Teeth count - Makayla: 2 on bottom, 2 coming in on top; Mackenzie - one on top!
• I had an appointment with the neurologist yesterday; she increased my Topamax in the hopes of cutting down further on the frequency of my migraines. I have had some improvement already, so am hoping the increased dosage will help even more. I'm also hoping it doesn't cause more side effects though - I have to go to sleep right away after taking it, or else I get really bad restless legs!
• Our coordinator from Inland Regional Center (for Early Intervention Services) came out this week to see Mackenzie. She was pleased with her progress. She is sending an Occupational Therapist out to help us with feeding issues. She also took a referral for Makayla - because, as it turns out, Makayla is several months delayed in her language development! She's ahead in other areas, but for whatever reason, she's not developing speech at the rate she should be; by this point, she should be making consonant sounds and putting 2-syllable sounds together, like "ba-ba," "ma-ma," "da-da," etc. She doesn't even make one-syllable sounds, other than "mmmm...." when she's eating something! :)
• Thursday night Darrell had bible study, so I took the kids over to my friend Allison's house. It was her birthday, so my friend Kristi and I both went over there to have dinner with her. So, for Allison's b'day - she cooked US dinner! :) She made an awesome pasta dish - Italian Baked Chicken and Pastina - so yummy! I took monkey bread for dessert, and made it with homemade bread dough - yum! I'll post that recipe later. Anyway, the kids had a great time playing, and the moms had a great time talking, while the dads had their end-of-the-year spaghetti dinner.
  

I'll try to get photos and recipes posted later!! Have a great weekend everyone!!