Accomplishments

Keaton is creeping everywhere! The other day I put him on the floor in his bedroom while I ran his trash to the garage and when I came back he was in the bathroom. If I walk out of the family room he will be on one side of the room and when I come back he is usually on the other side of the room, behind couches, pulling on picture frames or tying to poke at outlets. He is fast.

Keaton is starting to do more babbling. Saying dada, baba and occasional mama. He laughs at the simplest of things, like being hung upside down, tickling, saying achoo or boo, shaking your hair in his face...He has become very clingy and wants to always be in your lap while still moving around. He wants you to hold him while he plays with toys. He loves books, ripping pages and the sound of music. He is getting on his knees more and more and rocking forward and backward, in attempt to crawl. He still takes two naps a day, although they are shorter each day. Occasionally they are only thirty minute naps and that makes for a long day. And he loves to crawl over things - McKenna, pillows, laps, toys...

And my favorite thing to watch Keaton do lately is clap. If you tell him to clap, show him clapping or if he hears clapping he does it. And he gets this look on his face like, Did you see that? look what I am doing. It's adorable and truly we get just as excited as he does.

McKenna has really worked on her motor skills lately too. She is now able to reach for things on ground while sitting up, which is just amazing to see. She will roll from belly to back if her arms are positioned right, but if her arms are to the side and head flat on ground she doesn't know how to do it. She is starting to try to push up a little bit more on her belly and can occasionally hold her head up for twenty to thirty seconds, which is a big improvement for her.

McKenna sings all the time, and by sings I mean she just says AHHHHHHHHHH for long periods of time, over and over. She is learning to do an occasional dada noise, although for the most part it is just the singing noises. She is starting to finally look up at objects that are held slightly above her head, which shows she is gaining more head/neck support. She reaches for things high in the air finally too, although that doesn't always happen.

She still isn't eating, but occasionally will allow a syringe of less than a half ml to be put in her mouth (really it's forced into her mouth) and food squirted in or a spoon with hardly anything on it put on her lips. She takes sips of water from the sippy cup throughout the day, although she doesn't always tolerate the sips and we can't give her too many or she will retch, and we can't seem to get her to take anything other than water from it.

She now holds balls and will occasionally McKenna will put them in a bucket or where you tell her to put them. She is averaging only five retches a day for the past couple weeks which is HUGE. We are nervous to think that maybe they are truly decreasing, but hopeful. She still gags throughout day in addition to retching, but hey, we will take gagging over retching any day! It's hard for us to not be discouraged though or scared that she is getting worse again when she has more than five now.

We are so grateful for these twins and excited to see what the Lord is going to do with them. How will God use these babies to win the lost, reach out to the hurting and further his kingdom? I think He has already used them in such amazing ways and for that alone we are grateful.