Admittedly this post is long overdue, but sharing the pictures on social media have told most of the story. So nothing here that hasn't already been shared already, but this is for my strong-willed social media rejectors (objectors?).
For their second Halloween, Austin and Malia were dressed as Woody and Jessie from Toy Story. All along we had hoped that Austin would be walking by Halloween, and he just barely squeaked it in there by about 3 days. Nearly a month in, he's a sturdy struttin stud. As the pictures show, it's hard to tell whether he was more amused by his costume, the pumpkins at the patch, or his new skill of walking. What the pictures didn't show was the cold they both had at the time, in conjunction with lots of teeth breaking through (which is a continuing battle). But Halloween was a fun day for all of us nonetheless, and we got some of my favorite pictures of the kids so far. Pretty amazing how far they have come in 18 months...
November 11 was the twins' 18 month "birthday." This coincided with a doctor checkup, where we got updates on height/weight.
To sum up Malia's progress, she's starting to sneak into the growth charts in height and weight. She's around 25 percentile for both - not super impressive. But she's our energetic kid, so the stats don't speak to her physical strength. Malia doesn't like to stay still. Ever. She's a busy little runner and climber, which makes things pretty difficult with the childproofing. When we block her off from getting into an area she's determined to be, she has an amazing ability to problem solve and overcome obstacles. For now, this is making life difficult, but I'm sure her tenacity and grit will be an asset to her at some point. Although she's not terribly vocal at this point in terms of spoken language, you can tell she understands a good amount of what we're saying to her. She loves being sung to, going through the hand movements correctly every time. She has had a flurry of teeth breaking through in the last couple of months; just about everything through premolars top and bottom are through the gums. Malia is a pretty happy kid, and has a silly but mischievous sense of humor. She's strong-willed and defiant, and pretty much has us wondering how we're going to keep on top of her. She keeps us laughing, but sometimes it's more of an exasperated, jaded laugh. Yikes!
Austin's 18 month stats were a little more impressive. He's in the 75th percentile for weight, and possibly over the charts in height (I'm inclined to say he's probably a little shorter than 35.25", as the measurement wasn't the best). Now that he's walking, he's learning from his sister quickly about all the fun/trouble that can be had by climbing on top of things. This hasn't always worked out well for him, as he's taken a pretty decent fall or two, but we're hoping he'll learn his lesson at some point. All of the walking has leaned him up a little bit, but as of late it seems he's bulking back up a bit. He's still a great eater, and he absolutely loves bananas. He'll eat anything you give him just about any time of day. As always he's the happy kid, and now is growing his vocabulary with more and more words every day. He gets excited for their favorite DVD, Yo Gabba Gabba Live, and sings and dances along with the music. Austin also got another haircut just before his 18 months birthday. The spiked look suits him pretty well I'd say!
