Finalization Day

Shortly before noon yesterday, a very nice judge asked us some important questions and then signed the Final Judgment of Adoption for our babies.

What this means, if you're unfamiliar with the process, is that we have finally reached the end of the long road we set out on nearly 18 months ago. James and Kathryn, says the judge's order, are now our legal children, just as if they had been born to us. We will even receive new birth certificates reflecting this (though they will always know the story of their birth and adoption).

Although there was little doubt things would go as planned, and the last several months were mostly just waiting for the legal machinery to chew its way through the required notifications and filings and hearings, it is a relief to be finished with it all.

First Tooth!

In the course of investigating the larger-than-usual puddle of drool emanating from my daughter, I stuck my finger in her mouth and discovered that a little tiny bit of tooth has made its way through the gum!

And to make up for the lack of pictures with the last post:

Mobility

In the past week or so, Katie first figured out how to sit up all by herself, and now goes back and forth from hands and knees to a sitting position all the time. She was quite pleased with herself the first few times she did it, now it's old hat. Shortly after that, she figured out how to move her arms and legs, and began to crawl. She doesn't go very fast, she uses her feet as often as her knees, and she stops to sit up several times on her way to a destination, but she's definitely moving now.

Jimmy pretty much has the crawling movements figured out, but he prefers to flop onto his belly instead of staying up on hands and knees. He can move pretty fast that way, though -- up on hands and knees, move hands forward, push with legs and flop onto belly. If a toy catches his eye, he scoots right across the room to get it. If I sit him up, he'll stay upright for a little while, but he's not very interested in doing it himself yet. He is cruising all over in the walker and zooms around the activity table too.

Both of them laugh and "talk" all the time, especially when they look at themselves in the mirror. They are also interacting with each other more and more, which sometimes results in tears when one steals a toy the other is playing with.

This weekend we'll install their new car seats because they're about to outgrow the "baby buckets". I sure will miss them!

Visit from Nana

Nana (Tracey's mother) came to visit from New Jersey last week and we all had a great time. We went to the park one day with some other twins moms, and instead of just sitting in the stroller, we got the babes out and played on the ground for a little while. We also did some shopping a couple of days, which they always love, and they made two trips to the airport -- once to meet Nana, and once to pick up Russ, who took the opportunity to go visit his mother for a couple of days while I had some help around the house. We took a bunch of pictures while Nana was here, they're in the Month 8 album.

On Friday we had a doctor visit for their Synagis shots, and we found that Jimmy is up to 18 1/2 lbs. and 28 1/4", and Katie 16 1/2 lbs. and 26 1/4". We'll have to pick out new car seats very soon, as Jimmy is very near the 29" height limit for the "baby buckets" we have. Hard to believe that they went from this picture to outgrowing the seats in just over six months!

They keep making progress in other areas too. No one has crawled yet, but Jimmy gets up on his hands and knees now too, and manages to scoot forward a little bit at a time on his belly. Katie gets her knees and then her feet underneath her, but hasn't quite figured out how to move her hands at the same time. They both hold their bottles most of the time, at least until they get bored and start waving them around instead, dumping formula all over. Sitting up is going well, both are very talkative, and we gets lots of smiles and giggles all around.

Their latest discovery came yesterday afternoon, when they were supposed to be napping. I heard both of them laughing at once, and when I went in to investigate, they were on their hands and knees, grinning at each other through the crib bars (their cribs are right next to each other, in an "L" shape). When we awoke this morning (slept through the night! Yay!), they were doing the same thing. It's adorable, but it also scares me a little... when those brains get working a bit better, there's no telling what they'll come up with together!