We Made It!

Keith & Mini-Keith, aka Raleigh with Harold the Koala

Nannie with Augustus & Harold the Koala

Raleigh & Augustus in the bassinet on the international flight - even with another set of twins on board, these boys were the center of attention!!! Big thanks to the Brasilian grandma & ItalianAustralian lady who sat behind us and wanted to hold the boys!!!! Life savers indeed :)

Matty, the boys, Jane & Heath pushing Ashley in Kuranda - Gus is already trying to check Ash out:) Lookout Heath;)

Raleigh and his very, very big teddy bear

We have been in Oz for over a week now. How the time has flown! The boys could not have been better during our travels. They are truly amazing. They even adjusted to the time difference without a hiccup. Well, maybe a little hiccup when Poppy was playing with them and all their new toys at 3am the first night here:) Too cute; I came down to find some very happy grandies, and two happy boys to have new people to play with at 3 am!

The boys have already seen so much. We have gone up to Kuranda, Port Douglas, the Cairns zoo, they have eaten on the wharf in Cairns and they even got to hold koalas! Such lucky boys!!! There are well over 700 pictures already...and we cannot post them all, so here are a few of my favorite shots.

Raleigh & Poppy

Aunty Peta gives feeding a go

Augustus and the croc...that is Nannie holding him there, mom wanted no part of this one!

Augustus is Trying to Crawl and Raleigh is Running in Circles

Augustus, the astronaut




Raleigh, feeding himself...oh those are some tired eyes!


Less than a week before our trip to Oz. We are so excited! Nannie & Poppy have no idea what is coming their way.

This week Augustus is so close to really crawling, not just his army crawl, and Raleigh is running around his activity table. It is just so amazing to watch these guys grow. They are truly the happiest babies we know; we are so darn lucky!!

Here are a few videos highlighting their development, enjoy! We especially enjoy the one of them laughing together, after months of thinking they were never going to like each other. The great news is that they are laughing and playing together more and more, in between hair and ear pulling "fests" of course;)

Happy Thanksgiving

The boys celebrated their first Thanksgiving today. They enjoyed eating cooked cauliflower & a little turkey too:) It surprises me that they liked it so much after I was unable to eat much of the Thanksgiving dinner last year while I was pregnant with these guys.

We have a few videos of them eating below - too funny. It is hard to believe they are eating with their hands and chewing real food already; it seems like just yesterday we were hoping & praying that they would eat on their own enough to get released from the NICU. Amazing! The weather was so mild that we ate outside this year & had a nice walk after dinner. They both enjoyed eating & making a mess as usual. Enjoy the photos & video! We were all enjoying all the sounds they were making letting us know how much they enjoyed the feast.

Augustus

Raleigh

Beachy Time in Florida

Dad with Raleigh

Mom with Augustus

Augustus

Raleigh, our little Abercrombie model for babies:)

Raleigh "holding" Gus' hat!

Happy family!

The boys are doing awesome! They are down to three meals a day now with a night time bottle thanks to the suggestion of another "twinkie" mom. This is great; it means we can travel without worrying about feeding in the middle of a zoo or aquarium trip, for example. Next task is to work on getting them past the 4:30/5 am feeding. They just keep holding on:) They are asleep every night by 7 am and usually go back to bed until about 7 am...but still want to cuddle with mommy about 4:30 in the morning.

Last weekend we had one of Brooke's former co-workers take pictures of the boys & us at the beach. They turned out so amazing, we are overwhelmed with them. It will be hard to pick out this year's Christmas pictures!! It turned really cold towards the end, so some of the pictures have pink noses & cuties looking a bit tired, but all in all, they did great.

Lately, both boys have been so vocal. Augustus is saying "ba, ba, ba, ba, ba" and "ma, ma, ma, ma" all the time, but of course not correlating the ba's and ma's with a bottle or mommy...yet. Raleigh just wants to make raspberries and "wa wa's" as we call them. He has his hands in his mouth all the time looking for new noises. Both are so darn cute =)

We are counting sleeps until our big trip. It is so exciting, we just can't wait to see Nannie & Poppy in person, but we are a bit overwhelmed with the daunting task of packing and of course the actual travel there & back! So worth it, so we will suck it up!!

The Hamiltons

Aquarium and just plain busy!!

Dad & Raleigh in the mist...how much fun!!


Checking out the outside tanks, Augustus is obviously happier about it!



So much to see, but probably more interested in their rattles:)


Happy dad with the new stroller

Ditto for mom, loving Raleigh's let up on the handle bar for his foot rest:)

Dad showing Raleigh the fish, but he is looking back smiling at all the people!

The boys have been so busy lately, I don't know who is more worn out! We took them to the aquarium this afternoon with their twin buddies Brooks & Emma. We took their new jogging stroller & LOVED it!!!! This was after they had a fun night with Nonnie Boni & Grandpa Pickles on Friday while mom & dad were on a date night to Phantom of the Opera. Plus their morning was spent supervising a short garage sale. Tomorrow they will be getting pictures taken in the afternoon after visiting with Nonnie & Pickles again in the morning. Mom & Dad are looking forward to a sleep in!

Another Day at the Beach

Raleigh checking out the sand on the towel


Mom with her hands full...and she wonders why her back aches???



Augustus, aka Elvis!




Augustus dips his toes in, this is November, and the water is fine!

Uncle Tom, Gus showing his love

CLASSIC boys, one is always poking or prodding the other...

The boys are doing awesome. We are amazed by them every day. They are so chill around other people & don't stop when they are around their toys. Brooke took them to beach again, and they had a ball. Even with a head cold, they enjoyed the sunshine and thought it was the best medicine! They went to the doctor just to make sure it was not another ear infection, and it was not. Raleigh weighed in at 19lb 1 ounce, so he is definitely catching up to Augustus who weighed in at 20lb 13oz. Tomorrow we head to visit Uncle Harry, Aunt Lynn & second cousin Hal. That means back to the beach. We are also doing pictures on Monday, our first with a professional. God knows they get enough of the flash bulbs from mom:)

Happy Halloween

The boys had a fun, exciting Halloween. They spent the morning at a playdate with other multiples and the evening seeing a few trick or treaters. Unfortunately, the change to the cooler weather has brought a head cold to both boys. They are doing okay with it, but lots of runny noses.

Raleigh's heart update

Raleigh playing outside with his pumpkin bib to catch all the teething drool. Augustus checking out the view outside his window. We are loving their little argyle sweaters from Becca!

For those of you who check out the Care Pages site (http://www.carepages.com/carepages/HamiltonBoys) this is a repeat, but some are not on that site, so here is a recap of the cardiologist appointment yesterday. Raleigh went for his three month checkup and we got great news, he does not have to go back for six months. Raleigh’s ECHO showed stenosis was in the mild range instead of moderate this time. The last visit his measurements were at a peak level of 38 and the mean was 18, and this visit the peak was 20 and a mean of 10. Not that we know exactly what this means…but it was much better according to Dr. McKenna! Raleigh still has a small hole in his heart (normal for newborns) that is closing at the correct rate too. We still have to monitor the valve as a side effect of the original procedure to balloon open the valve. Raleigh also has backflow in his heart that goes out of the chamber through the repaired valve and a small amount of the flow seeps back into the original chamber. The cardiologist is comfortable with the amount of seepage, so his next follow up is for six months this time.

Unfortunately, that same afternoon the boys had to get their Synergis shots to help prevent RSV infection. They were very grouchy & it was a long night of restless sleep for the boys & mommy. The boys weighed in at 20lb 8oz (GUS) and 18lb 8oz (Raleigh). That is a lot of weight to carry around at once!!!

Pictures of the boys enjoying their sweaters now that fall has officially arrived in Florida, at least for this week. It is great that it is cooler for Halloween, it feels more like Halloween that way=)

Love,

Augustus & Raleigh

Guppyween - First trip to the Aquarium

The boys had a nice afternoon visiting the aquarium for Guppyween. They were dressed up as lions and were surrounded by hundreds of other little ones trick-or-treating. We met up with two other couples and their kids and had a really nice time. Unfortunately, it was cooler outside than it was inside...so the lion outfits only lasted about 10 minutes. Next year they will probably have more fun, but it was still good to get them out in a crowd and see how they did. They did awesome. They were fussy in the ride home because it was so close to bedtime, but they were great during their first trip to the aquarium. We look forward to many more!

The Boys are 7 Months Old Today!

Boys as bears.

Raleigh doing the worm.

Raleigh on the swing.

Augustus on the swing.

Gus, our new puppy:)


Gus sleeping on Grandpa Pickles.

Gus with his newest funny face.

Wow - we cannot believe it has been seven months. How time flies when you are having fun & are sleep deprived:)

The weather is still amazing, so the boys went for two walks today and spent time playing all day. They even went shopping today to get yummy fruit & veggies to make baby food with. The pear applesauce is so good we all enjoy eating it! An added bonus was they took three short naps. We'll take any sleep time to sleep too! Tomorrow it is off to Guppyween so we hope they get enough rest before we head out. We don't usually do things right before bedtime since they normally get restless, so we'll see how it goes.

Each day we think the boys are getting closer to being fully mobile. Gus is doing a great job rolling wherever he wants to get to, and still goes backwards when he wants to go forward when he attempts crawling. Raleigh is working on moving his legs, and hopefully in a week he will get his arms going and then in another week put it all together. He too can move where he wants to by inch worming along.

The newest funny things they are doing include Gus sucking his lips in as part of his exploring his new teeth (picture), and holding bibs/blankies/etc. in his mouth and just keeping it there like a puppy. Both boys love to hold their own hands interlocked & raise them up over their heads & then throw them down really fast. Not sure what they are doing, but they have found their hands & are controlling them better & finding new things to do with them all the time.

So much fun!!!

Sorry the film clip is so dark but still worth the audio of the boys laughing at each other!