Sonja and Michael's eating & interests

I've doubled the amount of food that I've been giving them. Now they have full 3 meals a day, and I'm throwing in things like coconut oil, quinoa, molasses, goat meat, okra, melon, cranberries, papaya, goat cheese, egg yolks, etc. Michael eats as much as Sonja so it really boggles me why he still weighs less.
Sonja grabs whatever she can that will assist her in standing up. Michael pulls himself too but not so much. He prefers to get under tables and chairs where he often gets stuck or he lies by the kitchen gate and opens and closes it and chews on its rails. I guess he is teething--he hasn't gotten his first tooth yet. His other favorite place is the shoe rack by the entrance door and the box filled with books that he climbs into to play with books and whatever toys happen to be there.

Bathroom is still both Sonja and Michael's special place. As soon as someone opens the door to go in, they hear it from wherever they are at the moment and instantly appear together! I have to keep them out since, of course, they immediately go either for Nikolas's potty of the toilet brush!

The twins can entertain themselves for good chunks of time without asking for attention or to be picked up. I can easily let then play for 45min at a time. That's assuming that they don't see me--as soon as they do, huge smiles spread over their faces and they speed-crawl towards me or towards whichever gate is separating me from them and climp up and smile and giggle at first, then soon make sounds between calling and crying until they completely lose patience and demand to be held even if I'm talking to them the whole time.

polite talk

Nikolas is learning polite talk, but it comes out funny most of the time :)

Peppy: 'Nikolas, help me put the toys away.'
Nikolas, sitting on the bed: 'No, you clean, I'll watch...'
Then he helps after all, and at the end he says: 'Thank you for helping, Peppy.'

Or, he grabbed my empty coffee cup that he usually takes back to the dining table for me and handed it to Peppy this time: 'Peppy, put this up on the table, please.' (although he was standing right by the table.)

Mike climbs onto and into boxes

Mike's favorite thing to do these days is to climb on top or inside the boxes with toys or books. Again, he has not mastered getting out of them, but once he is in the toy box at least he can entertain himself for a while playing with various toys.
Here we go, on the way into the box with books:Get me down!

Sonja claps her hands (she brings her right hand to her left).
Sonja and Michael started nursing together again, not on the nursing pillow anymore, of course, but sitting on the floor instead. They look like two little puppies as they and push each other's hands off of me and smack each other's head and poke each other's faces!

Nikolas's recent lines:
Eating pineapple, talking to Peppi: 'Pineapple is good. Do you wanna try some, Peppy?' When did he become so polite?
As I was reading a story to him about bunnies: 'Nikolas je juce vidio zeku (we recently saw a bunny on our street). Zeko je skocio da poljubi Nikolasa i otisao.'

Halloween; Mike stands up, Sonja cruises

I took Nikolas to 'Boo at the Zoo' this Halloween. They've done an amazing job at the Zoo, with keepers along the path dressed up and passing candy, but the dress-up of the entire place was really over the top. Nikolas was so amazed that he kept walking with his head turned backwards, unable to take his eyes off the costumes and transformed areas. He was mostly in wonder, not laughing and not getting scared (except of steam--I had to carry him over it).
This is Nikolas in line to get into the zoo that was controlled by police. He was excited to see a policeman, as always!
Back at our house, we had a Halloween party with the baby moms and dads:
At the end we went trick-or-treating in the neighborhood, in style, his royalty pushed by daddy:
While Sonja comfortably cruises along furnMichael is now able to pull himself up--only he is not sure how to get down, so I often hear him cry for help when he gets tired standing in the crib!
This brings back memories of what Nikolas used to do at this age (Michael sleeps in Nikolas's old crib from where he can reach the changing table and grab the diapers and onesies):
One day when I was busy with Nikolas and the babies lost their patience in their exersaucers, I decided to give them a piece of melon in a chewing mesh to distract then for a little while longer. This was the first time I used it. As soon as the babies got one each, they started vigorously sucking the melon through the plastic mesh that for literally the next 45min I didn't hear any other sound from them except for the sucking noise! What a way to calm a baby!
In the afternoons, now that the weather has become cooler and more pleasant, we often spend an hour or so in the front yard. Sonja and Michael now like to explore and especially taste the grass and fallen dry leaves. i can't leave them out of my sight for a second or I'd soon be pulling a long string of grass of a long petal with the leaf at the end from their mouths!
Here they are, analyzing the leaves:
The most fun thing to do though is to tumble togewith the sibling is the best thing yet!
Party in the front yard with another set of boy/girl twins (Malokai and Addie)--well into the night!
Here are all three at Tuija's place, playing with little Matilda:
We obviously need to buy Nikolas a baseball glove and a real baseball. Pretty good improvisation from his part for now, I have to say--a cloth octopus as a glove and a cloth baseball!
Nikolas still enjoys the swings. He is completely comfortable with the regular backless swings for older kids, but he usually chooses baby swings anyway, and he asks me to swing him as high as I can and never stop pushing!
Our cutie, ready for a walk with mommy: