Nursery Decor and Being Crafty

First off, let me start by saying - we took the girls for their one month check-up today.  They are growing so fast!  Rylan weighs 7 lb, 14 oz and is 21 inches long.  Sadie is 7 lb, 15.5 oz (yep, she passed up big sister!) and is 20 3/4 inches long.  They are both doing great :)  We are taking Sadie tomorrow to get her blood work done to test for the thyroid issue that came back abnormal in her newborn screen.  The doctor told me today that she sees that particular issue come back abnormal often and has never had a baby actually have a thyroid problem upon further testing.  She said, "If you're going to get a false positive on one part of the newborn screen, it's usually that one."  So that made me feel a bit better.  Hopefully Miss Sadie will not be her first one to actually have the problem!

Now, onto the craftiness mentioned in my title.  When I found out I was pregnant, I said right away that if the baby was a girl that I wanted to do a "You are My Sunshine" theme for the nursery.  And then we ended up with two girls!  Yay!  :)

I found bedding that I LOVED - gray and white chevron and yellow - but it was way expensive.  I would have to buy the whole set and I needed two of them and they were each almost $200.  Um.  No.  So I asked my sweet best friend, Amanda, if she would help me out with bedding.  I bought plain yellow and gray sheets and plain white crib skirts (yeah, not a necessity but I tend to use the under-the-crib area as storage and the crib skirts hide that nicely) and Amanda is making blankets for the girls and she is re-purposing two crib bumpers.  I'm very blessed to have a wonderful friend who can sew for me because I definitely can't....

Next I started thinking about the walls.  They already happened to be painted yellow since the twins were moving into Melissa's room and we had just painted her room yellow last year (score!  No painting!).  I searched pinterest and etsy for ideas for my theme and found lots of fun ideas but there was no way on earth I was going to spend $30 on a print to hang in their room. That's insane.  So I started up my digital scrapbooking program and used the ideas I found as inspiration and made these to print out and hang in the nursery:

My crafting also included making the twins' names to hang on the wall (using the directions from this blog - http://joroad.blogspot.com/2011/01/diy-nursery-letters.html).  They were super easy to make - and since I bought white letters from Hobby Lobby (on sale, of course, as most things I buy at Hobby Lobby are), I didn't have to paint them!

Another decorative touch is the poems that Brian wrote for the girls.  He has written a poem for each of our kiddos and they all have them hanging in their rooms.  It's such a sweet addition to the room.

And today I decided to get crafty again and make one last addition to their room.  We have lots of bows and I needed something to hold all of them that would make it easier to find the bow I wanted (previously they were all just thrown in one of those pink baskets in the picture above.  A pain to search through to find the bows I needed.)  Yesterday I got online and searched for bow holders and decided this option was going to be easiest, cheapest and also work out well for their room - http://fusionartdesigns.blogspot.com/2010/09/hair-bow-holder-diy.html .  So this morning I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a plain canvas (16x20 size) and 2 rolls of ribbon (gray chevron and yellow chevron).  Since white goes with our theme, I just left the canvas white instead of painting it (did you know....I hate painting.)

I laid all the ribbon out in the pattern and distance I wanted (I used 8 strips of ribbon) and stapled it on.  I don't have a staple gun so I just used a regular stapler and then hot glued the strips down as well for added security.

Ready for bows!

 

Just clip them right on!

Finished product!  I think it's super cute.  However...I may have recently ordered a ton more bows from a fun and very addictive website and I'm afraid they're not all going to fit on here....oops.  :)

Anyway, that's the girls' room and the fun little touches I've added to it - without spending a ton of money that I don't have!  I love their room, the yellow is so cheerful!  It makes me happy whenever I walk in there.

I'll leave you with this sweet picture of the girls because...what blog post about their room
would be complete without a picture of them???  I love this picture, it looks like they're saying to each other,
"Does this woman ever stop taking pictures?" 

A big week!

Today is May 22nd - this was my "due date" when I first found out I was pregnant.  I can't even imagine still having those two sweet little girls inside!  Instead, they came on their own time, as you know, and are now almost one month old!  Sunday will be one month and today we went and had their first professional pictures taken!  Yay!  Or not yay.  They were not pleased with the general state of their lives during the session.  But we did get some cute pictures and their unhappiness this morning led to a great nap for both of them AND for Mommy this afternoon.  Double yay!

Tuesday we will be taking the girls for their one month check-up at the doctor.  I got a call today that Sadie's newborn screen came back abnormal for TSH (thyroid) so she's going to have to get blood drawn for further testing.  Pray with us that it's nothing and the tests come back normal!

Speaking of doctor appointments, I have told Brian that all appointments will be made when he can go with me.  Luckily for me, his schedule is such that he is home most mornings and CAN go with us to our doctor appts, photo appts, etc.  It is quite an event to wrangle both girls plus Caedon.  I have not been brave enough to attempt it on my own yet.  We were blessed today that a sweet friend and co-worker came and picked Caedon up and took him to PDO with her.  I can only imagine how hard the photo session would have been with two screaming newborns and a busy toddler!

Things are going well here.  Busy but good.  The girls are growing so fast already.  They eat great - 4 oz bottles every 4 hours or so!  They are good sleepers for the most part and have been waking up only one time a night for the past several days.  Our house is very chaotic sometimes, especially around the times that I have to feed the babies.  It seems, for some reason, that's when the big kids always need me!  Caedon is acting out some lately - for attention, of course.  I'm trying to spend as much one-on-one time with him as I can when the big kids are at school and the babies are napping.  I know things are going to be much harder this summer when I have all five with me all day every day.  The two oldest especially are going to get bored really fast and I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that yet...

Also exciting this week - Saturday Brian and I will be celebrating our anniversary!  11 years and 5 kids later...wow.  My sweet hubby made plans for two sets of baby-sitters for the kiddos so that we can go out (on our first date since we went to see Catching Fire in November...I can't wait).  We're going to our favorite place - The Melting Pot!  Yum!

I'll leave you with a few of the pictures from the girls' photo session this morning:

Rylan Grace

Sadie Jane

Rylan

Sadie

Pretty girls!

A collage I made with a few of the pictures from our session

Double the joy, double the work!

Our sweet girls are almost three weeks old already.  I can't believe it!  What's even crazier is that we haven't even passed their official "due date" yet - tomorrow would have been 39 weeks.

Sadie and Rylan at 2 weeks old

We had their 2 week check-up at the doctor yesterday.  They are doing great and already growing so fast!  Stats - Rylan was 6lb, 6oz and 19.5 in; Sadie was 6lb, 5.5oz and 20 in.  The doctor says they both look perfect.  They will both have hip ultrasounds done at 6 weeks just as a precaution to check for hip dysplasia.  The pediatrician at the hospital said they recommend it for all breech females and our doctor agreed although she said their hips seem to be fine.

Life at home with twins is...interesting, to say the least.  I was really naive, honestly, about how hard twins would be.  I figured I've done the newborn thing x3, how hard could two at a time be???  Ha!  The hardest times are the nights when they tag team us - one will sleep great for the first half of the night while her sister fusses and then they'll switch on us for the second half of the night.  So exhausting!  But then there are good nights like we had the past two nights when they both sleep wonderfully and just wake for a bottle or two.  It helps that we've discovered that Rylan sleeps better in her crib - I told Brian that I don't blame her since the crib mattress is much snugglier than the pack n play mattress.  Feeding them on my own can be hard, too, especially if they are both ready to eat at the same time.  Holding two bottles at the same time is fine but when I have to stop feeding both to burp one...the other one is not pleased.  Sometimes one stays asleep when the other wakes up (often Rylan wakes first and then we have to wake Sadie up to feed her after Rylan is done) and in those cases I feed the one that is awake and get her changed and re-swaddled and then I think, "Whew, done.  Now let's do it all over again..." as I go to wake up the other little miss.

Rylan Grace

Sadie Jane

Sadie is our generally more relaxed baby.  She's pretty go-with-the-flow like Caedon was and is usually content to lay in her bouncer or pack n play and look around.  

Rylan is more snuggly (probably why she prefers that crib...) and loves to be held.  She also has quite a temper and can get really mad really fast!

They are both great eaters (as evidenced by their more-than-a-pound weight gain...) and are eating 3 oz bottles at each feeding.  My day is full of bottles (washing them, making them, feeding them...) and diapers (x3!  Caedon is showing signs of being ready to potty-train but....who has time for that???  Aaaah!).  Plus all the other mommy stuff I was doing before two precious little girls entered our lives.  Homework, baths, playing games, reading books, singing songs.  I feel like I'm constantly running from one thing to the next!  (I have been working on this blog post for 2 hours off and on....and it's not very long)

The kids are so sweet with the twins.  The oldest two are great about helping when we need something.  Caedon LOVES his baby sisters and is always patting them and trying to give them high-fives.  He loves to hold them and kiss them and every time one of them sneezes he says "Bless you!"  Earlier Rylan was crying in her bouncer and he said, "Oh!  Oh, no cwying!" and ran over to try to soothe her.  It was the sweetest thing.

I am so thankful for those who have brought us meals and/or come by to help out with either the babies or the big kids (one day my parents came and picked up all three big kids and took them to their house for the whole afternoon.  That was lovely!).  We are blessed to have wonderful family and friends.  And I am so blessed to have a husband who is so great about helping out and letting me get as much sleep as possible!  I just love that guy :)

Me and my love while we were still in the hospital.  We look exhausted.  We were (and are!).

Mother's Day family picture!  I just love my not-so-little-anymore family!

Oh, these kids.  I adore each and every one of them.

Is this not the sweetest thing you've ever seen?  Precious precious little people.