Let Them Be Little

Last night we moved my sweet two-year-old out of the bedroom that he's had since he was born and into Kyler's room.  I honestly almost cried.  I kept thinking of how hard I worked to clear that room out (it used to be our office) and get it ready for that sweet baby I couldn't wait to meet.  And now he's 2 1/2 years old, sleeping in a toddler bed, getting ready to be a big brother.  It was almost too much for this mama's heart to take.

This song has been in my head ever since:

They do grow up oh-so-fast.

We also moved Melissa out of her room that she's had since she was born.  It wasn't quite as hard on me because her room has gone through many transitions in the almost-7 years that she's been with us!  She was super excited to get a new room!

And now....her old room is getting ready to be filled by cribs and onesies and a changing table and rocking chair again!  We are so excited to get a room ready for the twins!

Speaking of the twins, we had another check-up on Valentine's Day. (How lovely that I got to see my two newest little loves on heart day!)  They are both doing wonderful!  They are weighing in around 1 lb, 14 oz each.  They are quite the little wiggle worms and I absolutely love watching and feeling them moving every day.

I think, though, that I've discovered the hardest part about a twin pregnancy.  Y'all, I'm not even in my third trimester yet and I HURT!  It's difficult to bend down to put on pants/socks/shoes.  My back hurts after walking through the store for a little bit.  Rolling over in bed is getting harder.  Third trimester starts around 27 weeks.  But at my last visit with my midwife, when I was not quite 23 weeks, I was already measuring 30 weeks.  I'm estimating now that I'm probably measuring around 34 weeks.  So....I officially have about 3 months left to go yet I'm carrying like I'm due in 6 weeks.  I can't even imagine how much bigger I'm going to get.  Yikes!

Okay, no more complaints from me...for today.  Here's a picture of those sweet babies to remind me why I hurt and that it will ALL be worth it!

This is getting real, y'all

Say it with me:  "Yes, you're really going to have FIVE kids."

We've moved Caedon to the toddler bed (still working on the transition but he's such a great go-with-the-flow kid.  Love it!), we've cleaned out and reorganized Kyler's room to make room for Caedon and his stuff.  Next up is actually relocating Caedon.  Then it will be time to clean out and reorganize Melissa's stuff so that we can move her to her new room!  Melissa is excited about moving (we've told her that she still gets bunk beds even though she'll have her own room and that was all that really mattered to her!) and keeps asking WHEN she gets her new room.  I can't wait to have her current room all cleared out so I can start putting the twins' stuff in it! 

The idea of welcoming two infants into our home at the same time is scary and overwhelming.  Some days it totally freaks me out.  I also feel so very blessed.  Many many people know that I always wanted twins.  Always always always. I would have been perfectly content with one baby this time around, of course, because while I always wanted twins, I never expected to actually have them!  I would have been content with the twins being two boys and we actually all hoped for one of each.  However, when I used to imagine having twins, it was always two girls.  I am thrilled that God chose to give me something that has been one of the deepest desires of my heart for so many years.

I'm 22w4d today and at my visit with my midwife this morning I was measuring 30 weeks!  These girls are growing, for sure!  I'm absolutely loving the kicks and wiggles from both of them!  This pregnancy is hard for me because I know after these two are born, I'm done.  I love being pregnant but Brian and I both agree that 5 kids is plenty for us and we won't be planning to have any more.  It makes me sad to know that I'll never get to hold another little one so close to my heart and feel his or her first sweet movements.  However....I also CANNOT WAIT until it's time for me to hold these two little girls in my arms!  My feelings go in two different directions quite frequently!

My kids just keep growing up!

Last Wednesday, I brought the toddler bed in from the garage and cleaned it off and set it up in Caedon's room.  The crib is still in there at the moment, too, they are sitting side-by-side.  He is doing such a great job sleeping in his big boy bed at night.  A couple of nights he's woken up in the middle of the night but he's doing good. Nap time on the other hand is not so fun. I always hate that transition at nap time.  He's ended up back in the crib for a few naps because he just won't go to sleep otherwise.  With Melissa, for a long time we used to lay in there next to her bed until she fell asleep.  We may resort to that with Caedon, too (he's always been very similar to Meli in all his sleeping habits...)  However, I'm getting bigger with this pregnancy all the time and then the twins will come and neither of those are really conducive to spending an hour or so laying on the floor in a toddler's room every afternoon. This too shall pass.  I just remind myself of that.  By the third kiddo, I know that all the frustrations that go with different phases and transitions are just temporary.  He will adjust, we will adjust and it'll be fine.  :)

Trying out his big boy bed right after I set it up

Sleeping sweetly :)

We have some other big news this week, too!  For quite a while both Kyler and Melissa have been interested in baptism and we talk often about what it means and why we do it.  They always come away from the conversation still wanting to get baptized but deciding they're not quite ready to make the decision to ask Jesus to be the boss of their life (that's how we talk about it most of the time.  It's true, we have to be ready and willing to give up control and let Jesus be in charge).

Yesterday morning, Brian and I were still in bed and Melissa came in and cuddled up with us and said, "I want to get babatized."  So we started discussing it again, what it means to get baptized, what we do before we get baptized, what we believe about God and Jesus, etc.  She decided she was ready to take the first step and pray, telling God exactly what she believes about Jesus and asking that Jesus would come be the boss of her life and help her live the right way.  I'm so proud of my sweet girl!  She has such a tender heart and I pray that she will grow in her relationship with Him throughout the years.

Now she wants to know...WHEN can I get bapatized?  :)
 

Love this precious girl.  So thankful that I can call her my daughter.

Baby update and FAQs

First of all, just in case you've been living under a rock...or don't follow my Facebook page at all....the babies are....

TWO LITTLE GIRLS!

Two girls was the outcome we LEAST expected.  I was thinking it was going to be 2 boys but we were all wanting one boy/one girl, so we were totally surprised by the PINK cake!  I'm thrilled that I get to buy so much pink and frilly stuff, though! Kyler is excited again but he was disappointed at first.  He kept telling me, "You're going to have another baby and it's going to be a boy."  Sorry, buddy, Mommy's DONE after these two!

(2 girls was SO surprising to me that I'm still having trouble calling them both "her" and "sister".  I keep wanting to call one a boy....)

FAQs:

 1.  What if they're not really girls?  At my appointment yesterday both the sono tech AND the doctor checked them and they both said, "yep, definitely still girls!" so we're going with that!

2.  What are their names????  We are naming our girls Rylan Grace and Sadie Jane.  Melissa wants me to pick RIGHT now which baby will have which name but I want to wait and see what they look like first!

3.  Are they identical?  Probably not, although it is possible.  The doctor said there's a 70%+ chance that they are fraternal.  Each baby has its own placenta and amniotic sac and the membrane separating them is thick.  He said this only happens with identical twins if the egg splits within the first three days.  So....there's really no way to know if they are identical for sure before they are born.  I'm hoping that when they're born it will be quite obvious that they are fraternal.  I'd love to have one little dark headed girl and another blondie like Melissa!

4.  Where are you going to put all those kids in your tiny house?  Hehehe, no one has actually asked this question word for word...but we get the gist.  Caedon is moving in with Kyler in the next couple of months and Melissa will be moving into Caedon's current room, since she'll be the only one to have her own room and it's the smallest.  The babies will live in the room that is currently Melissa's.  Melissa is okay with it, as long as she gets bunk beds.  We said okay!

5.  Are you still planning to have a natural birth?  Yes, for now that is the plan!  If the babies start having any anemia issues and the doctors say they need to be born in the hospital, obviously we will transfer to OB care.  If I go into labor before 37 weeks, my midwife can't deliver so we would go to the hospital for delivery, of course.  If anything comes up towards the end, like with Caedon, and we need to birth in the hospital, either natural or c-section, I'm at peace with it.  But for now we are staying with our midwife and waiting to see when and where these babies decide to be born!

Questions I didn't answer?  Feel free to ask, I don't mind answering!


I had an appointment yesterday with the perinatologist and he said the babies are doing great right now!  They are both very active and were kicking each other and wiggling around all through the sono.  Their blood flow looks good and as he checked them over he said they have beautiful hearts, perfectly formed brains, great spines, etc.  He said, "You make great babies!"  Yes, yes, I do! 

He told me yesterday that we have three options for continuing care with their office.  I can go in every two weeks for a sono like I had yesterday to check on the babies, I can go in every three weeks or so for a blood draw to check my antibody levels or I can do an amnio of both babies to check and see if they have the little c antigen in their blood.  The blood draw is fine, but it's not always the most accurate and the amnio carries more risks than I would want to take for the babies so we are sticking with the doctor's first choice - the sonos every 2 weeks.

Here are pictures from yesterday's sono:

Baby A

Baby B.  I love this picture and how she has her legs all the way up in front of her face!

Both babies - faces looking straight on.  I always think the face pictures look kinda creepy....

When God provides

When I got pregnant this time around, I figured we were covered on all the baby stuff.  Caedon will be almost three, done with all the baby stuff, hopefully figuring out potty training.  All that fun stuff.  THEN we found out it was twins and well.....that requires a bit more.  For one thing, we'll need double the diapers so I'd better increase my efforts to stock up on those when they're on sale and I have coupons!  Plus we'll need a double stroller, a second car seat, extra everything.  Thankfully, we bought a new crib when Caedon was born and we still have Melissa's in the garage so we don't need to worry about that.

Several days ago, Brian's aunt sent him an e-mail and asked if we had gotten a double stroller yet.  She saw one on sale that she wanted to get if we didn't have one.  We e-mailed back and told her how much we appreciated it but would she mind giving us the link so I could look at it - I wanted it to be able to hold both infant car seats at the same time AND wanted it to be compatible with the infant seat we used with Caedon.  Do you know that when she e-mailed back and told us which stroller she was looking at, it was the EXACT stroller I had already selected at Target!  Not only that, but it was no longer available in stores or at target.com so I was sure I was going to have to find a different one that met our needs.  But God took care of that for us, through the generous love of family.  I love that.


God is also protecting our sweet babies and we thank you all for your prayers for our little ones.  We know that there are more people praying for them than we can even imagine and we so love that you are all passing on our requests to others so that these babies can be bathed in prayer.

When we went to our perinatologist appointment this week, we got confirmation that Brian IS positive for the little c antigen so that scenario I posted about before - Brian passed little c on to Caedon and, at some point during my pregnancy/delivery with him, his blood mixed with mine and my body created the antibodies against little c - seems like it is exactly what happened.  Even though we know for sure that Brian has little c, we still can't know for sure if he has passed that on to one or both of these babies.  During our sono this week the babies looked great, no problems with anemia for either of them and they are growing right on track, wiggling and looking cute!  We will now visit the peri every two weeks to check on the babies and make sure things are still going well.

ALSO at this visit, the sono tech was able to see the genders of both of the babies!  I so wish I could tell you who these little people are but....I don't know yet!  We had her write the genders on a little card I had made up and she put the card and the sono pics that showed gender in an envelope.  It was mailed off to my wonderful friend, Chara, who will be throwing us a gender reveal party on December 29th.  My kiddos woke up this morning saying, "5 days til Christmas!" and I woke up saying, "9 days til I can call my babies by their names!"  We are so excited to find out their genders with our family and friends here with us.  It will be so much fun....but I'm having such a hard time waiting!

Keep an eye on my Facebook page and this blog because the news will be posted in both places as soon as possible after we have our reveal party! 

Both babies, with their profiles set side-by-side :)

Baby A

Baby B

Growing Up

It's always bittersweet watching my kids hit new milestones and make transitions.  I love watching them learn and grow but I always miss that little bit of "baby" that they lose every time they learn something new. 

Caedon has several transitions to make in the next 5 months before the twins come - getting rid of paci, moving to a toddler bed, moving into Kyler's room and (hopefully!) potty-training.  Yesterday he decided to take care of one of those transitions on his own without any encouragement from Mommy!

Caedon just a few weeks ago, sleeping sweetly with his paci

Yesterday morning when I went to get Caedon from bed, he handed me his pacifier and said, "Throw it away."
I said, "You wanna throw your pacis away?"
Him, "Yeah, put it in the trash."

So he took the two pacifiers he had in his bed and put them right into the trash can.  And then at naptime there were no tears.  He didn't even ask for paci.  He just sang and talked himself to sleep.  At bedtime and again at naptime today he did ask where paci is but I reminded him that he put them in the trash and they're gone now and he didn't fuss about it.  He's still in there right now talking and singing but I'm hoping he'll be asleep within the hour!  

I am just amazed at how easily he made the transition to no paci - and that he did it on his own without prompting!  After the nightmare of a time we had getting Melissa off of her beloved paci, I was not looking forward to it with Caedon.  Relieved mommy over here!

It seems that he turned into a big boy overnight!  Where's my baby go?

Perinatologist appointment

In my last post, I had just had my blood re-drawn to send it for antibody screening.  Obviously, I got the results of that test since then and it was the same, still positive for antibodies.  My midwife referred me to a perinatologist so that we could find out exactly what the antibody issue was and how it could affect me and baby.  Yesterday I had that first appt there.  First of all, I have to say that I really liked the doctor.  He was great at explaining what was going on and where we go from here and he was very helpful and kind. 

Brian went with me to the appointment yesterday and when we got called back, the first thing we did was have an ultrasound.  The tech put the wand on my belly and then pulled it off really quick. 

The following conversation went something like this:
Tech: "Have you had an ultrasound yet for this pregnancy?"
Me:  "No, this is our first."
Tech:  "Was this a spontaneous pregnancy or did you have help?" [ie fertility treatments]
Me:  No, it was just us...
Tech:  "Well, the reason I'm asking is...[and she puts the wand back down]...there are two babies in here." 
Me: "Are you JOKING???"
Brian:  [Sitting next to me spluttering] 

So....yes, we're having TWINS.  We will have FIVE kids!  I'm pretty sure I'm still in complete shock but Kyler and Melissa are THRILLED.

After that, she continued to check over the babies and take measurements, listen to heartbeats (TWO of them!  Oh my goodness!), etc.  All that fun sonogram stuff.  When she finished, she left and we waited for the doctor, talking about our surprise over the addition of two babies to our family instead of one.  I know at one point I turned to Brian and said, "Nobody will ever want to baby-sit for us again."  :)

When the doctor came in, he discussed with us the antibody issue.  There are tons of different antigens and antibodies and certain ones can cause issues in pregnancy.  Basically, my blood naturally does not have a certain antigen (called little c) but at some point it was introduced into my blood and my body recognized it as a "foreign object" and so my body created white blood cells to attack the little c antigen. So the antibody issue is that my body is now "on guard" against that particular antigen and IF one or both of the babies has the little c antigen and my body recognizes it as something it's dealt with before, it could cause my body to create mass amounts of white blood cells and send them across the placenta to attack the baby's blood. It can cause serious anemia issues (and even lead to death of the baby).

The doctor had us do a blood draw on Brian as well.  IF his blood work comes back completely negative for the c antigen, then our babies are in the clear.  Since I don't carry little c and if Brian doesn't carry little c, then the babies would not possibly have little c in their blood, which means my body would have no reason to attack it.  Make sense?  This would obviously be the BEST case scenario.

However, my honest guess is that Brian DOES carry little c and he passed it on to Caedon.  Sometime during Caedon's pregnancy or birth, some of his blood mixed with mine and introduced that little c to my body, causing my body to create antibodies against it.  Just a guess, but it's an educated one and a very likely scenario

At this point, it's just a waiting game to see if the babies will be affected.  I go back at 18 weeks (the earliest they would be able to intervene if the baby/babies have issues) and they will do another ultrasound.  Each month (I THINK he said once a month, there was a lot of info to take in) they will do the ultrasound and keep an eye on the blood flow of the babies by checking the blood vessels in their heads.  If the baby or babies start having any anemia problems, they can start doing transfusions to the baby/babies through the umbilical cord.

We would LOVE your prayers.  Please pray for the babies throughout this pregnancy, that they will BOTH stay healthy and strong and are not affected at all by the antibodies.  Please pray specifically for the next 5 weeks.  Until they are 18 weeks, they are too small for the transfusions.  If one or both of the babies start having trouble in the next 5 weeks, there is nothing to do for them.  I had no idea before yesterday that there were two babies on the way to join our family, but now that I DO know, I want to bring BOTH of those sweet little people home to join us.

I'm okay with an uneventful pregnancy

Pregnancy is fun and wonderful but it's not really something that you want to be too exciting or eventful.  That likely means you're having problems or baby is having problems and that's NO FUN.  I'm good with uneventful.

Yesterday my midwife called me and asked me to come in to have my blood work redone.  My first set of tests came back showing that I have antibodies in my blood, which can cause some serious problems for the baby and would require more in-depth care for me and this little one.  It was odd that it showed up but I've never had the issue with my previous pregnancies.  She wanted to rerun the tests, hoping that it was an error.  I went in yesterday afternoon and had more blood taken and now I'm just waiting to hear back.  Of course, she told me not to stress about it but, well....I did dream about it all night last night.  I am trying to remember that this baby is in God's hands.  He loves him/her more than I do and just as much as He's loved all three of my other sweet babies.

I was 9 weeks yesterday, still feeling nauseous much of the time, although there are days when I feel okay for alot of the day.  Today I woke up feeling good but tonight has been rough.  Just going with the flow, hoping it'll only be a few more weeks of feeling sick!

Anyway, going to try to keep busy this weekend and keep my mind off of the tests until I hear back on Monday.  It shouldn't be too hard to distract myself since we're making a trip out of town to celebrate my father-in-law's 70th birthday!  Wow!  The kids are super excited but Melissa said, "I didn't know old people had birthday parties!"  :)

Pregnancy

I like to record pregnancy info in my blog to have later (I've already referred back to my posts with Caedon to see if I could find out how long my morning sickness lasted in his pregnancy!) so here's an update for ya!

I will be 8 weeks pregnant on Thursday.  My all-day sickness started 2 weeks ago (Brian asked how long I've been sick and I said two weeks and he said ONLY TWO?  It's seemed longer....).  As has been the pattern with me, my sickness is much worse this time around.  It's gotten worse with each pregnancy.  FYI, I'm DONE after this one.  I don't want to see how much worse it can get than this time!  Thankfully, I still don't throw up much.  I did throw up for the first time this morning but mostly, it's just nausea all day.

I've lost about 4 lbs....but....my pants are already starting to feel a bit snug!  I think I'm going to be showing even earlier with this sweet little one!  I'm very ready to get from this stage of pregnancy into the FUN part - feeling and seeing the baby move, finding out gender, picking out a name, planning for and dreaming about a new little life!

We're hoping this baby is a girl. Melissa really wants it to be a girl b/c that means the baby will eventually move into her room and she can have BUNK BEDS!  Yes, this is her main motivation for wanting a sister....  I just really want to do all the pink girly stuff again.  Melissa doesn't let me pick out her clothes anymore and I miss dressing a little girl!  Plus....we already have a girl name picked out and can't agree on a boy name :)  We will, of course, be thrilled with either gender.

Anyway...pray with me that my sickness is gone by Halloween.  Or at least takes a break for that weekend. :)  I'm going on my scrapbooking retreat and I REALLY want to be able to eat all the yummy food all weekend (I can start working on gaining back that bit of weight I've lost!).

That was an unintentional blogging vacation

Okay, so my last actual blog post was for Caedon's first birthday.  Sorry 'bout that.  Really, I just post everything on Facebook and neglect the blog.  :)

In the year since I posted, Melissa turned 6 and finished kinder and started 1st grade.  She LOVED kindergarten but she says she doesn't like first grade because she gets too many color changes.  I'm trying to convince her that this is not first grade's fault and that if she would just stop talking when she's supposed to be quiet, she would stop getting color changes.  My little chatterbox.

Kyler turned 8 and started 3rd grade.  I think he's really enjoying it.  He wasn't sure about starting back to school this year - he's like me and has a difficult time with change - but he likes his teacher and he hasn't had ANY color changes yet this year.  He's very proud of that!

Mr. Caedon just turned 2 last month!  He loves Veggie Tales (Beh-buh-bulls) and Super Why (Wuhwuh Why!), he adores going to school to see his friends and he's learning to talk more all the time.  I just love hearing his new words and sentences.  My favorite of his new phrases is "Ow!  Me me me!" which translates to "Ow!  That hurt me!"  :)  He also really likes to sing and dance!
 

Caedon helped us announce some exciting news this week - we're going to be welcoming baby #4 in May 2014.  I swing between pure excitement and excitement mixed with a little bit of "am I CRAZY?  How am I going to handle FOUR kids???"  :)  Right now we're talking about how soon we should move Caedon out of his room and crib.  His bedroom will become the baby's room and Caedon will be moving in with Kyler.  This is the first time I've needed to have one kiddo make a transition for the purpose of using their room/furniture/space for a new little one so we'll see how that goes.

I'm only 5 weeks so it's still very early and we've got a long way to go!  Melissa is beyond excited and says she CAN'T wait until the end of school to meet this baby.  We're hoping for a VBAC at the birthing center in Rockwall and Melissa says she wants to be there to see the baby be born.  Kyler is just as adamant that he does NOT want to be there. :)

I'm feeling fine right now but my morning sickness has gotten a little bit worse with each kiddo so I'm just waiting to see if this one will be the worst of all.  I've got ginger ale and saltines on stand-by.  I am super tired but considering that that was the first symptom of my pregnancy with Kyler, I'm not surprised.

Perhaps with a new baby coming along, I will keep up this blog a little better.  Maybe.  Stay tuned.

I was tagged!

  Rules:

Each person must post 11 things about themselves, 

answer the questions the nominator asked,

and create 11 questions for your nominees to answer.

Then, choose 11 people and link them in your post.

Go to their page and tell them.

No tag-backs.

11 Things About Me

1.  I'm pretty sure that the Harry Potter series are my favorite books ever.  And that's saying a lot.  I typically read at least 100 books a year but I can't go too long without some Harry Potter!

2. I love being pregnant.  I could do it over and over and over....but I don't think I could handle that many kiddos....

3. I know it's fun for them but I don't like that my babies are losing their baby teeth.  Those perfect, beautiful smiles are turning into those awkward, teeth-of-every-size smiles.  I mean, of course they're still gorgeous smiles but....

4. I miss college.  Friends around all the time everywhere, nothing to spend money on except the things you want, so very little responsibility.... 

5. General Hospital has been my favorite show since I was 12 years old.  If it gets canceled, I will cry.  You can be sure of that.

6. I love Christmas! 

7. With the online earning I have done this year, I have almost completely paid for Christmas for us (over $1000 worth).  I need $32 more to break even!  I am so proud of myself!

8. I love my smartphone!  I kept saying I didn't want or need a smartphone.  I was wrong.  I still don't need it but OOOOH I LOVE IT!  

9. I don't like reading to my kids.  I know, that's really sad.  I love to read but I've always hated reading out loud.  I have to make a very conscious effort to read to them often because it's not something I enjoy.

10.  I love pictures.  I love taking them, I love scrapbooking with them, I love making gifts with them.  It's a good thing I'm not Amish.

11. Speaking of Amish, I would love to visit Lancaster County and see all of the Amish communities.  Their culture fascinates me.


My answers to Julia's questions:

1. What is your most used kitchen appliance?   Probably my can opener....

2. What do you do to treat or pamper yourself?  Once or twice a year, I go on a scrapbooking retreat.  It's 4 days and 3 nights of sleeping, eating, chatting, scrapping - and I can do all of it whenever I want without any littles waking me up or asking for my food or attention!

3. Are you planning on making any Christmas gifts? If so, have you already started?  I made digital scrapbooks of the year for the kiddos.  I've done it the past two years for Kyler and Meli and they absolutely love them so it's become a tradition.  I've made or am making a couple other things for other people but they might read this so...I can't tell yet.  :)

4. If you had to choose only one music album to listen to during a week, which album would it be?  Well, at this time of year it would be Harry Connick, Jr.'s Harry for the Holidays CD.  It's one of my very favorite Christmas CDs! 

5. How frequently do you wash your car? (or have it washed?)  Um...never?  Maybe once a year we'll get out there in our swim suits and scrub it but not always.  I have enough to worry about keeping the kids and house presentable.  The car just doesn't rate up there in importance....

6. If you had an extra $500, what would you do with it?  Pay bills!  (Or put it towards my scrapbooking retreats fund....) 

7. Do you have any moving boxes you can give me?  Sorry, no boxes here :(  And where in Tx are you moving???

8. What is your favorite meal of the day? Why?  Depends on what I'm eating!  Any time I can eat out, it's my favorite meal of the day (That's where alot of that $500 would probably end up going.  Supporting my eating out habit. I'm a restaurant addict.)

9. What kind of student were you?  Mostly As, some Bs and a C in stupid IB biology freshman year.  I hate science.  I'm one of those people that gets good grades with little effort.  I put off writing papers and doing projects until the last minute almost always.  I enjoyed school, probably because it was so little work, and (as a people-pleaser) liked doing what was expected of me.

10. Where do you like to vacation?  Anywhere works for me!  We had a fun family vacation to San Antonio a couple years ago.  My scrapbooking retreats are the only vacations I've had since then.  Someday we'd like to go to Orlando to visit DisneyWorld.  I'd also really like to go to Hawaii and Australian eventually.  And Lancaster County, PA, as I mentioned above! :)

11. If you were invisible, where would you go?  Hm....interesting.  Anywhere that I could listen in on conversations that I wouldn't otherwise be privy to and that I might find....enlightening.  :P

My 11 questions for those I'm tagging:
1.  What's your favorite holiday memory?
2.  What's your favorite food you've ever eaten?  I'm not talking "I like pizza."  I mean what is the BEST food you've ever put into your mouth?
3.  If you had a day to do anything you wanted, what would you do?
4.  Who on your Christmas list is the hardest person to buy for?
5.  What's different about your life now than you expected it to be 5 years ago?
6.  What's your favorite article of clothing in your wardrobe?
7.  If you could choose any time period in history to have been born, which would it be?
8.  What's your favorite thing to do on a date with your spouse?
9.  If you could only watch ONE movie for the rest of your life, what would you choose?
10. Do you like to dress up?
11. What's your favorite restaurant?

I'm only tagging 3 people, but if you weren't tagged and you want to play, go for it!

I tag:
Amanda
Crystal
Kate

Caedon is ONE!

Wow.  Two posts from me in one week?  Impressive!  But you know, with the big two off at school I do have a bit more time on my hands.  I mentioned on Monday that I don't remember what I did all day when I just had Kyler at home with me! 

Today is my little man's birthday.  He has been such a joy and a blessing to our family this year.  I cannot express how grateful I am to have him with us.  After such a crazy pregnancy and birth, I was thrilled to find that he was the happiest, easiest baby I've ever known.  Seriously.  It's the one thing that almost everyone comments on - that he's always smiling and that he always seems to be happy.  I will say he's not ALWAYS happy but most of the time he is.  I will also say that while he has been a super easy baby....I think he's going to be a monster of a toddler!

Caedon at a year old:

- At his one year check-up this morning he was 23 lbs, 3 oz and 29.5 inches long.  He's just above the 50th percentile for weight and right under for height.  I don't remember his head circumference but it's always way above average. He has a big head!  Lots of brains in there, you know.  :)

- He's not walking quite yet.  He'll stand up for a few seconds and look at you like he WANTS to walk but then he'll drop down and crawl.  I'm not sure if it seems safer to him or just easier. 

- He IS talking.  He learns words and says them a few times and then he'll stop saying that word for about a week before it pops back into his vocabulary again.  From what I recall right now, he's said Mama, Dada, bye-bye, ball, bottle, diaper, thank you (my favorite!), please (which is also super cute) and Papa.  My mom also said that while she was baby-sitting he said monkey, mine and Grammy but I haven't gotten to hear those yet! 

- He also signs "more" and "eat"...sometimes.  More often than not, though, more is not in reference to food, which is how we teach it, but in reference to doing something naughty.  I'll pick him up and take him away from the movie cabinet where he knows he's not supposed to be pulling all of the movies out onto the floor and he'll start signing "more".  No, Caedon, we're not going to do that some more.  Goofball.

- He already tests the limits quite alot.  He knows that the printer and the movies are off limits.  He'll look at you and head that direction and when you say, "No," he'll grin and keep going.  Cute.  But very rotten.  I have to force myself not to laugh at him.

- He LOVES to eat.  Seriously, this child may only be one but he's going to eat me out of house and home!  He loves...well, everything, really.  Except peas and green beans.  Those get smushed all over his high chair tray after he finishes eating.  On Monday we went out for breakfast with friends and he had a breakfast taco from Chiloso - just tortilla and egg - and he finished the whole thing.  And a jar of baby food.  And the Gerber Puffs I had in his bag.  Piggy baby.

- He enjoys making music with his instrument toys and he loves to dance to the music from other toys.

- He absolutely adores his sister.  He has missed having her with us this week.  She sits next to him in the van and there have been times this week while I've been driving that I know he's wondered where his playmate has gone!  He loves Kyler, too, but Melissa has always been more of a helper with him and they have a special relationship, I think.

I can't wait to watch how he grows and changes over the next months and years.  He's such a sweet, special little boy and I just adore him!

My little man before we came home from the hospital.  So hard to believe he was so tiny!

And look how much he's grown!

A sneak peek from his one-year photo session and cake smash!  He had a blast!

Happy First Day of School!

First Day of School scrapbook page :)

My kids were ready to head to school this morning!  Kyler was excited to see his friends, although I think he was a little nervous about the change in teacher and classroom.  Melissa couldn't wait to get to kindergarten!  She'd been bouncing with excitement for about a week.

Here are my big kids ready to head into school for a brand-new school year!

 We got to school and got Kyler settled into his classroom first.  He has friends in there so I knew he'd be just fine to be the one dropped off first!

My handsome little man!

Melissa snuck into Kyler's picture with his new teacher, Mrs. Hubbs :)

After telling Kyler bye - with no kisses! - we headed down to the kindergarten wing to drop off my sweet girl.....

Melissa with her kindergarten teacher, Mr. Ron

Sitting at her table looking through her school box :)

I successfully dropped the kiddos off, with no tears!  I will admit that later on, though, once Caedon was down for his nap and the house was so quiet, I shed a few tears.  I was missing the company of my chatterbox Melissa!

Caedon and I had a fun day, though!  We had lots of snuggles and kisses and we got to go eat breakfast with friends - where Caedon ate a whole breakfast taco and jar of baby food.  Piggy!  Caedon also got his first big boy haircut!  He looks so handsome :)

I adore baby kisses!  :)

 

After his haircut - he was so excited!

He loved all the extra "just-mommy" playtime

After school we picked up Kyler and Melissa and went to Sweet FROG for frozen yogurt!  Yummy!  They told me all about school and how much they love it - makes my heart happy to know that they are happy and well-cared for at school!  Kyler said he had a great day back.  I didn't get alot of details but he said the best parts were PE and recess. I'm not surprised.  :)  Melissa informed us that Mr. Ron is cooler than Kyler's teacher and she told me all about their hunt for a gingerbread man in their classroom and about all the books they read today. But...she would like everyone to know that kindergarten recess is DUMB. She wants to play on the BIG playground. She cracks me up!

Frozen yogurt!  Yum!

A picture of Caedon at Sweet FROG - just cause I like him.

7 years!

Kyler is 7 years old today!  At this time 7 years ago, I'd been in the hospital for almost 24 hours and I was getting VERY anxious for Kyler to join us!  His delivery and my recovery after were very rough and are part of what led to me going the midwife/natural route the 2nd time around but despite the trouble with getting him into the world, I've been so blessed to be his mama!  I love this boy so much!

Kyler at 7 months old.  Can you believe this kid is 7 now?  Crazy!

Kyler at 7 - he's so very smart.  He loves school and he got the "Math Whiz" award for his class at their end-of-year awards assembly.  He reads way above his grade level and we found out this week that he was accepted to the GT (Gifted and Talented) program for next year at school. 

Showing off his A/B Honor Roll and Math Whiz certificates at his awards assembly

He's silly, imaginative and creative.  He LOVES to play with Melissa and they're always making up all kinds of new stories and games to play.  He also loves Caedon and can often be found acting goofy trying to make his brother laugh. 

This is my silly, creative boy.  He put his head upside down and frowned.  He said it would look like a smile that way :)

He's pretty quiet.  He doesn't talk alot (except about his current obsession, Pokemon) but he's always thinking.  He's "inside his head" so much that he often misses directions we give him, forgets what he just repeated back to us or starts to do something completely different that we just told him and then turns and looks at us quizzically and says, "What was I supposed to be doing?"  It can get really frustrating, but I'm learning to make a special point of making sure that he's really focusing on me when I give him instructions.

He loves playing video games and is really very very good at them.  He's handsome, sweet and loving.  I'm so proud of him!  Happy birthday to you, Kyler!  I'm so happy that God picked me to be your mom!

Oh, he's a handsome little man, isn't he?  Just love him!

How big is Caedon? So BIG!

Caedon is 9 months old today!  It's crazy to me that he's 3/4 of the way to a year old.  But it's true and he's growing up more every day!

As of 9 months old Caedon can:
crawl - everywhere and very quickly
stand up - he pulls up on everything and he's started taking tentative steps sideways while holding onto things.
eat! - he is a little piggy!  He LOVES his bottles and if he sees it but it does not find it's way to his mouth immediately he starts doing his high-pitched scream which gave him his nickname within days of his birth - Teapot.  He also loves baby food, Gerber Puffs and Yogurt Melts and just tonight he started eating "real people" food (as my kiddos called it) - tonight it was diced bananas and carrots. 

He's learning to clap his hands and he LOVES to play Patty Cake with me.  And he loves to hang upside down or be tossed up into the air.  Or have me hold him up in the air to fly like an airplane.  He loves splashing in the bathtub.  He hates laying down to get his diapers or his clothes changed.

He's a very good sleeper.  He very very rarely fights naps or bedtime.  When he did fight it the other day I told Brian I don't remember how to deal with it. Kyler fought almost EVERY nap and bedtime until he was about a year old so it was frustrating but normal.  Now, if Caedon does it, it's I-want-to-rip-my-hair-out frustrating because I've forgotten how awful it is to listen to them scream!

He's saying ma-ma!  I'm not certain that he knows that it means me but he might.  He mostly says it when he's whiny or wants something, so it does make sense.  :)

 

So many people comment on what a happy baby he is.  And he is.  He's sweet, smiley, low-maintenance.  Such an easy baby for this busy mommy! I've been more than a little bit blessed to have him in my life for these last 9 months! (plus the 9 before that when he was in my uterus... :D )

Melissa is 5!

Last Tuesday was Melissa's 5th birthday!  It's so hard to believe that she's 5 and we'll be starting kindergarten this year!  She's such a precious girl and we love her SO very much!

Melissa at 5 - she talks alot.  Alot alot.  She asks so many questions and sometimes it's so very random.  I wish I could see her thoughts sometimes to see how she gets from whatever we were last discussing to the next random question that pop out of her mouth.

She is a little mommy.  She is a great helper for me with Caedon, especially in the car when I can't reach to take care of him.  She often asks for a tissue or a burp rag to clean him up and she helps him with his bottles when he's eating on the go.

She adores her big brother.  They are the best of friends - although they do fight more than ever these days.  Hopefully the best friends part with continue and the fighting will stop (yeah, wishful thinking, I know....). 

She doesn't play with toys very much, really. She loves to be outside on the trampoline or playing in the sand box.  She also enjoys being read to or reading books with her TAG pen.  She also loves movies - Tom and Jerry and the Tinkerbell movies are her current faves, with occasional appearances of Tangled, Despicable Me, The Smurfs and Rio.

She CAN NOT WAIT to go to kindergarten.  I tell her that I'm sad she's going to leave me all day and she says, "You will still have Caedon and you can come get us after school."  I ask her what I'm going to do all day with only Caedon at home and she says, "You can take a nap!"  Does she know me or what?  :)

I just adore her.  I'm blessed to have her as my daughter.

Melissa got to have two birthday parties this year.  This was her "park party" with some of her friends

How cute is she?

She's been wanting the cupcakes baked in a cone at her birthday party for about 6 months.  She finally got to have them! 

Her birthday party #2 was a Tangled party at home with family and close friends.  It was lots of fun!  This was the sign on the door welcoming our guests to the party - the yellow yarn is Rapunzel's hair, of course!

Awesome Tangled cake!

Happy birthday to Melissa!

Time to eat cake!

Melissa got a bike from Mommy and Daddy!

5 years old

She is so grown-up and beautiful!

This is my silly little girl.  :)  Love her!