It's a busy busy Monday!

Today is the first day of school AND Rylan and Sadie's 4 month birthday :)

This morning Kyler started 4th grade (his last year in elementary!  What?!) and Melissa started 2nd grade.  They were both a bit nervous.  Kyler doesn't like change and Melissa was a bit upset that she (1) didn't get the teacher she wanted and (2) doesn't get to be in class with her best friend.  But they were also ready to get back - Melissa said she was "nervoucited"  :)  I'm sure they will both have an awesome day!

Kyler and Melissa's first day of school!

Yesterday we took the girls' 4 month pictures and this morning they had their 4 month doctor visit.  I've probably said it before but can I just say again that I looooove my pediatrician's office.  The nurse practitioner I most often see is awesome and loves my kiddos, it's wonderful!

Anyway, Rylan at 4 months - she weighs 13 lb, 15 oz and is 24 1/4 inches long.  She can roll front to back.  I know she can because I saw her do it three times in a row.  But she hasn't done it again since then.  Guess she just wanted to prove she could and then decided to take a break from that.  :)  She is very social, loves to smile and chat and loves watching Sadie.  She also has quite a temper and can go from happy and smiling to screaming bloody murder very quickly.  Both girls go down at night around 7:30 or 8 and sleep until 7 or 7:30 the next morning.  (Amaaaaazing, yes!)

Sadie at 4 months - she weighs 13 lb, 14 oz and is 24 1/4 inches (yes, they are the exact same length and within 1 ounce of each other!)  Sadie can also roll from front to back.  She is a very active little girl and already tries to scoot herself forward when she's laying on her tummy.  She loves to hold onto things - toys, her ears, her clothes, etc.  She is a pretty happy-go-lucky, go-with-the-flow kiddo and loves to chatter to people or stuffed animals.

Their adorable dresses that they wore for their photos this month are from Guatemala!  Their Pawpaw brought them home with him last time he was there.  So precious!  I'm so thankful that God blessed us with both of these sweet girls!

"'Cause getting your dreams, it's strange, but it seems a little - well - complicated..."

Most people who know me know that I've always said I wanted twins.  Ever since I was a little girl I wanted twins.  I remember once my Gran showed me a newspaper article about a woman who had 2 sets - AT THE SAME TIME.  Otherwise known as quadruplets, of course, but they were 2 sets of identical twins.  She told me "be careful what you wish for!"

She was right.  Naturally.  Aren't grandmothers always right?  I would not in a million years trade my twins for anything in the world because you know what?  I still wanted them.  I never imagined that after my three singletons God would decide to give me those twins I always desired but He did.  And not even just twins.  I always always always wanted twin girls.  He blessed me with these two precious little girls and I adore having them.

But, man.  Twins after three singletons?  5 kids?  It's hard.

Tonight I carried both girls to their room, sat down in the rocking chair and enjoyed being in their bright and cheery sunshine room and snuggling my two sweet babies.  I sang "Jesus Loves Me" and "You Are My Sunshine".  And they looked at me and smiled.  My heart was full.  Every hard moment was worth it.

And then they both started crying.  And I said, "Bedtime!"

"Bedtime? What do you mean bedtime?  Look how adorable we are.  You do NOT want to put us in those beds.
Hey, where are you going?  We said no bedtime!  NO bedtime!"

3 months!

We've survived three months with twins - and 5 kids!  I think this is some sort of major accomplishment and I deserve a celebration.  Who's bringing the cake?  Make it chocolate.  And I'm gonna need some Dr Pepper.  Seriously, though, that has become my saving grace.  Every night when the kids are all in bed and the house is quiet, I get some chocolate and a Dr Pepper and I sit down to watch General Hospital.  It may cause issues with losing these last 15 pounds but...it's my sanity right now and I'm not giving it up yet!

The evenings get really really hard at this point.  The girls are in that phase of life where they don't like to be awake for more than 2 hours at a time but they also don't want to take a nap in the evening anymore so they pretty much scream from 5:30ish-7 unless I'm holding them (and sometimes even then).  And there are two of them.  And I have to make dinner.  And I have to bathe Caedon.  You know, other things besides sit and hold two adorable but fussy babies.  And Brian's schedule keeps him at work until 9:30 Mon-Thurs so he's not here to help.  But I remind myself that this will pass.  It helps to post in my Mothers of Multiples group and get support and encouragement from others who have been there, done that - or are currently in the same stage.  We can commiserate together about the joys and trials of having two!

One major problem caused by the situation is that I have been staying up way too late.  It's SO hard for me to go get in bed when (1) Brian's not home and (2) the house is so calm and peaceful.  I have no demands on my time, no requests, no one asking to be held, watch a movie, have a snack, read a book, etc.  I've got to get some discipline going and get myself in bed by 10 at the latest but it's so hard!

The big kids are pretty helpful - they feed the babies for us sometimes and it's really great when both girls want to eat at the same time and it's just me.  I can get Kyler or Melissa to feed one for me.  They also sit and talk to the girls or give them their pacis and Caedon loves to bring them toys.  That said....I'm ready for school to start.  SO ready to get into a normal day-to-day routine that keeps us all busy.  The big kids are bored this summer and I'm letting them watch way too much TV!

Melissa feeding Sadie

This was the day Kyler got home from camp.  I think he missed his sisters :)

Caedon brought a blanket and toys into the living room for the fussy twins. Sweet big brother!

OKAY - the girls at three months!  They are amazing, precious little people!  Even when I'm completely overwhelmed, I'm so thankful they are part of our family.

Sadie - weighs about 12 1/2 pounds now.  She gives the biggest best smiles.  I adore them!  She is still the more calm baby girl but don't let that fool you.  She can scream with the best of them.

Rylan - weighs about 12 pounds.  She started sleeping through the night!  So now they BOTH sleep all night every night.  WOOHOO!  She also rolled over.  Three times in one day and hasn't done it again since.  :)

Did you notice that Sadie passed Rylan up in weight again?  When she was sleeping all night and Rylan was still getting that extra bottle, Rylan got bigger again but as soon as they both went to the same amount of formula again, Sadie passed her back up.  It's so strange because Sadie just always looks smaller.  I guess it's just the way their bodies are built.

Nooooow, for my favorite part of all blogs.  PICTURES!  Here are their three month pictures.  They did so good.  I usually take my kiddos in to the studio at 1, 3, 6, 9 and 12 months but their 1 month session showed me that two is much harder than one and I also know that the girls happiest time of day is first thing in the morning, after their first bottle.  Obviously the studio isn't open that early so I decided I'd do the pictures again and we'll wait until they're happier people before we go back to the studio for pictures.  The onesies I bought for decorations for my baby shower and my sister made the tutus and the big bows.  So cute!

Rylan Grace, my sweet little Thing 1

Love her sweet little face!

Sadie Jane, the cutest Thing 2 you've ever seen

Look at that precious smile!  Love it!

Sometimes...sometimes I still can't believe I had two.  Craziness.

How cute are these babies?  Seriously.  Just adorable.

2 months old!

We have 2 month old babies!  They've really been 2 months old for 5 days already but I was waiting til after our doctor appointment to post.  And, also, I just don't have much time for blogging!  I keep wanting to sit down and write a post and then by the time I actually have a minute to do it, I just want to sit and watch a tv show or something else mind-numbing.  BUT....here I am today, actually typing.  We'll see if I get it finished before nap time ends and the craziness begins anew.

The last time I posted the girls were just a month old and school was still in session.  I'll say that life has gotten much crazier since school got out!  Having the five of them home all day has definitely been an adjustment but we are getting used to it.  It helps that the girls are getting on a great schedule and settling into "life on the outside" so well.  Sometimes things get really overwhelming, particularly in the evenings when I'm alone with the 5 of them and I'm needing to feed/change the girls, get dinner for the big three, handle baths/showers, bedtime, etc.  But we make it through one day at a time and some days are really great.  I just focus on that!

Rylan at 2 months - she weighs 10 lbs, 12 oz now so she has more than doubled her birth weight.  She is 21 1/4 inches long.  She loves to eat!  The girls are both taking 5 oz bottles now but Rylan still wakes up in the middle of the night for a bottle so she's eating more than Sadie is these days.  Maybe that's why the child has sooo many dirty diapers.  LOL, the doctor said she must have a very healthy GI tract.  She gets really mad when she doesn't get what she wants right when she wants it. She wakes up ready to be held or fed or changed and she wants it done RIGHT THIS MINUTE.  After her needs are met, she is a happy sweet little person and she smiles so sweetly.  Little drama queen.

Rylan Grace

Rylan is ready to celebrate the 4th of July!

Sadie at 2 months old - she weighs 10 lbs, 7 oz and is 21 inches long so she's still the "little" sister but not by much!  They are actually back at the same difference in weight that they were at birth - 5 oz.  Miss Sadie LOVES her Mommy and Daddy and started sleeping through the night about a week and a half ago!  (Okay, maybe she just loves sleep. Whatever gets her sleeping all night works for me!)  Since the girls were born Rylan has always been the one to wake up first at night and we would wake Sadie as well to feed them both so we wouldn't have to get up and feed Sadie an hour later.  When they were 8 weeks old I decided to see how long Sadie would sleep if I just left her so when Rylan woke up at 2:30 that morning, I didn't wake up Sadie.  She woke us up at 6 the next morning!  Brian asked, "What time did she wake up to eat?" and I said, "NOW!"  YAY, Sadie!  Sadie is a pretty calm baby girl and goes with the flow much better than her sister does.  She loves to be held but when she's ready to sleep she wants to be put in her bed!  OH!  And her blood work came back NORMAL so no thyroid issue for our sweet girl!

Sadie Jane - I adore her sweet smiles!

Bored with all this picture taking stuff!

They are tons of work but I love having both of them as part of our family!

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.

A Babies Story

Our sweet princesses made an early debut this past week.  Here is their birth story.

On Thursday, April 24th, I was 36 weeks pregnant.  I woke up that morning and all was normal.  My feet and ankles had been swollen and painful for about a week but I was feeling good besides that.  I got up, got kiddos off to school and Caedon and I headed to our school for what was supposed to be my next-to-last work day.  I got my room all set up and ready to go and then went to the bathroom before my kiddos started showing up for the day.  I noticed that I was bleeding slightly and I thought, "Well, THAT's not normal..."  I texted my midwife and asked what she wanted me to do or not do and she called me and asked about the bleeding and if I was at home.  I said I was at work and she said, "Go home.  Now.  And get in bed.  I will be by to check you in a little while."  I went in and told my boss (well, my boss's boss, actually.  My boss was out that day with a sick kiddo!) and she said, "Yes, go home!"  So I picked up my very confused toddler (but we just got here, mom....) and headed home.

Brian was going in to work that day, but he didn't have to leave until around noon so he was home when I got there and I headed to bed and he took care of Caedon while we waited for Tina and to find out what was going on.  Tina came late morning and checked me (not dilated yet, but definitely having early labor signs) and gave me an herbal concoction to try to stop the bleeding and the irregular contractions I'd been having.  She put me on complete bed rest and told me not to get up at all except to go to the bathroom.  Because I was only 36 weeks, she was trying to get my body to keep the girls in for one more week so that she would be able to deliver them at the birth center like we were hoping to do.  We started working on a plan for people to come in and be with the kids while still trying to preserve Brian's days off for when the twins actually came.  Thursday afternoon, my sister came over to stay with the kids and Brian headed to work so he didn't have to use one of his days off.  Throughout the day I continued bleeding and having contractions off and on, despite taking the herbal meds.

Around 3:30 am Friday morning I woke up and started timing my contractions.  They were growing more intense and closer together so I called Tina around 6:30 or so and told her that I was pretty sure this was labor and it wasn't going to stop.  My mom had been planning to come over Friday to help with the kids while Brian worked so Tina said to head to the birthing center when Mone got here and she would check me again and get a report ready to send over to Baylor and we would head over there and find out what was going on with our girls and my labor.  At the birth center, I was dilated to a 3 so in those 24 hours, my body had definitely been in early labor.

When we got to the hospital, they got me checked in and we did a sonogram - both girls were still breech.  In fact, Baby A was footling breech, which means her feet would be born first.  Baby B was sitting on her bottom, Indian-style.  They made it very clear that if I WAS in labor, there would be no attempting a vaginal delivery.  Breech twins = c-section, no question.  (Yes, if we had gone to 37 weeks Tina would have had no problem attempting a vaginal delivery of breech twins.)

They put me under observation on an IV to see if hydration would slow or stop my labor.  Nothing doing.  I continued contracting, the contractions only got more intense and I continued to dilate.  Not much, but enough for them to say that yes, I was definitely having these babies and to decide to start getting things prepared for surgery.  (I said it wasn't fair that I had to go through labor AND surgery!)  About 2:30 pm, I met the anesthesiologist, Brian and Tina got dressed in scrubs and we started letting people know that our girls were coming very soon!

During my observation and labor

Waiting to get my epidural, in the OR

Our baby girls were born at 3:56 pm - Rylan Grace - and 3:59 pm - Sadie Jane.  They are beautiful and perfect and so very tiny (Rylan was 5 lbs and Sadie was 4 lbs, 11 oz)!  It was obvious very quickly that they are definitely fraternal twins, they each have their own very distinctive facial features.

Seeing my girls for the first time!

Tina holding the twins in the OR

This was the first time I really got to hold and see both of them up close at the same time
and study their similarities and differences.  They are beautiful little girls!

We are so blessed to have these precious little girls.  We already love them so very much!  They are very good babies.  One of our nurses commented that many late pre-term babies like ours are more fussy than full-term babies but that we had very calm babies.  They sleep wonderfully and they eat great.  We are trying to keep them on the same schedule and that's working out pretty well so far.  The big kids are great with them and are very good about helping us when we need help.  Caedon is....well, he's very sweet and loves them so much.  But he's also quite terrifying with his love.  He wants to kiss them and hug them and hold them and squeeze them and it scares me to death!

Caedon "holding" his sisters at the hospital on Sunday

I love this picture of Kyler and Melissa with Rylan.  SO cute!

Such a proud big sister!

Rylan ready to go home from the hospital!

And little Miss Sadie is ready to go, too!

This picture is so sweet.  All the girls' clothes are too big for them so Daddy
went to the store and picked out some sweet little preemie outfits for them!

This morning we had their 48 hour (after hospital discharge) check-up at the pediatrician and they are absolutely perfect!  When they were discharged from the hospital, they both weighed 4 lbs, 15 oz (Rylan had lost an ounce, Sadie had gained 4!) and today they were both 5 lbs, 0.5 oz.  Already growing up so fast!

I honestly look around at my little crew and wonder how in the world I ended up with five kiddos.  It's craziness, I'm telling you!  But I adore each and every one of them and being their mama brightens up my life!  Stay tuned for updates and pictures as we adjust to being a family of SEVEN.  Wow!