Apologies

I apologize, dear readers, for lack of posting and pictures.  I haven't been myself the last couple of weeks (or more).  I feel it is all directly related to my birth control (sorry if that's too much info).  I have been trying to get an appt to get it changed anyway because it's not treating my endometriosis and I'm having a lot of pain.  But now I feel like my hormones are completely out of control and I'm not dealing well.  I'm edgy, super snarky, lazy, and depressed.  I can't clean my house.  I can't handle my babies.  I feel like I'm losing it.  Every day is a struggle.  I would really appreciate your prayers.  Not that every minute of every day is horrible, but I really have a hard time seeing the bright spots in the days sometimes.  (Today is obviously not good.)  Oh, and I have horrible mood swings.  So I'll be happy and playing one minute, but crying the next.  What is that about??  I can't do it anymore because my babies are too important, so come April 14, I hope to start feeling better.  Here are a few pictures I have snagged in the last couple of weeks.

the boys room newly arranged with new carpet

I have a box of pacifiers from when they were really little and wouldn't take them (I tried several different kinds) - we got into them the other day and it kept them occupied for about 10 minutes

Jordan, my big standing man

Aidan, my little engineer, figuring out how to take the floor cover apart

hanging around in our undershirts - that's Aidan crawling on hands and feet

laughing at each other

playing the piano

this morning, Aidan crawled all the way past the couch!  that's the farthest yet.  he was headed toward me, but got distracted - he did crawl on hands and knees this time, better for distance crawling I guess  :)

and pulled up to his knees to reach the toys

Jordan was in the kitchen with me waiting on Aidan - he found a chair to pull up on

and it made a fun drum

Aidan is crawling!

Forward, that is.  :)  He's finally getting the hang of going forward on hands and knees.  But I think he knows that standing and walking are next and is really more interested in those.  He crawls and scoots around with what I call his "kickstand" out.  Ya know, that one knee down and the other leg out straight business.  But he can get around and that really does make him happy.  I'm working on getting him to crawl farther because I know he can.  And, actually, he's a little more willing than Jordan was in the beginning.  And now Jordan just takes off wherever he feels like going... I sure am excited to get both of them going and watch my own head spin while trying to keep track of them both.... ;)  Nah, it's fun.  Challenging, but fun.  I'm thankful for a small house at this time.  And there are always baby gates!  And I've rearranged the boys room so that I can get a gate for their doorway and let them play in there on their own when I feel comfortable.  Jordan is just now starting to notice cords, so I'm getting into the chaotic stage, I'm afraid.  Should be hilarious for everyone else to watch...  I'm sure I'll have good stories to share.  Pictures next time, I haven't uploaded them all yet.

Nashvile Trip

Last week, we took a trip to Nashville to spend a couple of days with my brother and his wife and little girl.  We went up on Wednesday and came home on Saturday.  We had a fun trip and the boys did great!  It was just a vacation for us, but we didn't make any big plans.  It actually rained on and off most of the time we were there, so we hung out around the house.  They have a dog (I don't know what kind) and Jordan loved him!  It was so funny to me because I'm not a dog person.  I just don't like them, especially big ones and ones that aren't trained or well-behaved.  (And by big, I mean bigger than a cat.  No, I'm not a cat person either.)  But Jordan would watch Brodie walk around the house and try to crawl after him and grab him every chance he got.  My brother has a 16 month old girl, so the dog is quite used to being beat up on and pulled around, which was good.  Aidan took a little longer to warm up to Brodie, but ultimately liked him.  One day, I may have to give in and let them get one.  We'll see.  I didn't get a whole lot of pictures, I just wasn't thinking much about it.  And my parents and sister & her kids all came up on Saturday too eat lunch with us and hang out more with my brother and his family, but I didn't get any pictures then either.  I hate it when I do that!  I wish we'd gotten to see more of them, but we had to fit the trip home into the boys' schedule.

Here is Josie talking to Andrew when we first got there.  She loves Andrew.

Here is Jordan loving on Brodie

Here they all are having a good time

I did take some pictures of Josie at a park on Friday, but I haven't edited them yet.  I'll try to get them done this weekend.

Here's why I haven't gotten to them:  We came home Saturday afternoon and got settled in.  That night, a friend called and asked if it was still ok for him & his girlfriend to crash at our house... yeah, I'd totally forgotten about it.  But it was ok, we cleaned up a little and put the boys to bed before they got there.  They were just passing through really, so we hung out with them Sunday morning (and missed church for a number of reasons).  We went to eat with the half of Andrew's family who were in town and when we got back, Jordan threw up everything he'd eaten.  And he did it all over Andrew's brother.  :)  James was not a fan of that.  So it turns out J was running a low grade fever, so we put him to bed and he slept for an  hour.  So we missed small group that night because I didn't know what he had and didn't want to pass it on.  Monday, Andrew's mom watched the boys while we went to the Social Security office to change Jordan's name. (I gave them the same middle name at birth... long story short: They gave me papers to fill out while in the ICU on who knows what drugs and I did.  The writing was all crooked and Andrew had to fix it.  But he and my mom missed that I gave them both the middle name of David. We amended his birth certificate, but need a new SS card.)  Before we left, Aidan threw up.  Yep, low grade fever.  I called the pediatrician's office and was told to treat the fever and just watch them.  They acted fine, just slept more than normal.  So we went.  We waited more than an hour to be told we needed his blue form, which we don't have because they're not in school.  Bust.  We got home and cleaned out both the guest room and the boys room (everything out of both rooms except the cribs).  The carpet came on Tuesday morning and we were very impressed with them.  They did both rooms in an hour and a half!  The boys napped on our bed while we waited, and Sheila came back over to watch them while we put the rooms back together.  Very happy with the new carpet!  They can actually play in their room now, which is huge.  It a good change of scenery to break up the day.  We did a little rearranging of the rooms, which always makes me happy and I'm working on putting all the little stuff back where it needs to go.  The boys feel totally better and are starting to eat solid food again.  Unfortunately, they are in that you-held-me-while-I-was-sick-why-did-you-quit stage, but I know they feel fine.  Except for the new teeth coming.  Can't we get a break??  But thankfully, today is sunny and warm and tomorrow will be, too.  So we're headed out to walk!!  We desperately need out of the house!!
Here are some other fun pictures:

Jordan was doing a lot of playing on his knees last week.  He's pulling up to standing on everything now!  He crawls all over the house and thinks it's so funny. It is really cute to watch.  I know he's up from his nap now by the banging and rattling I hear coming from his bed.

He's figuring out how to get around and between things (he saw me in the bedroom).

Aidan spent most of the last week like this - just frustrated.  He's now up on all fours and moving backwards quite well!  Still a little frustrating for him.  But he's doing less of the fussing because he knows I'll come get him thing.  He can get from crawling to sitting really well, too.  He's pulling up to standing, but has more weight and height to pull, so it's a little less easy for him.  I'll get some of him moving around this week - he's much happier.

Quick Update

Not much to report really!  Yesterday started a string of gorgeous weather for us that I hope will continue until summer.  ;)  I'm so done with winter!!  On with short sleeves and playing in the yard!!  We had our Multiples Club New MoMs brunch yesterday at the park because it was so nice.  We had a good turn out, too.  We don't always have a lot of the same people show up from month to month, but it's also usually during the week.  Here are some of photos:

Pheobe and Margo - how cute are they?! They kept those sunglasses on the whole time they were in the stroller :)

Addison & Aubrey - these girls belong to the mom who hosts the brunches

My big boys holding their own bottles

Inside the pavilion: Andrew letting Aidan talk to Aubrey and Pheobe & Margo's daddy holding one of them (I don't know which one), with Addie & Aubrey's mommy in the background.  There were also a set of 10 month old triplets who joined us (that's one of them on the side of the photo and another in the background).

Before the brunch, we went to Babies'R'Us, which is always dangerous.  Who doesn't love that store??  We've been talking about new carseats (the convertibles) and they had coupons and a gift card with purchase deal, so we got them.  Not a bad deal, but the whole two-of-everything deal is very costly sometimes.  Their infant carriers hold up to 22 lbs, which we're at right now and they're so heavy.  I don't every carry them in those except to and from the house and car.  We never use them out.  They can sit up in highchairs now, so there's really no need for them.  Also, we found the state law today about forward and rear facing carseats... everyone says the law says 20 lbs *and* one year, but it doesn't.  It says 20 lbs *or* one year.  They do recommend that babies be rear-facing until one year, but it's optional.  So.  We are still going to leave them rear-facing for as long as possible, but Aidan poor little legs will be all scrunched up.  We're getting the carseats set up today.  I can't believe they're really that big!

Last night was bath night and we bathed them one at a time because it's just so hard to contain them!  Also, I can't find any bathtub seats (ya know, the kind that suction to the tub and are a little seat like this:)

Actually, there were two at the Multiples sale and I'm so ill that I didn't buy them!!  I don't know why I didn't.  I really don't want to spend $30 a piece (!!) for two of these.  Anyway.  I got some cute pictures, so I'm sharing those.  But that's really it for the update!  Carseat pictures later!

Aidan and him trying to catch the water.

Jordan - my little ham.

Look Out Aidan!

Jordan loves Aidan

He gives him kisses all the time

but sometimes Aidan is in between Jordan and his toys...

But Aidan doesn't mind too much...

He just wishes he could crawl to get away!!

Double Blessings Realized

Let me share a little of my week with you.  I'm a member of the Multiples Club here in town.  We get the new mommies together with the babies once a month and have a Moms Night Out once a month (that I have yet to make it to) and we just had our big consignment sale last week.  That's the first time I've participated in a consignment sale (apart from helping my mom and sister) and it was such a great experience getting to work with those other MoMs (Mothers of Multiples).  I got to see just how many of us there are, and that's just the ladies who are active in the club.  I got to talk to a mother of triplet girls and that was so humbling and hope-giving at the same time.  She was so happy to share what a fun age they are (at 2) and cute things they do.  Also, as a memeber of the MoMs, we get emails about different mommies-to-be that are having complications in pregnancy and things like that.  There was a woman in a hospital in town who lives at least an hour and half away (along with husband and daughter) who was carrying quads.  She kept going into labor and they kept holding her off.  I had some girls in my bible study going with me to see her tomorrow and encourage her and take some little gifts.  She delivered one of them earlier this week (at 23 weeks), a baby girl, who only lived for a few hours.  They family was able to make it to hold the baby and enjoy her for the few precious hours she was alive.  Today she delivered the other three and none of them made it.  On a sadly similar note, I follow a blog of a woman who is a relative of a relative of a friend of mine... I don't know her at all.  (It's Suffering By Grace on the sidebar of my blog.)  She has been carrying a baby boy and they discovered early in her pregnancy that he had a lethal form of dwarfism.  They knew from that point foward that his ribcage would likely never grow large enough to support lungs that could function properly.  Her blog has been a great blessing to me.  She chronicled all the emotions she felt and all the peace and comfort God gave her throughout her pregnancy.  She viewed her pregnancy as the most precious time she would get to spend with her son.  He was born just two days ago late at night and lived until the next morning.  I cannot imagine the heartache these women are feeling today.  To carrying precious life within you and not get to see that life blossom into a long, full life... words fail me.  I cannot imagine living in this world without knowing God.  I am so thankful that I don't have to do that.  A girl who was in youth group at church with me growing up has delivered twins recently, too.  One baby was not growing well due to a faulty placenta.  They had to take both babies between 27 and 28 weeks to give both babies the best chance of survival.  They are now one month old and weigh in at 2 & 3 pounds.  They will be in the NICU for another long while, I'm afraid.  I don't think she and her husband have even been able to hold the smaller of the babies, yet.  My heart just aches for these mommies and daddies.

And I look back on my pregnancy... It was hard.  It wasn't horrible, I did enjoy a lot of it.  But it was uncomfortable and challenging.  Do you ever wish you could go back and take back the complaints you made?  I know, that's a "what if", an "if I'd known then what I know now" kind of thing that will only drain me of energy and joy.  All I can do is move forward.  I want to move forward knowing exactly how blessed I am.  I want to move forward embracing those two beautiful blessings that I had the privilege of carrying and bringing home with me.  I want to move forward cherishing every minute I have with my precious babies and remember how honored I should feel that they want to cling to me and be held by me.  I want to remember that they are blessed to be so big and strong that they can cling to me.  I want to remember that it if wasn't hard, everyone would do it.  I need to keep in mind that God has never and will not give me anything I can't handle with Him.  I feel like I have had a lot more patience with the boys in the last few weeks.  I feel that it's a mix of Andrew and I being more closely connected and communicating better and the fact that I've let go of a lot of stress.  I'm not letting it pile up on me anymore.  I realize there are things in my life that I cannot control and it's really better that I can't.  I would never be any good at handling the things God does, so I should really just let Him do it.  I'm letting God be in control and allowing him to calm my fears and anxieties about all kinds of things (babies, families, futures, etc.) that I usually worry about.  Worrying takes all the fun out of raising babies, I think.  It transfers to them and that makes all of us a mess.  I choose to simply enjoy my babies.  And I do so by focusing on the things that matter (them and Andrew are at the top of that list) and forgetting about everything else.  Do I wish we had cable?  sometimes.  Do I wish we had texting?  sometimes.  Do I wish we could eat Subway every night instead of making the crazy attempt a cooking while feeding babies?  yup.  But are we a happier and closer knit family for doing without those things?  I believe so.  We work together as a team because that's what it takes.  I almost feel bad for people who only have one baby at time (stick with me here) because having two at a time really makes both parents engage completely and work as a unit.  It has created new bonds and strengthened the existing ones.  I hope you all have that kind of partnership in your lives - with God, with family, etc.  It has brought me a peace that passing understanding like I've never known before.  That's the only way I've been able to deal with the sadness of these babies passing this week.  I just pray God's comfort and peace on those families.  If you pray, please pray for them, too.

8 Months Old!!

The boys are busy and growing as ever. Aidan is really wanting to get crawling now, but he lays on his belly and grunts in frustration a lot. I think I'll just have to work with him this week and see if I can get him moving. He's so long, he can scoot and stretch to get whatever he wants, so it's not a big deal to him. His actually has an inch or more on Jordan in torso length.  For now, Aidan is sitting on his bottom and sort of hopping... he scoots forward as his does that.  Jordan has skinnied up a lot because he's constantly on the move! He really wants to stand up, too. He gets up on one knee and the other foot a lot because he thinks he's going to be able to just stand up (which he probably will soon).  He plays with some of the taller stand-up toys on his knees.   He's gotten where he sits up in bed now once he's awake. We've lowered his mattress all the way down. We're trying new foods with them all the time.  We try to give them things they can pick up because they get bored with being spoon-fed.  Aidan is very precise in using his pincher fingers and holding things up so he can use his teeth to chomp a couple of times before gumming it.  Jordan just swipes the tray and uses whatever he can to get the food into his mouth.  Not that he's not good at it, it's just his prefered method.  Aidan has 6 teeth and Jordan is working on number 6.  They go through too many jars of food to count in a week.  We never seem to have enough to last an entire week.  They are still taking 6-8 oz bottles four times a day.  They love to play together and give each other kisses.  :)  Aidan has returned to squealing just this week; his other new trick is hitting things.  Like picking up a toy and banging it on the ground or any other nearby toy.  Jordan is starting to put things inside the stacking cups (I do that a lot with their little toys for them to find).  The favorite teething toy is a set of wooden stacking rings that Mimi bought them.  I don't really understand why - I thought most teething rings were soft or full of water, but they like the wood.  Jordan also laughs spontaneously, which cracks us up!  They love bathtime (we really don't).  We need some of those little seats you put them in to bathe them in the big tub.  They're really too big for the little tub and love the big tub.  But we've been bathing them together and it's really hard to hold onto a mobile baby and clean said baby at the same time!!  Especially when Jordan just wants to stand up.  Aidan loves to splash around, though.  We're getting new carpet in their room within the month, so I'm hoping that will be another place for us to play during the day.  A change of scenery would help some days.  I'm hoping to find a couple of toddler beds for them before they turn one, too.  After talking to a couple of different mothers (with multiples and others with singletons), I've decided the sooner the better.  I think it's important to get them into big beds before they learn how to climb out of their cribs.  The other thinking I have heard is leaving them in cribs as long as possible.  I can't really see how that helps, but I really can't do it anyway because my boys are so big!  They're so heavy that it's hard to lift them in and out of the beds all the time.  And they're only getting bigger!!  So we will have toddler beds soon.  New carpet, new beds, new big toys... should be a fun year!

Weekend = Worn Out

The Multiples Club had their consignment sale this weekend.  I have shopped two sales before this one and I have all these clothes that my boys have outgrown so fast (whether they actually wore them or not), so I decided I would sell in this sale.  I had about 120 items to put in and one of my pages of tags didn't get printed, so I put in about 110.  Probably half of my things were marked for donation if they didn't sell (which most of them didn't).  I did that just to get it out of my house!!  You have to understand, there are two of every sweet little outfit.  And I know that I need to get rid of more because I think I have 3 boxes of things to keep of theirs... but we might have more boys, ya know?  Anyway.  I think I will be getting about $100 from the sale, which is perfect because we spent about $150 when we shopped Friday night.  I got them a little stack of new clothes in 9 & 12 month sizes (which I'm still not sure are going to be big enough), a pair of shoes for each (which fit now, but won't much longer), a rack for toy buckets (and the buckets), a couple of toy trucks, a ball popper, a buggy/high seat cover (we already had one), foam puzzle squares (big ones) that make a playmat, a movie, and a shirt for me.  It was pretty good haul.  I think we spent about $75 on 32 items of clothing and shoes.  That was Friday night that we got to shop.  Saturday, I worked the sale from 7am-4pm.  It really wasn't bad, it was fun to talk to the other MoMs that I hadn't met and I worked a checkout table (so I was sitting down).  Clean up was the worst (and it still wasn't that bad), but it was really organized well.  The sale was over at 1pm and cleaned up until 3:45.  I (stupidly) agreed to help another MoM put the folding tables away... Ouch, my back!  I will be back at the yoga tonight, so hopefully that will make it feel better.  When I got home from working the sale, Andrew and I took the boys out to eat at Momma Goldberg's (love it).  They did pretty well, but didn't eat much because of the TV distractions.  We went to the grocery after that and they still did really well considering it was really close to bedtime.  They got ridiculously early yesterday morning, but I've discovered yet another tooth in Aidan's mouth, so I think that was part of the problem.  Jordan keeps rubbing his ears, so I'm praying it's just his next tooth that's bothering him.  This week will be busy for us, too.  We are putting new carpet in the boys' room and the guest room because it's still builder's grade carpet in there (and it's nasty).  So I've got to clean out both rooms over the next 2 weeks to get ready for that.  BUT we'll be spending some time with my brother and his family next week, so I don't really have 2 whole weeks.  I'm also going to look at an Mothers' Day Out this week to see if I want to get on their sub list or not.  I don't want to (and don't have to, praise the Lord) go back to work, but I think subbing at an MDO every so often would be good for me and for the boys.  They do really well in childcare at church, so I think just playing with other kids is important.

Tomorrow the boys will be 8 months!!  I seriously cannot believe how fast time has flown.  They are so much fun now!  I really miss those sweet little 6 lb babies sometimes, though.  It is so sad how much I didn't get to cherish those early moments.  It was just such a whirlwind.  The first two months of their lives are such a blur.  But we are so blessed by these baby boys and so honored that God has given us both of them to raise.  The first smiles and the first time they reached their arms up for me to get them are such sweet memories.  LOVE IT!!  I will post more about them tomorrow (with pictures).