Our First Christmas

Well, we survived our first Christmas. As Wes noted, the girls and I spent about 10 days in Oklahoma with family. We were very busy and had lots of fun. We are all very tired, especially the girls. Since we have been home, their sleep schedule has been totally off. They keep waking up during the night, Gracie with gas and Lizzie just talking. They got to see family that they have never seen before including their twin cousin Larry. The other twin Terry couldn't make it from Minnesota so maybe next year we will meet him. Grandma Darlene spent the week with us too. We kept her very busy and she enjoyed spending time with the girls.

We also learned to never try anything new in a different place. We decided to stop swaddling the girls and it was rough. They had a tough time sleeping. Also with daddy not staying with us, we had stand in night time help. Grandma Elaine helped one night and Papa Dale helped the other. Papa was good, except he broke the first rule of helping. He lost a pacifier. NEVER lose the pacifier, especially at night. I did forgive him because it was 3am.

Anyway, it was a great holiday! The girls are meeting so many milestones. Gracie is starting to roll from front to back! Lizzie is grabbing things. They both are eating their cereal and love it! It helps that we mix it with juice! See the slide show below of our fun time.

How many babies?

It was a year ago yesterday that we found out that I was pregnant with twins. We saw two little sacs with two little heart beats. We were so happy. Mom was in the room with us and started crying. I remember telling her to stop crying. I think we all (Wes included) shed a tear or two. With all that we went through, we were so relieved. The sonogram tech said it was good that we were so happy. Some couples are very upset when they find out it's twins. Because they call the girls Twin A and Twin B, my niece thought we had to name them with names that started with an A and a B.

First Day Away

Well, yesterday marked the first day I was away from the girls. We all went up to Oklahoma over the weekend for Christmas, but I had to come back to work. The only thing I can tell you is that our house is VERY quite. The house just felt empty with out Melissa and the girls there. I think if I had my choice I would pick the sleepless nights with my girls (yes, Melissa included) over an empty house.

Time to read!

While Wes was cooking dinner, I read a book to the girls. They loved it. They were in their high chairs and watched me very intently. After the book was done, I gave Gracie the book and got another one for Lizzie.

First Visit with Santa

The girls went and saw Santa tonight. Every year, Santa visits this house and sits in his sleigh for two hours and kids can tell him what they want. We have visited him in the past with my niece and nephew and one of Wes's cousins. This year we were able to visit him with our own kids.

Fortunately, it was a great night. It was really warm and we were able to walk right up. There was another family leaving as we drove up. I walked up to him with Lizzie and Wes asked if he could handle two. He thought he could. The girls did really well. When we went to take the girls from Santa, both had grabbed Santa's beard. We had to untangle their hands and leave Santa. Of course, I was more excited than the girls.


Lizzie wasn't so sure in this one


It was only slightly better in this one.

We also had a special present under the tree the other day......

Random photos and video

Gracie is playing with her new friend Lauren with Daddy and Lauren's daddy Greg.


Gracie playing with her toys while Grandma and Papa visit.



Lizzie playing while Grandma and Papa visit.

And lastly....

Merry Christmas!

Six Months

Today is the girls six months birthday. They were born six months ago and are 1/2 a year old. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago. They have come a long way since the first time I saw them in the NICU. Even then, we knew that they weren't identical. I thought they looked nothing alike. It was fun seeing them for the first time. It was surreal to know that what I was looking at was in my belly only a few hours before.

The only thing that we weren't ready for was the NICU time. We spent four nights in the hospital to be close to the girls. We were there for almost every feeding. To get a change of scenery, Wes would take me in the wheel chair and take me on tours of the hospital. He wheeled me all over that place. We would go visit the night nurses in antepartum that treated me.

After I was discharged, I would go up in the morning right before lunch and then come home. Wes would get home from work at 3:00 (after he would go in at 6:00am) so we could go back up for the 5:00 and 8:00 feeding. I would pump in between in the "pump room" at the hospital. That was not fun either because I always worried that someone would walk in on me.

It was hard going to the hospital every day and seeing other mommies and daddies take their babies home while we had to leave ours there. We knew it was the best for the girls, but I would cry and pray every night that soon I would take them home. It was a very rough time for us. Those little girls kept us worried too. They were hooked up to monitors that would go off when the girls would forget to breathe. It was so scary. We spent one evening there just watching Gracie's monitor go off every couple of minutes. Wes refused to leave. He had blood shot eyes and would just watch. I finally told him I couldn't take it anymore and was hurting from my c-section and we went home. We did learn a lot about caring for the girls from the nurses. We knew what to look for as issues and how to deal with them.

Anyway, the best thing is that the girls are home and growing big. Every day is exciting and exhausting. Hopefully, tonight they will let us sleep and not wake up. They are still not feeling well from the ear infections, but are better.