Our Twin Tale (Plus One!)

All about Livi

2012-01-24T18:44:00.001-06:00

What can I say about sweet little Livi. She has such a tender heart. She's so caring, attentive and polite. I'm not quite sure where she gets her manners from, but she's so quick to spout out a "thank you, mama" or "I'm sorry, mama." We work on our manners, but at times she takes it to the extreme. If she so much as walks too close to you she'll stop and apologize!!

Livi is our little Mother Hen. She is very nurturing and gentle. She's the first one to ask what's wrong. If I'm laying on the couch, she's the one who will take the time to cover me up with a blanket. She was that way with Elli. She always made sure Elli had her blanket and if Elli started to cry, Livi was the first one to find a nuk for her.

Despite the kindhearted little soul that she is, she is also learning to stand up for herself. Six months ago, she used to let Addi walk all over her. But not anymore. And in all honesty, she can now sometimes be an antagonizer!! I vividly recall her stealing both of Addi's teddy bears, louding proclaiming "my teddies, MY teddies!" until she caught Addi's attention, then it was a full out sprint down the hallway.

Livi enjoys both group play as well as solitary play (when Addi will let her be alone that is!). She still enjoys watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas even though Christmas is long gone. She loves, loves, loves crackers...of almost any kind. When she asks if she can have a snack, you can pretty much guarantee that she'll be asking for crackers. Then it's a matter of figuring out which kind since she loves them all!!

She loves white milk but will not touch chocolate milk. She loves peas in the pod and eats them whole but is fairly indifferent to any other kinds of peas...sometimes she eats them, sometimes she refuses. Her typical breakfast food is waffles. Every now and then she'll surprise me and ask for cereal or pancakes. But for the most part, she's a waffle girl.

Bottom line: She's a keeper!!

Feeling lazy

2012-01-16T20:32:00.000-06:00

The title speaks for itself. Low motivation lately. Partly due to pregnancy. Probably partly due to the weather. And partly due to many other things. So here are a few recent snow pictures. Who said you shouldn't eat snow? That's what being a kid is all about, right?

Debut of Baby #4

2012-01-09T18:35:00.000-06:00

Here she is!!

Baby looked great today. She was measuring 5 days ahead of schedule with a very strong heartbeat of 163bpm. The girls were with us at the appointment. They both said that they wanted a baby sister. So for the rest of the pregnancy, I will probably be referring to the baby as a "she." Just like with our other pregancies, we won't be finding out the sex of the baby until the big birthday.

So all is well. I continue to not be as sick as I was with the other two pregnancies but much, much more tired. The girls are excited. They know there's a baby in mommy's belly but that the baby has to get a lot bigger before it can come out to play. It should be interesting to see how many times they go back and forth between wanting a brother or a sister before the baby actually gets here!

New Year!

2012-01-04T20:30:00.001-06:00

With a New Year comes new news...

We're expecting Baby #4. Now this isn't necessarily new news for people who know us in real life because the word has been out for about a week now. But for everyone else, it's new news! I'm 7 weeks pregnant today, due August 22nd. Last week, we had a confirmed heartbeat. I was in the Emergency Room for a completely unrelated issue (I was lucky to get the stomach bug for Christmas...I must've really made Santa's naughty list!) and they decided to do an ultrasound while I was there. So we got a brief little glimpse at a flickering heartbeat.

However, I do have a scheduled ultrasound lined up for Monday, January 9th. We'll be able to confirm that there is just one baby and make sure that the heartbeat is reassuring. Hopefully I'll have at least one picture to share then.

I'm feeling okay. Out of the three pregnancies, this is probably the least sick I've been (knock on wood!). It tends to come in waves. But overall, I really can't complain. I am, however, more tired tham I was during the other two pregnancies...that I remember anyway! Heck, I'll take the exhaustion over morning sickness any day!!

Anyway, this is the first year since I started the blog that I didn't do a "Year in Review." I thought about it, but I just couldn't. Come June 2011, I simply would not have had the words. So I opted out of doing it. I went back and forth on that decision, but ultimately realized that as much as I loved doing the yearly reviews in the past, 2011's would've been far too painful.

Here's to 2012! I'm excited it's here.

Christmas Presents!!

2011-12-28T20:44:00.000-06:00

Brown Christmas?

2011-12-21T20:35:00.002-06:00

Well, it looks like this year isn't going to be a white Christmas. I don't ever remember not having snow on the ground for Christmas. Ever! I mean, we live in Wisconsin...there's usually snow. And lots of it! But with the big holiday only being four days away and no snow in the forecast, it looks like it's definitely going to be a brown Christmas.

The girls had their Christmas party today at daycare. They were soooo excited. Usually I hear "mama, I don't wanna go to Amy's house." Amy is their teacher at the daycare center, so therefore, in their eyes, it's Amy's house! They say it pretty much every single morning, whether it's a daycare day or not. I don't think they really mean it, because they get dressed without a fight, they talk about what they're going to show Amy and their friends, etc.

So this morning, they walked into our bedroom at 6:30am. Nate is already gone to work by that time, so they crawled into bed with me and wanted to watch some cartoons. I just turned the TV on when they said that they didn't want to go to Amy's house. So I asked them "well what about your party?" Oh my. They pretty much hopped out of bed and insisted on getting ready for daycare. Now keep in mind that we don't leave the house until after 8:00. And if they sleep in, I don't get them up until 7:45 because it doesn't take long to get them ready and out the door. And here they are, just after 6:30, itching at the bit to get a move on as quickly as possible. Ummmm, no.

When I picked them up, they told me all about sitting on Santa's lap. And there was a little gift exchange. I had to buy gifts for two of the other little girls at the daycare for the gift exchange so the girls received a couple gifts in return.

Oh yeah, and they proudly told me that they said "Happy Birthday!" to Santa. I explained to them on the way to daycare that they needed to tell Santa Merry Christmas. But they were so excited to tell me that they told him Happy Birthday that I just couldn't burst their bubble!!

Sleeping update

2011-12-14T14:03:00.000-06:00

I knew it was too good to be true! The first week or so, I think the girls were in a honeymoon phase with their big girl beds. They went to bed reasonably well and slept through the night. The past week has been a slightly different story....

They still walk down the hallway to their rooms reasonably well and climb into their beds. They excitedly say good-night, I love you, sweet dreams. And from there, well, it pretty much goes downhill. The second the door closes behind us we hear "sissy, do you wanna play?" And within a few more seconds, they lock the door (yes, they feel the need to lock the door every.single.time) and the light goes on. Then play time begins.

The other night, we put them to bed at 8:20pm and they didn't crash until 11:15pm!! Nate and went in a few times (after unlocking the door with our screwdriver, of course) and put them back in bed, only for the fun to begin moments after leaving the room once again. That night, they were playing their recorders (which they call flutes) and yelling "I'm a cowboy!!" Annoying, but funny. Very funny.

They were entertaining to say the least. Nate and I finally gave up, because after all, at least they were staying put and not leaving their bedroom! So anyway, it finally got quiet at about 11:15pm, so about 10 minutes later I went in (after unlocking the door again, of course) to cover both of them up. Turns out they both had crashed in Livi's bed! Aww, they were sleeping together for the first time since they were about 6 weeks old! So sweet.

But yeah, big girls beds have been an adventure so far.

Success!

2011-12-05T21:49:00.000-06:00

The transition to big girl beds has been a success...knock on wood. The first two nights they went to bed without a peep and slept straight through the night! Tonight was a little bit more interesting, but still much better than I expected. It sounded like they were at a sleepover, just chatting away. I heard one of them end up locking the door, but I was still okay with that. I could still hear what they were up to and have our screwdriver in case I really needed to get in. However, once the monitor got turned off, it was time to intervene.

And sure enough, they were having a slumber party in Livi's bed. All of Addi's stuffed animals and blankets were piled in there. When I walked in, they were talking about bubbles. Huh? Who knows. They're still kind of being little chatterboxes in there. I might sense a rough day tomorrow. It's a daycare day, so they can't take a nap whenever they want.

Overall, the transition has been much better than anticipated. I was expecting them to migrate out of the bedroom many, many times a night and for us to have to carry them back to bed. But so far, they pretty much stay put in their rooms. Like I said, tonight they've been little chatterboxes, but that could be due to the late nap they had because of company. They might not be quite as tired as normal. But on the whole, it's been a success.

First snowfall

2011-11-30T21:19:00.001-06:00

The girls enjoyed the first snowfall of the year. Unfortunately for them, the snow is now gone. I definitely wouldn't mind if it didn't come back. But for the girls sake, I hope we eventually get a few inches that stick around for a while. As you'll see, they went sledding in our front yard! There were only a couple problems...our front yard isn't terribly slanted and you can still see the grass beneath the snow! We sure didn't get a lot of white stuff, but they had fun anyway.

I'm so in love

2011-11-25T22:49:00.000-06:00

We welcomed a new member into our family! On November 18th, a beautiful little baby was born. My brother and sister-in-law had their first baby. I'm now the proud auntie of a gorgeous baby girl. Our sweet little niece took her time in getting here as she was two days overdue, but the little peanut only weighed 7#2oz. We had the pleasure of getting to meet her when she was just 6 1/2 hours old!

I will never forget receiving the phone call from my brother announcing that she was a SHE! I was in disbelief! Another little girl for my side of the family. And I will never forget meeting her for the very first time. She is amazingly beautiful and absolutely perfect.

I am so in love.

Out of the mouths of babes...

2011-11-20T08:39:00.001-06:00

Conversation that happened a couple days ago:

Livi: "Mama, I'm gonna talk to Baby Elli."
Me: "Okay, honey"
(she picks up my cell phone)
Livi: "Hello?? Baby Elli?? Are you there?"
(long pause, gently puts down the phone, dejected look on her face)
Livi: "Baby Elli's not there" (hangs her head and slowly walks off)
Me thinking: Child, you're breaking my heart

3 hours later...

Livi: "Mama, I'm gonna talk to Baby Elli"
Me thinking: Here we go again
Me: "Okay, honey"
(she picks up my cell phone)
Livi: "Hello?? Baby Elli?? Are you there?"
(pause....)
Livi: "Oh, you're in Heaven? With Jesus? Oh!"
(long pause....)
Livi: "Well, I love you Baby Elli." (puts down the phone and prances off)
Me thinking: Child, you're breaking my heart...again

Tough stuff

2011-11-13T21:26:00.000-06:00

Today Elli would be 14 months old. Today also marks exactly 20 weeks, 140 days, since we said goodbye. I can't describe how it feels to go to bed each night and see Elli's blanket laying across my pillow, waiting for me. How it feels to tuck it under my chin and snuggle with it as I attempt to drift off to sleep. I can't describe the ache in my heart. The empty void. There are just no words to adequately describe any of it.

We're having our family pictures taken tomorrow. It seems so wrong. So, so, so wrong. My family is not complete. We're missing a huge part. I know I need to move forward with them, but I feel like I'm betraying Elli. I feel like I can't call them "family pictures"...because Elli won't be there.

I'm sorry the blog is not all sunshine and roses. However, this is my reality...it's far from sunshine and roses. I understand if people no longer want to read (family included), because not everything I say will be cheery. There's so much sadness in my heart. Tonight is one of those really rough nights. I needed an outlet. This was it.

The day has come

2011-11-09T21:17:00.000-06:00

The girls climb out of their cribs. We put them in big girl beds for one night back in January. But when our non-sleeper migrated over to our sleeper's bed about six times in the middle of the night and then about five times during nap that next afternoon, we promptly put the cribs back together. Hey, if they were sleeping reasonably well in their cribs before, why rock the boat, right?

Fast forward 10 months. About a week ago they started climbing out just in the morning and at the end of nap time. It was a nice little surprise in the morning to have my two little munchkins greet me at my bedside. Nate and I contemplated breaking the cribs down into big girl beds again, however, they were only coming out once "sleepy time" was over. But it happened...

They now climb out when they simply don't want to be in bed. We put them to bed one hour and fifteen minutes ago. And we've put them back in bed several times. They seem kind of content right now. I'm hoping it lasts for the rest of the night. Now that they're climbing out whenever they want (as opposed to just when "sleepy time" is over), we'll probably be breaking the cribs down tomorrow. There's no sense in keeping them in the cribs and risk them getting hurt getting out. So big girl beds it will be. Here's to several bedtime battles coming up!!!

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T21:06:00.000-05:00

What does a dragon say? "Rawr!"

I think this is Addi.

And I think this is Livi.

Livi was running back and forth with all the pumpkins.

One of my dragons (Addi) peaking at her treats.

Love it.

Well behaved?!

2011-10-30T20:48:00.002-05:00

We were out to eat with the girls the other night. And randomly, some lady came up to our table, put her hand on my shoulder and said "you sure do have very well behaved children." After thanking her for her nice compliment, she continued on to say how nice it was to go out to eat and see two young children behaving as well as ours did. She told us that it made her day. It was so refreshing to hear.

I will admit, the girls were quite well behaved that night. They ate well, they were reasonably quiet, and when they started getting a little ansty, they just climbed off their chairs and came to stand between Nate and me...they didn't run around the tables, jump on the chair, bang on the table with silverware, etc. We were so proud of them. And we sure let them know it!!

I forgot to share this, but the girls had their 3 year appointments a week ago. No concerns for either one of them. Addi is now 31# 6oz and Livi is 33# 5oz. Now I don't think we have to go back until they are four years old!!

Birthday celebrations

2011-10-25T22:17:00.000-05:00

Due to more reasons than I care to list, we didn't have just one big birthday party for the girls this year. Instead, we had a few smaller celebrations. One with just Nate, myself and the girls, one with Nate's family and one with my family. Despite the lack of a huge celebration, the girls enjoyed celebrating their birthdays for over a week straight!

Just one of their three birthday cakes!

Getting ready to open presents.

They were giddy with excitement!

Opening one of their shared gifts.

Addi blowing out her candle.

And Livi blowing out hers (Addi's face cracks me up - don't spit on my cake!)

The end of the day.

I'm sorry

2011-10-20T21:26:00.000-05:00

I don't write often anymore. For someone who has never been short of words, it's an odd feeling to no longer know what to say. At times, I feel like there are no words. Just emptiness. Blankness. Then there are other days when I'm overflowing with thoughts running rampant through my head that I wouldn't even know where to begin.

And because I'm not sure what direction I want to take with this blog, I've refrained from writing about the random thoughts. The sadness. The anger. The disbelief. Plus, I'm not sure who would want to hear it. But in the same breath, I worry that if I just write about what the big girls are doing, people will think that I've moved on. That it no longer hurts. The truth is, I'm overwhelmed with pain and sadness for my sweet little girl. Which is why it makes it so hard to write.

Yes, the girls do funny things. They reach new milestones. They amaze me with everything they know. I want to write about it. But the words just won't come. By the time the girls go to bed (which is when I do most of my writing), my thoughts are consumed with Elli.

So I apologize. I need to figure out what I'm going to do with this blog. I've toyed with the idea of just hanging it up. But I want the girls' lives to be documented. I read back to what I wrote just last year and it's amazing everything I've forgotten. But I really do need to decide...if I keep it going, will it be dedicated to the girls? Will it be a place to write about my grief? Will it be a place to share more stories about Elli and the wonderful, beautiful 9 months and 13 days we had with her? Will it or should it be all of the above? Who knows. I surely don't.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Darlings!

2011-10-13T13:16:00.000-05:00

I cannot believe my babies are 3 years old already. I'm sure every mother says that with each passing year. But man, it seems like just yesterday when we brought them home from the hospital and they refused to sleep for almost 48 hours straight. And when I say they refused to sleep, I pretty much mean that they cried bloody murder for that entire time. I still remember Nate making a trip to Walmart at 2am thinking that maybe the babies were gassy and we needed to get some gas drops to help out their tummies.

But three years, wow. It's been an amazing journey. A wonderful, overwhelming, fantastic, stressful, funny journey. Time can slow down just a little bit. I would be okay with that.

Our peanuts at 1 day old

One year old.

Two years old.

And just recently at the park...

Homecoming

2011-10-08T20:38:00.001-05:00

We went to the University's Homecoming Parade today. And I'm happy to say that this is the first parade that the girls have enjoyed!! They used to get a little freaked out once the bands would come through and our parade experience would end before it really ever got started. But they loved every minute of the parade today. They actually liked the bands, they laughed at the guys riding in little go-karts, they waved at the Homecoming King and Queen, and they jumped at the chance to hoard as much candy as possible!

It was a beautiful fall day today. I'm actually not even sure you can call it fall. We had to break out the short sleeves again because temps have been in the 80's for the past week. Just last week we were wearing pants, long sleeves and coats. Unbelievable.

Hooray!!

It was another fun day with the girls. But that by no means that Elli wasn't on our minds. As we were loading the girls in the car, I must've had a somber expression on my face or something because Nate asked me what was wrong. I lost it. We went to the Homecoming Parade last year and Elli was just a wee little 3 week old. I remember everyone taking a peak at her, marveling at how tiny she was, how cute she was, how she slept the entire time. I remember getting the comments "you sure have your hands full" when people realized that we had twins who were just a week shy of 2 years and a 3 week old baby. Last year's Homecoming Parade was the only parade Elli had ever been to. So yeah, it hit me hard.

On a slightly funnier note. I was informed by Miss Adalyn today that I am not a girl. I am, in fact, an elephant. Sheesh. I know I've gained a few pounds in the past couple of weeks. But man!! When I tried to convince her that I am a girl, she was insistent that I am not. I'm an elephant. Thanks for the ego boost sweetheart!!

Apples, yum!

2011-10-01T21:09:00.000-05:00

We took the girls to the apple orchards for the first time. They really enjoyed picking their own apples. Apparently, apples taste better when you've hand-picked them yourself, because we haven't been able to get the girls to eat an apple in the past few months! But all of a sudden, they're munching on their respective apples as we made our way through the orchards.

Looking through some of the pictures that I took I just realized that from the back, the girls are really hard to tell apart at times!! If it weren't for the different colored ponytails in their hair, there were a few pictures that I'm not sure I would've known who was who!

Mall of America

2011-09-25T22:45:00.000-05:00

We took a completely spur of the moment trip to the Mall of America today. When we woke up, it looked like it was going to be a rather overcast, possibly rainy day. So we loaded up the car and out the door we went. The original plan was to take the girls to the aquarium so that they could see all the sharks, sea turtles, jellyfish and more. But we never made it that far. We got hung up in Nickelodeon Universe. They had so much fun. It was really great seeing their faces light up at the start of each ride. They were even brave enough to go on the Log Chute with me which includes two big drops into the water below!!

Here are some pictures of just a few of the things that we did.

Their first ride on a carousel.

Riding on Dora's ferris wheel.

My big girls went for a train ride all by themsleves!!

They met the Backyardigans. Addi's hug with Pablo.

Livi's hug with Pablo.

Last but not least. Weeeee!!!!!

A close-up of the expressions. As much as it might not look it, they really did have fun!

Overall, it was a great day. Like I said, seeing their little faces light up with pure enjoyment was something that I needed. Nate did too. For a few hours today, we felt almost like a "normal" family. I did have a bit of a hard time when the girls went to meet the Backyardigans. That was Elli's favorite cartoon. She would become entranced in the bright colors and catchy music. So that was tough. But I couldn't deny the girls the chance to hug Pablo and Uniqua (yes, I know their names!!).

Anyway. The girls thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Even though we talked all about the sharks on our trip to the mall, they didn't ask a single time while we were there if we were going to see them. But leave it to sneaky little toddlers, and the minute they realized we were getting loaded back up into the car..."what about the sharks?" Stinkers. Just like bedtime. Not thirsty, not thirsty, not thirsty. Lay them down..."I'm thirsty." Too funny.

Title this yourself

2011-09-19T19:27:00.001-05:00

There seriously are no words. Sometimes I wonder what goes through the minds of almost 3 year olds. Underwear on your head? Wow. Just, wow. They sure are proud of themselves though!

Happy Birthday, Sweet Angel

2011-09-13T03:22:00.003-05:00

Our lives were forever changed when Miss Elliana Jo entered this world at 7:25am on September 13, 2010. I wish I had the words to describe the moment that I first laid my eyes on her. I was captivated. I experienced a love so deep. Then she opened her eyes and looked into mine. And I melted. She was mine. She will always be mine. What an amazing, gorgeous, perfect baby girl.

Elli, you send me little signs that you're watching over us and I thank you for that. Just yesterday, I went to the party store to buy you some balloons for your birthday. After I purchased them, I realized that I bought 14 total and I thought "well, shoot, I should've just bought 13 since that's the day you were born." Once I got home, I was unloading the balloons from the car and *pop* - we've now been left with 13. You're always there.

Happy 1st Birthday to the sweetest, most beautiful Angel in Heaven. Not an hour goes by in which I don't think of you. But I imagine that you're singing and dancing with all of the other Angels. We love you baby doll. Happy Birthday.

Latest obsessions

2011-09-09T22:55:00.000-05:00

Doors, light switches, lipstick and deodorant. Weird combinations, right?

Alivia must shut every.single.door she sees open. Every one. If they're the last two kids left at daycare when I pick them up, she has to shut every door on our walk out of the building. First thing she does when she wakes up in the morning is to shut the girls' bedroom door, our bedroom door, the bathroom door and the small closet door. The other morning, she shut every door, as per routine. Minutes later, I had to go to the bathroom. But the naughty mama that I am, I left the bathroom without shutting the door. She came running down the hallway yelling "no mama, no mama" proceeded to put her hands on my thighs in a stopping type of motion and demanded "shut the door!!" As I shut the door, she turned to head back down the hallway, throwing her hair behind her and said "THANK you mama!" And just as she said that, she stopped dead in her tracks, turned back around and said "now give me a hug." Gotta love that girl. The obsession with shutting doors? Well, whatever.

Then there's Adalyn. If there's a light switch, it calls her name. She feels the strong desire to turn on every single light in the house. I usually go right behind her to turn each one of them off!! She usually notices though and backtracks her steps to turn all of them back on again. She's lucky she doesn't have to pay the electric bill! Add to the fact that she opens a door to turn a light on while Livi has an obsession with shutting doors...sometimes a light or two will be on for an hour or more before I realize it!

Lastly, lipstick and deodorant. My morning routine no longer entails being able to disappear into the bathroom to throw myself together. Nope. I have two young kids banging on my door yelling "mommy let me in!" That's because they know what I'm doing in there...and they want to have fun too! Each one of them takes their turn taking the cap off my lipstick, twisting it upwards, smudging it all across their lips, spinning the color back down and replacing the cap. From there, they must dig out my deodorant and give each one of their armpits a little tickle. They're obsessed. At least I probably have the best smelling kids in daycare!! And I would probably have the scariest looking ones too if I let them go with their lipstick on, but luckily for them, faces get washed before we head out the door.

Doors, light switches, lipstick and deodorant. It's the simple things in life!!

Our first camping trip

2011-09-05T21:25:00.001-05:00

We went on our first camping trip in the middle of August. I guess you can't call it real camping because we weren't "tenting" it by any means. We were actually spending the night in my parents' RV. However, we had it parked at a campground if that counts!! This camping trip was planned well before Elli died. And we seriously contemplated if we should even follow through with the original plans. But in the end, we decided that we needed to do something "normal" as a family and couldn't deprive the girls of their first experience camping. They had a lot of fun on grandma and grandpa's "bus" and they each had a little trick up their sleeve...

The second night they were kind of refusing to sleep, so Nate and I drove them home (luckily we were at a campground only 20 minutes away) so they could sleep in their own beds. Early the next morning, we got a call from my mom asking if we had accidentally taken my brother Jason's keys. Ummm, nope. So they searched and they searched and they searched. By the time we got back to the campground, they had found them. You want to know where? In the girls' ziploc crayon bag! You want to know who takes ownership to hiding them in the crayon bag? Addi. She flat out confessed to putting them in there. Luckily everyone found it rather funny. Otherwise she would've had a lot of explaining to do because she had grandpa digging through the garbage (in the campground dumpster, not just our own garbage!) looking for those keys!! What a sneaky little girl.

Livi's little trick didn't come to light until a couple weeks later when my parents went on a camping trip by themselves. As the air was running, they heard something kind of rattling in the vent. When they got to the campground and turned the RV off, it sunk back in. So dad restarted the RV only for a cap of some sort to come shooting out. Not thinking much of it, they tossed it in the garbage. Not long after, they decided they wanted to listen to the radio. And drumroll please...the radio knob was missing. Haha! We knew she was sitting in the driver's seat quite often on our camping trip playing with all the buttons. But no one was aware that she had removed the radio knob and jammed it down one of the A/C vents!! Oops. Good thing they hadn't taken out the trash yet!

Anyway, here are some pictures of our first camping trip.

They drew pretty pictures outside the RV.

Livi watched aunt Chelsea color a rainbow.

She rode a motorcycle!

And a dinosaur!!

Addi built...well, I'm not sure what.

She enjoyed the swings.

And she plunged down the frog waterslide!

I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I normally do. But life's simply not normal right now. Life will never be normal ever again. I'm trying harder every day to remember to take more pictures and videos of the girls just like I used to. I don't want to forget a single moment of them growing up (which is one of the reasons this blog was created). I never used to go more than a couple days without taking pictures or a week without video. My picture taking has dropped to once a week if I'm lucky. And the video footage? It's dismal. I need to continue to work on it. I promise I will.

Part 2 - Elli's Birth

2011-08-30T13:46:00.003-05:00

I arrived at the hospital at about 10:30pm. By the time I made it up to Labor and Delivery and they hooked me up to the monitors, I was contracting every 2-3 minutes!! The nurse checked to see how dilated I was and I was 4cm. She told me that she definitely thought they'd be keeping me because at 4cm and contracting every 2-3 minutes, they'd be nervous to send me home. I remember having a little "argument" with her saying that they couldn't possibly be keeping me...I think I was expecting to be sent home at least once. All of a sudden reality was really beginning to hit that I may not leave this hospital without a baby in my arms!! So I called my parents immediately and told them to start making the 1 1/2 hour trip to the house so that Nate could then come join me. I was expecting his arrival around 12:30am or so.

I walked the halls for a bit. And at midnight, the resident came in my room to check me. I was only 4 1/2cm! Grrr. I was nervous that they were going to send me home. My parents would've just been arriving at the house only for me to show up shortly behind them!! Luckily, they told me they would give me another couple hours to see what happened. So I texted Nate the update and then went for another walk. It was at some point during that walk that he arrived at the hospital and so graciously walked the halls with me.

At 2am when I was checked, I was 6cm. I was hoping for more given that my body had already done this before, but oh well, we were moving in the right direction. They said at that point I could have an epidural. It took just under 3 hours to finally get it because the anesthesiologist listed as on call wasn’t actually on call! So it took some time to find out who was!

During this time, as I was breathing through every contraction, Nate was drifting off to sleep. Not a big deal, we both had been awake since 6:30am the morning before, so we were tired and one of us might as well get some sleep. At least twice (but maybe three times), he startled himself awake, looked over at me and would say "honey, why don't you try to get some rest." Ummmm, excuse me!? How about YOU contract every 2-3 mintes for 90 seconds at a time and see how much rest YOU can get!!! I didn't say that. I sure thought it though! We think that in his groggy state, he actually thought that I had already received the epidural and that I should now relax. Ha. Umm, not so much. This is painful work!!

Finally at 4:45am, I got the epidural. When I was checked again at 5am, I had stalled out at 6cm!! I couldn’t believe it! I contracted for 3 hours with absolutely no change. Talk about feeling defeated! They asked if I wanted them to break my water and I said that I did. I figured that something had to kick start this process again!

At 5:45am, the doc came in to break my water. And at 7:14am, realizing that I hadn't given my mom an update all night, I made a call to let her know that things had slowed down a bit and it might still be a while. Just as I said that, I said “I gotta go, I’m feeling a ton of pressure.” The nurse checked me 2 minutes later and her eyes got really big. She said “uh, yeah, there’s a baby sitting right there!” She grabbed the doc quick who came in and said “let’s give a little practice push.” Half a push later he yelled at me to STOP and frantically started searching for some gloves. I had no idea why I was told to stop. I actually thought something was wrong because I couldn't feel a single thing (this epidural was much denser than with the twins, I felt quite a bit with them). So when I was yelled at to stop, I had no idea that she was crowning with just that little half of a push. After the doctor got his gloves on I was instructed to begin pushing again. In one push, out came her head. And with one more push the rest of her body slid out at 7:25am. So much for things slowing down! I went from 6cm to baby in 1 ½ hours and just 2 1/2 little pushes!

After asking Nate to announce the gender (because we didn’t know), they placed her on my chest. My immediate thought was that she was definitely bigger than Alivia (who was 6lbs 15oz) but not *that much* bigger. Sure enough, when they weighed her, she was exactly a pound and a half larger at 8lbs 7oz and I was absolutely shocked!

Our lives forever changed on September 13, 2010 at 7:25am when this chunky, gorgeous, amazing, beautiful, incredible, perfect baby girl graced us with her presence. I was awestruck. Nate was teary-eyed. We created another absolutely perfect baby girl. Miss Elliana Jo.

Our first time holding our precious Baby Elli.

I want to tell a story...

2011-08-24T22:07:00.001-05:00

And that's the story of Elli's birth. It all begins the morning of September 12th. It was a Sunday. Nate and I had plans of going to church, but being heavily pregnant, I knew I couldn't wrangle with two not quite two year olds through a church service. So we had arranged the night before to have one of our good friends, Kristin, here to watch the girls.

When we got in the car that morning, I immediately told Nate that I didn't think I could do it. I definitely felt off and sitting on a hard, wooden pew for an hour didn't sound appealing in the least. I had quite a suspicion that I was in early labor. So we drove around for a little bit, too embarrassed to go back to the house to tell Kristin that we brought her over early in the morning to watch the girls for nothing. We eventually stopped at a restaurant to get some breakfast.

After we ate breakfast we migrated back home and let Kristin leave. It was about 9:30am at this point. I honestly have no recollection of what I did with myself for the next several hours. In retrospect, the same thing happened when I was in early labor with the big girls. I zoned out fairly large chunks of time!!

Anyway, the Packers were playing at 3:15pm and I remember telling Nate during our car ride around town how weird it would be if I went into labor during the Packer game. It was Sunday the 12th and that's exactly when I went into labor with the twins!! Except my labor with the twins began during a 12:00 noon game on Sunday the 12th. And then I remember saying it would be even more weird to deliver the new baby Monday morning because the twins were born Monday morning the 13th.

If only I knew during that early morning conversation what we were in for!! I remember sitting in the kitchen watching the game on a tiny 13 inch TV while the big girls watched Sesame Street on our 55" TV in the living room. It was about 4:30pm or so. And I remember being so thankful for that big screen TV to entertain the girls because by this point, I was pretty gosh darn positive that I was in labor and was pretty uncomfortable. I still hadn't said anything to Nate because I was worried things would fizzle out.

My labor nurse from the twins' delivery texted me at 6:00pm asking me how I was doing and I responded by telling her that I was contracting every 6-9 minutes but most weren't terribly painful. Quite uncomfortable, yes. But not what I would really call painful. By 8:30pm, I texted her again asking if she knew who was working the overnights because things were picking up. Nate and I finally got the girls to bed and I timed my contractions even closer. They were about 5 minutes apart and beginning to last much longer and become more painful.

Nate asked me what seemed like a hundred times "do you think this is it?" And each time I responded more abruptly and more annoyed, "Nate, I don't know, I don't KNOW!" And I honestly didn't. I was expecting to have loads of back pain because that's what I had with the twins. That's all I knew labor to be. So when I didn't have *any* back pain, I was seriously wondering if I was jumping the gun. In hindsight, thinking about how much that question irritated me and how I was snapping at Nate to leave me alone, I should've known I was in labor!! Haha, oops. Sorry hun.

After storming off into the bedroom after Nate asked me (yet again, mind you!) if I thought it was the real thing, I emerged dressed and ready to go. It was 10pm and Nate was wondering what in the heck I was doing. When I stormed off, annoyed that he asked me the same stinking question that I gave the same answer to every 10 minutes, I told him I was going to bed. However, when I got to bed, I realized I couldn't lay down. So I got dressed to go to the hospital!!

Nate took a couple pictures of me as I walked out the door. I stood by the car door, waiting to have a contraction before I jumped in the car to make the drive. Yes, I drove myself. I figured with contractions every 5 minutes apart, I would only have to have 2 contractions before I arrived. And being that it was late, late at night, I didn't want to call any neighbors over just for me to be sent back home a couple hours later. Let's face it, I had 5 preterm labor admissions with the twins, which I was happy to be sent back home after. And then I had one false alarm with them before the real deal. So we agreed that I would go alone, hopefully establish if I was indeed in labor, and then make some necessary phone calls if needed.

To be continued...

Our world came crashing down

2011-07-09T20:59:00.000-05:00

On Sunday, June 26, 2011, our sweet Baby Elli grew her Angel wings. Born on 9/13 and she will forever be 9 months and 13 days old.

Life must go on, we're just not exactly sure how. Addi and Livi need us.

I will resume the blog at some point. I still feel the need to document the lives of Miss Adalyn and Miss Alivia. But for now, I'll be taking a break. Our family is devastated and we need some time to grieve and to heal.

3 months old

6 months old

Our final pictures - 9 months old

Fun in the Sun

2011-06-19T21:59:00.002-05:00

We've been spending a lot of time outside the past couple of weeks. The girls ask almost every single day if we can play at the park or go swimming. They absolutely love it outside and I'm already getting nervous about when the snow begins to fly and we're cooped up in the house all day!!

When I'm home alone, I typically put Elli in her highchair so that she can eat a snack by the patio door while I supervise Addi and Livi playing in the water. Or if it's not too hot, she comes outside and crawls around in the yard or plays in her jumper. As is evidenced by the insane number of pictures in this post, we've been spending a LOT of time in the pool.

Addi is such a peanut.

"Mom, I've got TWO boats!!"

Drinking water out of the "waterfall"

The girls even helped Elli enjoy her first time in the frog pool.

Splashy, splashy!!

Livi dumping water overboard while Addi supervises.

Elli enjoying the weather in her jumper.

Livi is such a sweet honey pie.

"Mom, what's daddy doing over there?!" (she was very concerned!)

They love it.

9 months already?!

2011-06-15T22:12:00.003-05:00

Elli had her 9 month appt on Monday. Dr K is very pleased with her development and doesn't have any concerns about her...well, except for her really crappy sleeping habits. The literature that was given at the appt said that "a typical 9 month old should be taking 2 naps a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, in addition to sleeping 10 to 12 hours at night without waking for feedings." Um, yeah right. We're on an every 2 hour feeding schedule, but we also have to calm her every 20 minutes it seems like. It's seriously that bad.

Of course, now that I've come back to writing this for the 4th time while I'm trying to get Elli to settle in, I'm seriously beginnng to wonder if she has reflux. Why couldn't I have had this thought two days ago when she had her appt?! Elli is sooooo restless at night. She tosses and turns and tosses and turns. And kicks her legs in the air, cries out briefly, kicks her legs in the air again, thrashes her arms, etc. For the past two months or so, I was thinking she was extremely gassy and it was getting trapped in her belly at night. Now I'm having different thoughts.

When I really think about it, it makes sense. She wants to eat c.o.n.s.t.a.n.t.l.y at night. Well constant swallowing would help keep the acid down and milk is a natural acid reducer. It seems quite logical to me. So I don't know. I guess I'll be calling the office in the morning and seeing if maybe Dr K will prescribe something for her on a trial basis just to see if that helps with her sleeping. People keep telling me that I just have to let her cry. But my gut feelng is that something's just not right. I thought it was gas (which I DID address with Dr K at the appt), but now I have other thoughts. I can't let her cry it out. Not when my gut tells me that she's uncomfortable.

Anyway. She's huge. Nothing surprising there! She's 29 1/4 inches long and exactly 21 pounds! She outweighed the girls by 3 1/2 pounds at this age! In fact, they were only 19 pounds at a year old, so she's definitely a lot bigger than they were. I told Nate that Elli is gaining on the girls so quickly in height and weight that eventually people might think we have triplets!!

So she's finally sleeping *well* for now. Within the next 30 minutes I'm sure I'll have to calm her down from her tossing, turning, and thrashing. And then within the next 2 hours I'll have to feed her. So I really should go to bed.

Baby Elli

2011-06-08T20:43:00.000-05:00

That's what the big girls call her. If you ask them what Elli's name is, they always say "Baby Elli." They never just say baby or Elli, it's always Baby Elli. Baby Elli is awake! Baby Elli is crying. Baby Elli is silly. Baby Elli is sleeping. Baby Elli pulled my hair! Baby Elli is talking. And it goes on and on and on. I kind of wonder how long she will hold that name! But anyway, here are some pictures of "Baby Elli."

She's such a happy girl.

She couldn't resist squeezing this bear's nose.

Hanging on so tight!!

What a ham.

My bright little blue-eyed baby.

Caught in mid-chew.

Poor girl watching her sisters play outside...she wants to play too!

Sisters by Birth, Best Friends by Choice

2011-06-05T19:52:00.000-05:00

And, she's off...

2011-05-29T21:10:00.001-05:00

We've got a crawler. I can't believe my baby is already crawling. I mean, she's 8 1/2 months, so it's definitely time and it's not like she's an early crawler by any means. But I can't believe she's old enough to be doing this already! Seems like just yesterday she first learned how to smile. And now she's crawling. She's not super speedy by any stretch of the imagination, but she moves.

And in pretty typical Elli fashion, she accomplished this milestone between the time frame that her older sisters did. Livi was 8 months and 8 days old. Addi was 8 months and 16 days old. Elli ended up doing it at 8 months 15 days old. Just like their birth times...Addi 7:05am, Livi 7:33am, and along comes Elli at 7:25am.

I know Elli has done a couple other things in between the time frames that her sisters did, but I'm tired right now and can't for the life of me remember what! Plus it's been a really long week. So anyway, I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day!!

The story of the mismatched kids

2011-05-23T12:41:00.000-05:00

This is just a short little story. I have a lot going on right now and not much time to blog.

So yeah. My kids. And socks. And their refusal to wear white socks. Or their refusal to let me guide them in what colored socks they should wear. Leads to many, many days looking like whoever dressed them was colorblind.

Sometimes I'm able to convince them to wear the socks that I pick out for them. But it usually takes a lot of bribing and sweet talking. And on daycare days, I simply don't have the time to do that while I'm trying to get myself ready as well as get 3 kids dressed, fed, teeth brushed, hair combed and out the door on time. So it's not unheard of for them to attend daycare with purple shirts and blue socks. Or pink shirts and orange socks. Or polka dot shirts with striped socks. Or red shirts and green socks (who says Christmas is in December?).

Anyway. I pick my battles. And quite frankly, that's a battle that I'm simply not willing to fight. It's just socks. I'm sure daycare will forgive me.

Randoms

2011-05-16T20:07:00.000-05:00

I have so many stories to tell as the days go by, but by the time I actually get to sit down to write about them, I pretty much forget all of them. Maybe a side effect of sleep deprivation? Or maybe just a result of getting older? Who knows. But my memory really isn't what it used to be.

Addi: Well, she has now had her second tick in her short 2 1/2 years of life. I haven't had a single tick in 29 years. So they're definitely attracted to her. Unfortunately, the head of this second one is still buried in her scalp. She was talking to grandma on the phone and I was rubbing the back of her head...wouldn't ya know it, I felt a lump. Looked to see what it was and sure enough, that little bugger was really embedded in there. I grabbed it at the base with a tweezers, but the head still broke off. Triage told us to give it a day to see if it works itself out. I tell you, if it's going to happen to one of my kids, it's going to be her. Did I ever tell you about Addi swallowing a penny? I didn't? Yeah, that was another experience!!

Livi: She is so sweet. She really is a little caretaker. She continues to load up Elli's lap with toys and brings Elli a nuk. She also kisses Addi's "boo-boos". She's just such a nurturing little child. Not to say that she doesn't have her wild side or her cranky side for that matter. She can throw a tantrum with the best of them! But when she's sweet, she's really, really sweet. In other news, each of the girls went through a phase where we couldn't read to them enough. That was back when they were right around 14 months I think. We're now back to that with Livi. She wants to read all the time. I love it!! She's also such a polite little girl. "Thank you, mama (or daddy or grandma)" is one of her favorite phrases. She's just sweet I tell ya.

Elli: She thinks that our cat Desi is the most awesome thing on the face of this planet. If Desi crosses her line of vision, she squeals, she screams, she laughs, she smiles, her eyes light up. She loves that cat. Desi doesn't share the same sentiment though. Elli tends to pull hair if Desi gets too close, so she just keeps her distance now. And it drives Elli bananas!! She wants to get at that kitty so bad!!! If only she could crawl. But she is making some pretty good strides at crawling. I thought for a while there that she was going to skip it and just head straight to walking. But now I think she'll probably be crawling within the next month. She's up on all fours just rocking away and she'll put one hand in front of the other, but then she forgets to move her knees. She'll get there.

Mother's Day Weekend

2011-05-09T20:50:00.001-05:00

We had a fabulous weekend. On Saturday, we woke up to find out that our big screen TV decided it served its time. So we loaded up the girls and started our day at McDonald's for breakfast. The big girls played in the Playland for a while and when they were done, we went TV shopping. By the time we were done with that, it was nap time. When they woke up from nap, we went to park #1 of the weekend.

Elli thoroughly enjoyed her first time in a swing.

After a good chunk of time at park #1 we came home and let the girls run around outside...one bonus to a fenced in backyard is that we left the patio door open and they could come in and out as they pleased!! Nate was outside working in the garage and I was inside tidying up, watching Elli, and getting ready for work. We gave them a T-ball set to play with for the first time ever. Not sure where they got the idea from, but they both grabbed a couple of Nate's old hats and put them on!!

Batter up!!!

Livi preferred to play umpire.

We're working on the swing - right now it's more of a karate chop.

Livi also chased down all the balls for Addi.

I actually had to work Saturday night from 5-11 so Nate was left to do bedtime routine by himself. And I'm happy to announce that he survived and it went quite smoothly!!

Sunday morning Nate took Addi for an hour long walk! He took her trike with him so she could either walk or ride. And when he came home, he took Livi to Menards to get a few things for the yard. Once they were home from that excursion, we took the girls to park #2. The fun ended when it was time for nap. And once they woke up, we took them to park #3!!

Beautiful.

They had to go down the tallest slide they could find!

Weeee!! Having fun at the 3rd and final park.

Last but not least, we ended the day with a picture of mommy and her girls. We all look a bit disheveled from playing at 2 parks that day, but I don't mind at all. We had fun...and that's all that matters. But this picture is so typical. Livi isn't paying any attention whatsoever. And Addi is so bored she's jamming a finger in her mouth. Oh well.

"Hey, Nate!"

2011-05-04T20:35:00.001-05:00

Alright, so I find this funny. However, Nate does not. The past couple of months, the girls have resorted to hollering "hey, Nate" every now and then instead of daddy or dad. But the past couple of weeks it's been much more consistent than it used to be. Here's a typical dialogue in the house...

Girls: Hey, Nate
Nate: No, daddy
Girls: Hey, Nate
Nate: No, I'm daddy
Girls: Hey, Nate
Nate: Whatever

I find it hilarious but that's probably because it's not happening to me. A couple months ago when they first started it, they would throw a "hey, Jess" in there and yeah, I hated it. I want to be mommy, not Jess. But I'm also a hypocrite because I can't help but snicker when they do it to Nate...and then listening to Nate argue with two 2 year olds before finally conceding is simply funny.

And the winner is...

2011-04-30T15:00:00.000-05:00

Elli!! She is officially our worst sleeper. What a title, right? Alivia slept though the night at 3 months. Adalyn at 7 1/2 months. And here we sit at over 7 1/2 months and she hasn't done it yet. In fact, she's not even close. She was an awful sleeper in utero. Pretty much twenty four hours a day, she was making some type of movement. It got to the point where I wondered if she kicked and punched in her sleep!! It seriously never stopped.

However, I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. You see, she was actually a fairly good sleeper for the first 3 months. She would often pull off a good five hour stretch at times (she generally can't even do a three hour stretch anymore). It all changed when she started noticing the world around her more. She became too curious. And that right there is our problem. She's too stinking nosey to eat during the day!! When she's home, she's too busy watching her big sisters. And when she's at daycare, I don't know exactly what the problem is, but it's not unheard of for her to only take 4oz (average is 6-8oz) the entire ten hours I'm away from her! So then she has to tank up at night to make up for not eating much during the day.

The other problem is that the poor girl has had a cold for at least 3 months, but I think it might now be closer to 4 months. She has such a hard time breathing when she's laying down and when she coughs, she startles herself awake. Despite being sick all the time and not getting nearly enough sleep for a baby her age, she sure is a happy little girl! It's almost scary to think about how happy this child would be if she was healthy and getting 10 hours of sleep at night!!

Our Easter

2011-04-25T13:57:00.003-05:00

Here are a few pictures from Easter. I can't even begin to describe how bummed I am that we still don't have a really good family picture. We have a few decent ones, but none that I absolutely adore. Anyway, Elli was the only one who really cooperated. Those gosh darn 2 1/2 year olds...they really have minds of of their own and if they're not going to cooperate, they're not going to cooperate!!

Even with a cold she didn't mind posing!

Think we could get them to sit next to each other? Of course not!

What a ham.

This was the easiest picture all day.

And maybe this one too.

Well, at least we can see that Elli's bald spot is growing in nicely!!

This is about as good as it gets.

Oh, and if you're wondering why Livi got short-changed and doesn't have an individual picture of herself to include...she was the least cooperative out of all of them. She sure is a strong-willed little girl at times!!

Okay, here. Here are a couple I scrounged up of all 3 together wearing their dresses. It wasn't Easter, but they were trying them on. And grandma and grandpa J helped Nate get a few quick pictures!!

Counting

2011-04-22T21:30:00.002-05:00

I'm so proud of Livi. Her speech has taken off in the past few months! She used to just defer to Addi and let her do all the talking for both of them, but she's definitely realized now that she has an opinion too! In fact, just a few months ago, she wouldn't even make an attempt to repeat anything we said...and now she's a little parrot!

Anyway, she's recently developed an interest in counting. She will count blocks, flashcards, objects in books, etc. I've heard her count as high as thirteen so far. She knows other numbers as well, I just haven't ever heard them in numerical order. But what absolutely blew us away the other day is that she can also count in Spanish! Over the weekend, Aunt Chelsea was babysitting all three while Nate and I went out for a couple hours. When we returned, she asked us if we knew that Livi could count in Spanish...."uhhh, no?" Well sure enough, she counted up to six for us! And just a couple days ago, she actually counted up to eight. So she can get up to 13 in English and 8 in Spanish. I'm pretty impressed.

She has really blossomed with her speech. And I am so very proud of her. Just a few months ago, I was concerned because she was only saying maybe 15-20 words total. And Dr K kept reassuring us that twins tend to talk later. But of course I worried anyway! And now here we are, she can clearly say words such as "delicious" and "octopus." Needless to say, I'm not concerned anymore!!

Spring is slowly approaching

2011-04-16T15:54:00.002-05:00

Mother Nature keeps teasing us. Just last weekend we had all three girls outside in the backyard - the big girls were in shorts and t-shirts and Elli was wearing a onesie. And now this weekend, it's been snowing!! However, Elli sure enjoyed her first experience in the grass. I remember the big girls being less than thrilled about the prickly green stuff on their bare legs. But Elli is proving again and again that she's quite different from her sisters!! Her eating habits, her size, her preferences...she's definitely not like them!

My Dancing Queen

2011-04-11T19:46:00.000-05:00

Here's a video flashback. I was looking through some old videos and this one made me smile. It was in Feb 2010, so the girls were 16 months old. Livi was our little dancer, but Addi never really took to it. I love how she's so proud of herself and claps before the song is even over!!

Quick medical update

2011-04-06T21:42:00.002-05:00

Addi's ear tube surgery was a success!! One of the hardest parts about the day was not letting her eat anything after midnight or drink anything after 4am. I was hoping that she wouldn't wake up too early in the morning otherwise she would've been begging for breakfast or for a snack, which would've forced me to put her in the car and drive around town until we could check in!

Anyway, we checked in at 7:45am. We met with a couple nurses, the anesthesiologist and the doc. She was finally taken back to surgery at 9:12am and I was able to see her again at 9:27am!! Talk about quick! She was very, very sad coming out of anesthesia. But that's pretty common...it's a pretty disorienting experience. The doc said the procedure was flawless. He sucked a lot of very thick fluid out from behind her eardrums, so she's on some antibiotic drops for the next couple of days to make sure that the thick fluid doesn't clog the brand new tubes. We'll have her post-op visit in 2 weeks. Hope it's all good news!!

And then yesterday, both of the girls had their 2 1/2 year check up. I learned my lesson from their 2 year appointment and I took them at separate times!! Six months ago, it was an awful experience. If one cried, the other cried. And Elli was along (she was just a wee little 1 month old then), so she cried too. Ummm, mom and dad ran out of arms to hold crying children!! The nurse had to jump in to rescue Elli. But yeah, I took the girls at different times to avoid them feeding in to each other and it also provided some good one on one time with mom!!

Both of the girls are 37 inches tall (90th percentile). Addi weighed 28lbs 10oz (50th percentile) and Livi weighed 29lbs 9oz (60th percentile). I find that to be rather interesting for a couple of reasons. One, Livi feels much heavier when you pick her up. I would've guessed there would be about a 3 pound difference. Though I have that thought at every single appointment and she's never even been 1 1/2 pounds bigger!! The biggest difference between them was actually at their 2 year check and it was only 1#4oz. Aaaanyway, I expected Livi to weigh much more than Addi, but she didn't. She never does. Apparently 15 ounces can be deceiving. Which is the other thing that's kind of interesting...15 ounces is what separated them at birth! Awww.

Per Dr K, they're "perfect." Which became the new word of the day as I was leaving the clinic with both of them. We walked hand in hand as they each proclaimed "perfect!" all the way to the car. Which is also rather interesting since they weren't together for this appointment, yet they both picked up on that word and decided to announce it over and over and over! I guess they really ARE twins!!

Just pictures

2011-04-02T20:03:00.003-05:00

I'm feeling lazy, so here are some pictures of the big girls taken just the other morning. I need to do some more picture taking. With the sickness that ran through the house, there was a full two weeks where I didn't take a single picture!!

I wonder what she's thinking.

All done with breakfast.

Addi looks scared. And Livi is simply not interested.

As per usual, they didn't want to cooperate.

Oh heck, I couldn't leave out Elli. Here are a couple recent pictures of her as well.

So many toys to choose from!

Such a happy girl.

Odds and Ends

2011-03-29T21:38:00.000-05:00

I think I can confidently say that everyone is finally healthy. Elli has a lingering goobery eye issue, but it doesn't seem to be bothering her other then when I have to pick at her eyes to get all the crusties/gunk out. She hates it, but if I don't do it, her eyes get stuck together. And I imagine that that can't be very comfortable.

Addi had her appointments with audiology and ENT last week. We received some very good news from audiology...although Addi has had so many ear infections recently, they have not affected her hearing. She does have a little trouble hearing some lower tones, but that's very common when there's fluid behind the ear drum (which she has). We're very glad that she can still hear just fine. Not that she always listens!! However, at least we know that she can hear us! But yeah, so she's lined up to have tubes placed on April 4th!!

Lastly, we were in my hometown this weekend celebrating my grandma's 90th birthday. It was really nice seeing that entire side of the family again (it's quite a large family). Anyway, little Livi thought she'd hang around the food tables almost the entire 3 hours we were at the party. I've never seen that little girl eat so much before in my life! It was actually kinda funny. I kept imagining her thinking "don't mind me, I'm just going to try this chip. And maybe this strawberry. And maybe this cheese. Hmmm, this pickle looks really good. Oh, a piece of chocolate, don't mind if I do!"

I Love You

2011-03-24T21:51:00.003-05:00

Here are a couple short (really short) clips. Ignore the big old purple comforter in the background. Nate uses that when he sleeps on the couch. And no, not when he's in the doghouse! Then I make him sleep without blankets. Just kidding. Enjoy!

If you double click on the video, it will open up YouTube which will make it bigger (not that it's necessary). And I might try to get a couple better ones when A) Livi is looking at the camera and B) Elli isn't being cranky and trying to steal Addi's thunder.

Sick, sick, sick.

2011-03-16T20:55:00.001-05:00

One, two, three.. First child, second child, third child. Whichever way you want to look at it, all the kids have been sick. And not just a little sick. Pretty gosh darn sick.

Loooong story short. We're on day number 9 of treating fevers. Actually, we're down to just treating one kid though, so that's good. Day one started with Adalyn, then throw in Alivia, and eventually add Elliana. Then phase out Addi, and finally Livi, and now Elli's bringing up the rear. At one point, there was a 60 hour span where I dispensed a little over 30 doses of Tylenol or ibuprofen. I was alternating meds every 3 hours in an attempt to control the fevers, but I seemed to be losing. The minute I thought that the fevers broke and stopped giving any fever reducers, bam, back up to 102-103.

To keep everything straight, we were writing down what med (ibuprofen or Tylenol) was given and at what time for each of the girls. And they each had their own bottle of meds labeled with their names...in hindsight, that probably did little to prevent the spread of any germs. Oh well, I tried. Three bottles of Tylenol, three bottles of ibuprofen and Addi's bottle of antibiotics (oh yeah, she has ear infection #5 in the past three months) sitting on our counter. Fun times, fun times (yes, lots of sarcasm in that statement).

Dr K thinks the big girls actually contracted influenza. She told me that at Elli's well-baby check. So we were doing everything in our power to keep Elli separated from the big girls to keep her a "well-baby." But we failed. By Sunday, she had the exact same symptoms as the girls. And today, after a rough, rough, rough night filled with shrill screaming (this is the child who rarely cries), a 103.3 temp, some wheezing, refusing to eat anything, etc, she was seen by a different pedi and diagnosed with a bilateral ear infection. So more antibiotics in this house. I'm really getting sick of ear infections.

Anyway, if this post is all over the place, I apologize. My mind is all over the place. And my days have all run together. Prime example...I'm Catholic. It's Lent. Not supposed to eat meat on Fridays. I ate meat. I had no idea it was Friday. Good night!

All about Elli

2011-03-11T21:06:00.003-06:00

In just 2 days, my baby will be six months old. I'm not exactly sure how that happened. Six months. For real? She had her 6 month appointment today and she's a big, healthy baby! She's 27 1/2 inches long (the 97th percentile) and 17lbs 9oz (the 80th percentile). Holy moly! To put that in perspective, Addi and Livi weighed 17lbs 8oz and 17lbs 10oz at their NINE month appt! She split the difference between them...except a full three months early. Yes, she's a big 'un. However, if you compare her weight for length, she's actually in the 30th percentile, so she's technically kind of a skinny thing.

Besides being about as big as a 9 month old (well, MY previous 9 month olds anyway...who were kinda little on the growth charts), she's meeting many of the milestones of a typical 9 month old. In fact, Dr K and I were joking about whether or not we have her birthdate right!! She looks like a 9 month old, she acts like a 9 month old - if it looks like a duck and acts like a duck, it's a duck, right? Anyway, she did fanstastic with her shots. I think she cried for all of about six seconds. Just as long as it took for me to pick her up and say "shh, shh, shh." Done. And even a smile at herself in the mirror!! Amazing.

Now, in order of occurrence. She went swimming for the first time at the end of February. But leave it to me (forgetful mommy) to leave her swimsuit at the house. You see, we took Addi and Livi first and then brought them home for nap time. So then we loaded up Elli. And in the child switch, I forgot her swimsuit! At least I had her swim diaper. Yeah, so the poor thing had her first swimming experience wearing her onesie. Oops. She was rather indifferent to the whole swimming thing. I thought for sure she would like it more. But maybe she was just getting tired.

Other Elli news is that she's now officially a roller...from front to back as well as back to front. She rolled from back to front on March 1. But in true Elli fashion, it took us a week to get it on film (same thing happened with her first smiles). She's a stinker that way! I left the room to attend to the girls, came back, and she was on her belly! So I got the video camera, flipped her over and filmed for 10 minutes. Nothing. I gave up, took the camera back and when I returned, she was on her belly again!! Rinse and repeat for a week...then I finally caught her.

Last Elli news. She has a tooth!!! I'm excited but so sad at the same time. She's growing up too fast. I'm gonna miss my toothless, gummy grins. Bummer. But yay for teeth...I guess. Oh yeah, but to go right along with my atypical children, she has actually slept *better* while cutting that tooth than she did before! I remember back when Addi slept through the night for the first time when she was 7 months old, a couple days later, she cut a tooth! Well, Elli is getting up twice a night right now, which is better than the 4 times she was before. I should've known there was a tooth coming!! Instead of becoming restless sleepers, my kids become great sleepers!!

And just because...

How sweet am I?

She loooves playing with her feet.

Addi update

2011-03-06T21:36:00.000-06:00

Well, her appointment with Dr K wasn't as straight forward as I was expecting. I was expecting a simple discussion like "yes, ear tubes would probably be a good idea, let's get her in to ENT" or "no, she doesn't quite meet the requirements just yet." But nope. That's not what happened at all.

Instead, Dr K talked about an MRI of her head (specifically her inner ear), possible allergies, possible headaches and/or possible light sensitivity (due to her vomiting). Essentially, she said that Addi's presentation of symptoms is abnormal for simple run-of-the-mill ear infections and she's wondering if there's something else going on. In addition to the vomiting, Addi has tended to fall alot in the past few months. We just chalked it up to a 2 year old who's too excited to get somewhere too fast...so the carpet jumps out and gets her. But it's concerning enough to Dr K that she's seriously wondering about inner ear involvement causing vertigo...which would in turn cause her to fall more often and possibly be nauseous and therefore, throw up.

Or the vomiting could be related to headaches. Or to light sensitivity. Or blah, blah, blah. My head was spinning by this point. Also, do you know how concerning it is to a mother when your child's doctor says that she's "perplexed" and then breaks out the tape measure to measure the size of your child's head to make sure it plots well on the growth curve?! No, um, sorry doc, you're not supposed to be perplexed. In fact, this is supposed to be pretty gosh darn simple. Yeah, so much for a straight forward visit!

Anyway, if MRIs on 2 year olds were easy, she said we'd be taking that route first. Unfortunately, the sedation for an MRI of the head would be much, much longer than sedation for ear tubes. So for now, we're meeting with Audiology and ENT on March 23rd with probable ear tube placement thereafter. If she doesn't have a resolution of the vomiting and tripping after tube placement, we'll be getting the MRI.

Oh and Addi had to have blood drawn before we left. She handled it like a champ! She was so proud of her Bugs Bunny band-aid!!

Ears and Daycare

2011-02-28T20:34:00.000-06:00

So. Addi was diagnosed with her 4th ear infection in 2 1/2 months over the weekend. But let's back up a bit. She had just finished a course of antibiotics on Tuesday (the 22nd) for the last ear infection. Then come Thursday, I could tell she was kind of "off" when she came home from daycare...really whiny, laying her head down, etc. Something just wasn't right. In hopes that she was just overly tired from not sleeping well at daycare, we just let her be.

She went down easily that night. But by 10:00pm, she was waking every 10 minutes crying. When we asked her what was wrong, she would point at her right ear and say "right there." So I took her in to the ER late, late Thursday night (like after 11:00pm) just for a quick peak in her ears. That's one of the perks of working there! The docs will often take a look at simple things like that with no charge (shhh, don't tell anyone!). The doc said that her ear was definitely red but that it could be the previous ear infection still resolving or there could be a new one coming. He suggested a wait and see approach. So we kept her on some tylenol to keep her comfortable.

Fast forward to Saturday morning and she was tugging on her ear even more. Yay for no vomiting though!! So off to urgent care we went. The doctor looked in her right ear and said "oh wow, so that's awful." Her left ear is infected as well, just not quite as badly. The doctor put a stat referral in to see Dr K and gave us an even stronger antibiotic. So I called the office this morning and Addi now has an appt on Wednesday to discuss possible tubes.

On the brighter side, daycare is going extremely well!! Elli has gone for two weeks now. From what they tell me, she's doing great. Eating well, playing well, sleeping/napping as per her usual (3-4 little catnaps). And the big girls are finally turning a corner as well. Addi has been good for a little while now but I was still dealing with Livi getting a bit teary during drop off. However, the last two days, she hasn't shed a tear! In fact, the last day, I took her to her room, took her coat off and she turned around, waved at me, and said "bye-bye mama."

When I thought about the future and the girls NOT being sad when I dropped them off, it kind of made *me* a little sad...the fact that they wouldn't miss me. But now that the day has actually arrived, I was sooooo elated!! It was great dropping her off and having her be excited that she got to play with her friends. I'm happy to know that she's content. So no sadness for me at all!

And I guess the big girls get to go visit Elli on a semi-regular basis. I think that's wonderful. Elli is obviously in the infant room while the big girls are in the 2-3 year old room. But a couple times a day, they'll pull the girls out to go visit with Elli for 30 minutes or so. I love that the daycare is letting the big girls know that their baby sister is there too and keeping the "family" somewhat connected throughout the day.

When markers attack

2011-02-22T19:43:00.000-06:00

I think the girls are somewhat embarrassed that they lost their battles with the markers....they wouldn't even look at the camera. Livi is showing you her colorful palms and I think Addi is trying to gouge out her eyeballs!!

Say Cheese!!

2011-02-19T20:17:00.000-06:00

They grow so fast

2011-02-13T20:09:00.001-06:00

I think every parent has heard it before. "Enjoy it, because they grow so fast." It's so very true. Today the big girls are 28 months old. They're closer to two and a half than they are to two! And today Elli is 5 months. I could swear we just brought her home from the hospital. I still remember the day so well!! Yes, they're growing fast.

I've included some size comparisons just to drive my point home. Look how much Elli is catching up!

Elli was just 2 weeks old here (the girls were just shy of 2 years)

Elli at 5 months.

And at 2 days old, leaving the hospital.

To further drive home my point, Elli is officially a sitter!! What?!? How in the world? When in the world? Craziness I tell ya. She's not the most proficient sitter just yet, but she's a sitter nevertheless.

Meanwhile, the big girls are trying to teach Elli everything they know. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing!! I captured one of those moments a few days ago. I had Elli laying on the floor watching and listening to her music box. So Addi and Livi plopped right down next to her and started pointing out all the animals!!

And did I mention that we have our third bilateral ear infection in three months? Oh, I didn't? Well, that's another post for another day.

Big changes

2011-02-11T21:12:00.000-06:00

Sooooooo.....

A week from today, Elli will be starting daycare. I'm not completely sure how I feel about that. On one hand, I'm excited because I can stop worrying about lining up sitters or worrying about the weather that would prohibit my mom from getting here to watch her. On the other hand, she's my baby!! Of course I worry about whether she'll get the attention she needs and deserves.

The big girls didn't start daycare until they were two years old because daycares don't tend to take kids less than two on a part time basis. In fact, the daycare the girls are going to doesn't take infants less than 4 days per week. Imagine our surprise when we asked them one day if they would take Elli just 2 days a week...and they agreed!!! I had actually made Nate make the phone call because I "already knew" the answer! So yeah, we were a little shocked.

In the long run, daycare will be good for her. Hopefully we'll be able to avoid the problems the big girls had when they started daycare because she'll be acclimated to it really young. It will just be another part of her routine, so she won't have the same level of separation anxiety that the girls did (they're getting much, much better though!).

I'm reeeaaallly nervous about how I'm going to get 3 kids up, dressed, fed, out the door and in the car by myself. I know that eventually I'll develop a system, but those first few times are going to be rough. I've already prepared my coworker for my late arrival!! Haha. She's well aware of the fact that I will more than likely not be on time!!

Random picture day

2011-02-03T19:59:00.001-06:00

The girls' 1st time at a waterpark over New Year's weekend. Addi loved it so much she asked to go back again in the afternoon (which just the two of us did since it's almost in our backyard!)

Elli is working sooo hard at rolling over!

This look just makes me giggle.

A special treat...M&M's and juice!

Awww. But don't let this fool you. They can now fight with the best of them!

She's so focused!!

Oh Sleep, how I miss you

2011-01-31T20:22:00.001-06:00

It's still rough going in this house. The big girls are doing very well. Livi continues to sleep through the night. Addi is hit or miss. But if she does get up, it's usually only once (maybe twice) and that's it. On the other hand...there's little Elli. She's getting worse...and worse...and worse. The past three nights, she's been up at least 7 times in an 8 hour span. One of those nights she was up NINE times in eight hours. For real child?

Supposedly it's pretty common around 4 months to have a major sleep regression. In fact, if you start typing "4 month s" into a google search, the first thing that pops up is "4 month sleep regression." You don't even have to type out the word sleep, just the S!! So there must be a lot of other sleep-deprived parents of 4 month olds desperately searching for why their little ones have become little monsters at night!!

However, what I worry about is that her *true* sleeping habits are beginning to emerge. I don't remember if I ever blogged about it, but I know I told everyone and their brother while I was pregnanct with Elli that the child never slept!! She was awake all.the.time. A little nudge here, a painful kick there, and a head butt just for good measure. She was around-the-clock, non-stop motion. So when she was born and she was actually a decent sleeper, I was shocked!! Very shocked. So is she finally illustrating the baby I knew in utero? Or is it the dreaded 4 month sleep regression. I'm crossing everything humanly possible that it's just a sleep regression...because at least there's an end in sight!!

In other news, Addi had another vomiting episode about a week ago now. The last time she vomited, she was diagnosed with an ear infection. This was after she vomited 6-7 different days in a 6 week period. Anyway, I guess it was actually a week ago tonight because she was fine all day Tuesday and fine Wednesday morning as well, so the girls went to daycare. I received a call from daycare at about 4pm that Addi just wasn't acting like herself. After nap, she actually *asked* to lay back down. Ummm, red flag, red flag, red flag. We're talking about the child who doesn't sleep (yes, I was blessed with 2 of them!!)

So I left work a bit early to pick them up. We ended up taking Addi to Urgent Care. And guess what? Raging double ear infection. No fevers, no tugging at the ears, etc. Just that one night of vomiting. Leave it to my atypical child to not get the typical signs of an ear infection!! Doc thinks that it puts so much pressure on her inner ear that she gets nauseous. And it probably makes her dizzy (so asking to lay down at daycare makes complete sense!)

Anyway, $40 later, we got her prescription. But we have a major problem. She won't take it because it tastes AWFUL!! So after getting 3/4 of a dose down that night and nothing the next morning, I returned to the pharmacy to have flavoring added. Three more dollars later, nope, not happening. I made a call to the pedi's office. They called in a new script. Picked up that script for $16 and Bingo! We have a winner!!

Now my only question is why would someone prescribe a FORTY dollar nasty tasting med to a 2 year old that has to be given 20 times (twice a day for 10 days), when there is a much cheaper med available that tastes much better. Oh yeah, and there's only 5 doses (once a day for 5 days). So even if it tastes bad, I would only have to force feed it 5 times instead of 20 times. What a waste of 43 bucks.

Oh well. We're getting her taken care of. That's all that matters.

My Sweethearts

2011-01-25T10:37:00.001-06:00

Okay, so Elli almost dwarfs Addi!!

Livi has the attention span of a typical 2 year old.

My world.

Big girl beds

2011-01-21T19:20:00.000-06:00

.....not happening any time soon. We attempted big girls beds Sunday night. And although they went down without a fight and fell asleep right away, that's about as good as it got. Addi had the strong desire to migrate over to Livi's bed each time she woke up in the middle of the night. And Livi was unimpressed by having a bed partner. Nate had to remove Addi from the wrong bed at least 4 times.

Nap time was much of the same. Three times I had to go in the room to remove her from Livi's bed. Actually, one time I didn't even have to remove her...she removed herself. The second the door started opening up, she took off like a flash and scurried right across the room and jumped in her bed!! So she obviously knows she's not supposed to be in there. And I also had to make one other trip into their room after I heard a strange clicking sound I had never heard before. Great. So I go in, look in Addi's bed and she's not there (shocking). So I look in Livi's bed. Ummmm, she's not there. Where in the world...I lost my 2 year old!! Here she was under their little bedside table messing with the nightlight. Good gravy lady. It's nap time. Go to bed!!

She eventually fell asleep and took quite a good nap actually. But not after annoying the snot out of Livi several times first. I think each of them would do quite well in big girl beds as individuals. But as a collective unit in one bedroom? Umm, maybe not. So their cribs have been put back together. Oh well. Maybe when they're five...

I know I've been slacking in the pictures department. Can you believe that I haven't downloaded any pictures since the new year? Crazy! We've taken a ton (as usual). I just haven't gotten around to transferring them onto the computer. Soon, I promise, soon.

Baby Laughs

2011-01-15T17:29:00.001-06:00

Here's a video for your viewing pleasure. I haven't posted one in a long time, so I hope you enjoy.

A couple days ago, Livi was jumping into Nate's arms and Elli couldn't stop laughing at them. It was sooo cute. She definitely loves her big sisters! At the end, I think Livi rubs Elli's head for good luck!!!

Breaking News!!!

2011-01-14T20:20:00.001-06:00

No, not pregnant. Figured I'd start with that.

1) Adalyn slept through the night for 6 straight nights!

2) Elli had her 4 month appt and is long, long, long.

3) Elli will hopefully be sleeping in her own crib tonight!

So yeah. Addi continued her great sleeping habits for six straight nights. Amazing! She was going to bed around 7:30pm (with Livi, of course) and waking up between 6:30-700am. Way to go baby girl!! And kudos to you, Miss Liv, for your continued efforts. Your sister might finally be catching on to what you've known for quite some time...sleep is good!

Elli had her appt a couple days ago. My "little" girl is off the charts! She weighed in at 14lbs 8oz and she's 26 1/4 inches long!! Holy smokes! That puts her at greater than the 97th percentile for length. I knew there had to be a reason I moved my not quite 4 month old into 6-9 month sleepers. At least I now have confirmation that I wasn't losing my mind when I thought her little toes didn't fit into her 3-6 month sleepers anymore. Though I was stuffing them in there anyway because I thought it simply couldn't be right...but it is. Long, long, long baby.

Dr K is very, very impressed with her overall development. It was a very quick appt because I didn't have any concerns to address and neither did Dr K. Though she did say that the reason Elli may be sleeping so terribly (waking every 2 hours, sometimes less, rarely more) is because she's growing so incredibly fast. Hopefully once she slows down a bit in the growth department, she'll start sleeping better.

And speaking of sleep, tonight is the first night we're going to try to get Elli to sleep in her own room. Up until now, she's been sleeping in our room. She already had a little taste of it this afternoon when she took a 25 minute nap in there (yes, welcome to the world of Elli's cat naps!). So we'll see how it goes. I figure I'll let her sleep in there for the first couple of wake ups. And then after that, I'll probably bring her back to our room - let's face it, when she's waking up at night as often as she is, it's simply easier to have her close. So we'll trial it for a bit tonight and we'll just continue to work on the transition into her own room. Wish us luck!

We're still here

2011-01-09T20:54:00.001-06:00

Just tired. Sleep? Yes, please. I would definitely like some of that!

Sleep has been hard to come by in this house. Bless little Miss Alivia. She's been sleeping through the night without a problem. Yes, she turns her music box on more times than I can count in the middle of the night, but she doesn't cry or demand to be taken out.

Miss Adalyn. Yeah. Ummm, can you say sleep regression? She's been our terrible sleeper since day one. But she eventually improved to where she was only waking up once a night. However, she must've decided to revolt against the new year, because for four nights straight, she was up at least five times. FIVE. Apparently she thinks she's a newborn! That's how many times Elli is getting up during the night! Yup, she regressed too. But I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. She's still a baby.

So yeah. With Addi getting up 5-6 times and Elli getting up 4-5 times, sleep is really only something I dream about. But, but, but. I am happy to say that Addi has actually slept through the night the last two nights in a row!! The chick is crazy. She goes from getting up once a night, which I can completely handle and have resigned myself to the fact that she'll probably do for a looong time...probably until she reaches high school when I'll struggle to drag her butt out of bed to get ready for school.

Whoops. Sorry, got side tracked. So she goes from getting up once a night, to getting up five or greater times per night for four days (maybe it was five, it's easy to lose track), to sleeping straight through the night immediately after that. I don't get it. We'll see what tonight brings. I'm optimistic that she'll do it again, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Even if she gets up just one time, I'll be fine with that. We're used to it. We expect it. She's up and back down in less than 5 minutes. We can handle that. Just pleeease don't be up more than that!

And Livi? Kisses and hugs baby doll. Thank you so much for sleeping through your sister's craziness. I don't know how you do it...but your mommy loves you for it!

And Elli? Please go back to the 3 wake ups a night. This 4-5 times a night is kinda nuts. I'm not asking you to sleep straight through. Just a bit of improvement will make your mommy very happy!!

2010: A year in review

2010-12-31T22:34:00.000-06:00

January

We found out we were expecting again!

The girls looooved bath time.

February

Confirmation that we were only expecting one baby!

The girls sported some Brewers' gear.

March

Alivia got her very first hair cut (we're STILL waiting on Addi's!)

Standing on chairs to look outside became the best thing since sliced bread.

April

We played outside...and stomped on our wagon.

We found out how much we love apples!

May

We went to the zoo and watched the bears.

We got a a sneak peak at the new addition.

Who just so happened to be very flexible!

June

Snuggle time.

25 weeks

July

An Oreo mess.

30 weeks

August

We ate snacks at our brand new picnic table.

And we went to the park to swing.

September

10:30pm and on my way out the door to (hopefully) deliver a baby! (38 weeks)

Sure enough, baby GIRL arrived!!

So sweet.

Two weeks old.

October

We played outside in the garage with daddy.

Elli realized she has the same eyes as the monkey!

The big girls went Trick or Treating for the first time.

November

Addi held Elli for the first time.

Livi thought she was ready for daycare...even without pants.

The big girls had their 2nd Birthday party (they turned 2 in Oct)

Elli was baptized.

December

Such a chunky little girl all excited for her bath.

First Christmas with all 3 girls.

Elli tried cereal for the first time...she actually did super well!!

We've got a roller!

2010-12-28T21:22:00.000-06:00

Elli is officially rolling from belly to back. She did it for the first time over a week ago. But now she's very proficient at it. It's just a matter of time before she figures out that she can also roll from her back to her belly. Then we'll have yet another child who won't be in the same place we left her after we return from a short bathroom break!!

She's actually a very late roller compared to Adalyn and Alivia. Livi was a little over 5 weeks old when she started to roll from back to belly and Addi was 6 1/2 weeks. But they were actually reeeally early rollers. However, poor Elli never had much practice on her tummy. For at least the first month and a half of her life, I was afraid to put her on the floor out of fear she would get stepped on by her sisters. So she was in her swing, her bouncy, her carseat, being held by us, etc. Finally around two months, I started feeling much, much more comfortable putting her on the floor when her big sisters were awake. So yeah, she was two months later in accomplishing this milestone than her sisters were, but I'll take the complete blame for that one!!!

The other milestone that we reached in this house is that both of the big girls now have all of their teeth!!! Addi has had all of her two year molars for quite a while now. But Livi finally cut the last of her's. It seemed like those buggers would never come through. So the girls are now done getting teeth until 6-7 years when the first set of permanent molars appear. Whew, we survived teething. Oh wait, we now have another baby that's going to begin the process all over again here very shortly. Hmmm. I guess we don't get a break...another two years of teething.

A visit with Santa

2010-12-23T20:52:00.002-06:00

After procrastinating until the last possible second, Elli finally got to meet Santa for the first time ever. Knowing that the wait was probably going to be fairly long, we decided against taking Addi and Livi. Plus we figured that they would be afraid of him anyway, so why torture them with standing in a long line? Of course I'm not 100% certain that they would've had a meltdown. But I like to think that I know my kids pretty well...and I had a strong sneaking suspicion that they would not have been fans.

So Elliana and I stood in line for an hour and 45 minutes!! Good golly. Thankfully a lady I used to play volleyball with was standing ahead of me and a girl I went to grad school with was standing behind me. So I had a couple people to keep me company during the long wait. Little Elli fell asleep in my arms for quite a while but she woke up right before it was her turn!! She was determined not to sleep through such a big event!

This is the professional picture. I'll try to take a better picture of it (our scanner is broken) so that Santa isn't obscured by the flash. Once I do that, I'll replace this one.

While we were standing in line, a little boy said to his mom "mommy, babies aren't supposed to have that much hair!" Haha. Too cute. His mom told me that all of her babies were bald. So he wasn't used to seeing babies with any hair...especially as much as Elli has.

Then I saw a teeny tiny newborn. And honestly, I thought Elli was still tiny. But all of a sudden, Elli seemed huge!! In my head I'm thinking "oh please don't let it be true that she was ever that small. She hasn't gotten *that* much bigger has she?" Unfortunately, it's true. These pictures prove it...

Just shy of 2 weeks old.

And 3 months later. Wow.

Assuming roles

2010-12-20T21:15:00.000-06:00

It's so funny watching the big girls interact with Elli. They have their moments where they simply can't get enough of her. But they also have their moments where they completely ignore her, which is absolutely fine. They're two years old - they need to be doing their own thing.

But I've noticed that Adalyn and Alivia are assuming specific roles with Elli. Adalyn has become Elli's teacher and Alivia has become her second mother. More times than not, when Addi interacts with Elli, she's trying to teach her something. She'll sit down right in front of her, point at her own hand and say "hand." Then she'll point to her own nose and say "nose." She'll point at me across the room (as though Elli understands where she's pointing) and say "mama!" This same process continues with as many body parts as she can name, kitty, sissy (Livi), chair, couch, socks, shoes, etc.

Then there's Livi. What a little mother hen. It seems like she's always bringing Elli her necessary gear. She loads her up with blankets, burp rags, nuks, clothes, and gentle pats on the belly. If I pick up Elli and don't have a blanket with me, Livi brings me one. If Elli is in her swing and Livi finds a nuk on the floor, she runs it over to the swing and tries to put it in Elli's mouth. If Elli is laying on the floor and there's a burp rag nearby, Livi has to pick it up and put it on her chest.

I think Elli should consider herself a very lucky little sister. She's got two wonderful big sisters looking out for her!

I'm a working woman again

2010-12-13T21:49:00.000-06:00

So I survived my first 4 days back at work! And so did all of the girls. The very first day back, Elli was pretty much on a bottle strike. She really didn't eat much while I was gone. The second day, she maybe took 1-2oz more. But then the last two days, she finished off all the bottles that I made for her. So hopefully she'll continue with that. I was off today and then I'm back on for another 3 days till I get a little time off with my girls.

It was hard being away. I think it was harder going back to work this time than it was last time. Partly because twin infants are tough and it was a bit nice to escape the chaos for a while!! But also because I know that a bunch of "strangers" are taking care of my kids this time. When I finally went back to work after the twins were born, my mom was here most of the time to watch them. I sometimes had to bring a sitter in the house, but that was rare. This time, the big girls go to daycare and I have a sitter come to the house to watch Elli (except for my work weekends when Nate gets the pleasure of watching all 3!). So I worry a lot more this time around than I did last time.

However, the girls are doing better and better with daycare. They continue to cry a little when I drop them off but their primary teacher has told me that it lasts about 5 minutes and then they're done. And the fact that Elli continued to do better with the bottle each day that I was gone was also reassuring. So maybe within a few weeks I won't worry so much about all three of them.

And speaking of worrying...I'm taking Addi to the doctor tomorrow. She's had 6 epidodes of vomiting in the last 6-7 weeks. The stomach bug that ran through this house accounts for one of the episodes (the episodes can include multiple pukes per day), but we're not sure what's going on the other times. At times I've felt as though she has a very sensitive gag reflex because it seems to be sparked by her coughing - which there's been a lot of since both girls have had constant colds since starting daycare. But this morning, she was sitting on the couch doing absolutely nothing when she simply threw up all over herself. She's not feverish, she usuallty acts completely normal afterwards (high energy, talking a mile a minute, etc), she doesn't "look" sick and so forth. I called the triage nurse this morning and she definitely thought it warranted a visit. So we'll see was the pedi has to say.

Here are some pictures from the past couple of weeks. The snow pictures are from the fun we had outside BEFORE we received a record high of 22" of snow in a 24hr span. We have soooo much snow now that the girls would probably get lost outside!

They weren't quite sure what to think! Livi left, Addi right.

Addi.

Livi.

Addi left, Livi right.

Elli is talking to daddy.

She's still working on finding that thumb!

She's getting too big, too fast.

She's my little peanut.

Professional pictures

2010-12-07T19:53:00.001-06:00

Sometimes I seriously think we're crazy. Of course, a lot of people thought that a long time ago when we decided to have another baby so quickly after having twins!! But anyway. We took all three girls to have their pictures taken yesterday. We were finally getting around to the big girls' 2 year pictures and we had Elli's 3 month photos done. And we wanted all three of them together for a picture as well. I tried to line up a little help so that it would be one adult per child, but that didn't happen. Nate and I were outnumbered.

The plan was to take the group shot first and then take Addi and Livi's individual pictures while I changed Elli into a different outfit. Well, the big girls were having absolutely nothing to do with it! They screamed, they cried, they bolted for the door, etc. It didn't help that they were hit with cold #3 that morning. And because of the new colds, they only took a 25 minute and 45 minute nap (normal is anywhere from 1 1/2 to 3 hours)! So I told Nate to just take them home. But as he reached the door, I changed my mind and asked him to stay to see if they might be interested in watching Elli have her pictures taken.

Much to my surprise, they were very interested in watching Elli and seeing the big flashes go off. All of a sudden it became fun and they each wanted to take their turns!! I knew right away that Addi had hair in her eyes (she actually has enough hair for that now!) and Livi's hair looked crazy. But the fact that they were sitting and smiling big and having a good time...well, I wasn't going to disrupt it just to fix hair. Otherwise I feared we wouldn't get any pictures at all!! So yeah, they looked a bit disheveled. But I'll take that over no pictures!

So while they were getting their individuals taken, I changed Elli BACK into her original outfit for the group photo. Little peanut was such a great sport about the clothing changes. At least one of them made this whole ordeal easier!! In the end, it all worked out and I'm glad that I decided not to send the big girls home before giving them a second chance. But I can also tell you that I'm glad that they're done with professional pictures until they're three!! I've had theirs taken at 3, 6, 9, 12, 18 and 24 (roughly) months. And we'll do the same for Elli. But from the age of 2 years on, we'll just be doing them yearly. Oh, and doing yearly photos after the age of two was determined a long time ago...it was not a result of the meltdown we had!!

And in case you're wondering, I'll be headed back to work in roughly 36 hours. But who's counting, right?

I know, it's been forever

2010-12-02T21:18:00.000-06:00

Sorry for not writing in over a week. We did some travelling over the Thanksgiving weekend. And then throw in a sick house (again), there just wasn't much time! Once the bug came in, it seriously feels as though it never left. The big girls have been dealing with colds for over a month. I know a lot of it has to do with the start of daycare. The minute they recover from one cold, they get another.

But then throw in the stomach bug and we're just one happy family!! *insert heavy sarcasm* To make a long story short, we had vomiting toddler #1. Then we had vomiting toddler #2 a couple days later. Then we were back to vomiting toddler #1 a couple days after that with a side of vomiting daddy thrown in for good measure. Oh...and the colds continue. Elli and I are hanging tough. But I'm honestly waiting for the bottom to drop out.

Thanksgiving was great though. It was the first time we travelled with all three girls. And holy cow did we have to take a lot of stuff!! Packing definitely was not fun. Unpacking was even less fun! I should've just left their suitcases packed since Christmas is just around the corner and we're going to be doing more travelling!!!

Oh yeah. I go back to work in exactly one week. Boo.

The Great Bottle Battle

2010-11-23T21:03:00.000-06:00

Well, I go back to work in just over two weeks. And little Miss Elli is still hit or miss with the bottle. At times she'll suck down 3-4 ounces in minutes. However, more times than not it's a huge battle just to get her to take an ounce. She fusses, screams, cries, etc. We had switched from Avent bottles to Playtex Drop-Ins several weeks ago and she seemed to be doing better with those. However, after she was giving Nate a really hard time last night, I switched her back over to an Avent bottle...and she gulped down 2 1/2 ounces.

So I don't know what to do when I go back to work. Maybe make sure both types of bottles are available and simply tell the babysitter "good luck." We'll see. She has 16 more days to figure out what she wants (besides mama!!). I know that she'll eventually eat when she's hungry. But I feel bad for the babysitter who will have to listen to her scream until she finally concedes to the bottle. And I'll feel bad for Elli knowing that she will cry until she realizes that the bottle is her only option for 9 hours. Like I said, we'll keep working on it...and I can only hope that we see major improvements in the next two weeks.

In other news, Elliana found her fists about a week ago and constantly tries to suck on them now. Sometimes she wakes me up in the middle of the night smacking her lips on her fists. It kinda looks like she might be trying to get at her thumb, but she obviously doesn't have the coordination for that quite yet. It'll be interesting to see because Addi was a thumb sucker and Livi was a nuk baby.

I definitely like my hands!

I've been working hard during tummy time.

My smile can't get any bigger than this!!

Baptism and Birthdays!

2010-11-18T11:11:00.001-06:00

So we had a big day this past Sunday. Elli was baptized in the morning and then we celebrated Addi and Livi's 2nd birthday that afternoon. There are so many pictures I want to share, but I just picked some of my favorites.

Addi opening her gifts.

And Livi opening hers.

Their beautiful birthday cake.

They were mesmerized by the candles!

And they had fun blowing them out...not once, but twice!

Elli with her Godparents, Jason and Chelsea.

And Elli with mom and dad.

Just me and my sweetie-pie.

Wearing one of her sisters' baptismal gowns.

Our first decent family pic. We still need to work on this!

Patiently waiting for her bath to get the baptismal oil out of her hair!

2 month appt

2010-11-13T12:27:00.001-06:00

Our little Elli had her 2 month appt two days ago (she's officially two months old today). The doctor is very pleased with how she's developing. One of the first comments Dr K had is that she is a very looong baby. And she was right! Elli measured in at 24 inches (97th percentile) and 11lbs 8oz (70th percentile). What's funny is that before the appt, I said to Nate "I bet Elli is about 11 1/2 pounds. And I'm willing to guess she's sitting right at about 24 inches." Hmmm. I guess you get kind of good at these guesstimates when it's your third kid!!

So yeah, she's doing fantastic. The only real concern we had was the outbreak she had on her face/forehead about a week ago. A few days before Halloween, she developed some baby acne which wasn't a big deal. Just a few dots on each cheek, nothing concerning. Well this past Sunday she woke up and could barely open her left eye! It was that swollen. Her entire face, forehead, and eyes were red and blotchy with lots of bumps. I wasn't sure if it was a really bad flare of baby acne, a rash, eczema, an allergic reaction, etc. It was terrible! And I've never experienced it before because both of the big girls always had flawless skin. Not even one little baby pimple!

I took several pictures to show Dr K at her well baby visit. Turns out that she had a REALLY bad flare of cradle cap! Well technically, if it's not on the head/scalp, it's called seborrheic dermatitis. I guess it's common to get it on the face as well. I'm so thankful it wasn't an allergic reaction. Because honestly, my first thought was that she was allergic to something I'm eating. And if that's the case, the 200+ ounces of milk I have in the freezer for when I go back to work would have to be thrown out!! Whew. Just cradle cap. We can deal with that. In fact, she looks almost 100% better than she did less than a week ago.

Oh yeah, and shots. She did just fine. She cried for less than a minute. She was quite sleepy the rest of the day, but it was kind of a restless sleep. She woke every 15-30 minutes. But really she just needed a little cuddle and went right back to sleep.

We have a big day planned tomorrow. Elli is being baptized. Yay! And the big girls are having their official birthday party! We had two unofficial birthday celebrations right around their birthday. But since we knew a lot of our family would be coming to town for Elli's Baptism, we decided to put off the party until then. So it should be a fun day!!

Baby Smiles

2010-11-09T20:20:00.001-06:00

When you see a baby smile, you can't help but smile yourself. Well, at least I can't. Some are big and some are small. Some are goofy and some are sweet. Some are scary and some are smirky. But all of them manage to bring a smile to my face...and usually a giggle as well.

Elli's first smile caught on camera...sooo big. Makes me laugh.

Awww.

So stinking sweet.

How goofy is she?! That's quite the smirk.

I love her.

Daycare and Potty Training

2010-11-06T21:50:00.001-05:00

The big girls had their first day of daycare on Wednesday. And it didn't go exactly like I had hoped. The drop off was actually incredibly easy. My mom was here to help me with their first day because I had to take not only the big girls, but Elli as well. Plus I had their 2 sleeping bags for nap time, a package of diapers, wipes and clothing changes for both of them.

Anyway, Livi was immediately interested. So I took her coat off and she willingly walked into the classroom and sat down at the table. Addi was a bit more hesitant. But with just a little bit of coaxing, she also walked right into the room and found a spot at the table. So I was feeling pretty hopeful when I left, but apparently, that's about where it all ended. I guess both of them took turns crying throughout the majority of the day. Once one would stop, the other would kick in. Broke my heart to know that they simply weren't happy.

On day 2, drop off was horrendously awful. Livi was crying and Addi was screaming. I can't even really describe how bad it was. You simply have to witness it first hand. Not a good way to start the day and I shed some tears once I got home. But when I called to check in on them at about 11:30am, the director said that they were having a better day than the first day. And then their teacher called me when everyone was down for nap about an hour later and told me that they were actually laughing and giggling at times. And there was another little girl there who they were really enjoying playing with (on their first day, there were only 4 other little two year old boys).

When Nate went to pick them up, they were both in great moods which was such a turn around from when we picked them up on their first day...that was a nightmare. They cried the entire way home. They continued to cry even after we arrived home. It's like they were so worked up that they didn't know what to do with themselves. It was bad. But the second day was almost like a 180! They'll continue to go to daycare 2 days a week, so we'll see what this coming week brings!

We have unofficially started potty training the big girls but we're really not putting that much effort into it quite yet. We just put their potty chairs in the bathroom to let the girls become familiar with them. Sometime soon we'll really start working with them on it. I don't mind changing diapers, so I'm not in that big of a hurry. I just want to follow their lead. Each day they become more and more aware of when they're wet or dirty. So we'll keep building on that. Our pediatrician actually said that the harder you try the longer it sometimes takes. So we're just going to let things happen as they will for now.

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T21:01:00.003-05:00

Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween! Here are some pictures from our day...

They got to pick out their pumpkins.

The look of complete awe tells us she found the right one!

Elli began her day as a pumpkin but finished as a ghost.

Adorable.

Livi the giraffe was ready to go.

But Addi the tiger thought tigers needed a snack first.

This is as good as it gets trying to photograph all three.

Elli thought the whole holiday was a hoot!

Too dang cute to be a scary ghost.

Rawr!!!

Do giraffes gallop? Well, she thinks so.

Good night.

I better write now...

2010-10-27T21:33:00.000-05:00

...because I think our computer is petering out on us. So this may or may not be the last post for a while. In fact, I just realized that I can't post pictures because of what's currently going on with the computer. Hmmm.

But speaking of pictures, I finally transferred all of them from the last 2+ years to a flash drive as well as an external hard drive. I've printed very few pictures dating all the way back to the big girls' birth. And wouldn't that be devastating if the computer crashed and I lost all of those?! Ugh, I can't even imagine! So it's taken a computer scare to get my butt in gear and back up all of those pictures.

Anyway, Elli started smiling a little over a week ago. She's been a little bugger though and wouldn't let me catch it with the camera! Of course, until today...when I can't share it anyway! There's nothing like a huge gummy baby smile! I love it!!

She continues to be a very good baby. She wakes up about 3-4 times a night, but she's strictly business most of the time. She generally just wants to be fed and she goes right back to sleep. Of course, she does have her nights where she decides she wants to play when she wakes up. But thankfully, it doesn't happen very often. I'm actually kind of surprised because if you can remember, she NEVER slept while in the womb. She was on the go constantly. I thought for sure she was going to be a lot like her biggest sister in that regard and I'm so thankful that she's not!! Addi rarely slept. And in fact, she's still not a great sleeper. But Elli takes good naps and sleeps quite well at night. So different than her antics in the middle of the night while I was pregnant with her!!

The only complaint I have about Elliana is that she doesn't reliably take a bottle. It's been tough on me because I don't get much of a break. Not that I need much of a break, but I would sometimes just like to run a few errands without worrying about whether or not she's screaming her little head off because she's hungry (but refusing the bottle). We've tried 2 different nipples for the same bottle and we're now on a different bottle to see if she likes them better.

I have a dentist appointment on Friday and will have a sitter here to watch all three girls. My anxiety has been sky high for over a week now even thinking about it! At least if I'm running errands, I can quickly make it home if I receive a phone call. But I can't just up and leave the dental office. I mean, I could. But I really shouldn't. So please keep your fingers crossed that she either doesn't get hungry while I'm gone or she decides that she's okay with the bottle that day. She doesn't refuse all the time, but she's definitely hit or miss.

In other news, Adalyn recently cut three of her two year molars! It absolutely shocked me for a couple reasons. 1) The bottom molars are "supposed" to come in first. But leave it to Addi...her first two were the top ones! And 2) Livi has *always* held the tooth count lead. So I was watching her more carefully than Addi, especially because her fingers are constantly in her mouth and have been for a couple months now. However, it was Addi who cut the first molar (and second, and third). Just when you think you have them figured out - you don't.

We've been sick

2010-10-22T22:02:00.000-05:00

We've had a sick household over the past week. Elli seems to be the only one who has managed to avoid the sick bug (knock on wood). So here are just a few pictures for now. Hopefully I'll feel up to writing sometime very soon.

Bad day revisited...

2010-10-16T15:25:00.000-05:00

So back to the big girls' 2 year appointment. It was downright awful. Miserable. Terrible. Sad. Once we were called back to the room, we made the journey down the long hallways. We didn't even get halfway to the room and Adalyn started saying "no, no, no" and ran the other way. Then we get in the room, both of them are crying already. We stripped Addi down first for her temperature, weight, height and head circumference. You would've thought that we were breaking her arm! She cried SO hard. When they put the thermometer under her arm, she started yelling "owie, owie!!" When they put her on the scale, she dang near jumped from it back into Nate's arms. So they had to weigh Nate on a traditional scale while holding her and then weigh him alone.

Meanwhile, Alivia took off down the hallway, navigating her twists and turns almost all the way out to the waiting room. How she remembered the maze of halls to get back to Point A is amazing. I get her back to where we need to be and strip her down. The chaos continues. She cries, but not quite as hard. But she's definitely ticked off and/or scared as well.

Did I mention that Elli is joining in on the fun and screaming her little head off? So while Nate is trying to control Addi and I'm trying to control Livi, a poor nurse had to try to console the wee one. I'm glad we had late appointments (on Tuesdays, the peds clinic does after hours appts) so that we weren't entirely disruptive to the entire clinic!

Okay. So we're back in the room. All 3 calmed down and the big girls were playing. Dr K comes in and they're both still doing great. We talked about our questions/concerns, etc. The doc took a look at Livi first. She did pretty well - she just didn't want her ears looked at! Then the doc looked at Addi. Yeah, she wasn't happy. Dr K knew right off the bat that she wouldn't be sitting Addi on the end of the exam table to test her reflexes!! The child was NOT going to sit still.

So both girls got a clean bill of health. BUT, they still had to have their shots. Three of them a piece. Horrible, horrible, horrible. I thought the shots were bad when they were little. I was wrong. When they actually know what pain is and somewhat understand what's going on...then it's bad! It took forever to calm them down. To rip my heart out even more, little Addi is screaming "all done, all done, buh-bye? buh-bye? buh-bye, please?!" Heart-wrenching. Anyway, so they calmed down. But you know what? We weren't done yet. They still had to have a finger poke to check their hemoglobin levels (I guess it's somewhat common for kids this age to be anemic?). So in walks the lab tech and we start the screaming, crying, pleading all over again.

Whew. Done. We took the girls through Hardee's on our way home and bribed them with some french fries. They deserved it. It was a rough hour for all of us!

Anyway. Both of the girls are 35 inches tall putting them right at about the 85th percentile. Adalyn weighed 26 pounds even (45%) and Alivia was 27lbs 4oz (60%). And while we were there, we had Elli weighed simply because I'm concerned about how frequently she vomits. I swear that I am constantly feeding and refeeding her. I feed her, burp her, she throws up, so I refeed her (because she acts super hungry), burp her, she throws up...rinse and repeat. Luckily, my refeeding efforts are paying off. At one month old she weighed in at 9lbs 12oz. What's kinda weird to me is that my little Adalyn only weighed 9lbs 10oz at TWO months old! Of course, Elli got a nice little jump start with her birth weight!

So yeah. It was a long, tiring, painful day. I've decided that from here on out, Elli will NOT be going with us to the big girls' appts. And I'm actually going to schedule the girls at different times and only take one at a time. I'll take one before nap and then one after. I think they played into each other too much and therefore, cried even harder, louder, and longer. Granted, the shots hurt, but there wasn't a huge need to be crying while getting weighed or even getting undressed for that matter!

Pictures to come. And more about little Elliana...oh, and teeth, too!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Adalyn and Alivia!

2010-10-13T22:12:00.003-05:00

I don't even have the words. Where have the last two years gone?! Just like last year, I sang Happy Birthday to the girls at 7:05 and 7:33 this morning. Oh, and I threw in a Happy 1 month Birthday song to Elli at 7:25 while I was at it!! The big girls actually weren't even awake yet, so I essentially sang it to myself. Elli was laying next to me, but she was still sleeping too. Yeah, I'm crazy. But I remember singing to the big girls last year at the time that they were born...so I figured I'd keep the very short tradition going!!

And of course, I cried. I really would've hated to see how much I would've cried if I was just one or two weeks post partum. I generally don't cry a lot. Never really have. But wow, the couple weeks after having a baby are rough! The simplest little things had me melting into a puddle of tears. So let's just be thankful that Elli was a month old today and most of those hormones have exited my body. Otherwise I'd probably still be crying!!

Because Elli is being baptized next month, we decided to do a joint Baptism and birthday party all at once so that our out of town family (which is everyone!) doesn't have to make the trip twice. Turns out that most of them made the trip anyway! Nate's mom, sister, and our niece came over the weekend. So we had a little party in honor of their birthday...complete with gift opening and yummy cupcakes. Then today my mom, dad, and both of my grandmas came to visit. We had another mini celebration with ice cream cups. Enjoy the pictures.

Hmmm. Interesting.

Would somebody PUH-LEASE help me get this thing started?!

Modeling their cheerleading outfits and pom-poms.

Adalyn had the right idea.

And did quite well!

Alivia HAD the right idea.

And then decided to say screw it...I'm drinking it!

They had their 2 year appointment yesterday. It was far too traumatic to write about in their birthday blog. So that's a different post for a different day. Happy Birthday my sweet little "babies" - mommy loves you so much!! Good night.

My little monkeys

2010-10-10T21:22:00.001-05:00

The big girls go through phases where they hate bananas and want absolutely nothing to do with them. And then they have their days where they simply can't get enough! We recently found out that if we leave the peels on the bananas, they suddenly become more interesting! They each downed about a banana and a half when we left the peels on for them. So...out of a desperate desire to get the big girls to eat better, I kept this tactic in mind. I went to the store and tried buying some Go-Gurt yogurt thinking that it would be more "fun" for them to eat it out of a tube than with a bowl and spoon. Yeah, epic fail. Still can't get them to touch yogurt with a 10 foot pole. Ugh. So the food battle continues.

Elli is fantastic. She's pretty much a complete 180 from what the girls were. Knock on wood, but she continues to sleep pretty well. Last night she had an almost 5 hour stretch of sleep! To put that into perspective, I have an almost two year old who still struggles to sleep for 5 hours straight! As with any baby, she does have some fussy moments during the day, but overall, she's such a great baby.

However, because she doesn't cry that often, little Adalyn tends to get freaked out by it. If the big girls are taking a nap or are in bed for the night and Elli has "a moment," Addi tends to wake up absolutely screaming. So we usually have to get her in order to calm her down. We have a white noise machine running in their room, but she's hearing Elli over that. On the other hand, Livi sleeps right through it (thank God). The odd thing is that Adalyn will sleep through Alivia's little whimpers and random musings in the middle of the night (the girl sometimes likes to carry on conversations at 2am), but she can't sleep through Elliana's cries. I think it's simply because she's used to Livi's voice and cries, but she hasn't heard Elli cry enough quite yet...which I guess is kind of a good thing?!

In a complete change of subject, I'm stressing over 2 year pictures. The girls are turning two in just a few days and I want to get our usual pictures taken of them together as well as them individually. But I also want to get pictures taken of all three together and a nice family picture. Trying to coordinate outfits is NOT easy!! Ugh. I was hoping to get all three girls into matching outfits, but I don't think it's going to happen. So I'm still trying to throw something together in the next couple of weeks for them to wear...then comes the challenge of dressing Nate and myself as well!

Snoozin' in her swing.

Getting ready for a bath.

Elli vs Addi and Livi

2010-10-03T16:31:00.000-05:00

So I know I mentioned before that there were striking similarities between Elli's birth and the girls' birth. In fact, the similarities are actually kinda scary.

With the "big girls" I went into labor on a Sunday the 12th, during a Packer game, and they were born on Monday morning the 13th. And with Elli (yep, you guessed it!), I went into labor on Sunday the 12th, during the Packer game, and she was born on Monday morning the 13th! The girls were born at 7:05 and 7:33am. Miss Elliana arrived right in the middle at 7:25am!! How crazy is that?

Those were the biggest similarities. But there were plenty of smaller similarities as well.

1) Both of the deliveries took place in room 348.

2) When I was admitted in labor with the big girls, Tess and Lynsey had to stay late in order to "tag team" my admission. When I was admitted in labor with Elli, the first person I saw when I got off the elevator was Tess. And Lynsey ended up being my labor nurse!!

3) All of the girls scored a 9 and then a 10 on their Apgars. And in both instances, the nurses said that they rarely give a score of a 10. But all three of my girls were able to score tens!

4) Oh yes, I checked into the hospital between 10:30 and 11:00pm with both deliveries.

5) The day after the big girls were born, Nate's best friend, Bill, came to visit us. And while he was there, the priest from our parish came to visit. Well wouldn't ya know it - the day after Elli was born, our priest came to visit. He wasn't in the room longer than 3 minutes and in walks Bill!!

I remember there being a couple other things that were the same as well. But of course I can't remember them right now! Oh well.

Elli's stretching out trying to be as big as the girls!

Adalyn's the winner

2010-09-29T20:24:00.000-05:00

The winner of what you may ask? Well, she was the first one to make Elli cry. We knew it would happen some time. We just didn't know when or who would be the culprit. Thankfully, it wasn't anything malicious and it was a pure accident.

Elli was actually laying in my lap on Monday night when Addi went running past me with a soccer ball. It simply fell out of her hands and bopped Elli on the head from about 3-4 inches away. I think it scared her more than anything else because she was just starting to drift off to sleep. Poor Addi felt so bad. Her demeanor changed and she became very, very sad. We just explained to her that accidents happen and that we just need to be careful around the baby. But for the rest of the night, she really wasn't in a playful mood.

Miss Elliana had her two week appointment on Monday as well. She has officially surpassed her birth weight. She was 8lbs 8oz two days ago and they measured her to be 22 inches!! Hmmm. She was measured at 20 1/2 inches at birth. Something tells me that she didn't grow an inch and a half in two weeks! I actually think she's somewhere in between simply based on how her sleepers fit. Oh well, measuring an infant is such an inexact science - lay them on a table and try to force their leg straight. Not easy to do.

We're still here, I promise

2010-09-26T20:49:00.001-05:00

We're still doing well. The girls have adjusted quite nicely to having Elli around. I'm hoping we might bypass any jealousy issues because the big girls are used to sharing time with us. They've never had us all to themselves...all they've ever known is that there was another diaper to change, another mouth to feed, another child to play with, etc. So hopefully they'll continue to be very understanding that Elli has needs that need to be met as well.

Today was my due date. I can say with 100% certainty that the past two weeks flew by. Now on the other hand, if I would've still been pregnant, they would've dragged by at snail's pace. My back was quickly failing me and I had such a hard time even doing the simple things for the girls...changing their diapers, feeding them, etc. Nevermind actually trying to play with them! And I'm so incredibly glad that Elliana decided not to "bake" much longer. They say that babies gain about 1/2 a pound a week in the last few weeks. So if she had stayed put, she definitely would've been well over 9 pounds! No thanks.

The big girls make me laugh so much. They absolutely love watching themselves on video. I think they would do it for hours if we let them! Anytime I take out the video camera to catch them doing something or to videotape Elli, they have to immediately see what was filmed. Then I have to go back to previous videos so that they can watch more. And boy do they laugh! It's honestly so cute!

Addi just got done giving me "the look"

Livi was running from daddy when it was time for a diaper change!

Elli doesn't exactly like to be burped.

Mommy spiked my hair after my bath!

Elli's foot next to Addi's.

And Elli's next to Livi's.

Has it been a week already?!

2010-09-20T21:32:00.000-05:00

At this pace, Elli is going to be as big as the girls in no time at all! I can't believe my newest baby is a week old already. I say "newest baby" because I have a hard time letting go of the fact that the older girls are no longer babies...they're toddlers. They still seemed pretty small to me until I brought Elli home from the hospital. All of a sudden, I realized just how BIG their hands and feet are. They're definitely not babies anymore.

Miss Elliana had her follow-up weight check today. She gained 3 ounces in the last 3 days. So she's back to 8 pounds even, which was the weight she was discharged from the hospital at. The nurse said that she's still looking a bit yellow. But since she's now gaining weight, they decided not to redraw her bilirubin levels. And I was so thankful! Who wants to see their newborn get poked in the heel with a needle? I'm still waiting on some sun in this neck of the woods. I think her jaundice would probably be gone by now if we hadn't had a week straight of clouds and rain. All she needs is a little sun!!!

We go back to the doctor in 1 week for her first official well baby visit.

Sleeping in her carseat. It's a safe place to put her so she doesn't get stepped on!

With Uncle Jason.

And with Aunt Chelsea.

What a precious little girl. So peaceful.

Elli's first bath. She wasn't exactly fond of it!

We got a brand new washer and dryer. The girls like the box!

I'm realizing that it's much easier to take pictures of a sleeping newborn than two active toddlers! I feel bad posting so many pictures of Elli and not a whole lot of Addi and Livi. But if they would sit still for just two minutes, I could snap a few pictures of their lovely faces! I simply don't have the energy to chase them down right now.

Elli update

2010-09-18T21:37:00.001-05:00

Bottom line is...she's wonderful. She's such a good baby. She eats well. She sleeps well. And well, that's about all she does at this point. But she's a content little one. The girls were chaos from the time we brought them home. They didn't eat. Therefore, they didn't sleep because their little bellies were talking to them all the time. Honestly, it was downright miserable. But little Miss Elli is a dream.

I had a lactation appointment yesterday. Before I was discharged from the hospital, the nurse was going over my discharge instructions. She told me the date and time of the appointment and followed it with "please bring your baby with you to this appt." I had to interrupt her and ask if she seriously had to tell me that. Do women actually show up to a lactation appointment without their baby?! Hmmm.

Anyway. Elliana nurses like a champ. Which is such a far cry from the girls. We were lucky enough to keep them awake for a full two minutes to eat before they zonked out. In all honesty, they probably could've cared less if I didn't feed them for a week. But Elli is a great little eater. She'll stay awake long enough to actually fill her belly...usually anywhere between 20 to 45 minutes. Her weight did drop a bit more, but she's still in the good range. She was 8lbs 7oz when she was born. When we were discharged, she was an even 8lbs. And yesterday she was 7lbs 13oz. They expect babies to lose between 5-10% of their body weight and right now she's at about 7%. So she's doing just fine. We'll actually head back to the clinic on Monday just for another weight check. By then, she'll probably have started the upward swing.

The nurse did notice that she was looking a bit yellow at the appointment. So afterwards, she ordered a bilirubin lab draw just to make sure she wasn't too jaundice. Her level came back on the high end of normal for a 4 day old. Dr K just told us to keep an eye on her over the weekend and if she started to look a bit more yellow I needed to call the on call physician. Now if only we could get some sun around here, I'd be laying her by the patio window! But all it wants to do is rain and/or be overcast.

The waiting game ended!

2010-09-16T21:49:00.001-05:00

On September 13th, we welcomed another little baby girl into this world! Little Elliana Jo made her appearance at 7:25am weighing 8lbs 7oz and 20 1/2 inches long. She's just the sweetest little girl. And she has so much hair!!

We came home yesterday and the girls have been absolutely awesome with her. I just hope it lasts! When she cries, they both try to give her a nuk. They already know which blanket belongs to her and are constantly giving it to me or Nate if we're holding her and she's not wrapped up in it. They "pet" her nicely. They've just been so great.

Here are some quick pictures of the newest little munchkin. All of the girls are currently sleeping, so I should probably get some sleep myself. We're still settling in to a routine. After that happens, I'll have to share the story about Elli's birth and the amazing similarities it had with the girls' birth!!

Just 5 minutes old.

Fresh outta the bath.

Look at those long toes!!

So comfy.

Starting to be more alert.

But still likes to sleep too!

Just arrived home and the girls are showing some interest!

Addi trying to give Elli a nuk.

Livi giving Elli a hug.

Food coma.

The waiting game begins

2010-09-11T20:18:00.000-05:00

I'm officially done with work until after my maternity leave. My last day was on Thursday. So now the waiting game begins. I'm hoping Baby J decides to make his entrance sooner rather than later just because I don't want to waste several weeks being off of work with no baby!

I purchased one package of newborn diapers. I didn't want to buy too many because I'm still thinking that I'm going to have a gigantic baby and won't even really need newborn diapers. But I wanted a few on hand just in case. And ummm, I'm not sure how we're going to diaper this baby without breaking him!! They seem sooooo tiny! I know we did it with the girls and everything. And they were actually in newborn size for over 6 weeks I think. But man! I just don't know how we're going to diaper that little butt!

The newborn diaper compared to the girls' size 4.

I also bought three newborn outfits for little boys and two for little girls. Nate and I just have to decide which outfit we like the best for the baby to come home in. If the baby is a boy, we *might* keep the other outfits (depending on how big he is). But if the baby is a girl, she really won't need anymore clothes since we have so many outfits and sleepers from when the girls were newborns.

Speaking of the girls. With the change in weather we've had, I had to do some clothes shopping for them. With all this shopping I've been doing, you'd think I actually like it...yeah, I don't. But the girls needed some fall clothes. We tried putting their spring clothes on them since their birthday is just a month away and they'll probably get more clothes then. But their pants looked like high water pants and their shirts showed off their little bellies. Everything is simply too small. What's frustrating is that they're wearing 2T in some things and 3T in others! And THAT is why I don't like shopping. It wouldn't be such a painful experience for me if all sizes were the same across the board...no matter the brand. So I have several returns I have to make. Blech. But the good news is that the girls are now outfitted for the cooler weather that made its entrance.

I'm way behind

2010-09-06T20:47:00.006-05:00

So I'll update about my last OB appointment first. I saw Dr L on Friday (yes, three full days ago). Everything is going well with both me and the baby. My blood pressure was excellent and I was measuring at 36 weeks which was right on track. The baby's heartrate was 162bpm. Dr L checked to see if I've made any progress toward having this baby and I found out that I'm about 3cm dilated. I'm trying not to get too excited about that because with the girls, I stayed stuck at 3cm for quite a long time. In fact, I even had a 72 hour stretch where I contracted every 3 minutes quite painfully and it wasn't until my water broke that I progressed any further. So yes, 3cm is progress, but this baby could still be a couple weeks away! Bummer.

Dr L and I discussed the possible size of this baby. I think the baby has the potential of being fairly large because he was measuring quite big at my 28 week ultrasound and ummmm...I love sugar. Dr L doesn't think that he's going to be *that* large because I'm measuring right on track for my dates. If he was going to be quite large, she would expect me to be measuring a couple weeks ahead and I'm not. So we'll see. I just worry because at just over 37 weeks when the girls were born, Alivia weighed 6#15oz. If this baby is following her growth curve and I actually make it close to the due date, I could really be looking at a 9 pound or more baby! And actually, this baby was measuring a 1/2 pound bigger than Livi at the 28 week ultrasound. So yeah. I just don't want to "miss" my tiny little newborn. I'll take a nice little 7 1/2 to 8 pound baby. *smiles*

We're definitely nearing the end. In fact, I only have 3 days left of work and then I'm done until after maternity leave. Only THREE days! Wow. Actually, I wish I could skip the last few days. I'm getting so sick of answering so many questions to all the ER patients checking in. I feel like I want to hang a sign around my neck that says "I'm due in xxx weeks. No, we don't know if it's a boy or a girl. No, it's not my first, it's my third. No, I don't have one of each at home, I have two girls. No, just because I have two girls doesn't mean we are hoping that this baby is a boy." I mean come on people. I don't know you. YOU are the patient checking in. Let's not discuss my obstetrical history. I feel like wearing a mumu dress for my last few days to somewhat conceal the belly.

But speaking of a gender preference for the baby...

I set up an online baby poll for some family and friends to participate in. And I find it quite interesting that out of the 10 current guesses (myself included), only ONE person guessed that the baby would be a girl!!! So my question is...is it just wishful thinking that this baby is going to be a boy? Or do they honestly think that the baby is a boy?

I guess we'll find out in hopefully no more than 3 weeks if the majority vote is right!!

Just some pictures!

2010-08-30T20:10:00.000-05:00

Eating chips at their brand new picnic table. Don't worry, they're baked lays!! I only give them healthy chips! Ha.

The couch is apparently not big enough for both of them.

Livi watching the animals at the zoo.

Addi pointing at the tigers (or lions as she calls them).

Alivia doing her crazy dance.

I asked her to smile - instead, she breathed in real deeply and said "pee-eww!"

Looked away at the very last second.

Addi had to get face to face with the tiger. If you look closely, you can see the tiger and they're staring each other down. The girl has no fear!

Walking with daddy.

To-Do List

2010-08-28T17:23:00.000-05:00

I feel like my list isn't getting any shorter. This baby is going to be here soon, and we have so much to get done yet!!

1) Name the baby!! If Baby J is a girl, I think we *might* have the name finalized. But if Baby J is a boy, then we have a problem. We're really struggling there.

2) Pack my hospital bag! With all the preterm labor I had last time, it was packed and in the car 3 months before I was due. This time, not so much. I really better get on that.

3) Do some car seat jockeying in the baby bus. Both of the girls' seats need to be moved to different locations and the baby seat needs to be installed.

4) Finish cleaning out the nursery. There are still a few things that need to go - a TV, a box of CDs and a couple other miscellaneous things.

5) Unbox (is that even a word?) some of the gender neutral baby clothes we have and wash them. I will probably wash a couple of the pink outfits we have too just in case.

6) Sterilize the new bottles we bought for the baby as well as all the bottles and parts for the pump. I'm hoping not to have to pump as much as I did with the girls, so hopefully we won't even need the bottles right away (or for quite a while), but I better have them ready just in case.

7) Bring the baby swing, bouncy seat and one of the carseats upstairs. And then wash the linings on all three things. After sitting in the basement for over a year, I want to make sure they smell really fresh for the new baby.

8) Find the missing Tigger from the mobile. At some point, we removed a couple of the little Winnie the Pooh animals from the girls' mobiles and let them play with them. Well, we are now missing one Pooh and both Tiggers. Hmmm. We have two Eeyores, two Piglets, and one Pooh. The others are MIA. The mobile just won't be complete without Tigger!!

I'm sure there's more, but I'm already overwhelmed.

35 weeks

2010-08-22T20:39:00.001-05:00

I'm 35 weeks today. I had another OB appointment a couple days ago. I passed inspection right away. However, the baby didn't. When Dr L listened to him with the doppler, his heartrate was beating far too fast at about 185bpm. It's supposed to be under 160. Dr L just said that sometimes she catches the baby right after he was moving around for a bit and that that would account for the increased pace. Immediately after saying that, the baby stuck its little butt high in the air at her...and then continued to move around for the next 5 minutes. Finally, he started to calm down and his heartrate came down nicely with the slowed movements - right to about the 140s to 150s. What a stinker!

I'm really trying to enjoy these final weeks of this pregnancy. But it's been sooo incredibly difficult. In addition to the back pain, I have pretty bad sciatica running down my right leg. Yeah, I don't look very attractive as I'm dragging my right leg down the hallway at work. Sometimes if I pivot the wrong way, my whole leg almost gives out on me and I almost hit the floor. Dr L actually prescribed some Tylenol #3 which I'm so up in the air about taking. This baby already gets enough Zantac as is. I don't really want to be giving him anything else! She also said that we could talk about/schedule an induction for 39 weeks. I told her that I really don't want to do that because I would rather this baby just be ready to come on his own, whenever that may be. The only way I may consider an induction is if the pain gets so bad that I'm unable to move at all or interact with the girls. If it gets to the point that I'm really struggling to feed them or play with them, then I'll seriously have to think about the induction.

In slightly funnier news, try convincing the lady answering the phone at a Chinese restaurant that you would like an order of chicken and broccoli - without the chicken. Nate and I ordered Chinese last night. And when he made the order, the lady on the phone with her little accent replied with "haha, is this a joke?" Nate told her that his wife is pregnant and right away she said "ahhhhhh. Well, we have mixed vegetable." When Nate asked if it was made with the same type of sauce she replied with "we'll make you chicken and broccoli, no chicken." Apparently it's not a very popular order! Ha!

3rd and final pregnant survey

2010-08-17T10:20:00.000-05:00

How far along? over 34 weeks!

Total weight gain/loss: More than I had hoped! I'm up about 26 pounds. I only gained 33 with the girls, so I was hoping to maybe only gain about 25 by the end of this pregnancy. However, I love my sweets much more during this pregnancy than I did with the last. And the fact that my girls are terrible eaters hasn't helped one bit. I'm one of those people who has a hard time throwing things away. So if my girls don't eat it, guess who does?! Half a sandwich here, a piece of pizza there, some scrambled eggs that weren't even touched, etc. It all adds up. Oops.

Maternity clothes? Uhhhh...yeah.

Stretch marks? No new ones that I've been able to identify. Not that I'm really looking or would really even be able to tell anyway.

Sleep: Still on the couch most nights. But otherwise, sleep in general is really lacking. If baby is not moving, he's got the hiccups. I tried to go to bed at 9pm last night and finally got to sleep at 11:30pm. And of course up just an hour later to go to the bathroom.

Best moment this week: The girls kissing my belly. I don't think they really understand what's going on, but I think they definitely know that this big old protruding belly is not normal for mommy!!

Movement: This baby continues to be very, very active. In fact, I've concluded that the baby still has major movements when he's sleeping. It's almost around the clock that there's some tapping or bouncing going on.

Food cravings: Okay, so I'll admit it. I'm a Jelly Belly addict. I hide them and I don't tell the full truth about my consumption of them. I'm plain old addicted.

Gender: Still a surprise!!!

Labor Signs: Contractions are picking up a bit. Most continue to be relatively painless. But I think my body is gearing up.

Belly Button in or out? Does half and half count? Depending on baby's movement, he can push it out for a bit.

What I miss: Sleep. Foods that taste normal. Sleep. Not having back pain. Did I mention sleep?

What I'm looking forward to: I'm finally getting excited to meet this baby. Not that I wasn't excited to meet this baby before. But it was too early to meet him. I mean, it's still a bit early, but we're really close to the end! So knowing that we're approaching the "safe" time to have him, the excitement is starting to build!

Weekly Wisdom: Pregnant brain (and probably a whole lot of sleep deprivation!) have struck in full force once again, and therefore, I have no wisdom...again.

Milestones: Now that I'm over 34 weeks, I can deliver in our local hospital.

Me at exactly 34 weeks.

And just for comparison's sake. 34 weeks with the girls. So even though I feel huge, I am MUCH smaller than I was at this point last time. Heck, I was falling out of my shirt!!

I know I've been slacking

2010-08-14T20:14:00.000-05:00

I've just been so stinking tired. I have absolutely no motivation at all. So I apologize. My back has been killing me the past couple of weeks (which I know will only get worse), so sitting at the computer has not been easy. Heck, sitting anywhere hasn't been easy!

Anyway. We took the girls downtown today to Summerfest. They each received a balloon right when we got there. Adalyn successfully popped hers within seconds. And Alivia let hers fly away shortly after that. So we migrated over to the petting zoo. The girls were really excited to see the animals, but not quite as excited to touch them! Alivia actually did much better than I thought she would and Adalyn was a bit more hesitant which really shocked me.

By the time the ponies were ready to ride, it had gotten way too hot and we were quickly approaching the girls' nap time. So we had to leave. But maybe next year they'll get to ride their first pony!!

Livi trying to touch the guinea pigs.

And also admiring the big turtle.

Addi taking a peek at the tiny chickens.

Both girls watching the chickens.

Addi had just touched the goat.

Empty Nest

2010-08-07T19:13:00.000-05:00

I've had the house to myself all weekend and I'm not exactly sure how I feel about it. Nate took the girls to his parents' house yesterday, so today is my second night at home alone. I've had to work all weekend, but when I come home at 5:30, there's no one here. In ways, I'm enjoying it. For example, yesterday I came home, laid down on the couch right away and fell asleep for about 20 minutes while watching the news. But in other ways, this is too strange for me. It's eerily quiet. I find that I'm shutting the bathroom door behind me out of pure habit and I'm actually sitting on the couch right now blogging instead of at the table. It's all just odd.

So yes, the rest and relaxation has been nice. I'm definitely at the point in the pregnancy where I'm coming home from work pretty exhausted and being able to lie down on the couch without any toddlers jumping on me is great. But I also miss my girls. However, I'll be headed to work tomorrow morning and when I get home tomorrow night they'll be here waiting for me. Then I'll probably wish I had just one more day to myself!!

I had another OB appt a few days ago. Everything continues to look good. I measured 33 weeks - which is great since I'm going to be exactly 33 weeks tomorrow. The baby's heartrate was about 160bpm. I saw the resident first and he thought that Baby J might be head down, which I was pretty excited about. When Dr L came in, she wasn't entirely sure that the baby was head down. She thought he might be, but she said she couldn't be positive. And because the resident had already ventured a guess and because she wanted to confirm his assessment, she pulled the ultrasound machine in...sure enough, Baby J is indeed head down! Yay! So hopefully he stays that way now!!

My contractions have been picking up quite a bit lately. In fact, one night within the past week I was contracting every 4 minutes for about 2-3 hours. They ended up decreasing in frequency, so I tried not to worry about it too much. I ran it past Dr L at my appt and she decided to check me really quick. I'm about 1cm dilated, but she's not really concerned because she said it can be normal in women who've already had a baby. So I'll just have my regularly scheduled appt in 2 weeks. By then I'll be just shy of 35 weeks and winding down to the end!!!

Dog days of summer

2010-08-03T17:41:00.000-05:00

We went to the park but didn't last long - it was way too hot.

So we went home and had popcicles instead!

Adalyn preferred to lick hers...

Alivia thought biting it was a better technique.

Sleep and Sign Language

2010-07-30T20:59:00.001-05:00

We're over a week into the girls' new night time routine. With the new baby on the way, we had to make a change to how we got the girls to bed at night. The old routine essentially entailed two adults being in the house (we could do it with one, but it wasn't pleasant) so that both of the girls could simultaneously be cuddled and rocked until they were sufficiently sleepy to be put in their cribs. We generally put Alivia in her crib first since she was the better sleeper and more likely to drift off faster. And then Adalyn would follow about 15 minutes later. This routine often took at least half an hour to complete and upwards of an hour and a half if one or both of the girls were really fighting sleepy time.

So. The new routine pretty much mirrors nap time and it only takes one adult to be here!! We start winding down, diapers get changed, they get their pajamas on, etc. Eventually we just say "okay girls, time for night-night" and we walk down the hall to their room. Sometimes they follow and sometimes we have to go find where they're hiding! The first couple of nights, they went down without a fuss at all. I think they were confused and honestly thought that it was just nap time...anyone can survive 2 hours of sleep, right? By night three, they caught on that it was a little darker in their room than at nap time and that the humidifier was running instead of their lullaby music. So we had quite the protest. And the protests continued for the next few nights.

Tonight is night nine. And although I had to go find Adalyn hiding behind the couch and Alivia hiding behind the snackbar stool, they went down without a fight. They just giggled when I finally caught them. Stinkers. It's been a blessing to have transitioned to this new routine, not only because the new baby will be here shortly and it would be hard to cuddle both toddlers if the baby needed to be fed. But it has freed up the other adult to get stuff done...be it yardwork, the grocery shopping (what Nate is actually doing right now), or other miscellaneous chores. Personally, I do miss my cuddle time with the girls, so I try to get a little bit more of it during the day when I'm home...sometimes they're willing participants and sometimes they're not!

But in regards to sign language, the girls surprised us today. We took both of them to Target to do some shopping. When they ride in the car, they're typically watching Baby Einstein or something similar on the DVD player. I was driving while Nate was sitting in the back with them. And wouldn't ya know it, but they both signed chair, table and cup!! Okay, so some parents of toddlers wouldn't think that's a big deal because their toddlers have been doing it for a long time and know plenty of words or whatever. But sign language is not something Nate and I have EVER worked on with the girls. EVER. They simply watch their videos in the car while we're bumming around town and that's it. And if both of us are in the car with them, we point out the objects that the videos are showing, such as ball, car, dog, fence, sidewalk, refrigerator, you name it. We focus on annunciating the given object correctly and repeat it a few times to them. Never once have we ever made the associated arm and hand motions that the little lady on the video does. But the girls have picked up on it anyway! We were pretty impressed. It's still not something we will purposefully teach them, but if they pick up some sign language along the way, then that's absolutely fine!

30 week appointment

2010-07-22T19:44:00.000-05:00

I had my 30 week appointment yesterday. Everything continues to go well. There's actually not much to report. It was a pretty straight forward visit. There weren't any special tests or procedures done so I was in and out pretty fast. My blood pressure is low and I'm measuring 30 weeks. I did measure how big around I am and I'm about 38 inches. I was 40 inches with the girls at this time.

After I was done with my appointment, I had to go straight to the dental office. Wouldn't ya know it, but I chipped my stinkin' bottom tooth a couple nights ago! I had originally done it 6 years ago and it ended up letting loose. I'm just glad that it was the bottom one and not the top front tooth that I chipped back when I was in the 4th grade. (I thought I was a pretty good ice skater...yeah, I wasn't) The bottom tooth is only about an eighth of my tooth. On the other hand, the top tooth is about half of my tooth and not as easily concealed. Oh, and much more painful because the chip is so large that it exposes the open nerve! So if one of them had to let loose, I'm glad it was the bottom one. But I'm happy to say that I now have a full smile once again. Yay!

All about the "big kids"

2010-07-19T20:43:00.000-05:00

The girls. Where do I even begin?

Adalyn continues to learn more words every day. Her new favorite phrase is "go away." Over the weekend, she was antagonizing my grandma's dog. And when the dog would come near her she would then say "go away." The only place we think she learned it from is the few times that our cat, Desi, comes near us when we're busy and we say "Desi, go away." It's actually kinda scary what they pick up on! Addi will mimick almost anything you say. Or she'll at least attempt to!

Alivia has become mom and dad's little helper. She loves helping put all the toys away, she tries to help change Addi's diaper, and she always has to throw the diapers in the trash for us. She's somewhat like a little puppy, and we love her for it!! If we say jump, she jumps. If we say run, she'll run. If we ask her to show us where her feet, eyes, hands, knees, or whatever are, she'll show us. This is completely opposite of Adalyn who won't do anything on demand. Addi will only do things on her own terms...if you ask her to do something, you can almost guarantee that she won't......

Except! There's always an exception, right? The girls are now fascinated with giving each other high fives and kisses. If we just simply say "high fives" or "kisses" they both seek each other out. I have to try to catch it on video. It's so adorable. Watching them try to line up their hands or their lips is priceless. It takes a little effort. We're just waiting for the time that one of them smacks the other in the face while trying to give a high five!

I've been called out on my lack of posting belly pictures with this pregnancy (you know who you are!!). So I figured I'd share the one that was taken yesterday at exactly 30 weeks.

Whew, it's over!

2010-07-15T17:17:00.002-05:00

I took the dreaded 3 hour gestational diabetes test on Tuesday. I didn't expect it to be pleasant, but I didn't expect to feel as awful as I did either!! I had to be fasting for about 10 hours leading up to the test. I wasn't scheduled to have my first lab draw until 11am (by choice because I needed someone here to watch the girls), so I got up after midnight to get a little something to eat knowing it would feel like an eternity until I could eat again.

So I got there and they drew my fasting blood sugar. Then I had to drink the most sugary orange "pop" I've ever had to drink! Eeew. An hour later they drew my blood again and I was still feeling pretty good. But during the next hour, I seriously started to feel like I was going to throw up. And if you throw up, you need to repeat the test again on another day. So I was determined to keep it all down! I think my body was so confused. I hadn't eaten in over 12 hours, so I was light headed and dizzy from that. But then you get slammed with 100 grams of sugar all at once, so I kind of felt like I wanted to run a few miles!

Anyway, I had to go lay down in the car before I had the 2 hour and the 3 hour draw. I felt terrible! Turns out that I passed with flying colors. In fact, my numbers were so low that they're not sure how I failed the first test! My fasting blood sugar was 75 (it needed to be between 70-99). My one hour was 107 with a range being 70-189. And my two hour was 95 with a range of 70-164. I didn't get the results of my last draw before I left, but it really doesn't matter. I could've failed one out of the four and still "passed" the test. So the last draw was irrelevent.

Yay! I get to keep eating what I want!! But on the subject of food, I've noticed something really strange with this pregnancy. About a month ago I first noticed that our peanut butter was tasting funny. Nate had just bought a new jar of Skippy (which is my preferred brand) and I said right away that it tasted like it was made with peanuts that were badly burned. So during his next grocery trip, I asked him to get a jar of Jif. I was afraid to get another jar of Skippy because I didn't want it to be from the same "bad batch." Turns out that the Jif smelled and tasted the same way! My mom confirmed that our peanut butter is fine. And my coworkers confirmed that the peanut butter at work is also fine. So it's just my tastebuds.

Over the last month, I've noticed many other things tasting "weird" to me. Yogurt, ranch dressing, corn, some potatoes (unfortunately, french fries still taste fine!!), cottage cheese, etc. I never experienced this when I was pregnant with the girls. I had an aversion to chicken, which I also have with this pregnancy, but I never experienced the taste changes...where I really wanted something but couldn't eat it due to the bad taste. My taste buds better revert back to normal at some point because let's face it, I LOVE my peanut butter!!

Here are a couple pictures of the girls. I'll update on them soon.

Addi loves wearing this hoodie.

Apparently Livi was hot. She laid down right over the AC vent.

Playing with their water table in their new swimming suits from Grandma and Grandpa J.