Television

I don't allow too much tv time but I have caved a little and allow some Disney Jr. and Super Why.  This morning we were VERY concerned about some puzzle pieces on Little Einsteins.  We watched it at 7:00 am and we are still talking about it hours later.
We have two disney channels so I thought I would see what we are so worried about so we watched the same episode on the west coast station and we are even more concerned this time!  They are constantly getting in my face with a worried face and a raised voice about the puzzle pieces.  We are even participating in the motions to help.  HILARIOUS!

Getting Older

This week I became "Mom", not Mama by Apple.  This better not be permanent!  He is in a big baby kick right now so at least he still wants me to pick him up and snuggle him!

Boo is way into electronics right now, and so good at using them!  She knows how to unlock my phone, go into applications and find her Super Why!  I can not believe it!

 

Summer Fun!

I don't want summer to ever end!  I don't know what we will do when the snow falls!
Because we are going to Florida and will be so busy while we are there, I am trying to keep the kids busy all the time working up to it.  The busier Apple is, the worse he sleeps.

Grandma made me sugar free jell-o cake for my birthday and let the kids try some!

Hopefully this will keep up! I love the way this kid chills!

Cookies

My kids have never had a cookie.  Is that weird to you or are you like me?  I have finally allowed a bit of ice cream.  Apple still needs a lot of fattening up yet I would rather do it the "healthy" way with avocados and lots of milk!
Last night I decided that it was time for them to have a cookie so I thought we would start with homemade at least and do an oatmeal raisin.  A little healthy right?!  They have not had candy or chocolate and I am no where near ready to try that yet but oatmeal I can handle.
Half-way through baking I felt my anxiety rising and rising and realized I am just not ready for them to have cookies yet.  They don't know what they are missing and don't I want to keep it that way as long as I can?!
As I quietly told my husband, he was previously excited to hear I was "finally" going to let them eat cookies, I felt so much better and made the rest of the cookies for his work.
I know Apple needs to fatten up but don't I want to continue with healthier ways while I can before they can make more of their own decisions?
I feel good about my decision.  After talking with Kev for awhile, he understands as well.....for now.

Start of Summer!

It has been a busy start to our summer!  Now that the weather is nice we are less likely to get sick and we can be out in the world more without it landing us in the hospital for a weekend!
I think because we are out doing more it seems like they are getting old fast....they are becoming more like kids and less like babies....boo!
We started our summer literally at Start of Summer Celebration and rode our first roller coaster!

We also celebrated Grandma's birthday!

We also took a road trip to the zoo to see some giraffes for Father's Day weekend!
 

And ride a carousal!

We've also done a little of this...

Whatever comes next this summer, we are ready!

First Sprinkler

Apple's First Real Haircut

It had to be done, Apple has become a big boy!
His hair was just getting to long in the back and even though Danielle was on maternity leave still, we couldn't wait.
Tara did a wonderful job and made him stay as much of my baby as she could.
Apple didn't hate the process but he wasn't overly thrilled about it either.  I'm fine with that!

Apple's First Haircut

Apple finally got a haircut!  I wasn't ready to give him a full big boy haircut so we just trimmed the back and around the ears.

He did a great job!  He sat on his daddy's lap and smiled the whole time!

I had been trying to wait to have the front grow in before I cut it all but that is just not happening!  Little lovies!

The New Year

Happy New Year!  We have lots of exciting things happening in our family....Apple learned Da, Mama, and No!  Boo now has added Da to her very extensive vocabulary including giraffe, star, bow, frog and she knows what Santa, an elephant and an owl says!  So cute!
We also will have a new addition this March, my sister-in-law is pregnant and we can't wait to meet the new little one.  When she goes back to teaching in the fall, we will be watching the baby three days a week and we are all excited!
We have a couple of resolutions in our house this year, one for me is to finally lose this baby weight, my tummy still has a bulge where Boo stuck out!  And with another baby in the house, I'm going to be busy!
I also want to try and make plans with friends more often...don't we all always talk about it but I for one is terrible about following through.  I plan to change that this year and while we are only a week into it, I have done good already!
My other resolution is to make sure I take my time and enjoy my kids.  I think I already do a pretty good job at that but as they get older and busier, I want to make sure my focus is where I want it to be.   I hear a lot that moms of twins never got to enjoy their babies because they were so busy / tired / exhausted and I just don't feel that way so hopefully that continues.
I also really want to finish this home.  We have been here 5 years I think and it is finally time to make it a home.  Thanks to Abby, I already have a really good start, now I just need to finish.
So raise your glass to 2011,  we are going to be busy and love it!
What are your New Year's Resolutions?

My Baby Girl

Boo had a bit of a stomach bug last week Wednesday night and still wasn't feel well Thursday morning.  Just wanted a lot of cuddling and didn't have much of an appetite.
Friday morning Kevin left a little before 9:00 to pick Tyler up for the weekend and Boo fell in the kitchen and had a seizure.  While it seemed like it lasted forever, it really was probably only 20 seconds.  However, it was long enough for her lips and face to turn blue.  I called 911 and by the time the police paramedic arrived, she was sleeping in my arms.  She was difficult to wake up and by the time Kevin came back, the paramedics had arrived and were ready to take her to the hospital.
They ran some blood work on her which didn't show anything besides that she wasn't feeling well (slightly dehydrated) and within a couple of hours we were back home.
Within an hour of being home, she seized again.  Back the same police paramedic came and he walked in and said, "How are you back already?"  Again, she was already sleeping in my arms.  We then took our second ambulance trip of the day to DeVos.  This time the doctors had quite a different air about them.  They immediately got a CT scan and spinal tap, all which came back clean.  While we were talking to the peds resident, Boo seized again.  This one lasted about as long as the other two.
Soon after we are admitted upstairs to the peds floor and she had her fourth seizure.  This one lasted about a minute so they were lasting longer and happening quicker.  They talked to a peds neurologist and they prescribed an anti-seizure medicine.  Meanwhile, I had caught Boo's stomach bug and the nurses were kind enough to set me up with some toiletries so I could shower and brush my teeth.  While I was in the shower they came to administer her the meds and she seized again.  Her 5th seizure lasted 1 1/2 minutes.
They told us the medicine would also make her sleepy and I was relieved to have her get some sleep knowing that she was on the monitor that I could watch to make sure she was ok.
Her 6th and final seizure happened about 10:30 that night and went back down to only lasting 1 minute and seemed a little less severe.  They were already thinking these were from her stomach bug, viral induced seizures.  She never had a fever, it was just the way her body reacted to the toxins.
The neurologist, who happened to be a friend from high school's new husband, prescribed another time of anti-seizure medicine and that got us through with no more seizures.  Boo woke up around midnight and wouldn't fall back to sleep.  It took about 90 minutes to get her to go back down and the same thing happened again at 4:00.  She wanted up but because of the seizures and medicine she didn't have good control and was wobbly and couldn't crawl or stand up.  It was too much for me to watch, I just couldn't do it.  Thankfully my mom was there and her and our nurse helped get Boo to sleep while I walked the floors a bit.  It seemed to help that I was there so she wasn't reaching for me.  At least that is what I am choosing to believe since I couldn't "mom up".
The next morning she woke up and seemed a bit better.  When Dr. Chillag, my friend's husband, came in, he even got a bit of a smile out of her.  Even though I had never met him, it was nice to have an extra connection with him.
We spent the rest of the day at the hospital with no more seizures.  That evening we even walked around the halls with her for a bit.  Kevin went home around 8:00 to relieve my mom and put Apple down for the night.  I was completely scared that she would seize again around that time because they had said the medicine would last in her brain for around 20 hours, putting me right around that time.  I asked if they could skip the vitals check that night because that is what woke her the other times the night before.  They agreed because she was on the monitor.
After some amazing chats with friends and words of hope and faith, I dozed on and off as did Boo.  I heard her toss and turn a bit but we slept through until about 6:30.  She was definitely feeling a bit better and even did a little dancing to Mickey Mouse in her crib that morning.  It was one of the greatest things I have ever seen!

Later that morning they let us go home.  She hasn't seized since Friday night and hopefully we will never see it again.  The next time she is sick we will have to watch her closely, her chances of this happening again go up from 1% to 2%.
For now though, her and her brother are happy she is home!

Happy Halloween!

We celebrated Halloween all weekend long!  Friday we had a NICu reunion at the Children's Museum.  The kids loved it, looking at all the other kids, the costumes and the toys!

Saturday was actual trick or treating in Jenison so we made the rounds to visit some family and friends.  They only had an hour nap so it was a short trip out!

Sunday church had their annual Spooktacular and the kids again had a great time looking at everybody and just running around.

I am ready to be done with dressing them up every night and not getting home until after bedtime so I am glad to pack Halloween 2010 away for the year!

Our Nursery

My blog friend and former co-worker has given me such inspiration through her blog! Luckily I kept seeing a name on a childhood friend's facebook that looked familiar and what do you know...it was Abby! What a small, weird world! I have updated our family room and kitchen and have even finally started to finish the nursery solely because she is having a nursery party on her blog to show off people's nursery. While I still have a couple of more pieces to buy (specifically some hooks at Hobby Lobby which were not on sale. And you know HL, if it isn't on sale this week, it will be next week!) Anyway, here are some pics of our nursery. Because we didn't find out what we were having, we had to keep it neutral. And now that there is a boy and a girl in there, I still like to just keep the original colors and get their blues and pinks in through the clothes.

My favorite thing in the nursery, it is one of those Uppercase Living things you put on the wall but I wanted to be able to keep it forever so I put it on canvas. I do not recommend this! Luckily, Kev used to love doing model cars when he was little so he did all the detailing.
Turned out it matched the colors in the changing table cover perfectly! I still use our changing table almost exclusively which I think it quite rare from what I have heard from others!

I love the shelf running along the top of two walls. Mainly because I can display things out of reach of little hands. I was already on bed rest so I told my mom what I was envisioning and she went out and found the perfect pieces! I didn't want everything baby-ish so we got some safari-like pieces at of course, Hobby Lobby to go along with the wall decals. And of course I had to display the little Cabbage Patch dolls Uncle Ryan & Aunt Kate got the babies! I think that was our first baby gift.

Just some more wall decals....

The room looks quite stark in this picture! I used to have these cozy brown bumpers on the cribs but took them off when the babes started sleeping in their cribs and just a couple of months ago went to put them back on and decided a don't like bumpers. I don't like all the ties, it looks messy to me. I try and keep their sheets coordinated, green, tan, brown polka dots or stripes. For the longest time Apple would only sleep on a blanket that we used out on the couch when they would wake up so we tried to replace it with a velvet sheet. Not sure if it really works or not but I am not willing to find out!

I literally just hung these bamboo pieces before I took this pic! I told myself I was going to do something different with this dresser, it was already in the room but I haven't yet. However, with all my new inspiration, I am ready to tackle it. I am thinking of just painting the light wood brown, it isn't a quality piece so I will not put that much effort into it. For now their lamp from Grandma and their little monkey and piggy banks from their banker Auntie will have to do!
These might be my favorite things in the room. I couldn't find curtains that I liked so my mom and aunt went out and found fabric and ribbon and my aunt made these beautifully lined curtains. And her and my uncle came over to hang them! I have the best family!

Well, that is it! Thanks Abby for hosting this nursery party and for just being you in general!

Apple and Boo

They are biting each other, do you think they might be a little suspicious of each other?!

Lazy Days of Summer....

Boy they weren't kidding about the lazy days of summer! My new job of full-time momma is much more work than my old job was! I am loving spending my days with them! And on a personal plus side, I have lost 2 lbs. a week for the last two which was my goal so hopefully I can actually do something about my bed rest and back injury weight!
Yesterday I walked in after morning nap to find Boo naked in her crib. Later when we were eating lunch I turned to feed something to Apple and turned back to find Boo shirtless! We might be going through a bit of a naked phase perhaps....she is in her crib now with a onesie on now!

August 11 - 9 years later

For a brief moment this morning while cuddling and playing with my kids in bed, I forgot that it was August 11 and once I realized it, I felt awful. It has been 9 years, shouldn't I allow myself to forget once in awhile? Shouldn't that be a good thing?
My typical August 11 day is filled with remembering what I was doing that day: hosting a couples bridal shower in my parent's backyard. Rushing around with my girlfriends getting everything just so. I remember my dad coming out to visit for a bit while he waited for my mom to get ready for a wedding they were headed to. The night before Kevin and I had gotten in a ridiculous fight and I went to my parent's for the night. God sure does work in mysterious ways....
We had a wonderful shower and everyone stayed late into the night playing games and swimming. It took hours for my sister-in-law to get a hold of me and I remember collapsing in the backyard. You hear people talk about that feeling....your body failing but you never really think it actually happens to people.
Does the pain ever lessen? Sometimes I worry that I can't remember the sound of his voice.....
Will I spend the rest of my days being in joyous moments only to realize that every wonderful occasion is actually bittersweet?
Days get better as time goes by, but this day is my day to wallow in self-pity. To cry for not having my dad with me for all the grown up things I have done and become. For him to be proud of me, for him to realize I turned out ok, I didn't stay that naughty teenager or that impossible 20-something that knew it all

Saugatuck

The babes had their first visit to the beach! We packed up and took them to Oval Beach in Saugatuck, our favorite. This is a classic picture of Boo with the breeze blowing through her hair!They loved the beach and were of course well behaved. They both liked to have their feet buried in the sand and Boo was very interested in the seagulls. Once we got in the water she was also very interested in the waves. The first one knocked her over and after thinking about it for a minute, went running in for more! Apple was a bit more hesitant at first trying to get his footing but once we were in, there was no getting out!

After the beach we walked around downtown for a bit where we ran into Dave & Andrea of course! It was Sunday evening and we see each other all the time on Sunday evenings normally at Meijer so this was impressive they had stalked us all the way to Saugatuck!