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!