I took a picture of this face because Sienna drew it and I thought it was pretty good for an almost 2.5 year old.
So she drew another mouth and asked me to take a picture.
So she drew another mouth and asked me to take a picture. And I’m not sure what that that thing on the right is. Any ideas?
52 minutes left in 2010.
What a year. Panthers. Baby Showers. Newspaper Articles.
Meeting Rhys, our firstborn son. And 6 minutes later, Owen, our baby.
Adapting to having 4 kids. 4 young kids. 4 young kids, a full time job and online grad school. Its been quite a year.
50 minutes left now.
Leaving the year my twins were born. No I still can’t believe there are two of them. Two daughters and two sons. I am the luckiest mommy ever. Kiran will say that to me now, parroting what she’s heard me claim. What she doesn’t understand is that it’s not that I have four kids but that I have these four kids. KSRO
just 46 minutes left 2010.
Survival. 2010: the year of surviving. I have put all my effort into basic survival- feeding people, clothing people, keeping the house from imploding on itself. I feel stretched to the limit. No extra. No extra time. No extra money. No extra energy. I don’t like being at the limit all the time. It’s a stressful way to live.
I don’t even have time to blog. Maybe the blog has just run its natural course and it’s time to print and move on. I’ve enjoyed blogging these past 5 years. But maybe things change and people change and that’s ok.
40 minutes (Jonathan was talking. It interrupted my thoughts)
Maybe the babies will become toddlers and preschoolers and teenagers and eventually I’ll have time and mental capacity to think and write and compose original thoughts.
38 no 37 minutes till 2011.
Good bye 2010. My eyes won’t be open to see you officially leave. Babies still need to be nursed bright and early and toddlers will need help to go potty and I need rest. 2010- You made my tent bigger. My tent is stretched to discomfort right now. But in that stretching- even in the weariest of times- peace. joy that brings tears to my eyes. snuggling a baby at 4:30am. hidden talents coming to light. hearing him sing songs from the Sound of Music. a grandmother learning to hold two babies at once. a dance performance. pitter patter of feet. eight feet to wash.
Me: humbled. broken. asking for help. receiving help from so many. humbled again.
only 29 minutes.
Good bye 2010. Welcome 2011.
My twins are double the fun
This is totally true.
They also have double the spit up
to get all over you.
They spit up after nursing
and its just plain white.
But when they spit after baby food,
its colorful and bright!
It goes all over clothes,
bibs, hands and chins.
It goes onto my clothes,
my hair, my nails, my skin.
It drips on to the carpet
and coats the high chair trays.
I can’t keep blankets under them;
they up and roll away.
I find it around the circles
of the little lego toys.
And crusted in the plastic hair
of the Little People Boy.
I do too many loads of laundry
and a hot soak every night
Trying to keep the spit up
from ruining all in sight.
I warn everyone you see
“Watch out! They spit”
But warning isn’t enough
you gladly perform your bit.
I long for the day
when you wear the same clothes all day long;
you’ll keep them dry and not wet
from your gurgling song.
My heart is kind of tender
as we reach the end of baby days.
But for sure one thing I will not miss
is your crazy spit up ways.
Jonathan and Cousin Emily cleaning Rhys up after he spit up at Caesar’s Head. Don’t worry he had more clothes on but he….wait for it….spit up all over them.
This is my friend Kelley. She spells her name the same way I do. And she was due with twin boys the same day I was. No kidding. I couldn’t even make this stuff up y’all. She went a month later so her boys are younger than mine yet bigger (all my babies are small. humph.). Sometimes she comments on my blog as Kelley. It probably confuses some of you. Because sometimes I’ll see a comment by Kelley and think “I didn’t comment on that blog post, did I?”
And here’s the picture where one of her twins is assaulting Rhys.
I thought I’d wait till after everyone else shared their pictures so as to not overwhelm you all at once.
We had a dog ballerina (K), a terrified Tigger (R), a person ballerina (S), and a confused Pooh (O).
Yesterday just after lunch, I was holding Rhys in the kitchen looking out the glass door. He had been fussy and not taking normal naps which meant he and Owen were not sleeping at the same time. I was in the midst of a giant pity party that my quiet time was not going to happen when I remembered. A year ago yesterday- after lunch- I was in Houston, Texas. I was in the middle of a 1.5 hour long fetal echocardiogram- a scan that showed that Baby B- Rhys was Baby B then- that Baby B’s heart was starting to have irregular patterns. It showed that the TTTS was progressing and that time was getting short. It confirmed that we had taken the right step in flying to Texas for this space-age surgery. I mean really- who has laser surgery in their uterus with their twins in there?
Rhys
And I looked at my son in my arms- my healthy, strong, perfect child- and cried. I cried over him and how this moment almost wasn’t. All that pity- no more. How can I pity the miracles I’ve seen in my life? How can I begrudge the biggest blessing ever? I have four incredible children- FOUR. I wondered so many times if I’d ever see these days. These days are hard but they are precious. And you would think after all we went through that I wouldn’t forget it. But I do.
Owen left Rhys right
Did I ever tell you that there is one doctor who lives in Spartanburg who is trained to deal with TTTS? And that one doctor just happens to go to our 350ish member church. And that doctor just happens to have a daughter in my oldest daughter's class at church. A class that Kiran is actually 7 days too young for but she just happened to be put into that class anyway. And that Kiran and his daughter just happened to become friends which lead to us befriending the parents. Discovering the twins- a facebook message- a doctor who was able to get me a Maternal Fetal appt one month earlier than my original appointment. My original appointment was for Dec 2- that’s two weeks after I had surgery. I can’t even think about what our outcome would have been if we hadn’t gotten in much earlier. Less than 10% survival rate.
Owen
So today we purposed to remember….to remember what God has done for us. How He was working on behalf of these boys long before we even thought of them. How He preserved their lives and not just their lives but their health also. And what better to remember than with cookie cake?
Anyone get the double meaning?
I am so incredibly thankful and joyful that this holiday season is going to be filled with lots of laughter and music and baking yummy goodies. I have a fresh excitement for the holidays and I can’t wait to share them with my sons.
What do you listen to in the car? A friend asked me a while back what kids songs we listened to in the car and I just kinda stuttered that we don’t. The number one requested song in my car is “Revelation Song” sung by Kari Jobe (called Holy, Holy by the girls) and the number two requested song is “Jai Ho” from the Slumdog Millionaire Soundtrack.
But I have been thinking about what we listen to in the car. Honestly though, we don’t listen to CDs or the radio all that much. Or its turned way down. That time in the car is usually a fun time of “I Spy” and making up stories (Kiran’s new favorite thing). Do I sometimes want quiet in the car? Yep. Do I sometimes try to enforce that? I try. But most of the time the girls are talking and I enjoy interacting with them.
But I have taken our Seeds CDs out to the car and have been listening to them on the road some. We have these two and we love them (Thanks SIL!).
I was looking for my Sound of Music soundtrack to take but I realized if I had it in the car, we would never listen to anything else. Ever. We sing lots and lots of SofM songs even without the soundtrack.
My parents have some kids CDs that are about the different letters and the numbers and my kids love, love, love them. But I think Chief has limits on those. He probably makes them listen to Car Talk. I mean that’s what he did to me.
So what do you listen to in the car? I’d love some inspiration.
