Lily's First Giggles

Anyone who views my never ending picture postings of the babies on Facebook may start to think that Lily get's neglected.  However, every time I go to snap a picture of her smile or other cute thing she is doing, she stops as soon as I pull out the camera.  For a few days she was making, what we dubbed "Baby Dinosaur" noises whenever she talked.  I pulled out my phone to record it and instead was lucky enough to catch her first giggles.

Growing is Hard Work

Little Wyatt, who is normally so smiley and playful, has done nothing but sleep the last two days.  Growth spurt, perhaps?  He wakes up to eat, give a few smiles and then he is ready to pass out again.  But I am definitely not complaining.  This extra downtime has given me time to finally sew him a boyish blanket complete with Airplanes, make and devour a pan of peanut butter rice crispy treats, paint sun catchers with the girls, get caught up on laundry (until it starts all over again Monday) and even write a blog post.

Live, from Oklahoma!

So here we are again, several months later.  I have come down with a cold with is just cruel and wrong for a mom with two babies and a bored 4 year old at home, so I have decided to sit and update the blog real quick.
Last month, Justin graduated from Air Force Pilot training and won the AETC Commanders training award as well as the distinguished graduate award which basically just solidifies what I already knew: Justin is pretty dang cool.  After graduation, we packed up a huge trailer and drove up to Altus Oklahoma where he is now doing his KC135 training.  The nice thing about this program is that, so far, it is pretty lax.  He works, at most, 6 hours/ day which is a huge change from the 12 he was pulling daily in UPT. We are also renting a house which is larger and nicer than anywhere else we have ever lived so we are thrilled about that and having space.  We have been pleasantly surprised with Altus and we like it here.  We have already gone shopping in Lawton which is just 45 min. away and gone to a Rattlesnake Derby in another town 20 minutes away.  This is a great change from Del Rio which was 2.5 hours from anything.
We also had our first tornado watch the other night, which was all sorts of excitement.
The kiddos are all doing well.  Macy is loving her new school and Kylie is enjoying staying home all day with me.
The picture above pretty much sums up life with the cute babies right now.
Alright, more updates later when I can clear some stuffiness out of my head.

3 Week Birthdays

Hooray, the babies are 3 weeks old today!  Here is what you should know about our lives right now:

• They babies were doing awesome on their breathing... until I went home for 24 hours.  Apparently my absence traumatized them and they have decided to have apneas and bradycardias again... Grrr.  Ok, I know it wasn't really my fault but the timing sure makes it feel that way.  They just upped their caffeine dose so hopefully we will see improvement in the next few days.  I am also doing my part by drinking Diet Coke and Diet Dr. Pepper diligently.  Between my constant thirst, inability to stay awake and eating out all of the time, I figure I can also do my part to help their breathing by providing extra caffeine via breast milk :)
• They are finally figuring out how to keep their body temperature which is check mark one out of three on the big list of things they have to accomplish in order to go home.  The other two are eating on their own and figuring out how to breath...  Anyway, so Wyatt was moved out of an isollette today and into an open crib.  They will likely move Lily over after bath time tonight.
• This morning I got to nurse both babies at the same time.  It was awesome especially since Lily's little "suck-swallow-breath" switch finally went off and they were both able to get half of their feeding by nursing!  It was also the first time I was able to hold them both at the same time and I just couldn't stop thinking how amazing it is that I have these two little babies.  Could I be more blessed?  It almost made me want to have more kids... almost. Except the fact that I am forbidden from getting pregnant again.  Apparently, I am not very good at it.   I double nursed them again tonight and it went great until Wyatt spit up towards the end.  I think he would have had an entire feeding until his incident but oh well.  At least he is figuring it all out.
• My mom is now in town and taking care of Macy and Kylie while Justin goes to work.  Justin's mom left last week and we are so blessed to have so much help!
• I survived working on Black Friday and Cyber Monday and I am so glad that I have an entire year before I have to do that again...
• My life is really glamourous as I live in a hotel, have personal housekeepers, a chauffeur who drives me everywhere I need to go and I have people to make me all of my food.  Aren't you jealous? 
• The babies are now 33.5 weeks so hopefully we will be out of here in another three weeks... a girl can hope, right?
• The worst part about pumping is having to wait up to pump that final time before bed so I only have to get up once at night to pump again.  This results in me not going to bed until 11:30 or later every night and waking up by 7 every morning.  Hence the exhaustion and diet coke dependence...

The "30 Week Post"

I had been meaning to post for weeks and finally decided to hold off and just do a 30 week post and do a big pregnancy update, so here it is although it will be a much different post than I had been planning on writing.  I had planned to show you a picture of me at 30 weeks, talk about how I had grown out of most of my clothes, talk about how I got put on bed rest at 28 weeks because I had dilated to a one and all that good stuff.  Instead, this post is going to be about....

These two little cuties.  Meet Wyatt Justin and Lily Nichole.  Born 9/8/11 at 11:13 and 11:14 pm.  Wyatt was 3 lbs 7 oz. and Lily was 3 lbs 4 oz.

I have been trying to write this post for several days but once the harsher pain meds wore off and I could think straight, I was still too tired to write or focus.  I am still too tired now, but I will do my best so pardon any incoherent rambling.

I went in to my doctor's appointment Tuesday morning to see how everything was going and I had dilated to a three, which was not good news.  The doctor sent me over to the hospital for a non stress test  and told me that he wanted me to move up to San Antonio in case I went into labor.  While at the hospital Justin and I spent the afternoon with him running around and me on the phone trying to figure out how to get me transferred to San Antonio ASAP.  We had planned on Justin driving me up on Wednesday because we didn't have a huge sense of urgency.  However, one of the ladies who works at the clinic on base pitched a fit when she realized that my doctor and the hospital hadn't immediately med evaced me up so they decided to get a helicopter sent down to pick me up.  I felt a little bad because I knew they were expensive and I didn't really think I was going into labor right away.  After hours at the hospital, my contractions were all over the place and I wasn't really effaced.
Justin brought the girls by to tell me good bye and I was more sad to leave them behind than worried about the babies coming until the flight nurse checked me and I had dilated to a 5.  I was shocked again and thought that meant I might have the babies the next day.
Turns out I was wrong and we should have had Justin leave for San Antonio when I did because after an hour long helicopter ride with some fairly painful contractions I landed and had dilated to a 7.  I called Justin and told him to come up ASAP but knew he wouldn't make it in time because the babies were breach so the doctors wanted to do a C section right away.  40 minutes later I was getting an epidural and they took out the little ones.
As they wheeled me in several nurses commented on how calm I was.  I wish they hadn't said that because as soon as that blue sheet went up in front of my face I started to feel more alone and nervous than I ever had, even with 15 people in the room.  I couldn't see anything and was completely alone, except for the poor anesthesiologist who must be used to dealing with emotional women by now. As soon as I started crying, he gave me some fentynal (sp?) which not only got rid of the tiny bit of pain I could still feel but also helped me to relax. A nurse who had just gotten off her shift offered to take pictures of the babies with my phone since Justin wasn't there and I will be forever grateful to her.
The babies were taken off to the NICU shortly after and Justin showed up about an hour later.  I had never had a C section before and was liking it until the epidural started waring off and I realized that Demoral did nothing for my pain.  Long story short, it was a very long and painful night.

The other big bummer is that I had woken up Tuesday morning with pink eye so I wasn't allowed to go into the NICU to see the babies until I had been on drops for 48 hours which meant 1:00 a.m. Thursday morning.

I will update more on the babies later but I wanted to at least announce that they were here and both doing well so far!

In Case You Were Wondering...

This is what 13 weeks pregnant with twins looks like.

Yup, you read that correctly although this pic is over a week old (I am almost 15 weeks now) and I am even larger now that I was.  I am due in the middle of January so we expect to see them in December some time. We are very excited and more than a little stressed about everything but really just thrilled to finally have a healthy (if not slightly more complicated than normal) pregnancy.

We found out at the doctor yesterday that one of the babies is a boy and the other is most likely a girl.  I go home to Boise in a few days and hopefully my dad will be able to get some better pictures and be able to see more clearly. We couldn't be more thrilled and are just so relieved that they both look so healthy. We were also shocked to learn that we were pregnant with twins after last year's twin pregnancy.  What are the odds of that happening spontaneously two times, to the same people?

The girls are so excited to get two babies and hopefully that means they will be extra willing to help me with them.  I already need help picking things up off of the floor as it has become ridiculously difficult to bend over, especially since I am just coming to 15 weeks.

As for my pregnancy updates and so I can keep record since this is my last pregnancy ever, (hallelujah) my belly circumference is growing at a rate of .5-1 inch per week (yikes), the general state of morning sickness is mostly gone although I still get sudden attacks of nausea and I am exhausted.  Really, I can't sleep enough and by every afternoon I try to get off of my feet for an hour or two and rest and doze.  I am also struggling to keep my self fed as I have to eat constantly but at least I finally have an appetite again so food actually sounds good to me. Other than that, I am just taking things one day at a time and wondering (dreading) how ginormous I will be by my 6th month as I already feel huge.  Apparently I am supposed to gain 20 pounds in my second trimester which kind of freaks me out but, hopefully, all will go well.

Alive in Texas

I know it has been a while so if you are wondering, yes, we are alive.  Well, barely.  It has been over 100 degrees almost every day for the last 2 1/2 months and we are melting.  We loved the weather when we got here in February but now, not so much.

In February we traveled all of the way from Anchorage, Alaska to Del Rio, Texas.  Where is Del Rio, you ask?  Well, it is in the middle of no where on the Mexican border.  In fact, we are so close to the border that I occasionally get warnings on my phone that I will incur international roaming charges if I make any calls.  Yikes.

We moved down here so Justin could do his Air Force pilot training at Laughlin AFB.  Justin is doing well in training and we are glad that he doesn't have to stress about ranking high so he gets assigned his dream plane.  Since we are Guard, he started training knowing what he will fly in the end while most of the other students here are competing for their dream slot.

Justin and I took a ferry to Washington and then drove to Boise and then Utah to pick up the girls (they had flown down with Justin's mom the week before).  Along the way we picked up a Golden Doodle puppy and surprised the girls.  They instantly fell in love and although I have had to deal with figuring out how to deal with a puppy and her messes, I like her too.  Daisy is now 40 pounds and hardly looks like the tiny little thing we picked up six months ago.

Shortly after arriving we bought a boat and we spend most Saturdays on Lake Amistad swimming, playing and (now that I have learned how to pull Justin without killing him) water skiing.  It is nice to get away from town and the stress of pilot training on these days and it is great to see how daring and adventurous our little girls have become. They have also been taking swimming lessons and they can now both swim short distances on their own.  Kylie is an amazing treader and floater and Macy can swim further and do it quickly.

We live on base and love it here.  Although we have had to adjust to not having a garage, we love living in a nice, friendly and safe neighborhood where our kids can run back and forth to and from their friends' houses all day long.  We have a lot of great neighbors and have had a lot of fun here.

I will try to keep up on things a little better from here on out but I just wanted to drop in and say, "Hi!" :)

Justin off to AMS (Officer Training)

 For 6 weeks Justin headed to Maxwell AFB in Montgomery Alabama to attend AMS or officer training. It was a long 6 weeks for both of us but luckily for me, my mom and sister Chelsea came up to visit for a week of it. Thanks to my wonderful friend Sassy I got to fly down to attend his graduation and I am so glad I went. His mom was there too and we got to stay at the on base hotel.  It was so nice to get to see where Justin had been the last 6 weeks and to see the funny habits he had picked up, everything from how he walked to calling everyone sir and ma'am and even leaving the toilet seat up because that is what they were told to do.  Thursday night they had the awards banquet which was a lot of fun. Justin was recognized as receiving an excellent score on his fitness test which was a 99.3. 

 Friday morning they first had their state oath ceremony.  With the Air National Guard they take both a State and Federal oath as they work under a dual mission to serve their country and their individual state.  The Commandant of AMS happened to be a Colonel from Alaska so he came by to administer Justin's oath which we thought was pretty cool. After that they had a Federal Oath and Graduation ceremony.  This pic didn't turn out so great so I am glad Brenda got some better ones.

 I am so proud of Justin for making it through this crazy training.  He worked really hard and everyone spoke very highly of him. He is now a Second Lieutenant and in a week he heads of to SERE training which is a survival school. In January he will leave for Initial Flight Screening for 2-5 weeks in Colorado and then we move to Del Rio Texas in February!  It has been a crazy few months and it will continue to be crazy until we make it to February and get to actually be together for more than 4 days at a time.   I am very proud of my husband and I am happy that I finally feel like we are officially "military" now!  Plus, he looks awesome in his uniforms ;)

Kylie turned 3!

Kylie had a birthday as well.  I can't believe how big my chicas are getting.

School and Dance and Swimming

This fall both girls are going to preschool on base three afternoons a week.  It is heavenly for sure and has allowed me to work out a lot which is really nice as I am able to do things now physically that I couldn't ever before.  Here are the cuties:

Summer Fun

This summer the girls got a new tricycle and trailer, their first taste of ice cream from the ice cream man and Justin finally got to go dip netting.  While I still don't like fish, I am proud of myself for learning how to cook halibut and salmon for the other three in my family.

Macy's Birthday

Yes, I know I am really really behind...  We celebrated Macy's birthday with a pool party!

Camping Pictures

Last May we went camping for the only time this summer.  I am really sad that this is the only time we went but it was a lot of fun!

Its been a while...

Ok, so I haven't posted for a long time for a lot of reasons (mostly excuses).  Mostly because I didn't want to have to write this post.  Well, here it is.  When I got back from Boise in June I went to the doctor. Between seeing my dad and making it home I had lost both babies.  I went in for the D and C the next day and then spent the next week or two recovering.  It was obviously  a terrible experience overall but I am over it and past it.  I had been putting this off just because I didn't want to have to think about it again especially since I have dealt with it as best I can and I have moved on.  A friend emailed me a few weeks ago asking about my pregnancy and I sheepishly realized that I needed to let you all know.    Anyway, thanks for being such great friends! 

P.S.- I am disabling comments on this post because it will honestly just make me have to go back to "that place" to read all of the condolences so I just don't want to have to hear them.  I hope that makes sense and doesn't come off rude.  I have moved on so there we go.

This Made My Day...

Clarification

So I posted on Facebook yesterday that I was having a bad day and this resulted in a lot of people worrying and wondering about me so I figured I ought to clarify things some.  I wouldn't typically go too much into all this but since I already announced the twin thing on the blog and Facebook world I figured I better follow up with the details.

Yesterday I went and saw my dad at his office to get an ultrasound of the babies and after a few minutes he told me that something was wrong with one of the babies.  It was smaller than the other one and the brain wasn't developing like it should.  Although it still has a heartbeat this one will likely stop developing soon and then just be absorbed.  I am sad that I won't be having twins now (he said there is a tiny chance it could correct itself some and then the child would be born with a severe birth defect but that is pretty rare and will most likely just be fatal before birth). 
The other baby looks to be healthy and strong so we are trying to be grateful for that but I am very disappointed and sad about my other baby.  Its especially hard since I am still carrying both of them so while I am still pregnant with live twins, I am only going to have one baby.  Anyway, I hadn't realize so many people would read so much into my little Facedbook post yesterday so I thought I better answer the questions...
Pray for my other baby to be alrgiht as I am very excited to be pregnant and I count this pregnancy to be a complete miracle.  I am very blessed and thank you guys for your support!

And that is that

Yes, can you believe it?  After my 5 month hiatus, a second post in two days.  This one is one you won't want to miss!  Justin and I had been planning on doing in vitro for kiddo number three when we got to Boise this June but the night before our phone consultation with the Dr. I took a pregnancy test on a whim- just to be sure I wasn't somehow preggers.  And guess what? I was.

To add to the excitement, when I went to the doctor 3 weeks later I was surprised to find out that not only was I not nearly as far along as I thought I was but that there are two little babies growing inside my belly.  Yuppers, identical twins for me, and all on our own too (I think Justin likes to credit his super sperm for this miraculous event).  I honestly don't know why we are so blessed, but I am grateful that we are!

So I am due December 28th and praying I don't get put on bed rest while Justin is off at officer school for 6 weeks in October. Wish me luck that all will go well and cross your fingers for Justin that he will get two boys instead of us getting two more girls (I'll take whatever as long as they are healthy but I know my husband would prefer not to be so outnumbered for the rest of his life!).  And it is great to not have to worry about the future decisions of whether we should have 3 kids or four.  Apparently Heavenly Father wanted to make his mind up for us (ie. Justin) and just give us the fourth at the same time.  I am 10 weeks and I already have a baby bump (I'm not just getting fat) and crazy sciatica.  But I am thrilled that both babies are doing so well and I can't wait to find out what we are having so I can start sewing!

I know, I know

So I know I am going to catch a ton of slack for not having posted in almost 5 months but I figure its time to make a come back.  Its kind of like not going to the dentist for a while and then not wanting to start again so you don't get the lecture (which I just got from my husband).  That being said, here is what we have been up to the last month:

I have been working on my blog like crazy and it has been going well although I recently resolved to focus a specific hour or two a day on it so it would stop consuming my life.  It was getting tiring and it was all I had time for.  I decided to stop obsessing and to just devote that certain amount of time so I could enjoy more in my day.  So far it has been going well and we have been having a lot of fun with friends and taking the girls outside.  The weather has been wonderful the last few weeks so the girls have been living in our fully fenced back yard (the best thing about this house).

In April Justin's mom came up and stayed with our girls with Justin and I went to Front Site in Nevada (thanks again Brenda!!!).  We went to the four day defensive handgun course and had a total blast.  It wasn't the leisurely/ romantic vacation I had envisioned (we were there for almost 18 hours one day including driving time) as I passed out exhausted the moment we returned to our hotel every night but I had a great time.  I also got second place out of almost 40 people in the hostage shoot off that they had on the last day (so yes, I beat Justin as well as a cop and people who had been there several times) and Justin achieved the graduate level (there is a big test at the end).  Plus, now I feel incredibly competent and confident in my ability to use a handgun, which is a great thing. And as a bonus, I got to feel like a total Bad A** for four days ;)

A little over a month ago I got roped into doing the Mrs. Alaska America pageant.  I friend of mine did it the year before and she convinced me to go ahead and enter.  I had no ambitions of winning, more just to meet other ladies and have fun plus I think it is good to do something that scares you once in a while and this definitely counted. I ended up having a great time, making a lot of new friends, growing in a lot of ways and I got to try something totally new.  A lady who I had become friends with ended up winning and I won most photogenic wedding photo so I couldn't have left happier.  It wasn't so much that I cared about the specific award, it was just nice to hear my name called for something ;). While the pageant was a lot of fun it was very difficult to find a pretty cocktail dress and evening gown that allowed me to keep my LDS dress standards.  Through much the of the pageant I felt very out of place (although 2 other ladies were LDS too) and I felt like I was back in high school wishing I could wear the prettier prom dress.  Anyway, after the pageant ended I had over 4 different people come up to me and tell me that they appreciated my modest dress choices.  I was very touched by this and I felt a little bit redeemed.  While I had been feeling self conscious about looking different from the other ladies I had forgotten about the example of modesty that I was setting for other girls who were there.  That was a great feeling and something that I really just wanted to write down so I would remember if I do the pageant again in a couple of years (which I likely will).

This last weekend we took the girls on a 4 day camping trip up North off the Denali Highway with a couple other familes(no, it never got dark at night) and we had a great time.  Justin was like a little boy at Disneyland going off with our friend Eric in his four wheeler, spotting a bear, moose and wolf all in one glance in the binoculars, learning how to gut and skin a Grizzly after Eric shot one (yay, one less in our area), fishing in the creek and catching Greyling and staying up until the wee hours of the morning each night because he couldn't bare to wast a minute of daylight.  We all had a great time and the girls loved being outdoors and sleeping in a tent.  I definitely hope there will be many more camping trips to come this summer!

So that is us since April.  And since I have totally slacked on posting the last several months, here are some pictures of the girls to keep you all happy (yes, that means you Chels and Ash).