Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Look who's one!

I really can't believe that it has already been one year! They say that the first year with twins is the hardest, so I guess we should celebrate our accomplishment! :)






Bre and Bryn are really good babies. They sleep like champs and they don't cry too often. Some days we fall in bed with nothing accomplished, but at least our kids were fed and alive. However, we really feel that this year has not been as hard as we had psyched ourselves out for. And we are VERY grateful for that.





It is not very fun to have a birthday the day after Christmas. I am going to have to figure out how to make this better in future years.





Today's celebration for them was not as cool as it could have been, or probably should have been. We'll just be glad that they will only remember what they see in pictures. And then we'll make sure the pictures look awesome! :)





The day started off pretty slowly. We were all wiped out after Christmas. Eventually, the girls opened some new clothes and we got on our way.





We went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch, then to Wal-Mart, and Target. We are trying to upgrade them to front-facing car seats, but we weren't able to find the ones we wanted.





After our errands, we came home, opened some more gifts, and had some cake. Like I said, nothing too fun or profound, but we got some cute pictures. :)




Here's Aubree...



And Brynlie (remember how she learned how to cheese?)



More cheese!




And some more! I was trying to get a good picture of both of them together and Brynlie kept making this face! I promise we love both of them the same amount, even though there is an overload of Brynlie pictures.




Wal-Mart. We have to push 2 carts when we come here, and Luke thinks it's really cool to have one foot in each!







When we got home, we tried to get a good picutre of them together. It was going really well...Until Bryn smacked Bre in the face!She recovered. Opening gifts from Gma/Gpa Cook... New shoes! (I don't know why I don't have a picture of them but they're super cute!)
This is mostly for our families... Just singing Happy Birthday. Poor Brynlie grabbed the candle and burned her finger. :(




Let them eat cake!






The results...Looks like they might have eaten too much.







Aubree




And Brynlie.




Happy Happy Birthday! We are in love!

The story of the twins

It all started when I went in for my first appoint with Luke. He was my first baby, so the doctor wanted to get a little background on my family and such. One of the questions he asked was if I had any twins in my family. My mom has twin sisters, and I have 2 cousins that both have a set of twins. When I told him this he said, "I'm going to put you in the high-probability range of having twins." We then went in for an ultra sound and saw that I was only pregnant with little Lukey. However, from that day, I always felt like I would have twins one day.
When we learned that we were pregnant again, I immediately had the thought of "what if it's twins." Nate would just laugh it off, and I would convince myself that maybe it was just wishful thinking or something, and that we were really only having one baby. We had just moved to California, without insurance, so we were trying to explore all of our options before we went to the doctor. We went home to Idaho in August for a family reunion and decided to set up an appointment with Dr. Isbell while we were there. We couldn't get in to see him, so we saw his daughter, who also works in his office. I was about 14 weeks so we were able to hear the heartbeat. While she was listening, I said, "Make sure there's only one heartbeat, okay." Nate rolled his eyes, and she listenend a little harder and said, "I only hear one, but that doesn't mean anything." The ultra sound tech was not in the office that day, so we didn't have that option. It's hard to explain, but I really felt like we were having twins. At the same time, I was scared to be confident of that feeling. So everytime I would think I was having twins, I would immediately talk myself out of it. We had moved 9 times in our 3-1/2 years of marriage, so even when I told my mom that I felt like I was having twins she would say, "your life is too crazy for twins."
At the family reunion, we announced that we were having a baby. We went back to California, went about life, and decided that we were having a boy. So, I was in total boy mode. I was thinking about boy names, and how I needed to get coordinating bedding so Luke and the little guy could share a room. ALL BOY!!! Nate's internship ended, and we headed back to Idaho/Utah. Our plan was to do Christmas lights in Utah, and then move to Idaho in January. Since I was due in February, and we didn't want to switch doctors, we decided it was best to just keep seeing Dr. Isbell in Idaho Falls. We had 3 weeks until we were going to start doing Christmas lights so Nate flew out to Texas to sell pest control for a bit. I had scheduled my 20 week ultra sound, and soon realized that he wasn't going to be back in time. We discussed changing it, but decided not to because 1) We would have to make a trip to Idaho in the middle of all the craziness of Christmas lights if we rescheduled, 2) Nate had seen the ultra sound with Luke, and in his eyes if you've seen one, you've seen them all. And 3) we were sure we were having a boy, so it's not like we would be surprised or anything. :)
The day of the ultra sound came and I decided to take my mom and my sisters, Lindsey and Cortney. The ultra sound tech, Rod Anderson, came in and my mom knows him so they talked while he prepped everything. When it was time to do the ultra sound, he turned to me and explained what he was going to check for: ie, making sure the baby was growing as it should, that it had all 4 chambers of the heart, and so on. Of course I added, "and make sure there is only one." My mom and sisters all laughed/rolled their eyes. Rod put the wand on my stomach, started laughing, and says, "You know, I know you were kidding but guess what? You have 2 babies in here!" WHAT?!? You can imagine the flood of emotions from this point on. I immediately got Nate on the phone and he was even MORE shocked than I was. He stayed on the phone while we learned that we were having 2 GIRLS. I have to admit, I was more shocked that we were having 2 girls than I was that we were having twins. What a fun day! I was really sad that Nate was not there with me, but it was fun having my mom and sisters there.
Thursday, December 23, 2010, I had a routine check-up with my doctor. I was 33 weeks pregnant and feeling miserable. Someone, somewhere (I really don't remeber who- maybe I made it up), had told me that 34 weeks was the magic number for twins. So, I was sure that I would go to the doctor and he would tell me that my babies were big and healthy and that he felt sorry for me so he would induce me in the next week or two. HA! Doesn't everyone wish for that toward the end of the pregnancy? Anyway, the appointment was quite the opposite. The doc said that everything was great and that he wanted me to have a "good 15 or 16 pound of baby" in me! Are you kidding me?!? He also told me that he would not even think about inducing me until I was at least 38 weeks! Needless to say, my doctor and I were on 2 completely different pages. I, of course, was happy to have healthy babies, I just didn't want to be pregnant anymore.
We went about our Christmas festivities as we would have. On Christmas day, I came to my senses and realized that Christmastime would be a horrible time to have a birthday. I told Nate, "Today would be the worst day to have a baby. And tomorrow would be the next worst."
Christmas came and went. I was exhausted, so I went to bed pretty early and Nate stayed up playing games witih all the boys. I woke up at 3 AM with the most horrible pain in my leg. (I have no idea what it was, or if it was even related to my labor.) I woke up again at 5AM and the pain was gone. Then, I woke up at 7 AM to my water breaking. Things went so fast from there.
I had Nate, my dad, and my bro-in-law, Jason, give me a blessing before we headed to the hospital. I was so nervous, realizing that 33 weeks was pretty early to have these babies, but I was comforted through the blessing and I knew that everything would be okay.
We got to the hospital at about 8 AM. They checked to make sure that it was amniotic fluid, which it was, and then called my doctor. He got there about 8:30 or so and did an ultra sound. The presenting baby/baby A/Aubree, was breach, so we knew that a c-section was going to happen. However, they wanted me to hold on as long as I could so they gave me a shot of steroids and then a shot to try to slow down my labor. Their goal was to give me one more shot of steroids before I delivered, but there had to be at least 12 hours in between, preferably 24. By this point, I was feeling some contractions and thinking that they were crazy if they wanted me to wait 24 hours.
Around 9:30 AM the nurse came in and told me that the shot actually sped up my labor instead of slowing it down so they were going to prep me for a c-section at 10. So, from 9:30 to 10:00 is kind of a blur. The charge nurse from the NICU came in and explained to me that they would just pass my babies through a window to the NICU. The guy that numbs you (I don't want to attempt to spell that word) came in and had me sign my life away. :)
We got in to the operating room had a little Sunday school lesson. Not really, but Dr. Isbell was a counselor in his stake presidency and happened to be the only one in town because it was the day after Christmas. He had something like 2 missionaries reporting, and one leaving, and I conveniently went into labor that day. :) I was grateful for him as he shared his testimony about the gospel and the organization of the church. He knew that it was the Christ's church, and that his stake would still function without him. My nurse then told everyone that her son just received his mission call to the same mission that the numbing guy's son was in. Only in Idaho Falls, and probably Utah, would the entire staff of the O.R. be members of the church. It was such a tender mercy to me.
I HATED the c-section, but lived through it. I heard Dr. Isbell say, "Incision time: 10:28" and then Aubree was born at 10:31, and Brynlie at 10:32. Aubree weighed 4 lbs 14 oz, and Brynlie was 4 lbs, 11 oz. We laugh now because I was out of the operating room by 11, and we're sure that Dr. Isbell still went and performed his church duties that day.
We were blessed to have healthy babies. They both came off their oxygen the first day. They stayed in the NICU for 12 days to eat and grow, and then they both came home on the same day. We were told that never happens with twins. Of course, hind sight is 20/20, but looking back, we realize how fortunate we were to have things happen the way they did and go as smoothly as they did. I'm so glad I was oblivious to all of the things that could have gone wrong. We have had a few friends have twins this year, and things didn't go as well for them. We feel so blessed to have Aubree and Brynlie in our family. I can't believe they are 1 today.

Here's Luke announcing he is going to be a big brother! He looks thrilled, doesn't he?


Bryn-L, Bre-R


Bre is in front, Bryn is in back


I love how they are in the exact same position here. We would have to get them tested to know if they are identical or not. We don't want to pay for it, so we'll probably never know. :)



Bre-L, Bryn-R


No more tubes or wires! Getting ready to come home.



Aubree, Luke, Brynlie


Finally home! I can't believe how small they were.


Luke was not able to come into the NICU, so this was really the first time he got to meet them. He was really excited to have 2 baby sisters. So excited that he even carried them to us twice. We were grateful that they were only 5 pounds then. We learned to put them where Luke couldn't get to them. :)


We are so blessed!



Monday, December 26, 2011

Merry Christmas!

Christmas this year was a new experience for us. It was a cozy little Christmas with just our little family of 5, and some close friends that we pretended were our families. :)
On Christmas Eve, we went to our friend's, the Parma's. We ate a delicious meal, sang some fun Christmas songs, read the Christmas story, decorated sugar cookies for Santa, and opened pajamas. Luke and his friends also kept tabs on Santa on Google. Seriously, how did we ever survive without technology? :)








Apparently not ALL of the cookies were for Santa.






This is not a great picture of Luke, but it's the only one that shows off his way cool Toy Story PJ's.


Aubree front and center, Brynlie is in the back.


Everyone excited about their jammies. Luke is holding Bre, Bria is holding Bryn, and Calie is holding Liam.


Santa did, in fact, come, even though we threatened Luke a few times that Santa wouldn't show up if he continued to tackle his sisters. That threat worked...the first time... for about 10 minutes.


We all slept in on Christmas morning, which was so nice. When we did wake up, we opened presents and then headed to church. Sacrament meeting was great. We had 11 total musical numbers, all of which were AMAZING!


{Funny story... Nate was singing in the choir. The choir was singing the last 2 songs of the meeting. So, Nate gets up and, immediately, Luke tries to tackle Bryn so she starts screaming. I try to get Luke off of her, which makes him yell. I'm holding Bre while this is going on and she gets squished, so she starts screaming. AGHH! It is a perfectly spiritual meeting, and just like that, my family ruins it. :) Luckily, the ladies on the bench in front of me (all single, older ladies) turn around and say, "Give me a baby!" As I'm handing Bre to them, another lady, that I have only met one time, comes and sits at the end of my row and takes Bryn. Luke decided to move on to the next thing and was calm so I got to enjoy the last 2 musical numbers without a child on my lap. I don't know what I would have done without helpful people in my ward. There really aren't too many times when all 3 kids cry at the same time, but it is a pretty helpless feeling when they do...Especially when Nate's not around to help.}


After church, we came home and changed our clothes and headed out to Forney to visit our other "orphan friends." We ate another delicious meal with the Tillotson's and the kids just played all day. Nate and Tom satisifed their childhood nostalgia by playing Mario Kart on the Nintendo 64, and Kelly and I just chatted away. It was so relaxing and pleasant.


On our way home, we stopped off to see the Romney's and then came home and put the kids to bed.




Santa had it easy this year because our kids are still too little to really care about Christmas. Luke did get a bike though. He has no idea how to ride it, but we'll get there. And we'll laugh at his lack of coordination in the meantime.


Brynlie turned into a cheezer overnight. Everytime we get the camera out, she makes that face. This started on Christmas morning. Makes us laugh!


Cute Kids!


Basically Luke is obsessed with Angry Birds. The irony lies in the fact that WE DON'T EVEN HAVE ANGRY BIRDS! He has played a few times on other people's phones/ipods and such. Apparently he thinks it's the greatest thing ever. He will randomly get this mad look on his face, start running around, and yell, "I'm an angry bird!" Hilarious and embarrasing all at the same time. My sister, Cortney, sent him this game. Watch the video below to see his reaction. Too bad it isn't longer... my memory card was full. :(



This was our first Christmas without our families so it had high potential to be a sad one, especially because my ENTIRE family was together in Idaho. Thankfully, we are extremely blessed to have good friends here to help fill that void. And we know it is times like these that make us appreciate our families even more.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Hello...

I just wanted something new to show up when I looked at my blog. :)