The last week or so

Last Saturday we had Thanksgiving at my Grandma’s house.  This post is not about that.  :)  I took a few pictures, but David also took a bunch, and I’m planning to steal those before I post about our “First Thanksgiving.”

On Sunday we went back over to Grandma’s house in the morning/lunch time to say goodbye to out of town family.  At some point Matt snapped this one of me at home though.

Then we went to Mindy’s house to celebrate her birthday!  This is the only picture I managed to take.  I was really tired; I remember that much.

If I haven’t made it clear, I have been SUPER LOVING the cooler weather, even with the rain.  It is sooooooo much nicer to me than warm/hot/muggy.

And it’s good weather for hot chocolate!!

At some point the light coming into the nursery was very pretty and Michael was looking very sweet in the swing, all swaddled up.  So a took a few shots of him.

Matt looked at this picture below and asked me what happened – why was it cut off?  I told him it was artistic.  Whatever dude.

Soooooo cute!

Even with his eye goobers and leftover milk on his chin.  :)

I had the kids get dressed yesterday all in jeans so I could attempt a feet picture of everyone.  You can’t tell, but the boys were very fussy during this endeavor. I like this picture, but I want to do better.  I think I’m going to have them lay down outside so I can get a feet picture with no faces in it.  They’re distracting.  :)

Today my oldest friend (as in, known the longest – like 20 years!) was in town and stopped by to see the boys!

Kathy got to snuggle them both for a bit!  That’s her oldest, Josh, in the background.  The nose picker is mine.  :)

It was a short but very lovely visit!

Joanna took this one of me this afternoon.  I was rocking two boys who didn’t want to sleep!

They are, by the way, one month old today!  I have managed to take a few “one month” shots of Michael today, and hopefully I won’t run out of good light before I manage to get some of Thomas as well.  :)  Two babies is hard!

Yesterday I woke up to the sound of Michael kind of fussing and grunting.  I looked over at the boys in their little bed in our room to see Michael trying to nurse Thomas’ nose.  It didn’t really work out for him.  :)  Two babies is cute!

A Buncha Pictures

These first few pictures are some of my early attempts at cutesy newborn shots.  :)  There were very few attempts like this.  It was hard.

I do plan to attempt to use this truck for more baby pictures though; it has such potential to be a very cute prop.  :)

This is Thomas on November 7th.

I put both boys in a basket and took them outside on the 8th.  Thomas was kind of fussy, but that’s not completely obvious in the pictures, so… yay!

I do plan (someday, when I have more than five seconds with two hands) to do some edits on these and spice them up a bit, but so far all I’ve done is convert the one above to black and white.  I like ‘em  both!

Feet!  Michael:

Thomas:

This was November 17th (just for the record, since I have no actual memory).

Thomas was crashed out on me and the big pillow.

They don’t sit in the bouncer much – doesn’t Michael look tiny!

The changing table is a pretty good place to take pictures since it’s by the window, and they kind of like it up there (except when they’re actually being changed).

Thomas:

Michael:

He’s got a good grip on the paci!

This was last Thursday, before the weather changed.  It was super hot and muggy.  Joanna and I were swatting mosquitos away from the boys for these shots outside.  :)

Thomas, Michael

Michael

Thomas

And that’s all I can manage with only one hand.  It’s crazy, and I don’t know why it works like this, but the boys take turns taking naps during the day.  They eat at the same time but only one of them naps well in between any given set of feedings.  This means I am ALWAYS holding at least someone.  And when I’m not, I’m listening to them cry. 

Just keeping it real.

This too shall pass.

I miss blogging.

And sleep.  And snuggling my bigs.  And eating.  And talking to my husband.  And vegging on the couch.  And baking.  And so very many other things.

I do really super a whole lot love my babes though.

The Weekend

Friday the boys got to go to enchilada night for the first time!

There were many hands to hold the boys.  Here is Christiana with Thomas.

My mom’s older sister is in town for a few weeks, so Aunt Dee got to hold Michael.

Enchilada eaters:

I love love this one – Grandma with the very youngest Sturman.

I got a chance yesterday to take a picture of each of the sleeping boys.  Thomas:

Michael:

They spend a lot of time swaddled this days.  They both flail in their sleep, and they sleep so so so much better all wrapped up.  We even bought a few more of the fancy velcro swaddle blankets since regular ol’ blankets are apparently beyond our ability to origami burrito fold.

Joanna loves to snuggle her brothers, and she likes to hold them like this.  (She’s got Michael.)

Our Beasley friends who moved to Louisiana a while back were in town for the weekend and got to stop by and see the boys.  Josie, who is the same age as James, loves babies.  :)

They’re holding Thomas.

It was a pretty quick visit but so nice to see our friends!  I was glad to have some newborn twins to lure them over.  :)

The boys had a pretty rotten night last night.  They just couldn’t settle and neither Matt or I got much sleep.  They’re having good naps right now, so I’m hoping they got whatever it was out of their system.  :)

We still managed to get to church this morning.  It feels very good to slowly get back to doing normalish things, even if it’s hard!  We dropped the big kids off at Sunday School, and Matt and I took the babies to church with us.  With Matt’s help, I actually managed to nurse both boys at the same time during the sermon.  Wahoo!!  It’s so much easier on me when they eat at the same time, and I’m glad it worked out!

They were pretty crashed after that and even took a pretty good carseat nap.  Yay!

For anyone who thinks I may have it all together, let me tell you that I absolutely lost Natalie and almost James while walking out of church today.  So very thankful we were at church and surrounded by people who love us and watch out for us!

I’m definitely not ready to try and take all five of them anywhere else I think.  :)

I am pretty tired today and feeling kinda bluesy.  I’m very much hoping for some good nights for the boys.  It just makes all the difference.  I’m definitely ready to lose the bluesy feeling as well and not feel so anxious.  It takes time I know.  It hasn’t even been three weeks!  I don’t wish for the newborn period to pass by quickly; I will surely miss it when it’s gone.  But I do long for our new normal to set in.  I guess I wish for more control; I am she who likes to be in control.  I’m sure God is working on me in that area though.  He has been pretty much this whole year.

From Back in October

I found some pics lurking in my blog folder from before the boys were born.  Most are from James’ birthday.

These first bunch are from David’s camera.  We went to Gran and Grandpa David’s house for lunch on James’ birthday.

Loving on Sarah.  Notice James’ PJ bottoms on inside-out.  It was just too much trouble to fix back when I had sixteen pounds of baby in me.

This girl has some great faces.  :)

Mom and David had a present for James!

What is it?!

It’s so good to have a strong big sister to help out!

A big Tonka truck – wahoo!

This boy loooooooves his peanut butter jellies.

Sweet sweet three year old.

It was enchilada night, so we got to head to Grandma’s house to celebrate that evening! 

This is typically how you will always find my girls when anyone has an iPad or iPhone or whatever.

Such fun!

Natalie’s head/face cracks me up here.  She’s watching something on the iPad, and she didn’t move a muscle for the longest time.  Didn’t look comfy to me!

This was the following Sunday.  Joanna’s choir sang for worship.

She had done a God and Me class the few weeks previous with Rev. Ellen and a bunch of other 1st-3rd graders.  They got their pins in worship that morning.  I was sitting too close to zoom out any more than this, but it’s Rev. Judy’s hand giving Joanna her pin.  I love it.  :)

It took me a looooooong time to get up and moving in the mornings back at the end of my pregnancy, so we would often do a little school while I was still in the bed.

This picture is super awful (they started to move as I started to snap pictures), but I had to remember that one morning I came out and found all three of my children asleep on the couch.  Why do they each have a bed, I sometimes wonder?