Sometimes you just need a break

Today is August 27th, and I just uploaded pics from my camera card for the FIRST time this month.  And there were 40.  FORTY pictures.  It’s like I don’t even know who I am anymore.  I have taken quite a few more on the iPod, so August will appear in the history of my life.  But still… weird. 

I think this post may end up with bullet points instead of paragraphs because I have so much to say and not quite the wherewithall to make it pretty.

I’m not sure wherewithall was the right word.

Spell check says it’s NOT a word.  Ah.  Wherewithal.

Got it. Not going to go back and fix it though.

Yesterday I was frazzled (I’ll have to go into why later) and decided to just go ahead and take an unplanned day off from homeschooling.  It was a good decision, and it helped me feel better.  Then, impulsively, I decided to just take the whole darn week off.  As it turns out, I really needed the break. We started our current “year” of school four weeks ago, so it’s not exactly like we’re slacking.  Also, I got to thinking that the last time we took a whole week off from school it was very likely the spring.  That’s kind of a long time ago.  I was planning for a break in September, but I guess we needed it early.  The kids have been playing (mostly) very sweetly with each other.  I think they needed the break as well.  And it feels great to already have everything together for next week.  :)

So the reason I was frazzled on Tuesday started on Monday… In the afternoon I realized that my plan for dinner wasn’t going to be defrosted in time to cook.  Normally I would have just switched it for another day, but I really needed to go to the grocery store to make any other meal work.  I was just missing something for everything I could think to put together.  This, thankfully, doesn’t happen to me often, but there you are.  So, crazy me decided to pack up all the kiddos for a grocery run at 4:30pm.  They were fabulous at the store, and it was kind of fun. But then I walked out of the grocery store and realized I had nine missed calls from Matt.  I kind of figured he was home and wondered where we were. But instead he was stuck in Splendora with a totally dead car. Every Monday he stops at the farm of a sweet couple to pick up fresh milk and eggs for us, and thankfully he was just a few hundred feet down the road from just leaving their place.  A very kind neighbor’s son helped him push it back to their driveway, and the neighbor even offered a quick opinion on the car. (The engine is a goner.) The amazing part to this is how Joseph (our farmer friend) decided he’d just get the car onto his flatbed trailer and bring it (and Matt) home for us.  It was an amazing favor and really saved us.  Matt’s nephew met them at our house to offer a second opinion on the car. (Yup, totally dead.  It’s the engine.)  Matt’s dad then came and grabbed him so he could borrow his mom’s car for now.

It’s funny, but the car drama was not what made me all crazy.  I think it was that I found myself coming home at about 5:45pm with five hot hungry children and a car full of groceries but no actual dinner.  I mean, a car full of groceries isn’t a terrible problem to have, but if I had foreseen the future, I totally would have stayed home and fed the children cereal or popcorn or something.  :) I think that was the longest day I’ve had without Matt since the babies were born.  He got home about 7:30 (hot, tired, hungry) and helped me get everyone to bed.  In case you’re wondering what I managed to feed everyone – my wonderful mother stopped by my house on her way home from Sam’s and dropped off a rotisserie chicken. Yay!

So when I woke up Tuesday morning, I was just so behind from the Monday things.  But I’m better now. And needing to blog! (I guess you could tell that by all the rambling?)

Also, if anyone knows of a reliable used car for sale, we’re totally in the market.  Matt’s car was a ‘98 Ford Escort, standard transmission with about 190,000 miles on it, and it was absolutely perfect for our needs.  (Except for the part where it died.)  I think our must-haves for a replacement are: reliable for commuting, working a/c, reasonable gas mileage.  Our wish list includes: three shoulder belts in the back, four doors, less than 10 years old.  It feels good to write these things out – helps clear the cobwebs.

I have quite a few pictures that would be fun to share, but I think I’ll get them ready for a separate “August in Review” post or something.  I’ll go ahead and include this one though of Matt and his car being delivered home:

Thank you Joseph! (Though I don’t think he reads the blog.)

You know… I have five children.

My youngest:

Speaking of him, I have recently discovered the very sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.  It happens when Thomas starts to sneeze but then doesn’t.  It is the sweetest cooing sound.  It would be wonderful to get it on video, but I just don’t think that is likely.  :)

This child is so happy to look at books all the time.  Yay!!

I did a (very small) photo shoot this morning of the boys because they were all wearing sock monkey PJs. 

Thomas is in focus in this one, but you can see Michael smiling in the background.

Thomas:

Joined by the big brother.  He was soooooo happy to be taking pictures with the babies.

Sooooooo adorable!  (Thomas looks very sad in the pic, but he was only slightly sad.)

And he couldn’t have been happier when he got to hold both the brothers!

The sisters couldn’t hold out one more minute – they had to be in the picture too!

I love this one!

Had to get a shot of the bootie!!

I laid the boys down on a blanket to wiggle around this afternoon.

Look how strong Thomas is!

They’re so cute!

We are adjusting to life with twin babies around here!  The days (and nights!) are not so hard all the time – yay!  I think we’re past the first adjustment phase.  We’re not quite to the “new normal” yet, since pretty much all we do is stay at home all the time, and that’s about all I can handle.  There are patterns for sure emerging in their schedules, and Matt and I routinely sleep alright.  Though we can definitely be heard being mean and growly to each other in the middle of the night. 

The babies will be 7 weeks tomorrow.  They’re not quite fun yet, but they’re super cute and snuggly.  We’re all looking forward to when they’ll really look at us and smile, then giggle and begin to truly interact. 

I have noticed their cries changing.  In addition to the “I’m a baby and I’m crying” cry, Thomas has a very sad pitiful cry, complete with a pouty face.  It’s a heartbreaker, for sure!  Michael has an “I’m mad and I’m going to scream with my red face and I might even hold my breath like my big brother” cry that really means business!  I think they’re trying different tactics to be the one who gets tended to first. 

Family Pictures!

When the boys were two weeks and two days old, we had professional family pictures made!

I used a few pics in our Christmas card (which should be coming soon!), so I didn’t include those here.  Though of course they’re very similar to these.

I loooooooove how they turned out!

A few months ago I saw that Lindsay Moore of Fabulous Occasions was doing mini sessions in November, so I signed us up!  I knew I would have teeny babies (and a crazy post-partum body), but I also knew if I didn’t schedule a session, we’d never get around to getting good holiday pictures of our family this year.

I’m so glad we did this!

Lindsay takes the kids’ school pictures up at the church twice a year, and I always love love them.  It was so nice to have her snap our whole family!

The boys did really well, thankfully!

Cutest babies in the universe?  I think so!

I posted this one on Facebook the other day, and I’ve gotten SEVENTY-TWO likes!  I never get seventy-two likes for anything.  :)

Look at James’ eyes in this one – he is so funny!

Look at that big sister with her wings around all the babes.

And finally she got to hold both the babies.  I’m sure Michael was not actually as uncomfortable as he looks.  Ha!

Natalie…

James…

And Joanna…

I love Lindsay’s work!!!

I’m so happy we did this and have these treasures to hang on the wall.  Now I just need to get them printed, which of course means stalking my favorite sites for coupon codes.  :)  And figuring out which pictures have to get kicked off the wall to make room for these.  :)

On Friday I hunted around to figure out where I was going to have photo Christmas cards printed.  I eventually settled on cardstore.com, because they will ship the cards to your recipients for just the cost of postage.  Heck, yes!  They also had a coupon code that made their cards pretty reasonable.  I could have found a cheaper spot to print, but then I would have had to address and stamp all the cards.  I just don’t think that’s a good task for this year.  I have no idea what the quality will be like so it’s a bit of an experiment, but I do like the way the card looked online.  I think they should arrive later this week!

Birth Day

Both my mom and Matt were taking pics during labor, and neither camera had the date information correct, so I’m kind of guessing about the order of the first of these here.  Thankfully, my mom was kind of obsessed with putting the clock in the photograph.  :)

Clearly, I’m recently arrived at the hospital and still feeling great.  :)

Matt loves to wear his “My Wife Rocks” t-shirt for labor days. 

I’m filling out forms; that’s my nurse Rene (with an accent on the e but I don’t know how to type that).

Before it got ugly, of course.

This looks like a princess face on me here.  My carpal tunnel was bothering me so Matt’s holding up my arm.  It looks like it’s 8:40am here, and I can see the Pitocin bag on the IV pole.

Showing off some bling.  Oh I hated having that IV in.  And after delivery, I had two more bracelets on my right wrist – it was pretty awful (not to mention ridiculous).  My carpal tunnel is worse over there, and it just made it so uncomfortable to do anything!

Some belly bling as well – the monitors for the boys are strapped in blue; mine’s in pink.

Pit’s at a 4 now.

It’s 9:30, and I’m feeling contractions now.

Another shot – same pain.

It’s about 10:30.  I appear to be laboring on my side and having a lot of fun.

Like I wrote in my birth story, at some point I went to the bathroom and very much enjoying laboring in that position.  Enter… the birthing ball!  (You can’t see it, but it’s there.)  I was able to be pretty comfortable sitting on it and leaning into Matt.  I didn’t labor here long.  My nurse spent most of the time I was here though sitting on the floor trying to get Michael on the monitor!

Dr. Torres poked her head in and wanted to check me.  Moving around was just so stinkin’ difficult!

And then all my picture takers either left or became otherwise occupied, so there’s a bit of a gap in photos.  Like I said, I told Matt to get the camera, but while he wasn’t looking someone put it in the cabinet, but he thought my mom had it.  Can you believe he walked down the hall to attend the birth of his twins without a camera?!!  :)  I kid.

After Michael’s birth I made him leave and go find it!  He did.  Here is Michael’s first picture.  Isn’t he beautiful?!

Snuggles with the momma:

Then they took him back to the warmer so I could deliver Thomas.

Matt cut his cord; the anesthesiologist took this picture for us.

Snuggles with Thomas!

Both my boys on the warmer.  (I LOVE that they’re easy to tell apart!!!!)

Matt headed back to the room and held his boys while they waited on me.

I nursed them in the room when I got back, but I won’t be posting those photos.  :)

They took the boys over to the nursery after they nursed for awhile.  When my recovery room was ready, we loaded up all my stuff and wheeled over!

My labor nurse dropping me off in my recovery room.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – it is one of the best feelings in the universe to be on this side of labor, to be through it.  The ride in the wheelchair from labor and delivery to the postpartum rooms feels like such a victory ride.

Sadly, the recovery room we had wasn’t a fancy suite.  There was no couch, and the sad recliner Matt slept in was broken.  I find it kind of humorous that the two times I’ve stayed two nights in the hospital, we’ve had small rooms with recliners for the hubs and the two times we’ve stayed a mere 24 hours, we’ve had giant cozy rooms with huge couches for sleeping.  I sure would have enjoyed nursing the boys on a couch at the hospital!

But we survived.  And it wasn’t so bad.  :)

Everyone (except me) went down the the nursery at some point to peek at the boys.  They brought back pictures of them chillin’ on their warmers.

They sure are good looking boys, eh?

The nurses from the nursery said they took several pictures of them laying there being cute with each other on the disposable camera.  Eventually those will get developed and uploaded…

I have many more posts to write (or just upload pics for; we’ll see), but hopefully this will tide some people over.  :)  I have picked out the photos that I want to post, but the typing moments are severely limited over here!