Pence Family

Friday, November 15, 2013

Some Family Pics

My five children:

Me and my five children. :)

And all of us, courtesy of the self-timer. These were taken on November 3rd… for the record.

That day my mom also stopped by, and I had her take “official” sign pictures for us.

It was terrible lighting, but I will happily take a few pictures with bad lighting over no pictures at all.

My family!

Tuesday of this week was picture day at the preschool, and I dressed everybody up for some sibling pics!

The fabulous Lindsay Moore takes the kids school pictures, and I just love them. (And I didn’t make her cry when she saw me coming with my FIVE littles!)

This was right before school. I’m loving the pink and black and jeans. Such glamorous babes. Can you get over James’ suit jacket?!

I can’t wait to see the cuteness she got!

We also went over to her studio last night to get some family pictures made. I knew if we didn’t make an appointment and keep it, I was never going to get around to doing it!

I’m perfectly happy with the pictures I manage to get of my brood and family, but I very much love having a pro in charge! I’m so looking forward to having a great family picture! We opted for more of a fall/casual color scheme for our clothes for that one, as I hope to keep it up for a long time!

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Hanging Around

As I upload pictures to my computer, I usually take a few seconds to choose the ones I would (eventually) like to blog. In a perfect world, I would then blog pretty soon after, and all the writing I’d done in my head would make it to “paper.”

But alas, there is a disconnect, so my posts are not quite what I would love. It’s more about quantity than quality these days. :)

Joanna is (almost always) the very sweetest big sister, pitching in to help when she sees a need.

Helping James brush his teeth:

She reads to herself and at least Natalie almost every night. LOVE IT!!

The boys and I spend a lot of time right here. Matt was above me, peering over the couch to take this picture. I have been trying the last couple of days to just feed them here and then make them sleep in a bed (or maybe a swing). As much as I love snuggling sleeping babies, there are just too many of them and not enough of me! It was really taking it out of me to try and sleep in this position just so the boys would sleep. It’s hard to get them to settle at night (I’m looking at you Thomas!), but it’s worth it when they settle in their bed so I can settle in mine.

This was one day I had Michael sleeping by a window to try and get some sunlight on that jaundice.

A swing nap for Thomas. If you look closely, you can see a discarded bink by his right cheek. Cutie patootie.

There have been some gorgeous days for playing outside. I just loved looking up and seeing my girls having a chat on top of the play house outside. I love that they are good friends.

I had showered this day but hadn’t gotten around to actually brushing my hair. I needed a picture of me holding both the boys.

And look at those cute booties!

Joanna has taught herself how to do a cartwheel, and she’s pretty good at it!

I was so touched to find this card in the mail one day from the choir at church. It feels good to be loved and prayed for!

Pics from the nursery

The baby nurses at the hospital had a disposable camera to take some pics of my sweet boys in the nursery.

Look at them linking arms!

They sure are cute snugglers.

The boys’ Doctor visits

I had to promise I would call if we couldn’t make it and get approval from Dr. Harper, but they let me bring all three boys in for well checks at the same visit. Otherwise we would have had to skip this one for James. Ha!

I took zero pictures, because even with the wonderful help of my mother, bringing James and the babies to the doctor was HARD! And I didn’t end up with an after visit summary on James (though I did get two for Thomas!), so I can’t report all his stats here.

Michael was back up to his birth weight of 7lbs 9oz and was 20.13 inches long with a head circumference of 14.49 inches. He is growing nicely!

Thomas was almost back up to birth weight at 8lbs .5oz and was 20 inches long with a head circumference of 14.65 inches. Also growing nicely!

Both boys are hanging on to a little jaundice, but it should be nothing to worry about.

They both still have goo in their eyes, so we’re going to dry some drops to see if that helps. Of course, I have to actually go to the pharmacy and pick them up for them to do any good. Ahem. :)

James did sooooooo well – he listened and was brave and all of that. He weighed 30 pounds and was some amount of inches tall. :) He is under 50th percentile, but I think we knew that. He has a bit of a Joanna physique. He thankfully did not have to have any shots.

And that is the most boring update ever!

Settling in… the first few days at home

It’s crazy how different these babies look less than two weeks later! I’m thankful for all the pictures I managed to take, even in the craziness, even though they’re not quite as Pinteresting as I might have liked. :)

Michael:

Thomas:

James and Thomas:

Love this one – such a sweet brother!

Natalie and Michael:

Anna and Emma were able to come by after school on Thursday to meet the boys.

They liked ‘em. :)

Andy and Christiana had Friday off due to their big ultrasound, so they got to stop by in the afternoon. (By the way, I’m very excited that I’m going to have a NEPHEW to snuggle in the spring!! And someone to pass down a boatload of clothes to!)

One thing I really really really wanted to get done was the mountain of laundry I’d gotten so behind on at the end of the pregnancy. Washing is the easy part though.

I sorted it all by where it belonged in the house, and my wonderful friend Lisa folded them for me and helped put them away. I felt much better after that. :)

Sweet snuggly boys. I’m sure they woke up five seconds later. They’re not really into sleeping on anything that isn’t me. :)

Friday evening, November 1st, we had a lactation consultant come by the house and evaluate the boys’ latches and why I was in so very much pain while nursing. They both have a tongue tie and lip tie, though Michael’s is worse. She spent close to three hours at the house, weighing the boys to see how much they were eating, checking their latch, showing us exercises to stretch their frenulums, and working on ways to get me in better shape. (I saw her again today, ten days later, and she commented on how very grey I was on that first meeting.) I hadn’t slept; my milk was barely in, and I was a HOT MESS. She put me on an iron supplement that has B12 in it and prescribed SLEEP to get my milk to come in. That night Matt helped as much as he could, and it was the next several nights that my mom helped overnight with the boys. I’m not sure I would have survived without her. The LC was worth every single penny and then some to get me on track. Even though I’ve nursed three singletons, these boys were kicking my butt! Things aren’t completely sunshine and roses, but we’re much better now! More on the tongue tie and all that to come.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Day Two and Three

On Wednesday it was pretty stormy so we had lots fewer visitors. The only one I have a picture of is Rev. Chris, who stopped by on his hospital day. I love having the pastors come see us!

Chris married Matt and me 7 1/2 years ago, so it’s pretty special that he could come by and hold our fifth child!

A couple of sweet close-ups – Michael:

Thomas:

Getting a little light from the windows in their spaceships.

Michael has darker hair than Thomas. That’s how we told them apart at first.

Thomas’ hair and eyebrows are rather invisible.

I think this is Thomas, going to town on the pacifier. He doesn’t much care for them these days, though he loooooves to suck!

We got ready to head home on Thursday morning (Halloween). I didn’t dress the boys up; they went as themselves – little brothers. :)

Michael is on the left above.

Thomas, trying to nurse his lovey.

Matt took his car and swapped it out for our van, which my mom had, to bring the babies home. He brought Joanna with him. She took this picture of my with my boys while Matt was putting stuff in the car.

For the first time, I had to walk to the car; I’ve always ridden in a wheelchair before. It was a longer walk because of the construction, and I was TIRED!

But I didn’t have to carry the boys; they each had a porter. :)

(Thomas left, Michael right. I can only tell because of the loveys.)

I was so excited to see TWO new baby signs in our yard when we got home!

It’s crazy how the details are really starting to fade. The pictures evoke feelings and memories, but right now I’m in type fast mode and may skip going into too many details.

Looking Back… the rest of day one

The babies are sleeping… for a few more minutes. The middle kiddos are at school…for a few more minutes. I’m sort of supervising some independent work for Joanna…for a few more minutes. So I’d better blog! I love having the blog to look back on, but I’m so behind!

My sister and her friend Tawna (both NICU nurses) were in town the week before the boys were born and thankfully got to see them before they had to drive back.

Kathryn was in a happy place holding her twin nephews.

Rev. Ellen, the children’s minister at the church, stopped by on her hospital rounds and got to hold a boy or two.

My big kids showed up while she was there.

It was love at first sight for Joanna.

James may have been overwhelmed by the whole mess. :)

Natalie loved them right off as well.

Sweet girl came up for some Momma snuggles.

James fell in love with Thomas right away but wouldn’t claim Michael as his brother. He kept saying “Thomas is my brother (or my best friend), and Michael is not my brother (best friend).” He was pretty adamant about it! I’m happy to report that it didn’t take too long for him to love and accept them both.