Because They're Cute...

You'll have to turn your volume up really loud ... but I promise it's worth it :)

Jackson and Abygail both love singing. Abygail has been singing since she could talk and so has Jackson. Jackson has parts of Itsy-bitsy spider, I am a child of God, Twinkle Twinkle and ABCs memorized. ABCs consists of repeatedly singing ABCD, ABCD, ABCD...etc. Twinkle Twinkle is more like Winkle, winkle wittel sar. And the others are just bits and pieces of various parts of the song.

Aren't they too cute!?

Book Club: My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

I found this book to be slow in the beginning. It was hard to keep up with the 'when' of the writing as it kept flipping back and forth.

Ultimately I really enjoyed this book (besides the two previous objections to it). It is a great fiction novel that talks about some of the issues that can be involved in stem cell research. That's why I picked this book up...but it's so much more. It's about what makes or doesn't make a good parent, about making hard decisions and about being a si...more "As found on GoodReads.com, here is my initial review of the Book Club book:

I found this book to be slow in the beginning. It was hard to keep up with the 'when' of the writing as it kept flipping back and forth.

Ultimately I really enjoyed this book (besides the two previous objections to it). It is a great fiction novel that talks about some of the issues that can be involved in stem cell research. That's why I picked this book up...but it's so much more. It's about what makes or doesn't make a good parent, about making hard decisions and about being a sister or sibling in general. It's about dealing with life and death.

I highly recommend this book - you might have to give it some time to get into it - by the time you reach the end you will be so glad you read it! (and you might cry - I did)."

I'd like to add on to this review just a bit.

I couldn't understand the mother's actions throughout the book until the very end. I couldn't understand why a mother would put the needs of one child ahead of the others. How she could disregard her other 2 children and only focus on one. But in the end when she said that she did it because she wanted all of her children...I started to understand. It's easy to sit on the outside of this book and judge her for the decisions she made and the sacrifices she forced her children to make but I can't even begin to imagine being in that situation and faced with those decisions. Would I make the same mistakes? Would it seem that I loved one more than the others? I don't know.

I loved the surprise ending...I did not see it coming at all but I think it wrapped the book up nicely by making it even more heartbreaking.

So what do you think? Should we as a society accept the inevitability of designer children or is that just wrong? What are your thoughts on the mother? If you were Ana, would you have done the same thing? Do you think of your children any differently now or consider these questions as an eye-opener?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the book...I hope you liked it.

(I don't know why it's underlining everything and I don't care so get over it! :)

Did I Forget / A Belated Thank You

I think I forgot to mention that the wonderful women of my ward threw me a baby shower on the 8th of January (Thursday). They had to trick me out of the house for it because I had made it clear that there was to be NO SHOWER!

So I got this call from Tyler saying that Rachel was really sick and he needed to take her to the hospital, could I come over and sit at their house while their kids slept. I was tempted to say no because the Dr had put me on bed rest but it was just a few houses down, they needed me and I wasn't going to be lifting anything or doing anything so I hurriedly put my shoes on and made my way slowly down the street. By hurriedly I mean...I didn't brush my hair, put make-up on, change my stained clothes or anything else you would do if you were going out (I did have a shower that day but I just threw my hair up in a pony tail and didn't even comb it afterward). When I got there Rachel answered the door looking totally fine and said, "come on in!"... yea, at that point I knew what had just happened.

The food was yummy, the company was wonderful and the gifts were super fabulous. Everyone made freezer meals to stock up our freezer in anticipation of the girls arrival and to help out while I was on bed rest - HOW THOUGHTFUL!

So to all you wonderful girls - I thank you, my family thanks you, our tummies thank you and our freezer thanks you!

4 Little Milestones

Abygail and Jackson playing on the Thomas toy that James gave to them (you can see Abygail's bangs and Jackson's crew cut)

Another shot of the hair cuts. Abygail and Jackson playing together. I think he's giving her belly kisses.

Abygail's crazy outfit she put together while I was at my 'baby shower'. It consists of a 0-3 month shirt, a 0-3 month skirt, 2T leggings, snow boots and Diana's sun glasses. I think she's been picking up fashion tips from Sam!

Abygail: The Friday before the girls were born (1/16) she got a hold of the scissors and cut her hair. Her bangs are now SUPER SHORT! That evening she received her second hair cut

Jackson: Got his first hair cut on 1/16 as well. He hated it and cried the whole time. We did get a nice little pony tail from his mullet in the back.

Caitlyn: Moved out of her isolete Monday. She's been doing great and starting to take more of her bottles and needing to be gavaged less.

Madelyn: Also doing great and taking more of her bottles and gavaging less.

Last night Jason and I went up to the hospital for the 9pm feeding (sorry book club - I found a better use of my time last night :) Madelyn breast feed really well and then took a full bottle, and then kept sucking on her pacifier! Caitlyn got her first bath (that we know of) before feeding time so by the time I tried breast feeding her she had expended all her energy on crying and wasn't interested - but she wasn't interested in the bottle either! She was gavaged but that's ok, she saved her energy for the next time.

Jason spent most of the day up there yesterday. He needed a quite place to study so instead of doing it at school he did it in the NICU. I'm glad that he was able to spend some time with the girls.

Today while visiting the girls at their 12pm feeding the nurse said that if they can sustain taking their full bottles for 24 hours they will start to get them ready for release. They started getting PT (physical therapy) and OT (occupational therapy) today to help work on their sucking/breathing and also 'play' time or body movements. They will get their hearing tests today too!!! It's exciting but overwhelming to think they could be home this weekend. I'm not going to get my hopes too far up though because I know it's just the beginning signs of coming home - nothing has been set in stone or decided yet.

For Your Consideration

What do you think? Do the girls look like their older siblings? Answer on the survey on the right sidebar!

Abygail:

Jackson:

Video

Caitlyn and Madelyn sleeping

.

An Update

The girls are still in the hospital and we are not sure exactly when they are coming home. We probably WON'T know until 2-3 days before they come home. They still have a lot to learn and accomplish before coming home. They are very tired most of the time and so 1 out of every 3 (or more) feedings are through a tube. They are also still learning how to coordinate sucking and breathing all at the same time. Their hearts are not much of a concern at this point - actually there is no big concern at all, just learning and growing and being able to do all the things a full term new born is able to do. Caitlyn is still in an isolet (enclosed, temperature controlled crib) to help her gain weight and not expend calories on regulating her body temp. There are 2 NICUs and they are in the NICU that is for non-critical newborns, so that is VERY good.

Here are some pictures to show you how beautiful and sweet they are.

Madelyn (holding on tight - to Dad's hand)

Caitlyn - Sleeping Beauty :)

Kicking and Screaming

Baby A: Born at 5:38pm; 4 lbs 7 oz
Baby B: Born at 5:39pm; 5 lbs 5 oz

To be brief, Amber went in early this morning for a routine checkup while I stayed home with the kids. About the time I was expecting a phone call saying she was coming home, Amber called to say that the doctors had noticed some irregularities in Baby A's heart rhythm so they were sending her to labor and delivery for further observation. About 3pm we finally decided it was time for me to call in a baby sitter for Abygail and Jackson and go to the hospital. Around 4:45 our doctor came in and said that he wasn't sure what was happening with Baby A's heart rhythm (in fact nobody in the hospital had seen anything like it before), but because the irregularities were persistent they thought it best to deliver right away (by Caesarean section). Less than an hour later the twins were born.

Both babies came out kicking and screaming (which is very good considering they are 6 week early) with 1 and 5 minute Apgar scores of 8 and 9. They are in the special care nursery right now, but are doing very well; the only special care they are getting is sitting under a warmer and having their vitals monitored; they even both ate on their own out of a bottle a little over an hour after being born. The Neonatologist is still noticing a slight "flutter" in Baby A's heart rate but is going to do an electrocardiogram and echocardiogram tomorrow. At this point he doesn't seem to think it is anything to worry about, and is something which will probably heal itself as she grows.

Amber did so very well through the whole thing. I am so impressed and proud of her for being so strong and so selfless though all of this. (I wish I could say the same of myself.) She is doing very well and will be coming home on Friday. We will have to wait and see how the girls do before we know when they will be coming home.

We think we have decided on names but are keeping the decision to ourselves for now, so forgive me for continuing to use the impersonal 'Baby A' and 'Baby B'.

Mom, not long before the delivery:

Baby Girl A:

Baby Girl B:

Both Girls:

33 Week Update

Baby A is 4 lbs 1 oz
Baby B is 5 lbs 8 oz
So far no extreme concern on the weight difference from the Docs. We'll see how much longer this last :)

A New Year

Well, we've successfully gotten through 2008. What was the best thing about it? I didn't give birth to any children :)

What does 2009 hold for us...hopefully 2 adorable and healthy baby girls, lots of visits from family and new goals.

Now, some have made fun or suggested that we do not make New Years Resolutions in our family. I am here to prove otherwise. First, let me remind you of 2008 goals (or as some call them Resolutions) which can be read here. In reflecting on those resolutions/goals I find that we did fairly well. Anytime we changed a light bulb it was to a CFL, we attempted to grow a vegetable garden where we had some successes and some failures, we used our own shopping bags at least 50 % of the time or more (every time we remembered to bring them), we started recycling but never started composting, and buying less stuff...well I don't know how I would measure that but we probably failed on that one.

So, what's on the agenda for this year? We are going to make it a priority to read with the kids from the scriptures every night. We are also working towards a family goal that we've set for accomplishment on August 16th.

Some additional goals on my part are:
+ attempt a modest garden again
+ incorporate beans more often into our meal planning
+ start a weekly meal plan
+ stick more closely to a budget

How about you? Any resolutions for this new year?

Recent Happenings

As of Friday my Dr has put me on 'bed rest'. Well, she didn't say 'bed rest' but she did say, "sitting, laying and short periods of standing. No dishes, no laundry, no grocery shopping and no picking up kids" I'm not sure if you can interpret that differently than 'bed rest'.

The story: Friday afternoon during our regular scheduled sonogram there were some concerning things about Amelia Bedelia that had them doing extra scans and tests. She is measuring 3 lbs 6 oz where as Beatrix is 4 lbs 7 oz. It turns out that everything is ok but they want to bump up my full sonograms to every 2 weeks instead of every 3.

After the sono I had my stress test, during which I have three monitors on my belly: one heart monitor for Amelia Bedelia, one for Beatrix and a contraction monitor. They found that I was having regular contracts (which I could not feel) so they sent me to Labor and Delivery for more monitoring and to see if I was dialated. There was no surprise when they found that I was at a 1. They hooked me up to the monitors and stuck me with an IV. After several hours the contractions finally stopped (after a muscle relaxer was administered) and sent us home.

There were lots of people that came to our aid in our child care needs and we are grateful for them all. We are also grateful that our children did so well during the shuffling around.

Thankfully Jason is still out of school for 2 more weeks so he is able to stay home and help out with everything. 2 more weeks - that's all that is left until they will let me go into labor. So we will sit (or lay, or stand for short periods) and wait...for 2 weeks.