double your fun

What's better than one baby? Two! What's better than one set of twins? Two sets of twins!

Today the girls and I got all dressed in real clothes {I'm doing much better about that, by the way. The girls are almost always in real clothes and people typically don't get past looking at them. Which works for me. But, lately, getting myself ready has become a lot easier due entirely to the fact that the girls find the ceiling fan and their hands extremely entertaining.} to go on a walk with Amy and her baby boys. The girls were so excited to see their boyfriends that they both pooped their pants right before we walked out the door. And I had to change them. Again. Which made us late. {We are almost always late.} But thankfully the boys have a very patient mother.

The forecast called for a warm, cloudy day but, just as we got all four kids snapped into their respective double strollers, it started to sprinkle. Oh. No. Do we go ahead and risk being caught in a downpour with four babies and two moms that aren't that fond of running? Or pack eeeverything back up? We decided to risk it. Apparently, once you've bothered to get two four babies ready for an activity you forge ahead, come hell or high water. I'm glad we did. After a few minutes of light rain, the sun came out and we walked until it was time for all those babes to eat again. It was just so great to catch up with Amy (who is hilarious and a wonderfully laid-back mama) and see how much her boys have grown since the last time I saw them. Their chubby cheeks are the sweetest thing. {At two months old, they have now caught up to my girls in weight. I think we need to kick it up a notch, ladies.} 

Real clothes. A sunny day. A walk with friends. Pizza at 11:00 with your husband even though you already ate dinner earlier? What a great day.

Check out those awesome matching double strollers. We love them. Like a lot.

i have said and/or felt all these things

"I brake for birds, I rock a lot of polka dots, I have touched glitter in the last 24 hours, and I find it fundamentally strange that you’re not a dessert person. That’s just weird, and it freaks me out. And I’m sorry I don’t talk like Murphy Brown, and I hate your pantsuit. I wish it had ribbons on it, or something to make it just slightly cuter." Jess, New Girl

m.i.a.

So we've been missing in action on here due to one important thing: my mom was in town. And she brought her best friend Jeri Jo. Which means we were bouncing about from hither to yon all week. Those two are like Lucy and Ethel. I would pay money to watch them traipse through Italy or stalk movie stars in Hollywood. It would be hilarious and frustrating all at the same time. Love it. We were much too busy (and, thus, sleepy) to post much. We had important things to do like...


Snuggle a great-grandma.

Spend five hours (I kid you not) in Ikea. {I would be fine if I never saw another Swedish word again. Nothing against Sweden or Swedish people. I think both are beautiful.} 

Pretty impressive cart-wheelchair-stroller chain. 

Snuggle a grandma.

Find out how much we've grown. 

Shop with a Noney-Jo.

Copying, cutting, stuffing, and addressing wedding invitations for Jeri's wedding in July. (I missed out on most of that...)

Go on walks with some pretty great aunties.

Excuse the blurry phone pictures...

Snuggle some more. 

And more. Mostly, there was a lot of baby snuggling going on. 

sweet dreams

The past two nights I had every intention of posting a little something on here. {I also had every intention of putting the laundry away...} I will blame my lack of productivity on P-dubs. And here's why. He's the best baby-putter-to-bed I've ever seen. He changes them. He talks to them. Makes them laugh and get all riled up and then miraculously calms them down right into the heavy eyelid phase. He puts them in their bassinets. {Yes. They still sleep next to our bed. Mostly because I am (1) paranoid and (2) lazy. When you're still feeding two babes a few times in the night you don't want to be dragging yourself down the hall to the nursery where you will have to turn on a light, pick up a baby, and THEN feed them. By that time everyone's completely awake. And we will have none of that in this house. I prefer nighttime babies to stay mostly asleep. No matter what.}And leads them off to the Land of Nod via his guitar. Well, apparently, his ghee-tar has some magical effect on this mama as well. The last few nights I've climbed into bed as he's playing the girls to sleep thinking that after they were sleeping I 'd get up and get busy on my to-do list. I've done it before, I swear. But wouldn't you know...the next time I wake up it's the middle of the night and someone needs to be fed. And there I am half-way through the night fully clothed without my teeth brushed or face washed. I've fallen asleep maybe three times in my life without brushing my teeth. And I know one of those was at summer camp.  This morning Paul said he might as well just start swaddling me and putting me down with the girls. Ridiculous. Good thing this is a Leap Year and I have a whole extra day to catch up.

the bump

 

 So...since a few people have asked, I thought I'd clear up any wonderings anyone might have about C's bump.  {Or her "bug bite" as our friend's two-year-old calls it. Must have been a reeeeally big bug.} A lot of people are sweet and pretend they don't notice it. {P-dubs and I were at lunch with one of his co-workers last week and Paul mentioned something about her bump and he said, 'Oh, I didn't even notice...' Puh-lease. You're sweet, not blind. That thing is hard NOT to notice.} 

The technical term for this bump is infantile haemangioma (hemangioma). Most people just call it a strawberry mark. It's an overgrowth of blood vessels and will eventually fade away. It's most common in Caucasians--particularly females and twins. No one is quite sure the cause of strawberry marks but our pediatrician has assured us that it's nothing to worry about and that it doesn't bother her a bit. 

Some people are quite taken back by it...I guess since it grew slowly, I don't really notice it. I notice that girl's wicked long eye lashes and silly, expressive face first. For now, it's a pretty convenient way for people who don't know the girls that well to tell them apart. It's the only way our little nephew knows which baby is which. For all the complications that could have come with a twin pregnancy, I'll take this. She's our little unicorn. {Not a little rhinoceros as P-dubs once called her until I kindly pointed out that it didn't have quite the same connotation as a unicorn. Kind of like when he called me a manatee. He means well. But we'll stick with unicorn.}

one month

Flashback: 1 month (before I got my new camera lens). These are only 3 months late. I feel ok about it. And I'm sure I'll get more timely.

 

Lola

5 pounds 12 ounces

19 and 3/8 inches

 

Sweet C

7 pounds 5 ounces

21 inches

Were they really ever this little?!?

perfection

Esther is one of my favorite books of the Bible. {We actually considered naming one of the girls Esther but went with the entirely more logical choice to name them both with boy names. Which isn't confusing at all to anyone. Ever.  Especially when we spelled 'Charlie' Charleigh.  Apparently, this can be pronounced a number of ways including the most common 'Shar-lay' pronunciation. When the doctor's office calls to remind us about appointments, they don't even attempt it. It's always for 'Logan' and 'a member of your family.' But they mean something, gosh darn it. Which I have also been meaning to write about.} 


I just love Esther. For so many reasons--it's amazing to me that the book never actually mentions God but throughout the course of the story His character is revealed in so many ways. I've been doing a Beth Moore study about Esther. {I have a love/not-so-much-love relationship with Beth Moore. Sometimes her studies are exactly what I need and sometimes I think her comparisons of Biblical feasts to her setting out her fine China are a little silly. I doubt those two compare at all but I appreciate her effort to try to relate for us commoners.} Anyways. I haven't been reading this study everyday because I'm also reading about the power of prayer for my husband and going through Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest again. {Love me some Oswald.} So needless to say I don't get to ALL of these everyday and it's taking me a long time to get through it. The latest chapter I read was the part where Esther risked her life by approaching King Xerxes without being summoned. What struck me as I was reading Beth Moore's commentary on this was that Esther (most likely) was as scared as anyone of us would be in that situation. Did she feel perfectly ready to do that? Doubtful. And if she had waited until she felt perfectly ready her people would have suffered some horrible things. And Beth asked the question: " Do we believe that the only way to do something acceptably is to do it perfectly?" I fall into that trap A TON. If I can't do it exactly perfectly (in my mind) then why bother? But God doesn't call us to be perfect. We can't be and He knows that. I wasn't a perfect teacher and I won't be a perfect mother. {Case in point: These girls are clearly not identical and they seemed so different from the second they were born but while we were in the hospital in my oh-so-groggy state I accidentally fed the same baby twice until I suddenly realized I had the wrong baby. Which was hilarious and sad all at the same time.}


 I need to let go of my perfectionism because it's really more debilitating than empowering. If people waited until things felt 'perfect' to get married or have babies, I think the human race would have died out long ago. I need to rework my idea of the ideal. I can do my best job without expecting perfection from myself and others in my life. And I can live my best life without the expectation of perfection. Definitely a work in progress. 

My new perfection? Two happy, sleepy babies safe and sound in a house that has dishes in the sink and carpets in terrible need of a good vacuuming. Howie should really start earning his keep around here and help a mama out.