Christmas Craft!

Yesterday I decided to do a craft with the girls.  I wanted to make the day fun for Adda who was pretty bummed about not getting to go to school for her Christmas party because of some weird fever causing virus.  She acted fine but had a fever Monday night and so I didn't feel right about sending her to potentially infect everyone else in the class.  I try to make some sort of ornament with the kids each year and looked around on Pinterest for some inspiration.  I wanted to try and use their hand prints and decided on salt dough because I already had everything for the project.  Here is the recipe I used:

Salt Dough Ornaments
1 Cup Flour
1/2 Cup Salt
1/2 Water (or more if needed)

Mix all ingredients and form into a ball.  Roll out on a floured surface to desired thickness.  Use a straw to make the hole for the ribbon.  Bake at 250 degrees for 2 hours.  I actually had to bake mine a little longer and ended up turning Adda and Ella's over after 3 hours.  I guess the bigger the ornament the longer it takes to dry out in the oven. 

After they were cooled I spray painted them white.  I painted the inside of the hand print with regular glue and then dusted it with glitter, then set them aside to dry overnight.  This morning I used a brush to dust off excess glitter and then sprayed them with a thin coating of polyurethane.  They turned out pretty cute and the girls had a blast.  I wish I had done this for Adda and Ella when they were younger.  I love their tiny prints and I can see little things in each hand that reminds me of their actual hand.  I'm glad I have a little memory to hold on to. 

Adda choose orange glitter only because I did not have any rainbow glitter!!!

Pink for Chloe because this is the color we use to tell her apart from Claire.  Pink Paci, Pink Print!

Purple Paci, Purple Print for Claire!

Yellow (or gold) glitter for Ella.  This seems to be her favorite color right now.  She was the hardest to get a print from.  I think I redid hers about 15 times before I got a decent print.  I love how it shows her little crocked pinky finger just like my Granny's!

5 Months, 5 Months!!!

Well this is my second time to type this blog.  I was blogging while pumping and in my two seconds it took to take my milk in the kitchen Ella turned off the computer.  Sheesh!  I should have known she was gonna do something when I got up because she kept coming over to me while I was typing and telling me "I love you mom!" and then trying to hit button on the keyboard!  Sneaky little varmint!  So here it goes again!

It's so hard to believe they are five months already!  I'm trying to soak it all up but we are so busy that sometimes I forget to stop and breath!  We are really starting to see differences in their personalities now.  I mentioned this last month but Claire is showing to be the one who is needier.  That being said they are both such good babies!  I have no complaining to do at all!  Some of the things they do and love:
*rolling all over the place
*playing on the floor
*attempting to sit up for a few seconds at a time
*watching and talking to Adda and Ella
*drinking 5 bottles a day each with 6.5 oz, all are pumped breast milk except the last one of the day
*going through 6-7 diapers a day per baby, looking forward to potty training Ella after Christmas
*sleeping 12-13 hours a night and taking one 2-3 hour nap a day
*they both have the middle bottom 2 teeth
*I have had a few people ask me when I am going to start food...I'm in nooooo hurry at all!  That will be another really big job added to our day!

Chloe

Claire
She gave herself a hickey under her bottom lip the other night!  Don't ask me how she managed to make that happen.  I think they are both working on the top two teeth now. 

Claire-Trying to get a picture showing the teeth! 

Chloe-Show me those teeth!

They look just like my brother!  We found a picture of Lee at about this age and it's crazy how similar they look.  Especially Chloe!!!

Let me mass of picture taking begin.  Not sure if I got a good one of everyone looking.  I took this when we got home from picking Adda up from school and it was a bit chaotic!

Adda holding Claire

Ella holding Chloe

 

Celery...and More Celery!

On Thanksgiving last year I couldn't get enough of the celery on the crudite platter.  I mean seriously I think I ate a whole head of celery all by myself.  I kept telling everyone that it was the best celery I had ever eaten.  Literally I was hovering over the plate grabbing one stick after another.  Actually I probably had another in my hand before I had the one in my mouth chewed up.  That night when everyone sat around the table and ate leftovers, what do you think I was doing??!!  I was eating the rest of the celery.  I think I even saved a stick to eat after my leftover piece of pie.  I'm not kidding!  It was ridiculously delicious celery!!!!  

A few weeks after that I found out I was pregnant... with two babies!  THAT'S WHY THAT CELERY WAS SO STINKIN' GOOD!

Everytime I look at celery I think about this.  I laugh and then my eyes bug out of my head thinking about laying on the sonogram table and seeing TWO heartbeats! 

This Thanksgiving I am sure I will indulge in celery.  I can't promise that I will eat it with as much passion as I did last year but I will eat it.  I will laugh and then I will smile and think about my Twinny Twin Twins!  I will think about all that God has done in the last year in our lives.  I will think about all that we have learned.  I will think about all the tears we shed and all the prayers we prayed.  I will think about ALL that God has blessed us with.  It all has been soooo good!  So much has been hard and pressed us deep into the Lord but it has all been good!  I'm so thankful for WHERE HE HAS US! 

So, if God wants to use some amazing stalks of celery to make me think about all our many blessing and what we can be thankful for I will go with it.  Celery...I am so Thankful!

Happy Thanksgiving Y'all!

A Ballerina, A Peacock, and 2 Things

Halloween 2013

A few months ago I asked Adda what she wanted to dress up as for Halloween.  She said a ballerina!  We have nothing in our house that is dance/ballet related.  Luckily, my cousins little girl is in ballet and she let us barrow a costume they used for a recital.  Of course Adda thought it was an amazing costume.  She twirled and spun around every time we put it on her!  I had the peacock costume that someone gave me.  Adda never fit in it so it has not been used.  Ella wanted to wear it!  I dressed the twins up as Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Twirling!!!!

She even got to wear a little makeup!

Adda with the Things!

The day of Halloween was the first day Ella started getting hives from her penicillin breakout.  Gonzo had a JV game that night and I needed to stay home with Ella so some friend of ours took Adda trick-or-treating.  Thank you Kaeley and Teresa!  She was over the moon that she got to go with you guys!  

I did finally talk Ella into putting her costume on and walking around our cul-de-sac.  Just as we were finishing Adda came home.  She walked to a few houses with us!  

The poor peacock had a busted lip too!

The Things are asleep!

I had two red bows to put in their wigs and forgot.  That would have totally made the costume!  I had plans to put it all back on them and add the bows for pictures and it still hasn't happened! 

I caught two smiles!  Sweet girls!!!

 

4 Months Old

The twins are 4 months!  Well, technically they are close to 5 months now!  I need to write this blog before they turn 5 months.  I also need to blog Halloween before Thanksgiving!  There are not enough hours in the day. 

They have had lots of first this month that have choked me up a bit.  Only for a moment, but I have had times that I am sad I won't do this again with another baby.  Believe me they have been fleeting thoughts!!!

When I try to get pictures of all 4 girls I usually end up taking about 50 and have to go back and delete over half of them and hope I get a good one.  When I went through these pictures I laughed at the faces I caught.  Very funny!  The gradual change in their faces is hilarious!

Not excited about this picture!

They are really good at saying "cheese"!

Now starting to get a little crazy!

Are you finished yet Mom?!!!

Claire

Chloe

Claire has two teeth.  Chloe has one.  Chloe's second tooth is almost through.  They both got their first tooth on the exact same day!  They are both rolling all over the place.  Chloe is much more active than Claire most of the time.  Claire wants to be held more often then Chloe.  They are both drinking 6oz. five times a day.  At night they suck their thumb.  I haven't seen them do it during the day.  They both sleep 13 hours and take one 2-3 hour nap a day.  Honestly, they are the BEST babies! 

Chloe sucking her thumb.

Claire sucking her thumb.

Headed to Dunbar's Homecoming game!

How Do We...Daily Schedule

I constantly have people stop me and ask "How do you do this!!??"  In fact just today when I picked Adda up from school I had another mother who had a 4 year old boy and 16 month old twin boys ask me that question.  I usually respond with a quick and tired "I don't know"  They other night I thought, I need to write all this down.  I'm that mom that doesn't write anything down in a baby book.  Adda has one that is stuffed full of all her well visit papers and I never even purchased a book for poor Ella!  I sure don't have a book for the twins.  I need to get something to put little things in but I try to use the blog as a "baby book"  Maybe...someday I can publish the blog in a book for the girls!  I hear you can do that!  Maybe someday!  Anyway, I decided that I would blog about some of the major tasks that we do each day with a four year old, 20 month old, and 3 month old twins!

Our Daily Schedule
5:00 Gonzo leaves for work
6:00 Shower/Get ready (If I need to get ready I get up at this time)
7:00 Pump (If I'm not getting ready I get up at this time)
8:00 - 9:00 Adda and Ella start waking up
After they wake up I try to get them ready for the day and breakfast done so that after I feed the babies we can either go walk outside or go to a park.  It keeps everyone from fighting, wastes time, and makes them tired for their nap later.  It doesn't always happen but this is my effort!
10:00 Babies are waking up.  I change them and start heating bottles.
By the time I have fed them and burped them and changed them again It's usually almost 11:00
11:00 We do some sort of activity: park, outside, play with toys, watch TV!
12:30 Start lunch for the big girls, start a load of laundry, work on dinner
1:30 Get the big girls in bed for naps, heat bottles, change babies, and swaddle babies
1:45 Start feeding babies and put them down for their nap
2:00 Do dishes/empty dishwater, wash bottles, pump, and fold a load of laundry while pumping
2:30 Fill bottles, wash pump stuff
3:00 Sit and eat cake!!!!
4:00 Everyone starts to wake up.
4:30 Get older girls a snack, heat bottles, change Ella, change babies, feed babies
5:00 Pump
5:30 Wash bottles, work on dinner, put laundry away
6:00 Do some sort of activity-usually we go walk outside
7:00 Eat dinner/clean up dinner
7:30 Heat bottles, change babies, feed babies
8:00 Gonzo gets home!!!! Praise Jesus!  If he isn't going to be home right at 8:00 I usually take the older girls to the bath then.  If he does get home then we have a little family time while he inhales food, then he takes the older girls to the bath.
9:30 - 10:00 Take the older girls to bed
10:00 Give babies a bath, heat bottles, swaddle babies, feed babies
10:30 Pack lunches, wash bottles
11:00 Pump, fill bottles for the next day
11:30 Shower - Maybe!!!
11:45 Hit the sack!!!!

This is a pretty detailed schedule and most of the house things don't get done everyday.  I do have to load/unload the dishwasher each day.  I do have to do at least one load of laundry a day.  I for sure pump four times a day.  We don't always go outside twice a day.  Sometimes the girls watch a lot of TV!!!

If it's a Monday or Wednesday we try to get the kids in bed on time since we have to be up early for school the next day.  On Tuesday and Thursdays I wake Ella and The Twins up at 2:00 to go pick Adda up.  Everything gets moved up a little bit on these days after we pick up Adda.  They also get an extra feeding on these days because I wake them up at 8:00 before we take Adda to school.  Thursday nights Gonzo gets home around 9:30 because of JV football games.  If I get to go to a game on Friday nights everyone goes to bed around 11:30.  If I can't go to the game on Friday then I try to find someone to come over and help me do bath and bedtime for all the girls.  I actually have not done a bath time/bedtime completely on my own yet!  On Saturday Gonzo get home around 4:00 or 5:00 and we have family time.  Sunday we go to church, do lunch, and he goes back to work during nap time!

This is our schedule during football season!
GO GO GO GO GO!   

Twiney Twin Twins - 3 Months Old

It's been awhile since my last post.  It's been like about a month and few days actually!  I always have great intentions and thoughts I want to share but by the time I get the necessary chores done at nap time I usually just sit and eat/drink something sweet and watch my "smut" shows!  Just being honest!

So here we are...The Little Chimies are 3 months already!  In this last month there have been many breakdown moments for me mostly!  There have also been some really good moments for us all!  It's getting better with fewer flip outs from one or more of the females in this house at one time.  Sheesh!!!!!!!!  Sometimes I just need to say SHEESH or maybe worse!  More times than not it comes out as SHEESH or SHEESHEEE!  Anyhow, here is a quick summary of the last month for us all and most importantly The Twins!

Everyone got a cold (except Gonzo and the cat) and it almost sent me into a tail spin.  For many reason!!
*I was very, very sad that my little 2 month old girls were sick.  No infant is fun sick but try TWO.
*The other two girls were on a mixture of Zyrtec and Benedryl to dry out the snot.  I'm not sure about others kiddos but my two older girl (especially Adda) act like mean girls (or another word that sounds like itch but starts with a B) on about day 3 of these meds!  They work great and really do help dry up the congestion but sometimes it's like something has taken over their bodies.
*Adda and Ella were fighting like teenage girls and I found myself repeating these words out loud to myself all day long "I have four of them!, I have four of them!, I have four of them!"
*I was crazy lonely.  I didn't feel like I had anyone to talk to about the "Twin" thing.  Nobody really gets the amount of work that goes into it unless they have been there!  I didn't have anyone to talk to about the "football" thing.  I still had not met any of the coaches wives and besides that there was not time for me to meet anyone.  
*And...It's football season!!!!  Gonzo leaves for work at 5:00 to get the practice schedule ready for the day and gets home at 8:00 or 8:30.  He's not jacking around up there either, he's busting his chops all day to get home as soon as he possibly can! 
Needless to say I was about to loose it and my parents and Gonzo all thought it would be a really good things for me to get away for a few days and have some help.  I was crying all day everyday and I think they were all a little worried for my children's safety!!!  Even though some people thought a 6 hour trip by myself with the 4 girls was crazy, it seemed like heaven to me!  I was going home and there would be two other adults to help with the babies!

The trip was good!  I left as soon as I picked Adda up from school on Thursday.  I had the car loaded to the brim.  We had snacks, a portable potty (I was not going to be able to take them all in a restroom by myself), bottles, and movies galore.  My plan was to feed the babies in the parking lot at Adda's school and leave right when we picked her up.  They would have a full belly and be okay for at least 4 hours.  I was going to drive all the way to Big Spring without stopping and feed/pump at my Aunt's house.  I did have a plan for a stop in Abilene at a friends house if I needed to.  This plan all went well except right before I left to go to the school I realized that the stroller for the babies was packed under everything and I was going to have to carry two carriers in and have Ella (who walks at a snails pace) behind me to get Adda.  My brother was going to be picking Abel up so he was soooo kind to get Adda and bring her out to me.  I got to the school an hour before pick up time to feed and change diapers and have everything ready to hit the road.  I stood in between the babies in the middle holding bottles while Ella was climbing in and out of she and Adda's seats in the back.  Both babies felt it was a great time to blow out their diapers during this feeding as well.  So, by the time Lee got there and picked the kids up and brought them out I had burned a whopping 10,000 calories and sweat a few gallons.  I loaded Adda up and we headed to Dunbar to say goodbye to Gonzo for the next week.

The babies slept most of the way but the big girls didn't fall asleep until Abilene.  We drove right on through and headed to Big Spring.  I actually had intentions of spending the night at my Aunt's but my parents called and were going to meet me in Lamesa and follow me in the rest of the way.  We stopped in Big Spring fed the babies, visited for a litttle bit and then drove on to Lamesa (about 45 minutes).  I met my parents at McDonald's and we ate dinner and then got back on the road.  My mom drove the van so I could pump.  Lamesa is about an hour and a half from Lovington.  When we got to the refinery in between Hobbs and Lovington they all started to turn on me.  All four were crying at once and my  mom and I were singing Jesus Loves Me!  It was really actually hilarious!  If I had been alone I would have been crying and NOT saying the word sheesh and using other words instead, but because my mom was with me and I knew I had help I laughed instead!

We made it home and everyone slept like little angels that night!

While we were there I got to see lots of people, celebrate my mom's birthday, and have lots of time to relax and think.

I realized that I don't suck at this!  I realized that I'm doing a pretty freaking good job!  I realized that when I loose it my girls won't be screwed up for life!  I realized that it's okay to ask for help!  I realized that I need to cry and get it all out (maybe on another adult instead of my girls)!  I realized that I am not superwoman!  I realized that I Am Blessed!

Since that week off I'm in a better place.  We have even had a touch of the vomit bug come through our house and I managed to hold it together.  I know I will have another week like that one, but hopefully I can snap out of it quicker this time.

Here are a few pictures from the last month of the girls:

 Before Daddy's first game at Dunbar!  Go Wildcats!

 There is Daddy!

 Chlo Chlo

 Claire Bear

 Ella poo pooed on the potty!!!!

 Twins in the pack n play at my parents house

 We walked alot when we were in Lovington!

 This is why it's soooo good to go home!  We spend most of our time on this back porch!  Almost everything out there has a memory behind it.  Even the plants.  Some of them were from my parents first years of marriage.  AHHHH!  Makes me smile!

 Before bed

 After naps

 Sweet Girls

 We love to hear Papa sing and play the guitar!

 Coloring in my old coloring books and using my old crayon box.  I about had a heart attack letting them use these crayons.  I loved that crayon box.  If a crayon broke I tapped it so that there were no colors missing.  Maybe this is where Adda gets her obsession with rainbows.  I could never choose a color either!  They went to good together!

 After Mom's birthday dinner!

 I made her a cake!  It was delicious.  Butter cake with apricot filling and butter cream frosting!

 I love my them so much!

 Chloe waiting patiently for her bath!

 Claire after her bath.

 Adda and Chloe

 Sitting in the Bumbo

 We got to go to another game thanks to Kaeley and Justin.  I absolutely can not go to a game alone.  There is just no way!  I was so glad they wanted to come and help out.  It took all 3 of us that is for sure!

 Three Months Old!  

Best thing they have started doing in the last month...drum roll please!!!  They are sleeping 12 hours.  It's amazing!  They did it totally on their own and I'm so grateful to The Lord for it!

They are amazing babies!  God was sooo good to us when He gave us these girls with such chillaxed personalities!  He knew I would need it!