I remember it as if it were yesterday.....

Randy and I were so excited to bring our beautiful baby boys home. We'd spent a good portion of the pregnancy day dreaming about lazy Sunday afternoons with our boys. As luck would have it, we bought our boys home on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. We'd planned to spend the day snuggling babies and watching football. There were two small problems with our plan. The first being our lack of planning from a logistical perspective. When we got home, we had to rearrange our living space a bit. We had to make room for the pack n play, feeding supplies, changing supplies and all of our "souvenirs" from the hospital. Getting organized took much longer than expected. As we were about to find out, absolutely everything takes longer when you have two babies to manage. The second problem with our little plan was that we had been planning on bringing the home the BEST BABIES ever, not the Big Beasties.

Luckily, my mom was there to help us. The chaos of the day didn't seem to bother her.

In between helping us organize and making us dinner, she got her fair share of snuggling and kissing in.

Daddy also got in on the snuggle action.

By about 9:00, we were all thoroughly exhausted. We decided to call it a night. Randy and I thought it would be best for the boys to stay in the Pack N Play in our room for the first few weeks. I was nursing, so it seemed like a good idea. We put the boys in the Pack N Play and turned out the lights. I think we were in bed for a full 5 minutes before it all went south.

One of the boys had the hiccups and eventually started fussing. I got up and walked around with my tiny baby for awhile. Once he appeared to be asleep I gently placed him back down and crawl into my cozy warm bed. All in days work I thought....Another 2 minutes or so goes by, lots and lots of little farts, of course, followed by fussing. This time it was the other one. Oh well, no big deal. I again snuggle by sweet boy back to sleep. And again, I'm all tucked in my warm bed. (By this time, Daddy is fast asleep.) Hiccups again! Are you kidding me?!

I think at this point I decided to put the boys in the nursery in their cribs. (So much for keeping them right by us..) I didn't want to wake Daddy. This cycle continues for awhile. About 2 hours into the show, both boys were crying. My mom woke up and grabbed a baby. The plan was to divide and conquer. This seemed to work......for about 2 minutes. I swear, we'd get one settled and the other one would wake up. It was HELL. Around 3 in the morning, my mom and I were still up bouncing and singing to crying babies. I remember looking at my mom with eyes full of tears. "How are we going to do this?'" I asked. "Well, you can't give them back", was her answer. I cried and cried that night. My mom did the same.....

Around 3:30 I woke Randy. He told me the next day that he could "see" how terrified I was. Randy finished out the night shift on his own. While I don't think he cried like my mom and I did, I'm positive he wanted to.

Sometime on Randy's shift, he discovered a miracle fix. The nuc. Before we brought the Big Beasties home, we decided that we wouldn't use nucs for the first few weeks. The nurses in the nursery told us that sometimes nucs made it more difficult for babies to nurse. Randy immediately "confessed" in the morning to using the nucs. I remember saying to him, "if it works, let's do it." We made it less than 12 hrs without the nucs. We were in survival mode. Do whatever it takes.

After lots of coffee and a few laughs recapping the night, we went on about our day in good spirits.

Certainly with sweet little faces like this around, how bad could the day be. We took turns catching cat naps.

Looking back, I'm not sure what Randy and I were thinking. Everyone kept telling us how difficult having twins would be. It's not that we didn't believe it. Sure, we thought we'd be tired. What new parent isn't? Nothing can truly prepare you for going 2 months without sleeping more than a two hour stretch at a time. Nothing can prepare you for the major lifestyle adjustments. The list goes on and on. I quickly figured out a way for me to cope all of the new stressed and anxiety..................

A nice glass of wine in the evening..

Randy and I kind of laugh when we think back on that first night, though it's still a little raw (our boys are 8 months old now). We still get that sick feeling in the pit our stomachs if we think about that first night for too long. We made it though, that's all that matters.

On a side note, the nucs never did ruin our boys. They survived nucs and all.

We have the best babies EVER...

The day the boys were born, I was high in more ways than one. It was truly amazing becoming a mother to two beautiful, perfectly healthy baby boys. (The other reason I was high was the IV Diluadid, but whatever.) I'll never forget the first time I held them. It was very surreal. Randy and I were blissfully happy. The long wait was over, our boys were here. Everything seemed perfect. The first night of their life, the nurses encouraged Randy and I to send the boys to the nursery. No way we thought! We want them right here with us. We kept them in the room and the blissfulness continued. Randy, the boys and I all were dead asleep by 9:30pm. The boys woke up a few times throughout the night to nurse and went immediately back to sleep. Ahhh, life was great. We were thrilled. Things seemed to be going well. Everyone kept saying how much work twins would be. Day 1 was a piece of cake. Lucky us we thought, our boys are such good sleepers!

Day 2
More of the same blissfulness. We had lots of visitors and we were so proud to show off our boys. They NEVER cried! It was a miracle I say. Since the boys had yet to really be in the nursery at all, the nurses encouraged us to send them for the night. "You two need to get your rest, " they told us. Oh no, we told them, we want them to stay. Around 10 pm, they finally convinced us to send the boys. I only sent them under the condition that the nurses would bring them back to feed. I expected the boys would be getting up around 1am. Randy and I again promptly fell asleep. I woke up around 1:30am and called the nurse. I asked if they would please bring in the boys to nurse. She told me that she already fed them. She said that I was sleeping so soundly that she didn't want to wake me. Well, I tell ya, this really irritated me. They were due to get up to eat next around 3:30am. I barely slept the rest of that night because I thought the nurses would "accidentally" forget to wake me. At 3:25 I called the nurse. She brought in the boys. They nursed and again, went right back to sleep. In the morning, Randy and I marveled at how well the boys slept. We have the BEST babies ever!!

Day 3

All smiles from everyone! The boys were as content as can be. We were planning our discharge for the next day. In preparation for going home, Randy and I thought we would keep the boys in our room all night. We ordered pizza, feed the boys and put them down for bedtime. One of them started fussing immediately, so I held him for awhile and he eventually fell asleep in my arms. I put him in his bassinet and I crawled into my bed. Not 2 minutes later, the other baby started. I remember exchanging a slightly puzzled look with Randy. Baby #2 also fell asleep in my arms after a short time. I was all snuggled in my bed for the second time by about 10pm. Not bad... By 10:15 both boys were screaming inconsolably. They weren't hungry or wet, what was the problem? After about 10 minutes of screaming, Randy and I decided to walk them in the halls. We were surprised to see 4 other couples doing the same thing. All of us with a confused/tired looks on our faces. We walked and walked, lap after lap. The boys were no screaming, just fussing. Once we got them both quiet, we tried to lay them down. They cried. This story repeats itself several times over. While walking our laps, we stared at the nurses as we walked by. Wasn't anyone going to help us!!

It was like 1am. Finally, we walked the boys to the nursery ourselves. On a side note, the other couples pacing the halls with their babies quickly followed suit. We had no shame. We caved. I must say, it was quite amusing to see the couples line up with their babies as we were checking ours in. It seemed no one wanted to be the first. Needless to say, the boys stayed there until morning. I asked that they not be brought in to nurse.

Day 4

We were tired. Randy and I were wondering what the heck had happened the night before. Who knows, must be a fluke we thought. Our boys NEVER cry. They eat and go right back to sleep.

We were ready to go home. Our plan was to pack up and get home ASAP. Football was on and the hospital certainly did not have the Sunday Ticket.

We put the boys in their "going home outfits". As you can see, even the teeny tiny preemie outfits didn't fit.

Don't ask who's who because I have no idea. They have different hats on, so I know that there is a picture of each of them.

It took what seemed like forever to get all of the discharge paperwork done.

Here we are all set to go!! Let's go home and raise some babies!!!

How it all began....

Randy and I were married on April 14, 2007. As the old saying goes, it was a perfect day. It really was a wonderful day. In fact, it was almost surreal. I married my best friend and was lucky enough to be surrounded by all of the most important people in my life.




In the fall of that same year, we starting talking about children. We both really wanted a big family one day, and so the "timing" discussion ensued. We both had great jobs, had a nice home, and had done a lot of traveling. In fact, we had done A LOT of traveling. We had been to Vegas, Hawaii, Jamaica and New York City together to name a few. It seemed like a pretty decent time to have a baby. After all, if we wanted a big family, we surely weren't getting any younger. I just had one small problem with this plan. I was supposed to be in one of my best friend's weddings in October of 2008. Surely I didn't want to be ginormuosly pregnant and in a bridesmaid's dress. I decided to try and wait to get pregnant until early summer of 2008. That way, I'd be pregnant for the wedding, but not HUGELY pregnant. So that was that, we had a plan in place.

Fast forward to March 2008. I had a nagging suspicion that I was pregnant. After a week or so of secretly wondering, I decided to take the plunge. I sheepishly made my way to the local Walgreens and bought a test. For some reason, I couldn't even make eye contact with the lady at the checkout. What was my problem? I was 28. I guess I'll never know. Once I got home, I immediately peed on the stick. I was so nervous, I had to leave the room for the two minutes it took for the little stick to process my results. I waited the two minutes sitting anxiously on bed. That two minutes seemed to take forever! After the longest two minutes ever, I slowly made my way to the bathroom. Sure enough, I had two lines.

I was surprised by my lack of reaction to the news. I was simply shocked. Not overly happy, not particularily sad, just shocked. Randy was at his bowling league. A lot of thoughts were running through my head. How was I going to spring this on him? Should I wrap up a pair of cute little baby booties and attach a crafty little note? Maybe bake a cake and write "Congrats Daddy" on it. Well as I sat there daydreaming of creative ways to tell my husband he was going to be a daddy again (for those that don't know, Randy has a 13 year old daughter named Shiloh), I decided to go to the bowling alley. I sat there watching him bowl with a perma-grin on my face. I just couldn't stop smiling. He kept asking me what was going on. "Nothing" I'd reply, with the perma-grin still on my face. After about a half hour I cracked. "I'm pregnant," I whispered in his ear. So much for the cute and creative approach, I just told him in the bowling alley. He pretty much had the same reaction I that I had had a few hours earlier. Pure shock. I don't really know why we were so shocked, we'd kind of been trying.

The shock quickly turned to unbridled excitemen and joy. I set up our first ultrasound for March 27, Randy's birthday. I thought "seeing" his baby for the first time would be a cool birthday gift. We went to the ultrasound as excited as can be. We were holding hands, smiling ear to ear as the ultrasound started. The ultrasound tech could tell how excited we were. She started the scan and looked at us and said, " Are you ready to meet your baby or babies?" Randy and I said nothing. "Here is Baby A and here is Baby B" the lady said. WHAT!!! "Does that mean we have twins?!!" We both cried. The ultrasound lady was so excited. She proceeded to tell us how this was her favorite part of the job. After a few minutes the lady asked us,"you're crying because you are happy right?" Umm, no... not so much. I remember thinking I do NOT want to push out two babies. I guess I must have said this out loud at some point, because the ultrasound lady told me "Oh honey don't worry, you don't have to push them out if you don't want to." Okay, that makes it a little better I guess. It's funny the things we fixate on isn't it? Randy quickly regained his composure. Not me, I cried the entire one hour appointment. By the end of the appointment, I was beginning to get a LITTLE excited, but mostly still just terrified.

The pregnancy went off without much excitement. The boys were born on October 16, 2008 via C-section. Randy weighed 5lbs 14 oz and Reece 5lbs 10 oz. They were absolutely perfect.

I never did make it to that wedding, though judging by the pictures it was a beautiful. However, I can't complain too much because I did end up with my Big Beasties.....I can honestly say, I love them more than I ever dreamt possible.

Reece on the left, Randy on right

P.S. I should note that the nuc in the picture is normal sized. The boys were just that tiny!!

Sorry.....

To my four loyal followers:
I'm sorry I've been such a blog slacker. I've been busy doing things such as this

in beautiful Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Randy and I were lucky enough to have been invited to our good friend's wedding. We were very happy to oblige and attend the fiesta. It gave us a chance to spend some much needing time together. My Mom was nice (or maybe just naive) enough to watch the Big Beasties while we were gone. I have to say, I missed them like crazy. The first few days were kinda tough. In all honesty, I felt like a 2nd grader at her first sleep over. I had this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and felt like I could burst into tears at any moment. I think had I been offered the chance to go home, I would have. By about the 3rd day, I started getting over it a bit. I think you'll see why.

This is our resort. As you can see, the pool almost runs right into the ocean. It was truly breathtaking...
And speaking of breathtaking, here is the happy couple on their wedding day

It was the most perfect setting for a wedding I've ever seen. Even Randy describes it this way. It really was THAT cool.

Randy and I had an absolute blast together. It really felt like old times, you know, before we had the Big Beasties to worry about.



The only things we needed to worry about were if we had on enough sunblock (It was at least 95 degrees and sunny everyday.) and if our drinks were staying cold enough...

For some crazy reason, I decided this morning that I should start this blog. It's not that I'm bored necessarily or don't have anything better to do. In fact, I have lots and lots to do. For example, I should be packing for our upcoming trip to Mexico, doing a load of laundry, updating the boys baby books, paying bills, the list goes on and on, but I'm sure you get the point. So as I was feeding the boys their oatmeal and fruit breakfast I decided to go for it, and here I am.

It took me a long time to decide on a name for the blog. In fact, I think I changed it about 10 times already. While deciding on a name, I realized that had I started, and in turn named the blog, when I was pregnant it would probably read something more like, "My Little Angels" or "Double Blessed". Well now that the boys are almost 8 months old, it's not that those names are inappropriate, just not exactly accurate of my life. I think that Randy would agree, as my man Jimmy put it, "If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." The days of our calm, clean and peaceful house are gone. We've been overtaken... hence the name of our blog.

In the upcoming weeks, I'll do my best to start the story from the beginning. It will give me a chance to revisit old memories and at the same time, share our story. After-all, you can't start a book in the middle.. ...