still in shock

these are our kids! bill and I look at this picture and are still in shock that all 3 of them are ours!!! we are so blessed.

my mom came on sunday and took charlie to green bay with her yesterday. we are all meeting in chicago on wednesday night so bill and I can attend a friend’s wedding on saturday night. we are so thankful that my mom and dad are willing to travel with charlie to chicago so we can just drive with the girls for one way and that my siblings have a condo downtown that we can invade for the weekend.

so last night (memorial day), we took the girls (charlie was already gone with my mom) to dufendach’s house for a delicious barbeque! since the weather is finally hot the girls can start wearing the adorable dresses we have for them. I couldn’t believe how much skin they were showing!

bill setting up ellie and claire. I love the smile exchange between claire and bill.

they started to fall over so we had to lay them down. bummer that my shadow is in the picture, but they are looking up at me.

tandem nursing

the past few weeks I have started almost always feeding the girls at the same time. it has been great and saves me lots of time. I don’t use the classic football hold, but instead let them sit up/lay up at me. what has also been great is that the girls are eating a lot faster – I don’t feel like I am spending most of my day nursing anymore. yeah!

when it is just me and the girls we spend a lot of time like this. I recline back in my rocking chair and the girls eat and then crash out, which means I can nap too. I love it. cuddling with sweet newborns is such a treasure.

sleepers are for babies

probably 99% of the time the girls are in sleepers. today I put them in real outfits so when they were awake I tried to snap some shots.

claire giving us her toothless grin.

ellie’s smile…I wasn’t able to catch it just right.

best friends….ok –having twins is the best! it is so sweet to see them together.

“hey! you look just like me!”

stunned but both looking at the camera.

and just for fun. this was ellie and claire about one month ago.

I much prefer this!

2 months!!!

claire and ellie were 2 months old yesterday! our two little beauties are growing and developing perfectly. we had their 2 month well child appointment today and here are their stats…

ellie weighed 8 lbs 4 ozs (4% on the regular growth curve, rocking the preemie growth chart) and was in the 5th percentile for height (52.4 cm). as typically with our kiddos her head circumference was in the 28th percentile (charlie was always in the 90th percentile)!

claire weighed 9 lbs 5 ozs (16% on the regular growth curve, really rocking out the preemie growth chart) and was in the 21st percentile for height (54.5 cm). her head is almost the same size as her sisters and was in the 21st percentile.

it is no surprise that claire is bigger than ellie because she continues to be a better eater than ellie. we also think ellie spends more energy grunting than claire, which has to burn more calories.

the girls are now smiling like crazy and beginning to coo and “talk” cry to us. we just love it!

they are sleeping like champs and we have some rough nights, but they do give us consistently one 6-7 hour stretch. I just wish I could pick the hours that they slept those hours in a row. the last couple nights they were really fussy between 8-11pm and then slept until 5 am. not too bad ladies!

prior to the last two nights, our routine was that they would usually eat between 6-7 am and then went back to sleep until around 10-11 am (sometimes charlie and I can get to the RAC and they sleep while I workout). then they eat again between 10-11 am and then fuss and eat until around 1pm. between 1 and 2 they fall back asleep until almost 4 pm (which means I can get something done or sleep during charlies nap). they eat again at 4 pm and continue to eat until around 9-10 pm. we usually give them a bottle around 8 or 9 pm to stock them up for the night. then they get up around 3 am and we give them bottles (and I pump) and then the cycle repeats itself.

on a separate note, I had a great friend, kris, and her kids down to hang out for the afternoon last week. sadie, her daughter, has been dying to meet ellie and claire and it was just precious to watch sadie soak up the time holding them. she held claire for the longest time and claire just slept peacefully. what fun it was to watch sadie delight in the girls.

charlie instantly wanted to “hold hold” when he saw sadie holding claire. so charlie is holding ellie and sadie is holding claire.

mud pie anyone??

today was beautiful and charlie was outside working away. he started washing rocks. then worked on pouring techniques using funnels, big cups, little cups, water bottles, etc. then he hit the jackpot…dirt! I have not planted my pots yet (I am waiting for my mom to visit because she is an expert planter!) and charlie decided to add a little dry dirt to his fun. I cringed a bit inside, but remembered back to my days of making “stew” in my backyard with berries, water, dirt, sticks, and anything else I could find. so he enjoyed his mud making and I was able to sit back and enjoy watching him stir away.

I should also mention how much I LOVE our deck. it is pretty big and provides an extra “room” during the spring, summer and fall. charlie is now free to roam the deck and yard (the gates are locked) without me having to be by his side. he loves his new found freedom.

meet hula (aka “the white doggie”) our neighbor’s dog. hula comes outside and barks at lily. charlie really enjoys this and goes over and barks back and her and lately I think they have become friends. after hula gets sick of barking she lays down and charlie squats down and they have chats. funny how charlie is not that into lily.

we have also been making car forts and playing on the “big ocean”.

pretty sweet car fort if you ask me!

cars dvd most likely is playing on the tv. how else do you nurse 2 babies at once?!?!

speaking of the girls. here they are playing on the “big ocean” (can you tell we are doing more pretend play around here?). they got dressed up for auntie mary’s evening visit last night. they are rarely out of their sleepers. ellie is on the left, claire right.

ellie sporting her new smile (well almost). the girls are officially smiling now and it is great. they have both really started these past couple days.

thank you bubba for coming down and loving on me and my sister and brother!

one picture of me with my girls. claire was sick of the pictures!

we have a picture of charlie JUST like this. I need to find it and post it on here, but for now this is claire.

charlie getting near the girls. he wants to be so close to them it is so sweet.

evidence

here is some evidence of my friends loving on my kids. I am so blessed!

julia. who not only loves my girls, but also loves lily. she walked over the other day with her 5 month old and took lily back to her house to play catch with her dogs outside! what an amazing friend!

becca and ellie.

this is how loving becca is. when I had a few friends over and we were all chatting and nursing babies. becca was getting jumped on by charlie and addison and she read every book on the shelf!

 

here is a picture of claire and ellie from last night. check out those chubby cheeks! I weighed them again because I couldn’t help it! claire was 8 lbs 13 ozs and ellie was 8 lbs 4 ozs.

lily was hanging out with the girls.

claire and ellie on the big bed. they are starting to smile at us and really focus on you when you are talking to them. so sweet!

almost a smile…

this was bill’s set up last night when I was getting dinner set up.

group hug!

then we ate dinner, took a walk, got charlie to sleep and then the fussing really started. at this point they were both wailing…

don’t worry, they settled down and were actually both sleeping peacefully by 9:15-9:30! they ate again at 2:15am and then were back asleep until around 6:30-45ish. not bad girls.

“dis mine!”

wow – do we have a two year old on our hands or what! charlie is quite into what is HIS!

this is what our dinner conversation was like last night after charlie and addison had played together…

bill: “charlie, how was playing with addison today?”

charlie: “addison say dis mine, dis mine!...ME TAKE!!! ME TAKE!!!” (what charlie was trying to say is addison had a toy and said it was his and charlie took it and said it was his!).

**I will admit that bill and I burst out laughing at this last night. not exactly what we wanted to do, but charlie was replaying exactly what he had been doing with addison that day.

or today after sbs childcare:

me: “charlie, did you have a fun time in childcare today? what did you do?”

charlie: “me take!” “dis mine!”

lovely, so we have a klepto on our hands. he has definitely gotten more aggressive about taking things away since the girls have arrived. but surprisingly when they are laying on the floor he will bring them his cars and trucks and share them. not sure if it is a two year old thing or two baby sisters arriving that has really made him more into what is HIS, but I need some help fixing it. any suggestions? it is so much harder for me to give him extra attention with me constantly juggling the girls. I think I more often than not right now are saying “no” versus “yes” to him. I really need to work on this.

here are charlie and addison playing nicely.

beginning of a discussion about who owns this.

a break from the battle to watch cars together. charlie is teaching addison bad habits.

on a much sweeter note, charlie has a book called Jesus + Me that is produced by Eaglebrook Church in the twin cities (a great friend gave it to charlie when the girls were born). the book describes the gospel and how much God loves him. it is a great overview for kids to read. when putting charlie down for nap yesterday he said he wanted to read the book so i started to read it. he then said "ME READ!" and i said "oh, you want to read the book to me??" "YES!" he said. charlie will very often fill in parts of a book when you pause, but he doesn't normally just "read" (repeat from memorization) the pages (although i am now seeing he wants to do more of this). sure enough, he walked right through the book. i would just start the page so he would know where begin and he would take off and read me the entire section. the reason it is so sweet is to hear how he at least "knows" the gospel. he would read about how we all sin and there are consequences for our sin (he then mentions time out!) and how God sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins that we might be able to receive the gift of forgiveness and ultimately salvation. he gets sad as he talks about Jesus being put up on a cross to die and his favorite part is definitely the resurrection story and how Jesus is alive!

it takes a “willage”

this is SOOOOO true for our family right now. people will say to me – “I don’t know how you do it?” my response is “I am not doing it”. we are so blessed with family and friends who are helping me survive each day with 3 kids. here is who and what I am thankful for:

*bill – my loving husband who is getting up with me in the middle of the night to feed the girls and still getting up really early to get to work each day. he is surviving on much less sleep than me each day and I am so grateful for him.

*my mother in law, laura, who has been down here for 2-3 days at a time the past few weeks (and will continue to come down). when she is here I am able to sneak out for an early run with no kids or dash to the grocery store. she plays endlessly with charlie and spends most of her day imagining where the “big lion” (aka – lily) is hiding out or setting up car crashes or today in our 90 degree heat helping charlie wash his cars for hours.

*my mom and dad who were here for 3 weeks when the girls were born and have come back for more visits to help out. they too play a lot of cars and duplos with charlie and take trips to the zoo and parks. all things that charlie loves to do, which I am not as free to do since I am caring (ie: feeding) ellie and claire.

*my wonderful friends from Bible study who have been delivering meals every other day for the past few weeks and it will continue until the end of may. praise the Lord. without their food love we will would be living on peanut butter toast.

*and again - my amazing, dear friends who volunteer their free time to come over and hold babies, bring lunch, play with charlie, encourage me, make me feel normal, etc. when I know someone is coming over mid-morning to help out it makes the day much more manageable. It is such a relief to know that I will have some adult conversations and also have help coming if the morning is turning into a disaster.

*i know there are more ways that we are being served right now but these were the ones i instantly thought of. thank you to all our loving friends and family for helping us through this busy, yet blessed time in our lives.

curious

I was dying to know what the girls weighed and  was sick of just guessing. I was also convinced that claire was way bigger than ellie so I decided to try and weigh them on my kitchen scale. it worked perfect! claire weighed 8 lbs 5 ozs and ellie was 7 lbs 13 ozs at 6 weeks and 2 day old.

 

here is claire modeling the set up.

proof.

a quiet little saturday

well – it wasn’t totally quiet with 2 sets of twins and a two year old, but we had an awesome time! we had our friends ryan and kate down for our girls’ first play date. their sweet girls, eva and elise, are almost 5 months old and were such happy little babies. either kate or I were nursing most of the day, but we had a wonderful time catching up.

here is a picture of both of the ellie joys – eleanore joy and elise joy.

we can’t wait until our next get together!