A Day in My Life

I like to periodically record a typical day in my life, just for me to look back on. I love reading old posts about events or simple day-to-day happenings that I would have completely forgotten about if I had not recorded it.

These photos are actually from one month ago, but it's still the exact same routine and the girls look the same. So, it still works.

7:30AM

Wake up.

D usually wakes up about now, sometimes earlier, rarely later. He either lays in bed screaming for me to come get him, or runs upstairs to our room to sneak in and ask me for milk and a cartoon.

S + A wake up around 7:15, but being the selfless mother that I am, I let them talk to each other and play in their cribs for 15 minutes so I don't have to get out of bed yet. 

When I get the girls, they are thrilled to see me. A gets the left crib. S gets the right crib.

It's always so sad... both are thrilled to see me, but I can only take one out at a time, which results in the baby 2 crying (I alternate who's first), then I leave baby 1 in the living room to come back for baby 2, which results in baby 1 crying. It's a tough life being a twin.

 Dylan gets a milk and a cartoon as he lounges on the couch.
Then, we gather in the kitchen for breakfast. Dylan eats oatmeal or cheerios. The girls eat baby food - one veggie and one fruit with oatmeal mixed in.

 8:00
Girls get 6 oz of Gentlease Formula.

Playtime with the family. Daddy plays with the kiddies before heading off to look for work.

Oh, wait, I ask B to stick around to help with quick baths. The girls LOVE to get in the bath, but they only last about as long as it takes to get them clean. Then, they both stand at the side trying to climb out (A may have fallen headfirst into the toilet once). It's stressful!

Daddy really leaves this time. More time to play. We crawl around the house. Our favorite room is D's room because there is a bed to climb on.

9:45 Nap time for the twins. Play time for Dylan. Random tasks for Mommy.

Dylan likes to pull out a new toy and plays with it during nap time. He loves his cars and garage today.

D and I go up to the loft to play with his rocketship. I love our play time, so does he. Then, I have to go downstairs to get some work done on the computer. I work for a nonprofit that tries to help and prevent pornography addiction. Sometimes I exercise in this time, I shower, I blog, I facebook (who knows why?), I browse articles, I clean... but, mostly, I work or play with Dylan.

11:30 Girls wake up from their nap. A on left, S on right. They are happy to see me...

The girls play while I get lunch ready.

11:45 Lunch time. D gets PB&Honey sandwich with a fruit. The girls get bread, turkey, cheese, and a fruit. They mostly feed themselves, but prefer if I sit there and put it in their mouths. haha. D gets a Preschool Prep cartoon as I'm busy taking care of babies and can't pay much attention to him. Poor kid. (He's showing me the "I love you" sign)

Lunch is followed by more playtime. A is a cheeseball.

 S loves books.

 S and A fight over the door being open or closed.

 A won. S gave up.

 Wait, now we want the door open.

 1:30 Start putting D down for a nap. Girls play all over his bed as I read him a story, cuddle and sing him songs, give him water in his sippy cup, and tuck him in bed.

1:45 If I'm lucky, D's done by now and I put the girls down in their cribs. They don't let me rock them anymore, they just reach for their cribs, so I lay them down and pat their backs and sing to them.

2:00 My lunch. I usually starving by now. I eat a sandwich, veggie chips, and grapes almost every day. No, I do not get sick of it. I rotate the kind of bread I use, new kind every week, so it keeps it fresh for me. :) Then, I sit down and hope to get a good chunk of work done. I have meetings scheduled in this period a lot of the time, so it's hard when babies decide to not sleep and I just have to let them cry while I take care of my meetings. I wouldn't mind not working.

3:00-4:00 Anytime in here the girls wake up. They like to sneak to D's room. His is the door at the top of the pic. They have gone in there while he's napping before without me noticing (bc I took the other one out to the living room first). Luckily, it didn't wake him up.

4:00 We wake D up if he's not already up. Notice his musthaves - monkey blanket, sea horse that plays music, bunny... and he also likes his doggy and a sippy of water.

4:10 D enjoys his milk and cartoon. Girls get a bottle. Then we play out back or in D's room or upstairs... wherever.

5:20 Dad comes home! Kids love to climb all over him as soon as he comes home. So cute. This is in D's room. These are sheets that Daddy had in college... maybe before too. lol.

I go to the kitchen and start dinner and clean up a bit. We go through 8 bottles every day.

 5:30 Babies get their dinner of a veggie and a fruit with oats, some of whatever we're eating, and whatever we scrounge for them.

6:00 Dinner. Dinner is finally ready for the rest of us. I have not figured out how to make dinner for our family without B home to watch the kids.

7:00 Bottle time. Babies get a 5 oz. bottle.

Dylan plays with his train on the table so that the babies won't get it.

We all play in the living room together with pj's on. Getting ready for bed. A on left. S on right.

8:00 Bed time. Girls go down relatively easy. D takes more effort. Potty, brush teeth, read 3 books, cuddle and sing songs, water, tuck in, sing more songs, listen to his recap of random events, say good night... takes a lot of coercion to get the first two items done... this is a long process.

8:30 Relax. Depending on the night, we'll watch a show on TV together. Read. Chat. Look for jobs. I'll work. Blog. B generally does the dishes. Pick up toys if we forgot while D was up to help.

10:00 Go to bed. Read. Talk too long.

11:00 Hopefully go to sleep if we didn't talk too much. We have that problem for sure.

Twins Cake Smash

I finally got these photos edited. I should put them on the twins blog... but, then you don't see them. So, here they are. :) These girls could not be any cuter. OK - it would have been a little cuter if they had smiled. :) Even just once...

Sylvie is in light pink. Axie is in dark pink.

Church with One-year-old Twins

We have been to all 3 hours of church, actually sitting in the classrooms, under 4 times this whole year (the girls first year of life).

We have been to all 3 hours of church, anywhere in the building, probably about 4-5 months worth.

We usually make it to Sacrament. Then, I take the girls home to take their normal 1.5 hr nap. Bryce is the 1st counselor in Young Men, so he has to be there to teach most Sundays. He takes them home if it's my Sunday to teach. I teach Relief Society the 2nd Sunday every month (I love my calling).

We discovered that the girls won't sleep at church a few months ago... they grew out of sleeping in their carseats... which never worked that well anyway.

From about 8-10 months old we would walk them around the dark cultural hall for an hour, then make it to the last hour of church. This would make for super fussy babies the rest of the day, they don't really function without their super long morning nap.

Welcome to 11 months old to present... we cut out after Sacrament... it works so great! I was basically missing most of church anyway, now I can do it peacefully at home while babies sleep.

The Bishop gets mad because he loves taking a baby for the last hour of church. What an awesome bishop right? Bishop Clement just loves kids and always gives them candy from his office. He loves holding our babies, so it's really fun. The women in RS always want to see the babies (we're just about the only people with babies in the ward, so it's fun for everyone) so I feel bad not bringing the babies.

Sunglasses

Bryce got diagnosed with early stage cataracts. Blah. So he had to wear sunglasses whenever he's outside. Lucky for him... He forgets his sunglasses a lot and gets to wear mine.  

Quotable

The other day...

Mommy: Axie, come here so I can change your diaper.
Axie: (Typical 11 month old response... ignore... smile cutely at me)
Dylan: (Stands tall in front of her, with one hand on his hip and the other pointing and waving in the air) (said very firmly) Axie, you need to listen! When mommy tells you to do something, you do it! Go get your diaper changed.


The other other day...

Dylan: I need to go potty. Mommy, don't touch my ferris wheel (a cool set of magnets from Gma Jill)
Mommy: OK
Dylan: Mommy, you'll be obedient?
Mommy: Yes, I'll be obedient.
Dylan: You'll listen?
Mommy: Yes, I'll listen.
Dylan: You'll make a good choice and not a bad choice?
Mommy: Yes, I'll make a good choice.
Dylan: OK, I'm going potty. Don't touch my ferris wheel.


Another day...

Daddy: Man, my nose keeps running. (He grabs a Kleenex)
Dylan: Your boogars are running away?

Today I'm Sad

I just wasted 2 hours watching every minute of film I have from the first 3 months of the twins lives.

Why does that make me sad? There is a total of one minute combined video of me holding a baby... this is from the minute they were born... through the first THREE months. Not ONE video of just me holding the babies, or holding one baby, nursing them, kissing them, cuddling them... nothing...

I was barely functioning during those months, I know. But I was functioning enough that all I did was kiss, nurse, and love those babies... and I am so sad I can't relive those moments. I don't have time to watch the next months videos, and I don't have the energy for more tears and letdowns.

I know people lived for years without videos. So, obviously, I'll survive. I'm just temporarily devastated, forever saddened that I can't watch or show them how I loved them in those months. Guess photos will have to suffice (which I have not dared look at either in case they let me down too).

Lesson learned. Bryce is really quite good at picking up the camera and recording things, I think we were both just out of it those first months. Moms need to be on camera too. As much as I love watching my kids and husband on camera... I want to be there too... unwashed hair, pj's, and all. :)

I will probably still cry a little that I don't have a video of our brand new babies in my arms... maybe a lot...

Twincessities

I love having twins. Some days I'm still in shock that we have twins. Twins were never on my radar. I've never had friends who were twins. I've never been close to any twins. No twins in the family.

Disclaimer: My stepsister has fraternal twin boys, but she lives in another state and I've only met the boys once and it's not blood-related so I never thought I might have twins too. Also, I knew a couple cute girls in Wyoming who were twins, but since I didn't know their twin they didn't seem so much like a twin to me. :)

We have to make a few adjustments because we have twins.

Yesterday, I had to separate their cribs because as Axie was falling asleep, Sylvie would reach through and bonk her head or grab her hair and continuously wake her up. This also happens in the mornings, when one baby wakes up, she goes straight to the other and reaches through the crib until baby #2 also wakes up to play. I often see them on the monitor standing playing with each other. Quite cute.

I try to give them separate areas to play in, but it doesn't always work. Axie was the thief for awhile, but in the last couple months Sylvie has taken over. Anything that Axie has in her hands, Sylvie yanks it out, Axie looks up at me and cries her sad sad tears. Axie has learned to twist her body to hide the toy from Sylvie, but S will still climb over her to get it... then the sad tears come again. Because they are so mobile, the separation doesn't always work because they are very aware of what toy the other one has and can easily crawl over to get it.

The iPhone. I only had a flip phone when Dylan was a baby, but he loved it like crazy and I let him play with it. These are my first babies with an iPhone. They go carazy over it. CA-RAZY! I can't talk on the phone by them, they will cry and cry for it. I can't let them hold the phone for even a minute (over carpeted area where they are sitting) just to look at some fun colors... no matter what it results in tears. I've only attempted it maybe once every couple weeks when I feel guilty they want it so bad and think... what harm can there be in this? It always ends in tears. They rip it out of each other's hands, scream if it's taken from them, and get so excited holding it they shake in pure excitement.

These tears are hard to believe because right now they are in their cribs chirping back and forth at each other. I love their little communication!! (They are supposed to be falling asleep, lol)

During dinner, when they are done, they start pointing their fingers at each other (tip to tip, like we do with them), or try to hold hands or grab the other. Sometimes they'll start chatting... this usually consists of ahh! from Sylvie, then ahh! from Axie, and so forth... Dylan often chimes in thinking it's hilarious.

Dylan loves to get both of them talking or shaking their heads or motorboating their lips.

Sometimes the girls go in opposite directions, to different rooms in the house. But, more often than not, they like to be near each other and end up following each other back to Dylan's room. Dylan's room is their haven. They just love it. They especially love his bed.

We provide serious entertainment at church (the Kirklin's sit behind us and crack up the whole time, they claim they have the best seat in the house). The girls are so squirmy. I can't handle all three kids on my own. So, we pass off a baby if Bryce has to pass sacrament or whatnot. Trying to handle both babies, who want to be up on the bench with me is tricky. They both think they can sit or crawl wherever... so I struggle to prevent both from falling. No accidents yet (on my watch, anyway).

I finally splurged and bought a nice comfy baby carrier. It's actually a toddler carrier since the girls are so big. This way, when I go places, I can strap one on my back and carry the other one while holding Dylan's hand. Most the time we load up the stroller, but sometimes, I just need to carry them and I always have to do an extra load from the car to get baby #2.

I can't wait until they are walking. It will make going places much easier when I don't have to watch everything they're crawling on... but, I may have to invest in leashes since they will most likely run in two different directions.

I spend most of my day sitting on a cushion (the boppy) on our hard floor playing with the babies. They just like to play by me or stand/sit on me. I sometimes feel bad I can't always hold them when they want to be held, which is also why I invested in the carrier. I can now carry one around when I'm taking care of tasks... most the time it's just one of them that's really needy. When it's both, I strap one on my back and carry the other and we bounce around together. You would think I'd be in better shape lugging 2 25lbs. babies.

I just love having twins. It is so much fun. I love that I'm past the "I can barely function" stage and I'm past the "Just surviving" stage and feel I'm in the "I can't go out much, but life at home is fun" stage. Once the girls start walking and say bye-bye to their morning naps, I imagine we'll get out a lot more and say hello to the "life is more interesting, we can go out" stage.