March Of Dimes Update and a Sneak Peak.

Yesterday was the March of Dimes walk. I of course in my fury to gather everything that I might need for the kids, forgot to take the camera, so I have no pictures to show. Bummer! Although I am a bit disappointed that I forgot my camera I'm not sure I would have had time to take many pictures. There was a pretty good turn out, I think. I don't have much to compare it to since I've never been to one before, but I plan to be there every year from here on out. The exciting news is WE REACHED OUR GOAL!! The final tally is not in yet but according to my calculations we raised $1085.00, that's from all sources of money, online, offline, and coin boxes. Thank you so much to those who donated. Unless you have had a preemie or been close to someone who has you probably don't understand just how important the March of Dimes is. If you are looking for a charitable organization to donate to, I believe the March of Dimes is the one. Every penny goes to save babies somehow. The kids had a great time, we got several awards, the kids got a medal for surviving preemiehood,(hey a new word) and a trophy with their names on it for being the ambassador kids. We also got a trophy for raising 1000+ dollars for our team. The kids rode in their wagon for the walk, which was 1.5 miles. At one point my calves were burning so bad, but I pushed through and vowed to get my out of shape self on the treadmill. Sheesh, but everyone knows how hard that is to do, it's motivation that I lack, I gotta find it somewhere, anyone have any extra they can lend me? So our duties as ambassador family are over. I'm so glad we got be the ambassador family it was such an honor.

Now for the sneak peak. I had originally wanted the kids to be an elephant and a skunk for Halloween. I found some cute costumes but I didn't want to pay those prices for a costume that would only be worn once. Instead I found a Batman and Robin(I can't find a picture of the Robin costume on their site) costume at Walmart for cheap and decided although they where not as cute they where cheap and the kids could play with these later if they wanted to. But then, then I went to Old Navy with my Mom, just to look around of course and I heard her calling for me in a different part of the store. Low and behold they had some really cute and really well made costumes on their sale rack. I got these babies for 18.00 bucks each the tag said they were usually 22.50 each. So I introduce to you: Monkey and Skunk!

The little Monkey likes his costume and didn't want to take it off.

The little Skunk on the other hand was not as fond and threw himself in the floor in protest

Haha this just makes me chuckle. Look at that cute little unhappy face.

Oh the things we do to our kids.

14 Month Update and questions for you.

I've been thinking about a couple of things lately. First I must tell you that sometimes I am a chronic worrier. I always have been with the exception of the few months that I was on anxiety pills(happy pills) from all the stress of pre-term labor and early births, I still worry. I know it is normal to worry about the safety and health of your children that is a normal worry, but sometimes I get a dread, I'm sure some of you will know what I'm talking about. A dread that something awful "might" happen. This is what happened when I watched an Oprah that I had taped the other day. It was about Autism, something that I have known about and being the spaz that I sometimes am I have of course googled. Jenny McCarthy was speaking of her experience with Autism and her son Evan. What really got me to thinking is the statement that the CDC released to Oprah.

"CDC places a high priority on vaccine safety and the integrity and credibility of its vaccine safety research. This commitment not only stems from our scientific and medical dedication, it is also personal—for most of us who work at CDC are also parents and grandparents. And as such, we too, have high levels of personal interest and concern in the health and safety of children, families and communities. We simply don't know what causes most cases of autism, but we're doing everything we can to find out. The vast majority of science to date does not support an association between thimerosal in vaccines and autism. But we are currently conducting additional studies to further determine what role, if any, thimerosal in vaccines may play in the development of autism. It is important to remember, vaccines protect and save lives. Vaccines protect infants, children and adults from the unnecessary harm and premature death caused by vaccine-preventable diseases."

Before I had children I had heard of Autism and the possible link with vaccines, however I thought I had heard that that had removed the mercury, which is thought to be the culprit. I was wrong. Now I wish I would have done some research before my kids started getting vaccines. They have their 15 month checkup next month and I plan on doing some serious reading where vaccines are concerned. It is my understanding that they will be getting several vaccs. some which have the ingredient that is feared might be the cause of vaccine related autism. Now with that said I am no expert or health freak for that matter, but I feel as a mother it is my responsibility to protect my kids, I feel now I have the obligation to do my research and decide what is best for my kids.

What have you other mothers out there done? Did you vaccinate? Did you even worry about it? Hubby was telling me of an article he read that states just simply spacing out the vaccines helps. What do you guys think?

Now with all that said I have to tell you that I don't worry all the time. I don't lay in a fetal position worrying, who has time for that anyway. I don't limit my kids of most experiences or hinder their learning because something "might" happen, although daddy does not agree with me at times. I do realize that it really does no good to worry about those things that we can't possibly change, such as cancer or a bad accident. Those shows are supposed to make you think and to make you aware of such things, it did it's job for me.

Now for fun stuff.

Just this week the boys have taken off developmentally. I'll start with Karter this time.

Karter has really upped his babbling and talking. He is mimicking, for example he will pick up his toy phone and talk on it, and tonight daddy was making a popping noise with his mouth and Karter imitated him. It was so cute. This week he has gotten really good at just standing up in the middle of the floor, without pulling up on anything. He will stand there for a minute or more holding or playing with something and look around to see if I am watching, then give me a huge grin and sometime he even tries to walk to me. He loves, loves, loves chocolate milk. I have taken to squirting a little Hershey syrup in some whole milk, just to give it a little chocolate flavor and he loves it. He wants if first thing when he wakes up, kinda like a morning coffee to him. He has backed off on his eating a little bit, but still eats well. He drinks everything out of a cup, but is still allowed a water bottle in bed, eventually we will move to a sippy cup there as well. I have started working on the binkys a little bit. I would prefer them to only have them in their beds. Most times he is fine with this but there has been several times he crawls around saying ba ba, ba ba, this means two things. He either wants his cup or his binky, it always makes me smile cause the boy knows what he wants. I keep the "good" binkies in the bed and the ones that they aren't too fond of are somewhere in toy central in the living room. They don't like them as well so don't suck on them too much. One thing I have been keeping an eye on is his right foot. On his last visit to the doctor I asked him about it and he said it's no big deal right now that kids joints are loose and it should get better. At first I was like ok, no prob, but then I began to think, because he is still doing it that we might need to take further action. Like maybe that leg is weaker and we might need to do some strengthening exercises. I like my Ped. He is a nice man, but I kinda feel that he has not been as involved or as proactive as I would like him to be. He really hasn't, as far as I can tell, done any real developmental tests. He always seems happy with their development when we see him, but being that they are preemies I want to make sure there are no serious delays that we can be working on before they are two. He says they should catch up before or by that time. I'm sure they will, they don't really seem to have any serious delays to me. With that said I decided to have an evaluation done on my own, just to make sure. I don't foresee any serious delays but it never hurts to make sure. Being that they were preemies we qualify for a service until they are three. When they came home for the hospital they where evaluated, but Jimmy and I decided for several reasons, which I don't feel like typing all out since this is becoming a book, but if you want to know just ask, not to partake in the service. I called them to do another eval. and we should be getting that soon.

Wow, that was a lot longer than I wanted it to be and I still have Kolton left. To sum Karter up he's doing great, still no more teeth though, but he is getting lots of hair, so all those our there can stop worrying about him and his hair. It's growing. Oh, and he is sleeping through the night. YAY!

Kolton is such a copy cat. Whatever daddy does, Kolton tries to do. He is walking for the most part. He still crawls if he has somewhere he wants to go fast or if he falls down. He talks up a storm, most the time I have no clue what he's saying, but he does. They have both learned to feed the dogs their food. Today Kolton was trying to make our dog Baylee eat a piece of plastic something he found on the floor. I forgot to mention this about Karter in my book above, but they are both climbing on things. Some rearranging on the living room might be in order soon. They have learned to push their toy car up to stuff and try to climb on it. Today Kolton did this and climbed on the coffee table. Kolton is mean to Karter sometimes always taking what he has away, sometimes I have to intervene because he is holding Karter down to take something away from him. However Karter has taken stuff away from Kolton or if he wants something really bad he will whack Kolton in the face with it. They are both big flirty hams. They love the ladies. They are getting so fun, I can't wait for all the holidays to see the looks on their faces. We have our Halloween costumes. I have two for each, but that's another story. We just have to decide which one to wear depending on the weather.

Picture time. Oh I forgot that I broke the camera! I dropped it and the latch that holds the batteries in broke. I need to ghettofy it by taping it shut, so I can take pictures and upload them without having to hold the battery door closed.

We went to the State Fair last Sunday. The boys had fun, they like to people watch. I slathered them down with sunscreen and forgot about myself. Needless to say I have a pretty bad sunburn, my first in a long, long time.



The other day I gave them a KidCusine frozen lunch, gasp, the shock I know, but it was fast and they were hungry. On their faces is the chocolate dessert. Pay no attention to the horribly dirty glass on the door behind Kolton.

Brave Mama

I was feeling very brave today. I have taken the boys places by myself before, mostly Wal-Mart, or the mall or a clothing store, but I have never and here's where the bravery comes in, taken them out to eat by myself before. Today I did and I must say they acted just lovely. My Mom and I are giving my Sister and Sister-In-Law a baby shower tomorrow, they are due a week apart, and I had to go to Wal-mart for some stuff. We were in there an hour or so and it was lunch time when I left. I didn't feel like trying to find something at home so I took them to Chili's. They where so, so good. They ate grilled cheese and french fries and I at a grilled chicken salad. Karter flashed his killer smile at everyone and Kolton spent a lot of time just looking around. They did not throw a fit, throw stuff or get fussy. It was rather pleasant. I can cross that off my list of things I've not done before with them by myself. I do think however people felt sorry for me for some reason. I don't really know why, they were behaving themselves and I was not stressed but people, mostly other moms kept staring at me. Maybe they where impressed with my ability to handle twins and manage to eat at the same time with out a crisis. You think? The only hard part was trying to carry them in the restaurant. I didn't take the stroller because the restaurant is too small for my double stroller it was just easier to carry them. Well actually, Kolton tried to walk into the restaurant while I carried Karter. Kolton is really trying to walk and is doing a great job if you hold his hand, but it was just a little too far for him. He was smiling the whole way, but decided to sit down once we got to the doors. The nice lady that seats people picked him up, she was pregnant with her 4th, and her husband is in Iraq, and helped me to the table. That was nice of her. When It was time to leave I just carried them both out because they were sleepy and I knew Kolton wouldn't feel like trying to walk. That is one reason I will be glad when they both or at least one can walk by themselves. It will be easier to get them places by myself.

That's my story of bravery for the day. Enjoy some pictures we took at the park this past weekend.

Karter -he has my watch, he was kinda cranky. I think he's teething, he keeps holding his mouth funny, like his teeth hurt.

He looks like such a big boy sitting there. I can't believe they are already this big.

Daddy with his boys. He will kill me for putting these on here. He hates to have his picture taken.

Silly Boys!

The scratches on Kolton's head are from the cat. He finally was able to catch him and pull his tail. Thankfully the cat only has three legs or he would have really laid into him. It hasn't stopped him from chasing him though. That's me in the back ground. I don't like to have my picture taken either. Mommy is trying to loose a little weight first.

Fun was not had by all.

Karter has been cranky for several say. Let me rephrase that Karter has been super whiny for several days. He has not been sleeping well therefore everyone else in the house has not been sleeping well. Poor Kolton has been woken up several times by Karter then he has a hard time going back to sleep. I'm not quite sure what is going on with Karter. For two nights now he will wake up pissed off. I'm not kidding he is mad and anything you do to try to help him makes it worse. If you leave him alone he's mad, if you hold him he's mad if you give him his binky he takes it but then throws it down and if you don't give it back he's mad. If you offer him water or food he's mad. Last night I gave him Tylenol thinking maybe he has an earache or headache or something aching. I don't see him acting like something hurts but maybe it does. After 30 mins and the tylenol kicked in he calmed down and went to sleep. If he does it tonight I might have to take him in to the doctor tomorrow just to check for and earache or something. I remember my sister used to do something like this at night. She would just wake up and be mad nothing would please her and it went on for a couple of hours. She would wake the whole house. My mom thought maybe she was having night terrors or something. I hope this is not what Karter is doing. I tend to think not since a few days ago he had a little fever and he has had some loose stool. Hopefully in the next few days he will feel better. For two days he would not nap and he is oh so tired. Thankfully today he and Kolton are taking a rather long nap, must both be tired from the lack of sleep. As a parent it sucks when you don't know whats wrong. Your mind starts going crazy wondering if something is seriously wrong or not. I don't think there is but it's not nice not being able to help, that's what parents want to do, help and when you can't you feel defeated.

Following are some pictures I took the other day in the front yard. Kolton loved it, but that was the first day Karter started acting like he didn't feel well. We got a couple of ok shots but most of them went like this.

Karter fixing to go into a full blown protest.

In deep thought.

Not all of them were bad though.

Update: I wanted to update everyone on the March of Dimes status so far. We are at $740 now, so close to our goal I really hope we can make it and even better beat it. I want to thank everyone who has donated to this point I can't express enough how important this cause is and am so thankful that others are becoming aware. While in one of the meetings I attended for the March of Dimes it was said that no amount is too small even 5 cents is put to good use. The speaker stated that 5 cents could got to printing information that in turn could be handed out to mothers to be informing them of the use of folic acid during pregnancy and all the benefits hit has. No amount is too small it will all be used somehow to help save babies. I encourage you once again to help me reach my goal of $1000. If you can't donate that's fine pass on the information to others just get the word out about the March of Dimes, you never know who it might help.

Is being a stay at home mom a waste of a degree?

This is a question I have thought about several times. When we found out we were pregnant and we assumed we only had one I pondered on weather to go back to work or not. I pretty much had come to the conclusion that I would try to find part time work. I hadn't decided if I wanted to go right back to work or wait a year, but I assumed I would go back, I think. When we found out it was twins and that question was all but answered for us. It really wouldn't pay for me to work and then turn around and give all the money I made to daycare, and the longer I thought about it the more I was pretty sure that I wanted to stay home with them. I wanted to be the first to see their firsts. With this said I do feel a bit guilty at times and a bit sad for myself that I won't be using my newly earned Bachelors degree anytime soon, however I will be paying for my newly accrued student loans for a long time. I wanted and still want to return to school to get my Masters, but then I think , why? Why do I want to accrue more debt and still not use my degree? Who knows. As it stands we think we want one more child, I said one God, not two or heaven forbid three or more. I would love them all of course, but two was very hard and I want to see if I was right, right about one being pretty easy after two. I plan to stay at home until all children start school. Then what? By that time either I would have gotten my Master or not. Either way I will not have worked in my chosen field before. I wonder if it will be hard to enter the work field at that point. I will probably be in my mid to later thirties, which is by no means old but it's sure not a spring chicken. Anyway these are some thoughts that enter my mind at times, but really all I have to do is look at my two boys and know that even if I have $20,000 in student loans seeing them smile, sit, talk and walk first is well worth it. I can always go back to school but I can never get back the time I would miss if I worked. For me and for our family our plan works.

The boys have been home for 1 year.

I looked so tired and worn out here. I was that's what hospitalized bedrest, a natural birth a c-section birth and 48 days in the NICU gets you. I wouldn't recommend this make over.

On September 2, 2006 we brought the boys home. Oh how we where scared. You can read it here.
Several hours after we had been home on that day, we had visitors. I was feeling a little overwhelmed to say the least. I had not clue what I was doing, We had two tiny little babies to care for all by ourselves and along with them came two apnea monitors and one baby on oxygen. That first day we had some issues. One being something was broken on the big oxygen tank at home. We only found this out after we had hooked Karter up and he began to desat. We figured out something was wrong with the big tank and switched him to the portable one. His oxygen stats leveled out. So we had to call the company to come fix it. Then that evening both the boys apnea monitors kept going off. I was so worried they were going to die, that he hospital had sent them home too soon and I would not know what I was doing and something would happen and on and on. Those sure were some rough weeks. Kolton was still not eating that well and you had to pay close attention to him because he would, at just about every feed have a bradacardic episode. So not nice to try to feed your baby and he turns blue sometimes, I felt some what at ease having Karter's oxygen. I brought a portable tank into the bedroom and if I felt he wasn't pulling out of it fast enough I would give him so blow by. Oy! And would you look at all the medical terms preemie moms learn.

Thank fully we made it though that first year and the kids are not harmed in any way. Now the parents we have scars, they are not visible to the eye but they are there not only in our heart but in our memories as well. Sheesh I'm so glad that's over.

Having a little snack in their Spiderman chairs.