Too Fast!

Well hello there! Holy cow the weeks of this summer are sliiiiippppping away from me! I feel like summer got off to kind of a slow start and now we're just two weeks away from my itty bitty tiny (not really anymore) babies turning TWO!

This birthday snuck up on me, BIG TIME! We've had a theme in mind for months, and the pinterest planning is done, but the actual execution-- L.A.T.E! I had been thinking about invitations and knowing it needed to happen soon, but soon kinda passed me by and NOW arrived! We ended up using evite (not my favorite, I REALLY like paper invitations) and they turned out really cute. Since I couldn't find a free invitation that met our theme I ended up choosing one of their premium options and paid the $4 for it. Still incredibly cheap when the alterative  would have  run us several times that price and would have taken a few more days to arrive at our guests doorsteps-- time was running out!

I'm planning to get lots of shots of the details of the party and in a couple of weeks you'll be able to get a glimpse of our little pilots' birthday bash! So far, the door wreath is complete, the  plans for  the shirts  I'm making are underway, the menu is generally planned, now we just need to finish up a bunch of crafty projects and then we'll be on our way. Did I mention their party  is two week from tomorrow? Yeah. I may be dreaming with  that pinterest inspiration board... but, I work well under pressure so we'll see how much I manage to get done!

Aside from birthday party planning I'm registration planning for our local MOP.S group. I'm in charge of registration and let me just tell you-- I have Be You Brave.ly stuff and feathers ALL over the play room. Poor little boys have had their play room commandeered until registration and birthday party crafting is complete! Both events are in the same week, so  hopefully both go off without a hitch!

Find Your People

This morning as I was doing my  morning scroll through face.book I saw a link to an article about motherhood. It is always a valid topic for me, and generally I'll click a link if it has to do with something that is current in my life. Especially if it has been shared or reposted by someone who is in a similar season of life.




Motherhood, while always at the forefront of my mind, has been more so in that last several weeks. You see, I'm in  the depths of planning for the upcoming year with my local MO.PS steering team and I've been challenging myself  to really think about how we as moms can uplift one another. How we can help carry burdens and how we can rejoice with other moms when success is reached-- in life, but especially as moms.




This time of my life is rich. I'm blessed beyond measure- I find myself on a daily basis appreciated, well loved, challenged and above all else needed.  Sure, I may not shower for days on end,  and I  might think that brushing my teeth before noon is a big victory, but wow, I can truly say, nothing is  better.




Nothing could be better, unless it were this. Please, please take the five minutes to click on over and read an article about what it might be like to raise your children in a village. Though I think this sounds pretty incredible, I think we have ways in the world we live in now to  find a place that looks a little more like this. Moms don't have to feel alone in motherhood. Sure,  in most cases  it isn't going to work to live a life like the one depicted in the article, but what about working toward it?


What about finding moms who are where you are? Not just moms you connect with online in forums/through blogs and the like (though they are helpful too!)- but instead finding a group.


For me it has been MO.PS. My group has cried together, has talked through rough spots in parenting and in life, we've prayed for each other, we taken care of kids who don't belong to us and  we rallied around one of our own when she went  into pre-term labor at 28 weeks. I didn't know a single person when I walked  in  a little less  than a year ago, and now, I feel supported by a group of moms who know a lot about where I am right now in this pretty incredible season of life.




The moral of this story is- find your people. Create your village.  Its important- its worth putting in the work. And one last little bit- don't make your village only family members. It wasn't a choice for me to lean heavily on my family because they are a few hours down the road, and in all honesty it feels really good to know I have family to depend on AND friends.

Pinterest does it again!

I use Pinterest all the time. I use it to find recipes, art projects for the boys, decorating ideas for our home, planting ideas for our yard/garden, simple remedies for most any situation, advice on lots of things and most recently I've used it a TON to help plan for our local MO.Ps 2014-15 year. In that planning, I ran across a quote, that although very simple, I can't get out of my head. It's been several days now, and it is still there, begging to be pondered, to be implemented.

Be a fountain, not a drain.

It's so simple, and easy to remember, but one of those things I think we could all learn from. For me, during this season if life, it means encouraging my family, it means taking time to see the good in situations and celebrating that instead of focusing on the hard parts or the less than glamorous pieces of mothering small children.  I also think it means being a place (person) where people come to recharge to be revived- an oasis, instead of being the place people come to flush their stuff down or the downer of the party always unloading your hardships onto someone else. Inspire and renew instead of the alternative.

For me, this week I'm just focusing on the fountain part. Be that- if I'm succeeding at it, I don't need to worry about the other. Be a fountain. It works for me. Even just thinking it is inspiring.


-- Also, this makes two posts in two weeks, I'm practically Old Faith.ful :)

3 in 3.5

So, as promised... HERE I AM... writing something! I can feel your excitement!

Today you get to hear about preparing for baby #3. I had literally never thought of the fact that IF we get pregnant when we are tentatively planning to (I seriously laughed out loud when I wrote that!)- Planning... you would've thought I had gotten over that a LOOOONG time ago! ok- back to my  thought, if we get pregnant in the first part of 2015 like we are hoping, that will mean I will give birth to three babies in a 3.5 year span of time. Whoa. I know people do it, I just generally let out the tiniest gasp and try to conceal my widening eyes when I hear of them! I have always, ALWAYS thought those mom/families were bordering on the crazy side of things. And here I am. A nice little reminder not to judge other people's choices!

In my defense, I have twins. Its different. Or so I tell myself. But in reality, most people would likely say it makes  me more crazy. That is ok. I love this hard, sticky, wet kisses, snuggling, sometimes smelly season of life. Days can be a challenge, and nights can be exhausting but I can easily say, this is what I was made for.  Being a mom is my everything and I hope we are able to  add to  this  family of ours.  

In the meantime we are working hard to get into better shape both just for ourselves and for H & A, but also so carrying another pregnancy can be as successful  as  my twin  pregnancy. To do that, I decided I had some weight to lose.  Arg. Not all that fun, but hubs was on board to follow along so it is something we are doing together which is kind of fun.  We, very  much on a whim, decided to  go all in and attempt transitioning to a paleo influenced way of life. Um, just in time for fair/festival and BBQ season, good plan... not really. 

However- I cannot tell you how happy we've been with  it. I'm not going to lie, the first week was a little slice of hell, but ever since we  both have felt so much better in terms of overall health.  Less headaches and stomach issues for hubs and less fatigue for both of us. I'd say in general we are eating paleo about 80% of the time, and for us  that is working. We still feel good having a little added sugar or  a few carbs here or there, but when we go  off completely-- holy cow, it is amazing how quickly we are both feeling somewhat sorry for our transgression! The change in how we feel would be enough to keep me trying to maintain the diet, but dropping 12 lbs since the end of May doesn't hurt either!

I still have a ways to go before I get where I would like to be when I conceive again, but I still have gobs of time to get there!

As a side note: I want to remember as hubs and I get more and more serious about our next round of treatments, A is getting serious too. We have a big doll, like the size of a 10-12 month old. For months she has spent most of her days at the bottom of the toy basket. Until recently when A  started dragging her out, bringing her to me, giving her a kiss and walking away. It is the cutest thing EVER.Then after he's left to play with other things and I've had my fill of holding a fake baby I set her down on the floor and usually within a minute he is back at my feet holding  the baby wanting me  to take her. Looks like at least one of the boys is  ready for a little sister or brother!

Come on, write SOMETHING!

Literally every morning, either while I'm still in bed willing the boys to sleep just a little longer, or sitting/laying on the couch while they play with far more energy than any person should have before seven AM, I check blogger to see what y'all are up to. Many mornings there is nothing new to read and I think to myself-- "come on, write something!" This morning, I had to laugh at myself. Me, urging you to write is somewhat comical because I write so seldom anymore. It's hard with the boys to find time to sit at the computer and allow my thoughts (uninterrupted) to find their way to all of you. And by all of you, I'm assuming the number gets fewer and fewer the less I write. I do miss it. I miss the outlet, but so often I feel like I have nothing new to say. I am, for sanity sake going to start attempting a post per week from now until the new year. At which point we'll hopefully be embarking on the journey to baby #3, which should lend itself to blogging more frequently.

Some things I'll likely be talking about:

The birthday date day
Becoming a softy
Keeping a tidy house with two toddlers
Preparing for baby #3
Feeding picky eaters
Our favorite things at nearly TWO
Birthday party planning

So stay tuned, don't give up on me just yet!

six months

I just called my RE's office for the first time in a very long time. It was such a weird,  surreal experience. It was like nothing had changed and like everything had changed all at once. 

Instead of sitting on my end of the line proclaiming to the receptionist that YET AGAIN cycle day one had arrived and feeling a twinge of hope alongside the daunting reality that a baby could still be YEARS away, I was sitting in my living room with two babies giggling themselves to sleep a couple of rooms away. I was checking in on the absence of the annual babysitting bill for our embryos. ((Which leads me to a question, do you pay annually for the storing of your embryos? I was under the impression this was completely standard, but was told by someone recently that they do not pay an annual fee for storage.-- we pay about $350 per year, if you were curious. ))

Anyway, it was weird. Though I do desperately want another baby or maybe even two, it was different calling the office. I was mostly checking on the bill, but also looking into some insurance stuff for when we head back  this fall for an  FET consult with hopes of a transfer in early 2015. Somehow it just wasn't as terrifying.  I get that I have two perfect babies at home, perhaps knowing the physicians already makes it easier, or maybe it is just that I have more of an understanding of what to expect. I know the drill. I suspect that come fall/winter I  will find plenty of things to stress about, but until then, I am so grateful for this complete calm about what is  ahead.  

In other news- we're having a garage sale  this weekend. How is it that every single time I forget how much work it  is to have one? I know it will  feel great to get several things out of our house and to gain a little cash for  the things we don't need anymore, but seriously, somebody remind me next year that it is a TON of work to get it all pulled together! Thankfully Hubs is  totally on board for helping so, fingers crossed, it should be an enjoyable weekend of hanging out  outside and getting rid of all the things that take up every bit of our garage!

What else? The boys are HUGE. We sneak in most nights on our way to bed and cover them up and last night we both just couldn't hardly take how big they looked in their cribs. My babies will be TWO in less than two months. -- H is a horrid sleeper and wakes up most nights somewhere between 1 and 3am. He has a horrible time getting  back to sleep and most of the time in the last couple of weeks he has needed to come to bed with us in order to settle back down-- unless I want to rock him for two hours, which for the record, I do not. This is one of those 'twins are way harder' areas. If  it was just H,  I could easily sleep in forever in the morning with him, but his stellar sleeper of a brother tends up  wake up for  the day just about  the time H is finally calming down on the roughest nights. If you are following along that means this mama of VERY busy twin almost two year olds  doesn't get enough sleep. 

Does all of that sleep talk make you wonder WHY in the world I would even consider wanting to get pregnant again? Yeah, me too! But, I have hope that by the time I'm growing another babe both boys will be sleeping much better. Six months. Surely we can do it. Right?

Play Group...

Taking a 19 month old, rather, TWO 19 month olds to a playgroup is an exercise in patience, physical agility/quickness and well, the list goes on.

One morning a couple of weeks ago my MOPs table group got together at the home of one of the mom's for a little playgroup. We do it every month and I've attended a couple and hosted a couple myself. I am ALWAYS on board to host at my own house. I have nothing out I care about anymore, because, lets face it, 19 month olds have zero self control and if I have to hear myself say 'No' more than I already do, I'll surely be sent to the loony bin. I also know there aren't small pieces of things laying around and in general my kiddos (and kids of like age) are safe to roam about and play without me jumping into action like a ninja with every turn.

So, back to this particular playgroup. My used to be 'Tiny' blonde boy was in rare form. Climbing has become a favorite pastime and thankfully at our house we've accommodated this and baby proofed accordingly. We currently have a bistro height kitchen table and have been thinking about getting a more average height one for months now. Note to self: wait longer. A spent the majority of our 1.5 hours of play group scaling the average height chairs and then hoisting himself up onto the kitchen table-- then, dancing a jig. Seriously.  19 months isn't exactly the 'lesson teaching' age, so it was a take him down and climb back up three ring circus. Thankfully the home we were in was one of a woman, who like me, struggled to get pregnant. She has a different out look on children than a lot of parents. She was just SO happy to have us, she genuinely didn't care that he was on her kitchen table. She joyfully took him down over and over while I sat and held someone else's baby. Its so nice to be with other moms who will joyfully give you a break and not totally judge you in the process!

Don't get me wrong, everyone in attendance wasn't exactly amused by the behaviors my children where exhibiting, but that's ok. Some days you just have to sit back and own where you are in motherhood. The good, the hard and the seemingly out of control! I encourage all mamas to find a group to be with regularly. Help where you can, encourage one another and simply enjoy motherhood together. This is one of the most joy filled times in my life, but it is also one of the most exhausting. I am so very thankful that I have a group of other moms to do this stage of life with.