Valentine's Day

A little background- I have honestly never been a big fan of this "wannabe" holiday. Sure, I enjoy getting gifts ANY day, but I just really don't care about Valentine's day and I don't care about getting an overpriced dozen roses or waiting four hours to eat at a restaurant that I wouldn't wait 30 minutes to eat any other day. What's the big deal?

Having said that, I can acknowledge that this is a day set aside to really appreciate and tell our loved ones how much they mean to us (you should probably do this more often than once a year, but I get it). Saturday night my mom came over because Brian and I were planning to maybe go out to eat, but I didn't feel up to it and the babies were being so fun, so I was very happy to get some take-out from Chili's and dine in with the kiddos. That night as I was drifting to sleep, it just hit me how grateful I am for Brian. Have we had our share of arguments? Yes. Have we struggled to understand each other at times? Yes. But at the end of the day, we really do love each other. I love him for going through all of our infertility struggles right along side me. I love him for trying to understand me when I am being crazy. I love him for being patient with the independent, demanding part of me while still loving the attention-seeking, spoiled part of me. I love that he doesn't make me feel bad if I want to be LAZY. I love him for calling me every single day on his lunch break and on his way home from work. I love him for taking off work when I was pregnant to go to every single doctor appointment with me without me ever having to ask him (and with twins there were A LOT of doctor appointments). I love that he always respects me enough to talk to me before making any big decisions. I love that we can be stupid and goofy around each other with no fear of judgement. I love that he tells me to wait for him to feed the babies after work because he really wants to have that special time with them. Most of all, I love him for being such a good, sweet daddy to our babies and for really wanting to be at home with us over being anywhere else. I love our crazy little family.

OK- enough of the sappy stuff. Here are some random pictures of Nate and Lilly on their FIRST Valentine's Day!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY to all our friends and family!

Nate's first hair cut!

A couple of weeks ago, we finally had to bite the bullet and cut the "wings" off the sides of Nate's beautiful curly hair, and a little off the top (what a mop)! Our day care provider, Donna, was nice enough to snip a little off for us when we arrived at her house early one morning (THANKS DONNA!!). She even broke out her hair-cutting smock (how professional- I think she has done this before!). I am late getting the pics posted because I used Donna's camera so I had to get the pics onto my computer.

He was such a good boy! He was a little confused as to what was going on, but he didn't squirm around very much at all. He was just concentrating on trying to eat the smock!

What's New..

A few new developments to report, and some new pictures I wanted to post. Nate can hold his own bottle now, which is nice when you have one baby, but a life saver when you have TWO babies!! They have really been talking a lot the last few days. They are big on "na na na" and "da da da, ba ba ba". You can tell they really think they are having a conversation. They have these cute facial expressions and everything! I can't wait until they say "ma ma"!! We are practicing sitting up a lot and I they are getting pretty good!

He is very pleased with himself.. so cute.

Lilly just holds on to your finger for dear life. I think it's so sweet.

7 months

The seventh month of Nate and Lilly's lives have been FULL of very exciting (and some not so exciting) firsts. Their first Christmas, their first long road trip (13 hours to be exact), first nights away from home, Nate's first haircut (waiting on pictures to post-I used another camera!), and first bad colds (booo)! They are both trying to sit up, but don't quite have it down yet. Nate is getting really close! They are both on Stage 2 foods and pretty soon we will start with the finger food puffs and some of that good stuff.

Good news for this month-Nate does not have to be on special formula any more. We have him on the regular stuff and he is doing just fine! Lilly is the one on special formula now for her acid reflux, but it's a good thing too, because this means we can take her off the medication.

I am back at work full time now, so that is hard for me, but I know I am leaving them in good hands. I just miss them- especially when they are in good moods and they want to play! We definitely make the most of our time together.

Pictures from the past month-

Lilly is already reading on her own-my little genius!

Hey Mom!!
We found our TOES!

First fight over not wanting to share..

Well, Nate didn't want to share!

DISCLAIMER: I was closely monitoring the babies while they were sitting up on the counter in their Bumbo Chairs!!! I stood right in front of them the whole time!

Talking to his new doggie- he loves it!

After his first hair cut- my handsome boy! Seven months old today- January 22.
If you don't have a huge smile on your face, you are made of stone!

Trying so hard to sit up for a minute!

"..But I'm okay now".

I left work yesterday with an icky feeling. I'd made stupid mistakes in an email to attorneys we work with who I respect very much, and I had gotten in minor arguments with people about departments ignoring our requests, about miscommunication, disagreements, blah, blah, blah.. As I drove out of the parking lot I was kind of angry, on top of feeling incompetent and dumb, among other things. Usually this icky feeling sticks with me all evening, popping up in my head every once in a while, making me insecure, making me question myself, but not this time. No, with every traffic light I passed through I began to think about where I was headed; to pick up two beautiful happy babies who love me unconditionally. I always talk about how much I love Nate and Lilly, but the thing that truly fills my heart and makes my life complete is how much they love me. They don't love me because I meet deadlines or because I don't make errors in my reports, they love me because I play peek-a-boo, because I read to them, because I rock them when they can't sleep, and I cover them up when they're cold. Brian and I are the most important people to them right now, and they don't care that we're not rich or famous, or that we didn't graduate from Harvard, or that we don't keep an immaculate house. I found myself forgetting why I had the icky feeling, and then all of a sudden the icky feeling was gone. By the time Brian called me to tell me he was on his way home from work, I was sitting on the floor by the babies, each in their own exersaucer, reading books to them. He asked his usual question, "Did you have a good day at work?" "No, not really", I said, "but I'm okay now."

Getting over baby bronchitis!

So far, 2009 has been full of boogery babies for us (and we haven't felt all that great lately either). When we were in Colorado, the babies came down with some yucky chest congestion/cough/cold (bronchitis), but luckily was nothing serious like RSV or pneumonia. Actually we are all getting better, but Lilly hung on to a nasty cough that liked to rear its ugly head in the wee early hours of the morning. I called the doctor just to see if it was normal for her to still be coughing so much and they wanted to see her, so yesterday we saw the physician's assistant, who gave us some decongestant and an antibiotic (apparently she saw the beginning of an ear infection- glad we caught it before it got too bad). She slept better last night with just a few mild coughing spells, so hopefully we are on the upswing and now that their immune systems are nice and developed we won't need to have any more nasty colds this winter (fingers crossed)!

Trying to steam the mucus out in the bathroom..

Christmas in Colorado- a letter from Nate and Lilly

Dear Grandma Diane and Grandpa Dick:
We wanted to thank you for letting us stay at your house for a whole week. It was our first long road trip and our first overnight vacation away from home! We had a lot of fun even though we got sick and mommy had lots of melt downs. (She had a great time too, she just gets a little frazzled when her routine is altered in any way-it is a pain, but we are used to it by now)! Thank you for feeding us, and holding us, playing with us down on the floor, and cuddling with us. We were glad to meet everyone at Grandpa's work so they could see how adorable we are in person! Thank you for letting mommy junk up your kitchen counter with formula, bottle parts and peices, rice cereal, baby food, etc. Thank you for doing our laundry every day when we kept barfing all over our outfits! Mommy was glad to not have to do laundry when we got back home. Grandma, thank you for taking the whole week off of work! Sorry we couldn't stay at your birthday party very long. It was great to meet your friends, for the short time we were there. Mom and Dad were disappointed they had to leave because we wouldn't stop screaming!

Dear Aunt Kelly, Uncle Tom, and cousin Emily:
It was so great to meet you! Thank you for spending so much time with us. Emily kept us entertained and we had so much fun playing with her! She is very smart and we know we are going to learn a lot from her in the future. Thank you (and Julie) for letting us borrow the exersaucer, bouncy seat, and pack 'n' plays. Mommy and daddy were grateful to not have to worry about packing that stuff!

Dear Aunt Pam, Uncle Jeff, and cousins Anna and Joey:
Haven't we changed a lot since you last saw us in August!?? We were a little nervous we wouldn't get to see you all because Anna and Joey were sick when we first got there. Luckily, after a few days, the doctor gave them a clean bill of health and they were able to come play with us! Anna was so sweet and loving, always wanting to hold us. Joey had fun trying to figure us out! We were good practice for your new baby that will be coming in June! We won't be the runts anymore!! Pam- thanks for taking mom for a pedicure. She had a lot of fun and boy, did she need it!

Dear Aunt Steph:
We were so glad you were with us every second you could be. You could have been hanging out with all your friends on your Christmas vacation, but you made us a priority all week and never got tired of us and we enjoyed you loving on us more than you know. Sorry that we threw up in your hair and on your jeans and on your shoes. Thank you for being so sweet about it and not making us feel bad. Thank you for letting us borrow your space heater for the basement- it's cold down there!! Mommy and Daddy want you to know that the offer to pay you to live with us and babysit us while you are taking night classes still stands. We think you should consider it- we would love it!

Dear Uncle Danny:
Thank you for taking a break from your singing career to hang out with us. We wish we could have come to see you sing, but we were sleeping! Next time we will try our hardest to make sure we are there at least one time. Please don't forget us when you're rich and famous! Maybe you could write a song about us??

Thanks to everyone for all of our Christmas presents- we got a lot of cool new toys to play with! Even though we are far away and do not get to see you very often, mommy and daddy talk about you a lot and we know how much you think of us and love us. Thank you for adjusting your schedules so that you could spend as much time with us as possible. We are so grateful to have such caring grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We love you very much and can't wait to see you again! Until then, keep reading the blog to see what we are up to!!
Love,
Nate and Lilly