Category Archives: Life

8 months old

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My boys are 8 months old today! I am amazed at how much they have changed in 1 month. During the last month they both have started crawling, they both have 2 teeth and are both pulling themselves up to a standing position all by themselves.

I can officially say they are set into a daily routine. They wake up in the morning anywhere from 7:00 – 7:45 and they get their prevacid. We have to wait around 30 minutes after their medicine to eat then they have their bottle and usually an entire jar of baby food. They will play for a little while and then around 10:00 AM they will take a nap. They will sleep anywhere from 45 mins to 2 hours in the morning. If we have some errands to run we usually do them in between waking up from their nap and next feeding time, which is typically 12:00-1:00. They will play a little while and then take another nap around 2:00, where they will hopefully sleep 1-2 hours. They will eat again about 4-5:00 and then have play time while we get home from work, fix dinner and eat. Around 7:00 we give them their Prevacid again and start bath time. They absolutely LOVE bath time! After bath we’ll get them dressed in their PJ’s and have their last bottle of the day, then bed time! They are so used to their schedule they know if its different, and you will know they know!

Hayden playing with Jonathan's old tractor

Hayden has started showing us he is going to be our strong willed little one! I guess he gets it from his dad because I was a perfect little kid! Just ask my mom. 😉

Hayden was the first one to crawl and once he figured out how to get all the movements coordinated, he was off. He also learned how to pull himself up to a standing position all by himself. Needless to say both their crib mattresses were lowered!

He is still our serious one, but when he finds something funny, he laughs with all he has. I love listening to his laugh and seeing his smile, its priceless! Hayden is roughly 22 pounds and definitely feels it.

Hayden has found a new favorite game…it’s called see how many DVD’s he can pull off the shelf before we catch him. He also loves to go to the entertainment center and push all the buttons, so we have to keep the door shut on the front of it. But, then he learned how to open the door, Doh!

Mr. Ian is still our little guy who is always on the go. He started crawling about a week after Hayden did. He does a great job at crawling but he would much rather walk. He has also started to pull himself up to a standing position all by himself and will walk along the couch while holding on.

Ian playing with Jonathan's old tractor

He finally got a tooth this month and about a week later he got his 2nd tooth. He loooves to eat “real” food and does so good at meal times, well, at least the times he isn’t trying to roll out of his chair. Ian is about 18 pounds and you can really tell that 4 pound difference between him and Hayden.

Both boys have also tried a number of different foods and it’s so much fun to watch them taste and discover new flavors and textures.

Besides their regular formula and baby food (carrots, apples, blueberries, rice, etc.) they’ve also enjoyed some Chick-fil-A waffle fries, and tortillas, as well as rice and beans from Chipotle.

Ian seems to really enjoy flavored rice but Hayden still struggles with keeping the rice grains in his mouth. Shortly after he takes the rice in his mouth, we catch him rolling his tongue around his chin trying to pull the rice back into his mouth.

Both of the boys are such happy babies and are some of the best babies I have ever met. They sleep great at night and take 2 naps during the day. Their faces light up when we come home from work and it is such a good feeling to see that and hear their voices when we walk in the door. I am completely in love!

Trying to get the photo of them together was a challenge this month, and I have a feeling its just going to get harder. So I have a number of funny outtakes that I’ll post later.

i spy

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Swapping pacifiers

A while back we got a video monitor for the boys’ room but in all honesty, Its been more of an entertainment camera than a monitor. It has come in handy when they are in their cribs awake playing and we are in the kitchen getting bottles ready, etc. And, when the boys are a little older we will mount the cameras on the wall so we an get the entire room on the screen and not just their cribs.

Its funny because its in he dark so the pics are black and white, except anything that is turned on, it shows up in color. The boys have a glow worm they sleep with and the belly lights up so you can see that in the picture.
I have about 30 photos on the camera memory card but here are some of my favorites, and I’m sure as they get older we will have many, many more photos of these crazy boys!

Ian - look at those beaty eyes

Hayden trying to roll over

waiting on mom to get ready

Playing

Hayden playing quietly

Ian - He spotted the camera, DOH!

Hayden hugging his taggie

Ian - our tummy sleeper

MOM-cation

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At the pool with these 2 crazy boys
Lets see if I can finish this before the boys wake up from their nap…

There’s the vacation and the staycation, but there now needs to be a momcation! With a vacatiion you relax and just get away from the everyday life that surrounds you. With a staycation you get away from the main stresses in life (aka work) and can relax while at home for a few days or a week. A momcation would be a mini version of these. I’m not talking about some elaborate get away or even a whole day away, I’m just talking about little breaks from being a mom (as if you can ever truly take a break from being a mom!)

Some of my of my favorite things to do for a little momcation are going to get a mani/pedi, catching a bite to eat with my best friend and getting a chance to go out with the hubs. Being a mom of an infant, or two infants rather, you are pulled in different directions all day long….literally. Now that they are mobile one boy will roll or scoot over to one end of the room and the other to the other side of the room.

Because raising twin boys isn’t enough of a full time job, I have another “real” full time job 4 days a week and recently picked up a new job working 1-2 days extra a month. Between all of those, it’s exhausting so needless to say a mom cation is required every once in a while to keep some sanity. But I have to say, Jonathan is a HUGE help and does a lot with the boys and around the house. I honestly couldn’t do it without him!

I have a lot of friends who have babies and reading some of their blogs is interesting. I read one recently where she was talking about how great it was when her husband was around so he can take over and she can get a break and not be “on” 24 hours a day. Hmm, what’s that like?! A break for me is having one baby! Unfortunately, with twins, you don’t get that luxury. Its hard to take both of them by yourself, but we do when we have to. The hardest part is when they both want to be held or be with you and your only one person, I can’t hold both of them that long, especially with a bad back.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about any of this, it’s just a different perspective from someone with one baby. I love my two babies and am soooo glad they are apart of our lives! I’m just saying its nice to get a break every once in a while and have a momcation!

Doc Band Graduation

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Graduation Day


A few days ago we went for our last visit at Cranial Technologies and the boys had their exit pictures done. They officially graduated from their Doc Bands and are free of them! The physical therapists there were surprised at how fast the boys heads reshaped and corrected with the bands. Apparently we caught them right in the middle of a growth spurt so that helped tremendously.

We got the before and after images sent to us today and we are amazed at the differences. Since they are a digital copy, of course I am going to share them on here. So without further ado, here are the before and after images:

Here’s Hayden

Hayden


Hayden


Hayden

And Ian

Ian


Ian


Ian

Big difference, huh? When you look at them, you can tell they look different, but until you see the actual before and after photos to compare them, you can’t fully appreciate the difference the bands made.

7 months old

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Hayden & Ian

My boys…you are 7 months old now, you’re growing up too fast! In the last month you have really grown up, in your abilities and looks. You are really starting to look like little boys instead of a babies. You got your Doc Bands off a few days ago and now have wonderfully round noggins…and easily accessible heads to kiss! It is soo much easier to snuggle with you guys now that you don’t have the bands on and a lot less hassle over all. But we are very glad we put you in the bands and corrected your head shape because it made a huge difference. Hayden you don’t even look like the same baby. You two absolutely love Presley, anytime she comes around you start cracking up and could just sit and watch her forever. You started waking up earlier this past month and are now waking up anywhere from 600 – 715 AM. I kinda liked the 800-830 wake up time but I know you are getting older and that means earlier mornings! You boys are now sitting in high chairs and are about out of your infant carriers. We have two big boy car seats in the car now and I think you guys like them because you have more room to move around 😉

Hayden

Hayden, you are soooo close to crawling. You get up on your hands and knees and just rock back and forth like you are about to take off. You do scoot backwards some but not really crawling, and to get where you want to go, you roll all over the place. You are still just as sweet as ever and are smiling and laughing a whole lot more. You now have 2 teeth and they really didn’t bother you when they came in. You hear all these horror stories of babies teething and you didn’t seem to mind it much, of course you were fussy a little bit but not bad at all. You absolutely love your jumperoo and will jump like crazy in it! You are eating all kinds of baby food now but would still rather just drink your formula. In the morning you will lay in your bed and “talk” for a while before we get you up and when we go in you have a BIG grin on your face. You are finally getting some hair that people can see, wahoo! It’s also getting darker so you notice it more.

Ian

Ian, as you can see your hair is still crazy. It is getting longer but still likes to stand straight up on the side and in the back. If you can’t change it, accentuate it…so we give you a mohawk. You are still just a happy go lucky little guy and active as all get out. But lately we have noticed more and more that you will just sit and play calmly with your toys and you have become more observant. You will get up on your hands and knees too but don’t really try to crawl…you would much rather stand up! You like to grab us, try to stand up and climb up us. It’s pretty funny to watch. You love to “walk” around in your walker and will end up down the hall if we turn our back for a minute. You don’t have any teeth yet but I think they may be trying to break through. The only time you are fussy because you are teething is when you eat. The pressure of sucking from the bottle causes your gums to hurt so we give you some orajel and your good to go. You love your baby food and eat a lot of different things now. You will talk a lot too while waiting for us to come in your room in the morning, but lately you have started “singing.” You talk as if you are singing and it is hilarious! I think you may be our little songbird.

This is such a fun age and I really enjoy watching you both learn all these new things and hearing your laughs and all the new sounds you make. I can’t wait to see what you learn this month!

Sleep Training

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Who would have thought that you could train yourself to sleep? Well, for adults this is difficult, but for a baby it is a necessity. Babies crave the closeness of another human being, mainly their mom and dad, and like to be held and rocked to sleep, after a while they get used to this. This is where the problem lies. The baby gets used to being rocked to sleep and never learns to fall asleep by themselves. Not only does this cause a problem for them at bedtime, but it causes issues related to waking in the middle of the night as well since the baby is not able to fall back asleep by him/herself.

Waking in the middle of the night a lot can cause a whole other problem of the baby not getting enough sleep and then being sleep deprived which can in turn cause….sleep issues. It’s a vicious cycle. Night time sleep issues tends to carry over into nap time problems as well, which again, can cause sleep deprivation.

There are so many different sleep training methods out there and it can be quite confusing when trying to figure out which one you will try. Our boys were about 4.5 months old when we even tried to start sleep training. They would take naps all throughout the day but only 30 mins at a time and we could tell they were not getting enough sleep. The boys have always slept pretty well but they would wake up a few times a night just wanting a pacifier or us to get them back to sleep. When we dropped the middle of the night bottle but were still getting up 3-4 times a night to get them back to sleep, we knew something had to change.

Everything you read says you need to put your child in bed awake, but drowsy. If you constantly put them in bed asleep, they will never learn to fall asleep by themselves and when they wake up in the middle of the night, they won’t be able to fall back asleep. So we make sure we put them to sleep awake, sometimes they are pretty drowsy and sometimes they are wide awake.

We chose to do the cry it out method . Before you go and judge us for letting our children lay in bed and cry themselves to sleep, you should first educate yourself on what the cry it out method entails. It does not mean laying your child in bed, shutting the door and letting them cry for an hour until they go to sleep. What it means is you put them in bed, kiss them, tell them goodnight and leave the room. Of course at first they are going to cry, we had a set time that we would let them cry and then go back in, give them their pacifier, put our hand on their chest, say goodnight and walk out. You wait the set time again and then go back in and repeat the process all over. We chose to wait 5 minutes the first two visits into the room and then extended it to 10-12 minutes there after. They wouldn’t cry the whole time either, they would whimper some and cry some and then there would be periods where they were quiet. After a few nights they got to the point of crying a little for no more than 2-3 minutes and then they were out.

After they started going to sleep easier, they would sleep through the night better and by about 5 months they were sleeping 11 or 12 hours straight. They would wake up some through the night but once we gave them their pacifier back, they would go right back to sleep. Of course now that they are teething, it does throw a wrench in things. The last few nights, they have woken up quite upset and had a hard time going back to sleep.

Another thing that helps with sleep training is to keep a consistent bedtime routine. We give the boys their bath starting about 7:00 pm and then get them dressed and let them play a little bit in their room before bottles. Once they drink their last bottle, we put them in their “happy sacks” and say good night. They may whimper for a minute or two, but some nights they don’t. And they usually sleep until the morning. They had been sleeping until 8:30AM or so but the last week they have been getting up about 730 AM so it may be time to make their bedtime a little earlier.

The type of sleep training we did worked for us. It may or may not work for you. Every child is different, even our two are different. Hayden can lay in the bed and cry and then go to sleep, while Ian gets worked up the more he cries and there is no going to sleep after that. So we let Hayden cry a little longer than we let Ian. If you are interested in sleep training your child, just try different avenues and find a solution that works for you and your family. Luckily we did find a solution for our babies and I praise God they sleep well because with two babies getting up all throughout the night, we would never sleep.

Doc Bands

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As I have mentioned before, the boys needed to get Doc Bands to help reshape their heads. Both boys have what’s called Plagiocephaly and Brachycephaly. This effects a large portion of twins due to limited space in the womb and a lot end up needing the bands . I knew Hayden would need one the first second I saw him, he was positioned very low in utero and didn’t move positions at all throughout the entire pregnancy. Ian on the other hand wasn’t nearly as bad but still needed one.

The boys got their Doc Bands a week ago and are quickly adjusting to life with a band attached to their head. They are supposed to wear the bands 23 hours a day with only 1 hour off for bath and to clean the band. So far we haven’t had a full 23 hours in the band. At first you are supposed to check them every 3-4 hours and if there is any redness leave the band off until it goes away. Well we’ve had some issues of getting really red and some skin breaking. But we have had each issue addressed by cranial tech, who we are using.

The boys weren’t too sure about the bands at first, but were great and didn’t pull on them or try to take them off or anything.

Ian in his Doc Band


Hayden in his Doc Band

They are sleeping in the bands and honestly, we expected them not to sleep well the first night or two. I don’t think it even phased them! They slept fine with the bands on.

The boys sure don’t let the bands keep them from playing. They love to play in their jumperoo and walker and won’t let that band stop them.

Ian


Hayden

The bands are just a white plastic and very medical like. So to make them a little more friendly and pleasant looking, we added a sticker to the back of each band and their names on the front so we can know which band belongs to each boy. The sticker says “Monkey See” on one and the other says “Monkey Do”…

back of the bands


There is a company in our area that does car wraps called 360 Wraps and they have started doing wraps on Doc Bands and other medical prosthetics for kids. They started out doing a few and it got so big they decided to start doing a once a month party where families can come and get their bands wrapped for free. We missed the April part because we got the band the same day as the party, so we are going to go to the May party and get their bands wrapped. I’ll post pictures once we get them done.

Like I mentioned earlier, there have been some issues with skin readness, rubbing and even skin breaking from the bands. Usually its not that bad and typically clears up in a short period of time. Well, I got Hayden up this morning and took his band off and this is what I saw…
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This is what happens when you have a stomach sleeper and his face is pressed against the band all night. It has cleared up throughout the day and looks much better but we are leaving it off until it completely fades away.

We went for our weekly adjustment and there has already been some improvement in both of their head shapes. Both of their heads have grown a good amount so we had to have the bands adjusted so the growth will be redirected in the right ways. We will go back weekly for the duration of treatment and hope to continue to see improvements like we did today.

funny video

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Since having our twins, Jonathan and I are like celebrities when we are out with the boys. Ok, it’s more like the boys are celeberites. We get stopped pretty often and asked all kinds of questions. Some you don’t know how to answer or what to say in response. I found this video a while back and this pretty much sums up most of our conversations and what I feel like saying sometimes.

What I really like is the fact that the woman who had twins is wearing a tennis skirt and a mid drift after having twins!!

Weekend fun with mom & dad (as told by Hayden & Ian)

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Hayden: Hi this is Hayden…well, Ian is here too but he is too busy laughing at a rock right now to talk. We wanted to tell you all about our great weekend we had with mom and dad.

It started on Thursday when mom came home from work early and was able to play with us. Ian was fussy all day and driving dad crazy, and of course I, Hayden, was the angel all day.

Ian: Hold up… this is Ian, and he was not the angel all day like he wants you to believe. By the way… have you seen this rock?! Look at it! I can’t stop laughing!

Hayden: Whatever Ian… since you’re too busy laughing, I’ll keep telling the story. So for dinner on Thursday night mom wanted us to try some new bottles, I guess you can call them bottles, I don’t know what they were. We liked them though because we could hold onto it and pull it out of our mouths when we wanted and then put it back in when we were hungry again.

Ian & Hayden drinking from their Podee bottles

Ian: Hey don’t forget to tell them about that loud woooo and dance dad was doing during the day! That was crazy!

Hayden: Oh yeah… (chuckle). It was pretty crazy!

So, let’s see, where was I? After dinner we went outside and played in the grass in the backyard. We can’t wait for another year or two when we will be able to run all around the yard chasing Presley or kicking a ball, that will be so much fun. But for now, all we can do is sit in the grass with mom and dad. But that’s just as fun for us because we had never seen this grass stuff before. It’s kind of itchy and feels weird on our feet. Mom took some pictures of us so we can remember our first time in the grass.

Ian - 5 months old

Hayden - 5 months old

Hayden & Ian

Friday was a fun day too. We went and got a lot of pictures taken of our heads for our DOC Bands we are about to get. Mom and dad said they had to take our pictures so we can get a molding done of our heads so the bands will fit correctly and not wobble around or make our heads even more misshaped, we sure don’t want that. The nice lady put this stocking thing over our head to flatten our hair down, because you know Ian’s chia-pet hair is everywhere.

My hair is so short it wasn’t that bad but I still had to wear the stocking , just you wait though, one day I’ll have luscious locks just like my brothers! The stocking didn’t bother either of us, we were big boys and didn’t fuss or cry or anything. Mom and dad said we were champs! Of course mom took pictures – we can’t do anything without having a picture taken, she keeps telling us that one day we’ll be glad she took so many pictures – we’ll have to see about that.

Hayden gets his DSI images for the DOC Band

Ian gets his DSI images for the DOC Band

Ian: After our pictures the physical therapist had to look at them and make sure we got good ones before we were able to leave, so mom and dad had to keep us entertained for a little while. That’s always fun. Nobody entertains us quite like they do. And I think dad wanted to do his loud woo again but I think he was afraid to make too much noise.

Daddy was making some funny faces at us

Hayden getting some tummy time in

Ian's tummy time

Hayden: Friday was a busy day for us and we didn’t take a good nap so we were kind of fussy that afternoon. Mom tried to keep us entertained and put her glasses on us…we looked pretty funny.

Ian wearing mommy's glasses

Hayden wearing mommy's glasses

That night Gramma and Grandpa came over to give us our bath and put us to bed while mommy and daddy went out to eat. Like I said, we were pretty fussy that day so I’m sure Mom and Dad were thankful for a little break.

Saturday morning we woke up and mom and dad brought us into their room and let us lay on their bed for a while before we are breakfast. That was a treat because we don’t get to sleep in their room, they say we need to learn to sleep in our own beds in our own room. After our snuggle time and breakfast in bed we got dressed and went to our cousin, Jake’s soccer game. Then we went to eat with Grammy and Pappa before going to check out our Uncle Brad’s new gymnastics facility. That was fun! We got to watch him and our cousin, Brooklyn, jump on the trampoline and pappa even let us play on a mat with him.

Pappa and Hayden

Ian: Because we were on some really soft mats mommy let us practice our sitting up, we’re getting pretty good at it!

Hayden

Ian

Hayden & Ian

Hayden, Brooklyn & Ian

We were so worn out we slept the entire way home, I think mom even fell asleep too. We had such a fun and busy day that when mom put down to sleep we were out like a light.

This morning we ate our breakfast and then mom gave us some new food to try. We were eating rice cereal before but we got to try some squash today. At first we didn’t know what to think of this new food, it tasted weird and the texture was different. But after a few bites we ended up liking it and ate quite a bit. She said that we will get to try another new food next week, wonder what it will be this time?!

Hayden eating squash

Ian eating squash

Later after we had our morning nap we played on our playmat and Hayden found his feet. I found mine a few weeks ago and love to play with them but Hayden just found his and I think he has a new found love for them as well.

Our cousins Jake and Brooklyn came by to play with us for a little while before our nap on Sunday and we were so hyped up from all the fun with them we didn’t want to take a nap. Eventually we did fall asleep though.

So that was our fun weekend with mom and dad, we don’t want it to end… but tomorrow we’ll get to play with Gramma and then on Tuesday with Grammy.

5 months old

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Hayden and Ian

Today my boys turn 5 months old and in the last month, they sure have started acting like little people instead of just baby blobs. I can’t believe how much they are growing and learning. Within the last month we have started a few different things with the boys, two of the biggest are sleep training, which includes scheduled naps in their bed and eating cereal. I’ll have a whole blog post later on sleep training, how we went about doing it, how successful it was, etc. In short, they boys are doing great with their sleeping but there is still some work to be done at nap time.

We started cereal a few weeks ago with Hayden and he just wasn’t ready for it, he kept sticking his tongue out an blocking his mouth as to say “I do not want that, you are not going to put it in my mouth!” So we waited and tried again this past week. We purposely waited until now to start feeding Ian cereal because the pediatrician was she wanted us to wait a little while longer with him due to his reflux and feeding issues. This weekend, both boys actually started eating it and were doing really well. They only eat a little bit at a time, but that’s enough for me. I’m sure they will start to eat more and more as time goes by. If they continue to do well with cereal this week, we may start squash or something else different next week, the possibilities are endless 😉

Hayden

My Hayden is growing like crazy, it’s hard to believe he was once 4 lbs. He is eating 8 ounces at every feeding and you can tell he likes his food! He is our little one that needs his sleep and will let us know when he hasn’t had enough of it but will fight it to the end until he finally gives in. He has been known to sleep for 2 1/2 hours at nap time.

He has started to grab at things and anytime Presley comes around he reaches out for her. Neither him or Ian are afraid of her and actually love to be around her. He is definitely our tactile one, he loves to touch things and feel their texture. Not only that, but he loves to have human contact. He would sit in your lap or next to you all day long if you let him, he just loves to be with someone else and hates to be alone. Good thing he has a brother and playmate to share a room with 😉

Hayden is doing great at sitting up, with assistance of course – but only minimal assistance now days. He as learned to roll over from his tummy to his back (he was the first one to do this) but hasn’t yet learned how to go from his back to his tummy, although he wants to soooo bad. He is talking and babbling a lot as well as making a lot of new sounds. He has learned how to make bubbles (although I’m not sure he knows what he’s doing) and loves to do that while making some of his new found sounds. Most of the pictures you see of Hayden show his serious side, and he is more serious than Ian, but he is also a very happy baby and loves to laugh and smile.

His hair is finally growing! He’s got quite a bit of it but it is lighter than Ian’s so you can’t see it as well. It is also very coarse where Ian’s is very fine.

Ian

Our little Ian is one of the happiest babies I know. He always has a smile on his face or laughing at something. He doesn’t need as much sleep as his brother and usually only naps 45 mins -1 hour, although he has taken a 2 hour nap a few times. He will be happy, talking and laughing one minute and then start fussing the next, and that’s when you know he’s tired. You can sit down with him and 1 minute later he’s out. He usually only fusses for two reasons, he’s hungry or tired. Hayden has always been the snuggle bug but Ian has definitely earned that title as well now. I can’t tell you how many times he has sat in the chair with me just snuggling.

He is doing great at sitting up with assistance as well, and loves to stand up. He has rolled over from his tummy to his back and from his back to his tummy (he was first to do this). He doesn’t roll over a whole lot but will when he wants to. Ian loves to play with his toys and will fall asleep playing in his frog exersaucer (Hayden does this too).

Ian loves to talk, babble, laugh, and makes all kinds of sounds. He’ll just sit there making noises for 10 minutes straight. It never gets old listening to him.

He has found his feet and loves to lay on his back and grab them. He even tries to grab them sitting up! I’m just waiting for him to grab them and try to put them in his mouth. I’m sure once he figures out he can, he will.

He is doing great with his reflux. He remains on Prevacid and Zantac, although we have almost weaned him off the Zantac! We tried this once before and it didn’t work, so we gave it a few months and tried again, so far so good – I hope I didn’t just jinx it!!

I say this every month, but the boys are such a blessing and I thank God every day for them. I think back to this time a year ago when we had just found out we were pregnant, but didn’t know there were two. I recently saw a friend say they prayed for their daughter and their son was a blessing. Well, we prayed for one and were blessed with two! Can’t wait to see what this month brings!