This Means War!!

Now that the twins have become so mobile, one of their new favorite things is to crawl all over each other. To be honest, its mostly Carson who likes to crawl all over Eli! I cant tell you how many times I have left them together alone in a crib, and I come back and Carson is on top of Eli. Well, Eli finally got back at his "big" little brother...as you can see in the picture, Carson has quite a bruise on his cheek. Eli has a few bumps and bruises too. When we found out the twins were boys, I went ahead and resigned myself to the fact that we are going to have a future full of bumps, scrapes, and fights, I just didn't know the fights would start so early!! But, I guess its to be expected...after all, they inherited their macho, masculine natures from their father.

crib diving

carson has a new favorite activity....he likes to pull up. pretty typical of kids this age, right? well, it caught me by surprise, let me tell you. we knew he was probably getting close to pulling up, but i didnt know how close he was until he dove out of the pack'n'play a few days ago. we still had the bassinet tray in the p'n'p, and the boys would sit in it and play with their toys. i was on the phone last week, and turned to hang up, and the next thing i know, carson is flat on his back on the floor. he was fine, just a little scared. i am just now starting to recover from the major heart attack i had when it happened.

anyway, now that he has figured out how to do it, he wants to do it all of the time! he loves to grab on to the crib and peek at eli. he especially likes to do it when eli is sleeping. it always takes carson longer to fall asleep, so he will talk and laugh in the crib, but then he gets mad because eli wont answer him. he will fuss at eli....its like you can hear him saying "wake up and play with me!!" fortunately, eli is able to sleep right through it!! carson is definitely going full throttle these days. at least 3 or 4 times a day, i find myself saying, "oh my goodness, i dont know what im going to do with that boy!" he's just wide open, all of the time!

a nice day

last week, my mother in law called and offered to babysit the boys on saturday night. they absolutely love spending time with us (of course its us they want to see...it has absolutely NOTHING to do with our two adorable offspring). anyway, they offered to sacrifice their saturday to keep the boys. :) travis and i decided to go on a date that night, which is something we dont do enough of. at some point during the week, i got the idea of surprising him with secret plans for saturday. i planned for us to go kayaking on the saluda river, and then do dinner and a movie in the evening. will you believe...i actually kept our plans a secret??? i usually cant keep a secret to save my life, but i was able to keep this one, dont ask me how. anyway, we had a great day together. i think at one point, we made it 2 hours without talking about the boys. i know, right?? before you start giving us too much credit, i'd better tell you that we rushed home at 9pm hoping to see them before they went to bed. their bedtime is 7:30, but we figured it was worth a shot. of course, they were in bed. go figure.

today was crazy...i had two baby showers to go to after church, and im trying to mentally prepare myself for what im sure will be a very tough week. they are coming tomorrow to start fixing all of the water damage in our kitchen. im glad its getting fixed...im sick of walking on rotten plywood and doing dishes (GASP!!) by hand, but i am really dreading the actual repair/construction part. i wish i could go away to an island with a hammock and a babysitter, and when i came back, the kitchen would be fixed. and maybe the babysitter could come back with us. im just saying...


anyway, since that little scenario isnt likely to happen, i need to just prepare myself to have a frustrating week! at least i have these guys to make me smile...

the beginning, part dos

when we found out we were expecting twins, we were so unbelievably excited. we spent a few days (weeks!) trying to wrap our minds around the fact that we were going to be the parents of TWO babies. (we are still working on accomplishing that). right about that time, my morning sickness kicked in. the person who named it morning sickness must have been taking some serious drugs, because i was sick ALL OF THE TIME. it was ridiculous. i will say this: the people who tell you that you will forget all of the bad stuff about pregnancy and labor are exactly right. intellectually, i can remember that i was miserable, but i dont remember exactly how i felt. i guess thats why im ready to do it all over again! anyway, aside from the morning sickness, i had a very healthy pregnancy. the boys were due on march 15...just a few days after my 26th birthday. i wont bore you with all of the details of the pregnancy!! i will just tell you, that i was so big that people thought i was about to pop about 3 months before the boys were born. our boys made their dramatic arrival about 10 days early...in the wee hours of march 4. i was in labor for 22 hours, but ended up with a c-section. there were some scary parts of the delivery, most of which i heard about later, as i was completely unconscious, but the outcome was wonderful...our two beautiful boys. elijah, "baby b", was my little baby, at 4lb 12oz. carson, who was "baby a", actually ended up being born 2nd, weighing in at 6lb 2oz. due to a few minor complications, we had to spend 5 days in the hospital, but we finally got to bring our boys home on sunday, the 8th. thats when life as we now know it began!!

the beginning, part uno

before i jump in to blogging about our everyday adventures, i will try to give you a little of our history....it will probably take several posts to do this, since i will be blogging between naps, laundry, and playtime. travis and i met in 2002, during the first week of school at winthrop. we started dating not too long afterward, and got engaged a year later. we were married in the spring of 2004. about a year later, we moved to my hometown, and began trying for a baby in january of 2006. we knew we might have some trouble getting pregnant...we figured it might take 6 months or so. right on schedule...we found out we were pregnant on july 4th of that same year! we were so thrilled, and began making plans right away for our new baby. unfortunately, 5 weeks later, i suffered a miscarraige. we were devastated, but resolved to try again immediately. one month later, we found out that i was pregnant again! we didnt have high hopes for the pregnancy, as i was still recovering from the previous loss. that pregnancy ended within several weeks as well. as soon as we were given the ok from the doctor, we began trying again. we tried for another year and a half, even seeing a fertility specialist, before we just decided to put our life in Gods hands and quit trying. We made that decision in march, and on july 4th (again!!) of that same year (2008) we found out we were pregnant. i will NEVER forget that day. i know travis wont either. i am totally convinced that on that day, you would have not been able to find two happier people in this entire world. the very next monday, i called our fertility doctor and made an appointment. the great thing about seeing a fertility specialist is that when you finally do get pregnant, you get seen a lot faster and more often than you would if you were to just see a regular OB. i went in for several blood tests to check the levels of my pregnancy hormone. the first results came back, and they were good. the second results came back, and they were even better! by the time we got the results back from the third test, we had a really good feeling that it was a healthy pregnancy, because the hormone levels were so high. i was googling after every result, trying to find out as much as i good about the "normal" level of pregnancy hormone!! travis laughs at me all the time about my google habit, but i am the first person he comes to when he needs a piece of random information!! after a few weeks, we went in for our first ultrasound appointment. i was so nervous...i sat in that waiting room, just praying to see a heartbeat. we were 6 weeks pregnant. we got into the room, and the doctor showed us the tiny little white blob that was flickering. he told us the flicker was the heartbeat. all of a sudden, i noticed that there were TWO little flickering blobs!! the doctor confirmed that yes, we were expecting identical twins!! if you thought we were happy the day we found out we were pregnant, then we were ECSTATIC when we were told about the twins. i couldnt sleep that night for thinking about what it would be like to have two precious babies. when i think back on that time, and how happy we were it makes me smile, partly because i enjoy the memories, but mostly because i am even more happy now that i have these precious boys to hold and love. i think this is probably enough backstory for now...i will definitely have to do this in several parts!!