Happy New Year

Sydney is doing better. The wheezing has dramatically decreased, so we're happy. I was getting dinner ready when I suddenly realized this is the last day of 2010. We talked over dinner a little about what our year has been like - sleep deprived! We had the girls January 5th and I can't recall a whole lot of what has happened since then. We did make it to the beach and the White Mountains. We took a trip out to see family. I took the girls with my Dad to see my little sister in DC. Katie's talking and singing and running and really never stops. She started Nursery in church this year. This year has really just flown by and we're really hoping we'll be more awake this coming year. I'm proud that we have survived the first year of twins. I don't know that I've ever been so stretched in my whole life. I think the Lord knows it's good for me to learn I can't do everything on my own, that it's good to learn I need help too. I'm glad a new year is starting and I'm sure this one will pass just as quickly. We hope everyone else has a very good New Year. We will be celebrating ours soundly asleep. Well, if the girls cooperate, that is.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to the hospital we go....

Our blessed festivities somehow brought the dark angel of sickness to our entire house. Infections abound and we had to take Sydney to the hospital yesterday where she received a couple of breathing treatments. She received another one this evening and tomorrow morning we're going back to see if she needs to be admitted to the hospital or if she's on the mend. Nothing like a mysterious illness to keep you on the edge of your seat (RSV? Reactive airway? Pneumonia? Or just a nasty cold that is ravaging her poor little body?) We were finally gaining weight again! Jeremy's on call tonight and I'm just trying to think of other things while I'm really hoping I don't need to call the neighbors (who so graciously offered to come at the drop of a hat) in the middle of the night to take Syd to the hospital. She's super wheezy, her respiration rate gets pretty high, and she can't seem to stop coughing. It's funny how you can feel very grateful and blessed, and overwhelmed and on the verge of tears at the same time. So I'm just killing time putting up pictures when I should be crawling in bed.

This is when we first got back. I got all three of the gals in the wagon and we walked to the cemetery and back. They all thought it was great fun. So did I until Sydney decided to check out what was over the edge.
Ah, memories of my clean-shaven husband. It's now winter and he's growing one manly beard. They call him "Winter Jeremy" at work.

Alas, a typical family scene - the diaper change pajama party on the kitchen floor!

There's our little Sydvicious - pre-sick - toddling between the two of us.

What they really like to do is Syd rides it and Cora pushes her. This tandem ride didn't last too long.

The comment about not enough snow last post? It snowed that night and the next day. We got about 20 inches and a lot of cold wind. It's beautiful, but I haven't dared to take the sickies out yet. Pele loved digging her little holes in the snow to curl up in.

No pictures, please. (It's Cora)

This is what Amy, Katie, and I did the real Christmas morning while Jeremy was on call. We were given this awesome train set by our neighbors who's son never opened it. I was determined to figure out a way to have them all connect.

This was the pageant our kids put on Christmas Eve. Katie was so excited to be an angel, though I think she had no clue what was really going on.

I best be going to bed now. I've been hearing the three of them take turns coughing on and off. Here's to my call shift at home!

Happy Merry

Another Christmas come and gone. It's always a time for pondering. I had a ball this season getting things ready. One, it was such a blessing to be able to do things (last year we were waiting for the twins to come and hoping there'd be some of me left to take care of them). Two, since Katie is now 2 and a half, she was old enough to be excited about things and young enough to love the simple things. We put up lights on our roof line and cherry tree. We got a full size Christmas tree and decorated it. We had Christmas music on all the time. The result of that was Katie running around the house shouting "Angels We Have Heard on High," "The First Noel," and "Silent Night." I'd wake up to her singing those songs and "The Little Drummer Boy" to her stuffed animals and Sydney and Cora. She wraps up anything she can in a blanket and says it's baby Jesus lying in the stable. As cute as she may be, we spend a lot of time learning how to be kind to Mommy and the sisters.

Sydney and Cora are both walking now. Well, at the beginning of it. Cora can take several steps, even turn and keep walking once she's up on her feet. Sydney can take 3-4 steps at a time, and stand there forever holding anything. They both get excited whenever they see Jeremy or I, or even each other. They both stick their hands up in the air at random times and we just give them high fives. It makes them smile and laugh. Sydney has recovered since our last post. She is inhaling whatever we feed her. We have them in separate cribs now. Cora was repeatedly caught beating up on Sydney, though there have been a few times now that Sydney tries to get even when they're out toddling around.

That's how our girls are. Jeremy finished his pediatric rotation in November and he'll finish with the ICU this next week. We don't see him a whole lot, and he's pretty sleepy when we do see him. But we've had a good time when he's around.

I've been loving the Christmas season in New England though I am slightly disappointed in the amount of snow we've received. It's only been small dustings. Though we did get enough one day to put Katie in a laundry basket, tie Pele to it, and let her pull Katie down a little hill. I'm plotting how to get Pele pulling all three of them on a sled, we just need more snow. I will get pictures up sooner or later, and try to post some deep thoughts. In the mean time I'll just give a Christmas re-cap. It was awesome. We had Christmas Eve at the neighbors with some other families. Dinner, music, and a live nativity provided by the children of each family. We laughed and enjoyed ourselves. Christmas day was really low key. My friend, Amy Lou came to visit us for Christmas and we cooked up some serious Cajun Jambalaya. Well, she cooked and I watched. Then we made cookies that I took to Jeremy that night. All the girls were relatively sick this morning, so I went to church while Amy watched the girls and Jeremy was still in the ICU. Going to church, being able to listen, read my scriptures, and participate was the best Christmas present I could have asked for. When I got home Jeremy was asleep upstairs and Amy and I got Christmas dinner ready, the house picked up, and presents laid out for our Christmas evening. The wrapping paper and ornaments were probably the favorites, as always for the little people. Amy did get a nice video of Kate singing one of her songs if anyone wants to see it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knbdRjVkp18

She says only family will truly appreciate this. Cast your votes people!

Primary's

So, so sad. When Katie and I got back from the mountain Monday, November 1st, I took the twins upstairs for their nap. Almost to the top Sydney just plastered me, herself and Cora in the same vomit that had been coming out for a week and a half by that point. She was losing weight and it really showed. She reminds me a bit of Gollum here. Jeremy thought she looked like a survivor of a concentration camp. She only weighed 15 lbs 5 oz the day before we flew out and in less than a week's time she was at 14 lbs 4 oz. After trying scheduled Zofran, 3 IV infusions, a KUB, 2 CBCs, and a UA with no clear improvement, the pediatrician in Cedar and I decided it was best to head to Primary Children's in Salt Lake. I can't be grateful enough for my mom. She came straight home from work and took over Katie and Cora, had almost all of my things packed by the time I got back from the Dr.'s office, and watched those two from that night until Thursday night, when she made the 4 hour drive with them in tow. I didn't have to worry about them at all and could focus just on Sydney. It was the first time they were separated and I worried about that a little, but I think they both enjoyed how much individual attention they got (Sydney was held almost every second she was awake and I know Cora was held a lot, too). They sure melted my heart when they got back together though. They just smiled, reached for each other, and cooed. Katie was so excited to see Jeremy (he flew out a day early and she hadn't seen him for two weeks) that she ran up to him, wrapped her little arms around him, and said, "My Daddy! I love my Daddy."
Here's my angel sister, Ann, holding little Sydney. She just loved to rock and cuddle with Ann. Ann just let me lay there half asleep and still visit with her. It was the most quiet time the two of us have had together probably since her first girl was born. As much as no one wants to hang out at the hospital on vacation, it was a lot better to be there with family close enough to visit.
Here's my little girl in her gown. We walked the halls of the hospital many a time and ran into several people I knew from nursing school and work. What happened? We still don't really know. We just pumped her full of fluids again. She had an upper GI study (basically she drank liquid chalk under an x-ray), that showed her stomach was emptying kind of slow. They ran labs. She had an endoscopy. They took biopsies. Everything came back negative. Go figure. So it's a good thing nothing was found, yet we still don't know what happened. She threw up a few more times once she was discharged, but she is definitely heading in the up direction. I'm grateful it was something so small. I think I say that and some people think I'm nuts. But anyone more familiar with the medical field knows there are such awful things that kids and their families have to go through. We were not up against a chronic or terminal disease. We have insurance. No surgery. No months to years of prescriptions. We were able to get into the hospital and know that it was clean (if you've seen health care in other countries then you'll understand what I mean by that statement).

Yes, I really wanted to know what was going on with Sydney. I didn't want her to be hurting, but having seen some very painful things in hospitals, I knew the couple of sticks she was receiving that were helping her get better wouldn't be a problem. She did so well with the staff there. She really adored several of her nurses and was great with letting the docs check her out. Syd was a trooper. It was nice when we got to leave though. Sleeping in a bed without the lights, beeps and 4am vitals was so good!

Next Round

Are those sheep, you say? In the middle of town, you ask? Yes, and yes. Since I have left Cedar a new tradition has begun. Going back to the sheep herding roots, the town has a livestock festival every fall. We were lucky enough to be there to catch the parade which ended with a grand finale of sheep running down main street. What you're seeing in the left of the picture was a minor stampede just before they got to us. I guess they wanted to see another part of town.
This is the back of Katie's and my mom's head. Katie was quite concerned that the sheep's "legs were hurt" and that they needed band-aids because she could see the blood that some of them had on them from running each other over. Has anyone else noticed that sheep are not that smart and we are constantly compared to sheep in the scriptures? But the more I watch myself and the world around me I think it's a good analogy.
Here's Cora and Sydney dressed for the big day and sitting on my dad's lap. I actually ran a 5K that morning. I didn't think I'd feel old with a bunch of college kids, but then I remembered I'm turning 30 this year. I'm not saying that's old. It was just weird to realize I'm not the same age as the college crowd anymore. Sydney hadn't thrown up in two days so we felt good about that. Then we end our day with....

Trick or treating! Yes, it's the same costume she had last year. And she'll probably still fit it for the next 4 years. But at least I bought her a hat this year! Not that it stayed on her head....

My brother is one of the semi-head honchos at the ski/board place near Cedar City. Katie and I spent Monday morning going up to see him. It's an awesome place because it's pretty personal and laid back. It was fun to see him at his job. Then Katie and I had to go find some snow to play in. Too bad I forgot her mittens.

The Beginning of Vacation Pictures

All 8 of these lovely children were housed at my parents house for 3 days. Seven of which were in diapers. Let me tell you what a mad house it was. It was a ball at the same time. We were a sad that we didn't have Jeremy and Jess there, and family pics were limited to the grand kids. What an adventure it was to get all of them to hold still and look in the right direction. At least we picked a fun park.
Here I am with Cora.

There's my dad helping Van the man down the slide.

Cousin Kaylee.

Another noble attempt at a group pic.

Sydney and Cora, enjoying everyone trying to get them to smile. Poor Sydney. This is before her first trip to the Pedi office to get an IV. She was not feeling so great.

And here's Sydney post first IV. We sure thought that would be all she needed. Surprise, surprise. I'll be adding more pictures later.

Home

We pulled into our home in beautiful New Hampshire at 6:15pm last night. I don't know how I feel about calling that a restful vacation. It was kind of forever. We came home to little posters with sweet notes taped all over our porch and door, a huge banner in our kitchen saying, "Welcome Home, Pele missed you," a fresh gallon of milk in the fridge, and a chicken dish waiting in the fridge to be put in the oven. We have the best neighbors in the world. Sounds like we got home just in time though. Pele had stopped eating yesterday. I think she really felt abandoned. She was so happy to see us and all is well again. Anyone who has spent some time away from home knows that wonderful feeling of coming back to your own bed, fridge, bathroom, and having a good place for time-outs.

As we drove passed the trees, the early 1900 cape style homes, the rivers, and could smell that we were home I pondered over how split and torn I feel inside at times. Where the heck is home? During the three weeks we were out there I spent time in Cedar City (where I went to high school and my parents and grandparents still live), Salt Lake (where I worked and went to school for 5 years, Jeremy's family, and my sister and her family live), and in Idaho (where I went to school and worked for 2 years). I visited with family, friends, old roommates, teachers, and co-workers that have all been a part of my life. I feel like I have left threads of my soul everywhere I've been and truly loved what I have gained from each person and place. Utah, Spokane, Florida, Idaho, New Hampshire, Maryland, it all feels like home. Even staying at Primary Children's hospital for that week in a way felt like home because it reminded me so much of working at Shriners. In a way that really did feel like a vacation because there was only one child to take care of, I was not responsible for laundry or meals, and there were several people around I could always ask to hold Sydney so I could shower or eat. That would not have been the case if things were more life-threatening. This is all beside the point though.

I talked to my mom about all of this - how I feel like I may never be whole because everywhere I am I miss parts of and people from where I've been. As we talked she said something that reminded me of something CS Lewis says in Mere Christianity. I'm not going to quote him perfectly, but more or less that we will never feel completely whole until we are with God again. That all of the love and joy we feel in this life, all of our good memories and peaceful feelings are shadows of what life is like with our Heavenly Father. Only then will we feel complete. So to all of those who have been pieces of Heaven in my life, who have helped me feel the love of Heavenly Father through their love, friendship, and examples (even the ones who don't believe in God!), I just want to express how much joy you have given me. Even the ones I almost never have contact with anymore. My life has been so enriched because of yours, so thank you. Friends from Badger Creek, Cedar City, roommates, people at Shriners, mission companions, people at the Burn Unit, most especially family, and this list can keep going on, but I just wanted to express how grateful I am for the love of so many and how amazing life has been.

I don't know where Jeremy and I will end up. And we'll always miss the places we've been. I'm just grateful for the faith that we can be made whole in the next life and that all of our experiences are for our good.

Discharge

Good news. Sydney barfed all over herself and her crib during her nap yesterday, which was just before the docs rounded. Why is this good you say? Because that meant we moved on to an endoscopy and they found some spots of infection. Which translates to WE KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON. She's done great with all the fluid we gave her and has been drinking formula without any problems. So Sydney and I are checking out today, Jeremy rearranged his flight and will be here in a few hours, and we still have over a week to be here with so much family support and a staff very aware of what's going on that we can contact if we start to go backwards. She'll be on an antibiotic and an acid blocker for a while, but she looks TONS better and I'm excited to have all of our family together again.

It has been humbling to walk these halls (sometimes at 5am) and see what so many families have to deal with. I wonder why I ever complain. We get to go home. I have three beautiful daughters, I'm married to a wonderful man, and have so much extended family always there for us. Life is far from perfect, but it all depends on where my focus is if I'm going to enjoy life or suffer through it. I guess you have to suffer through parts of it to understand the joy of it. But again, I feel very blessed. We'll see how I feel after making that long flight again with all the girls, but I still know we're blessed.

It seems I spoke too soon in the last post. The morning after I posted Sydney barfed up everything all over me again. She looked much too skinny and we could tell we were headed down hill again. So this time we ended up going to Salt Lake and we're currently hanging out at Primary Childrens. We're not quite sure what's wrong, but any anatomical problems have been ruled out and we're onto the guessing games of which bug to battle. She's doing much better after having IV fluids running all night long and has done really well with the staff here. I don't know how long we'll be here, but for whatever is going on, we couldn't be in a better position. The staff are wonderful, we've got so much family support, and both Jeremy and I having had different rotations here I feel pretty comfortable. I do wish Jeremy were here, but he will be Friday and hopefully we are out of here by then.

There's No Place Like...

We've been in Cedar City now just over a week. What a week it has been. The day before we left, Sydney and Cora had their 9 month well check and did not pass. The stinkers are below the 5th percentile (though for twins they're actually doing really well and are growing fine, they're just small), and they both had ear infections. Since we were flying out the next morning the doc gave me an antibiotic script for them and told me to be liberal with the Tylenol and Motrin. We got on the plane and we were doing well, Sydney was about asleep and then just vomited everywhere. My girls were pukers before, but this was out-right vomit. The woman in front of was was ready to vomit herself. So I handed my mom Miss Cora and got down on the floor with paper towels and water and scrubbed it out of the carpet on the plane (the flight attendants gave me glovees). Nothing else exciting that day, we made it to Salt Lake, drove down just fine, and the girls even slept all night. Next day Sydney puked at lunch. We thought, OK, maybe a 24 hour thing, I think we're done.

All of the fam showed up Sunday night (minus Ann's hubby and my own with their jobs). So we had 8 kids in this house with only 1 over the age of 3. Four were all born this last year. There were just not enough arms for how many babies we had. Sydney threw up that night and we thought this has got to be it. I bought her some Pedialyte, she drank it and we thought we were OK.

We wanted to get some family pics of all the grandkids together and decided to do that Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning comes and as we're feeding the twins breakfast Sydney has everything come up again. It's so sad because it just keeps coming. By this point she's looking too skinny. Thank goodness Mom has the hook-ups here. Through her job she works with a peds office on a regular basis so they got us right in. Sydney got her first IV that afternoon. She was not impressed, but the gal was a rockstar and got it in on the first poke. We gave her fluid, she perked up, we took her home and thought all was well. She threw up again Wednesday afternoon as we were getting stuff ready for my dad's birthday dinner. And again Thursday morning. So I took Sydney in again Thursday afternoon and we got a few labs done and another IV in. Another bolus, an x-ray, we left the line in and put more fluid in her Friday morning. She'd dropped almost a pound in this whole experience. When you weigh 15 pounds, that's a big deal. But she gained almost all of it back by Friday and she has been chowing down her food over the last 2 days. She looks better and is much more interactive.

As hard as it was to be away from home, it was also a lifesaver to be at my old home because of all the family support and built-in babysitters for Cora and Katie. The Dr's office got us right in and took great care of us. I'm so glad she'd doing better now and we'll just keep fattening her up with ice cream mixed with carnation mixes.

I went for a Halloween 5K run in the morning yesterday. Then Katie, my mom, and I went to a sheep-herding parade down main street, then Katie and my dad and I went trick-or-treating last night. She loved dressing up like a witch and getting candy. I didn't like living in such a small town when I was younger. I thought it was such a lame place. It's nice to be proven wrong. This is a wonderful town with all kinds of things to do and some really amazing people. I am learning more and more that home for me is a bit of everywhere. There are things I love about everywhere I've lived. Who knows where Jeremy and I will end up, I just know I'm grateful to call so many wonderful places home.

Pruning

Well, I tried to post about this before I left New Hampy, but as I was reading it to my mom I hit some crazy key and erased the whole entry, so here I am trying to recap whilst my little girls sleep and I'm wishing I was here in Cedar City, Utah.

My mom came out to visit us October 16th. She was staying for a week and then she and I were flying back West with the three little girls for a couple of weeks before Jeremy would come out to join us. The morning before she came Jeremy and I spent most of the morning out in the garden digging up plants and pruning the raspberry bushes since we'd had a few frosts and new the season was over. I thought about our little garden with pride. We were very blessed with our crops and I learned a few things in the process.

Our cherry tomato plants were enormous. Jungle size. I trimmed the plants 5 times throughout the season as they continued to overshadow the peppers, zucchini, and regular tomato plants. I would watch, tend to, and trim the garden and think "take care of what you've got." I doubt that's grammatically correct, but what I was seeing was by letting some of the plants grow unchecked, I was putting the entire crop in danger. The huge plants were taking the sun and nutrients from the surrounding plants, and even the cherry tomato plant itself began to have a diminished crop. There was not enough strength in the plant to support all of the growth and continue to produce as well as it had.

Put this together with President Uchtdorf's talk about simplifying and I can't help but apply it to life. As good as growth (aka - more good things to do) may be, there is a tipping point when it is no longer a good thing, but a drain on what you currently have/are. Small confession: as much as I don't want to, I do compare myself at times. I see other people my age doing different things that are wonderful with their lives and wonder if I should be doing it too (because apparently mothering 3 under 3 isn't enough for myself at times). Then I think of this lesson and realize if I don't take care of what I have and continually try to add more to my plate, our little family and my soul will suffer from being malnourished.

I'm not advocating doing nothing, being a sloth, or thinking life is always perfect the way it is. But just as with the plants in our garden, controlled growth brings the greatest crop from the garden. It takes a lot of courage and strength to simplify life, and a constant effort to keep the important things in the top priority slots.

The comment overhead about mothering my 3 under 3 not being enough was indeed sarcastic. There are so many days when I am reduced to tears as I strive just to feed all of us all three meals and actually get out the door to anything. It's hard for me right now to figure out what to simplify. I can't say "I don't feel like putting dinner together tonight." That means the five of us starve. I can't say "I don't want to do laundry or change bums today." That would mean sore bottoms and no clothes to wear. So often what gets dropped is food and drink for myself, personal scripture study, and exercise. Yet those are the things that really help me have the strength I need to give this family everything. There is no all reaching answer here other than to be aware and continually assess the important things, always seeking a balance. I'm so grateful for inspired counsel from our apostles and prophets that helps me make the changes I need in my life. I want to remember this lesson of simplifying and pruning as our family continues to grow (I'm talking in age now, not numbers) and keep my eye out for unruly growth so our crop will be good.

Family Pics

We tried our luck at different locations asking random people to take our photos and we got some pretty good results. But we never can get Katie to smile on purpose for a picture.

Fall

It's my favorite time of year, and one of the best places to be for it! So I found this picture from our pumpkin picking last year and had to compare. I can hardly remember her being this small, but I do remember her stumbling around the pumpkin patch.

And here we have her running around this year. Yes, we're in a cemetery, but I swear I'm not morbid. Our house is on the other side of the trees you see in the background, so it's really close and it's flat, no cars, no other kids, the grass is mowed, it's just a great place to let her run and there's an amazing maple tree with beautiful leaves that I wanted to get some pictures of.
I love the bright colors with the blue sky and dark branches!

And here's some fun picks of the girls. Sydney's on the left and Cora's on the right.

Sydney's doing some serious leaf inspection.

Poor Cora is stuck and sucking her thumb.

It's amazing how wonderful everything is when you see it for the first time.

If I keep waiting to get pictures up then I won't be posting for another month. Here's a little recap. We took Jeremy to the ER on Labor Day. We'd gone to our church's picnic, had a blast visiting and playing with people, then the boys started a game of football. Jeremy was doing great, but the last play he was looking over his shoulder as he was running and stepped in a whole. Luckily, one of the guys there was an ortho doc and he told us to call if we needed help. At first Jeremy was just going to go home and ice it, but after we got home and started icing it, decided otherwise. We went to Dartmouth-Hitchcock's ED and the wait was 5 hours with a few more traumas arriving soon. So we called our friend and he took us into his clinic. After a few x-rays we found a tiny little hair-line fracture in the outside ankle bone. Jeremy got a boot out of the deal and was back at work the next day. We're so glad it didn't need to be casted, and he's been a real trouper still helping with the three kids as much as he can.

That Friday Jeremy was on-call and our church was having a mother-daughter/women's camp-out at a small lake East of Manchester. I haven't been camping for a while and have been wanting to take the girls all summer. I figured it'd either be crazy at home, or in the woods, so we chose the woods. I took me all day to pack enough stuff, but we did it. It was an hour and a half drive and the girls were great. I couldn't get a single picture taken because the entire time was spent somehow feeding or holding one of the three, but it was beautiful. We had a fireside overlooking the lake which had the sun going down behind it. There were other women there and several 10 year old girls just dying to hold the little ones or help with Katie. We were in a little Adirondack cabin. It had screen covered openings on all four sides and 8 bunk beds with little mattresses. I set the girls up in two pack and plays on the floor (they're like portable cribs). I knew it was going to be cold, so Katie was in two shirts, a coat, sweat pants, and winter jammies and completely buried in blankets. The girls were in long jammies, winter fuzzy jammies, and these snow suits that covered their heads, hands, feet, and everything else. They were so bundled up they were stuck in a little snow angel position. The stars were beautiful, I couldn't get enough of being in the forest, and I was so proud of us for doing it. We packed up the next morning and made it home in time for lunch.

This last week Katie had a short trip to the ER due to a playground crash. She bit the back of her tongue so hard it sliced through and there was a little flap. I felt a little silly about going in, but I wanted to make sure she wasn't going to have a forked tongue in the future. She did great and the doctor and nurses were fabulous. No repair needed, but as I was signing the discharge paper she fell on her face again and bit her lip and that started bleeding. I just picked her up and said we better go home and get you a Popsicle. The doctor just looked at me and said I was a very cool, calm, and collected mother. He was very impressed. The nurses wanted to know how I was smiling with three small children in tow (the twins were with us). They don't know I was smiling because I was so happy to converse with adults!

Those are the big happenings. I'm excited for Conference coming up. This will be the first one Jeremy will be home for in the last 2 years. I'm sure glad DirecTV lets us pick up BYUTV so we can watch it at home. To take this crew to the church to watch the broadcast would be a joke. Technology is amazing.

Fall is definitely here. The leaves are turning all kinds of reds, yellows, oranges, intermixed with the green pines. The air is crisp, we went apple picking Saturday, and the smell of apple cider was intoxicating. I feel like I need to buy school supplies (though I'm so glad I don't need to, just feeding everyone costs enough money). Pele gets super excited to go out and run in the cool air. I love being able to wear sweat shirts again. Katie likes the leaves that fall to the ground. I feel so blessed to live here and see these amazing colors! My mom's coming out in October and we're excited for that.

We've been trying out having the girls sleep in Katie's room at night again. Katie actually asks for it each night: "how bout I think the girls sleep with you tonight." Most nights it goes well, but some nights we have to go in and get her and all of her blankets and stuffed animals out of the girls' crib. She can climb out of hers and into theirs. It's so cute and at the same time you just want them all to sleep and not stay up and play or beat on each other. But I love it. Both Sydney and Cora love to follow Katie when they play. And Katie loves to include them, when she's not taking away their toys.

Life is good. There are still many a day I feel like I've lost my mind. I find some way to escape and bawl my eyes out for a bit, then I get it together and can do this again. Parenthood, particularly motherhood, is a marathon that does not end. There is no praise of man for making sure your kids get their vegetables in every day, everyone has clean clothes on, or getting the dishes done for the eighth time that day, but I've never been so tested, stretched, strengthened, guided, and blessed.

One Month Later...

Guess it's been a while since I've really done any updating, so here's the last month's photo review. Yes, the girls still sleep in the crib and it melts my heart when I catch moments like this.
Jeremy's sister, Lori, came out to see us for a week in August. At first I attempted to potty train Katie that week, and it only lasted a day. The temper-tantrum-twos convinced me it's OK to wait a little longer. So we spent the rest of Lori's time here out and about. This was a picture of our visit to a farm in the area that gives you free cheese and syrup samples. They also have animals for the kids to visit and Katie loved talking to the chickens.

I had to put this picture up to show we have record of her smiling as opposed to her currently preferred scowl.

It's sure nice to have so many people come visit us. I enjoy the long talks I get to have with everyone and it's nice to get out more with the girls. Lori and I had a blast, especially once we found a good ice cream place.

My dad would say to me sometimes growing up, "it's all who you know." Well that's true for us in this case. Jeremy's buddy helped us get seats to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. We took the girls and Lori had Kate, then Jeremy and Lori went to another game the next night. Our little troopers did great for the whole nine innings.

Us and the Green Monster.

Aunt Lori only spoiled Katie a little. Katie sure enjoyed having her to play with so much.

We were able to spend a little bit of time with John before I took the girls back home.

These stinkers are 8 months old now. Sydney still army scoots when she wants to go fast, but she was the first to stand up on her own and has taken a few steps holding onto things. Cora's great at crawling and has been standing up a little now as well.

Katie picked this car up at a used lot in town. I told her she could drive it if she covered the insurance. She took us for a ride to several friends' houses that day.

We did a quick hike one of the evenings when it had started to cool down (no longer 90 degrees). Kate was a little devastated we weren't going to let her swim in the lake at the end of the hike. You just can't please everyone, can you?

We have a semi-more reliable way to tell the girls apart now since the nail polish comes off so easily. Cora always sucks her thumb and Sydney always sucks her two fingers. I love it because there is no need for a pacifier (one more thing I don't have to worry about losing or forgetting).

The corner between our two couches has been sweetly named "Pooh Corner," where all the toys reside when they're put away. I was doing something in the kitchen when I noticed how quiet it was. All three had crawled in there and were quite entertained.

It's not make-up, it's blue berries. We've picked them three times now and they are delicious! I figured I better share with the girls. If only it wouldn't become random spots of purple puke throughout the house.

The previous picture was Cora, this is Sydney.

Here's our Labor Day weekend hike somewhere in the White Mountains.

Nothing like goldfish to rejuvenate you.

The girls just can't get enough of Daddy being home.

I cut Katie's hair a week ago. We were driving back from picking berries and she brushed all her hair out of her eyes and said, "Now see!" I figured I had to do something. Jeremy read to her and she held pretty still. I need to get a better picture of it. It's even, but the bangs are super short. It looks good if I pull her hair back. For my first haircut, I'm proud of myself. Hopefully my skills get a little better as we all get older.