Happy Valentine's Day!

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January 2013

It's been crazy over the last few months. The twins are now 3 months old and there is never a dull moment. At any given point I am burping both babies, feeding both babies, changing poopy diapers, talking to the babies, holding them, and fitting in solid time with my 3 yr old son. At times I feel like I am literally drowning in housework, but I will just have to accept a messy house...and lots of undone laundry...and dishes...

They smile a lot. Jayna loves to talk and Dean loves to smile. We are truly blessed to have such good babies.    They are kind of sleeping through the night, haha. Depending on when they go to sleep, they will spend a good 5-7 hours sleeping, and as far as I'm concerned I can function on that much sleep.

The other night I just felt so blessed. I watched this music video by Katherine Nelson and the thoughts and feelings of losing our first pregnancy to miscarriage filled me. I can still feel those pangs of loss, but having my two babies right in front of me was surreal at that point. I never dreamed, especially back then, that I would be so blessed to have 3 children, let alone 2 babies at the same time. It was as if Heavenly Father was with me telling me "See? I did not forsake you. I am here. This has always been part of your plan". How grateful I am for my family!

2 of my beautiful miracles

Beckett loves to dance. Here he is doing his impression of the "Sail" by Awolnation dance move.

 Beckett is into math and letters. He loves to tell us stories like if he has 3 glasses of water and hides one then he only has 2 glasses of water. He really enjoys that. He is beginning to make real connections with letters and rhyming also. It is so much fun to see things click for him. He kisses us on the cheek and tells us "I love kisses". The most spreadable laughter comes from his lips. I tell him he makes me so happy and my heart so big there is hardly any room for it, just like the Grinch. He really likes that. A sponge soaks up less than he does these days and he is a great joy.

We had a wonderful Christmas and spent a considerable amount of time with both sides of our family. It was great. We love Christmas so much and the opportunity we have to remember Christ's birth and have those feelings of gratitude for the sacrifice he made for all of us.

Twin Labor Story

I was on bed rest for 3 weeks after a doctor appointment discovered I was 50% effaced and dilated to a 2. It was very hard being on bed rest!! I had incredible support from friends and family helping me with Beckett and meals.

On the morning of October 10, I woke up at 5 am in pain from contractions. For me, contractions are just dull constant pain much like cramps. I had to keep reminding myself of that so I didn't just dismiss the pain. I couldn't go back to sleep, so I sent a text to my dad asking him if he thought I should go into the hospital. He said "yes". 

I arrived at the hospital around 6:30 or so. My contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and a few days earlier I was 70% effaced and dilated to a 3.5. I was given anti-labor medication which only slowed contractions down to 5-6 minutes apart after a few hours. My body wanted to have those babies that day! I was 34 weeks and 6 days.

By the time I was settled in my hospital room, the pain of the contractions had gone down considerably and was quite mild. It was about 10 am at this point.

I asked for my epidural and felt very good through the rest of the morning and through the birth. I pushed 2 times to deliver Dean and a half push for Jayna. They were born around 5:30 pm, 7 minutes apart, and came out with their lungs in check. They were both 6 lb. 5 oz and spent 17 days in the NICU. I had the best doctor in the world through it all, my dad!!

These pictures are of them still in the incubator and on bili lights. They are sporting their eye protective sunglasses very well!!

Baby Dean (He has an IV in his head because all the other usual spots weren't working and the one before this one went bad)

Baby Jayna (Her arm is swollen in the picture because an IV line went bad. I felt so sad for her tiny little body! They both had problems with their IVs!)

I had their pictures taken by Caralee Case in Idaho Falls. She did a fantastic job!! They were 19 days old and you can see her post of the session here.

They are 1 month old today on Ryan's birthday! It's been quite a ride so far and we expect the ride to continue much the same. We're so grateful for our little miracles!

Summer Adventures in San Jose

We had a fantastic opportunity to live in San Jose, California this summer. Ryan finished up his first year of MBA school and for the internship he worked at eBay. We feel completely blessed with the great internship experience and with the great people we got to know. We were so lucky to find "cheap" housing through the local bishop and it is truly amazing how everything worked out so perfectly. We know we were supposed to be there and meet the people we did. When we think of those 3 months we have such happy thoughts because we were able to create such great memories. We tried to make the best of every weekend we had while on our internship. 

Ryan interned at eBay for the summer. It was a fantastic company to work for!!

Half Moon Bay, 30 minutes north of San Jose, was a beautiful but slightly windy beach!

Happy Hollow Park & Zoo was a great place to spend the morning (they close at 3 pm). It was so fun because it is a little kids theme park plus a zoo with a huge playground and lots of rides that are all included in the admission. 

Santa Cruz Beach! Beckett absolutely loved the sand and loved every minute he could get playing in it. This beach was so great because the sand was so smooth and fine. We bought a funnel cake that was ruined by Beckett throwing sand at it, but it was delicious while it was still sand free. :)

We were able to go to the Oakland Temple a few times and it was so beautiful. The grounds were fabulous and the visitor's center is quite large. We always spent a few hours when we came even if we didn't go inside. Beckett loved the water!

We traveled South to Hearst Castle (and Solvang, a little Danish city) and enjoyed the tour and walking the grounds of the "castle". In Solvang we rented a surry and bicycled around the city for an hour. It was a blast riding it around the town.

We took a trip to Gilroy Gardens which is a family theme park. We had a lot of fun that day riding the rides and playing in the water area. 

We went to the Gilroy outlets of course!

This is Big Bason, a Redwood forest. It was so beautiful and amazing. You can see my son crouched down at the base of the tree.

We did many other activities like visiting San Fransisco, swimming, barbecues with neighbors, ward activities, walking around tide pools at Moss Beach, The Municipal Rose Garden, Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, Winchester Mystery House, etc. There is SO much to do in San Jose and we feel very grateful for the opportunity we had to have an adventure together as a family of 3 before these twins come!!

November

Our family is definitely looking forward to November this year. We are transitioning from a family of 3 to a family of 5. No typo here. We are having twins!

We have patiently waited for another addition for a while. We realize not as long as many, however we've made considerable efforts against the infertility battle to get these two precious babes here. After 5 rounds of artificial insemination we didn't know if we'd have more kids. Maybe our family was complete with Beckett? Through much prayer and inspirations of the Spirit, it became apparent that Heavenly Father's path for us was to do IVF, in vitro fertilization. 

We are scared and excited for this new upcoming adventure and did I mention thrilled that we're having twins?!

The due date is Nov. 16, even though we expect them to debut earlier than that. We are having 1 boy and 1 girl. We're very excited to welcome these two precious spirits into our home!!