The last several days...

The last several days have been busy ones...that seems to be a recurring theme around these parts. Color guard costume malfunctions requiring late-night fabric purchases and alterations, remaking other assorted costume bits such as leg warmers and headbands. Sophie also got another uti which required extra doctor visits, a referral to primary children's for some tests (happened yesterday), the region 8 marching band review on Saturday, Ogden temple red education Sunday, teaching music class & guard Monday. I feel like the days are blending together and rushing by. It doesn't seem to matter how early I get up or how late I go to bed there are always things that don't get done in a day. I don't feel like I'm being unrealistic in my expectations. I don't even plan on a shower, hair fixed beyond a ponytail or makeup. I haven't been able to take a few minutes to add pictures to these posts because that would require getting my laptop out and using both hands, which is just ludicrous. Ask the babies what they think about that ;-)

I am enjoying life despite the perpetual state of tired and little piles of things I just can't seem to keep ahead of. Such is life! :-D

We got about 5 hours out of the babies tonight but that's something! It's 4:55 right now amd Craig is bottle feeding them while I pump, upload pictures to our online back-up site and text my mom. There are certainly perks to the two hour time difference! There's also quite the impressive lightning show going on at the moment. Hopefully we won't get soaked tonight or tomorrow during either band performance.

Oooh, band. Nightmares have abounded and a couple came true. The beautiful new flags clash with the uniforms, several leg warmers need fixing or completely redone and oh my word. Best part: the work looks good. Up next week: add more weapon work to the stupidly lengthened drum break which was previously short and is now 64 counts. Woo >:-(

We got out and to ballet class in many (5, to be exact) pieces yesterday! Olivia's self-potty training is going amazingly well, the babies seem to be getting themselves on a nap schedule and the van got cleaned & organized. The bad part: it seems like anytime I clean the car it then becomes necessary to clean the garage, which results in the need to do 3 extra loads of laundry and a load of dishes. I find that extremely annoying. It really screws with my daily list and we just can't have that!

Well, I'm going to try to get some more sleep before starting the day in earnest. It's going to be a busy one with sewing, normal daily stuff, preschool, music class, a doctor appointment for Sophie's frequent infections, and the homecoming performance. Hopefully good things will be reported tomorrow! :-)

The twins slept for darn near close to seven hours last night! Too bad my body didn't agree with that and was kind enough to wake me up at the normal feeding time, anyway. But it's progress!

Yesterday was another busy one. I'm kind of wondering if I will have any days in the near future that are not busy. Anyway, we had preschool, all of our normal daily stuff, and long band rehearsal. Our first show is tomorrow night at the homecoming halftime. I have to it meant I am a little nervous just because the one song that we fed and given time to do is not the cleanest. I know to have the band and colorguard ready for our first competition on Saturday it will be good for them to perform this particular song publicly. And it will be fine, especially compared to years past. But that doesn't really change how nervous I am.

I just realized it is already time for us to go to ballet class this morning. Maybe I'll have some time later to come back and write some more. Tootles!

Wednesday again!

Wednesday is here again. My, goodness how fast weeks are going! 6 full weeks of Fall marching band left, I'll be 27 in 11 days, babies will be 4 months in just a couple weeks and just wow. The daily run...wow. Same things every day but I am still having a hard time doing anything but barely keeping up. I had all these grand plans to get my sewing room reorganized, our bedroom reorganized (it's started!) and lots of fun crafts and activities for the big girls but they're just not happening.

Biggest struggle right now: breastfeeding. I never had enough for Sophie and Olivia to EBF, but I've been doing pretty good with the twins. They've had supplementation from the beginning for weight gain and such. Up until this week, they were only getting 2oz of formula each day but now it's closer to 3 or 4. I'm frustrated. I feed and pump and drink water and all that but I can't seem to get my supply to increase. The fenugreek didn't work, neither has oatmeal in large quantities. I know formula isn't going to kill them or make them dumb (I would hardly call my older girls dumb) but I really wanted to be able to do it this time. I have it in my head that as soon as the babies start eating solids in the next 6 weeks they'll want less milk and I'll be able to catch up. If only it'd work so nicely ;-)

Whatever! :-)

Yesterday was just as busy as I thought it was going to be. And ignore my note from yesterday about Siri, I think I actually do need to go back and fix things during naptime today. I'm not feeling the greatest this morning so we have postponed the older kids music class until Friday. I need a day off. Not that having four kids under four at home is actually a "day off. " Happy Tuesday!

Early Monday

It's going to be another busy day here! Monday's tend to be crazy. Starting with preschool at 9:15, then music class for the Littles from 10 to 1030 this afternoon from three. This is an addition to all of our normal every day things.

It is come to my attention that Siri does not do the greatest job of interpreting my dictation on here. Trust me, I know the difference between "new " and "knew ". Someday when I have extra time on my hands and I'm wondering what in the world I should do I'll go back and fix those things. Just not today.

Yesterday was titis third birthday and we celebrated with him at his house. He had the cutest little Thomas the train party complete with aunt errands delicious homemade pizza. Big girls had such a good time in conked out pretty quickly after we got home. That's my idea of a good party! We decided yesterday that we needed to find a new home. Miss Tia and Jack now have Mattoon at their house and I was a little surprised at the reaction of the girls. They weren't nearly as upset knowing that Tia and Jack going to take care of her.

And that's all the time I have morning. I'm off to get Sophie ready for preschool, fed breakfast, dressed and get things ready for music class! Tootles.

Saturday Highlights

A quick post listing some Saturday events:

- Saturday band & guard from 8-noon. I'm feeling pretty okay about the shows & competitions starting next Friday. We still have a LOT of things we can improve on but overall, it's not looking too bad. I got sunburned, that does look bad.

- Craig took the girls to the park to play while I was out at work. They also went to Cosco and generally had a pretty good time together. Crazy tacos for lunch I would buy some cleaning and out times.

- Sophie really wanted to go to IKEA for some reason, so we told her she took a nap she could go. We have needed a new table to fit more people for a while, so we figured we would just look for that. Naturally, we ended up coming home with a new one. Happy birthday to me!

- Someday I will learn that Walmart on a Saturday night it's a lousy idea. Just not last night.

- The baby slept for almost 6 hours straight! Happy happy day!

Saaaaaaturday! ...and random thoughts

In case anyone cares, clogged milk ducts at 4:00 am hurt and feeding or pumping don't always get them out. A hot bath, while relaxing, also only does so much... especially if you start falling asleep in the tub.

We got to celebrate "Aunt Bocky" having a birthday at Granny Pams last night. We had told Sophie & Olivia Thursday we'd be going on Friday and Sophie remembered! First thing out of her mouth yesterday morning, "is it aunt Becky's birthday?!" Navajo tacos, cheese cake, gifts, visiting & silly games rounded out the evening.

A little calico kitten adopted Olivia yesterday. It's tiny and the girls love her. Our other cats... Not so much. Still trying to see if it has a home but it's so little and seemed undernourished so we're guessing it doesn't. I have been cursed with one giant soft spot for animals. I do not like to see them suffer at all. Both of our older kitties are rescues, too.

In happier news, I love Smugmug. (It's our online photo storage and backup site of choice.) I've recently discovered I'm able to directly upload pictures from my phone to albums on the site, which is totally awesome since my laptop is- very sadly- on its way out and I prefer to skip the "middle man" (iPhoto) if I can to avoid losing our pictures and videos. And I can do it sitting in my bed while pumping, which I still seem to be doing a LOT.

Off to our Saturday marching band rehearsal. Im sure it's going to be an extremely productive one!

Laughing Twinners!

The twins started laughing last night! After an unexpectedly busy day, that was the best possible way to end it. I'll post/share the videos as soon as I can. And for the record, Evie laughed first. Alli smiled first. ;-)

Another Monday

The babies did it again! Between five and 5 1/2 hours of sleep! But for some reason, I am extra tired this morning. I don't particularly care for waking up in the morning and being in tears because I want to nap so badly. I doubt that will happen today. Maybe I can at least get to sleep a little earlier.

last night, I had a follow-up visit for some medication I'm on for postpartum depression. I'll talk about that another time. So he decided she wanted to go with me and so she got dressed after dinner and was my doctor visit buddy. I have two doctors that I like to see and they are both women. Sophie has decided that being a doctor sounds pretty darn good! One time when we were in the car going somewhere we asked her what kind of doctor she wanted to be. We talked about all the different kinds of doctors that there are. Podiatrist who help people like daddy with bad feet, dentist to help people with their teeth, optomologists who help people with their eyes, OBs who help mommies have babies, pediatricians who help babies, and so on. She decided working with mommies and babies sounded extra good! Anyway, we went to my doctor appointment and she took her toy stethoscope with her. Haley, who is the doctor that I see, was just tickled to see that she had brought her stethoscope, new what it was for, and how to use it. She talk to Sophie about all the different things in the office and then had her use her real stethoscope to listen to my heart and lungs. She got quite a kick out of that. On our way home, Sophie & I stopped to share a little cup of ice cream. Sophie enjoys getting to go on solo mommy or daddy dates- this certainly wasn't the most exciting day ever but she seem to thoroughly enjoy having my undivided attention and a little cup of chocolate ice cream. When we got home I asked Olivia if she would like to go on a mommy date tomorrow night and Sophie got a little upset. "Are you going to take her to get ice cream too!?" Yes, Sophie. Sorry ;)

Earlier in the day yesterday was pretty crazy. Starting with getting Sophie to preschool with everyone else in the car. Is a little trickier to get everything going in the morning since I burned some fingers pretty good Sunday night finishing up our canning project. After dropping Sophie off a couple minutes late, we rushed home to get ready for music class. That proved to be fairly difficult since Olivia had a total and complete meltdown complete with crying fit for over two hours. I'm surprised I still have ANY students after that exhibition.

Everyone is up now. I suppose I'll come back and talk about our exciting band rehearsal in the small upstairs gym later :)

September Saturday & Sunday

It's only 1:00 but it has already proved to be an eventful Sunday. It would seem that hair loss: twin edition, has begun. When I got up this morning, I was certainly not planning on spending an hour and a half just trying to get my hair brushed through. The hair loss has contributed to mass amounts of (painful!) snarls and tangles. Even Sophie and Olivia's extra strength hair detangler could only do so much. Luckily, that's done and we were able to get everybody dressed fixed fed and to church on time. Olivia had a total and complete meltdown in the whole minute it takes to drive to church because her seat was not buckled in the order that she needed it buckled. Olivia and I spent probably the first 20 minutes of sacrament meeting outside under a tree where she had her very own temper tantrum show. She had a surprisingly large audience. Mostly grandmas and parents of younger kids who seem to understand and just kept on going.

By the time Olivia was calm down, the babies decided they were hungry. Sacrament meeting was too close to being over for me to want to start feeding the babies, so I ended up just coming home intending to feed them and go back with Craig. I am extremely happy I made that choice now as Evelyn had a total and complete explosive diaper just a few minutes after I walked in the door. If I had been at church, we would have had a car seat full of poop and a messy, unhappy, hungry child and no way to effectively clean it up. Just a few minutes after I got Evelyn all cleaned up, I was getting ready to nurse and pump. I was fine but just a little hungry one minute in the next my blood sugar had dropped like crazy. I was shaking, my heart was racing, I was dizzy and I felt like I was going to pass out. I have had problems with hypoglycemia in the past, but I haven't had an episode like this in a long time. I downed two granola bars, a big glass of milk, and a cheese stick before sitting down to feed Evelyn and munch on some peanuts. I still feel a little off now, even about 40 minutes later but I don't feel like I'm going to pass out anymore. I guess I need to be more aware of making sure I have snacks between my main meals and checking on the balance of protein and carbs again.

Let's talk a little bit about yesterday. We did get up and get going in the morning which was very nice. I always have much better days when we get going earlier in the day. We decided to head over to the Mapleton farmers market to check out the produce that they had. We got a 25 pound box of fresh peaches, a big cup of fresh raspberries, a BYU hair clip for Sophie, and some hot peppers for Craig for $19. I had made applesauce on Friday evening and I had been hoping to find some inexpensive fresh, local apples at the farmers market, too. There weren't any of the little Mapleton farmers market so we decided to go down to Spanish Fork. That was quite the impressive market. While we were there we ended up getting some giant delicious onions which were made into soup for dinner, fresh pineapple salsa, some fresh local honey, and a giant box of apples. When we got home, Craig made lunch while Sophie and I got going on the applesauce. We were able to make several jars of delicious homemade sauce. I really enjoy canning and making our own things. Sometimes it is less expensive to just buy things at the store, but it's important to me to know how to do these things and to teach our girls how to do them, too.

I don't know what's going on with my back, but it was pretty ouchie yesterday. After I got Olivia laying down to rest and The applesauce going on the stove, I hopped in the tub. I would've liked to of gotten more canning done yesterday but I just couldn't handle being on my feet that much. Craig used the onions he had bought at the farmers market to make some delicious French onion soup for dinner. We decided that we would take the girls swimming at the rec center after they ate dinner. It was a nice change as I got in the pool with them or Craig set out with the babies this time. Sometimes I wonder if Sophie is part fish! You seriously put her life jacket on she ran and jumped in the pool and just swam happily around until we left an hour later. I'm hoping we can take them swimming more often.

It's about 1:20 now and Evelyn is done eating. I think I will go start working on lunch. Uncle Jeffy is supposed to come over and join us today.

Sleep!

It's 5:42 Saturday morning and Alli just woke up for the first time since 11:30. Evie is still asleep. Time for a mini dance party!!

Hopefully when she's done I'll be able to get a morning nap before the big girls get up. We're planning on hitting a few farmers markets for more can-able fruit. Aunt Joyce may have created a bit of a monster!

Life isn't supposed to be all sunshine and giggling babies but dang, some days! I've been going nonstop for the last 14 1/2 hours. My house is pretty darn clean, many loads of laundry & dishes done, tomato sauce made and canned, apple sauce made & canned. Naan & chicken tikka masala made from scratch so we could have a tasty "fancy" Friday night dinner right when Craig walked in. All 4 children were dressed, had clean faces & behinds, fixed hair and ready for the day before time to leave for preschool. Sophie even had matching shoes AND her library book to return. We had scripture & prayer time. Olivia WANTED to do the laundry. We read books, played with the babies, fed them 12 times, had homemade pesto pizzas together. Sophie and I spent some quiet time together while Olivia napped. The kitchen was cleaned & dishes done AGAIN while Craig took the big girls for ice cream. Floors were swept again, babies fed again, toilet cleaned again (...potty training). And guess what? No one gives a damn. Not a single person.

Shoes were left all over by the front door. Diapers thrown (yes, thrown) in random places, toys dropped in the middle of the room, snack items left where ever, dirty clothes that need stain spray and soaking left mess side down on the carpet and the list goes on. I take care of all of this crap every day yet somehow I'm still the bad guy. How dare I complain? Why do I think someone else should share the responsibility? What do you mean I'm being irrational when I expect people to see the mess they've created and actually do something about it?! And gosh darn it, when is MY weekend?

Obviously not now. I have two unhappy babies and apparently I'm the only one who can fix that, too.