We did it!

We made it through the first year with twins. Every twin parent we talked to before having the girls told us that the first year is the hardest and then it gets easier. I think in part that is true. We now have babies who sleep through the night 99% of the time, and who don’t need to nurse at night if they do wake up. I think that counts as MUCH easier than when they were waking up 5-6 times each every night, and nursing each time they woke. Courtney is walking, and Alexis is really close and that makes things easier because they aren’t as frustrated by the fact that they can’t move around where they want to go.

On the other hand, they are more mobile and that means I have two going in separate directions. They are eating more solids which makes for several clothes changes a day and issues with rashes and tummy aches x2! The sibling rivalry is getting more and more obvious between Kaylee and the girls. The more mobile they get the more concerned she gets about them getting into her face and into her stuff. She loves them, but not quite as much as when they were just little immobile bundles of blankets.

I am still breastfeeding both of them, and loving it! I’m so thankful that I was able to have an easier time with them than I did with Kaylee. There is something so amazing nursing older babies. The joy and excitement on their faces when I ask them if they want milk is priceless. I don’t k

now when I plan to stop, but I think it will be by the time they are two at the latest.

All in all, I am looking forward to the second year of these girls’ lives.

The girls’ birthday was wonderful. Family came to celebrate, Robert’s mom made little cakes for the girls, they were in great moods for opening presents, and everyone enjoyed the day. This birthday I felt like I finally got it together so that I wasn’t stressed and rushing around the morning of the party.

I loved their birthday dresses! I am glad that I got some that weren’t specifically birthday oriented so they could wear them several times.

I promise Alexis was having a good day. I think her eyes were having a hard time adjusting to waking up or something because she is squinting in a lot of the pictures.

Kaylee was so sweet helping them open presents and excited for the gifts that they got.

Alexis LOVED these shoes! I think this girl is going to be quite the dresser.

Robert’s parents brought this wonderful play set that will be a life saver. The girls all loved it.

Courtney was so brave on the slide and didn’t hesitate at all to go down once my sister Kathryn was there to catch her.

We had 3 cakes! I made the main one for the adults and Kaylee to eat, and Robert’s mom made little ones for Courtney and Alexis.

The girls’ cakes:

Courtney’s

Alexis’

I was so happy that they girls were more interested in eating their cakes than Kaylee was (or wasn’t). It took them a little while, but they eventually needed to be basically hosed off.

The best picture! ^^

It was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun. I think these birthday parties are only going to get better. Bring on the next year of twin fun!

Getting Better and Grandparents

Things have slowly been getting better. I still have thrush, and both of us are still being treated. It really doesn't seem like I stay better....it just switches sides. Kaylee has been getting a lot of bottles lately because it hurts her sometimes to nurse. So it is still a struggle, but I am not nearly as discouraged as I was last week. This past week she has gotten much happier, and I think it is because it has been a whole week sense I had ANY milk products. Robert was very impressed at how happy and easy to put down for naps she is this weekend.

I am getting better at eating stuff without milk, and went grocery shopping and basically the only thing that had milk in it was the milk I bought for Robert! He is working hard to be healthier so we are both eating really healthy food lately.

Robert and I have finally gone out together on a couple dates without Kaylee. It was SO hard to leave her home with a sitter. The first time was my parents and everything went really well. She got off schedule a little just due to not being used to my parents and visa versa. She was asleep in bed when we got home, and stayed asleep until morning. Robert and I went out with some other couples to see a movie and get some food. It was great to be out with other people, but I didn't stop worrying about Kaylee the whole time.

Then we went out just us this last Friday and Robert's mom and sister came to take care of Kaylee. Lets just say she didn't cooperate too well. She, for some reason, wouldn't eat from the bottle so she got REALLY hungry, and then she couldn't sleep because she was hungry, and then because she was overtired. I think part of the problem was that she was asleep when his mom got here and then woke up to a "stranger". Hopefully next time his mom takes care of her it will go better.

We got through all 3 hours of church on Sunday without too much of a problem. I am realizing that I need to try to get her to nap very well right before church, and then we just hold her through church. This is because she hates her car seat and wont sleep in it usually. Then after church we let her nap on our bed because she sleep much better there. I will see today if this helped to keep her from getting overtired. Week before last it took until Wednesday for her to recover from church!

These next few weeks I am going to try to figure out exactly what I need to take for our trip to Washington at the end of the month. We are going to Yellowstone park for two days before we head up to visit my sister, and I don't want to be hauling around stuff I don't need. My goal is to use mostly cloth diapers for the trip, but will still bring some disposables for back-up....because I am a whimp. Truly I am really nervous about the trip. Kaylee doesn't do well when her routine is messed up, and I think being in the car for the majority of three days counts as messing up her routine. I can only hope that she learns to sleep in her car seat and sleeps well in the hotel.

I can't believe that next Thursday she turns 3 months old! My little baby is growing up so fast!

very disouraged.....

It seems like everything is against me breast feeding Kaylee.

First off she has reflux, which by its self makes nursing a bit of a challenge for her some days.

Then I find out she is sensitive to the least little dairy in my diet. If I have any it causes her serious pain, and makes it hard for her to sleep/nap. Do you know how hard it is to get enough calories to breast feeding when you can't have anything with the least bit of dairy?

Then my milk supply started going away which made her hungry a lot of the time simply because she couldn't get enough from me. I have been pumping like crazy and taking brewers yeast but am not seeing much improvement.

And the most recent challenge is that she and I have Thrush, which is making it VERY painful for her to nurse/bottle feed. I just got medication for us today so hopefully it works quickly. It is torture giving her her medicine though.

I tried giving her a special non-dairy formula yesterday when she was absolutely inconsolable from hunger.....she wouldn't eat it. She basically went to bed hungry because I couldn't get enough food into her.

I am SOOOO close to just giving up breast feeding. I really really don't want to, but I am so discouraged it hurts. How can breast feeding be the best thing for her when it is causing her so much pain? At the same time, I CAN'T switch her to formula because she wont eat the only kind she can have!!

Sorry, I just needed to vent. I don't know what else to do.

Two Months and Two Years

Happy Blogoversary to me! I can't believe I have been posting on this blog for 2 years! If you go back to the beginning of my posts you may notice a discrepancy in the dates. That is from my genius move of deleting every post on my entire blog. The oldest ones were not able to be saved.....unfortunately. Hopefully nothing of the sort happens this year.


Kaylee turned 2 months old on Tuesday! To celebrate, we went to the doctor for her shots yesterday.....just kidding it was not a celebration. She weighed in at 10 lbs 15.5 oz and measured 22 3/8". That puts her in the 50th% for both. She is only in the 10th% for her head circumference though lol. She has a tiny head! While she was being examined by the doctor, she almost rolled over for the first time. She actually rolled onto her side (from her front) and then got too frustrated, so we picked her up. I really thing she could have rolled over had it not been for the slick paper on the table. She couldn't get any traction with her foot so she couldn't roll all the way over. The doctor was really impressed with how well she is doing.

She is getting some real hair! It is growing in right on top of her head where a lot fell out due to the cradle cap. It looks like it is going to be dark, at least for now! I am really excited about that!

Her shots were a bit heartbreaking. She handled the first one ok; she cried really hard and then calmed back down just in time to be stuck the second time. Then she lost it and started screaming and turned red and started crying tears with the third stick. It didn't continue for very long though, maybe a minute. As soon as the shot lady walked out of the room she stopped crying. I sat and held her for a few minutes before I put her in her car seat to go home. She fussed and cried on the way home, but no out and out crying. I think she was in a little bit of shock.

When we got home, I discovered that I never bought infant Tylonal!! I thought about it and never did! So I had to run to the store with the poor girl for the pain killer. Once she had that in her system she went right to sleep, and slept basically all day. I was worried about her, so I had her sleep on our bed and laid next to her and slept basically all day as well! It was great! The worst was when the first dose of Tylonal wore off and the next dose hadn't kicked in yet. Every time she moved her legs she would scream and cry. After that one wore off she was still in pain, but not screaming. It was a rough day for both of us. One thing that I did appreciate, is that it helped her catch up on sleep! She was getting into the super over tired stage, so it was nice to have something helping her catch up.

Some other "fun" things have been happening....my milk was trying to dry up! We have been figuring out that Kaylee is sensitive to dairy in my diet. That means I can not eat ANYTHING!! When you really look at it, so many things have dairy in them. So I wasn't eating enough calories to satisfy my body....let alone nurse a baby. On Tuesday I started to notice that it was taking Kaylee a LONG time to eat....like 30-40 rather than her normal 10-15. Then in the evening, she would want to eat all the time, but would scream through every feeding. On Wednesday I could physically feel that I didn't have much milk, and I couldn't for the life of me pump more than 1 oz at a time! The most I pumped was 3 oz and that was instead of feeding Kaylee. Before I could pump 5-6 oz and then feed Kaylee with no problems. Luckly that day we had milk in a bottle that I had pumped before my supply went down. At one point Kaylee ate almost 4 oz AFTER eating from me! Poor little girl was just starving! She was much happier Wednesday evening, which proved that she wasn't getting enough food in the evenings before. I was realieved that the doctor was so impressed by her weight gain. Hopefully she will continue to gain like she has been.

So I started chowing down everything I could get my hands on that didn't have milk in them. I ate almost a whole loaf of wheat bread plain, and ate a ton of fast food. Suprisingly those things don't usually have dairy in them. I had a Chipotle burrito, which are known to have over 2000 calories in them! I also started pumping for 5-10 minutes after every feeding....even in the middle of the night. One thing I have been slacking on is taking my prenadal, so I started doing that again. Oh, and drinking tons of water! I usually do pretty good with the water, so that was the easiest part.

As of today, I feel like I am getting my supply back! I am planning to take some brewers yeast, which is supposed to help up the milk supply. I went grocery shopping last night and got some rice and soy milk, and some rice ice cream.....it should be interesting. All I can say is that I would HATE to be lactose intolerant! How do those people survive?!?

I have more picture in the camera, but both batteries are dead so I can't get them off onto the computer. But here are some of the ones I took on Tuesday:


Showing off one of her bum Genius cloth diapers






I really like this one!

Day 3

Kaylee is such an ANGEL!! She has been eating well, now that I went back to the hospital to re-learn how to get her to latch on. She knows what she is doing, but I was getting in her way. I bought a really nice Medela breast pump, and officially have milk now!!

My first pumping results! A whole oz!

Kaylee is still a bit jaundice so I am trying to get her in the sun as much as possible and feeding her as often as I can. She has yet another test on Monday morning, and I hope this is the last one. Her poor little heels can only take so much poking!

Nights have been a dream! Usually she will go about 3 hours between feedings, and then will go right back to sleep. She actually loves being on her changing table and only cries during changing when the sun is in her eyes....which was once. She has a hard time burping sometimes, but that is the only time she really cries at all. We know that if she is fussy there is a reason, and we are already getting good at knowing what cry means what.

Anyways, here are some pictures from the last couple days. I love this little girl SO much!