Categories
Babies Pregnancy

Thirty Four Weeks Two Days

Thirty four weeks & two days. That’s how long the babies have been out in this world as of today. That also means they’ve now been out longer than they were inside me.

That seems crazy to me. I cherished my pregnancy; almost all 34w1d of it.

Likewise, I’ve loved these past 34 weeks & 2 days of wildness & joy I couldn’t have fathom before.

As I sit wrangling snuggling sick Zach & Lucy post nursing right now, I’m so grateful for them. For them being my precious inside & outside babies.

I found my last belly photo today on my husband’s twitter account.

One I’d never seen since. 34 w1d pregnant.1358378472653

And compare it to now. 34w2d postpartum Mommy, Zach & Lucy. IMG_20130116_182649

 

Categories
Everything Else

2012 Year in Review

Wow. It’s taken me two weeks to share my favorite posts of 2012. I ended up re-reading most of my posts; taking myself back to that moment & even shedding some {happy & sad} tears. What a year 2012 was for my family. I was trying to limit these to my one-two favorite posts per month. I think I ended up with four {or more!} for each though.

January was almost all happy posts. I shared about being thankful to friends & family, how I was eating for four, my 18 week update, grieving life as I knew it based on ‘triplets’, & a few days of sickness {that ended up timing exactly when the ultrasound tech said baby B stopped forming. I’m still wondering if that’s just a sad coincidence}.

February posts start off hard. I shared the results of our 18 week big ultrasound in two posts: one about the loss of baby B & another about babies A & C. Then my babies showers began later that month. First up was my owl themed friends shower then was my coworker friends shower.

March, we made some decisions.  Then updated them. Family friends in VA threw us a shower. And we ended the month by purchasing a minivan!

April was packed! I had a work shower, revealed the babies’ names, thought I was in labor, made & updated our prebabies to-do list, took a bunch of classes & got ready to cloth diaper.

May was an unforgetable month for our household. We did maternity photos just in the nick of time. I blissfully unaware turned 32 weeks right before pPROM’d the following day. I made it on bedrest to 34 weeks & shared my thoughts on my last pregnant days. Zach arrived at 2:59a May 21st & Lucy followed almost 8.5 hours later.

June was busy at home & slow on the blog. I shared my Bell’s Palsey & a look back at our almost two weeks of NICU life. I also talked about breastfeeding the duo.

July I shared how breastfeeding was going, a day in the life with 6 week old preemies, the nicknames for L & Z & my crazy postpartum issues.

August was when I started sharing our favorites of our delivered food in Make Ahead Meals. Jason went back to work & I vented about elusive sleep & hard breastfeeding days.

September meant beginning to get the hang of being a mom & going back to work. The babies took their first trip to Charlotte for B & Kevin’s shower.

October, I began writing for Liberating Working Moms; posting my decision to go back to work & how I make it work for us. I talked about cloth diapering at daycare, our love of Apple Cheeks diapers & my newborn twin must haves. We took the babies to their first pumpkin patch & I shared thoughts on the best diet ever. We celebrated Halloween at daycare.

November started off with a trip to VA & ended the month with Thanksgiving at OIB. Otherwise it was a bit of a confessional month. I shared my definition of family, I talked about pumping at work twice on LWM, I disclosed that we were no longer a pet family, I confessed that I was feeling overwhelmed, & then I updated after their 6 mo appt & starting solids.

December is one of my favorite months. The babies met Santa, we got their first Christmas tree, I turned 31, & I shared our Christmas card. I posted a Working with Style on LWM {that ended up being featured on BlogHer. I did an updated day in our life. Lucy {& then Zach} got hand foot & mouth & Zach {& then Lucy} got their two bottom teeth & then we ended up spending the last days of 2012 sick.

Categories
Food

Cheesy Mexican Chicken

I’ve been bored with our go-to easy baked chicken recipes. After seeing an email from Kraft Foods Tuesday, I searched their site & found this recipe. I did it a little different, so I’ll share what I did.

Ingredients
4 medium-large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 pack taco seasoning
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 & 1/2 c cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 c milk
crumbled tortilla chips

Preheat oven to 375. While that’s warming, place chicken breasts in a dish. I used our favorite 8×11 one.

Mix together taco seasoning, soup, 1 c cheese & milk.

Mixture ready to top the chicken.
Mixture ready to top the chicken.

Pour mixture over the chicken.

Top with tortilla chips. I just crumbled what we had left of a bag & sprinkled a few handfuls over the chicken.

Oven ready
Oven ready

Bake for 30 minutes covered with foil. Top with remaining 1/2 cheese & bake for an additional 10 minutes uncovered. IMG_20130108_203052

I served this is Spanish rice & it was awesome. Very easy & still tasty. We were full on one breast each, so this made enough for two dinners. Score!

Categories
Babies Food

Struggling with Solids

For the last month & a half, I’ve added a disaster to our nightly routine. The babies mostly hate it. It makes a huge mess. It’s time consuming when I have no extra time. My husband usually isn’t even home to help this disaster.

What’s happened to our busy-but-we-got-this routine? We’ve been introducing solids to Zach & Lucy.

I delayed starting solids for my preemies based on our thoughts & our pediatricians’ recommendations. But right after their 6 month checkup, I bought a box of Earth’s Best rice cereal, excitedly mixed it up with breast milk, grabbed my cell phone camera & got ready to experience the babies’ first taste of food. Not shockingly, they hated it & spit it out. That was Nov 28th.

Fast forward to this week & things aren’t much better.

Jump over to Liberating Working Moms to read the rest {& see a funny photo of Lucy & Zach from last night’s eating attempt}. And please add any advice you have to offer in the comments!

Categories
Everything Else

It’s Back

Major TMI warning.

AF. Crimson Tide. Period. Time of the month. WTF is what I called out yesterday mid-morning.

I know I talked about AF’s unwanted arrival for 22 cycles. I thank God that time in my life is over. And after this post, I will hopefully not talk about my cycles again.

But I really thought {not sure why though} that while I continued to successfully breastfeed my duo, my period would stay away. No longer such luck.

I have been lucky enough to have been period-free since September 2011. So there’s that. I realized last night that this is my first unmedicated period since February 2011. Crazy, right?!

I’d honestly forgotten how it all worked, the PMS, bloating, zits, kinda moodiness & craving bread. Then of course the period itself & cramps. Good times being a girl are back y’all.