Merry Christmas to All

So there is so much to write about, but not that much time.  The last few weeks has been a whirlwind.  The babies are doing great and so are their proud siblings. 

Jackson likes to help burp them and he will stop in the middle of running here and there to admire them and say how cute they are.  He told me we are pretty lucky to have them.  Ellie loves to help me with them.  She always wants to hold them and wants to feed them too.  They are sometimes a little tricky to feed, so I haven't really let her do that yet.  She is good at getting diapers though. 

Sleeping in the bathroom so they could get some sun

It is fun to watch them all try to guess who is who.  They are getting better about it. Lincoln doesn't seem to be too jealous.  Sometimes he can get a little impatient, but other times he will listen to me when I explain that he may have to wait for me to get something for him until after I am done feeding the twins.  He likes to give them kisses too.  Lincoln does like some of the new freedom he has while I tend to the babies.  The other day I discovered that he had my camera.  He had several pictures and videos on it.   

Jackson and Ellie had their last day of school the Wednesday before Christmas.  They both had parties at school which I hated to miss.  I was able to get the snacks and teacher gifts to school though.  I am so thankful I was able to get all of my Christmas stuff done ahead of time and didn't have to worry about it .  The next day was my birthday.  Lissy helped me out my taking Jackson and Ellie to get their hair cut and then Mary stopped by with Lauren to take them all to lunch.  Lincoln went with me and the twins to my dad's office for their first check up.  Their weight was down, but my dad wasn't concerned because they were doing a decent job eating.  Miles was down to 5lbs and Bennett was 5lb 1 oz.  Their length was both 19.5", an inch longer than what they measured at the hospital, so I think someone was a little off in their measurements.  My dad was a pretty proud Papa showing off his new grandsons to the office staff.

My mom made some yummy soups for my birthday dinner and they gave me a gift certificate for someone to come clean the house one day.  Andrew also gave me the same thing and my parents gave me another one for Christmas.  So I have three days of cleaning-I'm so excited.  Andrew also gave me a bike.  Last year I talked about wanting to train for a local women's sprint triathlon but was too late.  I was hoping to do it this year (I'm not sure if they are having it though) so Andrew bought me a bike to train.  When I originally talked about doing it this year, I wasn't pregnant.  So most likely it won't happen, but I would love to try next year.  Andrew has been enjoying the bike but we had to return it to Wal-Mart.  He went on several rides and the chain fell off a few times and today I looked out the window to see him walking the bike back because one of the pedals came off.  He is looking into road bikes now but we may have to put off that purchase for a little while.  But back to my birthday, my mom also made a great red velvet cake and she made sure I took a picture of it.  It was delicious and looked beautiful. 

The Powells joined us and Santa came for a visit-just like old times. 

Later that night, Heidi came over to our house to meet Miles and Bennett and helped me with a feeding.  It was a quick visit and I wish we could have seen each other more while they were back, but things were so busy.  Lissy and Caroline also came over and took the babies for the night-sleep is a great birthday present.

The next day I let the kids open their Christmas pjs and their gifts to each other.  Jackson was so excited about the Ninjago legos Lincoln got for him.  He said a couple times, "Lincoln, you didn't have to do this."  And Lincoln loved the Mickey Mouse Ellie got for him.

We spent part of the day on Christmas Eve out at Tom and Mary's.  We had a delicious dinner and opened presents. It was a nice afternoon just hanging out with everyone.

That night we had dinner at my parents and then went home to get ready for Santa to come.  We skipped out on the church services this year and it was really different.  This is only the third time I have missed midnight mass at St. Joe.  The first time was my first Christmas and we had just come home from the hospital.  The second time was when we decided to try going to Mary Immaculate instead and that didn't last.  I had plans to have the kids decorate cookies, read some stories, etc.  Well Ellie decorated cookies, Lincoln enjoyed having the TV to himself to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Jackson got to work putting together his new Lego sets (Andrew did a great job supervising :-)). 

Before the kids went to bed, they got the cookies and milk ready, put out the Santa key and put out the reindeer food.  Andrew and I fed the babies and then started working on putting everything.  We got done about the time we usually would have been starting mass. 

We had a wonderful Christmas morning.  The kids were so excited and grateful.  I love to see them get excited.

As we finished up opening presents, Andrew decided maybe it would just be easier to burn all of the boxes, paper and packaging out in the fire pit.  We're not sure if it was legal, but it was nice to not have to bag it all up for the trash.  When we were done with that, we headed over to my parents to open presents.  Andrew and I's present was a new double stroller.  It is like the one we used at Disney, just a little smaller.  We loved it. 

 My mom got a really neat gift.  Her brother, Denny, found her old bike that she got when she was seven in the old barn.  He had it fixed up for her and got it to my dad and they surprised her Christmas morning. 

And this guy showed up at the house too :-)

We went home and were hoping to rest but that doesn't really happen these days.  I did get some stuff cleaned up and put away and then it was back to my parents for Christmas dinner.

The next week everyone started showing up to get ready for the wedding.  We did our family gift exchange and one of the funniest gifts was Briley's Spider Man outfit.  She was in love.

Getting ready for the wedding was a whirlwind.  I was only able to help a little bit but my parents and many of the others worked really hard.  We had some babysitters for the kids one morning so we could all help out.  But after that it was a juggling act of taking turns watching the kids and helping decorate.  The flu was kind of going through the family and I ended up with it the day before the wedding.  Thankfully we had help and Andrew was nice enough to take all the night time feedings that night.  The day of the wedding ended up being sunny and in the 50's which was amazing.  There was a wind, but who could complain too much.  It took me a little while to get around but then Ellie and I had to head off to get our hair done.  And then it was chaos.  Lissy stopped by to help get the twins ready while I was still waiting for Ellie to finish up with her hair.  And then we had to take the first set of pictures and by the time we were done with that, it was time to load up everything and head to the church.  Everything was so beautiful, including Caroline.  She was just stunning.  There were a few hiccups here and there but I thought it all went off pretty well.  The reception looked amazing and my mom had so much set up for there including all the different food tables with a huge selection of appetizers, a candy table, coffee and hot chocolate bar, and the cake table with cake and cheesecake.  She also had party hats and noisemakers for everyone at midnight along with champagne "popsicles" and a big clock to count down the time.  Molly made a couple cute videos-one of Jared and Caroline and one of her nieces and nephews offering up marriage advice.  Andrew's parents helped out with the kids and were going to take Miles and Bennett home early but they were doing pretty well and a lot of people were wanting to see them, so we all stuck around.  We made it to midnight and probably celebrated one of the few New Year's we will ever have with all of us together and awake.  We were all pretty tired, but it was a great night.  I guess the party didn't end until close to two, but we headed out soon after midnight. 

It is sad that everyone had to head home and now it is time to get back to the normal routine-a new normal though.  I am still trying to figure out what is the best way to do things, like the morning schedule.  It can take over an hour to feed both babies so it is hard to do that and get the kids ready to go to school.  We still have lots of offers to help including meals and I am overwhelmed by everyone's graciousness.  One of my cousins told me at the wedding that he heard we had hired a nanny.  We haven't, but Lissy is pretty close :-).  And Andrew is hoping to be able to help out more with taking/picking the kids up from school.  But our first day back he had to be in Kahoka early so he helped get the kids ready and thankfully the twins went back to sleep so I didn't have to feed them until after we got home.  Dropping off Jackson is easy but getting Ellie into school is a little more effort.  Her teachers have offered to come get her from the car, but I didn't have their numbers yet so we all went inside today.  Ellie was happy to show off her new brothers too.  So hopefully we can find our new normal and it is going to look more like this-makes me a little nervous but feeling really blessed.

And if you haven't seen it already, check out Lissy's blog for the awesome pictures she took of Miles and Bennett.  We also got some family pictures a few days later.