The Short Blog: January 2008

As most of you know, Evelyn's and Emily's birthday's were this past week. This past Saturday we celebrated Evelyn's 3rd birthday with a small party at home and a quick surprise cake and singing for Emily's 30th birthday (poor Emily, no party for turning 30). On Sunday, we celebrated again with my family because my sisters birthday is 1/26 and my brother and sister-in-law got to meet the girls for the first time since they were born. Thanks to everyone that celebrated thier birthdays!

I just wanted to say HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY to my baby girl Evelyn, who is no longer a baby by the way, and HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY to my beautiful wife, Emily Jo. I love you both to no end!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LADIES!

Love, Tom, Kathryn, & Sophia

PS If you visit, feel free leave your own wishes for the birthday girls!

Emily with her birthday cake (Thanks Stephanie and crew!)

Evelyn inspecting her cake, she wanted a jungle cake with animals. (This is the infamous Emily, Teresa, & Evelyn creation from last Friday.)

Anxious to see what's in those fancy presents (When did our baby grow up?).

Happy Birthday to you......

(she was so polite, she said thank you when we were done singing to her)

This is what she was waiting for...

Real Age: 3 months 16 days old
Adjusted Age: 3 weeks 6 days old

Hi everyone! Obviously we don’t have much time to post anymore, but I just laid Evelyn down for her nap and the twins are in their swings sucking away on pacifiers so I had to make a choice: a shower, or post a blog. Tom says I have to post a blog, so he’ll have to put up with a non-showered wife. Hopefully, I’ll get some time later.

So, life with three children is very eventful! It’s truly not as hard as I thought it would be having twins, but I do run my butt off everyday trying to take care of all of us. We’ve settled into a pretty good routine (even at 1:00 AM and 4:00 AM when Tom and I each grab a girl and a bottle – every night!) and I’d say that the only thing not running as smoothly as I wish it were is Evelyn’s play time. Now that she has me home with her all day, she wants my full attention, and unfortunately that’s not always possible. I think sometimes she feels neglected, but she still has been keeping up the best big sister role ever. She absolutely LOVES her sisters. She is much more doting on them then I ever thought she’d be. She helps us take care of them all day long. She hands us things when we need them, she holds the girls, and she’s even fed them a bottle by herself (see pic below). It’s really fun watching her be so responsible. Every day she seems more like a little girl and less like a toddler.

One thing I can say is I can’t wait for - Spring. Evelyn and I are feeling a little caged staying in the house all the time. The only time the twins have left the house is for the occasional doctor’s appt. However, this past Friday, I did take all three girls to my mom’s house for the day to make Evelyn’s birthday cake. That was quite the event! My goal was to have all of us up, fed, showered, dressed and in the car by 11:30. We made it by 11:19. (Tom Side Note: I got the call from Emily around 11:30 telling me how proud of herself she was that she was able to get the girls out of the house under 3 hours! :)) I was feeling optimistic when I got to my mom’s house, until I go to take the twins out of the car and I can’t get either car seat out of their bases. Mind you it was a freezing snowy day and I tried for over a half hour, before I had to take the girls out of their seats, try to wrap them in blankets and run into the house before they got cold. It was awful. It took me and my mom until about 8:30 pm to get the cakes done while caring for the girls. By the time we got the girls home that night their monitors were going off like crazy for apnea spells. The whole day must have worn them out and they had episodes all through the night. I don’t think we’ll be doing that again any time soon. Next birthday, I’m calling good ole’ Cakes by Stephanie!

Kathryn and Sophia are doing wonderful. They are about 7 ½ lbs now and are actually looking chubby. Granted they are almost 4 months old and haven’t even hit Evelyn’s birth weight yet, but still they are growing wonderfully! We are scheduled for two lengthy appointments in February to review where they are at with their apnea and monitors. They still continue to have spells, but they are few and far between. Some women from the Early On Program come to our home periodically to check the girls’ development and they say they are at a two month’s old level. That’s actually pretty good since the medical world considers them at an “adjusted age” of 4 weeks old. So, they are a little ahead of what they predicted they would be at this stage. They both are getting very strong and have good head control. They will push themselves up if you lay them on their bellies. Sophia is maybe a little stronger and she really pushes and kicks with her legs. They both respond very well to us when we talk to them and they try to laugh and coo. They are actually really easy and even tempered babies. They really make our little family very complete and even though sometimes I get overwhelmed, every day is joyful watching our three daughters grow. I keep telling myself this is probably the most special time I’ll ever have in my life being able to stay home and care for our babies. I can’t believe Evelyn is already three – it went by so fast, and before I know it all the girls will be in school and I’ll be back to work wondering where the time went.

Well that’s all the update I have time for now. I put Evelyn down a half hour ago and I can hear her running around upstairs obviously not napping and Kathryn is now sitting on my lap squealing! Enjoy some long awaited pics below.

Sophia the innocent.