Our 1st Christmas at home

Hi everyone! We decided to tell you all about our 1st Christmas at home and let mom have some time off. This might be a little long but its full of pictures (and lets face it, we're pretty darn cute).

To celebrate our Christmas at home, mom bought us some special onesies to wear. We wore them to school on our last day before the long weekend. Everyone loved them!

On Christmas Eve, we stayed home with Grandma (since we're still have to be careful about where we go) and dad went to great-grandma Forsythe's. Mom went with Aunt Bo and Uncle Dave to great-grandma Gwen's. When everyone got home, they let us have the presents from the great-grandmas. We tore into them right in the kitchen!

On Christmas Day, we just got to stay home, we didn't go anywhere. We played alot. We didn't even get dressed - mom said we could stay in our jammies all day. That was the best! We went on motorcycle rides on our new bikes from Nana and Papa.

We got two new giant stuffed animals - an elephant and a monkey! They're awesome!

 We even got our own little recliners! They are pretty neat!

On Sunday, Grandpa and Carolyn came over to see us and we got a wagon! Now it just has to get warm out so we can go places. 

We even took just a little time to take a nap. 

We had a great time but boy were we tired by Sunday night! Mom and Dad said we're going to have to make cookies for the garbage men this week so they take all our stuff away. 

Christmas at home was great! We're not quite sure why we rip paper off boxes, but we had a good time. Mom said it was a much better Christmas than last year (we'll have to take her word for it, we don't really remember). Hope everyone had as good a time as we did. 

Love, Payton and Parker

Merry Christmas

A year ago, we were in a blizzard and it was freezing, Parker was at UNMC, Payton was at Bergan. No one was able to see them for a few days. Not exactly how we wanted to spend Christmas.

This year we are all home. Nothings better than that.

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas full of all your favorite people.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Party

Respite Care had it's Christmas Party last Tuesday. We got invitations and had to RSVP to the event. Aunt Bo and Grandma went with us. When we walked in we got name tags and a schedule of events. Most the things were for the older kids but it was so nice. And so fun to do something normal. To be able to take the kids to a semi-public place, have people that knew us, knew the kiddos and adore them was great. They even recognized their friends when they saw them. And it didn't hurt that the giant cookies they had were awesome. :)

Thank you to everyone at Respite Care for throwing a fun party and letting us have a night of "normal"!
You rock!!!

Grandma, Aunt Bo, Daddy and Payton picking out her tattoo

 Payton got a polar bear tattoo on her leg. (It's sideways and kinda hard to see)

 This is Parker's penguin tattoo on his tummy. It made him very popular with the ladies. (I don't know what that face is he's making)

 Hanging out waiting for Santa to come

 LAst year we held them when Santa came because we were still in the hospital with tubes and wires.This year it was because they aren't to sure about him.

 Payton had to feel how soft Santa's outfit was.

 Santa had a present for both of them. Payton hung onto it as hard as she could. Parker liked to hit his and hear the noisy paper.

Graduation

I said that they weren't babies any more. I knew I was right. And today was it. It happened.

They graduated...to the toddler room at school.


They have had several new babies come in and them and a few of their friends had to move up and out. The baby room and toddler room are connected and its all the same group of teachers that are in the two rooms, they just rotate between them.

Congrats kiddos! This is another huge step for you. We're so proud of you!

Not for babies anymore

The twins are more and more getting away from being tiny babies. And we're slowly loosing our minds in the process. :) The past couple weeks they have really moved more towards..tttt.tttt.tttt...toddlers. They are now very engaged with each other. It is so fun to see them smile at each other, look for the other one, talk to each other.

Parker is crawling and chasing his sister. He's starting to stand up for himself a little more when she tries to bully him. He loves, LOVES, to play peak-a-boo around corners at home. Last night we discovered he had cut his first tooth! He's doing pretty good with eating, although the feeding tube isn't going anywhere anytime soon. And his new favortie thing to eat is Ritz crackers.

Payton has started taking a few steps by herself. She's also worked out another couple of teeth - giving her a total of 6. If you come to my house and see baby gates up all over, don't be surprised.

Our new favorite play time this week was full of boxes, pop bottles, empty formula cans and plastic cups all over the kitchen floor. It was awesome!

They are doing great and we've had a pretty quiet couple weeks for medical stuff (finally!). They're still in therapy, still get breathing treatments - but otherwise we've gotten to experience a small break. Unless they get sick, we don't have to go see any doctor until the first week in January.

Here's the latest and greatest - coming soon - getting ready for Christmas and our Christmas Party at school!

All she wants to do is dance

Payton loves to dance. Her favorite show is Dancing with the Stars. When she had just come home, I used to pull up Beyonce on YouTube and make her dance to the music. Seriouslly, it was one of the funniest things ever. The other night, Aunt Bo was over and pulled up a little Rhianna on her phone and they did some power dancing. Enjoy :)

The Thanksgiving at Home

Since we're on semi-lockdown now, we had Thanksgiving at home. Chris went to his grandma's for a while in the afternoon while the babies and I hung out at home. Then we had our big meal later in the day. Abby and Dave and CJ and Aryanne came over. We had a good time. It was very low key and beat the hospital run around we were doing a year ago at Thanksgiving.

The kiddos got to try some new foods. They both got bites of stuffing, potatoes and cranberry sauce. Suprisingly, Parker liked everything better than Payton.

Hope everyone has as much to be thankful for this year as we do.

The Angel Tree

When we were little, we would go to a store, get to pick a name off an angel tree and go shopping for another kid who was about the same age as us. I loved it. And every year when it got closer to that time of year, I looked forward to doing that again.

This year, the twins are home. And while it will be their second  time for each holiday, it really is their first. In fact, I have a hard time remembering that it isn't their first. So, now we're starting the tradition. Since we don't go anywhere (or the babies really don't), we found a great alternative.

JCPenney is doing a great thing that made this so easy for me to do. You can go on their website, put in your zip code and get a list of boys, girls, babies, adults, whoever you want in your area through the Salvation Army just like you were going the the Angel Tree. So, we shopped for a 1 year old boy for Parker and for a 9 month old girl for Payton. They will even ship it for free directly to the Salvation Army office locally to distribute.

Somewhere, from my two, a couple more little kiddos will be having a better Christmas. As it should be.

Checking in

We're just checking in. We're all still here, and we're tired.

Miss Payton just finished a course of oral steroids because of a viral lung infection. Nothing will bring on that baby girls appetite like some steroids. She's like a body builder. All of the sudden her face has filled out, she has a little bit of a tummy and some rolls are starting to show up. And shes very happy flaunting them - as she should be, she worked hard to get them. We had a follow-up appt on Monday. She's ok, has a little cold and we can stop the steroids now. She also has two bumps - one on each heel. I asked the doctor about them since they seems to be getting a little bigger and are under the skin. They are cysts from having her heels poked so many times.

Mr. Parker has a bad cold. He's been coughing and had some pretty thick stuff going down this throat. And, he's had a big week - he's finally started crawling. Now nothing is safe - lol.

And somehow, they've managed to give me a bad cold and last week I had pink eye. And dad has gotten out of all of it, I don't know how.

Weight check from this week -
13.5 months (10 months corrected)
Payton - 20lbs 3.5oz
Parker - 19lbs, 7.5oz
That makes them 10 times their birth size. 10 times. Unreal.

Happy weekend!

We're busy!!!

In between someone being sick and going to the doctors, we're busy all the time!!!

I love my puppy a lot!

 Got my red on for the game mom!

 I'm not sure if I like this but it's the only I'm going to stop crying right now

 I'm such a happy boy

 I can hold my bottle all by myself now

Aunt Bo...this is my pirate face

Mom, you left me alone with Dad for 5 minutes and now I have a mohawk

Daddy doesn't know that we don't go in the washing machine

I was sooooo handsome for pictures at "school" today