A Year in Review!

Wow!  Can not believe it's been a year since I welcomed these three sweet babies into this world!  They spent their first Thanksgiving in the hospital, but they did so good.  They had to stay 4 weeks, but only to feed and grow!  They were such good babies from the very start.  They were able to come home just in time to spend their first Christmas with Mommy and Daddy!  It was very low key, but we were so glad to finally have the family we had prayed for all together under one roof!  A few weeks later we noticed Mason had a bulge in his groin area.  When visiting the doctor we found our he had an inguinal hernia that needed immediate repair!  It was very scary having such a small baby, he was only 9 weeks at the time, being put to sleep for surgery.  He made it through the surgery just fine.  In recovery though he liked the pain medicine just a little too much and forgot to breathe!  Once we woke him up a little bit he was just fine.  Over the next few weeks we learned to sleep on schedule and feed on schedule.  They have always been very good at eating and sleeping!  They get it from their dad!  I slept in their room for the first five months.  It was easier with night time feedings and wakings!  (The main reason was my husband was too nervous they would need something in the middle of the night and we would not hear them!)  During this time I had lots of help.  My mom stayed with me for a whole month!  That was wonderful!  Then my mother in law would come over during the day to help me out with laundry and feedings.  I was pumping during this time so I was a busy busy lady.  We had a nightly routine of making all 24 bottles for the following day.  We would stack all three towels next to the kitchen sink and bathe each baby quickly under the faucet.  Before I would pass them off to Donny to dry and dress as he would hand me the next baby to be bathed.  We are a well oiled machine now.  We started the babies on formula at 5 months.  I was tired and could no longer keep up with the demand.  They transitioned very well!  At 5 months we started trying cereal.  It was NOT the smoothest transition.  They did not care for it at all at first.  I had to quit and try again in a few more weeks.  By six months we were eating all kinds of new food!  Cereal, green beans, carrots, and BANANAS!

We had some oh so fun meal times in the last year!  I ended up wearing alot of the food, not to mention the spit up, vomit, teetee, and well you know the rest!  By six months Harleigh was the first one sitting up and the first one with teeth.  She had two come in within a week of eachother.  Mason followed two days later.  Maddox waited another 3 weeks before his teeth came in.  Once Maddox's came in he had 8 teeth before the other two had six!  We also celebrated all of our first holidays: Valentine's, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Fourth of July, and Halloween!  We really did them all with a bang!



First Valentine's Day



First Father's Day



First Mother's Day









First Halloween

Our First Easter







Harleigh was also my first baby to sit up.  She did so about the same time her teeth came in June.  She was blowing through milestones.  Maddox followed up sitting towards the end of July.  Now Mason is a whole different story!  He is my super hyper child!  He could have sat up pretty early, but everytime you placed him in the sitting position he would lunge forward to grab something or take off.  He was however my first crawler!  He looked like a caterpillar inching his way to wherever it was he wanted to go.  He finally started to sit up the day before we had nine month pictures.  Thank goodness! 

All in all we had a great summer together!  The babies loved swimming at Aunt Sandy's and Uncle David's.  They are definitely going to be little fish!  We also took our first road trip to Balk Knob, AR for church camp for a week with Mammaw Marilyn, Noni Lisa, Aunt Lindsay, and Chloe.  Everyone there was so happy to see us and so eager to help out!

So let's see where that brings us?!  Probably to August.  This is when my "procedure child" needs another procedure. (That's what I like to call Mason since he seems to be the one that needs surgery.)  We noticed when he would take his bottle especially his eyes would water profusely.  After seeing the eye doctor it was determined he needed his tear ducts probed.  Well that was not very successful.  So we had to go back a few weeks later to have tubes placed in Mason's tear ducts to widen the narrow passage way.  He is much better now and tubes have been removed! 

As you can see from the picture we had a blast at Halloween time!  We won the costume contest at church dressed as Lions & Tigers & Bears Oh MY!  We even had a jungle themed stroller!  They were so stinking cute.  Madoox did not like his Lion Head gear!  On the actual day of Halloween we decided our load was much too big and much too young too Trick-or-Treat so instead we spread out some blankets and passed out candy in the front yard!  It was a blast!  The kids loved seeing everyone in their costumes, and most importantly loved all the candy!



That brings us to November which was an oh so busy month for us!  We had our fabulous first birthday, Mickey Mouse themed of course!  We had so many family and friends that are like family there to share with us!  We especially appreciated Garrah for our cute shirts and Jackie for the fabulous cakes!





  

                   

A good time was definitely had by all!  It was really hard to believe it had just been a year since the sweet precious babies came into my world!  I will admit that I did shed some tears, much to Donny's amusement!  We also had a small party at home the actual day of their birthday!  Here are a few of the pictures from that night.  Let's just sat the chocolate cupcakes were way messier!

 

 It was a mess to clean up, but we had a blast!  November was also Thanksgiving.  We got to spend alot of time with family from out of town.  Noni Lisa came to visit along with Aunt Linnie!  We also had so much fun with Aunt Pam, Uncle Nick, Nicholette, Lexis, Nana, and Nicholas!  We played games, ate way too much, and Harleigh learned some sweet dance moves from Aunt Pam and Uncle Nick while playing Just Dance! 

Now bring on December and the Christmas holidays!  We experienced all kinds of new things: Seeing Santa Claus and attempting to take Christmas pictures just to name a couple.  Christmas itself was a little stressful for us!  Mainly because of wanting to spend Christmas with so many different family members.  Our poor schedule went right out the window and the babies were a little grouchy to say the least, but you live and learn.  They definitely must have been good this year because Santa truly blessed them with so many toys, shoes, and clothes!  I'm still trying to make room for everything.  On one side of the family we had 7 babies this past year and on the other side we had 5 new babies!  Let's just say we accounted for a large majority of those numbers!

 All in all I think we have one good picture to commemorate -------->

Christmas 2011!  We'll work on it before next Christmas!

Now I would like to send out some thank you's to those who helped us survive this first year!  Noni Lisa gets a HUGE thank you for using all her vacation time last year to come down on several occasions to keep the kids.  I am pretty sure she was here for a total of  12 weeks last year!  So happy she was able to spend so much time with us even though she lives so far away!  We were able to go to Mexico in May and Colorado for New Year's and know that the babies were in good hands!  Papa Dirk helped out alot too!  Thanks guys!

Also a Big Thank You to Pops and Grams, Donny's parents.  Grams has come by to help anytime I have called or not called!  She was very helpful when the babies first came home and I needed help with laundry and housework!  Could not have survived without her!  My next big thank you goes out to Heather and Amber our nieces and awesome babysitters.  When they are around they take over with baths and feedings and entertaining.  I also could not have survived this year without their willingness to jump in and help out whenever!

I also had several others who have helped out in babysitting duties when I've needed help and I am so appreciative of all of them, too!  Mammaw Marilyn (pictured above at the birthday party), Mammaw Pat and Pappaw Irving,  Poppy Steve and Nonna Vicki, Aunt Sandy, Mrs. Ghlea Coleman, and J.E. and Kay Hamm!  Thank you all for always being so willing to help.  I know sometimes it is alot to ask, but you have all always done it with a smile.  We love and appreciate each one of you!