{Losing Sleep}

I am losing sleep.

Not because I am the mom of 11 week old twins.

Not because I have a two year old.

Not because we are moving in 7 days.

Not because I have a million and one things to do.

But, because I am full of JOY and ANTICIPATION for our future.

I have learned SO much over the past four weeks, it is surreal.

There have been many moments of shear chaos.

Moments of anger.

Frustration.

Confusion.

Anxiety

Fear.

Moments when I questioned God's plan.

Moments when I leaned on my own understanding and not God.

Moments when I wanted to give up.

Moments when I lost hope.

But through every one of these moments hope has carried me through.

The hope I have in a God that will never abandon of forsake me.

The hope that He has something more, something better in store for me.

And today, I am so filled with JOY.

So excited to see where the Lord will take me in the months ahead.

I have rarely felt this DEEP trust in God...

I have struggled for so long with just letting go completely...

with letting Him have control fully.

But, slowly He has worked my hard heart into something moldable.

Something useable.

Something I am freely willing to give up.

And it is the absolute BEST feeling I have ever experienced in my life.

And  that is enough to make me lose sleep.

I can't wait to share more about what I have learned and where the Lord is leading me.

{Endurance}

I have heard over and over this past month that,

"God will not give you more than you can handle"

and I have smiled, knowing that this is true...

but at the same time, wondering just HOW much that was.

"God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength but with your testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it" (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Many times over the last year I have felt that I was being tested beyond my strength,

but the past four weeks have been exceptionally trying.

When we found out we were having twins about 9 months ago I thought I would never be able to do it. I was terrified. I wondered how I would do it, how we would make it. At the time I had no idea, but now 10 weeks into their tiny new lives I find myself overjoyed and loving every minute of it. The rewards have proven to far outweigh the hardships. God has given me an incredible honor in this and has shown me that I CAN endure and overcome and rejoice in my trials!

I have never felt the weight of the world on my shoulders more than I do now.

Between Andrew and I we are,

Raising a 2 year old

Raising 10 week old twins

Starting a farm

Running a photography business

Running a health & wellness business

Working 80 plus hours a week

Buying our first home (with less than 30 days to do it)

Packing, packing, packing

In between all this we are finding time to sometimes: eat dinner, take a shower, and maybe sleep a few hours.

LIFE. IS. CRAZY.

Our strength is waining. Our patience is borderline.

Every day a new challenge seems to creep in

and every day I wonder,

"how much more can we take before we break?!"

But, we are holding on to the knowledge that God WILL NOT give us more than we can take. He WILL lead us out of our troubles & we will come out so much stronger.

I can not wait to look back on this month and see all that we have learned and how much we have grown.

God is good. He is faithful to His promises.

I am so thankful to have a heavenly Father who loves me so.

Because of this I do not fear any trials that may come up ahead....and I know there will be many and all we are experiencing now is giving us strength to someday meet those trails.

My heart overflows as I give thanks for this beautiful, crazy life.

{Ryder & Will: 2 Months}

My little peanuts are 2 months old!

They are both just the sweetest little guys.

So smiley & happy.

Such good little sleepers: 2 days before they turned 2 months they both slept 7 hours through the night! It has been between 6-8 hours now every night since. That is life altering, let me tell ya!

Ryder still likes to have his opinion known & he is LOUD :) But, as soon as you acknowledge his grievance, he is back to being a happy guy. His smiles just melt my heart.

Will is a little more laid back, he just goes with the flow and waits his turn. He will stare into your eyes all day if you let him and give you the sweetest "coos and ooos." I love it.

They are both starting to notice the world around them so much more, they especially love to watch their big brother run around the room 80mph.

At their 2 month check up Ryder weighed in over a pound bigger than Will as I suspected :)

Ryder:

13 lbs

23 inches

Will:

11 lbs 14 ounces

23 inches

I just looked back on Judah's 2 month check up and they both outweigh him!!! Judah was 2 lbs bigger than both of them at birth, but somehow they have beat him by the 2 month mark! He was 11 lbs 9 ounces.

At the appointment the pediatrician noticed Will's eyes crossing. I had noticed it, but was not concerned because my sister had the same issue as a baby and out grew it by 2 yrs old. He literally has the EXACT same eyes as her, it is almost creepy :) I also noticed & told the ped that Will's eyes were different colors, one is very blue and the other half blue half brown. Because of both of these things she wanted to get him into a pediatric optometrist as soon as possible. I was surprised that she thought it was so urgent, but went with her opinion.

After leaving the peds we got a call about 15 mins later that they had gotten Will an appointment with a specialist at the UW children's hospital the next day. It typically takes 6 months to get into this doctor, but his ped was able to sneak him in thankfully.

I brought him to eye doctor for his appointment, still not concerned. But, found out that there are some very real concerns with Will's vision. I left feeling so sad and wishing I could do something to fix it, feeling guilty for not thinking it was anything.

Will was diagnosed with being extremely far sighted. The optometrist said he had not seen a baby this far sighted before and that we needed to keep a very close "eye" on him. He will go back in a few months and will without a doubt need glasses before he is a year old. He believed Will was crossing his eyes because he is having trouble seeing. My poor little bug.

I wanted to cry, but it was just me & Will and I didn't want him to know I was upset. He is just so sweet and has no idea what is going on.

They were also concerned about the difference in his eye color, but said we will also just keep an eye on that. It could just be a genetic thing with the coloring or it can also be a sign of some different diseases--which the doc did not want to discuss until we had more reason to be concerned a few months from now.

Please keep little Will in your prayers.

Pray that his little eyes might just get better on their own.

Pray that the eye coloring is not connected with any kind of disease.

But, for now he is just one happy little guy & I am so thankful for that.

The past two months have been nothing short of crazy, but I have loved every second of these two sweet boy's lives. They are my little treasures.