{Late Night Waiting}

With Andrew working full time and in Grad School, Judah and I find ourselves with many mid-week late nights together up waiting for Andrew to come home.

Andrew is Judah's best bud and he can absolutely not end his day without seeing his daddy. And I don't fight it because it means something, their relationship is more important than a consistent bedtime right now.

And so I find myself doing a lot of late night waiting with my 3 year old which consist of:

Lots of games of Candy Land

Lots of snugly book reading (our library checkout list is currently at 115 books!)

Busy bag activities (planning a post on these soon, I made about 40 last month and they have been so great for keeping Judah entertained)

Movie watching (our current favorite is anything Charlie Brown) you can see by his face that we are nearing the end of our late night waiting ;)

On these late nights of waiting something special is happening, in the waiting we are making memories together, just a boy and his mama waiting for their favorite person in the world to come home. I love it. Although this is a tough season in our life, we are finding joy in the waiting. 

And the waiting is so worth it...

Our joy is complete :)

{Life RIght Now}

It has been awhile since I have done an update, so I thought I would share a little about our life {right now}.

Judah is just over 3.5 years old already {tears}. He is becoming such a sweet little man. He still has his vibrant, joyful spirit and we are all learning how to embrace it a little more every day. He has an insane vocabulary and really seems to grasp concepts far beyond his years. We love to just listen to him share his thoughts and have a peek into his heart. I started to do preschool at home with him this fall because he is SO ready and just eager to learn. I found a great Christian based preschool program online that we are following, along with some of my own ideas. So far it is going really well, but it is a tricky balance with the twins being the super active toddlers that they are. Nap time is usually our only opportunity to tackle school stuff. Judah is such a social little guy too. He just LOVES to be with people. I have a hard time keeping him off the neighbor's porches :) We are so blessed to call this sweet boy our son. He teaches us so much.

{again, with the fuzzy iPad pics, but something better than nothing ;) }

{Big Bro}

Ryder & Will are 19 {almost 20 months} and ON.THE.MOVE! They are just little busy bees, soaking up everything they can {especially from their big bro}. While they are in very similar stages in a lot of ways, they are also extremely different.

 Ryder is very attached to me {FINALLY, a mama's guy!}, loves to snuggle, cautious about new experiences, passionate about what he wants/ doesn't want, LOVES kitties {not sure how he developed this affection because Andrew and I are anything but cat people!}, He is obsessed with all things Elmo, loves to just sit on his little frog potty and say "poo-poo!" and takes any opportunity he can to be outside {and get on Judah's bike}. He certainly is a blessing to our family.

{Ry may have taste tested the dirt...}

 Will is a pretty independent guy. He is our "wise old soul"- he just always has this intense, knowing look on his face, it cracks us up. He has a very complex vocabulary for his age and seems to really understand a lot more than we probably know. He loves books and will sit for a good 45 minutes just paging through his favorites. He is also very very opinionated about what he wants, which I think just comes with the toddler territory ;) He loves to putter around with little tiny toys and examine the smallest details of things. We just love this little bug to pieces.

{Will, showing off his sweet smile}

 Andrew is in the midst of grad school and working full time insanity. It's nuts. He is pretty much exhausted from the moment he wakes up until he eventually makes it to bed at night. Given all that he has on his plate he does SO much to take care of us all when he is home. We miss him a lot during the week and are really looking forward to this last semester being over! We are so proud of him!

{Andrew & Judah, Best Buddies}

 And me, I am in full blown mom mode 24/7. I give all the single moms out there SO much credit. It.Is.TOUGH. I have not had much time for anything outside of the kids and house stuff, so getting back into blogging is really a great outlet for me. I have met a few amazing moms in town recently, so it is has been great to build a little community of friends that are close by.

{Me and my 3 boys}

Life is good, crazy busy and stressful at times, but so so good.

Days That Melt Away

The summer days have melted away faster than I thought they would, but the memories have left sticky little handprints all over my heart.

I've missed writing/blogging, but it was good to just be in those moments and let the memories be enough. 

I barely even clicked my shutter this summer. There are maybe a few hundred photos to document our many road trips, backyard campouts, visits with family and just the general day to day sweetness that was our summer.

With the pressure of needing to "capture" every moment, we sometimes forget to be in the moment.

As I sit and reflect on the memories of the summer, a few come to mind. Nothing extraordinary, but just a lot of every day ordinary, messy, {sometimes loud} and wonderful moments:

Late night drives to the lake {with soundly sleeping babes in the back} and long conversations for Andrew and I.

Hiking, exploring, diving off the old dock, rainy afternoon forts indoors, hot muggy nights spent in the screen tent waiting for a storm to break the heat, catching wiggly fish...

Road trips to see grandparents and extended family.

A special week with Uncle Jack {Andrew's brother through his birth Mom}

And then a week with Aunt Shaley & Ella {Andrew's sisters through his birth Dad}

Giant, sun ripened harvests from our garden

And many delicious meals from said ripe harvests :)

There were many games of peek-a-boo, hide and seek, Candyland, and Go Fish

And thankfully {for mama} there were plenty of nice, long afternoon naps

I hope your summer was just as packed with good memories!

I look forward to getting back to writing and reflecting on what I am learning on this crazy journey called life on my blog this fall.

{Getting There}

Up ahead he was running, pointing and yelling out "directions" from his "map."

"And when you see the struction' workers go THAT way. Then when that lady RIGHT THERE moves out of my way we can go dis way."

The park was maybe a 10 minute walk from our house, but we had been trying to get there for almost 30 minutes now and I was getting frustrated more and more by my little "guide".

Before we left he had made a "map" to get to the park, a mess of colored scribbles, which he said would get us there the "best" way. In that moment his ambition and creativity pulled on my heart...but 30 minutes into our adventure I was getting hot, sweaty and impatient to get to our destination.

"STOP!" he yelled, putting his chubby little arm up, bringing our giant double stroller to a screeching halt, screeching twin babies and all.

"Ok, Judah, we just need to walk faster. Can we keep moving?" I pleaded, trying not to show how frustrated I was getting.

But he saw through it and he was not happy.

"Mama. Right now we are getting there. Right now we gotta find the wood-packer. That's my favorite bird kind. When we find him, then we will go."

Ok, I thought, if I am waiting for a "wood-packer" to show up, we are never getting there.

And just as quickly as that thought crossed my mind, the invisible "wood-packer" flew in and landed on Judah's arm and we were on our way again.

Why do I doubt the infinite wisdom and imagination of the 3 year old? :)

Again, 30 seconds later, he was stopped and getting down on the sidewalk to look hopefully up into the cloudy grey sky. Now, we were waiting for the sunshine to come out to keep moving.

"Mama, you gotta sit wif me and look for the sun. When it comes then we will go over that way, by the mailman truck, that is the most faster way to the park." He smiled.

His smile was too sweet to pass up, so I found myself on my back staring hopefully into a grey sea of clouds, praying for a glimpse of the sun so we could be on our way.

Judah looked over at me and reassured me it was coming, it maybe was just going potty.

The babies squealed from the stroller, they always seemed to find their big brother's antics amusing.

I realized in that moment that I was so thankful that Ryder and Will had such a passionate big brother to guide them on this journey and more importantly through the real journey of this life.

He understood it was the journey that mattered, it made the getting there all the sweeter.

And when the sun finally did come back from it's potty break, so did my attitude.

I peeled myself up off the sidewalk, knowing these days of my journey would be over before I knew it. So, I followed my "guide" and we made it to the park in just under an hour.

It may have been the longest route, the slowest and pokiest way I have ever gone, but I saw more detail along the way that I had sped past so many other times along the same route.

I saw the "nice grandma planting flowers" who smiled warmly as we passed, "the crunchy grass" sweet with the smell of summer, "the giant fuzzy monster"/ adorable lab puppy handing out free kisses.

I saw myself, pressing through my days lately with the "end" in sight, motivated by a night of sleep or a long weekend. I saw myself missing out on the moments as they came, brushing them off as I sped through this draining and sometimes monotonous season of my life.

The sweetness and innocent perspective of my 3 year old son had once again pulled me back to reality, to the reality that this journey is good and these moments are what matters. The destination is good, but it will never be as beautiful as it could be without investing right here and now along this journey, moment by moment.

And, let me tell you, as that park came up over the hilltop it had never looked more glorious and that creaky old park bench had never felt better.

So, today friends, stop looking ahead and look right where you are....it is so so good.

Enjoy the journey, we'll get there soon enough :)

What Did You Make?

I like things clean, organized, in their place.

But, with three little ones 3 & under, it is not a consistent trend in our house.

Last night I spent a good hour cleaning up & organizing the play room---toy vegetables separated from toy fruits, legos in their bin, puzzles organized by type and size...you know, all the things a 3 year old and two 1 years find to be most important ;)

Then, this morning as I woke up to a clean, organized house I smiled & felt like all was right in the world.

{Judah didn't agree.}

When he saw the play room in all it's color-coded organized glory he was disgusted.

"What did you do, Mama?!" He said throwing his little arms up in protest.

He proceeded to tell me he had "a lot of work to do" and would I "please get him some breakfast?"

Groggy, half awake & still flying high from my rush of organization adrenaline I went to the kitchen to get my coffee started and some breakfast for the kids.

Judah was so quiet in the other room that I was easily distracted and got caught up in reading the Willy Street Co-Op Monthly that before I realized it my coffee was done, paper read & 30 minutes had passed.

I was startled out of my moment of quiet when I heard two little voices calling "Mama" from upstairs.

As I made my way through the dining room into the living room and around the corner I began to hear lots of clanking, the sound of wood & plastic making a crashing symphony from the play room.

Hmmm, Judah must be really enjoying the newly organized play room.

Oh, he was!

When I walked into the room I saw him hard at work destroying enjoying his play room.

Before I could let out an exasperated moan Judah had turned around with a huge, proud smile on his face pointing to the enormous mound of toys he was hauling and dumping into his tent.

"Look, Mama! Look what I MADE!"

Isn't perspective funny?

I saw a giant mess, all my hard work for nothing. He saw an opportunity, a chance to make something that mattered.

What I wanted to say was, "Why?! Why did you have to make such a huge mess after I just cleaned this all up?"

But the look on his sweet face, the joy that poured from his eyes was enough to make me see that he didn't just make a mess....he made something. 

So, instead I asked, "what did you make?"

He was thrilled to explain that he had made a "beautiful tower" for me, so that we could "climb to the top and fly!" Hands on his hips, he looked to me asking with his eyes, Mama, are you proud of me, do you like it?

My heart melted. I snapped out of my selfish desire for organized wooden produce and saw that my son was thinking about me, he was thinking about creating beauty, bringing joy to another person.

What a sweet blessing he is, yet again reminding me that life is not about doing it is about creating, enjoying, giving. It is about finding opportunities to add to the beauty, to join with God to create something that brings joy and gives life.

As a mom I tend to get so wrapped up in all my things that "need to get done" that I forget I don't serve a God who does, but a God who IS. A God who creates, who gives, who loves. I forget that is what he wants me to do too. I am so thankful that He allows me to learn through those so fresh from his hands, from my sweet little sons that still live to bring beauty and create things that matter, that live to just be and not do.

 I pray that I can start to see more daily the things our lives are making and not just what we are doing or not doing, to see life through their eyes, through His eyes and not my own.

Because, in the words of Sarah Groves " I just want to add to the beauty, to tell a better story." I want to create something beautiful with this life, with my family. Today, I am going to stop doing so much and ask "what can I make with today?"

{Autumn Days}

We have been blessed with an amazingly beautiful Autumn this year. The colors have been so vibrant and the weather has been perfect. We have been soaking up every minute we can outside with the kids.

Our days have been spent taking long walks around our neighborhood; 

admiring the beautiful old homes, 

watching silly squirrels running up ancient oak trees, 

stoping to talk to sweet elderly grandmas & grandpas we pass by,

kicking up piles of leaves on the sidewalks,

window shopping on Main Street,

taking turns pushing the stroller,

teaching Judah to ride his new balance bike,

giggling at chipmunks with cheeks full of acorns,

stopping at the library for a new book or two,

visiting our favorite park at the top of the hill,

grabbing a salted caramel hot cocoa at Real Coffee,

visiting the thrift store around the corner to search for treasures,

meeting new friends at play group,

eating lunch by the lake and 

making plans to have a campfire in one of the old stone fireplaces,

& just enjoying these beautiful fall days as they quickly pass us by.

The babies are changing so quickly & are really growing into their own little personalities. It is so sweet to watch. 

Ryder is such a snuggler. There is nothing he loves more on a chilly fall morning than to snuggle into the crook of my neck and just sit with me as I enjoy my morning coffee. He is such a little love. He is cautious and prefers to take the world in from the safety of my arms. He loves to watch his big brother spin around the room and be goofy, I know he would be happy to watch & giggle at Judah all day long. His big green eyes can melt your heart and make you drop everything you are doing just to pick him up and kiss his squishy little cheeks. He is definitely a mama's guy & I have to admit I am loving it! 

Will is our little adventurer. He loves to explore every corner of whatever room he happens to be in. you can guarantee that he will find the tiniest little object in the room & once he does he will turn it over in his hands for half an hour just inspecting it quietly. He is such a content little guy, always smiling and so patient. He is happy to wait his "turn" when his brothers are both screaming and needing something. He has the absolute sweetest smile and laugh in the world & is the most ticklish little guy I have ever met...ticking him will result in uncontrollable baby giggles that are pee your pants cute. This guys is such a little sweetheart.

Judah, oh Judah Jay. Our little comedian. He is such a little sponge, soaking up absolutely every thing Andrew & I do and say. It is funny how you never realize the phrases or words you use so often until you have a 2.5 year old to record your every word & repeat. It can really be a reality check for your attitude and how you respond to certain situations. He is incredibly smart and witty, it amazes us the things he comes up with! He has been working on his ABC's, counting, colors & reading every day, he just loves to learn. He has so much passion for life and takes on every day with so much gusto and enthusiasm. He loves to help us with whatever we are doing and wants to do his best to make us proud (and he truly does make us so proud!) He just loves his baby brothers so much and it is amazing to watch their relationship grow, they are going to be the best of buddies!

There are so many new things happening daily and so many dreams in our hearts for the days ahead....what a beautiful, crazy time of life it is! We are so thankful for this life we have be blessed with & the sweet little boys we get to teach & learn from daily.

{a new season}

One of the things i love most about living in Wisconsin is the beautiful changing of the seasons that we are so blessed to experience here.

I know I am not alone in this, but fall is my absolute favorite time of the year! This year is especially significant for me because it is a major shift in both seasons of life and seasons of the year.

I am so ready for a new season! 

A season of beautiful, vibrant colors.

A season of SLEEPING babies :)

A season of crisp, cool weather.

A season of learning what it means to

be a mom of three.

A season of crackling backyard campfires.

A season of family.

A season of Sunday football games.

A season of dreaming for our future.

A season of canning our summer garden's bounty.

A season of learning to lean on God more and more.

A season of warm, fuzzy sweaters.

A season of change in so many ways.

The past three seasons have felt like one long winter in my soul. Since the birth of our two little bugs we have been hibernating in a way. Finally, it seems that there is an end to this season of newborn babies, sleepless nights & toddler tantrums. All 3 of the kids are growing and learning so much every day. It is amazing to see them transform into such sweet, intelligent, loving individuals. And as they grow and become more independent I am once again able to unsurface "me." What were my hobbies again? :) Ah, the ever evolving life of a mother!

Judah and I have enjoyed doing little daily art projects together over the past week & I hope it is something we can continue to do together. He just loves to get hands on & creative!

Here is a project we did this week:

(sorry for the poor ipad quailty photo, but hopefully you can see it enough to appreciate Judah's 

paintbrush skills!)

We used scrapbook letters and wrote out a bible verse that has been a favorite at our house over the past few months. Then Judah painted over the letters. We waited for the paint to dry & peeled the letters off and got a really neat effect. {I saw a version of this on Pinterest awhile back}

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper & not harm you, plans to give you a hope & a future" Jeremiah 29:11

Such beautiful words. They have carried us through the past few months & continue to give us hope for the many beautiful days the Lord has laid out for us in the seasons, months & years to come.

{time moves steady along}

somehow over a month has passed since my last post. 2 or 3 posts were started during that time, but never finished {sigh}.

the last 4 weeks have brought a lot of challenges, but also a lot of *victories*--namely, the giving up of the beloved binky (pacifier) and a fully potty trained 2 year old!!!

also, somewhere in there i got older. {officially old}

it wasn't so much the birthday or the age {27}, but the extreme lack of sleep over the past 7...er 16 months if you count the pregnancy...that has really worn on me.

the boys have been sleeping horribly. mr will has decided napping just isn't his thing & ryder enjoys sleeping in spurts of 45 minutes from the hours of 10pm-6am.

we never had these kind of sleep problems with the j-man, he slept solid through the night from 6 weeks old. so, i am kind of a rookie at this sleep deprivation. and let me tell you, it.is.a.beast.

enough complaining though, outside of that, huge little issue, we have been doing pretty well!

judah is no longer a binky addict!!! the "i need my binky NOW" meltdowns were getting to be a little bit too much around here, so on Monday we decided the bink had to go. we took judah, binky & both babies to build-a-bear where he chose a camo bear & decked it out in packer gear---and when it was time to stuff the bear, binky was stuffed inside the bear's hand and forever sewn in. GONE. he has been doing surprisingly well sans bink & only threatened to "rip" the bear one time in a heated bed time battle, to get his binky out :)

with the bink gone, judah had a total life revelation---he was officially a BIG BOY!!! from the day we got rid of binky he started to use the potty all on his own with zero accidents. we never prompted or tried to push potty training in the wake of 'goodbye bink' because we thought it would just be too much...but our big guy surprised us and went big boy all the way!!!

lots of little-big victories around these parts.

with all the challenges that come with parenting i am so thankful to have andrew by my side through it all. he is an incredible dad. judah adores him and andrew knows exactly how to encourage and support him through all of his struggles--it is such a sweet thing to see. whatever andrew does, judah does. they are two peas in a pod.

speaking of my wonderful husband, i was also blessed to celebrate FIVE years with him on august 10th. WOW. it is so hard to believe that 5 years have come and gone. they have been 5 of the best years of my life...full of so many surprises & challenges. we have grown and learned so much together. there could never be such a perfect match for me...god really knew what he was doing when he blessed me with this man! i can't wait to see what the next 5...10..20...60 years bring ;)

and, well, that sums up the last month pretty well.

i have so many thoughts and ideas for posts & i hope i can get them all out soon! in the meantime, god bless & enjoy these last sweet days of summer!

{My Number One}

::Judah Jay Jacmel::

My first baby

My oldest son

The one who made me "mom"

2.5 years old at the end of this month

Full of curiosity

Full of spirit

Lives life boldly

LOVES: 

.anything with wheels.

.his baby brothers.

.being just like daddy.

.looking for king fishers.

.being outside every minute of the day.

.helping mama make breakfast.

.going to the farm.

.doing puzzles.

.reading with daddy.

.playing his guitar.

Wants to be a cowboy when he grows up..."my gonna be a cowboy, mama!"

Thinks his auntie Heidi lives in an airplane & flies by every day.

Asks for pancakes every morning.

Looks for king fishers wherever he goes.

Escapes from the house to look at the Subarau 10X a day.

Melts my heart when he says, "my love you too."

Makes our life full of adventure.

{Judah means "praise"... & this little boy loves life so deeply and tastes it so fully that his name could not be more perfect for him}

We are so thankful for the sweet little blessing that he is in our life. Although the past 5 months have been some of the most difficult for him and the tantrums have been plentiful, his sweet little spirit always shines through and makes life so very sweet.

We love you, Judah Jay!

{Life: Back on ::a:: track}

It has been over 2 months since I posted.

Life has been crazy, to say the least.

I'd like to say we are "back on track," but...

not so much.

We are on a track.

Which one, I am not sure of, but at least we are all back together again.

A quick review of the past few months:

Moved out of our apartment of two years and a neighborhood that we loved.

The kids and I moved up to Green Bay for the month of May as we waited to close on our house

and Andrew moved in with our friends to finish up the school year in Madison.

It was a very long month apart with many struggles and many many tantrums.

It was especially hard on Judah being away from Andrew, we are still

"recovering" from the stress of that separation.

We spent Mother's Day weekend in Madison. It was great. We stayed at a beautiful hotel in downtown Madison, overlooking the capital or "castle" as Judah calls it.

I photographed a beautiful wedding in Wausau and was apart from the babies for the very first time for more than a few hours. 

On May 31st we closed on our first house.

It has been such a great blessing to have our own home.

We are s-l-o-w-l-y unpacking and trying to find a new routine.

Andrew wrapped up the school year at the beginning of June and said goodbye to a great group of teachers and coworkers at Cherokee.

He has been full fledged farming since. 

And that is the short story :)

I have had SO many thoughts and ideas going through my head lately and wishing I could just get them down. I am excited to be back on my blog and get back to sharing those ideas :)

Here are a few that I am planning for the near future:

**Creating a non-toxic home on a budget**

**homemade baby food**

**updates on the babies and Judah**

**the farm**

**thoughts on faith**

I know most blogs have a "theme" but my brain is too bonkers to focus on one, so I am going to just keep on adding to the beauty with my miss mosh of thoughts, ideas and dreams.

{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.

{Little Update}

I really want to update this blog more often. Almost every day I think of something I want to put on here & every day time escapes me and I just can not get here to do it! Well, this week I am committing to blogging 3 times. I want to make it a priority as it is a great place to record ideas and memories and also to connect with others who might have the same interests!

The past two weeks we have had an incredible amount of help from our families. My mother in-law was here one full week and then my mom came down the next full week. It was amazing. I got to "sleep in" and catch naps here and there that I would not have otherwise. My mom did tons of laundry and kept our place sparkling clean. Andrew's mom got us yummy take out almost every night and kept Judah entertained almost every second of the day. We also had my aunt & uncle & cousins stop in on Sunday and give us a little break--it was glorious! We got to go grocery shopping alone and have lunch alone. We are so very thankful for our wonderful families!

The twinnies are doing amazing, growing like little weeds. FAT little weeds :) Ryder decided to take the beef cake lead and outgrew Will by a full TWO pounds!!! What?! I am serious. He is sporting the double chin and the 5 ring arm rolls. It's pretty impressive. Ryder is a 12 pound rump roast and Lil Will is coming in at 10 pounds. I don't know how this happened, as they both eat the same amount of times every day....I guess Ryder just knows how to turn his portion into fat cells a little more effectively :)

Big bro as as wild and feisty as ever. he can be such a hand full at times, but then a minute later he can be so still and sweet. Gotta love a good, solid two year old. He is talking up a storm and finding out that he has enough vocabulary to tell Andrew and I what to do :)

"Mama, shhh. It's too loud"

"Daddy, come sit. Sit and watch Judah."

"Mama, GET UP!"

"Daddy, go outside. NOW."

"Mama. NO!!!"

"NO, Daddy!"

"NO NO NO NO!!!"

He is too smart. We are in for a lot of trouble ;) But, really he is unbelievably sweet most of the time. He loves to read and will sit for up to 45 minutes and quietly listen. He loves being outside and would skip every meal (and nap) to be out there non-stop. He has an endless curiosity that is so endearing to be around. We just love him to pieces...

Here are a few of his sweeter quotes:

"Oh, Mama. It's Ok." as he gently pats my cheek

"Daddy, you so silly!"

"Mama, my love you."

"Judah want to KISS THE BABY!"

"My happy!"

And that's just my little update of the past few weeks. In the next few days I have some exciting news about our farm!

{One Month}

I can not believe my babies are one month old...such a cliche thing to say, but I really can not wrap my mind around how this could have happened in what feels like overnight.

The days are melting away and there is nothing I can do to slow them down. It feels like we are caught up in a tornado and I am just trying to hold onto all of these little moments.

With Judah I spent every day just cuddling and savoring every minute, but with two babies AND a toddler around I am lucky to stop & hold onto one moment a day. It makes me sad in a way because I can not enjoy each of my babies the way I did Judah, individually. But there really is something so special about having two babies at once....

Twice the chubby cheeks to kiss

Twice the sweet baby smell

Twice the soft baby skin to touch

Twice the little smiles in their sleep

It is overwhelming at times how much cuteness is packed in one place :)

What I want to remember about the first month:

Learning how to carrying two babies at once

Learning how to carry two babies at once while running after a wild toddler

Seeing Andrew cuddling all three boys at once

Judah yelling, "check the baby!" whenever he hears one of them cry

The way it feels to have two sweet babies quietly gazing up at me at 3am

How incredibly tiny and sweet they are

Will's soft lamb-like cry & chin quiver

Ryder's strong, determined cry

Judah telling Andrew which baby is which & Judah being right & Andrew being wrong :)

Ryder rolling over at TWO weeks old

Will sleeping 23 hours of the day

Judah telling me, "good job mama!" when I feed the babies

Judah watching WAY too many movies

Building train tracks while nursing

Our first time taking all three kids on a road trip (to visit great grandma)

Snowy days trapped inside with my sweet family

Andrew cooking delicious meals at 9pm when we finally had time to eat :)

Changing diapers 40 times a day with my eyes closed

Midnight tinkles & many outfit changes

Loads and loads and loads of laundry

The sweet sound of the babies' gentle breathing in their sleep

Keeping track of every feeding & diaper changing on the iPad

Pizza for dinner 5 nights a week

Doing everything one handed, all the time & getting really good at it :)

Judah tickling the babies' toes

Judah licking the babies' faces and saying, "oh gross," but doing again anyway

Late nights with Andrew, both so tired we can barely talk, but smiling

Andrew never hearing the babies cry at night

Andrew getting up EVERY time to help me in the middle of the night

Being so thankful for a wonderful husband & father

Being so blessed

Both boys are about 8 lbs and 20.5 inches long

They JUST started wearing 0-3 month clothes, but can still squeeze into some newborn

Even though we rarely go anywhere I dress them up every day

Ryder has blue eyes and auburn hair

Will has one brown eye & one blue eye and his hair is dark brown

They look nothing alike.

Will has his great grandma Carol & Aunt Heidi's eyes

Ryder looks so much like his big brother Judah

Both boys have so much of Andrew in them--his hands, his toes, his smile

Will has my nose and Ryder my hair color

They are so precious, so themselves.

I took a bunch of one month pictures, I will post some soon :)

We have received so much support and love this first month...

My sister spent the first two, difficult weeks with us

I don't know how we would have survived with out her!

So many sweet friends came to entertain Judah and hold a crying baby

We have received MANY diapers, special thanks to my sweet parents!

Pizzas were homemade, ordered & baked for us

Neighbors dropped off sweet gifts & took Judah for play dates

Friends volunteered to have Judah play at their house

Others took him on fun trips like the zoo or the children's museum

My parents sent us on a much needed Valentine's dinner

Andrew's parents bought us amazing concert tickets for a great date night

So many sweet cards and gifts were sent

So many prayers on our behalf

Without all of this our first month would not have been so smooth

We made it

We survived our first month with twins and LOVED it!

We look forward to many more and give thanks for all the wonderful people who have been by our side, supporting and loving our little family.

WE LOVE YOU ALL!

{Noble Warriors}

We had a really hard time deciding on names for the boys.

With Judah, it was really easy. We both loved the name and had decided on it before we knew whether or not we were having a girl or a boy. If it was a boy, with out a doubt it would be Judah.

And the name fit him perfectly.

Judah means "praise"--and our little guy is so full of joy and life & he just loves to experience life to the fullest, he fits it to a tee.

This time we had a whole long list of girl names and just a few boy names that we kind of liked. We were sure it was a A girl...as in ONE, just one little girl.

We were so wrong :)

When we found out we were actually going to be having TWO babies, we still assumed that there had to be one girl in there...

So, we got to work on choosing two names.

Two girls names? No problem.

A boy & a girl's names? Not too difficult.

TWO boys names? We could not decide.

SO, when we found out we were having TWO boys...we were at a loss for quite a while as to what we would name these two little babes.

We knew we wanted to name one after my family and one after Andrew's.

We kind of tossed some name combos around for awhile. We really did not want them to sound "twinny"--no matchy matchy names, nothing that started with the same letter.

Then we found two that we both could agree on, but we were not completely sure if they were "the ones" :

Ryder Elwood & Will Albert

Ryder was a name that Andrew came up with & I liked it more than any of his other suggestions :) Elwood was Andrew's paternal grandfather's middle name. Will was something we came up with after struggling to find a way to name one of the babies after my dad. My maiden name was Williquette & my dad has always gone by "Willy" as a sort of nickname. So, we decided that Will would be the perfect way to honor my dad :) And Albert was my very special grandpa.

We had not looked into name meanings much in our quest to find the perfect name for our boys, so just out of curiosity we decided to see what the meanings of the first and middle names we had picked out were...were were shocked at what we found!

RYDER- warrior on horseback

ELWOOD- noble forest

WILL- strong-willed warrior

ALBERT- noble & bright

We couldn't believe it. It was then that we knew these were the perfect names for our sweet boys. Our two little noble warriors :)

{And then there were 5}

Wednesday 2.1.12--the day we went from parents of 1 to parents of 3 :)

We could not have hoped for a better experience. My doctor has said over and over that she has never had a twin delivery go so smoothly. We are so thankful for this after a LONG and difficult pregnancy.

This is Will & Rdyer's birth story :)

On Wednesday (2.1.12) morning I called triage and quickly got the SAME response I had gotten the Saturday before..."we are full right now, call back at 9am and we should be able to get you in this afternoon."

I had just gotten out of the shower, dried my hair was READY to head over to the hospital. The bags were all ready (AGAIN) and I was not about to be told I had to wait another day!

I had just told Andrew the news and was holding back tears when my phone rang. It was triage calling back, less than 5 minutes later. They "suddenly" had room for me and told me to come in at 7am. I later found out that my doctor had called in right after me and found out they were not taking me. She was NOT happy! Love my doctor. LOVE.

As we left the house to head for the hospital we snapped one last picture of us as a family of 3. I started to tear up as we said goodbye to Judah. I was so worried about how everything would affect him. Would he still know how much we love him?! Would he know it would never change?

We showed up at 7am sharp and were escorted to one of the beautiful new birthing suites. We just kind of hung out with our nurse for an hour or so, answering lots of ridiculous questions. Then at 8:30 my doctor strolled in to give the go ahead to start my antibiotics (I found out I was step B positive). I had to have 4 hours of antibiotics in before they could break my water. I was already 5cm with stronger contractions, so they were hoping I could make it the 4 hours.

The morning was pretty uneventful. Judah came up and hung out with us a few hours. He was pretty scared of the big hospital room and seeing me in the hospital bed. He quickly warmed up when the nurses started talking to him & gave him a big brother sticker :)

At around 1, when the antibiotics had finally gone through one round, my doctor came back and said it was time to break my water! She was sure once my water broke things would move quickly.

And they did.

Within an hour and a half of breaking my water I told Andrew I thought it was time! I paged my nurse and the resident doctor came quickly to check my progress. I was 10cm! Andrew had a HUGE smile on his face and grabbed my hand and said, "here we go!"

My heart was beating SO fast. Suddenly the room flooded with people. They had to get me to the OR to deliver. Before I knew it Andrew was dressed in scrubs and we were rolling down the hall to the OR.

The OR was really intimidating compared to the softly lit, comfortable birthing suite. It was HUGE. The lights were bright and there were SO many people in the room:

-MY OB

-2 Resident doctors

-My birthing room nurse plus 4 others

-4 NICU nurses

-2 Pediatricians

-An anesthesiologist/ photographer :)

-A few other random people that I am still not sure of why they were there, but at that point I just didn't care anymore!

The bed in the OR was so narrow and uncomfortable. I was afraid I would fall off when I started pushing!

The nurses were all loving Andrew and his enthusiasm :) He was all smiles and just so excited to meet his new little boys.

My doctor seemed annoyed with all the people hustling around and kept insisting that we really did not need them all there, even though she knows they have to be. She's too funny.

Within 10 minutes of being in the OR my doctor gave me the go ahead to start pushing. All I could think about was how badly I just wanted to BREATHE again! That was my motivation to push the first baby out :)

The anesthesiologist quickly turned photographer grabbed our camera from Andrew and told him to enjoy the moment and he would take care of the pictures! What an amazing guy!

About 15 minutes later Ryder was born. I could not believe how sweet and small he was. He looked so much like Judah did, but a lot tinier. As Andrew and I were cuddling our new son my doctor reminded me that we were not done yet! :) What a strange feeling...to deliver you baby and realize that there was one more still to come!

As they were weighing and checking Ryder over I had to concentrate on pushing again. It was so hard to do when all I wanted to do was look over at what was going on with Ryder. Andrew had followed the baby over to the warmer and seemed to have forgotten his job of helping me :) One of the nurses ushered him back to my side.

Before I started pushing I asked my doctor how long it usually was between births. She said "anywhere between a couple minutes to 6 hours."

I was not about to push for 6 more hours and started to push as hard as a I could. Everyone was saying, "whoa! WHOA! Slow down, hold on just...here comes another baby!" It seemed like only a few seconds went by, but from the time of Ryder's birth to Will's birth it was 17 minutes...so I maybe pushed 5-10 minutes! It was awesome. I swear delivering twins was EASIER than my delivery with Judah! It just happened so fast.

When I first saw Will I was blown away by how different he and Ryder looked. He was SO precious and so tiny too. Just as he was in the womb, he was so quite and peaceful with the sweetest little cry. We were in love.

As they took Will to be weighed everything finally felt real. We just had twins. We have two sweet little babies! After 9 months of an incredibly difficult pregnancy I had my reward...and it was SO worth it. I would do it again in a second.

Here is our first picture with both boys:

{Andrew is holding Ryder & I have a just born Will}

Both boys were 6 lbs 13 ounce! The whole room started laughing when they announced it! They were also only 1/4 of an inch apart in length!

Everyone in the room was beaming. We were so thankful of such a smooth, easy delivery. It was the perfect start to our family of 5 :)

I felt great afterwards and was walking around really quickly. I remember feeling so much more tired and sore after having Judah. This time I hardly felt like I had given birth.

We called my dad, who was not able to be there, first and told him the babies' names. We wanted him to feel special and be the first to know their names. We had named Will after him. (More on why we chose their names in a later post).

After talking to my dad, my mom , sister, Andrew's parents and Judah came in the room to meet the babies. Judah was thrilled! Shortly after they came in a few friends followed and Judah exclaimed, "BABIES! BABIES! BABIES!" He was jumping up and down and so excited to show off his new brothers. Thank you Mandy, Carolyn and Mitch for coming to meet our boys!

When everyone left and we moved to our recovery room we finally had a moment to stop and be thankful for what a blessing the day had been. We were just in awe of our 2 sweet boys and stayed up way too late cuddling them. One nurse scolded us and told us we better get some sleep while we had a chance. But, we didn't care, we were so happy and would have stayed up all night.

To celebrate we ordered Chili's take-out :) I had been craving it for so long and was not able to enjoy it because of my gestational diabetes...it felt SO good to be able to eat what I wanted again!

Thank you to everyone who kept us in your prayers that day and for so much of my pregnancy. We could feel God answering them all along.

{Bumpin' Along}

Today marks 37 weeks, 4 days in.

Here's a little update on the baby front:

-Went to the doctor yesterday afternoon and found out I am 5cm!!! What in the world?! HOW am I still walking around like this, practically about to push these babies out??"Active labor is said to start at 4cm....soooo, I guess that makes me officially in labor, no? I like to think so.

-My doctor is not on call again until tomorrow morning at 8am, so I am "holding out" until then. I REALLY want her to be the one to deliver the babies. But, the doctor on call today is also amazing and delivered Judah 2 years ago. SO, I am just monitoring my contractions and waiting to see how things go.

-I was instructed to come in when my contractions are 10 minutes apart or less. Well, let me tell you they have been 8-10 minutes apart for like 3 weeks now....so, I am really not taking that all too seriously. Last night when I went to bed they were 7-8 minutes apart, but not unbearable. I am starting to wonder if I just have a really high pain threshold? Andrew is a little worried that I might wait too long. He was panicked this morning when I told him to just go to work and I would call him if things got moving along more quickly. We are literally FIVE minutes from the hospital, so no point in bumming around there when I can relax at home. My doctor said that if I went in right now, at 5cm, they would not let me leave.

-And now, they are still the same, 7-8 minutes apart, but not so intense that I can not talk, ect.

-My doc will be on call starting at 8am tomorrow, so babies, lets just take it easy until then :) I never thought I would ask them to stay put another day, but I think I can make it 12-14 more hours :) My sister will be happy about this plan too because she will be flying in from Colorado tomorrow afternoon!