Blessing day!

I hope you appreciate what is happening right now. I promised last week that I was going to post this week about blessing weekend, and what am I doing? Posting. I deserve a medal.

As you can probably guess, we blessed the boys this last weekend. (Just in case someone besides my family reads this and is like, "what?" giving a new baby a blessing is a tradition for us comparable to christening in other faiths.) And it was especially awesome because all of Mike's family came to town for it. Party time!

Here's the run-down of my weekend. Saturday, I took Mike and Katie out to the farm because Amy and Jared had already arrived the night before, then left to go wedding dress shopping with Hannah (who's getting MARRIED?!!!!!?!?!???!). BUT, on my way down the hill, I, um, got pulled over. It was terrifying. He didn't give me a ticket (either because of the two squirmy, crying babies in the backseat or because I was hysterically sobbing) but I was pretty much traumatized for the rest of the day. Good thing my mom had chocolate when I got to the dress place.

Three things I learned from helping Hannah look at wedding dresses:

1) She has the kind of figure that looks good in EVERY kind of dress. It's disgusting. Nick, you better appreciate this girl, 'cause she be good-lookin'.

2) Hannah and I have radically different taste in dresses. Mostly because she just wants a straight skirt and lace, and I'm all about the tulle and the sparkles. (Her color is yellow, and I've already decided to come to the wedding as Belle, ballgown and all.)

3) If I were to go back and do my own wedding, things would be way different. I was thinking all simple back then, but oh boy. *See above note about tulle and sparkles.

After several long hours of doing that (and also discovering that almost nobody sells cute yellow dresses), I went back to the farm to wait for all the rest of Mike's family to get there. But oh man was I tired. We had pizza and chatted and had fun and all that, but I was quite exhausted. I don't actually remember what else we did that night.

Saturday night, at approximately 3am, so I guess I mean Sunday morning, I woke up before the boys because I was all shaky-achy and discovered that I had a fever of 100.8. Awesome. Good timing, Britt. But I took some ibuprofen and that made it go down, so it was all cool.

Sunday would have gone slightly smoother if Mike hadn't had a surprise Young Men's presidency meeting early in the morning. We were still on time to church (and all three children were clean and pretty), but we only got squishy chairs because both of our families beat us there. Yeah, we're cool.

The only thing that went wrong was that Josh was really mad at me during Relief Society. See, they usually sleep for like 4 hours in the afternoon anyway, and have never needed to eat at church before, so I totally wore a dress that I can't nurse in. (Also, I looked really good 'cause I'm skinny these days. I was going to put up the picture Mike took of me, but he forgot to tell me to put those hanger ribbon things back in my cardigan, so no cigar.) But Josh decided at the beginning of Relief Society that he wanted to be awake, and therefore threw a fit. So I spent the last hour of church walking around outside (in my 5-inch heels) because he started yelling whenever I even went inside the building. It's okay, though. We got to hang out with Mike's dad who was outside with cousin Bryce, who's not quite old enough for nursery.

After church we went home and all changed out of our pretty clothes so I could feed the boys. Without taking a single picture of the little men in their blessing outfits, probably because I was slightly feverish again and therefore a total space cadet. More on this later.

After nap time, we went out to the farm where pretty much everybody we're related to was already eating dinner (I had to wake up my family to get them to go before midnight). The party was huge. It was not just for my boys, but also for Sarah's high school graduation (the night before) and approximately five May birthdays that had as yet been uncelebrated. And we sang all of our birthday songs and now my in-laws know now exactly what kind of a crazy family I come from (crazy AWESOME!)

And I did bring my camera to this event, so we got pictures of both families while we were all together. But that was mostly my mom's fault.

Then, Monday, we spent the whole day out at the farm playing with Mike's family. It was awesome. All of the able-bodied people played ultimate frisbee while I played with little people, we played games, and various siblings got father's blessings. We stayed out way too late and were rather strung out and emotional by the end, but it was worth it. We finally carried Katie's unconscious carcass home around 11.

And then we went places and did things Tuesday and Wednesday, so yesterday was the first day we had to just snuggle on the couch and watch movies and recover from the weekend. But I did do two productive things.

First, I realized that Katie totally had a hair-in-the-face problem. So . . . she got her first haircut! Just the bangs, you understand. (Like I would cut off any if those curls when I'd been coaxing them along for so long!) And for trying to cut hair on a kid who is incapable of holding still for any length of time, I think I did pretty well. (Also, it looks a lot better today, when she let me brush it out all nice.)

The second productive thing I did was to finally take portraits of my sons in their blessing outfits. Because I'm a space cadet mom and forgot on Sunday. So I got out my sheet again and . . . ta da!

Joshy hanging out in the bull pen

And the results are rather cute. But I now have to wash the little white outfits again before I can send the borrowed one back to Mike's sister (sorry, Kliss!).

I think that's it for this time. Maybe I'll start a new sticky note for next time. Happy June! (Well, almost.)

Six-week Photo Shoot

My boys are six weeks old today. No more words. Just pictures.

(Okay I lied, there are words: Sarah gets a picture because she was an awesome photographer's assistant.)

Stay tuned for next week when I blog about blessing weekend!

Don't Eat Josh!

Any of you guys ever play "Don't eat Pete!" as a kid? Mike and I both did. If you didn't, it involves somebody eating candy until everybody yells "Don't eat Pete!" at them. It was one of my favorite family home evening activities. (Also the thimble game, but that's another story.)

Well, at five weeks old, my boys still sleep the best and act the happiest when they're all snuggled in together. And occasionally one of them will get hungry or something, and not be able to get his binky out of his hand and into his mouth. So, he'll turn to the closest thing to his face and start gnawing on it--usually his brother's head. And guess who is most often the guilty one in these situations? Pete. (Hehe, I just love it.)

It also distresses the big sister quite a bit. Peter starts chewing on whatever part of Josh is closest (head, fingers, nose, etc.) and Katie notices and runs over yelling, "Don't eat Josh!" I usually start cracking up, but mostly because I'm so sleep deprived that even breathing is either hilarious or tragic.

As I mentioned before, the boys were five weeks old on Wednesday. They're totally not newborns anymore. But now that the boys are a rather established part of our family, I almost feel like life could be back to normal. Therefore, this is a sticky-note post. (Yay!) Did you like how I included one of my anecdotes as an introduction? Oh, but I have more. And maybe pictures if I can remember to get out my technology (you know, like the memory card from my camera or the hard drive where I keep all my pictures because the laptop is unstable).

Here goes. There are a lot of them.

Funny Things Katie has Said

(To her gummy bear vitamins) "You're not a real baby, you're a fancy baby! Come on, baby. Let's go home and eat a lion."

(After the boys' cords fell off) "Look! My brothers have normal bellies! And they have big fuzzy heads!"

(See if you can recognize this song) "Little bunny poo-poo, I don't want to see you scooping up the forest . . . um . . .and bopping on the head!" (This is funny because otherwise, she totally doesn't have trouble with Fs.)

"Not in Spanish! Read it in normal person!"

"Nice to eat you!" (After we explained that it's "meet," not "eat", she does it now with her mischief face on.)

"No, you can't love me! I'm dangerous!"

(After watching Arthur) "Mommy! Arthur's teacher is mean! He's Mr. Ratbird!"

(Wearing her fairy wings) "I can fly through the air! I'm flying to Albertsons!"

"Okay, Daddy. I'm going to unlock your head and get somebody out. Oh look! It's a big walrus!"

Conversations Worthy of Note

Katie: I like airplanes! Can I come?
Me: Katie, are you going to be my daredevil and teach the brothers how to get into trouble?
Katie: Yes, yes I am.

(When I was upstairs and Katie was down)

Me: Katie, what are you doing down there?
Katie: There's a spider! Mommy, what do spiders eat?
Me: Little bugs, why?
Katie: What do little bugs eat?
Me: Leaves and grass.
Katie: What does leaves and grass eat?
Me: Dirt and sunshine.
Katie: Oh, okay.
Me: Katie?
Katie: . . .
Mike: I think she wants to keep the spider as a pet.

See what I mean? I've been stocking up on cute things Katie has said. So I kind of didn't tell you the whole boring story for each one.

However, now I think I'll tell you about some of the differences between my boys.

First, Josh is still noticeably bigger when you lift them. Peter is a long, skinny baby like Katie always was, but I have to clean the lint out of Josh's fat rolls. Little chunk. Don't get me wrong, Peter is totally gaining on him and now has cheeks to rival the best of them, but he's still skinnier.

Peter has a rather normal baby cry, complete with high-pitchedness. Josh? Well, he's got more of a roar. It's very manly. Also, while Peter gives out warning shrieks when he's getting distressed, Josh goes from happily calm and asleep to total freak out in about 4 milliseconds.

Okay, last one. If they're snuggling together and I'm busy doing something else (like, I dunno, worrying about my 2-year-old) and one of them gets sad, the other will notice. If Josh gets sad and starts crying, Peter will either put his arms around him and snuggle (it has happened multiple times) or fling his arms around and punch Josh in the face. Yeah. But if Peter starts crying, first Josh looks quite surprised, and then he wriggles around until he's face-to-face with his brother, then starts furiously licking his face. And somehow, Peter likes it. He calms right down. Weird little puppies.

Now, because I know the real reason you all get on my blog, I will put up some pictures of the last month. You're welcome.

Here's Peter at 1 week old.

Here he is at 1 month. Hello, cheeks.

Here's Josh at 1 week.

And here he is at 1 month.

All three kids at once means somebody's gotta be uncomfortable, right?

And that's our life. So, the boys just woke up while I was doing this and now Katie's trying to plug in two binkies at once. Gotta run.

Introducing: Two Extraordinarily Handsome Men!

Yes, you heard me. Extraordinarily handsome. Let me tell you about them.

So, do you remember when Katie was born and I wrote the whole story, including lots of gory details? (Sorry, Dad.) And remember how we were rather caught by surprise and things went rather not as expected? Well, this experience was the complete opposite of that.

For one thing, we had our camera with us. Katie was rather undocumented for a first child. But these guys may have gotten quite well documented. So I can tell the story with pictures. :)

So, remember how we had the date set conditionally upon their still being breech? Well, Monday when my doctor checked their positions, both boys were standing straight up and down with their feet on my bladder (which I could totally tell, by the way). So he signed orders for my C-section Wednesday.

Wednesday morning was rather exciting. We all got all dressed up for the babies to come. And seriously? I was having a planned C-section. Ain't no nasty, sweaty labor to deal with, right? So I wore makeup and contacts and such. Because I'm awesome.

We got my hospital bag all ready to go, made our beds, and then got Katie's sleepover backpack ready to go to Grandma's house. But while Daddy was taking his shower, she decided that she and her animals needed to play school. Isn't that what backpacks are for?

So after we were all ready and Katie actually let me put ponytails in her hair, Grandma came to get Katie so Mike and I could go to the hospital. This is our attempt at one last family picture with just the three of us. Katie was way too excited about her backpack to care about any 'ole picture. I mean, all you ever do is take pictures of me, Mommy. Why should I have to pose for more?

And we were off! Oh man, this was exciting. And I wasn't puking, even though I had been forbidden to eat food after midnight before my surgery, which is a big deal for pregnant me.

We got to the hospital, and I probably was walking faster than I had in months, just trying to get there as fast as possible. We got up to labor and delivery triage (where I was told to check in) and I was probably the perkiest pregnant lady those nurses had seen in a while. I mean, most people who come to their desk are women who are already in labor, right? Not happy and smiling. Which I definitely was.

So we went back to a room to get prepped, and they hooked the babies up to heart monitors just to keep track of them while we did paperwork and such, and then they brought in an ultrasound machine because my doctor had ordered a check before they sent me in to make sure everything was where we thought it was. And guess what? Vertex babies. SERIOUSLY? They had both been tap-dancing on my bladder two days before! Ridiculous children. They were even wiggling while the nurses were trying to monitor them. Nonetheless, we all let ourselves get a little bit excited that we might not have a C-section (better for future babies, eh?)

So my doctor came running over from his office to see for himself and make a final decision, but when he got there, an umbilical cord had gotten between baby's head and the way out. He explained that we could try inducing me instead of a C-section, but that would probably result in a prolapsed cord and an emergency C-section, and "we could risk losing--I mean having complications with Baby A."

Yeah, he had me convinced. We decided to go ahead with the C-section.

I was behind the curtain and didn't see anything, and I had a spinal so I felt no pain, but I did feel lots of tugging, stretching, and pressing on my ribs, and I heard lots of sloshing and suctioning and weird things like that. I will mention that when he was cutting me open Dr. Lowder said, "Wow, girl, you have almost no subcutaneous fat in here." I knew it. Buaha.

It all happened rather quickly, but within 5 or 6 minutes of Mike coming in and them cutting me open, we had two healthy, screaming boys who were peeing all over the operating room. I lay there crying with happiness and getting stitched up while Mike ran back and forth between the boys snapping pictures of their little red, slimy, froggy bodies. His grin was almost wider than his surgical mask could cover. But it was okay, because they let him take his mask off for a couple pictures anyway.

Mommy, Joshua, Peter, Daddy

 After everything was all over and I was all stitched up, a nurse grabbed one baby and Mike had the other, and she said, "Okay, follow me." Mike and I were both expecting that she was taking the babies to the NICU to get checked out, or at the very least to the nursery to get tested like normal babies. But when they wheeled me to a recovery room a few minutes later, there were Mike and my boys and some pediatric nurses, doing all their newborn tests right there while I got checked out. They never went to the nursery. That's how awesome I am at growing babies.

After they were ready and I was ready, I got to hold them on my stretcher while we all got wheeled up to our mother-baby room on the 8th floor. And an hour or two later, my mom brought the big sister to come see her babies.

Peter and Katie

Oh man, was she cute with them. She was so excited. She wanted to hold the cute babies and kept squealing that they were her brothers, her babies. There was a moment of concern when she saw one of their umbilical cords, but we explained that it was okay and that the cord would fall off soon, and she was totally cool with it.

One thing I noticed was that although, like most newborns, they were startled by any loud or sudden noises, they were completely unfazed by Katie. She came in roaring like a dinosaur and was probably the loudest thing the mother-baby floor had ever heard, but they didn't even twitch. I think they were already used to hearing her voice when they were in the womb.

My mom was probably the most excited, though. And I'm pretty sure she only started to cry a couple of times: she never actually started bawling. I think Katie saved her.

Grandma and Josh

She kept wanting to talk to them and kiss their faces . . . and I really couldn't blame her. (Grandma, Josh, and Katie)

Peter and Mommy

Mike was pretty excited. Another big difference between this time and last time was that last time, since I was in labor ALL NIGHT, we were both completely worn out and exhausted by the time Katie was born, and Mike ended up really sick from how tired he was. This time, though, he was all awake and happy and clean-shaven (at least the first day). And he's pretty proud of his boys.

Thursday evening, my family came in shifts to see the babies, and it made me rather laugh to see my large, manly, rugby-playing brother Parker get all mushy about his little baby nephews. And here's a picture of awesome Uncle Sam, getting ready to become the favorite of the next set of kids. (In case you didn't know, Katie pretty much idol-worships Uncle Sam.) Isn't he a handsome kid?

Josh and Uncle Sam

Well, it turns out not only am I magically awesome at growing babies, but I can heal from a C-section like a BOSS. So the boys and I all got to be discharged Friday night. Katie stayed one more night with Grandma because we were so exhausted, but then she came home to us on Saturday. And I definitely think this is going to work.

Peter thought he'd be helpful and hold Josh's binky in for him.

This was actually taken the Sunday before the boys were born, but isn't she the cutest little pixie you've ever seen?

They both like to snuggle each other and sleep like this rather often. (Josh, Peter)

And that's the story. Joshua Michael and Peter Jeffrey were born April 10 at 12:37 and 12:39 pm, respectively. Josh was 7lbs, 4oz, and 20 1/2 inches, and Peter was 6lbs, 5oz, and 20 inches. And boy do we love these good-lookin' boys a lot. Miracles really do happen.

19 hours to go.

I'm just letting you know, since I'm purposefully not going to answer my phone for a while, and I probably won't open the front door for a couple of weeks.

Last Friday, when I saw my doctor, I was fully expecting him to be all mean and say, "You're doing so good! Let's try and make it to 38 or 39 weeks!" And I was fully prepared to punch him in the face.

Instead, as I sat there pathetically awaiting the bad news, he said, "37 weeks on Monday, so we could do it sometime next week. Are there any bad days for you?" To which Mike and I both started giggling and said, "NO!"

He did say it was conditional upon their still being breech at my appointment on Monday, but they were.

So I'm having babies. Tomorrow. At noon.

So don't be all surprised when I'm non-responsive for a while, or if I don't let you into my house.

It's probably because I'm staring transfixedly at my little boys and trying to get Katie to love them.

Or sleeping. That too.

Nope, no twins yet. But Katie LOVES the Easter Bunny.

And this post has pictures. So you know you want to read it. Also, I totally did all my griping last time, so you know that the only thing I will say that's negative is

GAAAAAHAHHHHHAHHHH!!!!! I'M STILL PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

36 Weeks. THIRTY-SIX! Just not fair. 

Remember this, when I announced that I was pregnant, and I had this cute little ten-week bump? Or this, when I was twenty-five weeks for Katie's birthday, and I looked like I did when she was born? Yeah, I'm gigantic. And I'm also really good at sudoku.

Okay, I'm done. Now on to the sticky note full of cute things I reminded myself to tell you that Katie did.

So, remember how we spend our entire lives at my doctor's office? Well, Katie has gotten quite good at pushing elevator buttons, because I don't do stairs if I don't have to. A few visits ago, we were all heading out and going down to where we were parked, and Katie ran ahead to push the button. She pushed the down button, then proceeded to dance around in a circle, galloping and saying, "I can push the button, because I'm big!" Then, she stopped, planted herself in front of the elevator doors, and started saying, "Wait for it, wait for it . . ."

Yeah, she's the coolest ever.

Then, the other night we were doing the bedtime routine. Mike does most of it (toothbrushing, jammies, and story time) but Katie will NOT go to sleep unless she gets to cuddle Mommy in the rocking chair while I sing "I'm a Child of God" before she gets in bed. When we reached this point of the program, though, Mike was putting something away or something, so I lifted Katie onto my lap by myself. I made some characteristic painful groaning noise, and Mike came back in right as I was getting her up.

He said, "Don't do that, or you'll make yourself go into labor." (This was before we were totally cool with going into labor.)

Katie looked up at me, horrified, almost started crying, and said, "I don't want to go into labor!" Don't worry, kid. You're good.

As many of you probably are aware, this weekend was Easter (more on this when I get to the pictures). We decided to have the Easter Bunny come to our house Friday night instead of Saturday in an effort to make Easter more Christ-centered. (You can guess how successful we were when Katie had chocolate for breakfast before church.)

So the few days before, I was trying to psych Katie up for the Easter Bunny, so she'd be excited about it and stuff. I was telling her Friday night, "See? We put our Easter baskets out, and then the Easter Bunny comes to our house and puts yummy things in them."

I thought she'd be all excited. Rather, she says, "The Easter Bunny comes in our house? That would be dirty!" Wow, she is such a girl.

And also, she is such a two-year-old. Last night she wanted to say the prayer on dinner. Mike was helping her, she was sitting quietly, and I think she was even keeping her arms folded. Then, right in the middle, she interjects, "A squirrel! I see a squirrel!" So Mike gracefully gets her back to the prayer and wraps things up, at which point she says, "Amen. Squirrel, Daddy! I saw it running!" Anyone seen Up?

Then, tonight while she was playing, all of a sudden Mike and I hear, "And the zombies are coming to kill Mommy, and Daddy, and Katie. But we won't let them." What?

Katie has also helped me discover a new way to attempt to go into labor: laughing hysterically. I will now list the several things she does regularly that have almost started contractions.

First--bouncing. Katie is completely addicted to bouncing. For one thing, she loves my parents trampoline, and there have been several days when she has missed her nap because she would NOT get off the tramp and come home. But more than that, she is ALWAYS jumping. She bounds around the living room, on every piece of furniture (which we discourage), and especially when she gets excited about anything.

Oh, it gets better. We have the DVD of Pixar shorts (the first one, because I think there's another one now) and her most favorite is Boundin',  which is the one about the sheep who gets sheared and learns to stay cheerful and deal with it by boundin' around. Bet you can't guess why it's her favorite.

But one day after I had let her watch it, Mike came home and they were playing toys. Katie decided she wanted to play boundin', and Mike was totally cool with it. So, as I watch from my rather stationary existence on the couch, Mike and Katie start boundin' around the room. Oh man, those people are cute.

Speaking of the trampoline, one of Katie's other favorite games is hide and seek. She plays it nightly with Daddy (that's kind of how we get her to go upstairs for bedtime). So today, we went to my mom's house after my doctor appointment and it was so nice that my mom set me up in a lawn chair to watch Katie bounce. So Katie bounced, and bounced, and bounced, and then noticed that the pitching net was still up, so she got off to chuck a soccer ball at it (from 1 1/2 feet away--more on this later). When the ball bounced behind her and rolled under the trampoline, she climbed under the tramp with it, and sat there, saying, "Try and find me!"

Because I was not on the tramp, I could see her. But I played along, pretending to notice her after a few minutes. She wanted to play again, but I told her she had to hide somewhere else while I closed my eyes. So I closed them, counted to ten, and opened them. And she had scooted three feet to the right of where she had been sitting before. Little booger.

The other thing that has put me into almost labor over the last week has been playing catch. This happens every time she plays catch with someone, but I will describe one particular instance.

The other day, my mom was here taking care of us, and Katie wanted to play catch with her big purple bouncy ball. So my mom sat on the floor to play with her. My mom would toss it kind of over Katie's shoulder so she had to go get chase it, but then Katie would carry it over until she was three feet from my mom, then throw it overhand as hard as she could at my mom's face. Let's just say we might have some kind of athlete in this little princess-type girl.

Well, that's my sticky note. Want to see some pictures of what's been happening recently? (And I mean besides my belly getting grotesquely huge, as you saw earlier.) There may or may not be a lot of them.

Saturday morning she finally figured out the Easter Bunny. And was quite sad when we made her have something besides chocolate for breakfast.

At the Easter egg hunt in Grandma's backyard, Katie may or may not have had help. And then she wanted to keep going, but she had to ask Uncle James to hold her basket because it was too heavy.

Sam was supposed to find the hard ones, but somebody else got extra help.

Katie discovered that when she touched someone's nose after bouncing, it gave them a shock and made her poofy hair go flat. Notice how Mike is bracing himself--you tend to lose skin cells on your nose.

Katie liked to think she was one of the big kids.

This is the game Katie thought she was participating in--but really she was not.

Did I mention she's a jumping bean?

Easter Sunday

Playing outside in the happy Easter weather--and hopefully not getting muddy?

She chased Abuelo all over the house in this outfit while yelling "roar!"--then decided that Sarah was Mike Wazowski because she was wearing a green sweater.

That's our weekend. I think it was pretty successful. I even got to study Jesus the Christ for a while on Sunday while my family was at church. And yesterday I saw Katie open the scripture reader we have for the New Testament and start reading herself a story about "The Angel told Mary, 'Jesus is Alive!'" So I know something I told her sunk in.

Happy Easter everybody! And I'm not going to say anything desperate like "I'm not blogging again until there are babies" because I might need to whine at you again next week if the doctor doesn't let me have my babies. But only limited amounts of whining, I promise.