You are Raising My Babies

I can't begin to tell you how difficult it is to have your babies away from you for most of the day. I am SO hoping that I can take a break from teaching for a couple years so I can focus on my own babes instead of other people's.

I do love the sweet smiles I get everyday when I pick Max and Harper up from daycare though. It makes my sometimes awful day forgotten. I love that. I just wish I was able to spend more time with them. I am really looking forward to Christmas break. I know that I will still need to take them to daycare even though I am off (we are paying no matter what) but will only take them for a short amount of time. I will use that time to clean, wrap presents, prepare food, etc. I just love morning snuggles and my morning snuggles only happen on the weekdays.

The people and place you leave your precious babies is so important. I HIGHLY recommend our daycare provider. Brighton Learning Center is amazeballs! Even though I hate the thought of leaving them...those ladies are so good with our miracles. They love them so much and I love that. BLC is worth the extra money we pay. We get educated and caring women who teach (I know they are only 5 months old!) them so much. We get crafts and pictures that show all they do. It is pretty incredible. BLC has a blog and Harper and Max are in some of the pictures for tummy time. I do believe they are the cutest babies featured if I do say so myself! Ha! Here is the link.

We looked around at a few different locations and considered lots of different options. I just know that we were led to make the decision to place our babies in BLC's hands. They are spending more awake time with them than we do...sad! But they love them and that is all I can ask for as a working mama.

-Lisa-

Happy Thanksgiving!

The holidays are upon us and this gal couldn't be more excited! I just love Thanksgiving and Christmas. I love the hustle and bustle of buying gifts, wrapping presents, large meals with family, watching friends and family open gifts, baking cookies, making candies, decorating the tree, and the love that everyone shows for each other.

We have always had our own traditions as a married couple. I am so excited to now see how we will introduce the holidays to Max and Harper. I can't wait to start FAMILY traditions with them.

For example, they both helped decorate our tree.

Sweet Boy

What? I am just helping Mom.

Hanging out...you know.

Big Girl.

Finished.

We know that they won't know what's going on this year but it isn't stopping us from trying to make the holidays great for them. We already got one of their gifts and are going to put it together for them now. They love their jumper at daycare so we got one for them when they are home.

Last weekend, we took their holiday pictures for our Christmas card. Of course, as soon as we got them dressed their smiles disappeared. They are still precious, of course. We probably should have got a professional to do them but thought we could handle a couple shots. Here are a couple outtakes we didn't use. We did some good ones for the card. I will post that when they are done. 

Not interested

It is so much fun to put my hand in Sissy's mouth.

No smiles.

Are we done here?

I am in the process of baking for Thanksgiving. We have THREE, yes three locations to be in one day. We start off at my in-law's house (they live a mile away) for a brunch at 10am. Then we drive an hour to my parent's house by 12:30pm. Then we drive another hour and a half to my husband's whole family at 4pm. So...we are crazy! I think we will discover that days like that are too hard on the babies. By next year, we may have to cut down our visits for sure.

Here is my Pinterest dessert find. It is an apple cranberry crisp. I am also working on cranberry sauce and cheesecake pops.

Thanksgiving is so much more than driving all over the place for WAY too much food. But it is about being thankful for what we have. We are so blessed. Last year, we found out that we were pregnant the day after Thanksgiving which was 11/23. Our BETA was 45 at 12dpiui. We were so surprised and even more thankful that our doubling times were amazing. 15dpiui it was 351 and then 17dpiui it was 943.

 I finally peed on a test 14dpiui...even though we knew were pregnant, I was afraid of pee sticks!

I wish all of you an amazing Thanksgiving filled with love and family. 

-Lisa-

Growing...growing...growing (oh and SLEEP!)

Four month appointment was Wednesday. It went well. Shots suck but I didn't cry this time. They didn't really cry too badly either.

Then, poor Harps got her ears pierced while we were there. Our doctor's office does ear piercing which is great! I feel like everything is sterile and safe this way. Plus these people know what they are doing instead of a teen from the mall! She cried but again not for long.

They are growing like crazy!

Max weighs 14 pounds, 9 ounces. He is 24 3/4 inches long. He is such a big boy! I can't believe how little he was now. I look back at pictures and he doesn't even look like he used to.

Plus...don't want to jinx anything but they slept 11 hours last night! We got 7 straight, uninterrupted hours ourselves. It was just what I needed. Hopefully, they are back on track!

Daddy loves bath time just as much as we do!

I weigh what?!

Harper weighs 13 pounds, 2 ounces. She is also 24 3/4 inches long. She is just the sweetest snuggle bug. She has changed the most, I feel. She looked like a preemie with no fat on her at all and now she has the chunkiest cheeks ever!

New bling

Soap beard!

-Lisa-