PEGPS & Ornaments

So I am a crazy person since it is the end of semester. There is a blog over at Love, Teach that had a recent article about how you should not date a teacher. Part of what she said was this:

You thought PMS was bad? Try PEGPS.

PEGPS stands for Pre End-of-Grading-Period Syndrome, the period of time before grades are due for report cards. Like PMS, PEGPS is characterized by extreme irritability, poor nutritional choices, and zombie-like fatigue. However, unlike PMS, PEGPS lasts for 2-3 WEEKS and happens four to six times per YEAR. 

And when PEGPS overlaps with PMS, you'd better get the hell out of Dodge, my friend.

I am this victim of PEGPS right now. Especially the irritability! I swear...I was angry teacher today. I am stressed on getting our projects done and me getting grading completed. Plus, there are finals to create and planning for our next units. 

I teach 4 different courses, and I am swamped. English I, 8th grade regular English, 7th grade regular English, and 7th grade enriched English. So....essays, more essays, and more essays. Yikes!

But my day was brightened when I came home. I received my adorable ornament as part of Teresa's ornament exchange at Where the Bleep is our Stork. My exchange partner is Stephanie. We just "met" and she is adorbs. Yep, I said adorbs. She is in the trenches of infertility and I just hope and pray that her miracle baby(ies) are on their way. 

I nearly cried when I saw the ornament. Partly, due to my insane mood swings PEGPS (ha!) and mostly due to the specialness of our ornament. It is personalized for our miracle babes. I LOVE IT, Stephanie. It is perfect in every way. Thank you!

-Lisa-

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-

Sleep{ier} Frustrations

I posted about sleep deprivation due to sleep regression here a few days ago. Well...somehow, Max has gotten worse about sleeping at night.

My sweet, precious little boy doesn't cry. But he definitely has been waking every hour or so to yell at us. He just wants to play. We go in and he is kicking his little feet, talking, and giggling. It is so hard to be upset at that! After a couple nights of 3 nonconsecutive hours of sleep...we are tired. Luckily, Harper is unaffected. She still sleeps through the night just fine.

So, I just know when Max's phase is through...Harper's will start. Thankfully, it is just a phase. Most say the sleep regression lasts a few days. So there is an end in sight.

Harper is still growing two teeth. They have broken skin but not growing too much beyond that.

Max is an excellent roller and never stays in the same place or position long!

We go to the doctor tomorrow so I will have an update later on growth and shots.

Mom, you don't need sleep! Look how cute we are.

I may not sleep but look, Mom, I hold my bottle.

-Lisa-

Sleepy Frustrations

So I am beyond frustrated with this stupid BLOGGER!! I am not a computer person. Leave me alone with a computer and something awful is bound to happen with a few clicks of the keys.

So...trying to recode my HTML. Holy crap!

After hours of frustration, this is as good as it is going to get for now. I wanted to redesign all parts of the blog but have given up for now. I wish I knew how to do more. But I am lame and somewhat miss the days of AOL where I was a "G".

Anyway...let's talk about sleep regression...and teething...and how that means we are NOT SLEEPING!

I have read about it and heard about it but nothing has prepared me for the deprivation.

Max and Harper have been really great sleepers their whole life. Granted, I do not miss the days of newborn 3 hour stints. But they slept and went back to sleep fairly easily.

Flash forward to nearly a week ago...they were consistently sleeping 10-12 hours IN A ROW. This meant I had a good 7-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I love those little guys!

Still love them but we need to have a serious talk. A couple days ago they started waking up in the middle of the night. Mainly just Max. When we knew for sure that he was not going to be soothed...we woke up Harper too. (We still are afraid to get them off the same schedule. I am not in the mood for tempting fate. I have fears of being up all night because they are off.)

I know that their "regression" is not bad. I have heard horror stories. I am hoping that this new sleep plan doesn't get any worse. They still go down pretty smoothly. They are asleep by 7 on most normal nights. They have been getting up around 1. Then they want to be up for an hour or so and go back down until 7. I know! Why am I complaining?

Well...I got accustomed to a certain level of restfulness. And it isn't happening anymore. It is going to get worse. I know. We cannot be this lucky. Many mommies are experiencing newborn-like regression. So I will stop complaining (out loud).

Harper is still cutting those teefers. She has the tip of her two bottom front teeth showing. Max just has extremely white gums. Our amber teething necklaces work. No kidding. I don't know how and it seems odd to some people but they are magical beads! Daycare doesn't allow those wonder necklaces so we take them off while they are there. Amazingly their fussiness ceases within a half hour of getting the necklaces back on them. Now to just get Max's necklace exchanged. His clasp broke. Jeremy swears it was fine when he took it off this morning but it was broken when I got home. Hmm...not so magical!

We go to their four month appointment next Wednesday. We are also getting Harper's ears pierced at this doctor visit. Should be great for the whole sleeping thing, huh?

Sweet Dreams!
-Lisa-

Under Construction

I am working on making my blog cuter and better! Bear with me as I am working on it.

Real post soon!

Lisa