Catching Up

We have a lot of catch up on. So I realized this morning that I hadn't taken pictures of the boys in their blessing outfits yet. Yes, they were blessed 3 weeks ago. Somehow in our rush to get to 9am church on time we never took pictures of them in their outfits. I woke up this morning suddenly worried that they would soon outgrow their outfits, so that was the first thing we did this morning. They are getting chubbier so it's a good thing we did it now.
The blessing weekend was wonderful with family in town from several states. The boys met cousins for the first time and saw their grandparents again which they loved. Shawn did an amazing job blessing them. He was very careful in his preparation in the weeks leading up to it and the Spirit was very strong. (We were also able to attend a temple session a few days before they were blessed thanks to some fantastic women in our ward who beg to babysit every Sunday.) During the blessings I was a tearful mess of course. In fact there was another baby blessed before our boys and I cried during his blessing too. The boys were perfect. They were awake, but didn't even make a sound during either blessing. It was a wonderful day and went by all too fast.

Now that it's May, the weather is finally warming up and staying warm. So we've starting taking daily walks in the evenings before bed and we even took the boys on a picnic this weekend. They love being outside and are so happy when we go on walks or even if I just lay them on a blanket.

They are getting bigger and are starting to look more alike to us. There is still the 2lb weight difference but Isaac's face is definitely plumping up. But depending on who I talk to, my children are either "definitely identical" or "definitely fraternal." And I get asked daily if they are identical. I should wear my answer on a t-shirt. "Yes, we believe they are identical because they had twin to twin transfusion in the womb which typically happens only with identical twins. But, because of the weight difference they don't look identical. Thank you." I sound like a broken record in church because people ask constantly. They are getting to be pretty good sleepers too. Although they definitely have their moments, or their nights when they are less than stellar.

I started working again last week... with one week under my belt I feel like it's going to be pretty easy. But then I remember that they will start sleeping less soon and life will get more complicated. Right now I'm working 30 hours a week from home to keep us insured as Shawn looks for jobs for post MBA graduation in a month. It's more than we wanted me to work, but we're grateful that I can do this from home and that my company likes me enough to be this flexible. But when the boys are super cute and happy and I have to go back to my laptop it breaks my heart. But I know it's only temporary, so we're okay with it for now.

Because I'm working again we've started to get into a better schedule which has been a huge relief. For 3 months it felt like every day was going to be drastically different with different feeding times, nap times and bed time. Somehow it's all fallen miraculously into place. I think it's a result of some frantic prayers made the week before I started working again. We started sleep training the boys and they took to it so fast. So now they cry for a few minutes and go off to la-la land for their naps AND if they wake up in the middle of naptime they can put themselves back to sleep - HUGE BONUS!!! I also realized that if I want to get in exercise in the morning before I start working, I have to sacrifice sleep, or I start resenting my children for taking away my time. So, to prevent resentment, I realized that more sleep deprivation is the way to go and it works for now. Of course because we are in this great schedule Sundays are a complete mess because it doesn't fit with their schedule. After holding Isaac for 3 hours my arm hurts so bad this morning. I was very close to tears during YW, realizing that this was the beginning of getting less out of church because I have kids. Ugh...

And lastly, May brings a very long trip to a few foreign countries on the other side of the world for a certain man that will be sorely missed at our house. I didn't realize how scared I was going to feel as this trip got closer. We'll have lots of help while he's gone with family coming to stay and our EQ and RS president watching out for us... but there is nothing as good as having daddy around. It's only 2.5 weeks... we can make it, right?