Saturday, November 29, 2008

Thanksgiving Birthday Boys

Hi! I'm Carson and I'm OnE!!! I love to EaT, I am constantly making NoISe, and will let ANyOne hold me. Toys are overrated. Being held is WAY better than any toy! One of my favorite things to do is show off my two bottom TeETh! I can stand by myself but I won't even try to take a step. Crawling is just way faster.

Hi! I'm Cade and I'm OnE!!! I have a SoFT little VOicE and can melt any woman's heart! I love to SiNG, steal BiNKiEs, and GiGglE at most anything! I could play with ToYS pretty much all day long. My favorite toy is my WALkeR...I use it everyday...all day! I can also stand all by myself and am even thinking about taking some steps while flying solo, but haven't gotten up quite enough courage yet. Soon, people...very soon!

Monday, November 17, 2008

Family Pictures

We were finally able to get some family pictures done. We haven't done it since the boys were born so we were due. Paula was able to do them for us in Twin and she was awesome. You can check out some of her work at http://www.paulakphotography.blogspot.com/. Much to our surprise, the boys did pretty well, thanks to the help from Auntie Lauren. She was behind the camera getting the boys to focus & smile. She saved us big time. I'm sure like most people, I'm not really a fan of myself in most pictures but that aside, I'm happy with them. There were a ton and I'm still trying to pick out my favorites (and would love any input). Here are a few of them.





Just The Two of Us



Cade at 11 Months




Carson at 11 Months





The Boys





So serious.

These are classic looks for both boys. Cade's eyebrows down (he can give some mean crusties) and Carson's eyebrows up with wide eyes. Classic!

Monday, November 10, 2008

Read At Your Own Risk!

So it’s official. My boys will turn one in 17 days and as of today, I am no longer breastfeeding them. I started slowly weaning them about a month ago. It hasn’t been too difficult. I mean, I have those bittersweet feelings about it, but they’ve done just fine. They LOVE their bottles which has made it a super smooth transition. It’s just hard to believe that I’m really done. I really thought this day would never come…I mean NEVER come! I have so many thoughts about this past year and I wanted to get some of them out.

As I’ve mentioned before, my boys didn’t nurse well when they were born. Their sucking refluxes hadn’t quite fully developed so we were doing the whole, feed them through a syringe thing. Then we moved onto bottles. While I still had help, I would try to nurse them during the day and would do bottles for the night time feedings just because it was so much faster. It was during that time that my pump became my best friend! It seriously saved me! I felt reassured that my boys were getting what they needed through my milk. It put my mind at ease with the fact that I wasn’t physically nursing them all of the time. Don’t get me wrong…I’m not trying to preach about it or anything. I was just struggling with a lot of different emotions at the time and I ended up doing what I felt best about.

So, back to the pumping thing. We were a package deal, joined at the hip you might say. Those who spent any time with me during that time know what I’m talking about. Christmas last year comes to mind. I’m with all of this family, trying to enjoy the season even though I felt like I’d been hit over the head with a 2-ton brick. I was pumping so often that I just did it out in the open. I covered up of course, but you just couldn’t ignore the blissful beep from that pump! Certain thoughts come to mind. “Oh hi Wynn. (my sister’s husband who had recently joined the family) So good to see you. Don’t know you super well, but I’m just going to pump while we catch up…is that okay?!?? We’re family, so it’s all good, right?!??” “Tommy! (Shane’s Dad) How are you? You don’t mind if I pump while we open gifts do you???” My visiting teachers got more than they bargained for when they would come to see me. Luckily, they have been my visiting teachers for almost 5 years now and know me really well. I’m completely comfortable with them…so why not pump during the spiritual message for the month?!?? With all of the thoughts going through my own head, I can’t imagine what everyone else was really thinking. Everyone just let me do my thing, for which I am very grateful. Not to say that some jokes weren’t thrown out there. “Jersey Cow this…Milk Maid that…” I recall my brother Aaron opening the fridge & freezer and saying something like, “Don’t we have anything else besides human milk in this fridge?” (Some women have problems producing enough milk for their babies. Let’s just say, that was never even kind of a problem for me!) Someone else started singing the oh so famous “Pump Up The Jam” song. We all had some good laughs. My younger brother Luke was the only one who said, “I can’t believe you’re making light of something so special and sacred.” For me, it helped to have a sense of humor. It really was a stressful time for me and I needed to stay light-hearted about it all.

Eventually, I retired the pump. GLORIOUS DAY…for all involved! After 5 months of pumping, I was not sad to put that thing into storage. In fact, I’m pretty sure I never want to see that pump ever again! From that time on, I was able to solely nurse, something I thought would never happened.

The last 6 months have been awesome. In the beginning, there were so many times that I almost quite. I told myself that I would give myself 6 months and then re-evaluate. I can’t count the number of times I called my Mom to tell her that I was done and couldn’t do it any longer. Shane heard it even more. I had everyone’s support with whatever I wanted to do but for some reason, I kept at it. So glad I did. It got so much easier. Wasn’t even a big deal anymore. I’m not quite sure when it all changed, but it did. What had once been, by far, my biggest challenge was no longer an issue. Such a blessing.

And now it’s all over. Like I said before, bittersweet.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Ironic

I recently did a post/tag where I revealed a few things about me. One of which was the fact that I have had a hard time going to Ward Choir despite the fact that I love music and love to sing. This last week, I was called as the new Choir Director in my Ward!!! I can't help but laugh! The timing isn't ideal just because the Christmas Sunday program is right around the corner, which usually consists of mostly music. I am scrambling to get something put together that we can prepare in time.

As of today, I have the music picked out and I'm feeling really good about it. It will be fun, challenging, and really good for me. So...go to choir and support your director!!!!!!

Monday, November 3, 2008

Turtle Time

We had a fun Halloween with two turtles. We went to a party at the Schnoor's and had some good food with good company. These are some of the pictures taken the week before Halloween at my parents' house. We had to show off their costumes...and they were a huge hit!!! Thanks to Grandma Tucker!!!
Carson Turtle

Cade Turtle




The hat was a little tight on Cade...and made him look extra chubby!

The Momma with both her little turtles

Such a happy little turtle!

Carson with Grandma Lori

More pics from our walks






I love, LoVe, LOVE this picture because you can see all of Cade's little teethers! His top two are just so dang cute...might be a little big...but so cute!!!

Mommy's Little Helpers!

I was practicing for a piece I would be playing in church. I had to be pretty strategic about my practice times...because of the two little helpers!