First Time Sledding

For my birthday Johann got each of us a pair of snow shoes. We have tried them out a couple of times and I have wanted to try pulling the girls in sleds so we can make it a family event. In my mind this is such a great idea. Just let me live in my fantasy for a little while. Here we are a nice sunny day, beautiful snow, both girls laughing and playing while mom and dad pull them in sleds. Doesn’t this sound just prefect?

Well deep down I figured it was a long shot and probably would never work. However, I still purchased an infant sled and borrowed one from Holli. Johann’s vision did not match mine so after much grumbling I convinced him to give it a try on Sunday. We bundled the girls up in their coats/snow pants for next year (3T’s  mind you), put our snow shoes and one sled  in the car to drive four houses away to Holli’s to get the second sled. We thought we would see how the girls liked the sleds in the yard before putting on our snow shoes. Turns out they LOVED it, laughing the entire time. Ari even tried to eat a little snow.  Jon and Holli have a little hill in their yard, ok it is really just the slope away from their house but in our area that is a hill! We just pulled them all over the yard and let them go down the “hill” on their own. If we stopped even for a few minutes they let us know we needed to get going again. It was only 11 degrees outside, burrrr. The girls were warm but their cheeks felt pretty cold, but didn’t bother them one bit. I was hoping for 10 minutes and after 30 minutes MOM and DAD decided it was time to go in and play with Ben for a few minutes before going home for dinner. Next time we will put on the snow shoes and go snow shoeing while our little angels trailing behind in their sleds. See my perfect fantasy wasn’t so far off and if it had been about 20 degrees warmer it would have been just as I imagined it.

Daddy & Ari, Mommy & Brynner

Walking in Jane’s Memory

Last evening our little Arianna Jane took two steps from her Mom to her Grandpa. On the eve of her namesake’s anniversary of death, how could anything be more appropriate? Two years ago today one of my very best friends, Jane Bowman Nigon, was tragically taken from our lives in a car accident. I know Jane is still with us in spirit many days, I feel her strength, hear her laugh, and often see her in my daughters actions. Jane was the most up-beat and fun-filled person I have ever met. She had contagious energy, which she passed on to those around her. Her energy quite possibly could have been from the five plus Diet Mountain Dews she consumed every day, often times being on number two by seven am or it could have been from the 20 miles she would run before coming to work. As I type I forwent my morning coffee to have a Jane Drink, or Diet Dew.

Jane was a very talented musician playing almost any instrument and an awesome vocalist as well. Her specialty was Celtic/Irish music, which I am listening to as I type, drink my Diet Dew, and look at a picture of Jane & I from my 24^th birthday where her band was playing at a local Irish Pub. I have so many wonderful memories of her. My heart still aches when I hear her music or any similar, when I see her picture, and when I reflect on all my memories. I mentioned that I see her in my daughters. Case and point this morning as I was looking for my Jane CD I heard Brynn jumping up and down in her crib, Jane was always moving and jumping around while playing her music. Jane didn’t sit when she played piano…the bench was a resting point for her to bounce her foot on to the beat of the music getting people excited. It wasn’t just her foot tapping, it was the entire leg bouncing to the beat.

I know today will find me in tears when I least expect it, and it already has. I still get teary at random times when someone or something sparks a Jane memory.  I feel blessed to have had such an amazing person in my life if even only for four years.  She inspired me to run farther than I ever have by convincing me to enter a 20K or 12.6 mile race the night before the race over a beer. I had never run more than 8 miles at a time prior to this race. She ran with me the entire race, being my cheerleader, and I LATER found out she was hurting way more than me because she hadn’t eaten breakfast that day  but I had no idea. This was the first and only race that Jane, Brandon, and I ran together. Jane had hooked Brandon and I up to be running partners. Being a solo runner I was not excited about this newly formed partnership. However, Brandon and I soon became wonderful friends and now that I don’t work with Brandon I find myself missing our runs together.

I could go on and on about all the wonderful things Jane did for me over those four years, the list is endless. She was an amazing friend, mother, sister, aunt, daughter, and wife.  I know her family and friends deeply miss her.  One of the things I learned from losing Jane so quickly is that life is too short so you need to live it to its fullest!  I am not sure which is harder to believe that is has been 2-years since Jane was taken from us or that in one month it will be one year since Arianna Jane and Brynn Marie entered our lives?  I truly believe that Jane had something to do with these girls entering our lives. I could hear her laughing from heaven as they would scream and be awake for 23-hours on end, then I could feel her strength to help me get through the next day, and I can also feel her warmth as the girls say Mom and reach for me just before snuggling in and falling asleep.  I only wish that they could have had the opportunity to meet Jane. I hope that everyone has a Jane enter their lives, even if only for a short time.

This picture of her was taken on top of a mountain she climbed. The “Love Ya Jane” is her true signature off of my last birthday card from her just before she passed away. Hiromi edited this picture to combine the two.

This-n-That

As we are quickly approaching that 1-year mark I repeatedly find myself reflecting back to life BAB (Before Arianna & Brynn).  I honestly don’t know what we did with all of our time. As I sat folding a load of their clothes I realized it takes 30-minutes to fold 18 onsies, 18 shirts, 18 pairs of pants, 4 sleepers, 2 blankets, 4 blank-a-boos and the rest of their clothes. One load of their clothes is a lot and I haven’t done any laundry yet this week. One things is for sure, I know I did not spend nearly as much time folding clothes, cleaning the kitchen floor, and picking up the living room…actually we never really used the living room BAB.  Our house and our lives have completely transformed for the better since the addition of our angels.

Arianna is getting really close to walking and cruises around with the walker toy, has five teeth, loves to eat, is my morning girl, likes to entertain anyone willing to watch her but mostly her sister, likes her Daddy more than her Mommy if given the choice, likes to snuggle, and is finally starting to sleep well!

Brynn is also close to walking although when using the walking toy she runs instead, she is a fast crawler so I am not so sure how interested in walking she really is. Brynn has six teeth with another one close, is NOT a morning person but could stay up all night, is a non-stop talker, likes her Mommy more than her Daddy if given the choice, is always on the go, and likes to sleep in.

Both girls are growing like weeds. They are in 18-month pants and I think Ari might be in 24-month pants before short season arrives! I bought size 3T winter coats and snow pants for next year as the 2T will probably be too short/small. I had a hard time convincing myself to buy them but then Holli pointed out how cheap they were and I quickly got over it. They are currently wearing 2T coats that aren’t all that big on them, which makes me a little sad.

Ari and Her Daddy

Brynn and Her Mommy

Morning Girl Ari catching a cat nap after I had her diaper off!

Sleepy head Brynn...lights on, sister is ready for day care...still sleeping....

Last Christmas Celebration & New Dos & Lunch with friends

Every year we celebrate Christmas with our friends Jon & Holli. This year life events post-poned this great event. Ryan William was born the day of our scheduled party. Now due to the craziness of the past week I am a week delayed in posting about it. We also celebrated Jon’s birthday, which often gets skipped…sorry Uncle Jon! So the picture is of all of the kids after cake. Brynn and Ari loved it. However, Brynn did not like it most of the night as she had a tummy ache and even threw up during the night. I guess her sweet tooth and tummy don’t match just yet. Ari did just fine.

Brynn, Zach, Ben, Ari, Ryan & Brady

I took a stab at a new hair style this week. It turned out pretty cute. This was after a morning bath so the girls weren’t tired and cranky like they typically are when I try to do their hair at night. Not sure how often we will do this one but I liked it and really it has held up pretty well. Hopefully tomorrow they will cooperate and let me take it out, wash it, and do it in a new style!

Top view of Ari's new hair do

Brynn posing to show you her new hair

Last but not least….we were able to have lunch with our friends Kristoffer, Dana, & Karter on Saturday. They are expecting “baby K” number two any day now so we were under the gun to get it in quick before he arrives.  It was great to see them and to actually see the girls play with Karter. The last few times they have seen each other our girls were too little to play with him. We had to make our visit short as Yo and I were off to the Brad Paisley & Miranda Lambert concert with some friends. Thanks to Paigey & Jenny for watching Ari and Brynn while we were off playing!

It has been a crazy week but lots of fun things. I haven’t even mentioned that my husband surprised me by inviting good friends over for my birthday on Wednesday, he got me snow shoes (while I love almost as much as running now) and I’ve gone twice this week. Today was Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, for our family a very significant person in history. So being a government employee I had the day off. Holli & Ryan, Jenny & Kenna and myself went shopping. Yes, I took the girls to day care and had a “me” day and it was everything I thought it would be. I scored some awesome deals including: 4 work shirts, 1 pair of pants, 1 sweatshirt, and a pair of shorts all for $50….thanks Mom & Dad G for the b-day present! I found coats & snow pants for the girls for next winter too. Tonight the twin girls from next door, Molly and Emily and their brother Lucas came over to play. The girls had a blast with them. Britt took pictures so I will have to post them once I get them from her. The first picture of the twins and twins was from when A & B were tiny! You can see the picture by clicking HERE.

All Healthy

Looking at our blog stats I guess most people have realized I do most of my blogging on Sunday evenings. Our stats today were triple what the normal day has been the past few months. Case and point here is our family up-date one day late.

We spent the majority of last week trying to get well. Brynn and I snuggled almost the entire day on Monday and Tuesday she was back to day care and me back to work. She was super tired and not her normal crazy self until about Thursday. It was a long painful week for all of us. The bonus was that we got in lots of snuggle time, something that she isn’t usually too excited about doing. Brynn had her last dose of antibiotics today, which is great because the smell of her body/diapers makes me sick. I don’t know why it is but I cannot stand the smell of the amoxicillin!

Highlights of our lives that I haven’t touched on include both girls having four teeth each now, with Brynn’s fifth most likely popping through tomorrow. Arianna started walking behind a walking/riding toy that Brynn got for Christmas…two days later Brynn gave it a try but she tries to run behind it! The girls like to drink water out of a regular cup, but we don’t do it too often as they are a bit messy yet.  They can sign “all done,” do “so big,” wave and say “bye-bye” and give you skin aka give you five.

In the past two weeks we have added two boys to our lives. Our good friends Jon and Holli had a healthy baby boy, Ryan William, born on Dec 27. My brother, Kirk, and his wife, Tammie, also had a healthy baby boy (3 1/2-weeks early), Wyatt William, on January 2.  Everyone is doing well and we feel so blessed to have all these new babies in our lives. We haven’t met Wyatt yet and waited a week and half before holding Ryan even though he lives across the street as we were all sick! This coming weekend we are getting together with our friends Kristofer and Dana who are also expecting their second son in the coming weeks. All these babies don’t even remotely make us want another one. We love them all, especially because they all go home at night! Although we are hoping that with the Zantac medicine and being illness free, sleep will become common place in our house!

My picture taking has slowed down a bit, but I do have video that perhaps I will add some day. Meanwhile, enjoy this random picture from the week and a blast from the past.

Arianna & Brynn

Day 1 in the Hospital Nursery

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Sorry for the lack of blogging in the past week. Our lives have been a bit crazy. After Christmas with my family we all four were sick with upper respiratory stuff. This past week has been a lot of running and not a lot of sleep. Ari, Brynn and Daddy all were at the doctor on New Years Eve. A & B were diagnosed with viruses and Johann an ear infection. Two days later I took Brynn back to urgent care to the same doctor who now was talking pneumonia and an ear infection! What how do you go from a virus to two days later pneumonia? Needless to say I was a bit angry at this doctor. Then the very next day Brynn was screaming non-stop and obviously in a lot of pain so a trip to the emergency room. The doctor there could not believe our first doctor did not give us numbing drops for her ear. After 15 minutes she calmed down and drank a little juice. She had not peed in seven hours! This was all last night, and the two of us slept on the couch all night and until noon today, minus taking Ari to day care. By about 1:00 today Brynn was laughing, talking, eating and getting into trouble. It was the first day that Ari and Brynn have ever been apart, and both were super excited to see each other this evening.

Meanwhile, this weekend we also had all of Johann’s family staying with us. They were all good sports and actually A & B did their best while everyone was at our house. It was fun to host Christmas and have everyone stay together under one roof. This is the first time we have all stayed together since everyone got married. We forgot to take out games though before the kids went to bed so we just talked instead of playing.

Last weekend we celebrated Christmas with my family. For those that live in Minnesota you know how nasty the weather was over Christmas. We had a great time with all 23 of us. This is the first time we have not all stayed under one roof. We split up between my brother’s house and my sister’s house. It was sad not have everyone together the entire time but it was also nice to not be complete chaos the entire time.

Here are pictures of the Grandparents and Grandkids…and one of Brynn today. Although my side added another baby, Wyatt William, on Sunday so our picture is already out-of-date!

Grandparents & Grandkids on Johann's side

Grandparents & Grandkids on Sherry's side

Brynner wrapped in Mommy's blanket napping...poor babe!

Santa Clause & Christmas

I am a bit behind on the blogging. Please forgive me as life has been crazy preparing for Christmas and then leaving a day early due to the looming forecast. Let me back up a week and fill you in.

We took the girls to see Santa last week Saturday. At first Brynn liked his beard but quickly turned into meltdown mode as her sister joined her on his lap. We got the great picture of the two of them screaming their heads off.

We had a bit of a rough week with sleeping due to getting our top front teeth. Things finally turned around just in time for traveling. Brynn’s one tooth popped through. Both girls did super well at my sister’s house for two of the three nights. A little fussing and Ari would wake up at 6:30 but we found out if we snuggled with her in our bed she would sleep until 8:30 or even 9:00. Who wouldn’t want to snuggle with such a cutie and as a bonus get 2+ more hours of sleep. Night three was horrible. Johann has been battling a cold for about two weeks now and night three it hit the rest of us. Brynn has also had a cough but now it was nasty. She woke up about 11 and was up most of the night sleeping for little spells here and there. I finally left the room with her at 6:30 when Arianna woke up to bonus snuggle with her Daddy until 9:00. Brynn and I tried to sleep on the couch but weren’t much more successful.  Saturday we made it home and had an almost equally rough night. Today the girls took a 20 minute nap and have each been awake once since going to be one hour ago so I fully expect a horrible night again. UGH. Oh well the joys of kids right!?

More about our Christmas adventures with my family later this week. I am going to get to bed and sleep while I can.

Brynn when she liked Santa...for 30 seconds

Ari, Santa & Brynn having meltdowns

First Fat Lip

At day care the other day Ari was play with a standing toy that Brynn thought she should be playing with as well. So little Brynn decided to use her big sister as an object to pull herself up. It works when she uses mommy to pull herself up so using her big sister should be almost the same. Well it didn’t work so well and instead both girls toppled over and the result was Brynn’s first fat lip:

Brynn's first fat lip

I love that she is pushing her lip out making it look worse than it really was! Still a cute picture and she looks tough!

Healthy 9-Month Olds

On Thanksgiving the girls turned 9-months old. However, we waited until this nice frigid day to take them in for their well-baby checks. They are boy doing super and were great entertainers for everyone in the waiting room. We were the last two appointments of the day and our doctor was running behind so we waited a good 45-minutes in the waiting room and then another at least 15 in the exam room. Thankfully our day care mom gave them a snack before I picked them up but they were still hungry by the time we finally got to our room. Ari ended up eating right before getting weighed but Brynn was able to wait. Then we got to hear the melt-down on the way home as their milk was not enough for these growing girls and we were not 30 minutes late for dinner and still had a 30-minute drive home! Luckily they both fell asleep and took a bonus nap.

Developmentally they girls are in the 11-15 month range for everything from physical to language. They only real difference between the two is that Ari is doing a little more physically and Brynn talks more! They love to wave bye-bye , pull up on things, starting to cruise, and they race crawling up and down the hallway…I wonder who taught them that?!

They like to explore things. After we get home from work they like to go with Daddy to play in our room while he changes out of his work clothes, also known as putting on his pajamas. While he is changing the take this opportunity to sneak into our closet and pull down all of my clothes from their hangers and dig around in the random things I thought I had so cleverly put away. Now this is their favorite place to play. In the past if we have left the lights off in our room and even down the hallway they have stayed out of those areas. This week they decided they don’t care if they can’t see they are going in there. Tonight I watched the race down the hall and into my closet, in the complete dark. I went after them and could not see them, but could hear them laughing like crazy.

On the trip to the doctor’s office today they were in super moods. They were talking back and forth and laughing hysterically. I had to turn off the radio so I could listen to them because it was so cute. One would talk and the other would laugh and then the would switch. Johann thinks they have their own language and I am starting to think so too.

Their doctor asked if we had any concerns about the girls. The only real concern for us is that they wake up 1-hour after going to bed, almost always. She is wondering if it is an acid reflux, which would also explain some of their spitting up that has continued. We are going to try a small dose of Zantac and see if that helps at all. We are hoping so as it might improve nap time as well. At night they can get themselves back to sleep, as long as we are at home, but nap time is a different story. The only other concern is that they always need to be touching someone. I guess it just means that they love each other and want to be loved! This is only a concern when they start laying on kids that are smaller than them. They don’t do it to be mean, just to be able to be touching someone.

Here are their stats for 9-months

Arianna: 22lbs 2oz at 92%, 29 inches at 90%, and big head at 96%

Brynn: 20lbs 12oz at 77%, 28 inches at 76%, and head at 85%

Both girls seem to be following the predicted curve on the growth chart. At this rate if we double what they are predicted to be on their 2nd birthday Arianna will be 6 feet tall and Brynn will be about 5′8″.  This will be interesting to see how it all works out.

Here is  a picture of the girls enjoying touching each other…and yes Ari is playing with an ornament that she is constantly taking off the tree.

They did start on their own pillows but then Ari moved over to be by sissy.

One year ago…

This will be Ari and Brynn’s first Christmas. Last year we actually were matched with them while celebrating Christmas with my family on January 2nd. Before the girls were born and up until we got home from Utah I kept a journal for myself. A few nights ago I looked back at my journal and decided to re-live last year. It is quite interesting looking back and reading about the trials and tribulations of our adoption journey. For example one year ago this Tuesday we were suppose to have dinner with our friend Shanwna to talk about the adoption agency she used, Heart to Heart. However, the weather did not cooperate and we had to reschedule, God’s plan as it pushed off when we finally contacted Heart to Heart. Instead we didn’t have dinner with Shawna until December 15 and then we spent the next 2 weeks reviewing Heart to Heart’s website before actually contacting them on December 29th. We sent them our information on December 31st and our profile was shown to Ari and Brynn’s birthmom that very night. We received the phone call on January 2nd with our match! It is quite interesting looking back and reading my words and feeling those emotions all over again. I am sad to say I have not written in my journal since March 6, 2009, the day we returned to Minnesota with Ari & Brynn. However, I have kept journals for each of the girls. Both of their journals have entries for every day for the first 3-months, now they are more like three entries a week on more exciting days. I also find these interesting to look back on, mostly to see how horrible my writing was the first few months due to lack of sleep!

This week has been a rough one at our house. Ever since the horrible sleeping from Thanksgiving weekend we haven’t been able to get the girls to sleep well. Partially I think this is due to teething but more so now it is becoming apparent that it may be them playing us and just wanting to be held plus they know we will do it. So we have resorted to letting them cry more and the last two nights things have been a little better.

I put up the Christmas tree on Saturday. I was hoping to get it all up before the girls woke up from their naps, and I almost made it. I gave them each a small stuffed animal in their crib so if they woke up early they could just play, which did work pretty well. I got the entire tree, minus the top piece, up before they woke up. They love it. Brynn tries to chew on the lights and the cranberry garland. Ari mostly likes to flick the branches and watch them bounce. I am hoping the novelty of the tree wears off quickly and they forget it is here.

We were suppose to go to a party with our Heart to Heart friends on Friday night. However, it was set to start at 6:00 which is only 1.5 hours before the girls bedtime and the party was 45-minutes way plus we only finished dinner at 5:45 pm. We decided at the last minute to skip the party as we were all tired and would spend more time traveling to and from the party than we would actually get to be at the party. Daddy stayed home with the girls while I went to deliver the presents at for the kids whose names Ari and Brynn had. So, Saturday morning Ari and Brynn woke up to find some presents waiting for them to open from their friends. They made a bee line to them and were excited to open them…and LOVED the toys inside too not just the paper.

Opening their presents from their friends

Checking out the Christmas Tree