Two Turning Two!

This was the invitation to the big party!

Grandma came early to help get ready for the party!

Suzi and Carson playing!

Cade is playing with the twin Goofys!

Carson looks at all the presents!

Cade likes the big truck bags from Great Grandma Ree!

Cade and Carson were surprisingly very patient in waiting til the end for presents!

The birthday boys ate John Deere green M&Ms and Amish Friendship Bread until time for pizza!

The boys are still eating M&Ms and Amish Friendship Bread even though they have pizza! Aunt Wanda and Great Grandma Ree try to eat and stay warm in the garage!

Cade thinks about eating the pizza!

Carson is wishing for more M&Ms!

The children enjoy their table!

These are the sweet John Deere green party longalls we had made for the party. They didn't fit, so Grandma had the brilliant idea of dressing up the Teddy Bears!

The twins' Grandmothers have everything all ready!

Jeana (with soon to come baby boy in tow), Aunt Wanda, Great Grandma Ree, Uncle David, Aunt Poochie, Megan, and Hunter!

Ian, Suzi, Austin, Cade and Carson all wear their John Deere Party hats!

Suzi is so cute with her tractor hat!

Cade and Carson are really taking it all in! Aunt Joni, Megan, and Aunt Wanda are enjoying pizza in the background!

Checking out the presents again!

Cade and Carson do not want to wait for the cake!

However, Ian was happy to wait for cake!

Daddy and Mommy sing to Cade and Carson while they try to blow out the candles!

They had Tractor Cakes this year!

They were amazed!

Daddy carefully feeds Cade the messy tractor cake and Grandpa helps Carson!

Cade still managed to get very messy!

Now it's finally time to open presents!

Carson likes his tractor pictures!

Austin helps Cade see what's in the presents!

Cade really likes the gummy bears!

Suzi had a lot of fun being the only little girl at the party!

Carson takes a look at his new clothes!

Uncle Tiny tickles Austin while Carson stops to read a book!

Daddy helps Carson open the new tractor!

Unle Tiny helps Cade open his prize bag as Mommy helps Carson! Suzi is just scratching, Suzanne!

Cade and Carson like their tractor blowers!

Ian had a lot of fun with his!

Alex enjoyed showing me all of his loot!

Carson blows the party horn

Everyone is ready to go outside to play!

Alex is wide open like the twins! Aunt Wanda and Hunter try to stay warm while entertaining the little ones!

Bopa, Great Grandma Ree, Aunt Poochie, and Grandpa watch the children!

Everyone has lots of fun!

Alex drives with no hands! Niccole does the steering!

Cade loves his new Carolina Gamecocks football!

Uncle Tiny teaches the twins about kickoff!

Daddy is on post to help the little ones up the ladder and on the slide! Michael is under the playset looking like a behind the scenes helper dressed like Kevin!
Alex has lots of fun sliding!

Nana helps Suzi up the ladder,and Alex slides down on his belly!

Austin is sliding a couple more times before heading off to Disney World!

Cade's hair has static electricity!
Aunt Joni swings a sleepy Carson while talking with Niccole and Michael!

Nana plays with Cade and Carson in the playset "garage"!

Michael swings and jumps from the trapeze bar!
Alex hugs Cade goodbye!

Alex and Michael hug Carson goodbye!

The grandfathers enjoy the swings!
Bopa helps Suzi swing on the trapeze bar!

Daddy seals the leftovers to freeze them!
The three 2 year olds have snack with Nana after nap time!
After dinner at Miyabi, Cade, Carson, and Suzi get a bath - thanks to Nana!
Bopa helps the little ones build houses before bedtime!

Happy Birthday Boys!

We decided to take the day off for the boys' 2nd birthday on Friday!
The boys are playing with tractors Mrs. Charlie gave them at DayCare on Thursday since they'd be out on their birthday.

We took the boy with us to Columbia! Here's breakfast - a sausage "burger."

Mmm. That's good!

Daddy had to go to a meeting while we shopped around in Columbia.

Cade already broke the tractor!

Nap time after the 2 year old pictures!

Aren't they sweet little two-year olds!

Cade is glad to play with his legos back at home that afternoon!

Carson loves to build!

Bopa came to play with the birthday boys!

Nana and Suzi came, too!

Everybody's so glad to see each other!

Cade loves to give sweet hugs!

More on Memory Lane!

Warning: Do not look at this blog post if you are feeling queasy. It's not that bad, but I don't want anyone to say I didn't warn them there are definitely some pictures in here that are a little detailed. I did try to stay away from the bloody ones though.



So, our due date was March 18th. That would have been day 266 or just before the 40 week mark. And from the recent reminiscence post you may know that it was January 17th when I went into labor. I went home from there on January 23rd, still in labor - just the contractions had been heavily slowed to one every 20 - 30 minutes with lots of IVs and crazy medications. I went home on bedrest with an infusion pump in my leg, lots of medicine, and shots I had to give myself in the stomach.



This is what I went home to. We were having built-in cabinets made. Also, they were paving the main road into our neighborhood. So I had interesting things to watch that week!

So this was me at 32 weeks, still just 2 cm dilated.

This is the bad one, because you can see all the bruises from my awful belly shots. Imagine me sitting on the kitchen floor crying holding ice on my belly trying to numb it before sticking a needle in - not a pretty sight. Kevin had to do it for me a couple of times, because I just could not work up the courage every time. I can't express what a great husband he was through all of this. Let's just say it made me know he was going to be an excellent Daddy!

The contraction monitor I was having to wear at home was picking up to many contractions per hour on Saturday the 27th, so the nurses monitoring me at home made me go to the hospital. I stayed in the observation room that night. My Dr. was so great - he came to check on my several times and took me off that awful shot that the McLeod doctor had put me on and took me off of the contraction monitor. That night did me so much good as far as getting medicine that actually let me sleep and lots of IV fluids to build my system back up and just seeing Dr. Spielvogel - he made me feel like everything was going fine and he was going to do all he could so I wouldn't have to be completely knocked out for the delivery! I had an appointment for UltraSound at his office for Tuesday, so he let me go home and told me to call in if I had any trouble between.

I was so looking forward to that appointment to see what the boys were weighing and how they had grown and how much I was dilated (he did not check that Sunday morning so it wouldn't speed anything along).

And here I am Tuesday morning for the real thing - not just an UltraSound. I woke Kevin up around 2:00am Tuesday, January the 30th and told him it must be time. No water break or anything like that. It just was steadily getting a lot stronger. I couldn't sit or lie down at all. And up until that night I was resting 30 minutes to an hour at a time before having to get up. But that night, there was no getting comfy.

I was so scared I wouldn't get an epidural when Dr. Vu (my doctor's partner) got there and told me I was 8 cm dilated at 2:30am! She said I did all the hard work at home, but there was no way I was delivering twins without an epidural! I love her!

She broke my water and got me pushing before we even got in the Maternity OR (all twins are delivered in the Maternity OR at our hospital). Dr. Spielvogel got there just in time to pull Cade out and decide he needed to do a Stat C-section since Carson's heart tones were dropping as his placenta was trying to come out ahead of him.

And the moment I'll never forget! The first time I got to hold Cade!

He's so sweet!

I could only see Carson through the window as they wheeled me by in my bed.

Look how sweet!

I can't tell you how happy I was when I was finally strong enough to get up and go see him that night!

Then I got to see the twins together - and not on the UltraSound!

The next morning we took our first family photo!

Look at my sweethearts!

Cade with his bilirubin lights and what we called the aviator mask!

The boys all dressed up in their preemie outfits on the day Cade and I were released!

So sad to leave Carson at the hospital, but so happy the Lord blessed us with these beautiful baby boys!

It was really cold that night when we were taking Cade home, so he's all bundled up!

Here he is in the Carseat - so tiny!

And here we are leaving with Carson just 2 days later!

Home sweet home!

Those monitor bags were just another part of them for the first 3 months, but it was fine b/c they both went home at 4 1/2 pounds, so I wasn't carrying over my limit!

Aren't they precious! And today is their last day as one year olds! I can hardly believe it! Praise the Lord for His miracles and all he's brought us through!

No more point and shoot . . .

Professor Smith wants me to stop with the point and shoot cameras on auto. Yeah right! But I am attempting to manually do my pictures here and there getting used to the camera. I didn't have the aperature and shutter speed right in this picture.
Here it's getting better, but noone was ready for the picture.

I'll get a lot of practice trying to be quick with all these crazy guys!