MDO

Well, this past week the girls started their schooling adventure in the form of Mother's Day Out at New Covenant. Actually, they call it Children's Day Out at their school, which I have to disagree with since I believe the person getting the most enjoyment out of these days of the week is, indeed, me. However, I have come to see that the girls very much enjoy their time there, as well (minus those first few minutes they think I have abandoned them and are never coming back). Like all parents, I was very nervous about the first day. How will they react? Will I have to come pick them up early? What if they never adjust to school? Will we have to homeschool them? Will they be the "weird twins" that have a secret language and don't play well with other children? They cry the entire time they are in the church nursery for 45 minutes, there is no way they'll make it a full day. All of these thoughts and questions ran through my head; but as it turns out, they really loved it. I couldn't have been more shocked when their sweet teachers raved about how great they did, how well they played with everyone, napped, ate, etc.  Whew. Looks like we won't have to homeschool them after all. Everyone kept saying they would do great because "they have each other." Which is a great idea, in theory, but never seems to matter at home, church, or anywhere else they become cranky and only want their mama. However, Miss Jennifer told me on the first day when I came to pick them up, that right before nap time, they sat against the wall together for a few minutes and held hands. I know, precious right? I was a little sad I missed that sweet moment and also wondered why they are never that sweet to each other at home. It was definitely one of those moments where I realized how blessed they are to be twins, and how forever lucky they truly are to be able to go through all of life's tough situations together. Wouldn't we all love to have a built in buddy on those scary first days of school?

Being the great mom I am, this was the only picture I captured of their first day of school. Let's hope I do better on the first day of Kindergarten. 

This morning I was reading my new favorite blog, and I was so deeply touched by her post today. Specifically, this segment of it. Although my girls are several years away from starting real school, I sincerely hope I can somehow convey this thought to them one day before they do start. I can see how it can be so easy as parents to get caught up in wanting our kid to be the best, the teacher's favorite, the most popular, smartest, etc. But I hope with all of my heart that my kids know that this is what we really care about.

Chase – We do not care if you are the smartest or fastest or coolest or funniest. There will be lots of contests at school, and we don’t care if you win a single one of them. We don’t care if you get straight As. We don’t care if the girls think you’re cute or whether you’re picked first or last for kickball at recess. We don’t care if you are your teacher’s favorite or not. We don’t care if you have the best clothes or most Pokemon cards or coolest gadgets. We just don’t care.

 We don’t send you to school to become the best at anything at all. We already love you as much as we possibly could. You do not have to earn our love or pride and you can’t lose it. That’s done.

We send you to school to practice being brave and kind.

Kind people are brave people. Brave is not a feeling that you should wait for. It is a decision. It is a decision that compassion is more important than fear, than fitting in, than following the crowd.

Trust me, baby, it is. It is more important.

 Don’t try to be the best this year, honey.

Just be grateful and kind and brave. That’s all you ever need to be.

xoxo

Our Life in Video Lately...

A few videos of our funny girls...

I'm not really sure the exact purpose for baby sign language, but in our house it's used mostly for our own amusement...

Wrestling is a near daily occurence for these two. I hope their friends at school love it as much as they do. If not, I'm sure I'll hear about it in the form of, "So we've noticed your girls enjoy tackling the other children and forcing them to roll around on the ground with them against their will..."

Practicing kissing on their soon-to-be baby brother or sister. We'll have to work on that throwing on the ground thing.

Granola Energy Balls

I discovered THESE on Pinterest not too long ago and decided to give them a whirl yesterday. And let me tell you, you should too. They are delicious, healthy, filling, sweet, and everything you want in a snack. I was getting sick of the same ole' go-to, most of the time unhealthy snacks. And since I'm in the second trimester of a pregnancy, snacks are unavoidable. Kyle went bananas over them, too. I only made half the recipe to make sure we liked them before making a bunch, and I will be making batch #2 very soon! They have lots of healthy, good stuff in them, yet taste like a yummier version of no-bake cookies. We also substituted butterscotch chips for the chocolate per Kyle's request. I also cut up one to give to the girls for a snack yesterday and they went crazy over them. The best part is you just keep them in a tupperware in the fridge so they are easy to grab and go. 

Hope you enjoy!

To Carpe Diem...or not.

I've recently seen several friends post this blog post on facebook, and I finally took a few seconds to read it the other day. Boy am I glad I did. It's like this wonderful woman crawled inside my head (and I'm sure several million other mom's heads) and read my thoughts. Finally! Someone who writes very candidly and hilariously about the fact that we as moms should not feel guilty that most of our days are very hard and tiresome, and it's OKAY to not enjoy every second with our precious pumpkins. I remember feeling very early on in my days of twin parenting (and let's be honest, a lot of days currently) that it was not what I had thought it was going to be. Although my heart overflowed with love for the beauty and magic of my little girls, it was friggin' hard, and tiring, and let's be honest, some days pretty boring and monotonous. But how ungrateful of a mom would I have been to admit that?

So it's with great pleasure that I introduce you to THIS great post. Do yourself a big favor and read it. And also share with as many moms as you can. I hope to start capturing those "Kairos" moments more throughout my day and stop feeling the guilt of not reveling in every tiresome moment.

xoxo

Campbell and Sophie are going to be...

BIG SISTERS!


If your jaw just hit the floor in disbelief, then it's only a fraction of how shocked we were when we found out! As for the details, I'm almost 14 weeks and due July 8th. As you might have guessed, this pregnancy was very unplanned; however, we are thrilled and excited to meet this little guy/girl come this July.
I only have about a million thoughts running through my head concerning this pregnancy. In fact, the first thoughts that entered my head upon seeing this...

...were:

1. Say what? 

2. (long blink) I must be hallucinating.

3. Pregnant, pregnant, pregnant, pregnant...

4. Holy _____.

5. But how? (dumb question)

6. Two babies. We already have two babies.

7. Kyle...very shocked...might run away and leave us forever...I should call him.

I won't get into all the details of how/why it happened, but for those of you who regularly read this blog, you know that we struggled with infertility the first go round of getting pregnant. After being informed that I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and that it would most likely be difficult (but not impossible) for us to get pregnant on our own, Kyle and I had no reason to believe it could ever happen on our own. Well, once again, God had different plans (and might I add quite a sense of humor), and we now have our very own, non-fertility drug conceived little miracle. Oddly enough, the few months before I got pregnant, I kept hearing story after story of these women who struggled tremendously to get pregnant the first go round, but then ended up with "surprise" pregnancies the next time. Of course, you never think it's going to happen to you, but it turns out that's exactly what happened with us!
So is it ideal that my twins will be 21 months old when this one is born? For the most part, no. Was this the plan Kyle and I had in our minds of having a third someday many years from now? No. But the incredible thing I've come to learn over the last several months of contemplating this baby is that it feels like really it was supposed to happen all along. And I'm once again reminded that God knows far more and far better than I do, and that once again, perhaps He has great things to teach us through this journey. Although initially I wanted to yell "Where was this easy shmeazy getting pregnant thing the first time? Why can't we just have a normal getting pregnant story for once?" Unfortunately, as so many others have said before me, that's just life. And since I wouldn't trade what I learned going through our infertility journey for the world, I can't help but be excited (and a little terrified) about what He is going to teach us through this one (more patience, humbleness, how to love being trapped in our house 24 hours a day?) ;)
I also have to take a moment to say what an incredible support Kyle has been from the very first day I found out we were going to have number three. I've always known I married a super duper guy, from the day I married him, to our struggles with infertility, to the early days of very sleep-deprived twin parenting, to our every day struggles of keeping a marriage spicy with two toddlers. Although he (and I) are far from perfect, he has 100% been my rock. At times when I fall to pieces, lose my patience, and want to give up, he always knows how to pick me back up and be encouraging without making me feel bad. However, when I saw that positive pregnancy test, I was maybe a little terrified of what his reaction was going to be (and was reminded of his friend at work who literally passed out when his wife called him at work to tell him they were having twins). But the incredible thing is that he was thrilled from the get go (which was also a little terrifying? Is he losing it?). I'll never forget the text he sent me about 20 minutes after I called to tell him saying how excited he was that our girls would get to be big sisters, and how we've been through too much in the last year to fear anything. Which was a great point! I hope this positivity continues if numero tres is another girl...and I'm glad he decided to stick around. ;)
So here's the belly at 14 weeks. I'm not sure why I took it since I'm pretty sure it's mostly leftover baby weight from the girls + a zebra cake I ate 15 minutes prior. But nonetheless...

Although I'm fairly certain the girls have no cognitive awareness that yet another baby will be entering our home, they are quite good at saying/doing most of what we ask them to. So naturally, their favorite toy to play with right now are babies, and they preciously walk around the house holding/hugging them saying "baby." And just the other night they started patting their bellies while in the bath and saying "baby." Gosh I hope this one can live up to their cuteness. 

So off we go into the next great adventure. We are so blessed to have wonderful friends like you to share it with!

xoxo

Christmas 2011

Whew! Three days and four Christmases later, we survived Christmas 2011! We had a wonderful time celebrating the season this year with our big 14 month olds. As you can imagine, it was a little more enjoyable this year, as we weren't the sleep deprived parents of two 8 week olds. Not to mention I think the girls really enjoyed their presents a little more this year. :) We started off Christmas Eve with my family (we had also celebrated with my Aunt and Uncle on my mom's side the week before). The girls got lots of loving from their Bubba, Gigi, and Aunts Sami and Sara. Lots of cute clothes, baby dolls, and accessories for their cute kitchen they got from Bubba and Gigi a few weeks ago as an early present. Mommy and Daddy even got a new iPad from Bubba. What an awesome surprise! It was a fun time as always celebrating with that side of the family.

Family pic in front of Bubba and Gigi's Christmas tree

Our little stinker, Sophie, in front of the tree

She loooooves Christmas ornaments and calls the round ones "ball"

About as still as I could get them. They had no part of sitting and posing cutely in front of any Christmas tree.

Sophie really loved digging into the big bags

Campbell would tear off tiny pieces of wrapping paper

I'm liking this Christmas thing!

Oh my a baby doll! 

Seeing as how the girls loved Santa so much the first time they met him, we thought we'd give it another go with Bubba Santa again. Still not fans.

Playing with Bubba

We had Christmas morning at our house. Campbell seeing what Santa put in her stocking...

Do I spy a Care Bears DVD?

These girls love their books (which makes the English teacher in me swell with pride). ;)

Another active Christmas tree shot. I think they're saying "Mommy is #1"? 

Mowing the kitchen floor

On Christmas Day afternoon, we headed to Nana and Papa's. Oh how they know how to spoil their grandkids! The girls got more adorable clothes, baby dolls, toys, a new table and chairs for their playroom, and even some bassinets to put their babies in from Aunt Amber.

Campbell and Daddy opening gifts

Sophie didn't seem to need any help...

Love this pic of Sophie and Papa. 

After we got home and unloaded all of their presents, both girls climbed into their new bassinets. The funniest part is that they climbed into the right ones! This is now currently their favorite hang out spot. They also like to gather all of their toys together to put in it with them.

On the 27th, we headed to Duncan to have Christmas with my Dad's side of the family. I have a total of 9 cousins, 3 aunts, 2 uncles, and my mema on this side, so it's always fun to see the whole gang. This pic is of Aunt Sara trying to wrangle Campbell into her new, cute headband...with no luck. :)

I love this pic of Campbell. She just walked right over, dropped down and started playing with the big kids!

The whole gang! I have such great memories of growing up and spending time in Duncan with my grandparents. These Christmases are always crazy, chaotic and so much fun. I'm so glad we are able to still get together. 

And there you have it! Christmas 2011 for the Nevels. We will still be going back to Taloga for the day on January 7th to have a short gathering with Kyle's dad's side. Although it can be exhausting traveling with our two crazy toddlers, Kyle and I know how blessed we are to have such a big, loving family, so we try to keep a positive attitude in the midst of the craziness. Hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas! 

xoxo

Headband Enigma

So if you've been around my girls lately, you may have noticed that we very rarely, if ever, wear headbands/bows anymore. While I've always been a little picky about what I put on my girls' heads, I've always thought a little bow here and there is cute and enjoyed putting them on the girls until they, all of a sudden one day, decided they enjoyed ripping them off their own and each other's heads more than they enjoyed wearing them. As seen in a previous post, Campbell has been a fan of putting her blanket on her head for awhile now. That love of having a blanket on her head has extended to other objects now as well (bath toys, bowls, stuffed animals). Namely, she loves putting my headbands on her head. Anytime she notices that I'm wearing one, she will take it off my head and place it on hers as seen below. Recently she has even learned to put it on the correct way with one side behind each ear. She will walk around the house/play for 20 minutes at a time with my headband atop her head. However, the second I put her headband on her head, it's off in a matter of minutes if not seconds. 

Will I ever fully understand these crazy girls? ;)