The Joys of Having Twins

1. Double the birthday cakes! All the sources say that separate cakes for the twins is a MUST!  I don't think the girls cared at all.  Angel slept through her birthday party and Seraph doesn't eat.  She especially doesn't eat anything that's sweet.  She pulled the most awful face when I shoved a taste of cake into her mouth.....(she loved the birthday song, though)

2. Buying Diapers in Bulk. I never run out of diapers. Seriously, we're in size 4 on autoship from Amazon.com.  Angel is just a little bigger than Seraph, so she'll switch to size 5 before Seraph.  It's perfect, diaper-wise.
3. When one cries, they both cry. It's cute when big sister takes extra care of little sister.  It's beyond cute when the big sister is only 30 seconds older than the littler sister.
4. Some seriously cute clothes for two little girls! I hate spending money on clothes...but seeing my girls in matching or identical sets of clothes definitely loosens the purse strings.

New Carpet!

Seraph played in the basement today!  She never gets to go down there because it's such an unfinished mess....except now it's not.  They put in the carpet today - wonderful, fantastic, thick carpet.  It's amazing down there - no one wants to come back up.  

Seraph navigated the stairs like a pro.  We still need to put the doors back on the closets, but other than that it's all done.  Oh, no furnishings of any kind....but how much furniture do you really need in a playroom??

Tonight I'm working on birthday presents.  The twins already had their birthday...but we're celebrating it this weekend.  I found the funnest presents - a play kitchen (thanks to my momo friends for the idea) and  talking teddy-bears.  I've been programing the bears...and I think they're good to go :) (er...they're actually puppies...from leapfrog...pictures later)

man...i just can't keep a secret.  Don't tell Seraph and Angel! Shhhhhhhh. :)

Happy Birthday, Strong Bear!!

Recipe for Birthday Brownies:

1-mix brownies as on package (the ones with chocolate chips in the mix work  best)
2-after you pour it in the pan, Add Teddy Grahams (about one per brownie once they're cut into squares.  It doesn't have to be perfect.  Lay the bears on top but DO NOT stir them into the mix)(you could do graham crackers, but the Teddy Grahams are funner!)
3-bake brownies
4-as soon as you pull the brownies out of the oven, dump 1-2 packages of tiny colored marshmellows on top.

The marshmellows will melt into the brownies.
OR
you can stick the brownies back in the oven for 2 minutes if you want the brownies to be toasted

I was into sword fighting before it was cool.  My brother and I used to sword fight with the pool cues from grandma's pool table.  We've been getting the dollar-store swords for ages.  Sexy Haqon picked up this set from ToysRUs.  He said there were toy swords you could get there for $30!!  Oh my!!

Strong Bear loved sword fighting with his friends and cousins.  There was a balloon-jail that you were trapped in if you lost:

We almost had enough balloons to lift the "jail" entirely - it would relocate with each puff of wind.

We moved the jungle gym outside for the party (it's been in the basement all winter).  The jungle gym was so fun that we had a couple of random kids show up and it was a while before we realized no one knew them.  It was a fun way to meet more neighbors ;)

During the party, Seraph chilled inside with her Auntie and Auntie's sun glasses!

Happy Birthday!

What better way to celebrate Beautiful Rabbit's birthday than with 10 screaming rabbids! The kids played Rayman's Raving Rabbids.

It was loud!  The first cake crumbled, so we tried again.  The kids ate both cakes!  We also had pizza and popcorn. and popcorn and popcorn and popcorn.  Rabbids eat a LOT of popcorn!

We also played the Rabbid's School game with Haqon as the teacher.  While his back was turned, the kids threw paper wads and paper airplanes.  Haqon tried to catch them to send them to timeout (on the stairs).  If he didn't catch anyone, the kids "tattled" on each other to try to get each other in trouble.  It's loud and messy, but great fun.

The party ended too soon!  Oh, and of course, the cake:

In your Prayers...

Thank you for keeping Seraph in your prayers.  We are praying for something very specific today--that Seraph is able to come off the vent today or tomorrow.

So here's the problem.  She loves to move around.  All that physical therapy strengthened the muscles for rolling and grabbing and pulling out IV's and tubes.  They have to keep her sedated and on a heavy muscle relaxant to keep her from pulling out lines and tubes.  That same muscle relaxant is working too well on the muscles she uses to breath.

When they try to wean her off the vent (that's breathing for her right now), they turn down the muscle relaxant and she starts thrashing around and pulling on anything she can get her hands on (which is pretty much everything).  She does this BEFORE (or maybe instead of) trying to breath on her own.

This morning they switched her to a new muscle relaxant that should keep her drowsy without inhibiting her ability to breath on her own.  They have to wait for the other drug to clear out of her system.  So, later today they'll turn down the drugs and the vent for a spontaneous breathing trial.  (The vent lets her try to breath on her own, but breaths for her if she doesn't breath well enough on her own.)  If she does well, she'll come off the vent.

If she doesn't do well, the doctors are getting very close to the point where they'll consider her progress stalled.....the point where they'll stop feeling like she CAN progress.  They're already a little baffled by how well she's done since January.  They want her to do well, but it makes more sense to them for her to do poorly.

Mom and Dad have not given up hope.  Seraph has had so many prayers and positive blessings.  Deep down, I really feel like she's going to be OK.  But, it's also important that her doctors don't give up hope either.  So, that's why we're praying that she'll come off the vent today or tomorrow.

Plus, having the vent off today would be a pretty great birthday present for her :)

Please pray for my little girl - I'll update you when I find out more.

Thanks.

Ice Skating

Beautiful Rabbit took some of her friends and cousins ice skating.  Though it was Rabbit's first time, she skated really well. ("Mom, I fell down 6 times!!!") She fell down a few times, but never all the way and always got back up.  Her friends were full of energy ....and some of them think they're already teens - ack! It was fun to have cousins there, too--they were big helpers....esp to me.  I didn't skate that well...Ok, I screamed a lot...but I didn't fall!  (esp after I traded in my skates for my tennis shoes!)

Rabbit's birthday isn't until the 27th, but we wanted to celebrate early - before Seraph comes home.  Instead of presents, she asked her friends to donate gently-used toys for the children's hospital.  Baby Seraph has really loved some of the toys other people donated.  Then we forgot to take the toys in when we visited Seraph!  Doh!  Luckily we go there a lot :)

Happy Pre-Birthday, sweet girl :) xoxoxoxoxox

Happy Birthday, Mommy!

I had the most wonderful birthday. My parents visited me. Then, Beautiful Rabbit and Angel came with me to visit Seraph at the hospital. We stopped to see the nurses who took care of me when I was inpatient and the gal who did most of my NST's while I was there. We also had yummy ice cream with some friends who were inpatient the same time I was..who're now semi-residents of the NICU's. It was nice to see everyone again :)

My favorite birthdays are the ones where I get to spend the whole day with my family. Besides, I went shopping the day before and picked out a couple of wonderful presents--some books and clothes :) And the day before that, Sexy Haqon took me out on an actual date for my birthday - thanks to a very sweet babysitter! ...always fun to be with my hunny :)

Hospital - Day 8

My puter had a blue screen of death yesterday! Right in the middle of a fun webcam session with my family! I think it's happy again now, but please cross your fingers for me.

My family came to visit me today. Just seeing them walk down the hallway towards me made my whole day. They were super cute from the first 'See, there's Mommy' to the last wave g'bye. I even changed Delightful Finch's Diaper. (yes, she was delightful - smiling and giggling while I pretended to eat her toes. No, it wasn't poopy.)

The twins did really well, again, on their NSTs. They have a favorite nurse. When she does my NST they stay on the monitors the whole time....or if they go off, she just has to say "come back, baby" and they do! Usually they prefer to play hide-and-seek part of the time....esp BabyA.

-------------------------------------
Sexy Haqon: Home is really different without you.
Beautiful Rabbit: Yeah! It's super clean!!
.....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Strong Bear turned 3 on Sunday. I'm terribly biased, but I've never seen such a cute mix of troublemaker/hugs/sweetness/playing rough. He's such a good kid and I miss him like crazy!

Back to his birthday....

Sexy Haqon protected me by not letting me plan a big birthday party. Instead, I thought of an idea - a scavenger hunt based on Diego/Dora cartoons Bear likes. I gave my idea to Beautiful Rabbit and she did an absolutely fantastic job pulling it off. She made the map and kept the game going through all of the stops on the map until we finally found the present that Swiper had swiped!

It was soooo fun. Sexy Haqon got to play a grumpy, old troll on the bridge over the lake. I got to be Mama Jaguar (which was just a lot of walking.) We topped off the party with presents and cake. Fun Fun!