Loving this weather!

The temps hit the 70s today and we are LOVING it! Tonight we took the boys for a wagon ride, which was quite entertaining. This is pretty much how it went:

• A couple complete jabbering conversation between them, not sure what was said
• One leaning forward, then the other would lean forward, repeat, laugh, repeat, bump heads, ouch, laugh, repeat
• Carter pulling Dylan's hair. He actually pulled some hair out:(
• Carter getting in trouble for pulling Dylan's hair
• Carter unzipping Dylan's jacket, Dylan taking off his jacket, Dylan trying to unzip Dylan's jacket, Keith putting Dylan's jacket back on...laughs by all
• clapping
• Animal sounds, when we ask what sound a duck makes, we get GWAAAK, GGWAAK
• Carter putting his hand in Dylan's mouth, Dylan laughing, Dylan putting Carter's hand back in his mouth, more laughing
• Several attempts to escape
• Lots of high fives and then we returned home
• Two angry boys, not wanting to go inside

Swinging

Both boys enjoy being in the swing, but Carter seems to spend more time in it. So when we were playing outside yesterday, I told him a story about how good of a swinger his daddy was. Keith and I were in the same class and went to the same school in kindergarten and first grade. I had a HUGE crush on him, so I remember this moment like yesterday. One recess, I was so lucky to get a swing next to Keith and I remember him telling me that he could swing so high that he could flip all the ways over the bar! I was impressed and of course totally believed him. So I would try so hard to swing as high as I possibly could, but could never get quite high enough!

Do any of you remember if you and the person next to you swung up and down at exactly the same time it meant you were married? (this could be a total Baxter elementary thing) I would try to swing the same as Keith so we could be "married."

Wordless Wednesday

Carter, loving the outdoors!

SHOES with STRINGS.....

And Mommy and Daddy totally agree with Dylan!

We found these shoes for half off, so we thought we could deal with the shoestrings! We bought them about a month ago and put them on them for the first time this week. I immediately regretted our decision to go with the strings. VELCRO is a beautiful thing!

LOOK HOW BIG THESE SHOES ARE! Size 6. Every time I look at them I think they must be way too big, but they aren't. They will be wearing my size before we know it.

Naps.....

For a long time, we would just lay the boys in their cribs and they would go to sleep for their naps. I enjoyed this as much as possible as I knew it wouldn't last forever! They are still going OK, but not as well as before and we're having a harder time with Carter than Dylan.

But what to do when one is sound asleep and the other is doing everything he can to wake the other one up??? This weekend Dylan was taking a nap and Carter refused, which would have been fine but he kept running back to their room, opening the door and laughing trying to wake up Dylan. REPEAT. REPEAT. REPEAT. He thought it was so fun to run back and try and open the door.

We love our Dadda!

Thursday when I was home with the boys we decided to visit dad at work! Keith has worked at Lockheed Martin for 5 years now and this was the first time I had ever seen his office. It was a tad bit more secure than JT Mega. But overall, it was your typical corporate sea of cubes. Keith has a luxury "window" cube. The window isn't actually in the cube, but across the hallway through his cube opening, but he still thinks it is pretty cool. (I didn't tell him that my office window opens!) One guy told me he had worked there for 24 years and his wife hadn't been there either, so I didn't feel so bad about the 5 years.

I'm not sure if Carter got a turn or not.

The boys sure don't like it when dad leaves. Especially Carter!

My little angels...

The two were playing and decided to lay on the floor like this, I snapped the shot quick because this is how the two hung out for about 9 months!

I don't know, they are really into standing on their heads like this.

Diaper Party!

As a parent I have quickly learned every time your child is in a different room and they are being really quiet, it almost ALWAYS means they are doing something they shouldn't. Tonight I was changing Carter's clothes in the family room and went back to find Dylan in his room tearing through a bag of diapers. The two were having so much fun, I just let them go for it!

Wild Child!

I've got a wild child on my hands! Two actually, but this one seems to be the one to come up with all the good ideas on what to get into or climb up! My mother chuckles at the situation as she said I attempted to walk across the top of my swing set at a young age and was caught climbing fences several times as well.

And of course he got in trouble for climbing up this ladder. I didn't think he would attempt to go much higher than the first bar, but he did and I bet he could make it to the top without a problem, but that is NOT HAPPENING!!!

You can tell right away when he gets an idea of something he is about to do. You can see it in his eyes, they just light up and he gets this crazy look and grin and then you know you might as well get up and start chasing.

Goodbye Highchairs!

We have been struggling so much with the boys eating and throwing food on the floor, we thought the boys might be ready for a change. They also eat at tables at daycare now, so we decided to get rid of the highchairs and get booster seats! I am a little bit sad to put away one of our last "baby" items, but I am A LOT excited about all the extra room in our kitchen.

{Last time eating in our chairs}

We got them the Booster POD Soft Boosters. I wanted something that strapped to the chair and buckled them in and something that had a smooth surfaces with a limited amount of cracks, so it would be easy to clean. Everyone sells these online, but the only place I could find them in-store in the Twin Cities was Babies on Grand in St. Paul.

So one of the reasons I never considered the chairs that clamp to the tables is because I am a little protective of our table. It was one of our first nicer pieces of furniture and I love it. Unfortunately, it is a softer wood and scratches really easily. (I know I have kids, get over it - and I will) I never sign up for those protection plans, but I really wish I did with this one. However, when I bought it, kids stabbing forks into my table did not cross my mind.

So Keith and I were surprised that the biggest, most durable thing we could find to protect it were these rubber placemats with suction cups. And you can see what they thought of them! So I need to look online for something else. And yes, I have thought about a tablecloth or a large towel, but it sounds like a really quick way for a table full of food to end up on the floor.

The boys seem to think sitting at the table is pretty cool. It has not solved the problem of them throwing food on the floor, but now that they are in their big boy seats and we are being much stricter and aren't going to let the food throwing continue.

Making progress on the new fireplace mantel!

All home improvement projects at the Bormann household take three attempts! And we are on round three for the fireplace mantel and are getting close to completion! So what is left? Right now Keith is working on a thin board that goes underneath the mantel, then we are still determining our best option for the top board. Then all that will need to be done is to stain it and mount it onto the bricks.

Keith's parents have many hours of wood staining under their belts and have offered to help stain it when they come visit in two weeks. So we are on a timeline to completion! I'm still not certain what shade of stain I will use, most likely something similar to the rest of our woodwork even though I'm not a big fan of the color of our woodwork. Then I'm thinking about spray painting the doors/gold insert either black or a nickel silver color. I need to look into it a little further, I'm guessing I might need a special type of paint and I don't want to mess it up.

This is our temporary mantel! Like it? We will sell it to you!

The Baby Beginning!

Since having the boys I have turned into a blog junky! My biggest regret with blogging is that I didn’t start sooner! I wish I would have blogged when we lived in New Jersey, we had so many fun experiences, as well as some not so fun experiences that would have been fun to write about. A lot of times when I find a new blog I like to read a quick background about the blog and like to read a little bit about the writer and realized since I didn’t start blogging until after the boys were born that I don’t really have that information about us. So here is the scoop about our journey to becoming parents, as I remember it of course!

{Before my baby shower}

{15 Weeks}
February of 2008, we found out we were pregnant!!! It was a Saturday morning and I took the test by myself. So I made up a reason I was going to Target and came home with a little onesie and gave it to Keith. I think he was like “what is this for”, thinking I bought it hoping to be pregnant.

At 5 ½ weeks I was experiencing some cramping and bleeding and thought we were having a miscarriage. We decided to go to the E.R. just in case and at about 3 AM, I had an ultrasound and the lady said, “well, you are definitely pregnant, but the reason I have been looking at this screen for so long is because there are TWO!” NOT THE NEWS ONE EXPECTS AT 3AM. However, it was still really early and only one heart was beating. So they sent us home telling us not to expect twins as many people will have two early on and experience vanishing twin syndrome. So after a REALLY LONG WEEK, we had another ultrasound and were relieved to see two little heartbeats.

{20 Weeks}

My pregnancy went pretty well for the most part. I didn’t always feel the best, but certainly didn’t have extreme sickness. Since there were two, we got to have 14 ultrasounds, so I really enjoyed seeing the babies often.

We decided to NOT find out what we were having! Tough with twins, but totally worth the wait! However, I will say it did add to the nerves and anticipation the night before they were born. I barely got a wink of sleep that entire week. For a long time I thought A was a girl and B was a boy. Towards the end I had a strong feeling they were both boys. And for the signs, bogus or not, all pointed straight to boys. I carried low, mostly belly, low heart rates and the Chinese calendar predicted boy. All boy signs and BOY was it true.

{29 Weeks}

The hardest part of my pregnancy was going on bed rest. Though many mothers of multiples go on bed rest, this wasn’t something I thought I would experience. I went to my 30 week check up and my cervix had started to dilate about 1 cm. I know bed rest sound glamorous (kinda sounds glamorous about now), but it is NOT!!! I could be up for 4 hours a day, but by up, that meant sitting. I was to lay most of the day. This was pretty tough when all I wanted to do was get the nursery ready and all that nesting stuff and I couldn’t leave my house. I was lucky though because a lot of people go on severe hospital bed rest for much longer periods of time. Keith did finally start letting me go to some places that had motorized carts. The home depot one was awesome with a flashing orange siren. (BTW, those are harder to drive than they look)

{36 Weeks}

Twins are considered full term at 36 weeks, so my doctor said I didn’t have to be on bed rest once I reached that point. So the day I hit 36 weeks I went back to work some and waddled my way all around the twin cities. Honestly, I can believe I didn’t go into labor. I was pretty big by that point, so I got exhausted really easily and could barely sleep. I swear getting off the couch was the hardest thing to do.

{The night before they arrived}

Throughout almost my entire pregnancy the Baby B was breech and Baby A was heads down. My doctor felt with one baby being breech, a c-section was the safest option (since A was heads down, some doctors would attempt to flip the second baby, but my doctor doesn’t think that is a safe practice), so at 38 ½ weeks on October 22, our boys arrived!

{I always remember this moment. It was our first evening. I nursed the boys right after the boys were born and then after that I could barely sit up without getting light-headed, so I didn't really hold them much the first day or even get out of bed. That evening after everyone had left and I was starting to feel a little better, Keith put both in my arms and I got to take my first really good look at my little boys. They were just perfect!}

I did have some hemorrhaging with my c-section and lost a significant amount of blood, so I was pretty wiped out the first few days. If you see pictures a few hours after the boys were born, I was ghost white. I remember feeling awful because I held them at first, but barely had enough energy to sit up the first day or two.

{Dylan left, Carter right}

Dylan Tyler was Baby A, Carter Benjamin was Baby B. It turned out that Carter had been sitting on Dylan’s head the entire time, so the left side of Dylan’s poor little head was pushed in quite a bit. It has improved significantly, but is still a little flatter on the left side. Otherwise, they were great. We were so fortunate and blessed to not have to spend any time in the NICU.

Once we found out we bad boys, it was still a question whether or not they were identical or fraternal twins. It took us a while to get to the bottom of it, but they ended up being a unique type of identical twins. I had two placentas and two sacs, typically a fraternal twin scenario. I had read this book When You’re Expecting Twins, Triplets or Quads, and it had a section talking about this type of twins and it said many doctors will mistakenly say they are fraternal, but in reality about 20% of identical twins have two placentas, two sacs. Many cases you can assume fraternal if they have unique characteristics or different blood types. The boys seemed to have the same features and both had the same blood type. So the only other way to determine it was to have a chromosome test or a DNA test. So we did a DNA test through Affiliated Genetics and it turned out that they were indeed identical. We debated doing the test, but you wouldn’t believe how many times one gets asked this question, so I am glad we did.

{Carter above, Dylan Below}

So there you go, believe it or not, a brief summary of the 9 months before Carter and Dylan arrived!