The Luckiest No Matter What!

All readers of this post should get their mind out of the gutter....  What did you expect to read about here?!?! Just kidding! I'm sure you are reading this post expecting to hear about medicines and shots and appointments and the discovery that through all that, we got pregnant with baby number three, but this time, our story isn't like that... Friday August 15th, 2014: It was a fairly typical Friday night for Josh and I.  We had gotten the boys off to bed and were getting ready for bed ourselves trying to decide whether to watch an hour-long show on Netflix like Orange is the New Black or to stick with something quicker like How I Met Your Mother .  Exciting life we lead,  I know. Josh and I were signed up to run in a 5k/10k the following day for the St. Casimir Corn Roast.  The boys went down to bed late and terribly so we were discussing if we would ever wake them up in order to get us both to the race on time.  The verdict was t...

It's summer now.  Mostly this brings the gift of extra time and relaxation for me and a ton of play time for me to have with the boys!  WOO!!   However, this season also brings a big decision for Josh and I, which is talking seriously about baby #3... This feels early to both Josh and I because the boys just turned one about a month ago, but if we're going to need to go down the whole fertility route again, summer is the perfect time to get that started.  I know I'm part-time now and don't work as often, but in a way that makes all the appointments that are necessary with Ann Arbor even more difficult.  If/when I have to go there on a Thursday or a Friday, I will feel terrible thinking about having to take time off away from my sixth graders when I already get so little time with them already.  In the summer, I just plain have more time.  Often, Ann Arbor needed to see me every other day; it's a big time commitment this 'trying-to-get-pregnant-w...

I sit here embarrassed writing this.... It's almost Halloween and I haven't blogged since July?!?!? I'm not surprised to be in this predicament... once school started... forget about it.  Looking at my lack of blogging in a positive way, I was too busy experiencing life rather than writing about it over these last few months.  That's what I'll say to make myself feel better :)  Anyway, here are some highlights (and a couple of cute pictures) from our magnificent summer. At the end of May, as Josh and I celebrated 10 years of dating, he got me a sweet new professional camera.  This started my summer too of experimenting with being a better photographer.  JUNE: June wrapped up my first year as a part-time teacher.  I know that my paycheck is smaller and I know my actual face time at school is less, but it sure does feel like I'm still doing the same amount of work. I was moving classrooms for the 88th time and Katie and I were also asked to teach...

My boys just turned 14 months... As I was sitting and playing with them the other day, I had a revelation: my boys are baby teenagers !  They are in their teen months !  I started researching if there might be any parallels between babies in their teen months and teens in their teen years and I realized I was on to something... According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry ( Here's the link ), below are some feelings and behaviors common to teenagers (especially early ones from 13-16 years).  I have put evidence as to how Nolan and Judah fit with many of these.  Struggle with a sense of identity -->   I can see my boys trying to figure out who they are at this time in their life.  They are experimenting with how to get attention, how to get their needs heard and met, how to communicate what they want, and finding things that they like to play with, read, and eat.  Yes, Nolan and Judah were born on the same...

It's been two months since Nolan and Judah's first birthday party and I am just now posting about it... I think about blogging often, knowing how good and proud it makes me feel to stay updated on what's happening, but experiencing life with Nolan and Judah gets in the way; I guess that's as good an excuse as any. Anyways...  A few days after the boys' first birthday, we had our family over for a little party.  Josh and I wanted to keep it simple and small, but I still found myself stressing over every little details trying to make it perfect.  I poured over theme ideas and what gifts we would buy them, what the invitation would look like, and where to get the cake from.  AH!  I can't even have our families over without stressing. When looking for theme ideas, I wanted it to be special to our family.  I thought about our favorite things we do together and that led me to think about books.  My boys love books and reading has been a part of our sle...

Okay, it's been a year... I. CAN'T. BELIEVE. IT.  Things We Learned About Nolan: Nolan's biggest accomplishment was that he learned to WALK!  The first time he took steps he took two to grab onto the couch chase lounger and he also took two to get to me.  There is nothing like a proud baby, with a smile on his face, walking towards you to come into your arms.  Love, love, LOVE!  Nolan continues to tinker... with everything.  He gets this concentration face thing and don't even THINK about taking him away from whatever he thinks he needs to accomplish.  I also lovingly refer to Nolan as my terrible two-year-old trapped in a one-year olds body.  He has started to have little temper tantrums; not a good luck for him :)  If something gets taken away from him, he will want to throw his body down on the ground and role around while screaming.  Thankfully, they don't last and it doesn't take much to stimulate him again, but I'm...

Now that Nolan and Judah's first birthday is here, I can't help but reflect a lot on how incredible and life-changing these last twelve months have been for me (and for Josh).  While I know there will be enough gushiness in other blogs I will write, I decided to give a nod to the not-so-glamorous take-a-ways I've had throughout this last year.  I have leaned A LOT A LOT A LOT .  Here are the twelve most practical things I learned during Nolan and Judah's first year (one for each month): MONTH ONE: Breast feeding is NO joke... it is difficult and time consuming and not without it's struggles and set backs.  We were not naturals at breastfeeding and had to work at it a LOT before we got it right.  With that being said, I am SO grateful I stuck with it! MONTH TWO: Smiles from babies can cure just about anything, including, but not limited to: sleep deprivation, witching hour, having awake babies in the middle of the night when they should be sleeping, etc....

While on vacation, Josh and I were out in public a lot more than we typically are at home.  Part of our goals on this vacation was to try and take more risks and also be outside as MUCH as possible to take advantage of actually being somewhere with nice weather after the winder we had endured.  While out and about, we were constantly being approached by people.  We have become accustomed to this (see blog about us being freak shows from several months ago), but there was something a bit different in Florida.  At home, people always stare, sometimes whisper, and occasionally come up to us asking if the boys are twins.  In Florida, though, people were coming up to us wanting to talk all about the twins in their own life.  One example was an elderly couple who came up to us at a restaurant while we were eating dinner to tell us that their own twin boys were turning SIXTY-ONE this year.  In addition to being approached by more twin families, we sa...

Since I have already blogged about how difficult the traveling aspect of our trip was, no on to the great stuff: the actual vacation part of our trip!  St. Augustine, Florida was a perfect spring break destination.  It had beauty, history, absolutely perfect weather, and plenty of ways for us to spend as much time outside as possible.  Here is a little play-by-play of our time there... Thursday April 10th: Our first real day in St. Augustine started with a morning walk to the ocean.  At 8am, as we walked down the fishing pier, we quickly noticed the that beach was basically deserted, which was awesome!  St. Augustine has beautiful white sand beaches.  After that, we unpacked and got our condo to be more baby friendly.  We moved a big chair into a bedroom so we could have our story time before naps and bed, hid fake trees and books, put glass items and safety hazards up high and completely out of reach, and put plug protectors on all the ou...

Between Wednesday April 9th and Tuesday April 15th, Josh and I took Nolan and Judah on our first official big family vacation.  We have been up north, visited friends, and went to my parents' cottage, but this would encompass our first plane ride together as a family and we were gone for longer than we've ever been away from home.  In order to fully help my readers out there comprehend what the vacation was really like, it was imperative that I split up the actual vacation part from the traveling since they could have not been more different... ON THE WAY THERE Our traveling starting Tuesday when we would drive to the Detroit Airport and fly to Jacksonville, Florida and then drive a little less than an hour to St. Augustine.  We left relatively on time (it is completely different trying to get a family of four dressed, fed, packed, and buckled in to leave than it was when it was just Josh and I) and got to USA Park, the parking lot we always use when we fly out...