A fall morning and a grateful heart

Noble was home for school for Thanksgiving break, and so we were graced with a morning of painting, exploring and just being.  Noble also sang the entire morning.  Some songs I recognized, some were straight from his tender little heart.  Feeling truly grateful.

She's girly and fun and we think she's pretty great

London has been planning and preparing for her 8th birthday bash since school let out last summer and she obviously had way too much time on her hands. Eight was obviously a big year and required a big celebration and James and I were more than happy to oblige.  It was a father daughter dance/nerf gun war; and the girl thought through EVERYTHING.

It was an awesome party (largely due to the fact that her doting father meticulously followed her 'plan' and spent a lot of time and energy creating her vision).
So thankful for this precious little girl and the eight years she has immeasurably blessed us.
Happy Birthday London Elizabeth!

Easter 2014

We are so in love

Amazing.  Simply Amazing. How quickly I forgot the precious smells, coos, cuddles and smiles of new babies.  I'm in baby heaven-literally.  And while having two at once is, well, a bit different (especially at night), there are no words to express the joy that Summer and Will have brought to our lives.
Now that they are almost three months old and we are not in the throws of complete exhaustion and chaos, we have somehow stumbled into our new normal. And I love it.
We had a rough start, me having, as my Dr. put it, the worst case of mastitis he'd ever seen-think IV antibiotics for four days-not fun.  And then we had Summer's 10 day hospital stay for a late onset group b strep infection, which was the hardest and most emotionally trying experience of my life thus far.  So a rough start might be putting it mildly.
But now here we are, winter is over (hallelujah!!!), spring is all around us, nights have begun to have somewhat of a rhythm to them, I can form fairly coherent sentences once again and we are all healthy and enjoying our precious blessings from God-all four of them!

Some of my favorite things:

Summer's smiles, that girl loves to 'talk' to me and will stop several times while she's having her bottle to tell me how much she loves me.  At least, I'm pretty sure that's what she's saying.

William's sweet grins.  He knows I'm his mama and he does not like being left alone.  He is also quite the conversationalist and I love his sweet coos.  He has always made the sweetest sighing sounds when he is falling asleep.

The interaction between London, Noble, William and Summer.  They all adore each other, and I love to see the tenderness between them.  They both sing them songs (Noble's words are about how much he loves them and how he will always love them-it's so sweet I'm pretty sure it would bring a grown man to tears) and London loves to help pick out clothes and give them their bottles (and sing songs too, of course).  London and Noble are the best big brother and sister a baby could ask for, and Summer and William naturally adore them.

Seeing James hold, feed, talk and love on his baby girl and boy.  They already think he's the greatest.

My heart is full.

Summer Sophia and William Findley

Welcome to the world precious babies!

We are so, so glad you are here with us!!!

 Born January 23, 2014

Summer Sophia 

9:12 am

4 lbs

17 1/2 in.

William Findley

9:14am

5lbs 5 oz

18 1/2 in.

36 weeks

I realized that I haven't put any updates about the babies on the blog since we found out what we were having (thanks to Fb, it is easy to keep everyone informed of their progress).  But I thought I would put some belly pics and stats on here anyway.

I'm 36 weeks (9 months!), which is fantastic!  After 34 weeks, our next big goal is to make it to 37 weeks, then they will be considered full term! (For twins) Yeah!
I get to go in for weekly sonos to check on their progress and make sure they are growing healthy and strong.  It has been so amazing to see how much they grow from week to week.  We didn't get measurements at this week's appt. (they take those bi-weekly) but at 35 weeks they weighed in at over 10 lbs combined!!!  Can't believe I'm carrying that much baby!  Baby boy was 5lbs 7oz and baby girl was 4lbs 9oz.  She has a little bit of catching up to do. ;)  I would love for them to be each be over  5 1/2 lbs at birth.

This is my baby belly at 7 months. :)

 Baby girl is very low and on my left (baby A) and when she moves it feels more like bubbles and tickles down low, but she can pack quite a punch when she wants to.  Baby boy (baby b) is on the right and higher, and I feel his jabs and rolls with more force.  Now they mainly squirm around as they are quickly running out of room.  At 35 weeks I was measuring 39 weeks, so we will see how much longer they hold on.:)  Getting so very excited to meet and hold them!

Before and After

I have done a terrible job taking pictures of our new home and the changes we have made since we moved in back in August, even though I told myself I would document everything this time around.  I might have been a little over zealous to get things done; that, and I have had 9 months of nesting hormones in full swing.  Oh well, at least things get done around here.:)

I realized I didn't even have a before pic of the outside, but luckily I had a pic from the real estate listing from the year before.  (It's ironic that we looked at this house exactly one year ago, and the owners took it off the market after shortly putting it on and then put it back on the market when we were actually looking for somewhere to live the following summer-chalk it up to God's crazy perfect timing).

Before:

 After:

I'm a sucker for white houses, especially white farm houses.  And even though we are in the middle of suburbia (which after looking at homes out of town, I'm very convinced the suburbs is where are meant to be at this time in our lives) it now gives off some warm country charm.  The front porch doesn't hurt either.:)

Family Fall Pics