WE'RE CHAMPS!!!!

Oh yeah!!! Princeton was UN-DE-FEA-TED all season! my high school won state. What a great game it was. Double overtime, and we pulled through! This is history for our town. Go tigers! Kali...I can't imagine what it was like to actually be there! you'll have to fill me in, I just listened to it on the way back from nashville. :) I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

A few pictures...

I really wanted to post some pictures of the boys because ppl ask me for them all the time. Today, Grant is sick. I got home from work at 2 a.m. to a crying, sneezy, coughing, gagging baby boy who needed his mama. So... we snuggled up in bed for a while and then he was quite content. Sometimes you just need your mama! :) I really wish he felt better, I bought some delsym for the cough and if he spikes a temp (it's already 99.9) then we're off to see my best buddy Dr. Ruff tomorow, lol! Gabriel is very happy now. I'm thinking that maybe its not a milk allergy. I stopped using fabric softner .Between that and the steroid ointment for his face, he's doing much better. He is going to have probs with sensitive skin though, we drove 10 minutes to walmart in washington today and his lil face was beet red from the sun. geez! Anyway, he's back to his happy go lucky self now, and that makes me happy. He's getting very interested in the dogs now. He started petting them as they walk by. It's the cutest thing. When he locks his sight on something, he is very focused, I think one of these days he will break his neck trying to follow me across the room. Ohh, and he's also discovered the pleasure of kicking his brother in the head. But this discovery was made after Grant scratched him across the face in anticipation of a bottle. The first of many battle wounds I'm afraid. Please pray for Grant, because he sounds horrible.

Also, prayers for Erica, hoping that she recovers soon so she can be at home with her beautiful baby girl.

explanations, rambles and sorting things out

There is a very special little boy that has been on my mind lately. Well actually, he never left my thoughts. He is always there in everything I do, making me think, "What if you were still here?" "What would you think about your cousins?" "How much fun would it be to see you all three together laughing and cooing at each other?" "I wish that your cousins could meet you."

Mr. Mason Wyatt Lance, born on November 6th, 2008. My nephew, my sister in law and brother's first son, my boys' cousin, my neice's brother and my parents 3rd grandson. He is and always will hold a very special place in my heart. After all, he's my first nephew. He is now with Jesus and making all of heaven laugh, and charming them with his smile and beautiful face.

It was a bittersweet November for my family. A storm of emotions that is very hard to deal with. It's strange how life can change so rapidly from what we expect it to be, from what we have planned, Gods plans are sometimes so different. My boys were born on November 1st and it was the best day of my life. They changed my life instantly, and I thanked God for them and all he had given me in the last year. I thought, this is it, a new start for a new life, a happier life. THANK YOU GOD! I was overwhelmed with joy. After months of anticipation and anxiety, God proved to me that I need to stop worrying and trust in Him all the time, without looking back. We went home from the hospital on November 3rd and were getting settled in. I was in the new mom scared to death somthing was going to go wrong, b/c too much went right phase. It was a little overwhelming, but nothing I couldn't handle. The sleep deprivation was starting to set in.

On November 5th, Matt got a call from my mom. My sister in law, who had gone through her whole pregnancy with me was due to have a little boy on December 21st. She hadn't felt the baby move a while, and nothing she did seemed to get him active. Mason had been a very active baby until this point. He was just like big sis Crystal and liked to breakdance in mommy's belly. He had us all laughing before he was even introduced into this world. Knowing something wasn't quite right, Kali did the right thing and headed to the hospital. She did everything she could've to help her little boy, but he was already gone. Mason had no heart beat. I got the call at about 5 pm or so I believe. My heart skipped a beat, then pounded uncontrollably, I stopped breathing and forgot to start for several seconds. There has to be something they are missing, its not fair, we have to be able to make this go away, this shouldn't happen to babies so it can't be true. It was true however. My thoughts went immediately to my brother and sister in law and their little girl. This CANT happen to them. they dont deserve this. I HAVE to change it. They wanted this little boy more than anything. He was their son. Everything was planned.

Kali was induced and delivered Mason on November 6th. He was gorgeous just like his big sister and had a head full of black hair from what I hear. This is the part that is difficult for me to deal with. You see, I didn't go to the hospital to see Mason. I have so much guilt in my heart for that. At the time I don't know that I could have dealt with seeing him and knowing that I would never be able to see or hold him again after that time. There was so much that played into it. First, my boys were only 5 days old and I was scared to death that I was going to lose them. Second, it was hard to leave the house with two 5 day old babies, especially if we were going to be gone for more than 1 hour due to feeding, etc. Third, It would be horrible of me to take them in to the hospital when my brother and kali had just lost their little boy, that would be selfish of me to put them through that. Every time I looked at my precious babies I thought "how could God take something so precious that didn't even have a chance." The only thing that brought me comfort at that time is that I know he didn't have any pain and instantly went to heaven. There were two knots in his cord and he also had nuchals. Thank God that my sweet little nephew that we had waited for so long for didn't feel any pain, because he did nothing to deserve that.

Hind sight is 20/20. now I think, that was my nephew and I didnt even get to hold him. maybe Jeremy and Kali needed me there for support, that was selfish of me. Crystal would've loved to show off her baby brother Mason to me. I really screwed up. So what if it was hard to get out with two babies, I should've sucked it up and dealt w/ it. Now I find comfort that he is up there entertaining heaven and we are awaiting our time to meet him.

Christmas was a sad one for me. I thought of him every minute. I was devastated that there were only 3 stockings hanging instead of 4. We had picked out matching oshkosh outfits for all three boys during our pregnancies together and now only two would be worn. There were only 3 kids to sit on santa's lap instead of 4. Our whole pregnancies we had thought, Christmas is going to be great, it just didnt turn out how we'd expected. I have never felt the presence of anyone so strongly as that day though. It's almost as if Mason knew how important this Christmas was going to be to us and somehow was there with us. I could just feel him. It was so comforting to know he was there with us.

My sister in law and brother are so strong. I could never in a million years be as strong as they are. The strength of my neice also catches me off gaurd. Just the other day she was coloring and drew a picture of her mommy, daddy and herself and showed it to her mom. Then she said "wait a minute" and she took her masterpeice back and continued drawing. She then proudly held up her finished piece of work and it brought us to tears. She drew her baby brother mason in her daddys arms. For a 3 year old this amazed me. She is such a blessing to us and helps us to simplify things and to realize that he is still here with us. We can talk to him anytime we want, through prayer.

Still healing, it is hard for us to watch the twins grow up without having known mason the way that we all did. but still yet, we know that we will all see him again some day and that gives us comfort.

Please NO MORE ALLERGIES!

For those of you that have heard me talk about my boys alot, you know that Grant has always been fussy and Gabriel has always been laid back and happy-go-lucky. For those of you who haven't heard, Grant has a milk allergy. When I was nursing him he basically would scream in pain anytime he was awake. Every once in a while he would show me a little smile, but in the same breath he would be crying again. I felt helpless and we finally fixed him up with a hypoallergenic formula...(that's 26 bucks a can.) Now he's a new baby. He wakes up happy, smiling and "talking." He still fights sleep like a mad man but I can deal with that. As long as he's not hurting and is happy.

Well, now that he's better I'm wondering if Gabriel has a milk allergy as well.He doesn't scream constantly like Grant was, but he NEVER cried before; even when he was hungry. Now he has episodes where I've done everything I can to make him happy and he still screams bloody murder. That along with my sweet baby looking at me like "mommy help me" is enough to break my heart. You can almost look in his eyes and see that the sparkle is gone from them. He use to be so excited over the smallest things. Now he just looks sad all the time. The crying along with a rash is now making me wonder. hmmmm....could it be? or am I overexagerating? I have read that sometimes milk allergies manifest themselves as excema in babies. The poor kiddo has had a rash on his scalp that, if I didnt know better, would look like cradle cap. But it has big red splotches under it with very defined lines. This has been going on for about two months, and I have been treating it as if it were cradle cap. I have washed it with Selson Blue for the last week or so, but it's not helping in the least. Now the "rash" has spread to his face, shoulder, chest, and today his elbow and knee. GREAT! just what we need is another baby hurting from milk allergy. Not to mention that what he would need is 26 bucks a can. That would be a whopping 350 bucks a month in formula for both of them. If that's what they need, I will be more than happy to get it to help them, but ouch!!! I hope I'm wrong. It's just weird. This looks a lot like excema to me, it looks painful. Also my dad and Matt both had milk Allergies as babies so it wouldn't surprise me. I made an appt. with dr. bies tomorrow and hopefully we can figure something out. I hope I don't have to stop nursing him. It broke my heart to stop nursing Grant, and I don't want stop with Gabe yet either. I want my happy little guy back, though. I feel so bad for him.

Things are getting Messy

So with two four month old boys around, that's pretty much all I think about. Sorry for the endless posts about the boys, but that's where my mind is and that's really all I have to blog about. They are the most excitement I have had and will ever have :) At their 4 month appt. Dr Bies started Grant and Gabriel on baby food.

I'm sitting there with one baby on my lap and the other sitting in the boppy next to us, trying to feed them green beans on the couch. Well, apparently my hand doesn't move fast enough for two babies at once. Between the crying for more and the realization that people food doesn't come as fast as milk, they both were sticking their fists in their hungry little mouths and then flailing there arms around. They were getting green beans everywhere. I was feeling a little frazzled until I stepped out of the zone I was in and looked at the bigger picture. I often do this to keep my sanity, and think "only with twins." It finally struck me as somewhat hilarious how I was so frazzled and how fast my arm must have been moving a thousand miles an hour with that spoon. Gabriel looked like a slime ball by the time we were done. it was all over his pants, his new bass pro onesie and his face, his hands, the boppy, (luckily not on the couch) EVERYWHERE else. Grant was the cleanest of all three of us. Somehow, everything he had gotten on his hands ended up on my shirt. At this point I thought "I can't get any dirtier than I am right now," so I went ahead and nursed Gabriel while I fed Grant his bottle. I burped Grant and he went to sleep after some reluctance. Me and Gabriel had some cleaning to do. I was getting ready to change his clothes and realized I forgot to burp him. NOTE TO SELF:ALWAYS use a burp cloth when your baby has reflux. I ended up soaked with a guacomole looking substance that smelled horrid. I was like, "okay, I guess I can get dirtier." So I changed him and got the green beans out of crevices I didn't even know he had and got him to sleep and I had probably the best shower I've had since I had them. AHHH...sooooo much better.