If you want to see our babies (in person)

then you should be in Florida June 9-17! That is when we will be there!

Unfortunately it looks like it will just be Mommy and the babes-no Daddy. There is no way we can bring the foster kiddos and we've used up all of our respite time until October so Daddy has to stay home with them. However, because Daddy isn't coming on this trip we might be able to make a trip later in the year with all of us. After October we have respite time again plus Chris will still some vacation time so who knows! Maybe two visits this year.

I decided to make a visit in June because 1. some of my family from Indiana is going to be there at the same time and 2. I found tickets for $99 each way. I couldn't pass it up! It was less than $250 round trip! Heck yessssssssssssssssssssss! Good times good times! There will definitely be some beach action. Hopefully they'll be sitting up on their own by then so I can get some video of them sitting on the beach playing in the sand. Awe, so cute!

I am so excited. I am somewhat nervous flying alone with two 5 month old babies but I'm sure it will be fine. It's a non-stop flight so if I can just get them to sleep for most of the time it'll be OK. Chris' Mom is going to fly back with me and visit for a bit and I am very glad about that!

There isn't much else to report right now. The girls are doing great, growing like weeds. They are starting to smile a lot more and I can't wait until they start laughing. OMG it is going to be awesome!!

Bedtime for me! Good night friends.


P.S. Grandmas should be on the look out for some mail. Pics are on the way as of tomorrow!

New pics - Nekkid Booty Shoot

So, about a month ago I told Aimee I wanted to take some pictures of the babies little booties before they got too big. I finally got through the (we took 1100 pictures!). Here are the winners! Check out our Picasa Web Album for all of them.



Beautiful Sarah


Beautiful Olive


Already BFF


Nekkid baby staring off into distance #1 (Olive)


Nekkid baby staring off into distance #2 (Sarah)


Sissie Love


Cute baby in a basket (Olivia)


Another cute baby in a basket (Sarah)

Gross.

OMG! I just went to give Olivia a kiss and she spit up right into my mouth! DISGUSTING!

Speaking of spit up poor Sarah is spitting up so so much. I actually switched her formula to soy wondering if maybe it's lactose intolerance or something. Hopefully it will get better. She's growing fine and all, I think I just need to find the right formula for her tummy.

Oh my word!

My baby girls are huge!

Sarah weighed in at 9.1 lbs and is 21 1/4 inches long.
Olivia weighed in at 9.8lbs and is 22 1/4 inches long.

It was a sad doctor's visit though--they both had to get 4 shots!!
Their little faces were so sad, but surprisingly they recovered from it rather well.
Just a few seconds after it was over they both stopped crying.
Also, Sarah has a rather nasty diaper rash and he gave me a prescription for a special diaper rash cream. The rash is like a yeast, which is rather common for babies he said. Sarah's head is not shaped correctly either. It's like she has a dent on one side, as if she only sleeps on that side of her head. It's making her ears uneven too. So we have to make her lay on the other side of her head as much as possible to even it out. Her head can still take a different shape so it's not a huge deal.

I asked about which milestones they should be hitting. Right now just smiling and laughing. They rarely smile and they've never laughed. He said though that since they were preemies they'll be somewhat delayed. Normally by 2 months babies have laughed but he said 3 months would be normal for our girls. In general their milestones will probably be about a month delayed because they were a month early. Sarah was really cute though, as soon as the doc came in and she saw him, she just let on this huge smile at him. It was so cute, that's really the first time that's happened. Neither of them have smiled at me :-(

Well that is all I've got for now!

LIfe.

Well, things have been going really well lately. The babies are just growing and growing right before my eyes! This week we have a doctors appointment, their two month check up!!!! I can't believe they are two months old now. It seems like it's been so much longer than that but at the same time it feels like yesterday that they were born!
They are both getting more and more beautiful as time goes on. I have to say Sarah especially. She's got these amazing eye lashes now and her eyes are such a beautiful deep blue. They've officially grown into the size 1 diapers. I have a few newborn size in my purse and they barely fit little Olivia. It made her belly look so big. lol. I was like OH! We tried a different church today, one near our house. Chris had gone a few times and this morning the babies and I finally got to go. Everyone swarmed us at the end and for some reason everyone thinks we have a boy and a girl. People have commented that several times. I don't know if it's how they are dressed, or their car seats (they are like sage green and yellow jungle themed because I was trying to be neutral). I try to dress them girly, I mean today they were all girly. Oh well.

Today Chris built a swing set for our older girls. We got it on Craigslist but he had to fix it up a bit and it turned out very well. They played out there until it got dark and they were way hungry at dinner time. We've got to paint it. We figure it will help us to keep the back yard cleaned up if the girls are going to be playing out there all the time.

Speaking of painting, I bought some wooden letters that spell out Sarah and Olivia's names and painted them. I am going to hang them on the wall over the crib. They turned out so cute, I want to hang them up tomorrow and I will have to post a picture.

Well, I guess that is all I've got. I'll post after we go to the doctor and let you know their weights/lengths. I am excited to see how much weight they've gained in the last month. I bet Olivia's at least 8lbs now, maybe even 9.

Oh, one last thing. This Tuesday will be the first time we leave them with a babysitter. We are going to see Rent on broadway. We are having a family from church watch them for us--Rachel who was in my youth group but is home from college this week on spring break and her parents will help her too I am sure. Surprisingly I am not really that upset about it. I trust them completely. Although I am sure I'll end up calling to see how they are doing and I know I will miss them terribly. I'm not at all worried though.

Lets give this a little try.

I am trying to upload a video right now. Let's see if it will work. It's my first try, and Sarah's debut.

Flailing Arms.

The subject line is referring to Olivia. I'll tell you that girl can get her arms out of any swaddle, no matter how tight! It order for her to eat or sleep she has got to be swaddled, otherwise her arms are flailing all around, swatting at...well I don't know what she's trying to swat at, but her arms are always moving. She'll keep herself awake moving her arms all about too. Unless she's laying on your chest, that girl can't sleep w/o the swaddle. I've got to get some video of it and post it on here because it's actually quite funny. Annoying at times, but funny haha.

Tonight her arms were especially active. She was so tired, but she wouldn't let herself get to sleep. Chris swaddled her up so tight, but she some how got her arms out. So I decided to go ahead and give her a bath, which not only did she need desperately, but it usually soothes her and helps her to sleep.
That poor girl did not like that idea one bit. She cried through the entire bath. Normally she can at least tolerate bath time but tonight it was really quite sad actually. She had the saddest little face, and it wasn't the screaming cry of anger it was more of a sad cry. It's like she was telling me she just wanted to sleep! So I rushed through the bath, lotioned her up, put on her jammies, brushed her hair and finally swaddled her the best I could. I laid her down in her usual bed, and she was out like a light. Of course she woke up 30 minutes later wanting to eat. haha. I think she fell asleep eating though. I felt so sad for her.

Meanwhile Sarah was sleeping quite soundly on the couch all swaddled up herself. They both love being swaddled, and if you are holding them and giving them a good butt pat they are in heaven!

Big outting!

Well last night was the first big outting for the babies. We went to a wedding, where there were a lot of people! Most of them were people we knew, who hadn't yet met the babies. So there was lots of 'can we hold one?' I actually got to eat dinner and dessert because everyone was so eager to hold them!

It was weird though, because I'm not used to other people holding them. Really only my closest friends and just a few people from church have held them, and I was always right there the entire time someone else had them. At the wedding though, Olivia was being held by someone (who I trusted of course) at another table right next to us. And some of the people kind of walked around with them, and one of those people actually handed Sarah off to someone else (with out asking I might add--rude) who I didn't even know! At that point I promptly got up and took her back. It didn't occur to me that so many people from church would be there, and would want to hold them. I just hadn't prepared myself at all for that. I don't mind people holding them, I'm just still an over protective first time mom. So when they weren't right at my table or with someone who I am really close to I got really uneasy. I really didn't want it to become a pass the baby(ies) kind of thing.

It was a very fun wedding though. The babies didn't seem to mind the loud music, and I don't think they minded being held by other people either. They weren't really fussy at all until we started to leave. They were so adorable too! I had them wear these little dresses my Mom bought them. They were red velvet on the top with like a lacy skirt with flowers embroidered on it, and silk/polyester bloomers. It was adorable! We weren't able to get pictures just because it was pretty hectic but we'll get pics of them in those dresses next time. They are too cute not to capture in a photo. I also had little head bands on them. I love dressing them up! It's just too bad they spit up on EVERYTHING. So they stay cute for about 10 minutes if I'm lucky and then it gets spit up on. Sarah is especially spit up-py. I call her the spit up queen. She kind of has projectile spit up even. One time she spit up and it completely missed her and it ended up all over me! I was like...wow. That is impressive.
Anyway--it was a fun night. There was another baby there that was 4 weeks old and she was much bigger than Sarah and Olivia. I have to say though, I see some babies and I thank God I didn't have to deliver such big heads! I am very thankful to have had small babies. Yet another perk of having twins--lower birth weights. haha.

Well, I better get to sleep. Both babes are FINALLY asleep so I better follow suite.
Mommy-sham out.

YAY!

We FINALLY got our pictures in today! I already have all the announcements addressed and in the mail!! I am so excited about them going out. I only had 12 though, so I sent them of course to all the grandparents and great grandparents and then just other people who I thought would really like to see them: aunts, uncles, etc.
I also organized all of the other photos and figured out which ones to send to my Mom and Chris' mom. So as soon as I get some envelopes that will fit the pics I will send those out too! They are seriously adorable pics.

Note: If anyone would like copies, send me an email at abwickersham@gmail.com or leave a comment with your email, and I will send them via email and you can print them out.

In other news, I am really bummed out about the budget cuts the state has had to make here in Arizona. As you probably know we are foster parents and the budget cuts have a definite effect on our pay. They have cut the daily allowance by 20% which figures to about $300 a month less for us. Not only that but they've cut all the 'extra' stuff too, such as vacation allowance and summer camp allowances. So that means that if we want to go anywhere for vacation, say Florida, we would have to pay for them to go with us (airfare/hotel/etc). Also, we've used up all of hours for respite this year. Our agency allows for about a weeks worth of respite (the kids can stay with another family while we are out of town or in the hospital as was our case with the babies). We've used up all that time from when we had the babies, so if we want to go out of town and leave the girls we'd have to pay for the respite care ($1/hr/kid). All of this to say, that it looks like we won't be making any trips to Florida any time soon. We had hoped to make a trip in June when some of my family would be there but because of all of the budget cuts it doesn't look like it will happen. Of course I could always just try to make the trip by myself with the babies but honestly I am a bit nervous about that!

Honestly this is just another...nudge towards not doing foster care anymore. Chris loves it and doesn't want to stop, but I am not loving it so much. Don't get me wrong, I really care about the girls we have now, but 4 kids is really a lot. There are lots of appointments and different issues that come with foster care and handling all that with two babies is proving quite difficult. One of our girls has to have surgery on both of her ears in April, plus they have some serious dental issues that have to be dealt with. I am very conflicted about the whole thing.

Anyway, the babies are doing really well. It's unbelievable how big they are getting right before my eyes! Next week they will be 8 weeks old, that's about two months! I just can't even believe it. They are finally starting to smile a lot more, and they are getting so strong. They like to "stand" on their feet while we hold their bodies, they are both very curious, and they are both really loving the swing-especially Olivia. They are eating so so much, obviously going through a growth spurt right now. It seems like as soon as they finish one bottle they want another. Just always hungry. I've gotten a lot of comments about their eye color too. Both have deep blue eyes, and I know the color can change any time until about 6 months, but every Mom who has looked at their eyes says they don't think the color will change. Every one of them has said it's because of how clear and deep the blue is, as opposed to like bluish gray or a cloudy looking blue. So, we might have blue eyed girls! Chris and I both thought they'd end up with green eyes since we both have green. However, I knew they could be any color because I have one brother with blue eyes blond hair, another with brown eyes black hair, and then I have green eyes brown hair. So who knows?! They'll be beautiful no matter what, I'm just so curious to see how it will turn out. I wonder too if their eye/hair color will be the same. Sarah already has a darker complexion than Olivia does, so I'm just curious if there will be a difference in their hair/eyes. OH! They are also starting to coo and 'talk' so much now! Before it was just grunts and crying but now they make baby noises! Sarah especially! It is just adorable. I read that it's good to make noises back at them and talk to them lots and lots. Speaking of talking, I've decided to start doing the baby sign language with them. The earlier the better I always say. If we start now they will be able to communicate with us so early, even before they are able to speak. So I am excited about that.

Well I better get to bed. Good night all!

Muy Bonita!

Seriously, my children are beautiful! And I don't think that only because they are MY children. Obviously there is a bias, however I truly do think they are beautiful girls. Olivia has been a beauty from the beginning, and so has Sarah, but Sarah was just so little and fragile looking too. As she gets older and bigger she gets more beautiful. Everyday Chris and I just stare at her and comment on how beautiful she is getting. I wonder what they'll look like when they get older. I hope the good looks stick haha.

You know, I am loving them as babies, but part of me can't wait for them to get older. I am so curious about what they'll be like. I am really excited to hear their little voices. I wonder what their hair will be like--curly or straight or fro (like me). I wonder what color their eyes will be, and if they'll have straight teeth. I wonder if they'll be kind of chubby like I was, or way skinny like Chris. I wonder if they'll be prone to getting sick or not. I wonder about their temperment, and if they'll be easy to potty train. I just can't wait to get to know them really. It's such an exciting time.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what kind of mother I want to be. Obviously I've had a lot of time to think about this and it's been on my mind since the second I found out I was pregnant. Also, we've been foster parents for about 2 years now so I know what kind of mother I've been to those kids. However, it is COMPLETELY different when it's your own biological, raising them since they were born, children. For my own children, I want to be a strict mother but not too strict. I don't want that to be my like dominant attitude toward them. I want to have well behaved children, who know just by a look that I give them they had better behave. At the same time i don't want them to be scared of me. I want them to feel comfortable talking to me about things, even if those things are mistakes they've made. I don't want them to be afraid to tell me things because they don't want to get in trouble--I'm talking like serious stuff here not like sneaking candy or whatever. I'm kind of thinking forward to when they are teenagers. I just want to have a good relationship with them, that involves trust and openness and grace. I want them to feel like they need to behave and be good girls but at the same time if they've made a mistake I want them to feel like they can come to me about it. I want to make sure I accept them for exactly who they are and I want to parent each child they way that particular child needs to be parented. What I mean by that is that there are some children who need lots of discipline and they need a lot of guidance and sometimes even a lot of control. There are other children who don't need that though, they need support and trust and to be given the opportunity to kind of make their own mistakes--more of a free spirited I am not going to ground you but I'm really disappointed in you kind of approach. I think it's important to get to know your kids and what works best for each child. This is especially true with twins. Although, it's hard to do that because of the whole fairness factor and having the same rules for both children is important too. So, there is a fine line to be found.
I will tell you what though, I will not have bratty children. I also won't be the family in the restaurant with screaming kids, or have the kids who are running around everywhere disturbing everyone. Mine will not talk back, and they will be respectful. I really can't stand seeing kids misbehave and their parents just ignore it as if it's OK for a child to behave badly or rudely. It's probably one of my biggest pet peeves. You may laugh at me and think 'you just wait' but I've have had children in my home for the last two years--and they've all be well behaved while they lived with me. It's about consistency and the kids having clear expectations of consequences. Consistency goes a long way!
My worry about the fact that they are my biological kids as opposed to foster, is that I am so in love with them I'm afraid they'll just have me wrapped around their little finger. I don't want to say no to them or allow them to be sad. Oh well, we will see. I think the fact that I am so conscious about it will help me a lot.

Well this blog got a lot deeper than expected. haha.
I need to take a nap while my babies are sleeping so I'm out.

Did I mention

how in love I am?

Seriously, I can't even believe how much I love my baby girls. I can't get enough of them. I love holding them, and hugging them, and kissing them.

I kiss them constantly. Seriously, if I am holding them, I am kissin' and lovin' on them. I am so enamored with them.
Who knew I could love two people this much? I feel like this whole other part of my heart and soul has been opened up and I've finally found myself. I've finally let myself open up and love as much as I possibly can. In a way I feel so free. Nothing else matters. My world is Olivia Mae and Sarah Rose.

I feel like I am just getting a tiny glimpse of how much our Lord loves us. And for the love I have for my babes to be only a fraction of how God loves us--I can't even fathom that love. It has really brought my relationship with the Lord to new level. It's like, "Oh! This is how you feel, times ten thousand!" I'm so thankful, and my heart has opened up so much. It's just unreal.


Earlier today, I was thinking about my previous foster daughters Mercedes and Mariah. We really wanted to adopt them and I was absolutely in love with them, especially Mariah because she was only 1 years old when we got her and we had them for a year. When they moved our hearts were broken. It was the hardest thing we'd ever experienced I think. I was thinking about the love I feel/felt for them compared to the love I feel for my own biological daughters. I can't say it was exactly the same, just because I didn't give birth to them and there is a connection that comes with that experience that can't be matched. However, the degree to which I was in love with those girls is very comparable to how I feel for my own daughters. It's really hard to put into words, but I know the way I felt for them was very similar to the way I feel for my own girls. I still miss them so much, and if we had the opportunity I would still want to adopt them even though it's been 7 months since they've moved. For a short time I felt like I had my own daughters and I treated them as if they were my biological children.
I suppose it just wasn't in the cards for us to adopt them, which is OK. I am thankful to have had the opportunity to experience that love. I am also thankful that I was able to concentrate on having my own daughters in the midst of losing Mercedes and Mariah. They are doing well, and they are with good people thankfully.

Anyways, all that to say that God is so so good. This love is amazing, and I am SO SO SO thankful for my baby girls.
Praise God!