Merry Christmas, from the Littles

(yes we had 2 Christmas cards this year, I was a cheapo and got the first ones for free during a black friday sale, but needed some more later haha) Either way, Merry Christmas!

Christmas Adorable-ness

Wow, Christmas outfits for little girls are too much to handle. Poor Caden got the shaft this Holiday...they dont make many cute outfits for little boys! I will be better prepared next year, little buddy.

However, a few Sunday's ago, Jenna Girl busted out her first Christmas dress....the most precious little gingerbread outfit ever! So of course I had to snap, snap, snap some pictures of her in it.

"Hello," says Caden. "I dont need a cute outfit to be adorable...here ya go." ahhhh!!! love it.

The twins' favorite activity right now, looking out the window and bouncing around on the couch. (It actually started as Therapy for Caden to work on his core muscles, but has turned into fun times!)

Doing some Yoga in her Sunday's finest...

"Santa Fail"

......to quote my husband. This best describes our experience visiting Santa this year. Last year was fun, peaceful, adorably precious...

and this year...well, a picture is worth a thousand words...

We heart the Hudgins

Some of our FAVORITE people on earth are the Hudgins. We have such a fun, unique relationship with them, they can't help but be part of our family. If you rewind many years ago, Cindy was my sister's kindergarten teacher. Then Mike and Cindy were my basketball coaches all 4 years of high school. Then Cullen and Cursten were born and were like a little niece and nephew hanging out with us on basketball trips and playing games with them on the travel bus. Then Mike and Ryan coached basketball together. Then we started our annual New York Trip with the Hudgins a few years ago. All that to say, we love them dearly and consider them an Aunt, Uncle and cousins to the twins. They live in Virginia so we have to make time to see each other, but we always treasure that time and have enjoyed sharing the twins with them!

They came down to visit us in September for a quick weekend and then came right back down to their birthday party in October. We love them so much for making the long trip down!

Culen and Caden reading some serious, philosophical reading material...

This little leopard coat was Cursten's! We have kept it all these years and the timing/seasons worked out perfectly for my little Jenna to wear it. So special!



We love you Mike, Cindy, Cullen and Cursten!

So Thankful...

I AM going to get caught up on this blog. I am, I am, I am.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday with our family and friends. My mom and I worked on some adorable little Thanksgiving day outfits for the twins. They were sooo cute! I'm loving the coordinating iron-ons I can find on etsy for boy/girl twins. They are so cheap to make and still so cute!

We had a busy day of both sides of the family as usual...combine that with non-napping twins and we were worn out by the end of the day! We were very excited to spend time with Uncle Jason and Aunt Sarah and our nieces and nephew. This was the last time they would make the trip up to NC before the newest twin additions arrive! Yes! Jenna and Caden are going to have boy/girl twin cousins...craziest thing in the world! It had already been a long day by the time we got to the Little's stop. I'm so mad we didn't get the camera out of the car so I didn't get one picture :( boo hooo. We had a great time with family and reminiscing on all of our blessings this past year.

Yummy, Pinteresting treats made by Aunt Robin...

My mom has this adorable picture of Caden on her mantle...Papa T has sabatoged it. This picture is for the Hares, Pearsons, Laneys and any other state fans out there...I can't believe you could deface such an precious picture!






Girl time with Cousin Kelsey...they were talking about Black Friday Ads and shopping deals. Thus Jenna's excitement.



We are feeding ourselves this year! Mommy says "Hallelujah!"

It was easy to do comparison from last year to this year b/c Thanksgiving week was the first time we had the twins on our own last year at night and it was the first time I had them by myself for several days in a row. Wow, we were so tired last year. We had come out of the tough first weeks with twins. I'm so thankful we have come so far, we are still healthy, we are growing in grace, we are close by family to share life with, we are not waking up every night to feed the babies, I'm not nursing every 3 hours (major hallelujah there!), the twins can get where they want for the most part, we're not going through 10-12 diapers a day, we can sit down and eat as a family, and many many other blessings. Wow, what a difference a year can make!

2010

2011

2010 - itty bitty's in the chair

2011 - can't sit still...

Aaaannnd, we're done.

Before and After: Caden

God is so good! Our little Caden is going to be just fine. So much has happened since we started our therapy 7 weeks ago! If you have been praying for Caden, (first, THANK YOU so much!) and second, below you will see answers to our prayers. Bear with me, this is a hefty post with lots of short video's. I'm so proud of him and I think you will be amazed at the progress!

In the beginning, this is prior to going to Therapy. Caden would scream when I put him on his stomach or all fours to work on crawling. Not happy times. And because he was just sitting there like glue, we tried putting all of his toys out of reach to "encourage" him to MOVE. Didn't work :)

At some point he would roll on his back and then just lay there. Couldn't sit up, couldn't move over to his toys elsewhere...rough days.


AND THEN, week 1: we work on using and strengthening his core / pelvic muscles. He screams for 2 days pretty much straight. Then he shows some signs of movement, and starts to do a cutest huck-a-buck crawl ever! Very similar to a frog...he would move his arms then scoot both of his legs to get somewhere. Its movement, we are thrilled!

This is the first night he was "moving" via crawling! Its shaky, but precious! Poor thing, every time he got close to his toy, we would move it away from him trying to encourage him to keep going!

Week 2: we work on developing the pelvic muscles so that he crawls one knee forward at a time. Not a fan of this either..AT ALL, but eventually picks it up by the end of the week. Now we have a slow, deliberate, smooth crawler!

Look at him go in this video! And, I don't know what was going on with Jenna's pants. I don't even remember them being like this...you can tell where my focus was! ha

Week 3: time to work on pulling up...now that he can crawl places, he is getting curious to see what is "up there." There was a certain way we had to support and push his hips...in a certain order for this week's therapy! Took me a few times to get it right alternating both sides. Caden wants to do it, but definitely struggles strength-wise and joint-wise. We don't get anywhere the first week. We didn't get an A on our report card this week :(

Week 4: Same homework...work on pulling up to his knees. We get it this week! woo hoo. He pulls up and plays on his knees for longer and longer lengths of time. yes!

Week 5: work on pulling to stand. Disaster the first week. He gets extremely frustrated and grunts like he is lifting 100 lbs just trying to stand. Breaks my heart. We don't quite get it. Get another "F" on our report card this week :(

Week 6: same homework. again. ick. All week, we get no where, then at Therapy, after 45 intense minutes...he does it for the therapist! Something clicked and he figured it out...granted he favored one side, and couldn't stand consistently on the other, but using his go-to side, he could pop up with the best of them! yea! He starts to crawl to me or whoever is in the room and pull up on our legs. I love it! You can do it all day, buddy!

Once we learned to stand up, poor little guy got stuck and didn't know how to sit down :) We are working with him on bending his knees and strengthening the muscles in his quads but this little video is what we worked on for a little while. He is getting much better!And yes, we moved all of his toys up on a higher level so he has to pull up if he wants to play :)

And then after a good at-home therapy session....ta da! Little man can pull to stand AND sit down!

By the end of week 6, we had a huge breakthrough...in his crib, Caden is a wild man and not afraid of anything! He finally learned to pop up fast and bend his knees to jump! This was one of the major factors that allowed us to "fail" his test with the State program. Since he was not bending his knees and bouncing, he was categorized as having a major delay in gross motor development. If he had done this when they were testing him, we wouldn't have qualified for the State's program.

Week 7: We are supposed to work on him using his weak side to stand. So whenever he crawls to something, I try to run over there like a mad hen and force his hips to use his weak side to stand. Its quite entertaining :) We also get the green light to work on "cruising" down the couch to play with toys. He has a tough time transferring weight to his left side so cruising that way is our struggle this week. Also, one day, I let him go explore the bottom of the steps and up he goes! When Jenna figured it out, we were like "oh no!" but bless his heart, with Caden I was cheering him up to the top! haha And yes, we learned from the Lower-the-Crib incident and proactively have a gate at the top and bottom of the stairs already :)





That leaves us with 1 more session before our sorry insurance makes us pay out of pocket. Please pray for our paperwork through the NC CDSA goes through quickly so we can pick back up on Caden's therapy. It is obviously exactly where he needs to be and he is benefiting so much from it! Also, we are waiting on insurance and doctors (shocker!) to get Caden in for an Orthotic brace for his ankles. He has a tough time supporting himself standing for long periods of time due do the extreme movement in his ankle joint. The therapist is very encouraged that Caden will want to stand, cruise and maybe even walk more when he feels like his ankles aren't going to roll out from under him. That's our prayer! Thanks for your support and prayers...slowly but surely...

We are so thankful to have scenes like this around our house now: