15 months!

Hard to believe, isn't it?!? We went for our 15 month well visit last week and got a great report! Thank you God for growing, active on-track/getting-on-track:) children! We were very interested in seeing the twins' weight. Jenna can put down more food than adults and drinks so well from her sippy cup now. I can probably count on one hand the number of times Jenna has turned food away and told us she is "all-done." She's a tank! Caden, on the other hand...oh my. Since a little before 12 months...he turned into a nightmare to feed. He stopped feeding himself anything but crackers/cheerios. He will cry and scream because he is hungry but will not eat! We saw some signs of reflux yet again so we got him back on medicine which has helped. We also somehow figured out that he will eat anything as long as it is served on a spoon with a baby food puree/yogurt/apple sauce. I can't remember how we figured that out, but it is the only reason Caden is not malnourished right now! So, since we have found this little secret, we cram all we can into him...and I mean everything. He has a wonderful diet, healthy fruits, vegetables, whole grains and plenty of dairy. They eat solely what we are eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner now.

So you can imagine our surprise when Caden had hardly gained any weight from his 12 month appointment...he is still our "little" man! Here are the stats:

Jenna: 7% height / 18% weight / 20 lbs / 29 inches
Caden: 1% height / 2% weight / 19 lbs / 28 inches

They got a great report otherwise which we are so thankful for! They are such a joy these days...interacting, making each other laugh, giggle, smile, and yes, plenty of crying too :)They LOVE playing together...they are really never alone or separated. Jenna continues to be the dominant personality...so much so that we have started popping her hand when she takes toys/paci's away from Caden...which is like 10 times an hour!The clothes bin picture says it all. They were having a blast together playing around, but as soon as Caden started getting brave and moving more, touching Jenna, out came Baby A, as you can see in her facial expression. :)






I'm thrilled to post that they are both drinking from sippy cups! I can't remember what I have posted on here, but a few days after Christmas...Caden just picked up the stinkin cup and started drinking from it! Really, son? Weeks and weeks of screaming and fighting me just to pick it up and drink? Whew. Anyway, we have transitioned beautifully into drinking from the cup at meal times and snack times. Bottles...GONE!





They are so much fun to teach new words and movements! We high five, raise our hands up, talk on the telephone, wave bye-bye, point to our ears, tummy, nose, and head. Their first word was the same, ironically. And, it's a 2 syllable word! Anyway, Jenna said "all-done" first and then a week or so later, Caden started saying it! Now they pretty much have the same vocabulary of "da-da", "doh" (dog), "bah" (ball), and they sign "more", "all done" and we are working on "thank you" and "please." Notice what word is not listed..."mama." I believe they are intentionally not learning it now...must be a conspiracy. I say it 1,345 times a day trying to get them to mimic me. Of course not! Caden seems to pick up things quicker cognitively. We can show him how a toy works, where the on/off switch is, proper way to hold something and he picks it up immediately. Jenna does not like to be shown how to do anything! She will learn it herself, thank you very much. Where did she get that from!? wink.




Jenna is certainly looking to be a girlie girl. She will frequently bring us shoes to put on her feet, carry her headband and hat around and try to put it on her head. You want a cute headband on your head? Surething. With our without a shirt :)




Caden may have stolen the walking spotlight here lately, but Jenna Bear started walking at about 14.5 months...she was shaky for maybe 2 or 3 days then took off like a pro. I'll give her some video time on the blog here soon.

Favorite foods: pancakes, waffles, PBandJ sandwiches, crackers, sweet potato, yogurt and most any fruit. Jenna's favorite is mandarin oranges and Caden's favorite is any cracker in the world!



Caden has 10 teeth which include 2 top molars fully out and one more cutting through on the bottom...bless his heart! Jenna until the last week or so only had 5 teeth...but she has sprouted 3 teeth just in January.



They continue to be incredible sleepers...a true gift from God! They sleep 12 hours...from 7 pm to 7:30ish am. They have recently had spurts of waking up in between 7pm and 10 pm when they sit up then wake up scared and disoriented. As soon as we lay them down in the crib, they are asleep again. And it stops after 10pm, they sleep soundly through the night so no complaints here! We are experimenting with nap time. They would love to sleep 2 hours every morning but then they play, giggle and eventually scream at me during afternoon nap. So we have tried cutting the am nap to 1 hour, but unless we play HARD, they are not napping well in the afternoon. (Caden would nap every day, twice a day but his loud sister keeps him up in the afternoon :) ). This week I'm trying to keep them up in the morning to see how they sleep in the afternoon (so far a good 2 or 2.5 hour nap). They are miserable in the morning which tells me they still need a cat nap in the am so we will keep playing around. Any suggestions you experienced mama's?

Love my grown up babies!

Bringin' High Tops Back...

So, on to lighter, happier posts this week. (But in all honesty, thank you so much for all of the notes, emails, calls and hugs. Most importantly thank you for your prayers as we work through our latest miscarriage. God is certainly good and He has surrounded us with such faithful encouragers!)

Thank you for asking about Caden...I'm so stinking proud of him I dont know what to do. We finally got his braces in about 2 weeks ago. In the doctors office he cried and did NOT want them on. I cringed thinking of our future if he hated them this much. He is supposed to wear them all day (minus nap time) to help control the movement of his ankle and support his joints while he is learning to walk and balance. Must have just been the environment/something new because ever since ... the boy LOVES them! He sits perfectly still for us to put them on and doesn't cry or act like they bother him at all. They go inbetween his socks and shoes so you really can't see them too much except the high tops. He has to wear shoes anytime he has his braces on so we did the oh-so-dreaded shoe shopping with the twins a few weeks ago. Bless his heart, we had to buy him a 4wide shoe...he normally loosely fits a size 3! But they are snug as a bug with his socks and braces on.

We can tell such a difference in him when they are on vs off. He has really gotten brave and built confidence while wearing them. He will let go of furniture and stand in the middle of the room and just this past week, in therapy, took his FIRST STEPS! He has to work so hard...poor guy, he sweats and grunts all through therapy, but he is getting there! Watch out Jenna!

As if sweet boy needed any other reason to be adorable...look at these things! We got to pick out the "style" so of course we went with a sports theme.

Jenna loves them too! Many times she will walk up right behind him and start playing with them.

And here is the long awaited video...Caden's first steps! Go buddy Go! (they are taken off my phone so they are quite fuzzy! sorry!And...Jenna had spilled sauce or something on her shirt so I had taken it off to stain treat it...thus the shirtless Jenna)

Sad Days

"Roller coaster" describes the past 2 weeks of life at the Little household. It doesn't even seem real to be on this side of things and look back at all that has happened here lately! BUT, I am attempting to put into practice what I have learned from the previous cloudy days God has brought in and out of my life. I will not isolate myself. I will not implode with sadness. I will share my lessons learned so God can be glorified. Repeat. :)

A few weeks ago a friend of mine whom I had been praying for told me she was pregnant. Super exciting! The next day, while walking through our Church nursery, we walked by a room with a screaming baby. Ryan asked if I could handle another baby right now. I said "only if God thought I could! eekkk!" That night I had a dream I was pregnant. The next morning I took a casual glance at the calendar and my heart stopped. Later that day I took a HPT and what!? Yep...big, fat positive. How did this happen? Yes, I asked that question because that has not been our experience with trying to have children! There are supposed to be gazillions of doctors appointments, pills, shots, tests, another shot and some more tests to have a baby, right? :) Anyway, I soaked it in all day then shared the news with Ryan that night. We both collectively had maybe 3 minutes of sheer panic. Three kids under two, three kids in diapers, we can't fit 3 carseats (not boosters mind you!) in our Pilot(how can I avoid getting a minivan?), I just packed up all of the bottles in the attic(yep, really thought that), I didn't loose all of the twin baby weight etc.. Funny how fast your mind really can race! But as soon as we let out a deep breath we were both ecstatic. How freeing that God had healed my body...I was going to be a normal patient, normal pregnancy, normal! We both also said we had learned our lesson with Caden and Jenna...you can be desperately trying to have children and if its not God's time...there will be no children. Same is true on the other end! :) So there would be no complaining from us! How thankful we were!I was excited at the craziness our life was about to adopt, how close all of the kids were going to be, how funny God's sense of humor had played out in our lives...

Anyway, since we were not trying for another baby at this time, and I was very aware of what was going on and when and why a baby should not be happening right now...I literally had no idea how far along I was. This was a miracle baby! So I started the phone calls to get in at my OB. You should have seen the faces of the receptionist and my Doc. They literally were more excited on the outside than I was! Anyway, things went fine, no sickness, just the same unquenchable tiredness I had for about 2 weeks with the twins. Last Wednesday I could tell something was not right, progressively things got worse all through the night, a terrible, horrible night, and continued the next morning. I went right in as soon as my OB opened and they confirmed what I already knew had happened. I lost my sweet baby #4. Our guess is I was somewhere between 6-7 weeks. I must have said Phil 4:6-7 about 43 times in the car driving over. I pleaded with God to "save this baby. Please don't let me go through this again. We accepted your surprise with full faith, didn't we? I now have just as many children in Heaven as I do on earth...what? I can carry twins full term but can't carry just one precious baby?" and a million other thoughts.

I'm sharing all of this because I waaaay messed up after my first miscarriage. I pushed all of you out away from my life and wallowed in serious sadness. God has shown me the most convicting lesson in going through this experience! Just a week before, geez, just the day before I lost the baby I was confidently claiming Psalm 126:3. "The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy." When I was freaking out about 3 kids under 2, diapers, my disdain of a minivan :) and all the other first thoughts, I said this verse and decided to choose joy. Now, 24 hours later, all of a sudden, this was not my cling-to-verse anymore. Why not?

Driving home after my appointment I remember thinking "Jesus is still Jesus." What I needed to be telling myself was that "His truth is still truth." That verse is still true in my life despite my drastic change in circumstance. I have no greater reminder that He has "done great things for us" than to walk in the door and see Ryan, Caden and Jenna. I'm sure they thought they may pass out a few times that day I squeezed them so tightly. I have seen God's gentle grace in the process of this miscarriage by giving me the kids to focus on. So I am working each day, sometimes by the minute, to claim the same truth I would have if I was still carrying a baby...not just the ones that fit in a certain, pretty wrapped-up package of life. He still has done great things for us...I still need to choose joy.

Please pray for us. God is good and we see that, but we are certainly hurting. I can already tell and feel the little piece of my heart that is chipped away. I'm working through the very different feelings and struggles I'm experiencing with a second miscarriage. Pray for patience, pray for peace, pray for the doctors to see a cause in the tests they are running on me now. And most of all, pray that God is glorified.

Jenna's first....?

Step? Word? All good, timely guesses but this post is bigger in milestone than any guess.

This is Jenna's. First. Kiss. ha! The lucky boy is Mr. Truett Swain. We went to a friends birthday party a couple of weeks ago and Truett made his move. Oh my...Ryan has already had his moment and has his radar fixed on Truett :) And yes, we would totally approve :)





We had to break it up quickly after this last picture. haha

Oh How Pinteresting!

So I'm sure everyone in the world is on the Pinterest Band-Wagon these days...including myself. I had to discipline myself to wait until the kids were down at night to get on Pinterest when I first discovered it! If I opened it while the kids were in here playing I would totally loose track of time (and them!) yikes. So now it is my fun, me-time activity at night. I've done a ton of recipes that are to die for, but here are some of my favorite "crafts" I have attempted all thanks to Pinterest.

I can't wait until we move. Yes, our house is on the market...I dont think I've mentioned that on here. Having 2 kids at a time did a little altering to our plans for this house. :) I have a ton of pins that I'm dying to do but have had to restrain the Pinterest beast from coming out. No more projects here at this house. Ryan and I both love to do home projects, fix-ups and decorating (me) so Pinterest is both the best and worst thing we could have found! :)

This is Ryan's Fathers Day present last year:

Pinterest Version:

Source: etsy.com via Casey on Pinterest

My Version (and yes, I forgot to do my other "big" handprint...haha):


I LOOOOOVE my picture wall...I stare it all the time and now every night when we go to bed, the twins point and want us to stop to go over everyone they see in the pictures. So we go from picture to picture saying "Mama", "DaDa", "Caden", and "Jenna". Prec! It was so easy and cheap to do! I was eyeing the Gallery wall series at Michaels but each frame, on sale, is like $20! This entire wall cost me $20:) I got the frames at goodwill, bought a $5 pack of matching Scrapbook Paper Pad at Walmart and some spraypaint. Voila! I love how I can change out the pictures anytime a I want so easy.

Pinterest Version:

Source: shanty-2-chic.com via Casey on Pinterest

My Version:





And then Pinterest made Christmas so fun! All of the decorations, recipes, gift ideas! I made these head bow holders for my two nieces and a friend. They were fun to customize and add a headband for a fun gift! They are made from formula cans! hello! I'm making one for Jenna now :)

Pinterest Version:

Source: etsy.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

My Version:

Oh my...

Love these two!

(and dont worry, this is the last post of Christmas-related material...)

Caden's upclose in the Christmas Onesie my Mom made for him...

And Jenna, with "The Jenna Face"

All three of my babies!

Happy New Year! 2012

We made it down to our beloved Oak Island after a pretty non eventful all day car ride down the coast of NC. We love spending New Years at the beach! We have been blessed with wonderful weather, everyone is in vacation mode and it is always such a relaxing time to reflect on the year past and year coming up. Two years in a row now, Ryan and I have tuckered out around 10pm....blame it on the twins! But I promised Aunt Robin and Uncle Brad that one year coming up soon the twins will be THRILLED To stay up and party with them :)

Gigi got the twins some mini chairs for them to use next summer. We decided to bring them out and give them a try. They were adorable for us to get these pictures...until they both tumbled out head first. Bonk! That fun was over quickly...maybe by the summer they will be ready :)





We had fun playing with some of our new toys we brought along from Christmas. We went outside one day and rode bicycles, walked to the sound, walked on the beach...ahhh I miss it so much just typing about it!





My Aunt had purchased a pair of the Huggies "Santa Diapers" so we were trying to go through those and use them up while it was still relatively close to Christmas. I could eat them in these things! Adorable! For whatever reason, my kids LOVE to crawl, chase each other and play with nothing but a diaper on. So we obliged and let them go crazy!





You KNOW a grandchild has a special place in Papa T's heart if he doesn't have a coronary over them touching.the.walls. oh the horror! haha This is one of, if not THEE top pet peeve of my beloved, quirky Father. We love all of his "peculiars" but the touching the walls hang up is no joking matter! That is FOUR hands all over his clean, barely painted walls :) haha



Another exciting year brought in at our favorite place....can't wait to be back!