will & nora: month two.

they linked arms like this all on their own, i swear. i have a witness!

If you get annoyed with Mothers who are obsessed with their children LOOK AWAY NOW because I am the most annoying Mom you'll ever meet. When I found out I was having twins at that 20 week ultrasound the emotion that I felt the strongest was FEAR. I was scared. So, so scared. I couldn't imagine it being fun. I couldn't imagine feeling anything but stress. And those feelings were irrational and magnified by shock, but I have to say that caring for these sweet little twins of mine has been a much happier experience than I expected it to be. It has been a pleasant surprise.

Don't get me wrong here. It is HARD. Some days I am certain I won't survive another hour. Some days I want to bang my head against the wall a few hundred times. It is so hard, so stressful, very monotonous, and very exhausting, but man oh man, DO I LOVE THEM.

And that's the thing I almost wasn't expecting. Although I knew that I would love them (of course I would!), when I found out there would be two of them I worried that the stress might trump the adoration. I worried the stress would overcome me and make it hard for me to feel anything else. And I am so lucky to say that's not the case. I am so happy to say that the love trumps the stress times a million. Their needs never end, I rarely sit down, the feedings are never-ending and I am so, so tired, but I also feel so lucky. I can't believe they are mine. I can't believe how much my heart has stretched to make room for them. I can't believe how cute they are, how sweet, how soft and tiny and precious and perfect.

I don't want this time to go too quickly. Because right now they are everything to this little family and more. This time we're having--this phase of life spent doing nothing but loving them and feeding them and wiping their tiny bums--It is impossibly tiring and so insane and one of the greatest challenges I've ever known.

It is also straight up MAGIC.

2 months old.

family picture sneak peak!

my friend lindsay (of lindsay hagblom photography) was so patient with our crazy family and wild evie and spent hours and hours to get all the shots i wanted. i cannot wait to see the rest!

christmas at the cabin, 2012.

Every year we go to the Olsen family cabin for a few days after Christmas. This year, with all the craziness that comes with twin newborns, we assumed we shouldn't go and planned to stay home for the weekend instead. However somewhere along the way Greg changed his mind and informed me we'd be going at about 10am on Saturday morning as he scrambled Evie's egg. I responding by texting him the list I keep on my phone of everything that's required to leave the house for more than 3 hours with 3 children under 2 and let him have at it (the list is AT LEAST 20 items long. I figured it would knock some sense into him, but he was feeling ambitious and I was feeling bored). 2.5 hours later we were on our way.

It was so nice to spend some time under a different roof and have help with the babies for a full 24 hours--Jennie and Margaret barely even let me hold them! I can't believe what a difference just one more person makes when it comes to managing my children. Maybe I'm just not good at it yet, but we're talking the difference between life and death. Sanity and suicide. I kid. But, it's huge.
 

It was a freezing, beautiful weekend at the cabin spent chatting by the Christmas tree and bundling up the kids to "play" in the snow (It was Evie's first time. She mostly cried). I'm finding I should never say never when it comes to what I will and won't do with 3 tiny kids in tow. We keep telling our families we won't be coming to this and that and then we get bored, get caffeinated and somehow show up after all. Sometimes I think my life might not actually be over. (wink)

I have taken this exact picture of Ty & Greg at least 10 times. I should compile all of them to prove it. They keep asking me to take it. You guys look SO COOL.

These babies. I am so in love. They are so worth it.

all i wanted for christmas.

1 sleepless night with Will & Nora who both had gassy tummies on Christmas Eve.
3 hours it took us on Christmas morning to feed, burp, change, bathe, dress, swaddle, soothe, pack, pump, dress, pack the car and get out the door.
9 presents Santa left for the kids under the tree
0 presents for Mom and Dad
2 houses to visit on Christmas day
3 exhausted Christmas kids
1 rockstar energy drink consumed by the husband
4 Diet Cokes consumed by the wife
1 Mother who passed out on her parents bed Christmas afternoon and could have slept FOREVER.
6 cousins Evie loved playing with all day.
4 Grandparents who spoiled and loved and made the day great.
3 perfect children all under one roof
10 million times I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

This year for Christmas I didn't get a thing and yet, I got it all. I am married to my love, a guy who is patient and kind and devoted--who wakes up with me night after night to feed a baby while I feed the other. We live in a darling little house on a tree-lined street and my husband wakes up each morning and drives himself downtown to a great job that allows me to stay home and be a full time Mother. We are happy and healthy and safe and EXHAUSTED. Taking care of 3 little children under 2 is the hardest thing I have ever done. It is challenging and tiring and, at times, it feels completely impossible. And yet, I know it's for me.

This year for Christmas I had 3 perfect little children all under one roof. My little children; Evie and Nora and Will. I am so overwhelmed by how much I love them. I am equally overwhelmed by the number of diapers they all burn through in the course of a day.

I am so grateful for Christmas and for the opportunity I have to celebrate the birth and life of my Savior. I am grateful for the knowledge that He lives, He's aware of me, He loves me, He listens when I pray to Him and He gives me the strength I need to do hard things. Sometimes to even to do really hard things well.

That's what I'm aiming for. I'm trying to do this really hard thing well. And I am so grateful for the chance to try. For this little family that's all mine.

They are IT. They are the present. I have everything I've ever wanted.

**Nora came home the the Saturday before Christmas Eve! I wish I could personally hug and thank each and every one of you who prayed for her and thought of her and sent us your faith and love. I know it made all the difference. Thank you, thank you, we are so grateful to everyone who got us through.

nora hattie.

This post should come AFTER one announcing the birth of my sweet twins. There is a timeline defining the month of November and many posts I should have written, but was too tired to write. That timeline would look something like this: Birth (joy), NICU (sadness), Nora comes home (elation), William does not (pain, guilt, exhaustion), Will comes home (ELATION!), Jess becomes an official full time mama to 3 little ones at home (joy, exhaustion and relief).

That is where the roller coaster should have ended. That is where I wanted to get off. I could have never anticipated another rise and fall like I have experienced since bringing my two babies home. Since that time we have fallen--and we have fallen hard and deep.

There is a song I love to listen to at Christmastime. It is beautiful and soothing and therapeutic. Today as I drove up to Primary Children's Medical Center to visit Nora I listened to it on repeat, held my husband's hand, and cried into the ice cold car window. Car rides are reserved for crying and home is reserved for Evie and Will and trying to be a good mother.

As I listened to the familiar lyrics I realized, perhaps for the first time, that the song I love so much is actually quite sad. Like so many of the trials I have faced in my life--it is beautiful and it is tragic. And it describes how I feel right now exactly.

This is my winter song to you.
The storm is coming soon,
it rolls in from the sea

My voice; a beacon in the night.
My words will be your light,
to carry you to me.

Is love alive?
Is love alive?
Is love

They say that things just cannot grow
beneath the winter snow,
or so I have been told.

They say were buried far,
just like a distant star
I simply cannot hold.

Is love alive?
Is love alive?
Is love alive?

This is my winter song.
December never felt so wrong,
cause you're not where you belong;
inside my arms.

I still believe in summer days.
The seasons always change
and life will find a way.

Ill be your harvester of light
and send it out tonight
so we can start again.

Is love alive?
Is love alive?
Is love alive?

This is my winter song.
December never felt so wrong,
cause you're not where you belong;
inside my arms.

This is my winter song to you.
The storm is coming soon
it rolls in from the sea.

My love a beacon in the night.
My words will be your light
to carry you to me.

That is my prayer and my hope for my sweet baby Nora. I hope my faith will be a beacon in the night, I hope it will reach her and surround her and comfort her when she is in pain. I hope it will carry her back to me and back into my arms, where she belongs. I have had her home with me already, I know what it is to love her and care for her and wake up at 3am to the sound of her perfect cries. As her Mama, that is all I want to do. I have so so much, I am so blessed, and yet, I am empty without her.

This post should have come after one announcing her birth, and Will's birth, and really this post just shouldn't have ever come at all.

I am learning that it is a hard thing to be a Mother and to love someone so much. At times it feels like my heart is not inside my body. Certainly right now, it is not. Tonight my heart resides up at Primary Children's Nicu with a sick and sweet and perfect little girl named Nora.

**I know this post is vague and doesn't explain exactly what we are facing right now (Nora's diagnosis is NEC), but since this is my blog and my outlet, I decided to write what I want to write instead of what I feel obligated to write and tonight I just wanted to write about what I am going through. It is tiring to talk about Nora's condition and to explain her treatment and her suffering. Talking about it is difficult for me and it makes me incredibly sad. I know that most of you who read my blog already know what is going on with her and are praying for her. If you don't, feel free to email or call me or get in touch with someone in my family. Thank you for your prayers, from the bottom of my heart.


PS. Wintersong here.

i am for them.

My life has been so weird lately.

There have been days and weeks and moments during the past few months in which I haven't even recognized this life I am leading. There have been moments of trying to wrap my head around all the changes and get used to all of the new while letting go of all the old. Some days nothing felt familiar to me at all. Not the new house filled with unpacked boxes and sandpaper and clutter. Not the huge pregnant belly (39 cm now!) rolling and pulsing and keeping me awake at night. Some days I was certain the heavens had opened up and the sky was falling. (And some days my pregnancy hormones were just RAGING, so there's that.)


I used to live in a little 2 bedroom above the city and now I'm back in the very first house we've ever owned. I used to drink tap water from the faucet and now I have an ice maker and filtered water and there is room in the freezer for frozen food and really, WHO EVER SAW THAT COMING?! I used to be a mother to one. And now, even though I can't hold them yet, I have 3 children. 3 kids in less than 2 years is really never how I saw my life going. I am STILL trying to get used to the idea. I have struggled for a long time to feel excited. This is just me being honest about that.

Since the babes will be here in less than a month, and we are still living in an unfinished house, the husband and I always have a lengthy to-do list, so this weekend we decided to put on our worker pants and get some crap done. There were paint samples at Sherwin Williams and Home Depot runs and a happy little toddler eating popcorn in the shopping cart. I decided to tackle the nursery (aka the one room I have avoided at all cost because STRESS falls from the sky and knocks me dead the moment I open the door) first. Luckily my sweet sister-in-law Meg had helped me get started earlier in the week, and really, bless her, because otherwise it would still just be a room full of burp cloths and unopened packages and bags and bags of anxiety.

First I organized the closet, added an extra rod for the little guy in my life. Next I went through all the clothes I had been storing in plastic bins in the garage, hanging up Ev's old dresses and cardigans and the tiny pair of grey cords with a bow at the waist. One thing lead to another and before I knew it I was washing sheets and vacuuming and finally opening those bumper pads that have been sitting in plastic on the floor for so long.

And I don't know why or how, but as I worked on all of it something inside of me changed for the better. Suddenly I was having BABIES. And I don't mean to suggest that I didn't know that already (duh), but suddenly the onesies and the burp cloths and the two little cribs with the marshmallowy soft bumpers were meant for babies. My babies. For the first time since I found out I was having twins I could see their little faces. For the first time I could imagine holding them and nursing them and falling in love, all over again. Finally it wasn't just stress and anxiety and oh-my-gosh-i-will-never-sleep-again, but actual anticipation and excitement and joy and love.

I haven't had any problem admitting to others that I am scared. 3 kids in less than 2 years will not be easy (people like to tell me this as if I don't already realize it). 3 kids in less than 2 years is not what I ever expected. 3 kids in less than 2 years just might kill me dead. Since the moment I found out I have been unsure about whether or not I am the right girl for the job.

Which is why I am so grateful for this weekend. For the fact that somewhere in all the folding and washing and preparing I found myself again. I smoothed the sheets and packed away the diapers and turned on the little striped lamp that sits on their dresser and I finally felt it...These babies were meant for ME. They were meant to be mine. I am the one given the task of loving them and raising them and yes, probably losing my mind with stress because of them. But, it is mine and mine alone.

They are for me and I am for them. And I can finally say it and mean it all the way down to my toes...

I am EXCITED.

Thanks for your email addresses, I've been getting them and am planning to make the change soon.

another one bites the dust.

Hey peeps. This blog will become private sometime in the next few weeks, definitely before my twins are born. Hopefully that change will inspire me to blog more regularly again.

You know the drill: Please get your email address to me if you'd like to continue reading these rambles.

I'll make an updater blog you can follow in Google reader to help make things easier, too. Holler.

PS. Comment moderation is on and I won't post your email address. Thanks!

hey jess, you're showing.

That's my favorite thing people say these days.  

Wow, you're popping out now! or Jess, you're starting to look pregnant. Of course they are teasing me because I am huuuuuge these days and even bigger than I was when I gave birth to Evie less than 2 years ago. Which is kind of scary considering I still have about 8 weeks to go.

Carrying twins has been an adventure, both good and bad. I am so grateful that they are doing well so far (knock on wood) and I haven't been put on bed-rest or sent to the hospital or been given any reason to worry about them yet. In that aspect, it's been a better pregnancy than my first and I know I am so lucky to experience it, but it is also exhausting.

Carrying around this enormous belly while simultaneously carrying around my not-yet-walking Evie Jane has been brutal at times. I have back pain like I didn't know was possible and by the end of the day my entire body just throbs from the weight of the 3 of them. Thanks to the stresses of remodeling, and the fact that my sweet husband is gone every day, all day, as well, it's also been a much more emotional pregnancy for me. I get scared when I think about adding TWO MORE babies to the mix and I wonder if I can really do it, a thought that has brought me to tears many times. (It should also be noted that the thought of two more sweet blonde babies to love and hold also brings me to tears, so it's not all nervousness).

Luckily, we are almost done with our kitchen remodel and will definitely be settled and moved before the babies come, which is a huge relief. I used to think that having a husband who was a grad student on top of work was difficult, but now I can't wait for the days when school, work and babies is all we have to worry about. Funny how life brings you perspective that way.

More than anything, I am SO grateful for that hard-working husband of mine (and for both of our families who have helped so much and literally saved our lives) because our kitchen is looking amazing and I feel like the luckiest girl in the world that it's mine! Can't wait to share the before and after pictures soon.

29 weeks

PS. I asked G to snap a picture of my belly after church last week since I only have a couple of them and he LAUGHED OUT LOUD just as he took it. That's right--the sight of me standing sideways like this with my enormous belly on display made him laugh. LOW POINT.

a proper goodbye.

Today I am missing Jack and Toby.

What good little men they were. What sweet little dogs. I get update emails from Aunt Evie in Colorado and I can't help but smile and laugh and cry a little bit, too, when she tells me about their new lives and adventures and experiences out there without us.

It still feels like they belong here with me. It still feels like they are mine. I loved them and cared for them and babied them for almost six years and it still breaks my heart that I couldn't give them what they deserve forever.

I was out of town when it happened. It was for the best that way. Greg called me the night before, SLC to California, and told me he was nervous about handing them off the next day. For weeks and months I had been ignoring the sadness I felt over the situation, pushing down the pain, but when we talked about it that night suddenly every tear and heartache I had inside me came spilling over. I couldn't speak or move or catch my breath, it seemed. I so badly wanted to be there with him to say goodbye one last time. I wanted to breathe in Toby's little frito-lay head and rub J Bubba's fat belly. I wanted to tell them how much they had meant to me, how they had saved me so many times, been exactly what I needed. I hoped that they knew. I hope they still know.

My life is changing so quickly these days, sometimes I hardly recognize myself. For the most part, I try to be positive and excited about the road ahead, but in quiet moments all alone, I also feel a deep sadness over the loss of the life I thought I would have; a life where I could handle my kids and my dogs and everyone fit on the sidewalk together. I thought adding another baby to the family would be a simple transition, a minor change of pace, and then the ultrasound showed two beating heartbeats instead of one and it felt like nothing would ever be the same again.

I know that we made the right decision. I know she can care for them in a way I won't be able to anymore. I know that my time and energy and love will be swallowed up whole by my 3 little ones and I know there would have been nothing left for those sweet dogs waiting patiently on their bed in the corner. I know they will be happier in their new life, that our new life won't leave enough space for them in it. My heart tells me all of this, and I know we did what is best.

But that doesn't mean it isn't unbearably sad.