Fall Foto Frenzy

Happy Fall!

Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween this year, with 2 new, cute little people to help us celebrate! The day before Halloween was my first day alone with all 4 kids, all by myself. For 3 wonderful weeks, I had constant help: 2 weeks with my mom, and 1 week with my sister Amanda. They were both wonderful help and did so much. But for one day, I did it! I survived my own children! :) I can't say that any of us showered or were even out of our pajamas (maybe the kids were), but everyone was in one piece and sane when Ben got home. Whew..... one day down, infinity to go!

After dinner, we decided to carve our one lonely pumpkin that we had (thanks Grandma for buying it for us while you were here!) This is the first year we have ever carved pumpkins as a family.

Before, ready to go!

Ben told the kids they had to reach in and dig out all the slimy "pumpkin guts" and they weren't too sure what to think of that.....

Ben did most of it, needless to say.

But they had a great time and were both so excited to put a candle in it and put it out on the porch.

Halloween day brought all of our dressed up little munchkins.

First we had Alexis, our Skeleton and Leah the Ghost!

In retrospect, we should have put Leah in the skeleton outfit, since she is the smaller of the two and when she's naked, she really does look like a little skeleton with just bones.

The babies sitting with their "look-alikes." People say Leah looks like Chloe (although Chloe started off 5 pounds heavier than Leah, so it's hard to tell right now, for me, although I am seeing it more and more) and that Lexi looks like Mitch.

Alexis, the Skeleton

Leah, the friendly Ghost

Chloe LOVES LOVES LOVES holding her sisters

With the babies being born just a few weeks before Halloween, I didn't give much thought to costumes for the kids this year. The week before Halloween, Chloe asked if she could be a witch. After two years of being a princess, I thought it would be a fun change. Once we got her witch costume put together, Chloe was ecstatic and could not wait to get dressed up.

Here she is, showing us her scariest witch face.

She asked my sister Amanda, "Amanda, what kind of witch do you want me to be: a nice witch or a bad witch? You choose, I don't care." Amanda said "A bad witch" and there she is with her bad witch face. The cutest bad witch I've ever seen......

Ready to ride off into the night on her broom....

Our little pumpkin. Mitch wore this same costume last year, and Chloe wore it two years as well. He did not want to wear the little hat, but when we told him he couldn't get any candy unless he had it on, he became much more cooperative (of course).

My parents were here for the weekend, our first visitors on Halloween. My dad faithfully dresses up for Halloween each year and always has great costumes and did not disappoint this year. He was a biker and my mom his biker babe!

The Andros kids

If I didn't know this was my dad, I would not be letting my son be walking the streets with him! Mitch was a bit weary of my dad when he first put on the costume, but soon realized it was still Papa and had no problem letting his scary looking guy haul him around trick or treating. He would even lean over and kiss Papa right on his fake mustache!

Last year our trick or treating experience was..... interesting. Chloe was so shy and when she'd get up to a door, she'd freeze, stick her fingers in her mouth and look down at the ground while Ben and I embarassingly mumbled "Trick or Treat!" for her all night. Mitch wasn't walking last year and Ben and I had to switch off every 5 minutes holding him. It was a long night.

This year was so much better and so much fun. Chloe RAN to each door (Mitch tried to keep up and we are SO glad he is walking this year!) and she would sweetly say "Trick or Treat" at every door with no ounce of shyness. She even chit chatted with a few of the people at the houses we went to like they were long lost buddies. She would politely say "Thank You." One time she forgot to say thank you and when she remembered a minute later she said, "Oh, no Mom! I forgot to say thank you, I'm so sorry, it was an accident, I'm sorry!"

Mitch was quite slow this year, but so cute. At the door Chloe would say "Trick or Treat" and Mitch would yell "HALLOWEEN!" When people would put the bowl down and let the kids pick their treats, Mitch would do very well and take one piece, then continue to help himself by the handfuls until Ben or I would run up and stop him. Everyone was really nice and patient with him, although one lady, when Mitch went in for his signature handful move, said, "Oh, MY!" Welcome to 2 year old's trick or treating......

In an hour and a half, here is the finished product.....

Mitch loved the suckers the most. Look Mom, no hands!

Birthday Miracle!

Saturday was our Birthday Miracle! It was Mitch's 2nd birthday and we had a busy day ahead of us with visitors coming over to see Alexis, Chloe's Primary Program practice, errands to run for Mitch's birthday, and of course visiting Leah in the hospital.

The latest on Leah, since my last post, was that she was taken off oxygen on Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. and did great. Her blood oxygen levels, heart rate and respiratory rate were all great and she has been off oxygen ever since.

Here she is Thursday, the first time I saw her without her oxygen cannula in her nose. The only thing left to get rid of is that darn feeding tube! But she is breathing on her own!!

Alexis was excited for her, too.

After getting off oxygen on Wednesday, the only thing left to do before she could come home was getting her to nipple all her feedings for 24 hours, meaning she had to either be able to nurse her 52 cc's (not quite 2 ounces) or drink them from a bottle. If she couldn't finish her feedings by one of those two ways, or a combo of both, she had to be fed the rest of the meal through her tube, and we had to start back over. She was so tired from all the breathing problems that she was still really tired, but she tried so hard to eat well for us. Each feeding she made improvements and we were hopeful that any day we would get the good news that she could come home.

Saturday afternoon we went in to visit her and waited almost 2 hours to talk to the NICU doctor. It was worth the wait because he told us the best news that we could hear that day: "Are you ready to take your baby home, today??" We definitely were.

Here I am with Leah, feeding her her last bottle in the NICU. She was so excited to come home that she quickly devoured the entire thing in record time.

In her carseat, ready to go home!

Alexis and Leah, wearing their first matching twin outfits (finally)!

Our last family photo at the hospital.

The strong Dad, carrying both carseats. (When I can lift heavy things again, I will need to practice this......)

The big kids were so excited for us to be home with the babies.

And then it was time to celebrate Mitch's birthday. We had to postpone his party a few hours in order to bring Leah home, which was well worth it for our Birthday Miracle, but it was way past Mitch's bedtime and the day had been so busy and crazy that I felt bad for the lack of attention that he received on his special day.

He loved opening his gifts and was so excited for each one!

He is obsessed with the little monkey named Boots on Dora the Explorer, so my mom and I each bought him a few "Boots" things for his birthday and he was so excited. He kept yelling "My Boots, my Boots!"

Here is our Birthday Man with his sad little cake. Due to the busy day and all that has gone on the last 2 weeks, I didn't have time to get any great decorations for his cake, so at the last minute I just slapped on some Boots and Dora frisbees. It was not much to look at, but Mitch loved it- "My Boots!"

Here are the girls, together again at last. I saved their going home outfits for when they could both come home.

Our first family picture outside of the hospital.

Chloe was so excited to have her two little sisters home together. She has been a big help with Alexis already and loves holding both of them.

Here is the sweet little picture Chloe made for Leah's big homecoming. We are all so glad she is home and healthy, and we couldn't have asked for a better birthday present than her! (Although Mitch was probably more excited about Boots than his sister....)

2 new babies

4 day hospital stay for Mom and Alexis

12 day hospital stay for Leah

11 days in the NICU

8 days on oxygen

1 CPAP mask, 1 feeding tube

Too many needle pokes and pricks to count

2 healthy, happy babies

1 happy family, all home together

little Leah

little Leah has made some remarkable progress in the last few days! We are so excited!

Sunday they decided to take her off her CPAP mask (which forces oxygen into her, with no effort on her part to breath it in). She was only off it for an hour before they had to put that darn thing back on her, because she just couldn't handle it yet.

Ben and I went back Monday morning to visit her, just in time to watch them take off the CPAP again! We weren't there on Sunday when they took it off, so we missed seeing her beautiful face uncovered, but yesterday we got to see it.

What a difference it makes to have it off! Now we can see her gorgeous face and hair (what little she has!) and we love it. They also took out the IV in her hand, so we are slowly taking wires and contraptions off her body all the time and it is wonderful.

She still has her feeding tube, which you can see in her mouth, but sometime on Monday, they moved it into her nose and now her mouth is free from anything it it as well. Taking the feeding tube out of her mouth has made it possible for me to start nursing her again. They called us in Monday night to come feed her and she only nursed for 2 or 3 minutes, but it was a start.

In her NICU bed, her "home" right now. She has been in there now 6 days (6 days too long, for us).

Alexis is always with us when we go to visit her "older" sister. She always sleeps and is an angel while we are there. There still is a big difference in size between these two (a whole pound) and now having them apart almost since birth (they are one week old today!!), we can definitely tell them apart with no problems. Alexis is in a newborn outfit from Aunt Meredith and the pants are HUGE! The shirt fit really well, but if you can tell by the picture, the pants fall off if you hold her up. She looked adorable in it, though and it's been so fun to dress her, but makes me so sad that Leah can't wear the matching outfit with her yet.

We laid Alexis in the bed with Leah and after a minute, they started touching each other. It was so cute. One of the hardest things for me during this whole thing has been that these babies have not been together. I am worried they will forget they were even twins and have a hard time getting used to each other again. I HATE having them apart every day. We visit Leah every day and sometimes spend hours with her, but we spend every minute with Alexis and it breaks our hearts that Leah is alone so much and without her sister.

When they called us back to feed Leah Monday night, we found this- she was in clothes!! I about cried. I never thought seeing a baby in an outfit would effect me so much, but after having her just in a diaper, covered in wires and hooked up to so many machines for 6 days, she looked "normal."

They can even swaddle her now, which they couldn't before. She looks so comfy and cozy. And soooo relaxed. For the first 3 or 4 days, they used a relaxer to sedate her somewhat so that she would be calm and give her lungs a chance to heal, but they have not had to give her any sedative in the past 3 days or so- they say she rarely, if every gets fussy and if she does, it's just for a minute and then she sleeps or lays peacefully for the rest of the time. Without the CPAP and sedative, she will now open her eyes for us.

Grandma comes and visits leah whenever she can. Bless my mom! She has been WONDERFUL and there is no way we could be doing any of this without her. She drives me everywhere I need to go (if Ben can't), she stays home and watches our kids while we visit Leah (our kids don't last long at the hospital), she cooks, cleans and does everything. I honestly don't know what we would do without her. These babies are 2 lucky girls to have such a wonderful Grandma.

Chloe only lasts a few minutes in the NICU before she is ready to go, but she is very sweet with both her sisters, and she got to hold Leah in the NICU for the first time today.

As far as further progress, Leah's lungs are healing and maturing great. She is down to only 21% oxygen, which is what we all breathe everyday, and it is not forced- she breathes it in on her own. She is being fed by a tube most of the time, which she tolerates beautifully, and they are now starting to have me come in to nurse her. She has not been doing well with the nursing because she is so tired and pooped out from all her respiratory problems. All the struggling to breath for the last week has just worn her out almost completely and it takes all her strength to suck, so she will only nurse for a minute or two, or not at all. She will take a bottle for a minute or two as well, and then fall asleep from exhaustion. So now our big thing to work on, since her lungs are almost healed, is feeding. They don't want to have to send her home on a feeding tube, so we are just working on her nursing or taking a bottle (with my pumped milk) and when she can do that on her own, consistently, with a clean bill of health on her lungs, she can come home. We can't wait for that day. We were hopeful that it would be sometime at the end of this week, but we really can't tell for sure right now. She is trying SO hard to eat, but it is so hard after all she's been through. We are just so proud and excited about all the progress she has made recently.

The nurses at the hospital and others have been asking us how we have been handling all of this. I must say, it is hard. It's hard to see your tiny, helpless newborn in a tiny hospital bed, with more wires and machines that you can count, struggling to breath. It's hard being torn between so many places. At the hospital, Ben felt torn between staying in the room and taking care of me and Alexis, going to the NICU to see Leah and get updates, and being home spending time with our 2 oldest. Now that we are home, there are only 2 places to be torn between, but it's almost harder. At the hospital, Leah was just across the hall. Now when we want to see her, we have to load up in the car and drive 15 minutes. It's hard because I have to feed Alexis, then pump as often as I can and hand deliver my milk to the hospital for her. It's all totally worth it, but hard and exhausting. I don't feel like I'm getting the rest I need to recover as quickly as I should because I need to be at the hospital so much (delivering milk, nursing Leah or just visiting). So much goes into getting to the hospital- I have to have someone drive me, have someone carry Alexis in her car seat for me (I can't carry that much weight yet), someone to watch my kids at home, etc.

It's also emotionally exhausting. It's emotionally exhausting worrying about Leah, missing her like crazy, trying to find time to rest, and spending time with my other kids. Mitch is having a hard time adjusting and just doesn't understand why his mommy can't hold him or pick him up. That's hard on me too. While this has been hard, we do it and we don't resent the fact that we have to do it- it is totally worth it and we'd do it all over again if we had to. We just want our whole family together and pray that it happens soon.

But we have been blessed with 4 beautiful children, two of which are the sweetest, most beautiful and precious newborns and we are so grateful they are here. We couldn't ask for more.