March For Babies Bake Sale

This morning our neighborhood had a big yard sale. Everyone put their goodies out in their garages and people walked around looking for good bargains. You should know, military people are very good at getting rid of things when they're done using them so I think they have the best yard sales! Most things are gently used and rather than move it from house to house, they get rid of it! We got some baby gates, a monitor, and a ton of clothes for just a couple bucks! Thanks neighbors!

We took advantage of the extra traffic on the streets to raise some money for the March of Dimes and had a little bake sale!

Thanks so much to all of our neighbors who stopped by and supported us! It was kind of a dreary day so I'm glad we still had such a successful event! Almost $150 raised for our March for Babies team! Woohoo!

If you couldn't make it to the bake sale, you can still help us out and check out our team March for Babies page. Less than a month now to reach our goal! :)

Hope everyone has a wonderful Saturday!

Parents of Preemie Day

Today was the first ever Parents of Preemies day! It was nice to have a day to not only celebrate our beautiful little miracles, but also to celebrate all the hard work that preemie parents put in to help their little ones grow up strong and healthy :) I have met quite a few preemie mom's and dad's out there in my months since having the twins and they have all been such wonderful support and encouragement for us during our hard days.

I know it's hard to see but I'm in there with the twinpops ;) Graham's Foundation did a great job at putting this whole thing together. They had giveaways and a lot of events in Toledo, where the family that started Graham's Foundation lives. Wish we could have been there for the fun but it was fun reading all the stories online, as well as some great preemie articles and resources. Here's a blog post by Graham's father that I really connected with.

On the outside they may look like healthy happy kids but you don't see the medicine, the O2 machine, the monitor, the nights we fight with the monitor for false alarms, the bazillion doctors appointments, special formula, "recipe" list for mixing the formula to higher calories, equipment we have around our house to keep our little man breathing well, or the struggles he has to breathe, grow and keep up developmentally. But that's our life as preemie parents. I love my little preemies though. I'm so proud of everything they've been through and how they keep fighting and getting bigger and better everyday. I'm definitely a proud momma :)

My little tadpoles

I'm so behind in blogging! We've been doing so much and I've hardly had any time to get on the computer. There's a reason for that but it'll be a few more weeks before I share that with the world. To keep the suspicion down from people who I don't talk to regularly and probably already know why I've been super busy, I'm not pregnant, we're not moving, and everything is fine and dandy in Pepka land :)

This weekend we went on our first big road trip with the twins and I'm happy to say it was a big success! That will get it's own post.

Another fun thing we've done lately was try out swimming classes! I've always loved to swim and I hope my kids love it too. I also thought it'd be a good family activity for us to try out and do on weekends. We found a great aquatic center not far from our house that does mommy/daddy and me swim lessons. They have a several indoor pools and lessons from 6months the whole way til adult. We figured a few months of mommy and me would be fun, then when they get a bit older we'll start private and group swim lessons and hopefully they'll be crazy swimmers by the time they're 2 or 3! I also think it's a big safety issue being able to swim and comfortable in water so it just makes me all around happier to know they'll be learning how to swim.

While the swimming was a blast, my favorite part was definitely the swimsuits. Baby swimsuits, I die.

Find something cuter in this world, I dare you.

 

The class was with a group of babies/toddlers and their parents. The instructor took a few minutes during each "activity" to come over and play with the kids. We sang songs, "jumped" off the ledge, swam on our backs and even dunked some baby heads under water. They did really well, I was so proud of my little tadpoles! :) They were the youngest in the class, but they were superstars. No crying, no whining, just kicking and splashing and having a good time! 

We also joined the local YMCA, which has a small shallow pool where we can take the kids so I'm excited to have classes and extra time in the water to help get them used to it. Plus, it's just fun swimming with the kiddos :) 

9 Months

Happy 9 month birthday twinpops!

Full update when I don't have 2 little ones screaming for bath time ;)

Coulda Woulda Shoulda

Today is the twins coulda woulda shoulda been 6 month birthday. Instead, they're just 3 days shy of 9 months.

I don't think I'll ever forget their due date. I had September 6th glued into my mind since January. I was soo anxious and excited for that date to come around. I planned everything around them being born in September. I got excited about their birth stone, being born in the fallish (my favorite time of year), and the thought of possibly having little labor day babies. I'm so tall I thought I'd have plenty of space for the babies and I was in half-decent shape when I got pregnant so I thought carrying them to 40 weeks would be a great goal and I could do it.

Of course, life had other plans for us. Here we are with 9 month olds, born in June, in the middle of summer, on a bright sunny June day...although other than a few sunrays in my hospital room, I couldn't have told you anything about the weather the day they were born...or the week leading up to their birth for that matter...or quite a few days afterwards.

For their shoulda woulda coulda been 6 month birthday we had their big OT evaluation with early intervention. I'm happy to say that they are developing right on track! They're acting like a typical 6 month old. Some categories they scored as high as an 8-9 month old! They're socially at the level of their June birthday so that's good to know that they're little social butterflies :)

Random little known facts about the twins and their birthday....

My mom's birthday is the day before. She's a part of a boy/girl twin set. She also came quite a few weeks early and was barely 3lbs at birth.

Amelia's name was going to be Amelia June even with a due date of September. A lot of people thought we picked the name when we had them in June, but we were going to name her after my mom no matter when she was born. Obviously, Amelia thought it was more fitting to be born in the month of her name.

I think a lot of people were hoping for an August 24th birthday for the twins, my brother's birthday, since a lot of our family members like to share birthdays. I have 2 brothers who each share their birthday with 2 of our cousins.

When we first started thinking about having a baby, I looked up a due date calendar to line it up with my cycle to see when we'd have the baby if we got pregnant this month...or when we'd have the baby if I got pregnant the next month. The first month I looked at it, the due date was June 9th. We weren't really "trying" yet so obviously we didn't get pregnant for a few more months, but maybe that date was a sign.

Speaking of names, Jackson didn't have a name for quite a few days. We still have hospital paperwork and insurance papers that say Amelia and Babyboy P on them. Whoops. Jackson was always our front runner name, we even told friends that name in hopes no one else would steal it ;) But we were bad at boys names. We also had a debate of how to include my grandfather's name into Jack's name, since he passed away the day before they were born and we were very close to him.

Happy Coulda Shoulda Woulda been Half Birthday Twinpops!

Hookaholic Winner!!

Thank you sooo much to everyone who donated! The fundraiser raised over $100 for the March of Dimes!

I put all the names on a spreadsheet, generated a random number, and the lucky winner is....

Meg L!!

Congrats Meg! And thanks so much to everyone who donated!  You've been such a help in our fundraising efforts! Hopefully we can do another fundraiser or 2 before the March for Babies on April 28! Again, not too late to join our team and fundraise on your own! Let me know if you're interested! I'd love to have more friends to walk with! 

A super special thank you to Stephanie and her wonderful work that made this all possible! If you didn't win, you can always buy one of her fantastic hats :) She is so talented! Check out her etsy shop!

A Seussical Celebration

To celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday yesterday I decided the twins should dress their parts.

Since they're both sitting up now, I thought it'd be a cute picture!

Mia sits better than Jack. And has a mean left hook.

After trying to push Jack close to his sister and multiple jabs to his arm, chest, leg and head, they ended up like this...

That's what you get for punching your brother.

So after many attempts and many minutes of screaming, I settled for this.

Amelia can't give up the fight though. Stop going Mike Tyson on your brother. Leave his ear alone.

A person's a person, no matter how small. -Dr. Seuss

The fundraiser for the March of Dimes ends Monday!! Check it out and pretty please donate :)

Guest Bloggin

I'm blogging over here today!

Check it out :)