Things change so much from one baby to the next. I find myself needing so much more with the babies than I did with Allie Mae. There are some things I used with Allie that I don't find necessary now and there are things I use with Ray and Charlie that I never would have thought about using before. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that it's an absolute must to try and always have a free hand and make things go as smooth as possible.

I'm not a baby person. They're just boring to me (I love me some fun toddlers), but I will admit my most favorite thing about babies is being able to try all the new gadgets they come out with. I mean it's only been a couple years since I've had a baby last and there are quite a few new things that I'd never even heard of and I find that so exciting.

I tried to be so prepared for the babies. I stocked up on as much stuff as I could before they came. I was so happy that I'd already had Allie because it helped me have an idea on what types of things I needed and what I could do without. But even with the knowledge I gained from having Allie, I still found myself stuck at times. And with twins, there is no time time to dilly dally around. You NEED to find a solution stat or you'll go insane. 

So, without further adieu...these are the items I can't live without...

1. Miracle Blankets

Now I know everyone has their favorite when it comes to swaddles, but these are by far the best swaddles I have ever used. They are snug, impossible to wiggle out of and they don't have the loud as all hell Velcro. I've also noticed that they help upset tummies. Miracle Blankets are a bit on the expensive side, they average $30 a blanket, BUT it's so worth it. I've tried other swaddles and nothing compares.

2. WubbaNubs

Seriously the greatest thing ever. I've had quite a few friends who had these for their kids but I never really even thought about getting one for Allie or the twins. We had two of these gifted to us for the babes and thank God they were because I swear they keep you sane. Having to put the binkie back in Allie's mouth 8 million times a day never really fazed me, but when I had two mouths to plug all day long, it got annoying, fast. These amazing little creations help to keep the binkies in your baby's mouth. And even if they do spit it out because they don't want it, or it just falls out the side of their mouths while sleeping, the little animal holds the binkie in place so it will be there when the baby wants it again. So simple yet so genius.

3. Tommee Tippee Bottles

Bottles are just like swaddles. Everyone has their brand or type that they swear by. With Allie I was all about the Dr. Brown bottles so I stocked up preparing for the twins. Well that was a
bad idea. First of all, the babes took really well to nursing. Allie had to use a shield the whole time I was nursing-which was about 7 months, so it was easy switching her from boob to bottle since she was used to the rubber feel. When I decided I wanted to start supplementing with the babes, it was really hard getting them used to bottles. They HATED the Dr. Browns. Charlie would take them better than Ray, but it was still really difficult and mentally exhausting. I finally gave up and did some research and Tommee Tippee bottles came up on a Top 5 bottles list for nursing babies. I bit the bullet and just bought some. After getting them in the mail I could see why they would be on the top 5. They are shaped just like a real boob and both of the babies loved them. Now that I think about it, I'm happy I ended up having to buy new bottles because it would have been such a pain having to wash the Dr. Browns. Double the bottles, double the amount of pieces to wash. No thanks!

4. Dr. Brown's Formula Mixing Pitcher

This thing is heaven sent. The babies are drinking a lot more formula throughout the day now and it's so much easier mixing up what I'll need for the day in the morning. Once the babies are ready to eat, I just pour what I need and warm it up. If only I could get them to drink it straight from the fridge. That would save even more time. Fat chance though.

5. Graco Pack N Play

This isn't the exact one we have, as far as colors go, but it is the same style. I love this thing. When they were Newborns, I kept the changing table part stocked with diapers and everything I needed access to right away. Once they got a little older I took that off and now I just use it for them to sleep in. We are living in a two bedroom condo and instead of all the kids sharing a room, Allie sleeps in her room and the babies sleep in the pack n play in the living room. I feel way more comfortable doing it that way right now. 

6. Lil' Helper Baby Bottle Holder 

These things are great. My mother in law gifted these to us for Christmas and it's another item I would have never thought of buying. The babies usually take a good 15 minutes to eat a full bottle so while they're doing that, it gives me some time to run around and get some stuff picked up. The only thing I don't like about them is it is a little difficult to get the wider bottles into. Luckily though, the Tommee Tippees get skinnier in the middle so with some effort I can usually get it on. Sometimes I just don't have enough time to mess around so I resort to this...

Whatever gets the job done! 

7. Fisher Price Cradle Swing

I don't care how many babies you have, you need one of these. Ray and Charlie love to take their daytime naps in these. They love the lights and mobile on top and I love the fact that they plug into an outlet. I can't even imagine how much we would spend on batteries if they didn't.

8. Fisher Price Bouncer Seats

These things are a life saver. The babes are now at the age where they are awake more throughout the day and they love to look around at the world and watch the family. I use these for feeding them mostly, but they also like to sit in them to watch a little bit of TV. (Yes, I let my babes watch TV) I also put the babes in these when me and Allie are playing. It's gets them more involved. 

9. Summer Infant Mesh Bath Seats

I was just using the whale bath we had for Allie and washing the babies one at a time but that was way too difficult. These seat are perfect. They're small enough so you can put both of them in the bath, put some water in the tub and wash away. It makes the assembly line of washing go much faster. 

10. Baby Trend Snap N Go Double Stroller

This thing is a beast and drives like a semi but it helps a lot. It's easy to use and folds up nice and flat so it doesn't take up too much room in the car. The storage underneath is huge and has plenty of room for all the kid's needs. I can't wait until the babies can go into a regular stroller but, in the meantime, this will work perfectly. 

Well, there ya have it. My top 10 twin must haves. The list will change a lot the older they get, but these are the items that are helping to make our lives easier right now. 

Our babies are now two weeks old and things are going great so far.

Loren and I went home from the hospital earlier than we had originally planned to but we were ready to go home and I just wanted my whole family to be together. I was missing my Allie terribly. We got home Saturday afternoon and took some time to get situated. Surprisingly the first night went great. I honestly think the lack of sleep I was getting while pregnant with these two helped to prepare me for the newborn life. My body got used to running on 3 hours of sleep, so it wasn't much of a shock. 

Sunday and Monday we kind of just hung around the house and I worked on getting some sort of system down before Loren went back to work. I wanted to be confident that I could handle it. I worked on nursing them both and getting used to doing it by myself while Loren got a couple house projects done and went grocery shopping for me to stock up for the week.

So how has our first couple weeks gone?

I can honestly say there hasn't been a horrible day yet - knock on wood. There have however been a couple of days where I felt a little overwhelmed and tired, but I think we're starting to get a pretty good system down. With as weird as this sounds, I feel like this time around has been easier than it was with Allie. Maybe it's because this is my second time around. I like to think that I kind of know what I'm doing now. With Allie, everything was brand new and it seemed like I was constantly second guessing myself. I had no idea how to nurse so that was a bit overwhelming and I didn't really have any idea how to take are of a baby.

So anyway, for the first couple days we just hung out. Luckily it was pretty cold out so Allie wasn't really interested in going outside anyway.

Allie and I painted our toenails. She was so excited to pick out her own colors and I was excited that I could bend over to paint mine again.

We relaxed and Allie got used to "her babies".

She's in love.

Wednesday I took the babes to their first doctors appointment at their new pediatrician and everything went great. They both are healthy and very strong. While there, I made an appointment for Allie's three year check up and for her to get a flu shot, I also made the babies two week checkup appointment and an appointment for Raymond to be circumcised. I'm so nervous about that.

By Saturday I was ready to get out of the house. I knew it was going to be nice enough to take the babies outside for the first time so I told Allie we could go to the park. She was very happy her babies got to go with.

 Our first car ride with all three kids.

It was so nice to get out and actually be able to run around with Allie.

After the park we got some lunch then went home to feed the babies. Later that afternoon My mom, sister and I took Allie trunk or treating at a local church.

Sunday was my 28th birthday and Loren's only day off in the week so we just spent some quality time together. Loren got up early and took Allie Mae goose hunting for the first time until around 10am. She is now obsessed and talks about hunting with daddy all the time. She's such a daddy's girl.

Later that day we went to Farm and Fleet. I wanted to get myself some new clothes for my birthday, but didn't have any luck finding anything I liked. We did however find a couple Christmas gifts for Allie Mae so the trip wasn't a complete waste. 

My mom took this week and next week off to help out a little bit and with Loren working the 75+ hours a week he's been working, it's been helping out a ton. She's helped a lot with Allie so I've been able to catch up on some sleep and shower. We've also had the chance to go out shopping a couple times which has helped lift my spirits a bit. Being stuck in a small house with three kids and no adults all day long can get a little annoying. 

It's now Thursday and tomorrow is Halloween. The company that Loren works for gave all the guys the day off tomorrow so they can enjoy the day with their kids. This will be the first Halloween he'll be able to go trick or treating with us. Hopefully the snow they're saying we're going to get doesn't ruin it. I've been pumping all week so my mom can watch the babes while we go out and enjoy some time with just Allie. She's been so awesome with adjusting to the babies, she deserves some fun time without them. 

Welp...

I finally had the twins! They are a week old now so I'm a little behind on posting about it, but things have been so busy.

Here'sour birth story...

Thursday morning I went in for my 37 week checkup. Everything was moving along nicely and the babies were growing fast. I told the doctor about about some cramping I had the weekend before so he decided to check my cervix and had noticed it was finally thinning. With the cramping, small contractions I was having and my thinning cervix, he decided to send me home with a "prescription" that consisted of lots of walking and trip to Walgreens for some castor oil. So off I went. I was so ready to have the babies so I was willing to do anything at that point. I left the office, went home and walked around the neighborhood a couple times, I ran a ton of errands, went back home to clean the house and install car seats. I was literally exhausted by the time 5pm rolled around. Around 8pm I drank a homemade concoction of castor oil and orange juice. I'm pretty sure it was the nastiest thing I've ever drank. It seemed impossible to get it all down but I was on a mission.

After I finally finished the castor oil, Loren and I went to bed. I woke up around 1:30am with a terrible stomach ache and ended up puking all over the place. About 45 minutes passed and I was feeling better so I went back to bed. 5:30 rolled around and I was up with Loren. He went to work and I went to the bathroom before I went back to bed. I'm sitting on the toilet reading some Facebook posts and all of a sudden I feel this pop and then a huge gush of liquid. My water broke!!! I was freaking out. I called Loren to come back home. We sat on the phone for about 20 minutes talking and both of our voices were shaking. We were both a little terrified. I called the doctor and she said to meet her at the hospital around 7 so I stayed home, waited for Loren and got some last minute things packed into my hospital bag. Contractions didn't take long to start after my water broke either. I forgot about how bad those sucked. By the time we got to the hospital I needed a wheel chair because I couldn't stand anymore with the pain. We got ourselves checked in a settled into a room. From then on it was just a painful waiting game.

Everything moved so fast compared to Allie Mae's delivery. By about 11am I was dilated to 6cm and begging for an epidural. Contractions are contractions, they hurt either way, but I feel like these were worse than what I had with Allie. When I was in labor with Allie it was all in my stomach and the only thing that would make them feel better was to be up and moving around. These contraction were all in my back this time and hurt so bad that I was just curled in a ball the whole time. Anyway, after I got the epidural, Loren and I took a little nap. We slept maybe an hour and next thing I know they're telling me I was at 9cm and it was time to push. And so that's what I did. I can't really remember how long I pushed for, but little Miss Charlie Ann finally made her appearance.

Up until Charlie was out things were going really smooth. As soon as she was handed to me, things started getting a little freaky. All of a sudden as I pulling her up onto my chest, I see a ton of blood spraying everywhere. Literally spraying. Next thing I know, all the doctors and nurses were freaking out and Charlie was taken from me. I had no idea what was going on. There was blood everywhere, I thought one of her legs ripped off or something. Well, luckily it wasn't a leg, but it was her umbilical cord. I guess she had a super short cord and when I tried to bring her up to me it snapped in half. After about what seemed to be a lifetime, I was told she was ok and it was time to start pushing again for baby number 2. By this time, I'm exhausted and he did not want to come out. I pushed for another half hour. I literally felt like I was going to die. I had never been so exhausted in my life. I had doctors sitting on my stomach, another with his whole arm up there trying to get a hold of him. After a little help from the vacuum, Mr. Raymond had finally arrived.

Charlie Ann born 10/17/2014 at 1:12pm

5lbs 14oz 19in long

Raymond Earl Alexander born 10/17/2014 at 1:41pm

6lbs 9oz 19in long

After a very eventful delivery, the babies and I were cleaned up and put into our room. We had quite a few visitors the first night which was exhausting, but we all finally got to to bed for the night. The next day was full of check ups, tests and more visitors.

Everything went so well and I'm really pleased with all the hard work from the doctors and nurses. I'm beyond in love with my babies. And I now feel like my family is complete.   

Well, the past couple weeks have been pretty terrible to say the least. Everybody just seems to be so on edge. Loren is back working for the union for the next couple months and has been hating his life. He misses truck driving and it doesn't help that he's been working in the South side of Chicago (the one place he hates most in the world). I keep trying to bring his spirits up and remind him that this is only temporary, but most of the time it doesn't seem to help.

Allie's been a beast for the past couple weeks. I'm thinking she has hit terrible 3's. She has the worst attitude sometimes. You tell her to do something and it's a fight almost every time. She insists on arguing with me about everything and I'm so over it. I feel like the terrible mom who yells at her kid all the time. And I swear she has split personalities or something. She'll give me the look of death one second and the next is hugging on me telling she loves me. Crazy! I've just decided that I need to choose my battles wisely at this point. I'm too tired to argue with her all day.

I've been in a terrible mood lately too. I'm so ready to have these babies it's not even funny. I'm so tired all the time, I'm sore, I feel crampy constantly, and I sweat even when sitting down. This is no fun. We've all been passing around a cold/cough which makes things worse too. I had it first, then Allie, then Loren, then my cough got worse, then Allie got it again. Oi vey! I really hope this isn't what this winter is going to be like.

I have a doctors appointment tomorrow and I'm planning on begging her to induce me next week. I'll be 38 weeks next Friday, both babies are head down, they both are over 6lbs and I've been contracting, I think that's reason enough to evict them. I've had quite a few people say that I don't want them out yet because I'm going to be so tired when they come home. Well no shit! You know what though, I'm already tired! I'm literally exhausted...plus in pain, plus uncomfortable, plus HUGE. At least I'll have my body back. I can't wait until I can actually play with Allie again to not be the boring mom anymore. I can't wait until I don't feel like I'm going to die shaving my legs. I REALLY can't wait until I can walk across my house without feeling like I just ran a marathon. This is killing me.

I guess I should be happy that I've made it this far in the pregnancy though. My babes are healthy and growing like weeds so that's good. I just need to remind myself to be thankful and it will all be over soon.

Now that all the major preparations are done, it's time to concentrate on relaxing this next month. I need to keep these babies in me as long as I can.

I've done some things that I'm hoping will help us out a little bit this winter. I've been stocking up on diapers and formula when I can and I started compiling a stack of easy recipes for the crock pot. My mom and I also made a bunch of homemade chili and spaghetti sauce to freeze for the winter and hopefully Loren will get us a deer or two so we can replenish our freezer.

I still have some small things that need to be done.

• I need to pack my hospital bag. I have my list and have started stashing things to put in the bag. I have the babies going home outfits set aside and started getting some clothes put together for myself.
• I'd like to purchase a couple more things for myself like some tank tops for nursing and a couple zip up hoodies.
• I'd also like to get my hair colored since I know time for that will be very limited after they come home.
• I need to make some more laundry soap.
• I'd like to do one good clean throughout the house before the babies come home. I've done a pretty good job of keeping everything clean so I know that won't take too much time. 
• Come up with some sort of Big Sister gift for Allie to open in the hospital. 
• And last but not least we need to get the swings and pack n play in the house. I'm trying to hold off on that until the last minute since we don't really have a ton of room. 

Overall things have gone smoothly and I feel like each day we are more and more ready. 

I'm happy that I can finally say that we're ready for these babies (well, the house that is...I don't think we'll ever be mentally ready.). For the past month or so I've been nesting like crazy and have been tearing this house apart trying to get it organized and cleaned out. I literally went through everything we own and donated/threw away a ton of stuff. I didn't even want to mess with selling anything, I just wanted it out! Now that I'm done, It feels great to have all the unused things out and for all the stuff we actually need in the house to have it's own little space.

I'm regretting one thing though. I should have take before pictures. Everything looks so much better than it did before.

I went through all of our clothes and got rid of what we didn't wear anymore. I then took down all of the boxes that were in our closet and went through every last one. I had boxes of junk that I obviously hadn't gone through in years. I even found bank statements from 2006.

We still have lots of stuff in our closet, but it looks a million times better than it did before. You can actually walk in it now!

After our room and bathroom, I moved on to the kitchen cabinets and pantry. I pulled everything out, got rid of old food, old appliances, and all the random miss matched stuff that we never use (like all the cups and food organizers from the sub boxes). I put everything back in it's new home and even had an empty cabinet which I designated to be the baby cabinet.

I had enough room in there to put all the formula we have but after we use the stockpile, I'll use the cabinet for bottles and any other baby items that take up valuable counter space.

I also made a spot for all of Allie's dishes...

It's amazing how much room you can create when you simply get rid of the stuff you don't use.

On to the kids' bathroom.

We had a TON of towels, hand towels and wash cloths that just sat collecting dust in the back of the closet. I got rid of enough to make room for the baby blankets and Allie's linens that we just shoved in her closet.

I got a new door hanger to hang all of Allie's hooded towels and robes on the back of the door.

By doing that, it freed up a ton of space in the cabinet under the sink. I decided to make that the cabinet for all the baby's bath items and first aid stuff.

I put all the twins towels on the top and all the soaps and lotions had a nice spot in the middle.

One drawer is for all the wash cloths and the other I used for all the random travel sized soaps, oils, and lotions, also all the kids first aid stuff.

And now for the fun stuff. Allie's room/closet and the living room.

These two rooms took the longest, but I am so happy with how it turned out. It makes me a little less nervous about fitting two more people into our little home.

I figured for the first couple of months the twins and I will be living in the living room, just like Allie and I did. It was just easier for everyone that way. With that being said, I didn't really do much to Allie's room. I left all her furniture the way it was because it wasn't like we needed to fit two more beds in there right away. Her closet was a different story though.

I took EVERYTHING out of the closet and basically started over. Allie has plenty of room everywhere else for all her stuff so I decided to have the closet be just for the twins stuff and some random little things like my photo boxes and some toys.

I got the new plastic drawers from Walmart for about $20 each. I had to buy 4 and each one has 3 drawers. It was a little more than I wanted to spend, but it was better than putting a ton more money and work into putting up more shelves and buying more bins for all the twins clothes. Plus, this way I can see what's in each drawer and we will be able to take the drawers with us when we move next spring.

I organized each drawer by size and what type of clothing it is and I put all Baby Boy's stuff on the left and Baby Girls's stuff on the right. I also had a couple extra drawers for random stuff such as bibs, diapers, wipes, swaddles, etc.

After I was done with the closet I moved on to Allie's clothes. The dresser and hutch is all hers now.

I got some new bins for the hutch to organize all her undies and socks and what not.

We also put up a new stuffed animal net. Best investment ever and she thinks it's the coolest thing.

The living room was the most work. We needed to make as much room as possible for Allie's toys, swings and the twins Pack n Play. I wanted to make room for some baby essentials so I didn't have to go in and out of Allie's room in the middle of the night. I wanted everything to be in one central location so it is easy for everyone to find.

I found this really nice cube organizer from Walmart for $130. It has the space to put 16 bins if I wanted. I decided to go with 8 for now since the bins were almost $6 a piece, I wanted to have open spots for Allie's books and puzzles too, so it worked out amazingly.

As you can see, I used the right shelf mainly for Allie's toys with the exception of one bin for the twins toys.

And I used the left shelf for baby stuff and some of Loren and I's things.

Now that I got all the organizing done I feel a huge sense of relief. I feel like we're at least a little prepared. I'm sure some things will end up changing and I'll find that certain things don't work where they're at, but that's ok. As long as we have a good start.

I knew I was crazy when I thought going camping while 32 weeks pregnant with twins was a good idea. Thank God we were only about 20 minutes from home.

We didn't really start the weekend off very good. Loren's semi got stuck on his last job for the day so I was left packing up the entire car and running to Walmart to get some last minute things by myself. We didn't even make it to the campsite until about 8:45. When we got there we set up the tent, blew up the air mattress and by that time Allie was extremely tired so I had to get her to bed. We stayed up talking with the other couple we went with until about 1:30 in the morning, it was fun, but I was exhausted. Once Loren and I got settled in the tent it was a battle all night to get any sleep at all. Between the raccoons messing with the coolers, Loren snoring, Allie moving constantly, me getting too hot and not being able to get comfortable at all, I got maybe 30 mins of sleep, if I was lucky. I was so overtired by the time everyone else woke up I actually felt awake. We had an amazing breakfast over the fire and around noon everyone took a nap. We all woke up, hung out around the fire, the kids played in the woods, we went to the park and then had another really good meal over the fire. By the end of the day, I decided I was going to go home for the night so I could get a good nights sleep.

Sunday morning I went back to the campgrounds and we had some breakfast, took the tents down and went home to catch up on some sleep. It was a lot of fun though. It was the first weekend in months that we spent the whole time together as a family with nothing else to do. Allie loved being outside all weekend. She is definitely her fathers daughter. A simple stick in the outdoors can keep her busy for hours.

Later Sunday afternoon we had our "baby dinner" to go to at my brother and sister in laws house. We were served good food and got to open some gifts, gifts that we needed. The theme was "Thing 1 and Thing 2", I'm not much of a Dr. Seuss fan, but the decor was adorable! 

It was really nice to do something small with just the family. I really didn't want another baby shower. 

Overall it was a nice weekend. Very relaxing. Now it's time to get our butts back into gear and finish getting the house ready for these babies. Almost done!