1st Real Photo Shoot

My mom was in town this week, so we took the kids to get some pictures taken. Turns out it's kind of difficult to get two babies and a toddler to smile at the same time.

Ava the Human Pin Cushion

After we'd been home from the hospital a few days, I got a call from the doctor that treated Ava. He said that her blood work grew some E. Coli and they wanted her back in the hospital for 7-14 more days of IV antibiotics. Ahh! My heart just sank. We were just getting back to normal and now she was going to have to do it all over again!
So... again, I got a babysitter for the boys and off we went to the hospital. We got there around 4:00pm and by 10:00, she had had 6 different nurses try to find a vein for her IV and from what I could count, 17 needle pokes. Finally they gave up and called the doctor. He said "stop torturing that poor baby!" and he gave the okay to just give the anitbiotics through shots. By the next morning, they had her preliminary blood work back, which looked like she was getting significantly better. And since there really was no reason to keep us in the hospital, and because Eric had been brokering deals with her doctors since day one, we were able to go home Friday if we promised to be back every day for her antibiotics shot. That's what we did. Yesterday was her last shot. The poor poor baby. Thank heaven for Eric, or we'd have had to stay there for a week.

Here's Ava sporting her hospital gown.
She never wore it in the hospital, but I accidentally brought it home.
This is one article of clothing I wish didn't have to exist. So sad...

I feel a draft

Waiting to get discharged.

Our beautiful hospital room. She slept in the carseat next to me.
That cage of a crib, didn't look appealing.

Ava and Mommy's Weekend Getaway

So, on Friday night Ava decided that she was tired of all the stinky boys in the house and wanted some girl time. So Ava and I spent a few days away-- just the two of us. We got waited on hand and foot. I got breakfast, lunch, and dinner in bed, and we sat around watching TV all day. Sounds pretty nice huh? Unfortunately, it also came with a 104 degree temp, IVs, thermometers up her rear every few hours, 2 x-rays, an ultrasound, blood work, catheters and a spinal tap. The last of which made her so mad she burst blood vessels all over her face from the screaming and has a bruise on her tongue from biting it during the procedure I presume.
After scaring us with a Viral Meningitis diagnosis because of her "confusing labs", it was determined that it was probably just a UTI. They promptly sent us home with some antibiotics.

She got to wear this the whole time to keep her IV in (she loved that).

She was a trooper the whole time. She stayed smiley and pleasant when they weren't poking her.

It was an exahusting weekend. Eric got to spend his first weekend in weeks in the ER, and I got two sleepless nights in the hospital. We are so glad to be home.... but now we need a real vacation.

A bunch of fuzzy pictures... and spit up on my couch

I know there are some out there who think that having twin babies is wasted on me. I'm not the type to have them in matching outfits and take cute pictures all the time. I wish I was the type, but I just can't seem to pull it off-- even when I try really hard.
Today I got the babies all dressed and packed in the car only to turn the key and hear "click"... dead battery. Eric was already at church with Ethan, so I had no choice but to get everyone back in the house and take some pictures to prove that we actually got dressed today.

You'd think out of a million pictures, I'd get one clear shot of them smiling.

Ethan playing sports

Recently Ethan and Daddy started playing Wii sports and miniature golf on the weekends. Ethan is constantly improving. In this game Ethan got 7 strikes! The other score shall remain nameless. Ethan got a couple lucky hole in ones, but unfortunately Daddy did not get them on tape.

All Smiles at the Ursic House!

When I was struggling through my first year with Ethan, not getting any sleep at all, I would get so mad at everything sleep related-- Sleeping pill commercials, NyQuil ads, pictures of sleeping babies in magazines... the list goes on. But the worst were the mothers who would eagerly tell me about their 2 month old who's been sleeping for 8 hour chunks every night since they came home from the hospital. It made it that much worse knowing there were babies out there who were not screaming every hour and a half.
Well, I'm happy to report that last night both of my babies slept from 11:00-6:00. That's right, 7 hours straight. Then they both went right back to sleep after I fed them and slept till 9:30 (Ava slept till 10:30). And if that wasn't enough, Ethan decided to play in his room until 9:45 instead of waking me up. Yes, I'm feeling pretty good today.

Here's my Ava trying to squeeze a smile between those huge cheeks:

After a few minutes of trying to make Ava smile, Ethan wanted to show me how good HE is at smiling. I do love his smile.

It takes a little more effort to get Zach to smile, but it's worth it.
Unfortunately, they're all fuzzy...