C Sections and VBAC's

It seems as though there are a lot of strong opinions on all three things (DUH) but mainly having a VBAC (vaginal birth after Cesarian).  It seems like a lot of moms who opt to try for a VBAC feel "robbed" of natural birth, or feel like
"less of a woman" or that they "have failed".  I feel none of these.  Let me take you back a bit.  When my midwife told me I was carrying twins,  my first thought wasn't how their birth would affect me.  I was terrified about
preterm birth.  All my research in my 9 months of pregnancy was about saying calm, not overdoing it, and how to not go into preterm labor.  Not how my babies would come into the world.  My motto was "whatever keeps them
in, and gets them out safely, that's what I'm going to do" .  At my 34 week ultrasound, we found out that both babies were STILL breech.  My doctor (who was amazing and VERY open minded) said I could labor and birth naturally,
but that both babies would probably still be breech, and that I may still need a c section after one baby was born, I was too scared.  I wanted to schedule a c section because I considered it a safer option (after A LOT of research)
for me, and for my babies.  That was it.  it was all about safety.  And let me tell you now, after carrying my twins with no medical problems, no preterm labor, no complications of any kind to full term at 38weeks and 2 days,
the last thing I felt was that I was less of a woman, a failure, or any other thing.  I was proud of my body.  Proud of the fact that I had kept two babies safe and sound until it was their time to come.

Pride.  And I happily walked into the operating room, as big as a house, with a smile on my face because I did it.  My c section was in no way a failure, and in fact was a pretty awesome experience.  They allowed my mom and my
husband in there with me, and I was able to snuggle a little with my babies before I went to recovery, and they went with Daddy and Mimi for about an hour before we were reunited.  I was anxious to get back, but I never
felt deprived.  Maybe it was because my priorities were a little different then.  I never gave a second thought to breastfeeding, I thought it would just happen naturally, and honestly, I never even researched it.  I planned on
nursing and pumping.  I feel like my hubby and my mom had a special bonding time together, and that they may not get that kind of bonding time with them for a while, especially since I was breastfeeding.  Plus I was able to
quietly reflect on what had just taken place, and was able to really remember it.  I am thankful for it.

Once I got to my room I was able to hold and nurse the girls and everything was beautiful.  I was nauseous, but amazing.  I opted for no "calming cocktail" and was wide awake and complete coherent during the surgery. 
In fact, I never thought of it as "my surgery"  only as my girls birthday.  After I left recovery, they never left my side (apart from getting a bath) No nursery, nothing.  Two perfectly healthy baby girls.  I did it.  An accomplishment
and definitely not a failure!

As for my next baby, I do want to try a VBAC.  Not because c sections are bad, I had an amazing experience with mine, but just because I can.  I would love a waterbirth.  I will try.  And if it ends in a c section, then oh well!
I wont be heartbroken.  Whatever is best for baby and me, that's what matters the most. 

Obsessed

I have already talked about this, but seriously, Pinterest is my new love.  I dont care what anyone thinks, I love it, everything about it and I wish I had been paying better attention to it for the past 2 years!!  Follow me if ya want to be updated all the time with humor, quotes, and anything else you can possibly think of!

www.pinterest.com/mom2twins11

this is a short post tonight as I am dead tired and have a sink full of dishes to be done.  Good night all!!  bedroom update coming soon!

Weekly Project To Do List

So each week I make a list of the projects (chores really) that I need to complete that week.  I figured I would share this weeks to do list with you.  

Disclaimer:: I get most of my projects from my obsession interest with Pinterest.

1.  Life Binder --This is my first priority this week.  I have all of the girls stuff neatly organized in a folder (one girl on each side) and that's great, but this is even more amazing.  I need to do one that has each member of the family in one binder so we all have our birth certificates and other important papers and records all together.  

2. Girls Room Re-Do--  I had to move all the fun stuff out of the girls room when we moved them to their big girl bed.  The would play until they dropped, leaving their room a disaster every single night.  I have been integrating their things back into their room and they are doing much better.  So This week I'm moving everything back in, and I welcome the extra space in the house!

3. Finish Our Room Re-Do--  We got a king size mattress and box springs for FREE from a good friend of ours (SCORE!) and it gave me a chance to redo our bedroom!  So I took some before pictures and I will do a full post on the room redo, im almost done, just some more organization and it will be a whole new room!

4. Begin Plans for Girls 3rd Birthday--  Its coming up in 5 months and this will be their first real party.  We were in Missouri for their birth, 1st and 2nd birthdays so this year we will be able to celebrate with all our family and all their friends!!  So Im crazy excited to start planning!

Thats my projects for this week.  And as for tonight, im beat.  good night!

Feather River Fish Hatchery

We live in a town with so many free things to do and explore.  But you know how it is, you drive by it everyday, you never thing to stop as you see it everyday.  We are trying to take our kids to see all the beauty in our town (which is now more like a city unfortunately) that we got to experience as kids.  

Today we took them to a Diner for breakfast, and then to the Fish Hatchery.  We have a huge Salmon run and a Salmon Festival in September every year when hundreds of thousands of Salmon make their way from the Pacific ocean all the way back to our City.  It really is amazing!!  So we took the girls on the tour, and there were quite a few salmon there, which seems abnormal for this time of year, but we took advantage of it!!  No one else was there and we had free reign of the whole place. 

It was an awesome time and a great 1.2 mile walk!!

Happy Independence Day!

We had a nice day as a family today.  We stayed home, I made so super yummy buffalo chicken dip, and some 4th of July angel food/cool whip cake.  We just lounged in our pool and enjoyed being free.  It was our first 4th being home and out of the Army.  It was weird to not go on post and watch the fireworks and join in the festivities.  Here are a few pictures from our day of celebrating!

Somehow, we didnt end up with any pictures of us or the girls.  Sometimes, that happens but its rare.  Of course it had to happen on our 2nd favorite holiday!

Let It Grow, Let It Grow, Let It Grow :)

Okay, Its technically 1:21am on July 4th (happy independence day! but i havent been to bed yet so it still counts right? right.

Alright folks, I have decided to begin something that I have wanted to do for a long time, but just havent done because I didnt want to face the music, or split ends in my case.  I have decided to begin my hair growing journey.  HAHA i sound crazy right now, its okay, I understand.

This is something I have wanted to do for about a year, but knew that doing this the right way would mean chopping off all of my damaged ends.  This has been my biggest deturrent from actually moving forward with this process.  I havent really cut my hair since before I found out I was pregnant.  I cut about 8 inches off in December of 2009.  Since then, just little trims have happened.  My hair grew a LOT while I was pregnant, and It hit its longest point ever in August of last year.  Then I trimmed it, and it hasnt been the same since. 

So I have decided to begin by sectioning my hair into three layers because, well, its already in three layers.  I trimmed each layer and measured them after cutting.  The beginning stats are as follows.

Right Side of My Head

Longest Layer ::24.5inches
Middle Layer::  23 inches
Shortest Layer::21 inches
Bangs Layer::  11 inches

Left Side of My Head

Longest Layer::23.25 inches
Middle Layer::20 inches
Shortest Layer::18.5 inches
Bangs Layer ::6 inches

Now you may be wondering why the lengths are different for each side of my head.  Do not fear, my hair is even, however my part is on the left side of my head about an inch- inch and a half from the center of my head.  So the layers on the left are shorter.

So I am going to update each month and add what products are working for me!  Let me go over the hair growth guidelines I am following.

1)  No heat.  no blow dryers, curling irons, or straighteners (this will be the hardest one for me!)
2) No more hair color
3) moroccan oil
4) deep conditioning coconut oil masks once weekly
5) trimming 1/4-1/2 inch every 3 months
6) switching to a 100% boar bristle brush and a large tooth comb

among other sub categories to the aforementioned  rules, thats it!

Midnight Cleaning

Pinterest.  Its becoming somewhat of an obsession.  I am loving all the beautiful things, creations, photography, everything.  I love it all!  I just want to spend all night awake, on Pinterest, pinning everything I can.  

Unfortunately, I am not going to be doing that, as my night has other plans.  Like cleaning.  I am going to be up for hours and hours before my mind can rest.  In light of this heat wave, I have been a big bag of lazy ass and havent done any housework.  AT ALL.  Hey, in my defense we are on a brown out, causing everyone to cut on the energy they use.  Apparently to me, that ment the energy I use as well, with my body.  

So I have a nasty kitchen, living room, and entry to tackle and its not going to be pretty.  I guess I had better get to it!

July Blog Challenge

I have decided that I am going to take the July Blog Challenge (which I conveniently made up in my head)  Which means I will write a blog post every day for the month of July!  I am excited to start this challenge and see what I can accomplish with this Blog a month from now!

 Also, if you want to see something really funny (at least we cant get enough of it) here is Episode 1 of Ask Impact.  Impact is our horse and he has decided to answer some questions for us.  If you have any question you would like to ask the magic 8 ball...I mean Impact, leave them in the comments below and your questions will be featured on next weeks episode!

Marriage Takes Work

For those of you who are married, you know exactly what I mean by marriage takes work.  At least if you want a happy, successful marriage.  Nick and I have been married for over 4 1/4 years and I will tell you ere have been some rough times in that short amount of time.  It takes a lot of effort to work through your issues and come out stronger on the other side.

A lot of the time it starts out to be just small problems, but they can build up.  10 small problems become one large problem.  Now, if you're like me, you try not to say too much about the little things.  I'm not trying to start arguments over dirty socks.  But sometimes, those 10 little things become combined with a bigger thing.  Maybe he wants to hang out with his friends on the weekend, and suddenly you seem to be spending more time alone, and less time together.  Mix that with the 10 small issues that you may already be a little irritated about and you could end up in a fight.  

Unfortunately, this happens to every couple, and living together takes some getting used to!  Its normal to have little quarrels about things.  But what if you begin really missing each others signals.  What if you start fighting over everything.  You're stressed, he is stressed, the electric bill is way higher than you anticipated and someone is to blame.  It happens.  The point is that you have to be rational and understanding of one another.  

It takes hard work to make a marriage run smoothly.  As humans we fend for ourselves.  There is a definite learning curve to accepting maybe a different way of doing the laundry, of drawing up the budget.  You have to learn to cohabitant and that can take some getting used to.  Don't feel bad!  It is okay and a normal part of every relationship.  You need to find your groove as a couple and once you find that, life becomes smoother once again.

Adding children into the mix can take a perfectly happy marriage and jumble it all around.  When people are exhausted, frustrated, and are dealing with caring for a new life, things can get stressful!!  Try to remain connected and be a team.  Life can be stressful.  You just have to try to find a balance.  Finding time for each other is key.  You have to remain connected.  Making time each day, even if its 5 minutes a day to just reconnect, give each other a hug, talk about your day, or just say "I love you"  Investing just 5 minutes a day in your marriage can pay you back big time in the long run.  

You are in this together.  Sometimes you may feel more like enemies than partners.  But at the end of the day when you go to bed, you are a team.  Keep in mind that you chose each other, in good times or in bad.  Never go to bed without a kiss and saying I love you.  It re centers you and reminds you that "hey, i do love you, and were going to be OK"

We are now VLOGGERS!

Thats right folks.  We have started a daily (almost) vlog channel on youtube that you should check out!!  Dont forget to subscribe to get updates!  We are doing this because I feel like I miss so much, and when I video tape things, I can just look back on them and remember!  Also its nice for Nick to get to see all the things he missed while he was at work.  Its mainly all about the girls, and thats the awesome part!! 

 
See our VLOGS here!

thanks!
Sam

HAPPY EASTER!

I hope everyone had as good of an Easter Sunday as we did!  It was pouring rain and thunder this morning, and we thought our Easter egg hunt wasn't going to happen :(

Thank God at around 1pm the clouds parted and the sun (and the HEAT) came out and we were able to do our first Easter egg hunt!  It was a beautiful day that ended with corned beef and cabbage! (we missed making it on St Patrick's day, so we did a make up!)  Enjoy!

 

Thankful for the Pictures

So I may have just been looking at all the photos of the girls from the day they were born.  I may be crying as I type this....

This will forever be my favorite photo.  About 20 minutes after the girls were born, I was still in surgery getting put back together, and Nick was with the girls back in our room.  I wasnt here for these first moments with them, but I am so thankful to have them in pictures.

It brings back everything from that day.  Its odd that I forgot all the small details up until now.  I remember asking over and over again if they were okay.  I remember feeling the last 10 minutes of being stitched up.  I remember signing in, I remember everything.  I am so thankful for all of these memories.

Even this memory....the very first time holding them, and feeling so nauseous that I had to hand them off.  I nursed them one at a time, and held off throwing up for 2 hours.  It was amazing and beautiful!  

Right now, these same little girls are DESTROYING their bedroom instead of napping.  But that okay, because I am beyond thankful to have them.

Up, Down, Side to Side

We are so lost in life right now its stupid.  No it really is.  We havent had an income of any sort for TWO MONTHS and were living on savings that are about drained.  Now youre going to ask the question that we are asking ourselves.

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?!

I know, we have no idea.  We live with my mom (bless her heart) in a small Northern California town with zero opportunity.  We own a home in Missouri (AKA the last place I want to live in) and thank God for good renters!  We wanted so badly to move back ere because all of our family is here, but homestly, with no work and no opportunity what are we to do?  At this point it seems like Nick is going to have to leave and find work elsewhere, while we stay here until there is enough money for us to move out there too.  So I know what youre thinking...

WHERE WILL WE GO?!

I have no idea.  We want to live in the country, preferably Montana-esque (yup) or Montana.  Or maybe Washington, that would be great too.  I am just terrified that were going to run out of money before we figure it out!  I am just so thankful that we have each other.  Without my amazing hubby and the cutest almost 2 1/2 year olds ever, I would be a disaster :) 

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Bread

Oh my goodness ladies, this bread is to DIE for!  I found the recipe here and it is amazing!  Its hard to find things to make that don't cost an arm and a leg, and aren't full of preservatives.  This is definitely going to be added to my weekly breakfast meal plan.  I altered the recipe to fit my liking, but you can do it however you want :)  Lets get to it.

INGREDIENTS

1-1/3 cup flour (I used whole wheat flour)
2/3 oats, rolled or old fashion
1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup chocolate chips (I used 1/3 cup of each white and semi sweet)
1 egg
3 TBSP, melted butter (i used margarine)
1 cup buttermilk (i used light soy milk)

 THE HOW TO

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and grease a 9x5 loaf pan.

Mix all dry ingredients together in a mixer.

  In a separate bowl combine milk, egg, and melted butter.  

Pour wet ingredients in your mixer with everything else.  

Bake in the oven for 40-50 minutes or until knife inserted comes out clean.

ENJOY!!!

Were Back!!!

Hello and welcome back to the world of blogging!!  I have really missed my blog, and all the blogs I used to read.  I have thought about writing here many times, but with all that life has thrown at us in the past year, I just haven't got around to it...SHAMEFUL!!

Heres whats new with us!

Last year I lost 50 lbs, and I am still chugging along!  We have become a far more healthy family (posts on that to come!) and much more active too!!  

The girls are HUGE!  seriously yall, they are almost 2 and a half now and so freaking adorable.  now you may think I am just bias but seriously, I almost cant stand how cute they are!  They talk, they sing, they run and play and ride their mini horse Eeyore....so much has changed!!  They are starting potty training and its going great!!  My babies are growing up right in front of my eyes!  Dont believe me?  see for yourself.

 

What else...  Nick got out of the Army in November, and we moved back home to California.  Neither of us has been able to find a job yet, but all in good time.  We are living with my mom, which we are so thankful for!!  The girls have their own room (my childhood room) and we converted the family room into a bedroom for Nick and I (pics to come!!)  

I have quite a few posts in the making, so stay tuned!!  Were back and were here to stay!!