In a Nutshell... again with the nutshell!

Well there's just no way I can catch up on all the stuff I've missed in the last several months. I haven't even checked blogs for so long. I am so out of the loop! So much has happened, and I will try to be brief.. hehehehe.

What's been going on at our house, besides obviously being swamped with our two beautiful babies (these pics are from my phone so they're aren't the best quality):

Jack was in the hospital in July with wheezing. He only had a cold but his wheezing got so bad (plus he was throwing up a lot and couldn't keep enough down) that he had to be admitted.. it is too early to tell but he might have Asthma, poor baby. He was such a good boy at the hospital and all the nurses fell in love with him.. who wouldn't?? He was so happy the whole time he was sick, well besides the fact that he slept NEVER, that's why I didn't realize how sick he was. Poor Jack hated the IV and the oxygen, his first night was pretty rough. But we got him better and then he got another cold later and the wheezing started again. No hospital this time thankfully. He is now on a daily inhaled steroid to help keep his breathing under control and so far seems to be working ok. He has good days and bad but it helps to know what to do now as we are getting more familiar with the symptoms.

We had Jack sealed to us on July 31st! It was such an amazing and special day. He was so happy when he was brought into the sealing room and saw the room full of some of his biggest fans. We are so blessed to have him and we love him so so sooooo much!! He is truly the most special little baby boy. It was so neat to be in the sealing room and have Anna there with us and to be supported by so many friends and loved ones. We will never forget it! Anna and Jack were both blessed the following day. Kirk gave them beautiful blessings. Jack's birth mom and grandparents were there to participate with us all weekend as well which was really great. We can't believe we've come this far and that we have TWO BABIES. Whew!

This is a pic of Anna the other day. She has grown and changed so much. She is a really funny girl. She is very particular about things. She's one of those babies that has to be held standing up, rocking, and she does NOT like people in her face! She is really really cute. Her little personality is really starting to blossom and it has been so fun! She is catching up with brother in a lot of ways and they are really noticing each other. She is rolling over and is totally obsessed with her hands. She thinks they are the coolest thing she's ever seen and she can't take her eyes off of them..... they just do so many awesome tricks! She talks a lot and she outbursts every now and then with like a giant loud sigh/yell.. it's so funny. She is smiling a lot and I have to say she loves her mommy :) I have gotten her laughing a few times and it is the cutest thing ever. She cries when she is tired and until last night the bottle is her binkey. She likey. last night for some magical reason she took a binkey at bedtime! I couldn't believe it. She sucked on in for about 30 minutes then when it fell out she cried but hey.. that's a miracle folks! Maybe there's hope for us afterall :)

This is a picture of Jack taken today. Is he the handsomest or what? He is sitting up obviously and getting pretty darn good at it. He was trying so hard to pull that sock off it was hilarious. Everything still goes in his mouth. He is a very happy boy still. He is teething now which doesn't make him very happy though. He already has his bottom two teeth and he's working on his top two. He isn't loving it so much but he's still so sweet about it. He is army crawling and he can really move! He talks a ton and sings (I think it's singing). He can feed himself finger foods. He gets so excited to see his dad when he comes home. He also loves to see people he recognizes like his grandparents and family members. He is still my snuggly boy. He also loves his mommy :) What can I say, I'm the best!

This picture of Anna was about 6 weeks ago.. SOOOOO CUTE!!!!

Just a hilarious picture of my boy. He cracks me up. He weighs 24.7 pounds.. yah, he's a bruiser!

This picture is sideways but this was them the other day.. all piled up on each other. I'm the referee. I have a feeling that will be my role for many more years to come :) The routine at our house is pretty non-stop. Up at 7-7:30; bottles, breakfast, diapers, clothes, play with mom; naps at 9-9:30; those don't last too long unfortunately.. then it's playtime again, bottles, diapers, lunch with solids, go for a walk maybe; 1 p.m naps; one of them will inevitably not sleep long so I'll play with that one and get them down again just in time for the other to wake up.. then we just hang on til dad gets home and it's bedtime at 7! oh wait we're not done.. it's up to feed Anna whenever she wakes up, and since she's up she might as well be wide awake for 2 hours... and comforting Jack several times a night because his teeth hurt and he cries a lot in his sleep and happens to be in our bedroom. Do I sound like I'm complaining? I'm totally not :)

I stink at nutshells. This was a lot longer than I had planned. I sure miss everyone. I am consumed--I love my babies--but I am consumed by them! It takes all the mental, physical and emotional energy I have to make it through my day, day after day. I still have lots of help though from my awesome family. I couldn't do it without them. It is getting easier but it is still a ton of work. We are happy even though we are exhausted. Jack and Anna are both so sweet and special. We love them so much!!!

I will try to write again soon.. Our downstairs is almost finished!!! we have carpet on the way people! I need to post about that, and also the whole month I spent at my parent's house in WA.. :)

Funny Jack

It's SO CONTAGIOUS!!

Our Crazy LIfe!

The babies.. yes plural.. crazy... are asleep for a minute and I thought I'd post a quick update even though I should be doing laundry or something :) Anna is almost three weeks old! It's scary how fast time is going.. and literally all it feels like I do is feed babies. Feed one, then the other, play with them, put them down for a quick nap, change diapers and do it all over again. Every three hours. I feel like my head is buried in the sand as far as the outside world is concerned. I hardly even know what's going on with my own family! I know, I asked for this and I'm not really complaining.. I'm just saying how it is :) it wonderful to have these precious ones in our lives. I'm trying not to wish the time away because it is already going fast.. I think I could just really use some sleep or a minute out of the house. I do feel like it's getting better every day and I'm getting a handle on things. Well I feel like that most of the time, and then we have our moments where they gang up on me for hours on end, both demanding equal attention and then I fall apart :) But I have tons of help. Friends and family and neighbors come over every day to help me. Usually someone comes in the morning and someone else in the afternoon. I could NOT do it without the help. Well I guess I could, but I would go insane and I really don't want to be insane.. so instead I have had to learn to suck it up and ask for help and it has made all the difference for me. I can't believe how generous people are to come and help me. Bless them. They make me happy and bring calm and peace and order with them. They are a gift from my Father in Heaven who I know is watching over us and helping us every step of the way.

OK enough of my super serious side. I'm still quite emotional as you can probably tell :) But like I said, getting better every day.

Here is Anna on her two week birthday! She is so beautiful. She would NOT wake up :)

She woke up the next day

These kids are 4 1/2 months apart??? Ha ha Jack is So huge. But oh so handsome and lovable.

Kirk is SUCH a sweet Dad. He takes good care of us all and has a lot of fun playing with the babes.

Oh my Jack. This boy just melts me. MELTS me I tell ya.
He held his own bottle the other day! It was so cute. It was a one time thing :) He's big but he's still just a baby.

So that's pretty much what's going on in our lives right now. Feeding babies :) I will be pretty bad at keeping in touch for a long time I think. It makes me sad but it's all I can do to get even a shower! But hurray for having two beautiful babies! How lucky are we?

Little Anna is here!

Anna Katherine was born on Tuesday, May 11 at 6 p.m.! She weighed 7 lbs 9 oz and was 19.5 inches long! She is healthy and doing great.

I am recovering well and Kirk and I are like two little zombies walking around with no sleep! Anna is so sweet. She has a much louder set of lungs than Jack though :) She pretty much cried non-stop our first night home.. you can confirm that with my Mom and Dad! She cried most of the nights her first week.. but she is doing much better and we are getting a little more sleep now, thankfully. She is so beautiful and has already changed so much since these pictures! It's amazing.

Labor was definitely hard. I hate to complain because I know there's always someone out there who had it worse. I was in labor about 10 hours, which went by fairly quickly. The contractions were horribly painful in my back until I got the epidural and even after that they still hurt quite a bit. I pushed for 2 1/2 hours!! I didn't even know that was possible. I was thinking about it later that night and did a little guestimation.. so contractions every two minutes, pushing three times each contraction for 10 seconds each, for 2.5 hours- that equals about 230 pushes. UNREAL! Kirk and my Mom were both great coaches and cheerleaders and really helped me get through it. Let's just say I conquered one of my biggest fears and am so happy she's here and I did it!!!

Jack is adjusting well to his little sister. That first night when she cried all night he slept the whole night through it all.. in fact he didn't wake up until she stopped crying at 5 a.m. It made me laugh. They are both so precious and so loved. It is going to really be a challenge this first few months with them both being so young. My parents left on Tuesday and I cried all day on Monday :) I have had a lot of help during the daytime from friends and family and I don't know what I would do without it!! I've had some melt downs along with the babies but every day seems to get better. We are trying to get into a good routine and figure out how to keep everyone happy and mom and dad sane. I get overwhelmed at times, but am really trying to enjoy the journey and let the unimportant stuff go. Kirk is such a wonderful husband and Dad and helps so much. We are thrilled with our two little ones and couldn't be happier. It's hard to believe that a year ago we had no kids, not even an inkling of a child.. and here we are with TWO. AHHH! It's so fun and we feel so blessed.

Well.. who knows when I will post again. hopefully soon because Anna is changing so fast and so is Jack! They are awesome.

In A Nutshell

Jack is almost (in three days) 4 months old!! I can't believe it. I have had a few requests to update my blog and I'm sorry that I haven't been better about doing it! There has been lots going on at times.. and also at times nothing going on because I'm so exhausted! I am now 38 weeks along in my pregnancy and I just went to the doctor today and things are progressing nicely. We are getting excited to meet little sister. I have been pretty scared about the whole labor thing.. but have finally reached the point that everyone talks about where you are so uncomfortable you just want her out! :) Plus we have been getting ready for her and that has gotten me pretty excited to meet her.

So I'm going to try not to make this post too long. Like I said there has been a lot going on. Jack has not been a very good napper during the day so I haven't had much time to do anything, including blog :) In my rare spare moments I have been frantically trying to paint things for the kid's room and help Kirk with getting ready and finishing the downstairs in any way I can. My house is a disaster :) It is amazing how busy you are with a newborn! I am way busier than I ever realized or thought I would be. And my feet are SO swollen, so I try to stop and put them up from time to time while I'm holding the little buddy.

Jack has grown SOOOOO much!! He and we get teased quite a lot and everyone wants to know what we're feeding the kid. No we're not feeding him meat! But the doctor did tell us at his two month appointment to try some rice cereal in his formula to help him sleep better because at the time he was not sleeping well. Needless to say he's put on a few pounds since then!! He's so adorably squishy and we just love our rolly polly little chubbers. We continue to be completely in love with him and just are so lucky to have him!! We think he loves his mom and dad too :) His little personality is coming to life, it is so fun. He is a happy boy.

So as a quick reminder, this is the little guy we brought home :

And here's our little chubbers 3 1/2 months later!! I LOVE this picture. Kirk took it yesterday.

He was a little sleepy :)

Oh he's just cute!

So here is the nutshell part. In the past couple of months here are the major things we've been up to:

• working on the downstairs (putting up trim, painting walls, painting the tree and little creatures for the kids room, tiling, etc.
• raising the most precious baby Jack ever. He is doing some fun things like really focusing on people's faces, smiling and talking lots, grabbing at things like his toys, learning to hold his head steady when upright, learning how to take naps without having to be held by mom, sleeping through the night (yay!!!!! until 7 a.m.!!!) and lots of other things. We're still working on tummy time.. so far it's still a head-butt the floor session- gravity just gets the most of those cheeks!
• A visit from my brother Erik who lives in Kansas, along with his son Ethan. We don't get to see them often so that was a treat!
• a week long trip to my sister Danielle's house to make a craft-load of wooden crafts! So fun and so nice to be in her home and have Jack around her and her family. Kirk was working in SLC all week so it worked out perfectly!
• a visit from grandma and grandpa Perrins for the first time to meet Jack in person. My sister Kimberly and her 21 month old daughter Baylee, and also my brother Clark joined the party. It was soooo fun.
• A trip to St. George to stay with Kirk's aunt. We went to Zion National Park (both mine and Jack's first time going). It was beautiful. And fun. and Jack did so awesome on the trip.
• Our traditional Sunday dinner visits to Kirk's Mom's house to see all the cousins.
• Our ward just split so we have new callings and lots of new people to meet
• My sister-in-law Birgitta just graduated from BYU so we got another visit from Gma and Gpa Perrins and had fun celebrating with Birgitta and her family too.

So that's pretty good! It seems like I've been moving in slow motion for so long.. it's nice to look back and see that I've actually accomplished a few things :)

We are doing great and hope you all are too! I haven't been awesome at blogging and even worse if that's possible at Facebooking :) So I'm sorry to have gotten so far behind in keeping up with all you my dear friends. Someday we'll be back in business.. it could be a while. ugh.. I mean.. yay!! We are so blessed to have our little instant family! thank you to so many of you (you know who you are) for all you have given to us and done for us. We are so blessed with amazing family and friends.

AND again I have failed to not make this a long post. dag!

In-N-Out Burger...May I Take Your Order?

We went to our new In-N-Out Burger a couple weeks ago and couldn't resist putting Jack in one of these hilarious hats. He was so cute!! The people around us thought he was pretty cute too :)

Our little guy is 2 months and one week old! We can't believe how fast time is going and how fast he's growing. He's 12 pounds! Apparently he's only in the 10th percentile for his weight, which we can't believe because he's SO chubby! We love our chubbers to pieces.

Fru-its Of Our Labors Downstairs

These photos are of the progress on the downstairs from a few weeks ago. There's more done now but since I'm running a few weeks behind on posting photos whenever I take them I better just go with what we got! Kirk has been downstairs working very diligently to get things finished before baby girl comes! He is very motivated to NOT have two infants in our bedroom.. I agree :)

Things really are coming along! Kirk has worked SO hard, and he's done most of it all on his own. I feel so badly that I haven't been able to help him more. He's doing a wonderful job and he's so talented at making the details so beautiful. There are really only three rooms downstairs: the Master bedroom, the kid's room and a sitting room off the entry. We're just focusing on finishing the bedrooms first. Kirk has most of the wood primed and is just finishing a few more things and then we're ready for paint! His brother Kyle is doing our tile work in the bathrooms which is so nice. So he's been doing the master shower lately, I need to get pictures of that too sometime. It's looking awesome.

Anyhoo here's a snapshop:

This is the tree that we will be putting up on the wall in the kid's room! It's so fun. Kirk designed everything on the computer and sent it to a place nearby that does laser cutting.. so no, we didn't cut this all out.. no way jose!!

The tree will go up on the wall and the grass will be up in the loft. I have been charged with painting this.. uhhhh.. we'll see how that goes.

Here's a look from outside the master bedroom. Can't see much but the saw but Kirk did all the wainscot from scratch basically. It took forever but it looks amazing.

Kirk has a lot of fun climbing up and down the ladder to get to our 12 ft ceilings

Here's a better look at the wainscot. And that piece to the right is our fancy built-in headboard that Kirk just thought of on his own! It is really cool. It's all finished now and he's got the primer coat on everything now. So don't be fooled by the different colors of the wood.. It will all be painted :)

And some pictures of Jack just for fun! :) Kirk and Jack chillin' at the computer. Kirk sits with Jack like this a lot.. it's so cute.

Snuggling

We can't wait until we're ready to move in down there!!