FIVE!!!

I can't believe that they are 5!! I couldn't get myself motivated this year to have a birthday party for them. So instead we went just our family to the swimming pool and had a fun time. I made a cake and the boys said they had a great birthday. It is funny how we feel like we need to do big parties, spending hundreds of dollars when they are just as happy if we do something small and they have just as much fun.

As I write this I think back five years ago December 3, 2004. I'm huge!! I'm waiting.

I have to go in to get induced in the morning and have my first epidural, (not because I wanted one but because my doctor said with twins he always gave epidurals) and the room is full, I mean really full. I think there was 1 OB and 2 students for the birth, then there was 2 Pediatric doctors (one for each baby) and then a student for each of them as well. Then a nurse for me and one for each of the babies and I had my midwife and my sister and of course my husband. And of course me not caring that there is a room full of people here to enjoy my pain and suffering. Just kidding. It actually wasn't that bad because of the epidural (although after having both two natural births and one with an epidural if I had to do it a again - which I never will!- I would go for natural). Well finally at 10:15pm I start pushing and at 10:25pm I have had 2 beautiful baby boys. Dallin was born first and Alex came next feet first!! Amazingly there were no stitches and everything went quite smoothly.

We have had an interesting 5 years. They boys had to be hospitalized for a week 2 weeks after they were born for pneumonia, Dallin had to go to the hospital, and have bone scans, X-rays, MRI's and a spinal tap, when he was 2 for 8 days when he had Guillain Barre Syndrome, and then six months later Dallin had to go to the hospital again when he ran into the corner of a wall and had to get 5 stitches.



It has been a crazy time running, cleaning, running and cleaning. I have fuzzy memories of their first year... well maybe their first few years and I wish I would have written everything down so I would remember. There have been lots of hilarious things said and done and some not so funny, (painting their room, when they were 2 years old, with their poo was one of the more NOT funny times and unfortunately my friend who was babysitting at the time had to deal with the first time they decided to be 'Poo'casso's). Sometimes I have a hard time remembering yesterday, or today for that matter. I am grateful, though, for these wonderful years. I have learned much patience and what wonderful friends I have here who help me, and give me such wonderful examples to keep me going everyday. I am so glad that I have these wonderful children. It is hard and I sometimes feel like have have lost myself in being a mom. I don't really know what I like to do any more because I don't have time or energy to have hobbies. Then I realize that it is such a blessing to be a mom and that I haven't lost myself, I have found a new self that has many different talents and blessings that I would never have had if I didn't have these wonderful children.