Lilypie Fourth Birthday tickers

Lilypie Second Birthday tickers

Lilypie Second Birthday tickers

Thursday, April 29, 2010

No Deal

A couple of people have inquired about how the closing process is going. Here's the deal (or lack of one)...we are still waiting on an appraisal, which means that we will not be closing on schedule. We were supposed to close on Friday, April 30th. I am secretly glad though because for some reason, I completely blanked about needing to get homeowner's insurance. No one ever mentioned it so I just forgot. Hey, give me a break...this is only our second house and it's not like I don't have a million other things on my plate. Anyway, that deal is in the works so hopefully we will have an approved quote by next week. It's been a little bit harder than buying a new home would be simply because our house is over 30 years old and insurance companies seem to be very wary of insuring a home that old. I think that is a crock. Yes, the house might not be up to code (and actually ours has had A LOT of updating), BUT insurance is about taking risks. They only take the "safe" policies. I had an insurance agent tell me today, "Welcome to insurance in Florida." I have one word for that...BLAH!!!!

I'll let you know when we have a closing date.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

March of Dimes Walk-Round 2

Although it was extremely difficult to get a picture of both girls together looking at the camera, we got a lot of cute individual pictures and group pictures. We had a great time walking. We had a total of 12 team members, 9 walkers and 3 riders. Thank you so much to everyone who participated by walking or by donating! We raised over $400! No new team shirts this year. We stuck with last year's shirts.

All of these pictures are before the walk. My mom has the action pictures so I'll post those when I get them from her.

Kate
Hannah & Grandma Schaefer


Hannah, Aunt Erin, and Kate


Hannah-don't you love her shirt. It says, "I love being a big sister." I've looked all over for shirts like this that would distinguish which girl was older. I finally found some on a clearance rack at Children's Place Outlet for like $2.




Rachel & her Daddy


Kate-the little sister




Our attempt at a sister picture. Rachel dropped in to say hello!




Kate & Daddy


Hannah & Mommy


"Oh, no! A 3 mile walk? What have I gotten myself into?"



The team minus me

Marching Miracle Multiples 2010 Team
Tanya, Sarah, Grandma, Hannah, Grandpa, Nanny, Erin
Lauren, George, Kate, Rachel, Matt

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Making Lemonade out of Lemons

We had a wonderful time at the March of Dimes walk this morning! We started at just after 8:00 and finished by 9:10. Then, we rushed home to take Hannah to the doctor. She started having green snot last Wednesday. The poor little girl has yet another infection. However, I was telling George this morning that this little girl almost always has a smile on her face. She makes lemonade out of lemons and never seems to let her sickness bother her. I love her!

I asked why she keeps getting them and the doctor likened her allergies to sitting water attracting mosquitoes. If the water gets swept away or dries up, it's not going to attract mosquitoes, but if it just sits there for days, you'll have a swarm of them. Since Hannah is too young to blow her nose, but too old for the bulb syringe, she has all of the junk that her allergies creates just sitting in her nasal passages. Therefore, she gets an infection. She said that this really won't stop until we get her into see the allergist, which isn't going to happen until May 17th. So she is on another round of antibiotics and still doing breathing treatments 4 times a day. Imagine asking a toddler to sit for about an hour and a half everyday. She still has quite a bit of wheezing, but hopefully once her infection clears up the wheezing will also clear up.

I have also never had a problem with allergies until this year. I actually was up for most of the night last night with such horrible gum pain because of sinus pressure. So that made getting up for the walk at 5:50 so pleasant. However, the girls are sleeping so all is quiet and I am headed off to bed, too. I will post pictures of the walk either later today or tomorrow!

Friday, April 23, 2010

Tomorrow is the Big Day

We once again have the privilege and honor of walking in the annual March of Dimes walk. Last year was our first year and we had a blast! The most important thing is that we are raising money to support continued research for healthy pregnancies to prevent premature birth. And for those of us who couldn't help but have premature babies, to support medical advances in nurturing healthy growth of premature babies. I honestly truly never even fathomed premature babies until I had them. I just lived my own little blissful world that almost all babies were born as healthy, full-term babies. Our lives had just never been touched by any preemies. Two years ago I NEVER would have thought that a baby born at 28 weeks or even earlier would have any chance of survival, much less live a healthy normal life. I suppose I underestimated God big time!



Now I cannot fathom not supporting March of Dimes. Every child that is born, no matter how early, should have the chance and the right to live. I have heard rumors that in some cases of universal healthy care, the insurance company will set a standard as to how many gestational weeks or pounds a baby must be in order to treat them. So you are telling me that my 1.5 lb. baby shouldn't have the right to medical treatment due to something that was completely beyond her control? And you are telling me that my precious girls should possibly not be here because they just aren't worth the medical cost? NO WAY!!!!! You can bet that if that ever comes up in this country's health insurance reform, this mama (along with countless other mothers of preemies) will be banging down the doors of government.



But I digress, moving back to my original intent for this post...we would love for you to join us in supporting the March of Dimes. Any amount you can give is wonderful! No amount is too small. Really, I mean it. Here's a link to our team's website, Marching Miracle Multiples. Thank you so much!

I will post some pictures tomorrow!

Monday, April 19, 2010

My Sister is My BFF

These are some pictures of us at Davis Park last week. For some reason the girls weren't as into the slides and swings as they normally are so we didn't stay too long.





Hannah in action


Kate on a mission



Hannah


Hannah

Hannah


Kate-what I really wanted to get in these pictures was their shirt. My mom got them this shirt. It says, "My sister is my BFF." Too cute!


Kate

Hannah watching some boy go down the slide

Busch Gardens

George woke up with an itch to do something fun with the girls over the weekend. He is and has always been the more adventerous & spontaneous one out of the both of us. His ideas are always bigger than mine. He threw out Busch Gardens and I have to admit that I wasn't gung ho about it at first. But sometimes George makes the valid point that I am unwilling to just get up and go with the flow. I have to calmly remind him that it's not so easy to get up and go with twins, but the girls are a little older now and don't require as much preparation to go somewhere. I let go of my need to plan things and decided that Busch Gardens would be a great idea.

Hannah in her new bathing suit
After waiting for almost an hour just to buy tickets, we finally made it into the park. We were buying an annual pass for me and just a fun card for George so we had to buy them through the main ticket office. I still think that waiting close to an hour to just get tickets is ridiculous with a capital "R". We headed over to the new kids area. It is Sesame Street safari land. We got to ride the Snuffleupagus (yes, I did have to look up the correct spelling) ride. It is similar to the Dumbo ride at Disney. I rode with Hannah and George rode with Kate. That was the only ride we rode because the girls didn't like being held in the lines. Hannah would run away if we let her. That and the fact that it was their naptime didn't help. There are a couple of other rides that they can go on, but I would have to take them with me. The other rides they aren't ready for because I don't trust that they wouldn't try to climb out.
So we tried out the little water area. However, they have diaper police and apparently the girls were supposed to have on swim diapers. The lady politely informed us that they had them for sale in the gift shop. "Of course you have them for sale in the gift shop, but I'm not paying out the butt for a swim diaper." So we left that little area and did some other stuff in the kids area. Then, we headed for the train. Once again, a great idea in theory, but Hannah is SO squirmy and didn't like having to sit. After that we were ready to go. It's nice that we can go for 4-5 hours and then leave and feel like we haven't wasted our money.
Daddy & the girls waiting in the snuffleupagus line


Daddy & Hannah in the canopy crawl. As a side note, I am and always have been deathly afraid of these nets that you walk across. As a little girl I had the fear that my foot would fall through the rope. I was forced to conquer my fear because Hannah wanted to follow Daddy & Kate. The particular place she wanted to follow them was like a bridge and went over walking areas. I sucked it up and went across just for my baby girl. I didn't much appreciate the younger kids who would run across causing the narrow walking area to sway.


Mommy & Hannah on the train

Hannah

Kate

Another picture on the train
We had a great family day full of fun! Sarah also has a pass and so do some other friends so I'm looking forward to being able to go during the week with much lighter crowds and to just be able to get out and have some fun!
On another note, I took Hannah back to the doctor today because her breathing was fast and she was still wheezing. I likened her to a 80 year old smoker with emphyzema. The doctor increased the amount of times we do breathing treatments and also put her on two different inhalant steroids and an oral steriod. Her appointment with the allergist doctor isn't until the middle of May so I'm hoping that we can get her breathing under control before then.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Guess What We Did Today?

George woke up with an itch to do something fun with the girls today. His ideas are always bigger than mine. I'll leave you with just a sneak peek at where we went today. I'm exhausted so I'll do a full post tomorrow (maybe).

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Thank you, Daddy!

Or at least that is what the pediatrician said we should tell George after Hannah's appointment today. I took her in because she has never fully recovered from her infection a couple of weeks ago. The infection is completely gone, but her wheezing has stuck around. My mommy instincts told me to quit ignoring it and take her in. I'm glad I did. She has asthma and allergies. Both of these are wonderful gifts from their father. I have never been bothered at all with allergies until just these past couple of months. I asked the doctor if she might be more susceptible due to her prematurity, but she said if it's just now showing up then most likely not. So she put her on a different nebulizer, told us to stay on Zyrtec (OTC allergy medicine) until June, and referred us to an asthma and allergy specialist. I'm not looking forward to having to go to another doctor, but I have been worried about her wheezing so I am glad that we finally have an answer.

Kate, on the other hand, seems to not have any breathing problems at all. We'll have to keep an eye on her also, but so far so good.

I know it seems that I've been posting a lot lately and I have been. It's not that I have any extra time on my hands because really we've been incredibly busy this week. Tomorrow is the only day that I do not have any plans. We (me, my mom, and the girls) had the amazing blessing of taking a meal to a family with a NICU baby. We originally delivered them a gift bag back in March and it turns out that they knew a couple in our bible fellowship class. We've been able to arrange some meals for them for the rest of April. Baby Simon is doing better and got to graduate into a big boy bed (bassinet) just yesterday. I remember that feeling of pure excitement at seeing the girls finally in an open bed. I was so excited to finally meet this precious couple. As we were walking out of the hospital, I had to fight the tears off because I was simply remembering our time there and how grateful I am that we have two healthy girls, but also because I am simply amazed that God is using us. AMAZING! We also have an amazing bible fellowship class that has agreed to bring meals to a couple that none of them have ever met. They do it out of love for us and to be the face of Christ. I love that they are so willing to sacrifice simply because they know it means so much to us. Love them!

Here are some pictures of the girls playing outside. Every time I tell the dogs that they need to go outside and go potty, I not only have two dogs running to meet me at the door, but also two little girls. This is probably not helping Hannah's asthma any, but I can't keep them locked up all day.


Hannah hugging her baby



Wednesday, April 14, 2010

More Rachel Party Pics

I was waiting to post my party pics until Sarah had done hers. And she did. So here they are.

Rachel eating her cupcake

Kate looking all giddy over her cupcake


She put her cupcake up to her mouth and then tried to hide it in her hands. I think she might be turning into a closet eater already.

Hannah made a mess out of hers














Hannah & Kate were much more interested in opening Rachel's gifts than Rachel was







Kate trying out Rachel's chair



That little cool chick in the sunglasses is Hannah

Hannah crying as Grandpa tries to show her how to properly put them on

Hannah donning her birthday party outfit
Kate donning her party outfit