Not much going on

Okay, I'm quite proud of myself so I had to share. This is the cake I made for my sister's 22nd birthday. It was my first time ever doing a "sculpted" cake and also my first time working with fondant. It's not perfect, and it definitely had it's flaws, but I think it turned out pretty cute. The cake was delicious by the way. I got the recipe from Williams - Sonoma and it was fantastic. And even though my sister was probably a little old for this cake, she humors me because she's my princess and best friend.

In other news, can you believe these cuties are already over 3 months old? Seriously where has the time gone? They fill every day with love and amazement. I am so lucky to be able to stay home with them every day. They are tons of fun. I have started losing my hair though because they both love to grab onto it and pull it to their faces. When I finally get free, their chubby little hands are wrapped around 5 or 6 strands of hair. This happens multiple times a day, and I'm thinking I may need a haircut before I go bald! Anyways, Bailey loves to snuggle and makes the funniest faces we've ever seen. She is constantly making her Daddy laugh. She has also started pushing up with her arms and lifting her head at which point she rolls her body side to side or does this hilarious head bob. Reagan is our little sweet pea. She is rarely fussy and is perfectly content just looking around, cooing and sucking on her hands. She is such a sweetheart and still a tiny little thing. So far we have avoided RSV, colds, and the flu, and we are praying it stays that way. Daddy started school last week and the three of us girls miss him a ton when he's gone. But we are so proud of him and always look forward to seeing him at the end of the day. The only exciting thing coming up is the girls' appointment with the pulmonologist on February 4th. She should determine that day when the girls can come off the oxygen. Mommy can't wait because she is so fed up with all of these tubes and wires!!

Reagan and her cute little mohawk!
Hehe, I love this face. I caught her right before she started to yawn.

Bailey and Reagan's room

Okay, so the girls' room has been finished for a while now, thanks to my amazing husband. He painted the room, dresser, and set everything up for me! I'm so proud of how it turned out, so I thought I would share. Plus, I'm kind of bored. *You can't really tell because of the lighting, but the room is a pale green. It's very similar to the color of the background of this blog.

The top of their dresser. Their initials are next to their set of footprints.
Two diaper cakes from my showers and a shadowbox I put together with stuff from the hospital. It has their hospital birth announcement cards, hats they wore and more footprints. What can I say, I love their tiny little feet!
My recliner, which Michael's sister gave to us. It is so comfy, I love it. I've loved fairies ever since I was little, so a few years ago Michael bought me the hanging metal fairy mobile in Apple Hill. It is the cutest thing.
I know I keep bragging about my husband. But he picked out the girls bedding. It is gorgeous, and I couldn't have picked something better myself. 
The wall letters that we painted. We thought about putting "and" in between the names so that it doesn't look like one name, but it looked funny.

2008

So this was the first year that I didn't send out Christmas cards. It's not like I didn't have the time, I just didn't feel like doing it for some reason. Instead I'll just catch you up on some of the highlights of this year. Most of it is old news, sorry!

January- My sister Juliann was married January 5th bringing another Michael into the family! It was also the same day as one of the worst snow storms of the year. We just barely ended up with a reception! 

February- I had surgery the day after Valentine's day.

March- We went to Cancun, Mexico (one of our favorite places to visit) with our friends Jamin and Taneil, Andy, Janet and Michael's brother Chris.

April- We found out I was pregnant on April 30th.

May- It's twins! We also went to visit Michael's sister Nicole and her husband and kids in Utah. We had a lot of fun.

June- My brother Skyler graduates high school. 

July- I turned 23!

August- We found out we were having 2 girls on August 5th. Michael and I celebrated our 4th anniversary on August 7th with a week long trip to Vegas. We went and saw Blue Man Group again and had a very romantic dinner! Even if you aren't very far along in a pregnancy, Vegas is miserable in the summer!!

October- I was hospitalized on the 3rd. Bailey and Reagan were born on the 16th.

November-Reagan and Bailey both have heart surgery the first week of the month making it the most stressful week of our lives! Michael turned 27.

December-Bailey and Reagan make it home just in time for us to spend their first Christmas with them!

The girls first Christmas

The girls both came home on December 23rd, making this the best Christmas ever. We thought that Reagan would come home first and we would be visiting Bailey in the hospital today. I guess she decided she didn't want to be alone at the hospital and started eating like she was supposed to. They are both still on oxygen though and apnea monitors, which we are greatful for as they have alerted us to several apnea/bradycardias. So anyways, Nana and Uncle Chris came over to open presents with us. Poor Papa was sick so he stayed next door and watched us on ichat. The girls are wearing the Christmas dresses that Grandma made them. We couldn't find any small enough to buy so she used a dolls dress pattern for them. Aren't they cute? Grandma and Grandpa came over later with Uncle Skyler and we opened presents from them. The girls got some fun books and toys and lots of cute clothes of course. Mommy and Daddy got a lot of fun presents too but all we really wanted for Christmas was to have our sweet little angels with us, and we got that. Santa was good to us this year!

Bailey is on the left and Reagan is on the right. We kept pushing Reagan's arms down and she would raise them right back up.
The two best presents under the tree
Mommy and Daddy are a little tired. It was a long night!

Quick Update

I'm really tired, but I thought I should update quickly. First off we were told last Saturday that Reagan would be coming home this past Tuesday so we would need to stay the night Monday. Well Monday came and they told us that she wasn't doing as well as they wanted her to and so they were going to keep her longer still. We were devastated but my sweet sister brought up the fact that the Lord does things for a reason. And he truly does.  You see, I had been having some abdominal pain and nausea for almost a week. On Tuesday Michael noticed that my eyes were yellow, and by Wednesday my skin had turned yellow and I was exhausted all the time. I went to the ER for the second time this year and they ran a bunch of  blood tests, an MRI and an ultrasound on my gallbladder. My Liver enzymes were really high and my bile duct had dilated from 3mm to 11mm in 2 months which was quite a jump. This morning they had me go in for an ERCP where they put me to sleep and put a scope down my throat, through my stomach and into my gall bladder. There they found a large gallstone wedged in my bile duct, and it was not going to move. So they cut a slit in the duct and pushed the stone out. I woke up while the scope was still in and gagged a whole bunch. Yuck. And I will have to have my gallbladder removed eventually. So while all of this was very unfortunate and I'm kind of sore now, it's actually a blessing that Reagan didn't come home because we would not have been able to keep her at the hospital with us because of the risk of infection. And once babies leave the NICU they're not allowed back in so they don't contaminate other babies. So it all worked out. And now I'm even more tired after typing it.

Blessings and Thanks

If you can't tell after reading this post, I'm emotional tonight. This year for Thanksgiving I really started thinking about all of the blessings that we have received and all that we have to be grateful for. I realized that through some of the biggest trials we have had, came the greatest blessings. We dealt with infertility for two and a half years and the bitterness and heartache that came with it, went through surgery because of infertility, spent tons of money on treatments, went into pre-term labor, had two heart surgeries for the babies, and have to leave our babies in the NICU but... we have the two most perfect angels we could ever have asked for. I know it sounds kind of cheesy to say that they were worth the wait, but they really were. I would go through all of that and more for them again without hesitating. Michael and I are more grateful for them than they will ever know. They truly light up our lives and have brought so much love to us. Our hearts have literally doubled in size. It has also brought Michael and I closer together and reconfirmed how much we mean to each other. I now realize that I spent way too much time focusing on all of the negative and putting too much energy into being bitter, that I forgot about all that Heavenly Father had already blessed me with. We have a very rich and blessed life. This was taken on Thanksgiving. It is the first time the girls had been together since they were still inside me. Bailey is on the left and Reagan on the right

*Update: The babies are now in an open air crib together and are taking every other feeding from a bottle. Yesterday, Bailey took her whole bottle without any oxygen!

Bath Time!

Last night, Michael and I went to the hospital at 10 pm to watch the girls get their 2nd tub baths. They had us watch and sort of assist so that this Friday we can come in and do it ourselves. Reagan loved the bath and looked like she was relaxing at the spa. Miss Bailey on the other hand wasn't too thrilled about being taken out of her warm bed. But she calmed down once it was done and Daddy started brushing her hair. So here are some pics of their tub time!This is right before Daddy put Bailey in the tub. She was so mad and squirming all around and she pooped in her Daddy's hand.

Hehe, Reagan's Baby Booty. I couldn't resist putting this picture up. It's so cute, I just want to pinch her little bum!!

                                                  Bailey wasn't crazy about her bath
                                                                   Fluffy head Reagan

                                                 Reagan relaxing during bath time