Life as we new it...

Now that I kinda understand how blogging works I thought I would write about how my life has changed for the better in the last 5 years (Warning this will be a long post). Not that I had a terrible life before...I had a great childhood, but I married the love of my life and created my beautiful family.

6 years ago my now husband proposed upon a ledge at the Grand Canyon with my best friends around. Now you need to understand that my husband and I had been dating for 13 years at this point and have gone on a few "mini" vacations together where I thought "this is it...we are going to get engaged". Up until that point at the Grand Canyon I had absolutely no idea that this was going to be the trip that he would propose. I was surprised and thrilled at the same time. To have our friends around made this a very special memory to us.

Fast forward a year and our beautiful daughter was born. I was lucky with that pregnancy in that I put on 39 pounds and was very uneventful in terms of medical risks and such. In fact I made it such a comfortable home in my tummy that my daughter decided to stay put for an extra 12 days. The day before she was scheduled to be induced, she decided that is was time to introduce herself to the world. With a 3 and a half hour labour she was born at 6:49am with no complications and welcomed with open arms. She is now almost 4 years old and an absolute joy. We play and do crafts and she is a huge help with her brothers.

When I say brothers I mean twin boys. A year ago last week my husband and I went to our routine 19 week ultrasound for the first time and discovered to everyones surprise (including the doctor) that there were 2 babies. We were shocked and I think the first thought that went through my husband and my mind was "how did this happen and what are we going to do now?" we were only planning on 2 kids and here we are expecting two at one time, making out kid count 3. Once the shock wore off with us (which took a few months) and our family we were in the nesting and planning stage. 2 of everything...this is going to be expensive I thought. Well being frugal I managed to find a crib exactly like our daughter's online that had never been used and half the price of what we paid 3 year earlier.

In August (after a typical singleton pregnancy) at 39 weeks (totally not normal for twins) I gave birth to healthy twin BOYS. We were not expecting boys...I was shocked but upon seeing them for the first time in total love with my boys. I was expecting the birth to be a little different from my first...mainly because there were 2 to be born, but I was mistaken. This time around my water broke at home (thankfully in the toilet) and we quickly went to the hospital. I was prepared for the worst scenario...the possibility of a natural birth for the first twin and a c-section for the second. Well luckily I was able to have both boys naturally but not without a little drama in the delivery room. Baby B decided to flip from a head down position to a foot first position(my biggest fear) so he was literally pulled out by his feet. After 2 hours in the NICU my second born baby boy was in my arms and I was never going to let them go!

Once home (2 days later) we quickly settled into a routine of feeding, diapers and babies sleeping, but with a 3 year old toddler whose naps were starting to become few and far between I was luck to get the odd afternoon when all 3 kids were sleeping at the same time. When they say "sleep when baby sleeps" I think they mean when you are a first time mum because there is no way that a second time mum will be able to sleep at the same time when you want to spend time with your toddler to have them feel like they are still as important to you even though there is another baby/babies in the house. We have had our challenges but after 8 months we are surviving and thriving as a family of 5 and I would not change a moment for anything. More about the challenges of twins in a later post :)