We call him Houdini

He was supposed to be having some tummy time on the floor by his sister while I did some laundry.  They were laying at the opposite end of this blanket.  Even all wrapped up this kid can get out of anything!

ROAD TRIP!!

We had a great trip home for Thanksgiving this year.  The babies did so great and got spoiled rotten by their grandmas, grandpas, aunts and uncles.  The week started with my dad and Grace coming to Logan for the Vandal game.  We got our kids all dressed up in Vandal gear and Justin went to the game with dad while the kids and I stayed home with Aunt Grace.

Sunday we headed home bright and early.  The babies were great little travelers.  They slept most of the way and we got home and the spoiling began.  The babies spent lots of time being held and loved and snuggled and just plain spoiled rotten, but what else are grandmas for?  We decided that the babies were going to need grandma rehab after we left.  Thanksgiving dinner was great as were all of the leftovers.  The boys got all of the lights up on their house and I got to go see lots of movies (it has been a long time since that has been able to happen!)

We had the baby's blessing on Wednesday night Grandma and Grandpa Pennington were able to make it up and brought my Aunt Jera with them as well.  It was so great to have them and all of Justin's family that are up in Moscow.  It was such a special night and my mom did an incredible job with their blessing outfits.  They were just beautiful!

Weston being spoiled by his Aunt Savvy

Addi loving Grandpa Steve

There were always so many helpers for feeding times!

Had some good times with my siblings.... Sure miss all being together!

Family picture for the blessing day!

We were so glad they made it through all the nasty weather to come see the babies!:D  They deserve the "great" in front of their grandparents!:D

Everyone got a lot of grandma love.

The babies are getting so much more responsive and fun to play with

Gotta love those baby smiles!

He looked so handsome in his little blessing outfit!

Happy 25th!!!

Birthday Boy!

Happy 25th birthday to my wonderful husband!  We had a fun birthday weekend.  Last night we went "out" for dinner (Ordered Wingers and brought it home) and then tonight we had his favorite Sunday dinner, Swiss cheese chicken and mashed potatoes, and then we had a Transformers birthday party.  Our party consisted of skype-ing Justin's family, facetiming my family, and our friend Marty had just stopped by so we made him stay and enjoy some Coldstone cake with us.

The kids picked it out;)

We have been having so much fun with our little kiddos at home.  We are learning more and more about their cute little personalities every day.  Weston is the sweetest little kid.  He lets us know when he's hungry, but other than that he sits pretty contently all day long.  Addi thinks it is the end of the world if she is awake and someone is not talking to her.  We recently got a baby bjorn and it has been my lifesaver with that little girl.  She has so much personality that it just explodes from her.... sometimes even while she sleeps.  :D

This is her new favorite hat from Aunt Laurel.  She was very confused at what her dad was doing....

Weston thinks his sister is very loud.   He has started learning how to cover his ears when she gets to wailing.:)

4 weeks

Tomorrow our little cuties have been home for a whole 4 weeks.  In that time we have gone through over 4 cases of diapers, boxes of formula, and 4 oxygen tanks.  But I think we're finally starting to get used to having them in the house.  Since they were on formula when they came home, Justin and I get to switch off nighttime feedings.  It is so wonderful to have such a great husband who will get up in the middle of the night to let me get extra sleep.

Halloween

 

 

 Halloween was fun.  We had a good time (well, Justin and I had a good time, the kids not so much) dressing them up.  Grace gave us the costumes and they only got to stay on for about 20 minutes before there was too much crying that we had to take them off.

GO VANDALS!!

 We've been having a blast watching football with them every weekend and just being able to snuggle them whenever we want without an hour drive.  We only ever leave the house for pediatrician appointments.  We did have to buy a new car that we all fit in.  Pictures will come of that soon.  It was sad to get rid of my little Carolla, but it just didn't fit our family any more.

Little cuties off of oxygen

Addison came off of her oxygen completely after about two weeks of being home.  Weston has just started coming off of it this last week.  We're hoping they're both going to stay off and that will make our trip home for Thanksgiving so much easier!

We're so grateful for them and the wonderful addition that they are to our lives.  Yes, we're exhausted, yes, sometimes they are naughty (mostly Addison), but we love having them home.  Babies change everything but so far we're pretty happy with the changes!

Home Sweet Home

The babies are home!  We got to bring them home from the hospital on Thursday morning.  Although we were sad to leave all of our favorite nurses and doctors at the NICU, we are so happy to have them home and be able to love on them without an hour long drive to Ogden.

He sure loves his little sister

I've had way too much fun dressing them up in all of the fun clothes that we've had waiting for them.

He thinks it is a little bit loud in this place

They're good little sleepers, especially Weston.  They are finally getting used to being home and mom and dad waking them up every three hours to eat.

Weston eating his bottle with Aunt Gracie

They were both over 5 lbs when we brought them home, Addison was closer to 5.5 lbs and still growing, we get to go see the pediatrician on Monday.

Photo shoot with Grandma

They love photo shoots with Grandma.  We've had a blast with my mom and sisters in town.  They've really loved to hold and snuggle the little ones.

Addi's good at posing for photo shoots

The nights are long but we're getting better at them.  We've learned how to keep their monitors from going off every couple of minutes.  They've still got oxygen and monitors attached to them.

Me with both of the little peanuts

Dad and Weston watching some football.

Schwartz Update

Its been a fun couple of weeks at the Schwartz house (/in the NICU).... here is a quick update on us!

We had a wonderful anniversary date at our favorite restaurant in Salt Lake.  This was our incredible dessert:D  (Better than year old wedding cake apparently)

We went to Disneyland for a day to see Garret who just got home from his mission, and Taylor who is soon to be leaving on his.  We spent 16 hours at Disneyland and got all of the wonderful rides in and spent so much fun time with my family!

The nursery got all finished.  It looks wonderful:)  Blue and pink and brown and pink.  Airplanes and hearts.  Thanks to my mom for Addi's beautiful quilt!


The little peanuts are doing great!  They are both just over 3.5 lbs and growing.  We're hoping to get them out of isolettes and into an open crib together soon.  We are starting to try and nurse them once a day and they are being little champs!

As for Weston, he is pulling more and more hilarious faces every day.  We just really love this little man!

Addi is our little princess who has her daddy wrapped around her itty bitty finger:)

Two years...

Two years ago today I married my best friend.  I am so happy for the choices that I made that led to that very special day.  He was, and is the best friend that I could ever ask for.  He knows about all of my crazy... and puts up with it.  My mom told me once that you have to love all of the person's little quirks, because when you get married, they grow exponentially.  After two years of figuring out each others quirks, we are still very much in love and looking forward to the rest of forever.:)

Justin will do anything to make me happy.  When we were dating and engaged, I dragged him to every country swing night and dance that they had at the institute.  When we got married, he could push me around the dance floor with the best of them.  He even learned the perfect dip to sneak a kiss..... cutest.

man. ever.

He has the funniest sense of humor.  I am constantly laughing with him (or at him.... it all depends;)).  I don't think that there has been a day of our life together that he has not had something hilarious to say.... even when I'm stressed and crazy he can still get a smile out of me.

 He is so romantic and thoughtful.  While he won't admit it.... he is always doing things that make me love him more and more. 

Recently I've learned how incredible of a dad he is.  He loves our little ones so much.  He is so protective and so loving.  I am so glad that my little ones get to have a daddy as wonderful as him.

I love you Justy!  Happy Anniversary!  Two years down, eternity to go....:)

Growing....

Well, the little peanuts are growing like crazy.  They are both about 2 1/2 lbs. and eating 8 ml/hour which is about 0.3 oz or 1.5 teaspoons through a tube that goes through their little noses.  I know it doesn't seem like much, but they had to work up to it.  That amount definitely fills up their little tummies... and their little diapers.  They had to move to bigger diapers yesterday from micro-preemie size to normal preemie size.  The preemie size is still very big on them, but they were filling up the micro-preemie size.  (I've never been so excited about full diapers in my life..... I am definitely a mom;))

Beautiful little Addison is doing so well on her breathing.  The way that it works is they push a certain percentage of oxygen at a certain speed up their noses.  She has worked her way down from a 6 liter flow (the speed of the push) at 90% oxygen to a 0.5 liter flow with 25% oxygen.  (Room air is about 21% oxygen.)

She always has her little pinkies up.  It is so cute and dainty, I love it.

After Weston came off the ventilator, he did better on his breathing than he ever did before the pneumonia.  He is down to 2 liters on his flow and 30% oxygen.  While these numbers to fluctuate sometimes, their tiny little lungs are doing so much better than expected.

I love this little guy.  He is so fun to snuggle and he has the cutest little expressions. (His feeding tube is still in his mouth in this picture)

One of the cutest things about them doing so well is they get to wear clothes when they don't have any IVs.  They still have a few cords that need to be attached to them to track their heart rate, oxygen levels and breathing levels, but those ones are easy to move to put on clothes.  Imagine the smallest preemie clothes you've ever seen, shrink them in the wash and they are still a little bit big for my cuties.  But I love being able to get them dressed!:)

A little big, but so darling!

Justin is still trying to tell me her hair isn't curly.  I think this picture shows otherwise:)

Hooray for Weston!

Weston finished his pneumonia antibiotics and has weaned himself off the ventilator.  He is doing so much better, and he is such a happier little man when he doesn't have the vent down his throat.  He was doing so well today that I got to snuggle him for two whole hours.  He just conked out on my chest, it was one of the sweetest moments he and I have had yet.  He's such a darling little boy.  We are so grateful at how much of a trooper he was through this first infection.

Addi is doing well too.  She hit 2 lbs 8 oz. today.  We're so glad for the little cutie, she's been such a stable little thing through her whole first 5 weeks of life.  We sure love them!

Getting Ready.....

Wednesday morning our cribs were delivered, and last night my wonderful husband agreed to put them together for me.  Yes, we still have a while before the babies come home.  Yes, when they get home they  won't use the cribs at first.  But decorating the nursery is important to me.  I feel the need to nest even though the babies were already born.  The bedding sets are ready, now the cribs are put together, and next I'm going to be painting some shelves for the wall and doing block letters with their names on them.

But stage 1 of the nursery is done.  Cribs are up!  Here are a few pictures of our fun filled evening putting them together!:D

My cute husband opening the boxes.  He's such a cute dad!:D

Assembling.....

And done!  Now we just need mattresses:)