{L.I.F.E}

So, why am I back to blogging, and what has went down in the meantime?

Well to begin with, I missed you all - and I'm excited to be back to catch up!  Not only was I not posting, I was not reading.  Completely un-attached from Bloggy World - if you have any earth-shattering news to get me up to snuff, I may not feel quite so NKOTB-ish.  The real reason though is because I realized how much I regret not having this past year more closely journaled. 

Since my last post (February), here's a recap:

1)  Emersyn turned 4 on April 10th!  Incredible.  We had a wonderful time at the Minnesota Children's Museum on her birthday, followed by pizza.  She had her birthday party April 14th and we did this at a local dance school.  She LOVED her princess ballerina party!  The girls were so dang cute!  They did a 45-minute ballet lesson followed by games, dancing, lunch, cake, and gifts.  It was my favoritest party ever!  It made me want to strap on a leotard and go twirl around too.  (Except that'd be extremely freaky for anyone else involved, so I'm glad I held myself back).

 Photoroll, please...

I made strawberry vanilla sour cream cupcakes with real strawberry infused buttercream  frosting.  Yummo!

Centerpieces

The Birthday Ballerina!

She loved the little cake - and I have to admit, I was proud of it.  My first homemade birthday cake!

Miss E and her friend Addi

Mirror, mirror, on the wall...

This is my favorite picture of alllll time.  I blew it up and framed it.

2)  I finished another semester of grad school!  Woop woop! This puts me a year away from graduating - and then - wow!  I'll finally be a Family Nurse Practitioner!  Too bad there are piles and piles of work for me to do this last year.  Eeekity.  I am doing summer clinicals in OB/Gyn.  I haven't spent any of my summers this involved with cervices (the plural of cervix - did ya know?!) before.  Always something new in store for me!  I am in 2 classes for summer.  One involving my DNP project (yeah, let's not talk about that) and the other is Integrative Healing.

3) My babies turned ONE last week!  I cannot believe it.  So bittersweet.  Here are a few deets on the boys:

Maddox:  21 lb 10 oz (37%) and 30 inches (72%).  He is ALWAYS on the go, walking along furniture, ripping into anything in reach, and such a ball of energy!  I love love love his personality.  He wears this little smirk like..."Hmmmm, what can I get my hands on next?" and you can just watch him scan the room.  He has  been struggling with constant fluid behind his eardrums and has an ENT appointment next month to talk about getting tubes.  At this point, I'm ready to just get it over with.  I hate seeing him always digging in his ears, and truth be told the middle of the night awakenings can kiss it.  I'm so over that part!  Maddox waves bye-bye, says "Hi!", loves to clap, takes his meals VERY seriously, loves to wrestle and jump into the mounds of pillows Emersyn throws on the living room floor, and slaps himself on the side of the head whenever he hears the word "ouch!".  Silly boy!  He's going to be my clown!  Maddox is wearing size 12-18 month clothes now, and size 4 diapers.

Kellan:  18 lb 14 oz (6%) and 28 inches (10%).  My midget.  He is so cute and compact, just a little ball of love!  He is definitely a mommy's boy and would prefer to be held/squished/smooched than to be ripping the house up.  He is a great sleeper, and wakes up so quietly.  This morning, I heard "ahhh duh!" ("all done") coming ever so softly from his room.  He was sitting up in his crib with his arms up, like "Hey mom!  I'm ahhh duh with this sleeping business, come get me!"  Kellan is a little chatterbox, is very observant to what's going on around him, doesn't like strangers even looking at him, and loves his kitties!  He says "ahh duh" (all done), "kiiiy" (kitty), "uh-oh", "mama", "dada", waves bye-bye, and also loves to clap.  He is a very picky eater just like his big sister.  Kellan is wearing size 9-12 month (some 6-9 month sleepers still), and size 3 diapers (though we usually stick him in a size 4 because it's not fun having 2 different sizes of diapers to store!)

I'm going to do a separate post about the boys' FIRST birthday, otherwise this post will be a novel.  :)

4)  My husband remains jobless.  This totally stinks and has been a source of much stress.  He has been jobless since December 28th.  I've been praying that something will soon work out, because I am cutting back my hours at work come August/September, and then in January will be working only on an as-needed basis.  I'm just feeling too overwhelmed lately.  Raising twins gets tougher as they age!  The newborn phase was a breeze compared to now.  Truly.  Anyways, if you're the praying type, please pray that Travis finds solid employment VERY soon.  Or else we will be moving into a cardboard box.

5)  If you're still reading, I super duper heart you!   So much to catch up on, these are just a few highlights. 

I repeat....I am so happy, I could just pee.

(...but I won't)

Happy Thursday!