Recently I have been feeling like maybe there was a mix up. I think that maybe God meant to give me Juliet and James one at a time. Hear me out….I know that both of these children were designed with me in mind. I was literally MADE to be their Mom. But it has occurred to me that maybe I was not made to be a *twin* mom. For the last month or so it has just been feeling like a LOT. My house is a mess, my car is a mess, I am constantly texting my boss and asking her to answer questions that she’s already answered or to clarify things that she’s already clarified. I am always 15 minutes late. AND ..read more

  Backstory:  Hear me when I say, “If we can do this, anyone can.” ANYONE. A N Y O N E. Brett and I are not historically healthy eaters. Because of bedrest and new babies, I probably cooked about 20 times in ALL of 2017. We drank too much coffee. We ate out approximately 1 bazillion times a week. Probably 90% of our diet was processed crap…and that’s what we felt like! Processed crap! Around Thanksgiving I jokingly pitched the Whole 30 to Brett, fully expecting him to laugh in my face. Instead he said, “Yes! We have to do something. We are on the fast track to obesity” ….or something ..read more

Confession: I’ve read six books on baby sleep this week. Bigger confession: At one point I was reading one of these sleep books when I absolutely SHOULD have been watching James because he pulled the dog gate down on himself. Gold star, mom. HEY, DID YOU KNOW THAT IT IS REALLY HARD TO GO NINE MONTHS WITHOUT SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT? I won’t bore you with the details of the twins’ not-sleepingness. It is dull. And I’ve already recounted it to my mom, mother-in-law, sister, Bible study group, and best friend every single day for the past week. (Please forgive me, people I love.) So I’ll spare ..read more

Before kids, Sunday was my favorite day of the week. Brett and I would wake up, eat breakfast, catch a little bit of CBS Sunday Morning, make coffee or run through Starbucks, and get to church  by 8:30. Brett is on staff at church and has some extra responsibilities, but we both participated in worship band. We both “do music” all week long, and it was so life-giving to do it TOGETHER on Sundays. Flash-forward to December 2017, and prep for Sunday morning starts at about 7pm on Saturday nights. Laundry, bottle making, baby outfit choosing, diaper bag packing, adult ironing, and making a b ..read more

Remember me? It has been such an incredibly long time since I’ve had time to write that I was considering just dropping it…but I am going to give it another go purely for scrapbooking’s sake.   October was a BLUR of marching band and ear infections. The babies turned six months old and Mommy was a frequent flyer at the pediatrician’s office.   James is crawling and he WILL NOT STOP until he has broken a bone. I just know that this is the one who is going to be doing flips off of the couch in a couple years. Jim is an acrobat. Juliet waved and imitated, “Hi” nearly twenty times yeste ..read more

Last week I leveled up. Monday and Tuesday nights were virtually sleepless. I thought the babies were teething…turns out they actually had ear infections but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Wednesday I took the babies to Michaels for scrapbook supplies, because I document every second of their lives due to neuroticism. About 10 minutes into our trip, I felt like we were being followed by a man. He was small, shifty, and wearing a beanie. We bobbed and weaved thru the store, and he kept appearing by my side. We checked out at the register, and he grabbed one item and checked out behind m ..read more

Last night was maybe the hardest night we’ve had in the last three months. Sweetest Juliet would. not. sleep. Would not even hear of it. She was up until 3:30. James needed about 20 minutes of snuggles at 4. Both were up at 6:45. She took her normal two naps yesterday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. She didn’t do anything weird all day. Her bedtime is typically about 10pm and she sleeps until 7am or so. But last night 10pm came and went…the 11pm came and went..then 12am…until 3:30am. I rocked her to sleep, and then the minute I put her in her crib she woke up with eyes like that ..read more

When I meet parents of older twins, they frequently tell me the same two things. First they tell me to stick to our schedule. They almost always tell me how the schedule was the secret to their twin success. I completely believe them…but this has not been our experience. Maybe we are doing it wrong, but we basically have no schedule. They sleep when they’re tired and eat when they’re hungry. They come with us to rehearsals, games, appointments, and workouts. We are SO lucky that they are SO chill. At some point we may have to transition to a schedule but for now this is working for us. The oth ..read more

Every s i n g l e muscle in my body is on fire. Every darn one. Yesterday was my first Stroller Strides class through Fit4Mom of Overland Park. It. Was. Awesome. Let’s break it down. Workout: Okay. I am no newbie to a butt kicking workout. In college I went to spinning evvvvvvvery single day. After I got married I was in the gym at least four times a week. Then I got three jobs and got pregnant and the whole thing kind of fell apart. So, I’m pretty out of shape right now…and that’s okay! My focus has been elsewhere! But GUYS. This was the realest deal. The realest butt kicking deal. I cannot s ..read more

Huddle up. Today is hard. I read the news this morning at about 5am when James woke up. My heart sank into my stomach as I flipped through the CNN app. The heart that was already reeling from the violence in Lawrence. Sometimes it seems that my own grief is selfish. Like I shouldn’t allow myself to be as hurt by this as I am. Like I take away from the importance of the pain of those who were there if I carry it myself. THIS IS FALSE. This insecurity is from the devil. We get to feel empathy. We have to feel empathy. Today is hard. Today reminds me of December 14, 2012, when sweet babies were k ..read more