Adventures in Townyland

Let's Go Yankees!

2009-11-01T21:18:00.000-05:00

I made the girls shirts for the World Series this week. I promised Brian that I would do one Yankees and one Red Sox shirt for the start of the next season, but for now all the girls in this house are rooting for the Yankees! The girls also finally have enough hair for pigtails. For now they each have three (two on top and one in the back) How cute are they???

A Little of Everything

2009-10-25T16:16:00.000-04:00

We are really starting to settle into our new house. Which as I type that I am reminded that I am sure you all would like to see some updated pictures. I will have to get on that. The girls love all their new space. They are constantly on the go now which is so much fun but exhausting. Bailey's new favorite place to sit is on the window sill behind the couch. Yes you read that right, she climbs on the arm of the couch, lays on her belly and slides down to the windowsill. Gives me a heart attck everytime, but she loves it and boy is she quick! Logan has finally started walking. She was walking to one of us with encouragement for a few weeks but would not let go on her own. One of the first times she did, she walked halfway down the hallway kicking a ball with her when she went. Obviously she was quite capable all along, but was going to do it on her terms. I have no idea where she gets her stubborness from! One of their favorite parts of the house in the bath tub in our bathroom. It is huge and Bailey loves to swim!

Logan on the other hand likes to practice drinking out of a cup full of bath water (yuck) or just show off for the camera

The girls have also grown up a lot in the last few weeks. We are officially bottle free and have moved onto fork and spoon feeding. Logan is quite proficient with the fork and loves to dip a spoon into her yogurt and puts it right into her mouth

Bailey on the other had likes to hold her utensil in one hand and shove food in with the other. Needless to say she still needs some practice!

We had another playdate with their friend Chloe. She is so cute and after many tries I managed to get a picture of the three girls together

And finally a little Halloween preview. I really wanted to have the girls coordinate this year, but I am cheap and cannot see spending a ton of money on costumes they will wear for such a short period of time. The bee costume is a loner from Jody that she found while going through some clothes recently. The elephant was one of the few they had left in their size at Walmart. I have to say I am happy with the way it turned out. Have you seen a cuter elephant?

Logan

Bailey

Long Time No Blog

2009-09-28T23:28:00.000-04:00

Things in Townyland have been a bit crazy to say the least. Let's see. We started the month going to Brian's sister's house for the annual Labor Day Lobster Bake. This is the weekend we look foward to all year. Great food, great family and very relaxing. We took the girls to the Blue Hill Fair and they seemed to love it (well all except the lumberjack show.) They had their first fried dough and followed up with their favorite thing to eat ever french fries.

Logan loved the pigs and thought they were funny.

Bailey was very blase about the whole thing (typical)

We spent the week after Labor Day packing up. There was a lot of stuff crammed into that little place, and I am still amazed how we actually fit in there. The girls love the new house, and while I wish I had more pictures of our first couple of weeks here, I am a slacker. I do have this one of them playing in the yard. They loved riding on the tricycle together!

Logan was having fun I promise!

The weekend after we moved Aaron, Kristy and Tighe came for the weekend to be our first overnight guests. It was so nice to have room for everyone and not have the chaos of all the babies in one room and people sleeping in the living room. We look foward to more people coming! Which brings us to this past weekend when Wendy and the whole gang came to stay! We went apple picking on Sat. What a difference a year makes!

This was one year ago

This year

Bailey eating grass

Logan not sure about the apple

I am happy to say that we are all moved in. Painting has begun and we are decluttered. We still have a lot of things that we want to do but for now we are just trying to enjoy it a bit. Life is good!

Rainy Day

2009-08-29T23:19:00.000-04:00

Today it was so rainy, cold and yucky that we decided to just not do anything at all. I did have to go tot he grocery store since we were low on food, and decided that it was the perfect day for some comfort foods. I made homemade chicken and rice soup and a loaf of honey mustard bread. I wanted to make a pumpkin bread too, but the stupid store was out of pumpkin. It was so nice to just do nothing together all 4 of us. It is so rare that we have nothing to do. Ok we could be packing since we close on Monday but whatever.

Here is a pictue of Brian and the girls today. They love to crawl up on the couch and sit now. Translated: they like to crawl up on the couch and jump like maniacs, but give them a bottle and you have half a shot at a quck cuddle.

If you are wondering who the strange looking guy in the photo is, it is Brian. I came home from work last night to find he had shaved off his beard. Anyone who knows him, know that this is such a rare thing. In the 6yrs that we have been together, I have only seen him 4 times without it. He shaves it and then lets it grow back in. It looks so weird to me and I feel like there is a stranger living in my house. Luckily the girls have no stranger anxiety and didn't even seem to notice a difference.

It was so hot here last week, I made the girls popscicles. Logan would put in in her mouth then make a weird face since it was so cold. After a few minutes though she was loving it and got so mad when it was all gone. Bailey in true Bailey fashion just sucked th whole thing down. She is such a little vaccuum.

This last picture is already a few weeks old. When the girls were about 6wks old I joined a Mother's Circle group at the hospital that I had them. It is mostly for nursing moms to check in with the lactation consultant and get your baby weighed every 2 weeks to see how they were growing. I met a great group of women there and continued to take the girls long after I had stopped nursing. Actually I only stopped going when the girls barely fit on the mobil scale anymore! A few of the girls from the group and I started doing our own playgroup. Now that the kids are older it is so much fun to see them interact. The picture below was taken in the park right before Kris and Bear moved to New York. We are so sad to see them go. Bear left behind 3 little girlfriends, that I know would have all fought for his attention in the future!

Me with Logan and Bailey, Tonya and Emma, Nicole and Chloe, Kris and Bear

Life Can Be So Unfair

2009-08-23T21:47:00.000-04:00

As some of you may know, I belong to an online community of Multiple Mamas. I have been "friends" with some of these girls since I was pregnant with the girls, and although I have not met any of them in real life, I have become very close to some of them as we move through this unique journey of being moms to multiples. It is a close knit community on a private board and there is always someone to lend an ear or offer their expertise or looking for their own advice. This weekend of the the moms lost their little girl. Her triplets were born 8wks ago at 25wks 5d. The were so tiny and at that age it was going to be a long and hard fight. But they were all fighters. As of Thursday they were all doing excellent. Annaleigh had even graduated to coming off all breathing help. 48hrs later she is gone. How is that even possible? She had a bacteria in her bowel that basically ate it away and it was too late. She died Sat afternoon in her mother's arms.
I look at the girls and can't even imagine what Brooke is going though. I was somehow blessed to have an easy pregnancy with 2 little girls that had no intentions of even coming out at 38wks. They never went to the NICU and came home with us at 4 days old. You cannot believe how lucky I am that that is how things turned out for us. It is so not the norm. Babies are born early all the time and face such uphill battles. It is so unfair, to both the innocent little baby and the families that have to live their lives in the constant fear that they will lose their child. I thank God everyday that we were/are so lucky to have what seems to be 2 happy and healthy babies. I will never take this for granted though. Life can change in an instant. Please say a prayer for Annaleigh, and her family, Brooke, Joe, Charlie and Lilly. You can read their story here:
Threecheersforbabies.blogspot.com
And please do not take life for granted. Kiss your babies and realize how lucky you are. No matter how bad things may seem to be today, somewhere, somebody is going through something you cannot even imagine.

Busy, Busy

2009-08-20T21:08:00.001-04:00

Life in the Towny household has been busy to say the least. We finished all the inspections on the house and everything looks great. Only 10 more days until we close! Now the fun part of packing begins. In the midst of all the fun house stuff we threw together a quick Baptism for the girls. Brian's brother wanted to come up for a visit sometime in August after not coming to Maine for 2 years. I called the church they gave us a date and that was that. I apologize to all the family that was not invited but I know would have probably wanted to have come. We wanted to keep it very small since the house we are living in now is tiny and we had no clue what we would even do if it rained.
It was so nice to see all our family. My dad flew in from Florida and stayed Thursday until Monday. He got to babysit the girls on Friday night while Brian and I went to work. He had not changed a diaper in almost 30yrs and the girls graced him with 2 poopy diapers. Dan came in from Maryland on Saturday. Unfortunately Laura could not make it this trip and we miss having her here. Bailey who is usually miss independent kept going to sit in Dan's lap which is something she rarely even does with us! Dustin, Karen, Jaryd and Jordyn also came in on Saturday and we got to have a short visit with them. Wendy, Blake, Brooklin, Callahan and Grayson came in on Sunday and our visit with them was even shorter, but we look forward to the Lobster Bake on Labor Day weekend and more time to spend with them. Dan is coming back tomorrow as he makes his way back to Maryland and it will be nice to have a bit more time with him. I will try to be better about keeping things updated, but I know the next month will be crazy. There are a few pictures below from the Baptism. Enjoy!

Logan

Bailey

The family

Our House

2009-07-27T22:27:00.001-04:00

We bought our first house this past week! We put in an offer last Saturday, she countered Monday am, we countered right back. She countered Monday pm and we countered back with a final offer. She hemmed and hawed and wanted to speak to her accountant about it and sleep on it. 6pm Wednesday night we got the call that she had accepted! We are still in amazement. We got a great deal. The timing was great. The agent has gotten 3 calls since then with people wanting to see it a 2nd time. Had that happened prior to her accepting our offer she would have never accepted. Did I mention we got a great deal? 3br/2ba nearly 1600sq not including a basement that has already been started to be refinished, and it is 1.6 acres of land. Inspection was today and the biggest issue is the septic needing to be pumped-"Shitters Full"~ala Christmas Vacation Movie. Nothing else was a big deal at all. Met with the broker today too, signed a bunch of papers and all that is being processed. So we are on our way! We feel so lucky to have found it and are excited to move into our first house. Closing is set for Aug 31!

The living room
Fireplace-the ugly thing over the top is easily popped off-thank goodness!

Kitchen

Dining Room

My Laundry Room!

Summer Fun

2009-07-27T22:11:00.001-04:00

The girls have survived their first real illness and are back to their crazy selves. This past week has been a busy one. Seeing, the band play, a playdate with one of their BFFs and buying a house!-more on that in another post.

Tubby time-I couldn't resist!

Logan working sound with Daddy

Bailey enjoying the show

Snack time-they love those chairs and will sit in them for quite a long time

Bailey and her BFF Chloe

Hand, Foot and Mouth

2009-07-19T21:32:00.000-04:00

This week we had the pleasure of experiencing Hand, Foot and Mouth times two. It all started on Tuesday when Logan had a fever. Nothing too crazy my first thought was teething. Then Wednesday afternoon she was up to 102, and Bailey also now had a fever of 101.4 I needed to call the pedi nurse for a completely different issue so while I had her on the phone I asked what the correct dose of Tylenol was since it had been so long since the girls had needed it. She told me and then inquired why and when I told her that the girls had fevers but I thought it was just teething since they had no other symptoms, she informed me that their temps were too high to be teething fevers and if we got to 103, or they still had them on Thursday they needed to be seen.

Thursday comes and their fevers were lower but as the day went on they began to rise, so I called and got an appointment. Lo and Behold they both have Hand Foot and Mouth. Poor girls had painful sores in the back of their throats, and on the drive to the pedi (no lie) Bailey had broken out in spots all over her back. By Thursday night their fevers had broken and we thought "Well that wasn't too bad." Big Mistake. Logan cried all day on Friday with maybe the exception of about two hours. No I am not exaggerating. There is no worse feeling than your baby crying in pain and you can't do anything besides alternate Mortin and Tylenol I actually had to call Brian and work and tell him he needed to come home. With her screaming and poor Bailey also needing attention I needed backup! We finally got them to nap and an hour and a half later had to wake them up to go look at some more houses (more on that later!) So now they have napped an hour and a half all day and feel miserable. Awesome! Needless to say I didn't go to work that night either and finally around 9:30 pm (2hrs after bedtime) we had gotten 2 over tired miserable feeling little girls to bed. They woke up Saturday feeling better thank goodness. They are still not 100%-they get tired out and are taking longer naps-but we are definitely past the worst of it!

If you know the girls at all you know this never happens!

Logan and Bailey's 1st year

2009-07-16T11:32:00.001-04:00

Here is a little photographic progression of the girls first year. I used pictures of them together (including their first one that I happen to be in as well!) and tried to get one from each month. This is easier said than done since I apparently did not do a good job of labeling all the pictures. In doing this I cannot believe how much they have grown and changed. It is still hard t imagine those 2 little girls were ever in my belly. Where did my itty bitty babies go?

It's Twins!

2009-07-15T11:08:00.000-04:00

Brian and I always knew that we wanted children so shortly after moving to Maine in Sept 07 we decided to see what would happen. Well in our world what happened is that we got pregnant 5wks later! Our first appointment was on my birthday. As soon as the tech put the wand on my belly I said "Is that twins?" and she said yes! The first words out of my mouth was "Oh Shit!!" Brian was quiet at this point so I said, "Honey?" and he just started to giggle-yes my grown husband giggled. We were in shock and throughout the pregnancy never really wrapped our head around the fact that there were two in there. To this day we will sometimes stop and say "Wow there are two of them!" Below you can enjoy the progression of my growing belly. I know some of you have seen them but probably not in succession.

5w5d

14w

15w

17w2d

18w5d

20w1d

21w2d

22w4d

24w1d

26w4d

29w2d

31w6d

34w3d

35w5d

Day before I delivered 37w6d

Brian and Meredith

2009-07-13T22:18:00.000-04:00

Brian and I met in March 2003 when the job I had at the time required me to become lifeguard certified. I tried (and failed) to get out of it, and it is good that I didn't. Shortly after the class we were inseparable, and 4 yrs later we were married!

We went to Aruba on our honeymoon and it was the best trip either of us had ever been on!

Under the Baby Natural Bridge-the big one collapsed around 6 months before we got there

The Lighthouse from the boat we were snorkeling on
Stumpy-our BFF we ate breakfast with every morning

First Blog Post Ever

2009-07-13T20:43:00.000-04:00

Hey Everyone! We are new to this whole blog thing. I say "we" although I will mostly be the one posting unless I can convince Brian to do some as well. I probably will do a handful of posts that summarize us and our busy life with the girls from the past year. Please bear with me as I sort all this blogging stuff out. Oh and if you know any good blog layout sights let me know. I want something more fun than this, but I was anxious to finally get this started!