They do exist!

I was sitting home enjoying my Saturday, watching a little HGTV and what pops up on the screen? The Belly Cast!!! On display in a real persons home.  Just hanging on the wall. So for those who thought I made it up. It does indeed exist. 

Spit up, power, and cardigans

These boys of ours are spitty! Don't worry we've already been 'those parents' that call the pediatrician freaking out about spit up. Twice. I left the boys for a few hours to go get my mom haircut on and Hayden welcomed me back by sharing his meal with me. See first pic.

The Midwest has recently gone through some major snow storms and we were snowed in twice. With the second storm we lost power for about 6 hours during the day. Luckily we were rescued and went to Mel and Ashwin's for the day. Unluckily we went home that night and lost power again around 9. It got down to be a cool 60 something in our house before it kicked back on around 2. We brought the boys mattress out to the living room and all slept there so we could make sure they stayed warm. See second pic.

Cardigan bros. See pic three.

Hunter loves to sleep with his hands straight up in the air. It is pretty funny to watch his little arms go up and down wile he is sleeping. See pic four.

Funny Daddy

Last night I was sitting in the living room holding Hayden while Jeremy had Hunter in their room changing him. This is the conversation I heard:

"And now, the starting power forward for the Utah Jazz, at 6'9 from Brigham Young University Hunterrrrrrrrrr Hart!!!! (Cheering noises). And at 6'2, point guard from Brigham Young University Haydennnnnnnnn Hart!!! (More cheering noises). The Hart Twins!!!"

Made me chuckle.

And now a bunch of pics:

Family of Four!

It's official we are a family of four!  It is so weird.  Jeremy and I took the boys out on Saturday to run to Target.  We only had an hour but it was our first non medical related outing.  We were talking as we loaded the boys car seats onto the stroller about how weird it is that this is now our life, the four of us.  When we go places from now on it will involve a huge production to get us all out and about.  Everything in our life revolves around these two little stinkers and when they need to eat.  I know it won't be like this forever but for now it is a TON of work to get anything done.  We knew it would be a lot of work having twins but we didn't realize how much, I guess it's something you really can't prepare for.

The most surprising thing is how soon their little personalities are showing through. Our little Hayden is such a little spit fire.  Don't mess with this dude I'm telling you.  He may be small but he's got a lot of fight.  I call him my little meerkat.  If you ever saw that show meerkat manor that is why.  He just gets crazy and arches his whole body up, purses his lips together, gets all wide eyed and then starts swinging his head back and forth like one of those meerkat's on watch for attack.  It is hysterical, although not so much fun when he needs to burp and ends up spitting out all his food because he's flopping about like a fish.  The phrase, 'settle down' is said a lot during feeding time with this guy.

Then there is sweet, sweet Hunter who could not be more opposite from his fireball brother. He is just so sweet and calm.  He goes at his own slow and steady pace and doesn't get easily ruffled at all.  When he's awake he just calmly looks around and surveys his universe.  He is also huge!  The kid is a tank I swear, he's almost 8 lbs already.  I guess that's really not big but they were both so little he just seems like a little tank now.

More pics of the boys together.

I love this pic because Hunter is looking at Hayden like Dude what is your problem because he was squaking already.

A Long Two Weeks

I can definitely say that the first two weeks of 2013 were the longest, and toughest two weeks of my life.  It was exhausting in every way possible having our babies in the NICU.  It was so weird because we knew we had become parents but for those first few days it wasn't like we even had babies.  We couldn't hold them very much at first because it would stress them out so it was really hard to have that bonding moment everyone talks about.  We are so lucky that the boys really had nothing wrong with them besides being early and needing to grow a little more.  There were many more babies in the NICU that were in much worse situations.  

Our daily routine consisted of arriving at the hospital by 8:00, change diapers, and then hold the boys while they were fed or try to feed them if they seemed interested.  That usually took about an hour.  The hospital provided us a room to stay in while the boys were there so then we would go to the room and I would pump and then we'd try to rest before going back for the next feeding.  Basically we would do that same thing every three hours and then leave the hospital around 7:30 to go home.  It seemed like we were never going to get out of there and that time is all just a blur in my mind.