8:01am

We STRICTLY enforce the 'no one out of bed before 8AM' rule at our house. Thankfully the babies abide by this rule (after they've eaten at 2-3am of course, but they always go back to sleep, so we cut them a little slack. Hoping we'll soon be dropping that feeding as the boys are getting pretty big, they are on the charts now and were around 11lbs at their last appointment). I'm pretty sure this picture was taken somewhere around 8:01. I guess Irby knew what he was talking about when he convinced me we needed a king bed!

2 months old!

Wow, these pictures are way overdue as the boys just turned 3 months old...Charlie is on the left, Griffin on the right. What sweet big boys they are getting to be! Smiling a lot and on a great schedule-eat, awake 1 hour, sleep 1.5-2 hours, then do it again. Of course there are always exceptions, but on the whole I think we're coming out of the cloud of the 1st 3 months! Hard to believe that such a whitey like me has such tan kids:)

Fall Leaves

And I found this picture of the babies with Ahnie and Papa that I was looking for!

And this is Why....

My Christmas card will be a New Year's card. Pretty tough to get a good pic of all 3 of the boys looking. I thought the hard part would be getting the babies to look the right way, but getting Irby to forget the "Chandler" smile is proving pretty tough. These are from the first 3 attempts.

Thanksgiving, a little late...

Irby's amazing family drove all the way up here to DC for Thanksgiving, it was such a treat! I literally didn't lift a finger and just got to enjoy them and taking care of my sweet babies. We pretty much just hung around, did some sightseeing (Arlington Cemetery and the National Cathedral) and ate lots of good food. All of these pictures are from Lucy, I don't think I took a single one. Hard to remember the camera, I'm doing well if I can remember all my kids! The babies didn't make it into too many pictures, they were either eating, sleeping or bundled up so much you couldn't even see them! Muff, send your pics out to us too! Here are a few pictures:

Jumping down the steps with Uncle Pete. Sweet Pete probably jumped down about 200 of them with Irbs (I think everyone else probably did too!)

Headed to the park with Daddy and Uncles Whitt, Pete and Willie.

Irby and Muff doing a pretty good rendition of the soldiers at the Tomb of the Unknown.

A shot of the babies, doing what they do best, getting ready to snooze (Charlie-L, Griffin-R).

Showing Uncle Willie Peter Rabbit's hole (behind is Mr. McGregor's garden(or Arlington Cemetery), of course).

Hanging with Daddy.

Jumping with Uncle Whitt.

Love my Ahnie. Sorry I don't know why these pictures are so small!

Here are a few pictures of last weekend, Matt and Emily came in town and we got to meet Becker! Also Craig and Nikki brought Ruthie over to play too. Love these pics of all the babies/kiddos.

Irby holding Griffin, with Charlie napping. He loves holding them, and singing to them when they cry. He even put Charlie's pacie in for him yesterday!

Griffin, Becker, Charlie, and Irby.

Youngest-Oldest: Griffin, Charlie, Becker, Irby.

Irby, Ruthie(check out her cute red shoes!), Griffin, Charlie, Becker.

Irby holding Griffin.

Charlie, Griffin (in blue), Irby.

Happy Halloween!

Trick-or-treating. Irby had no fear, ran up to people's houses with no reservations, even tried to get 2 pieces of candy out of some folks by saying trick-or-treat twice.

My little pumkins.

Out for a stroll Halloween morning.

Hayride and Hilloween. Can you find my Irbys?

The whole fam at Hilloween, a neighborhood festival the night before Halloween (we live on 'The Hill', thus the name Hilloween).

Sweet Thomas the Train (or Gordon, depending on his mood.)

Irby in the babies' basket, saying "I'm a little baaaaaby, Mama!"

Who said you ever needed 2 bouncy seats?

Or a triple stroller? Not sure how much longer this rig-up is going to work...

LOVE my Aunt Lulu. Since she left, everyone who comes to our house, even neighbors, he asks if they want to sleep in Lulu's bed. Big honor, Lulu, our guest bed is known as your bed!

Ahnie sitting out front. We had the best visit with her!

Irby Loves His Brothers

Sorry these pictures are out of order....

Posing with Charlie and Griffin after they got home.

Irby with his new tools and backpack that the baby boys gave him when they came home.

Charlie (L) and Griffin (R).

First time to meet Charlie and Griffin. He was pretty excited and wanted them to come home with him right away! That was last Sunday and they came home last Tuesday, so he didn't have to wait too long.

I heard Irby singing this morning, "Jesus Loves Me," and I went into the play room. He had climbed up on the bed and was serenading the babies and when Griffin fussed, he put his hand on him and said, "It's OK Griffin." What a sweet heart my little Irby is!

Tummy time. Thankfully they don't mind it, for now!

Homecoming!

Goodbye NICU! The nurses were amazing though. (Irby's got Charlie, I've got Griffin)

Griffin (L), Charlie (R)

They LOVE being able to be together now. I love it too. They sleep better, eat better, and apparently studies show they will grow better, I hope so!

We're home!!! We got here Tuesday, and are so thankful to be home with our healthy happy boys! I can't tell you how scary and stressful it was to have 2 4 pound babies in the NICU, not to mention feeling like you abandoned your 2 year old at home(someone watching him of course:)! The night before we left they were up to 4lb5oz (Griffin) and 4lb3oz(Charlie). I'm pretty sure they're going to start growing much faster at home, Dr. Mom has upped their feedings from 35ccs to 50 because they were acting still hungry afterwards! They are chugging it down and doing a great job nursing 3 times/day, so thankful that they are doing both. We go to the Dr. on Friday to get weighed and check some other things. I thought the last 2 weeks was tiring, now we're in for some real fun...

More pictures with little Irbs and his new brothers to come soon.

Charlie and Griffin Pictures

Our sweet baby boys, Griffin (L) and Charlie (R).  I try to hold them together unless

 they're eating because they really seem to love being with each other.  Today they slept on me for a few hours with noses touching,  TOO CUTE.  I think they look a lot like little Irby as a newborn, except skinnier.  Charlie now has his IV out, and hop

efully Griffin will be close behind once he gets up to his max feeding this weekend.  They were increasing his feedings a little more slowly because he spit up a bit more than Charlie at first.  Both are holding down their food great now though and gaining about an ounce a day!

Getting to snuggle both my baby boys at once!  (Charlie-L, Griffin-R) They LOVE it.  I can't wait to get them home so they can be together (they have separate cribs in the NICU because of the 

monitoring wires).

I've got Charlie, Irby's got Griffin.

Charlie loves his Daddy.

And only because you asked...twas the night before Charlie and Griffin...

Irby visits us...he was far more interested in the hospital bed going up and down than seeing pictures of Charlie and Griffin.  He isn't allowed in the NICU beca

use you have to be 12, and they are being extra-strict with all the swine-flu stuff, so he hasn't even met his new brothers yet!  He'll get his fill soon though.  He looked at me today and said, "Mama, the babies are born right?" (I said yes to which he said) "Did your belly POP?"

Ahnie and Papa down by the river, our favorite spot.  They drove up from Alabama as soon as we told them the babies were coming.  It was a HUGE blessing and an enormous help with Irby while we were in the hospital, we were extremely thankful to have them here (and I'm pretty sure little Irby put on a few lbs. while they were here:

)

My mom just left today, and Kirsten arrived.  We'll be on our own for next week, but I think when we'll really need the help is when the babies come home.  My mom will come back, it will be really awesome to have a Dr. in the house with these tiny sweet babies.  

I think next time I post, I'll just post a link to a slideshow, that seems to be quicker than trying to get the pictures right and lined up.  Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but it takes forever!

Thanks for your prayers, we're continuing to pray for good eating so the babies can get bigger and come home soon!  I can't wait to have them here with us:)