I apologize for letting so much time pass between posts, but there has seriously been nothing going on around here! Everyone's healthy and happy and hasn't done anything particularly exciting. Plus, with the insane, incessant rain over the past week we've been stuck in the house, and that's made us super-boring.

So I'll give you the highlights of the past couple of weeks:

Hays has finally decided that it's time to start walking! He's still not walking all the time like Will is, but he's doing a whole lot more than he had been. He can go 6-7 feet before he loses his balance and plops down. And he is sooooo proud of himself. The look on his face is priceless! He's also gotten two new words over the last week- "juice" and "up," so we're proud.

Will is walking pretty much all the time. He rarely crawls and he seems to be getting taller by the day. He has a new word too, "more." He generally uses it when he's talking about food!

Mason is still loving school. He and I went to "family fun night" last week at his school. We ate Chick-Fil-A and they had a few big inflatable bouncy things set up in the gym. He had fun and spent the whole time playing with a cute little girl from his class. She kept on hugging him and all I could think was "Lord help us when he hits the teenage years!" I was so proud of him last night. We were working on homework and he was working on his alphabet tracing sheets. When they complete the whole thing, they turn it in and earn a trip to the classroom treasure box. He was about halfway through with it since we've been doing a couple of pages per night, but he decided that he wanted to finish it. So he sat down and did just that! I'm not sure where he gets his scholarly motivation from. God knows that's not a trait he inherited from me or Matt!

I've been a busy little bee as well. I finally got the boys' scrapbooks caught up so I'll be ready for the barrage of holiday pictures! I also participated in the Mothers of Multiples' consignment sale. I had so much stuff to sell!! I didn't sell as much as I would have liked, but I made a little money and got all that stuff out of my house, so I think it was a success! And I love the other twin moms in the mothers of multiples group. In fact, I'm having a few of them over for a playdate tomorrow morning. I'll have four sets of twins ages 3 and under at my house tomorrow. Fun or insane? It remains to be seen......

Our miracle, one year (give or take a few days) later

Will last summer with the trach


In the ER the day he took it out



Will one year later

Even though I'm a few days late on the actual date, I still wanted to take a moment to celebrate the anniversary of the greatest miracle that I have ever personally witnessed. Last Labor day weekend was the day Will and God decided he no longer needed his trach. If you've stuck with us this long, you probably remember the story, but I'm going to re-tell it nonetheless! I woke up with a sick headache the morning of August 31, I thought I was going to throw up, so I went back to bed, leaving Matt to handle the kids. I heard some commotion, but I just tried to ignore it. Before long, Mason comes running into the room yelling, "Daddy needs you, there's something wrong with Will!!" I went running into the playroom/mini hospital, to find Will lying on the floor, looking perfectly fine, but with no trach. His oxygen saturation levels were fine, but I didn't know how long that would last. I grabbed a new trach tube and tried to put it in, but the hole had closed up and I couldn't get the tube in. I grabbed a smaller one, but couldn't get that in either. We were freaking out because we didn't know if he was going to start struggling to breathe and turning blue at any moment, so we called 911.
The EMTs were awfully surprised to see that there patient was a perfectly happy, rosy-cheeked baby boy who looked like nothing in the world was wrong with him! They couldn't get the trach tube in either, so they decided to take him to the hospital. Matt rode along and I stayed with the other two until my mom got there. As I was frantically getting ready (and throwing down about 10 ibuprofen to try to combat my skull-crushing headache) I was trying not to get too hopeful about the fact that my child was breathing perfectly on his own. All I could think was "maybe he doesn't need the trach anymore." But I was scared to let myself hope too hard for that.
I arrived at St. Mary's just after they'd decided to transport Will to Egleston. He was still breathing fine, but no one knew how long that would last. I sent Matt home to get our stuff together to go to the hospital because we knew we'd be there for a while. I rode in the ambulance with Will, strapped to the gurney, holding him. This was a trip I'll never forget. I get terrible motion sickness. I'm ok riding in the front seat looking out the window, but that's it. So here I was, facing backward in an ambulance, still nauseous from my sick headache. That was the longest ride of my life!!! Will slept in my arms and I just held him with my eyes closed, praying I wouldn't vomit on his head!!! We finally got to the Egleston ER and spent hours waiting for a room to open up.
Those were beautiful hours. We got to hold and play with our child without having to worry about medical equipment for the first time ever. We also got to hear his sweet voice. It was amazing, but bittersweet because I was so afraid that they would have to put the trach back in, and this would be the only time we got to experience completely unfettered bonding with our sweet baby. But Will and God had other plans. We stayed at Egleston under observation for three days and Will continued to breathe perfectly. Every day I grew a little more excited at the prospect of a trach-free baby, but I never for one moment stopped praying. That was one time when I truly prayed without ceasing. There wasn't much to my prayers, they mostly consisted of, "Please, God, please." But I figured He knew what I was asking for.
After a bronchoscopy that showed that while he still had serious airway issues, they weren't serious enough to require a trach, we were released!!! I have never been so happy as the day I brought that healthy, normal, equipment-free baby from the hospital. Our family was healthy and complete and I have never felt more blessed. Not many people get to personally experience a miracle, but I did, and not a day passes that I don't say a prayer of thanks.

Night night, Hays


Cheeky monkey



My boy



Hays is studying something intently

Escape!!!!!!

Sweet Will

Hays on the tractor

Hays in the sunshine

Will says "Check me out, I can walk!!!!"

Sweet Hays

Poor Mason had a meltdown at school Wednesday. I went to eat lunch with him and he was sooo excited. He was introducing me to all of his friends and everything was great until it was time for me to leave. I saw that he was struggling not to cry, and I hugged him and told him I'd see him in a couple of hours and handed him off to the teacher. Well, he apparently lost it after I left. His teacher had to call me during her planning period to tell me that he just broke down crying, yelling that he was mad at me for leaving. He tried to make a break for it when the class went out to recess, but they caught him and had to carry him back, kicking and screaming! He eventually calmed down, and the rest of the day was fine (he even got his sticker!). I think that it was just too much for him. He's fine when he's away from me, but when I'm just there for a little while and have to leave again, that's just more than he can handle! We'll try it again sometime, but not too soon!

The rest of his week was fine. He got his progress report on Friday and he's meeting standards on all the grade level stuff. He did get a "needs improvement" in the self-control section, but that doesn't really come as a surprise! At least he's doing well everywhere else. We introduced him to the Disney classic, "The Lion King" on family movie night. He loved it, and now he's ready for Animal Kingdom at Disney World! He was confused about how the lion, Scar was Simba's uncle. I explained to him that Scar was Mufasa'a brother. He looked confused and said, "But Scar is bad, brothers have to be good." How sweet my wonderful boy is.

And I think we can say that we have a walker on our hands- Will now walks more than he crawls, so I am proclaiming him an official walker!!!! Hays is doing two or three steps at a time, so he's not too far behind, but he's also not quite as determined to do it as Will. But I am really amazed at how big they're getting. Their favorite toys right now are books, particularly Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, a red hand puppet that I put on a fabulous puppet show with, trucks, especially Mason's old trucks that have buttons to push for lights and sound, their climbing castle, the phone and the remote, laundry baskets, the clock radio, and whatever they can pull out of the kitchen cabinets. They both wave bye-bye and Hays says it. They know several animal sounds, several body parts, and they are both currently fascinated by their bellybuttons. They are into everything all the time. They understand the word "no"- they just grin at you and ignore you. So they're growing up, and growing up fast. This is an exhausting age, but it's so much fun. I love watching their little personalities develop, marveling at their sense of humor, and seeing how incredibly sweet they can be together.