At the Undersea adventure in Epcot

Yum!!

Meeting Lilo and Stitch

Checking out a hippo at Animal Kingdom


Our Disney trip rocked!!!! It would have rocked more if it hadn't been 98* with about 150% humidity, but what are you gonna do? Mason had an awesome time and that's all that really matters.
We did the Magic Kingdom the first day, and that wore that little boy out! The combination of heat and a lot of walking had him ready to go by lunchtime, but we convinced him to hold out a little longer. We made the mistake of not getting the park hopper tickets, so we knew we only had one day at each park and we didn't want him to miss anything. The Magic Kingdom was closing early for "Mickey's not-so-scary Halloween party" (That I did not want to pay an extra $150 to attend) so we had to cram it all in. But we managed to do almost everything, so we don't feel like he missed anything too great. I was disappointed that he didn't get to see the big Spectromagic parade at night, but alas, you win some, you lose some.
We did Epcot the next day, and I think that was everyone's favorite. It's very laid back compared to the Magic Kingdom and the crowds were better. Plus, there are a lot of interactive things for kids, so Mason had a lot of fun. We left Epcot early afternoon and went back to the hotel for lunch and swimming. Then we went back to the park in the evening for the fireworks, which were spectacular. Disney sho' nuff knows how to put on a show!
The third day was the Animal Kingdom, which was my least favorite. It had a few cool things, but I thought a lot of it was kind of lame and boring. Although, that day was by far the hottest and most humid, and we were all quite tired, so I'm sure that had a lot to do with it! We did enjoy the safari ride, and we saw an incredible "Finding Nemo" show, but I think when the twins are old enough to go, we'll skip Animal Kingdom and go to Universal Studios instead. And we'll go in November when temperatures are better!
See more pictures below!

Lines are boring!!

Tired little puppy

Whoa, castle!

The jungle cruise was cool!

Arriving at the Magic Kingdom

Waiting in line

Riding a dinosaur at the Animal Kingdom

Meeting King Louie at the parade

I forgot to tell y'all that Hays is finally walking! He's walking all the time and climbing everything in sight. His new favorite thing to do is climb up on the kitchen table!

We had a scary thing happen with Will yesterday. He choked while he was eating lunch, which he's done several times before. But this time, we couldn't get whatever was choking him out. He got progressively more blue, so I called 911 while Matt kept working on him. It got to the point that he wasn't breathing at all and lost consciousness. Luckily, Matt was finally able to get the chunk of sandwich dislodged and Will was breathing again by the time the paramedics arrived. His oxygen sats were low, so they gave him oxygen for about five minutes. His sats came right back up, and he was fine. He was exhausted, but fine, thank God. Stupid peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You've got to watch out for sandwiches. You know it was a ham sandwich that got Mama Cass.

So that made for an exciting Saturday morning. Although, in all honesty, we've gotten so used to crazy medical drama with Will that the rest of the day went along like normal. I went to TJ Maxx, Matt cut the grass, just a regular old Saturday!

Now we're getting ready for DISNEY WORLD!!!!!!!! We're heading out later this week and we can't wait. We're dumping the babies with the grandparents and setting off with Mason to the happiest place on Earth!! He is so freakin' excited. It is going to be too much fun to get to take this trip with our sweet boy. So now I have to go make lists of all the stuff I need to pack for everyone. Lots and lots of lists!! Back soon with tales of our awesome Disney adventure!

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.