Ruda Family Pictures

My parents came up last weekend and we were able to celebrate Ben's 29th and Miriam's 5th birthday together. We decided it was a perfect time to try to take family pictures as well.

The grandkids: Clara May, 15 months; Miriam, 5 years; Aidah, 3 1/2 years;
 Sam and Seth 27 months



With the grandparents



The ever photogenic Plato family

The ever non-photogenic Morris family

We love you Ben! Here's to 29 years!

Sweet, Sweet Slumber

I feel like I can never get enough sleep pictures. Maybe that's because sleep is so darn important, yet so elusive in our home.

Where to even begin in our sleep story? Maybe way back in the NICU, when they slept all the time and were on a wonderful sleep schedule for the beginning of their life. Wait! They were amazing sleepers for the first six months of their lives...I even got complemented on it. What happened?

It started with Seth's darn ear infections when they were six months old. He'd wake up crying, and because they were sharing a room, we'd rush in to make sure he didn't wake up Sam. Yep, right then and there we trained our kids that if they cried, we'd come. My number one advice to twin parents: just pull the plug, don't be nostalgic, and split them into different rooms. At least parents, who were like us and wouldn't let them just play/cry/work it out.

Fast forward to this May, when the boys are 2 years old. (Of, course between 6 months and 2 years we had many more ups and downs of sleep, but I won't re-traumatize myself by relating them all to you). We take their binkies away....leading the boys to chat endlessly every night and not fall asleep until 10 or 11. To add to the frustration and overtiredness: Seth begins to have sleep terrors (at one point, 21 out of 26 night of screaming bloody murder, inconsolable, for at least 20-45 minutes). Truthfully, Ben and I were going crazy. We were exhausted and frustrated! Our doctor even recommended us to the sleep disorder clinic at OHSU for help (of course, OHSU didn't have any openings until months later....great help!).

So, isn't this supposed to be a happy story? It is. Really. In the middle of July, we had finally had it and made the choice we wish we would have made literally years ago: we split them up. The day we did it, I was a bit sad, I'll admit. But when we were all sleeping blissfully weeks later, I had no sorrow. How did splitting them up help so much? First of all: they were able to fall asleep much faster! Sam has always been the better sleeper, and he no longer had Seth bugging him for hours on end to keep him up. Seth could then read himself to sleep, which seems to help him fall asleep faster. It even helped with the night terrors, because we could then just let Seth cry and instead of adding to the problem by picking him up (I know, counter-intuitive, but apparently the solution to sleep terrors). Seth's terrors went from being 45 minutes, to 15, to 5, to rare. He maybe has a small one once a week now. Other key factors in helping with sleep: music and an hour long wind down time before bed.

Last week I looked at Ben and said, "I feel normal again." I don't know how many times we've caught ourselves laughing, like really belly laughing, and said, "We're laughing again." Extreme sounding, I know. But when you're in the midst of sleep deprivation, life seems to stop and go in horrible slow motion. I'm now thinking again, doing crafts, catching up on projects, smiling and laughing tons. Most mornings I get up an hour before the kids wake-up to have devotions and enjoy coffee in peace. Most nap times I now use to do something I enjoy like scrapbooking (instead of desperately trying to nap to catch up on sleep). We're no longer house-bond because we're worried that the boys will scream all night at someone else's house. We'll go off schedule periodically because we know that we'll catch up on sleep again soon. These may sound like basic things, but for us, they are miracles.

Things aren't perfect. Seth still really struggles with falling asleep (10:40 last night). We're not entirely sure why, but decided that didn't merit a visit to the sleep disorder clinic and cancelled his appointment. Sleep is always going to be an issue in our household; let's be honest, both Ben and I are horrible sleepers. But, that's ok. After all we've been through, I know we'll make it. And, sleep pictures are still among the most precious things in the world.

Sam loves his animals

Sam

Seth: falls asleep playing with is hair

Sam and his always present puppets

Seth

Potty Training: Take One

Some say that the boys should be potty trained by now. Some say wait until they are older. Truth be told, I don't know if they're ready, but I thought be better give it a whirl and see what happens. At least I'll have something to say to those people that look upon me with scorn when I tell them that they are potty trained yet.

Day One: by naptime, we had had 6 accidents, no successes. By dinner time, we were on underwear pairs 9 and 10. In the end, 12 pair of underwear, 3 pees and 2 poops on the ground while naked (outside thank goodness). Oh ya, and Sam stepped in Seth's poop. But....Seth's final poop of the day outside, he did tell me that he was pooping and we ran for the potty. We just didn't get there in time. A small victory, right? I'm skeptical if they are ready. We'll see what tomorrow brings. At least they look so darn cute in their underwear!

Sam

Seth

Twins at Two

The days are going by so quickly with the boys at this age, sometimes it seems hard to update. They are growing and learning at such a fast rate. I'm so thankful to be their mom and watch them daily!

Seth is our "little love" as we call him. He gives his kisses very freely and loves shouting, "I wub you mama! I wub you daddy." Seth has established the funniest bedtime routine of a "BIG crib hug, kiss, Eskimo kiss, butterfly kiss, dragonfly kiss" in which he moves your face to the correct position for it all. (while the standard butterfly kiss is eyelashes, a dragonfly kiss--as created by Seth and Sam--is simply on the other eye). I look forward to this ritual every night and leave him room with a huge smile. He continues to struggle falling asleep, but loves to linger in bed in the morning (it's really quite maddening!). I usually get Sammy up first in the morning, and we head to Seth's room, in which he will tell me, "Mama, still sleeping."  He laughs a lot and loves to be silly. Seth's voice continues to be very raspy, and I just adore it. He also speaks in kind of a halted cadence...making listening to him talk quite funny. He is also very thoughtful and giving and has picked up on a lot of my encouragement phrases...so will say things like, "Good job mommy" or "3 minutes mama" or "You can do it Sammy". In the past couple of weeks his language has surpassed Sam's (which used to be more advanced). He is trying to say "I" or "me" with all his sentences and will say "yep" when I ask him something.

He was quite excited to pose for these pictures naked:

Sammy, on the other hand. I couldn't get to sit still for the life of me for pictures. Go figure.

When it comes to describing Sam, I continue to laugh each time. He's such a funny boy, full of emotion and contradiction. For example, a couple of months ago he was determined to put every piece of clothing on completely by himself. Now, he won't do anything by himself (even though he can!). He'd rather have me do it for him and when I ask him if he wants to be a big boy and do it something, he replies, "No, Sam baby." Great, no incentive to be a big boy with him anymore. Sam often seems more serious than Seth, yet he has more of a sense of humor. He's much more in tuned to emotion and can sense when I'm stressed. So now he knows that when I talk seriously about something being loud, or him being careful, that it "hurts me". We've had several instances of having to assure him that we are just cautioning him, but that things are ok. Sam continues to be a bit of a baby when it comes to injuries. We've had to qualify that "only big owies get kisses." So now he assures us that everything is a "BIG owy." Sure Sam. He LOVES sports and takes them very seriously. He is always pushing for more: I give him 2 grapes, he wants 3. I say one more time, he wants 2 more times. We've been saying "Be content with what you're given" a lot to him. He goes to bed much better than Seth, which means that Sam and I usually get good cuddle time together in morning, which is very important to both of us. And, he does a great job waking up brother for me (that way I don't have to take the brunt of Seth's wake-up crankiness).  

I love being these boys' mommy more than anything in the world. They make me smile, laugh, (ok and scream) so much each day. Thank you Lord, for chosing me to be a mom of twins!

Our Little Retreat: Orcas Island

Three days and three nights. No kids. Wonderful.

My in-laws were kind enough to watch Seth and Sam for us so that we could get-away and recharge our batteries a bit. The kids did great with their grandparents (sounds like they even slept better than they do with us, little stinkers!)

Here's some snippets of our trip. We started out spending one evening/night in Seattle. We checked out a couple of parks with great views of the city and then walked from our hotel to the Space Needle. We were able to score reservations at the rotating restaurant on the top of the Space Needle. The food and service was excellent and the views were priceless!

Classic Seattle picture

Wonderful dinner!

Sunset from the Space Needle

City view

The next morning we caught a ferry over to the San Juan Islands, specifically Orcas Island. I scored a deal through Living Social for a two night stay in a cottage that had a king sized bed, fireplace, our own hot tub, and a view for $212 (yes: total!) I was a little nervous that the place wouldn't be very nice, but it was amazing and exceeded expectations. Praise the Lord!

Our cottage is up on the hill and had a view of this harbor.

We spent the rest of the day touring Orcas Island, which is beautiful. It is a very calm, non-touristy place full of lush forests, curving roads, tucked away coves, picturesque valleys and places to explore. Even though we were enjoying our time without the kids, we couldn't help but talk about how fun it would be to bring them back to this island someday! It was that neat of a place.

Cascade waterfall: we crossed the creek on a fallen tree
and were able to walk right to the bottom

Sunset our 2nd night: note the kissing couple on the canoe.

 We slept in on day 3 and woke up to a day as beautiful as the previous ones. Another part of my spectacular Living Social Deal was a $20 credit for a whale watching tour. So, for the second time in the past year, I got to fulfill my dream of seeing whales. This time we saw orca whales (in Alaska was humpback). They were pretty awesome to see, especially because their black fins come so far out of the water. It was a pretty awesome three hours!

One of many pictures :)

Our view at dinner the last night

 Every night we were gone, there was an amazing sunset; yet none rivaled the final night we were there. The clouds were phenomenal. Praise God for a different set of clouds every night: what a great artist is He! (It was hard to pare down to these few photos...we took like 50!)