Sweetest mom video

We are driving to California on our first family vacation! The girls have slept ALL day, which is great since it made for an easy drive- I just hope they aren't up all night... We hardly got any sleep last night getting ready to go, vacations with kids are a lot of work, I'm already worn out! Oh well, you can't have it all, right? And I'm just so excited to not feel stuck at home. The girls are getting bigger, the weathers getting warmer, it's time to travel! :)
While driving I saw this video (yeah, aren't iPhones amazing? I'm watching videos and blogging all the while.) I wish I'd seen it earlier to share for mother's day, it is so sweet. It will make you cry. I'm really into stuff about moms lately (wonder why?) and I always love Elder Holland, he has the most beautiful way of saying things.

rockstar status

I remember when I came home from the hospital, I thought I couldn't do anything without Brad at my side. I cried and cried his first day back at work. How was I going to do this? I was constantly feeding one baby, then the next, then getting started on their next round. A part of me, a large part didn't want them to latch on, aah the pain. My toes would curl and I'd pinch my leg till things started to feel a little numb. Everything was new, and slow...and just took so long. My life was over, I was sure of it. Then all of the sudden one day I'm tandem nursing both babies, writing about it on my iPhone, and clipping the girls nails intermittently. I'm not a rockstar, (shocked?) but I feel like one on random occasions like these. Even if there are only 2 adoring fans. :)

I get asked a lot by moms if I nurse them at the same time. I'm doing it more and more. It probably saves me 1/3 the time, but it's at least twice as hard. The math just doesn't quite add up unless they are both starving, I'm in a hurry for something, or I'm leaving them with someone and don't want them to get hungry too soon. That said, it does make for some tender moments.

Both cuddled up on me to burp after dinner last night.

They both get all cozy and cuddly at the same time, and it's just too cute.

Honestly, it's not really that hard, but it makes me feel like a rockstar. :) The End.

3 months?!

What the what?! Our little babes are already 3 months old. They aren't newborns at all anymore. They interact with each other a lot now and smile so much, I love it! Unfortnately the camera distracts them from these activities and it's so hard to capture! I love how fun they're getting, but also miss their newborn-ness that I can't get back.
Time is an enigma. For months I've known no days, instead I've known 2-4 hour blocks of feeding times. Maybe that has something to do with why it makes no sense to me that the girls are 3 months old. It seems like they've always been with us and it also really seems like yesterday that we were taking their itty bitty selves home from the hospital.
These last 3 months have been the most important and wonderful months of my life, I truly love being a mom to Lyla and June. What a lucky girl I am.

Ahh...my little June bug.
You are such a beautiful, sweet little baby. At 3 months old you are every bit as curious as the day you were born, you love to look around.  You have recently found your hands and love to suck on your fists. You give us smiles and make cute little noises. Some of your noises sound like real words to me. When you cry is sounds like "mama..ma..ma" and you often respond to questions with a noise that sounds like "yeah". :) You are so good at tummy time and can lift up your head and shoulders. You're the sweetest little baby- we love you so so much!
love, mommy

Ohh...my little Lyla bean.
You are such a darling little baby! You love to smile and sometimes I wake up to find you smiling at me.  You're a big talker and make all kinds of coos and fun, loud squeals.  You've got the eating and sleeping thing down pretty good which makes mommy so happy.  You saw your own hand a couple weeks ago and couldn't stop staring at it in awe, then you kind of forgot about it. :) You love bath time and get so relaxed when we let the water run over your head.  You have such a fun, sweet personality- we love you so much!
love, mommy

The traditional post-photo shoot nap, looking cute isn't all fun and games. These little athletes really earn their sleep. :)

wanted: babies

I've got a good PR guy "up there" who must have made up this flyer to lure the girls here:

Charming home in Holladay, UT. Loving and adventurous husband and wife desiring parenthood. Space for 1, but preferably 2.
Picture a rainy day, you can gently rock in your bouncy seat or be held on demand at any time. A woman with red-rimmed eyes will tend to your every need, and when she doesn't a man with red rimmed eyes is there for backup.
*High-end nursery suite with ample noise makers and swaddling blankets to make you feel warm and cozy, very wombescent.
*Free, live entertainment. Besides the nightly shows available, you will simply need to look at the woman, who seconds as a court jest, with your doe eyes and she will make all attempts to entertain. Singing, dancing, tickling, crazy baby talk- it won't stop till you stop smiling.
*Heated indoor sink baths, at least 2x weekly
*Meals include: continental breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, late supper, and a midnight snack. All meals include fresh, warm milk for two.
*Fast, efficient, and sanitary diaper changes made frequently throughout the day.
*Same day laundry service specializing in hydroflourescent orange stains.
*Clothing optional. Numerous adorable, coordinated outfits will be provided for the fasionista baby-on-the-go.
*Intense gym training with a personal trainer including tummy time and the popular kicks and wiggles program.
*Follow your workout with a relaxing massage, nested in cuddling arms that rub your back and pat those tired muscles.
*Several exotic day trips are available. Visit local grocers, grandmas house, and more!
All services are free and included in the package. Just show up and give us a try.

P.S. There is an eternal contract, once you join us we'll never let you go.

engaged we were!

I was flipping through my travel journal and realized it was 2 years ago that brad and I were engaged. I had no idea he was even going to propose so I really would have been shocked to know a short 2 years later I'd be a married mother of 2! It was so fun remembering all the little details. My parents didn't want me to go so close to starting nursing school (I missed orientation), Brad was adamant that I leave on good terms with my dad, I had no idea why...
Before he proposed I spent the day on my own exploring NYC. I was anxious to meet up with him, then he got stuck on the subway almost 2 hrs. I talked to my sister Melinda and complained "I wanted to see wicked tonight, but Brad wants to go walk across the Brooklyn bridge, ugh...oh well." haha. We got pedicures, ate pastries, and had a perfect stroll across the bridge, the sun was setting over the city skyline and it was romantic. I realized it wasn't such a bad idea after all, little did I know how great of an idea it really was! We ate yummy pizza then walked around a little park. Brad was being a little funny trying to find a private place so he could give me a kiss. Finally we found a perfect spot on some rocks by the water, we had a beautiful view of the bridge and the city all reflected in the water.

I suspected nothing because we'd never even had a serious relationship conversation let alone discussed marriage. Suddenly the conversation turned serious and brad began to get down on one knee. My initial thought was that it was some cruel joke, but then he reached into his pocket and I realized it was the real thing! It was so perfect and romantic, it was like a fairy tale. It felt so right, it was an easy yes. We both said, "What do we do now? We've never made it this far..." I asked when, he said we'll figure that out later, but I knew it'd be everyone's first question.  So we took a few pictures and called our parents and a few others, everyone was shocked!  Brad's dad welcomed me to the family and said we were a good fit. My dad said we were both fun and adventurous and needed to make sure not to do too many wild and crazy things. (we had just got back from sneaking into Cuba) My parents were anxious to find out if I'd even said yes. I was impressed Brad picked out a ring I like, I was more impressed he was so brave to propose when he wasn't certain of the answer. It was old fashioned and I loved it.

My dad gets soo excited about big news and just can't keep a secret, if I'd listened to my voicemail it would have ruined the surprise. My sister called them and he said "have you heard the big news? My mom wanted me to tell her so she grabbed the phone and said "oh, don't listen to anything dad says, he's being SO weird today." my sister bought it. Haha...
It was such a special time, I wish I could go back and relive it.
I wrote about the whole thing on my plane ride home and as I wrote I felt overwhelmed with a strong confirmation that this was the right thing for me and Brad was who Heavenly Father intended me to be with all along. Other heartaches I'd experienced suddenly meant nothing, I wish I could have seen into the future and saved myself some pain.  I began to cry with joy and probably confused my fellow passengers.
Anyways, I love trying to plan out my life even though it never goes as planned. The surprises keep it exciting!  Saying yes was definitely one of the best decisions I've ever made.

mamas deserve it

I meant to post something for mother's day, but I just didn't get around to it. Moms are pretty special though so I think it's still appropriate to keep dedicating all sorts of things to them, including little blog posts.
My first mother's day was pretty nice, we stayed up in Midway with the Hagens. My favorite part of the day (besides being a mom to June and Lyla of course) was the Hagen boys making us yummy savory and sweet crepes for dinner and doing the dishes! Mother's day should be everyday! It kind of is if you're a mom, its just more like a special job than a celebration on lots of those days.
My mom is fabulous. She is such a good person, she's way nicer than me. In fact, she's not rude to anyone ever. She likes everyone and everyone likes her.  She is down to earth and knows whats important in life. Shes been through a lot of hard things as a mom, things that I think would make me crumble, but shes so strong. Speaking of that, shes freakishly strong. She can carry the heaviest things...it's weird, and cool. She raised 6 kids, at one point 5 kids under 6, 3 in diapers, 2 newborn twins... I have no idea how she did it. And now as a grandma of almost 15- she works, has a demanding church calling, helps with 4 new grandbabies born within a week of each other, and still gives my babies baths more often than I do. Some of the grandkids have called her Grandma Pancake, but I think my girls may call her Grandma Bath. And they love her for it. And I love her for it, for all of it. She raised us all and helps us with raising our own kids now. I appreciate her even more now being a mom myself.

(see how she can have 6 kids, including twins, and make it look like it was nothin'?)
My mother-in-law is also a great mom, she raised 4 boys and had to wait for them to get married to have daughters. All those years... and daughters are the best. :)  She is a child play specialist and professionally helps kids from being messed up, what better qualifications could a grandma have? I wish she could play with the girls everyday to ensure their success. She has been incredibly helpful with the twins as well. Couldn't ask for a better mother-in-law.
My cousin said something to me after I had the babies that really rang true to me: "welcome to the world's biggest, most secret club--motherhood! strange how the amazing amount of work and the transformative psychology (emotions, biology, etc) of mothering is such a mystery until you actually experience it, no? the men and childless women will never quite know."
It's so true. You wonder why no one warned you, then realize they did, you just didn't understand. You try to imagine wonderful things and hard things before children come into your life, but it is more wonderful and hard than one could imagine. I feel a special connection to moms of twins, but I feel a connection now to all moms. I appreciate these women more and what they do. I know they understand the things I'm going through so I feel like we're all good friends now. I love blog stalking other's joys and struggles of motherhood. Being a mom really is amazing, I'm so glad I got to join the exclusive club!

the birds and the bees

Don't be a pervert. I never even understood that metaphor, and I'm actually just talking bees here. Just bees.

If you follow me on facebook or twitter you may have heard about the evil little creature that stung me night before last. It was a little traumatic for me. At first I thought it was a needle, and before brad turned on the light I really thought (and hoped) it wasn't some crazy spider or bug and that I just had a random nerve misfire of sorts. When I saw this huge (relative to there being nothing) moving thing in bed I flipped. My skin crawled. There was some gasping and maybe even a little screaming. I told brad I felt like the universe had turned on me or something. He didn't get that. (what besides the spider? Nothing.)
But you get it right? I'd fed babies and got them to sleep, I was tired and relaxed, about to lay down for a peaceful rest....when all of the sudden I'm stung, for the first time in my life, by a bee who happens to be in my bed, who happens to be right where I lay my hand down to get in bed. It caused me pain, but worse it messed with my chi. That bee was where I lay the babies swaddling blankets, where I normally lay the babies to swaddle them on every other night but this one. What if it had got one of them? The possibilities horrified me and I was certain that bee ruined my whole night's rest and I'd have crazy dreams of animals crawling into babies cribs. How could the wild kingdom intrude my private space like that? My BED! The special place where I sleep, which is my new favorite hobby. Why? My bed of all places should be a safe place. Brad finally convinced me the bee's friends weren't around and I got back in bed. Then he said something beautiful after another bout of my rambling discontent, "There is no peace anywhere!" Yes! He got it. I felt so validated and understood. "Exactly!" I shouted with glee, "There is no peace anywhere!" to which he replied, "No, there's no bees anywhere." He was just being factual.
There's something you must know about Brad to kind of understand how funny this was. In almost 2 years of marriage I haven't been able to get him to even just try and come up with the "right" responses that a girl would like to hear. He says what he thinks, which is often no response at all. I try to tell him, why don't you just say "yes that lady was rude, how frustrating, I can't believe he would say that, that's exciting, how awful the bee stung you, etc, etc". But he'll have none of it. I can't even get him to say "yea" sometimes, just so I know he's listening. I love him so. He had no sisters you see, so I cut him some slack. But I thought he finally understood, or at least understood to pretend to understand. When I realized the one time he said a "right" response that I'd actually just misheard him, we both erupted in laughter. Even while praying I kept getting the giggles. I laugh every time I think of how enthusiastically I shouted "exactly!" with such relief that he finally decided to humor me with a correct response. (and a semi-dramatic one at that)
I suppose instead of trying to teach him how to make me happy with his responses I should just fantasize/hallucinate the correct response right out of his mouth. He'll thank me later. Now that's healthy marital communication, problems solved. I am a champion of world peace. (even if sometimes there is no peace anywhere.)

Names and Blessings

The girls blessing day was really quite perfect. I always want everything just so on special days and tend to stress out a little. I had to turn a blind eye on my wedding day from everything that wasn't the way I wanted it. (that's one time you just really can't do it yourself). 
I was able to get our house cleaned up during the week, make lots of food on Saturday, and give out assignments for even more food from our family.  The blessing day was so wonderful. The girls looked adorable and were perfect little angels all day. Brad did such a nice job with the blessings. It was so interesting to hear some of the same wonderful blessings that they both recieved, as well as things that were unique to their own individual personalities.  Having the girls looking good, me looking decent, food and the house ready for a celebration afterwards was a bit of an undertaking.  It all worked out and really was such a special, happy day.  Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and there was plenty of yummy food for all to eat.  Even though the girls slept through most of their special day, I'm sure they happily dreamt about all their new friends and family who were celebrating for them. :)

they like me.

We had such a nice blessing weekend, I'll probably do a little post about it when I upload pictures. Just thought I'd share how cute the girls were this morning. They are so happy and alert after their early morning feeding (somewhere around 7-8 AM), but I'm normally dead tired so I just swaddle them and make futile attempts to get them back to sleep. Yesterday I finally decided not to fight it and play with them. You can tell they just want to play.  They look like this every morning, like they're saying, "Mom, why are you trying to sleep, just look at how cute we are and how much we want to play."

I even did a video, it's kinda cute if you can see past my obnoxious baby voice..

I haven't been able to pin point when the girls started smiling. They've both had a couple random ones with me, but most of their smiles have been while sleeping or eating.  I worried they are just happy dreaming about when they were in heaven, then feel sorely disappointed when they must return back to reality with me.  It's hard to know if a baby really likes you if they don't smile at you.  On more than one occasion when I was at my whit's end I've told Brad they were trying to kill me. (you know, if insufficient sleep and surplus feeding could kill someone..)  What I'm getting at with all of this is that this morning they both intentionally gave me big smiles multiple times, definitely no accident. Subsequently, I think they like me.