dear babies

i, like most of you, use my blog for journaling...this next entry is just that, a journal entry for my babies because as they say if you don't write it down...you'll forget it...(it took me a week to finally get this done and i still have so many thoughts and traits of the babies...but there is only so much time in a day)

its hard to believe that you are already 1yrs old.  i remember the day we found out we were pregnant with not just one baby, but too! thats right we would be parents to 2babies at the same time! your dad as witty and as fun as he is shouted for joy, i think his feet may have even left the ground when he jumped up! while i started to cry...because i was so worried that with 2babies it would be harder to get you here, and get you here safe.  but you babies both proved me wrong and arrived in this world safe and sound!  so here is what you have both brought into our lives in just the short time of 1yr.  i love you girls so much everyone else hates you compared to how much i love you.

Dear Tenley Magnolia Mortensen;
       i love your name.  i always wanted to name a baby magnolia and call her maggie. but you don't seem like a maggie at all, you are our tenley, ten-0-lee, munchkin, squirt, stinker.  its a different name, not so common, but a beautiful name that your dad and i didn't tell anyone until you were born because it was so special to us, so for a very long time we called you baby a!  this past year has been so exciting for us! you have grown so much and have developed such a fun and cute personality.  you laugh loud, you smile all the time, you love people, you think church is your personal socializing session.  you take good care of your little sister...most of the time.  you kiss me open mouthed on the lips and i love it!  you love our jogs in the stroller, you love your bottle, not so much with the binky and you will eat anything that you see big people eat. you are a copy cat! you got your first teeth during thanksgiving....and i didn't even know you were teething until i saw 2white things in your mouth!! you are such a mellow baby.  you have created your own language of gibber-gabber and its so fun watching you talk to yourself. you don't like being thrown in the air, it makes you so scared. you taught yourself how to sleep, and sleep through the night all on your own...you are very brave because you know your little sister sometimes needs more attention.  you love to cuddle, and you love me, you could sit on my lap all day and be so content!!  your favorite toy is the bee pillow grandma and grandpa mortensen gave you for christmas...you hug, cuddle, and roll all over it.  you look just like your daddy, and sometimes (ok all the time people think you are a boy...even if you are wearing pink, but you don't care) its a good thing you look just like your daddy cause he is pretty cute! but you have my huge mouth and i love hearing your laugh...it is truly contagious like your aunt amanda's good belly laugh. the only baby food you will eat is squash, and yes you know the difference even when i try to trick you, and you definitely have my sweet tooth! you have a very tender spirit. and always creep into my thoughts at night as i go to bed. somehow you give me a look and let me know that i'm doing an ok job as your mom...and i hope that is true. you think your sister is hilarious! and you think i am too! obviously you love to laugh.  you are very inquisitive...you study someone and then decide if you want to play or smile at them. you love being tickled, and will hold so so very still and let me tickle your cute little body. you love the duckies in our bathtub. you enjoy the grocery store and feel like such a big girl sitting in the front of the cart. you are learning how to walk and feel like the coolest thing since sliced bread...you think you are pretty hot stuff and so do i.  i love you!!! always and forever!

Dear Quincy Joanna Mortensen; skinny britches, quincerella, q...
   we named you after my best friend, soul mate, gorgeous sister Joanna.  you are already a lot like her.  you make friends easy, you are very independent and no thing and/or no one can get in your way.  even in my tummy we knew you were full of spit fire...you were always kicking and squishing your sister!  it has been really fun to see your personality blossom and bloom.  when you were a little little baby (like 3-8wksold) you would laugh in your sleep.  it was hilarious to hear you giggling next to your sister laughing about something.  and even now you laugh at yourself all the time.  you love the kitty mima sent you, sometimes i think you love it so much you might rip its head off!  you get frustrated when you can't get what you want...like when you were crawling and always stuck in reverse, but you are so determined that once you started actually crawling forward you have never stopped or looked back. you love to eat! you love squash and often times have an orange nose stained from all the squash i have stuffed you with. i love hearing your dad sing to you, there is nothing sweeter than a man voice signing to a little baby. you love your binky...and when i finally figured out how to attach the binky to your shirt (10months) you started sleeping through the night.  i spoiled you and rocked you to sleep, and sang to you, and got up with you countless times because of your little cry, that still can pierce my soul..(you know how to turn it on and get what you want...and i fall for it everytime)  you are my little baby...because you are still so little...i love cradling you and see you fight to get loose and crawl around. you love it when your dad throws you around like a sack of potatoes the higher the better! you love exploring everywhere.  you enjoy our jogs in the stroller...but i can tell you want to go faster.  you are so curious.  you like balls, whether it be a basketball, tennis balls, or bouncy balls you love em! you love watching them roll, chasing them, and squeezing them. and any kind of animal that comes by you want to play with it (which makes me glad because i want to have a cat again someday and i think you can get your dad to let us have one...eventually)    i love watching you play.  i love hearing your hands slap the ground as you crawl super super fast on our tile floors.  i love that you are fearless! i loved all the times i held you in my arms and prayed that you would fall asleep, and eventually you did. you love faces, and love touching them.  you always touch my eyes, and place a tender hand on my chin and lips.  i love your little hands.  you like my shoes, i don't know why but every sunday you are always at my feet playing with the straps, and heel. you startle so easy and jump so high, but never stop smiling. you have a very deep growl...and make all sorts of weird voices, almost gremlin like.  you have my orangish hair and my light eyes...but if anything i hope you continue to grow up as sweet and tender as you already are. i love you more than you know! to the moon and back and back!

one year and counting!!

so here is a look back at the crazy ride it was to get the twins here and their first year!!

when i was 26wks and skinny....i got so so big, 

one of the very few times i was up....look at all those pillows behind me")  

           spence showing our count down to a successful and healthy pregnancy/delivery, each morning i was so happy to still be pregnant and was able to rip one of those chains down..besides the price is right ripping those chains down was the highlight of my day while on bedrest.

 spences' sleeping courters...don't feel bad for him he actually could sleep through the night. i couldn't sleep when i was pregnant cause i had such a hard time breathing and getting/staying comfortable as i lay in bed all day and all night...i seriously got so huge i took up our whole bed:)  so glad that i am no longer on bedrest.....i still get a little nauseous when i think of how hard and how horrible all the bedrest was.

but i'd do it again hands down to get these cute babes here!!

 graffic i know, and i didn't even post the huge pics of my belly...i think i would make you all sick.  this pic was at 33wks i was prego for 3more weeks and got even rounder....everywhere:)
our goal was to make it to at least 34wks and we made it all the way to 36wks to the day!! spence and i went to our dr's visit for the week (we went once a week after 26wks, i didn't really mind because it was my one and only outing for the week and it was always reassuring to see the babes growing and kicking) -i was pretty much miserable but still taking my contractions meds because i was so nervous to have premature babies and all the complications that come with delivering early.  needless to say at 36wks the babies were coming.  (the amazing dr. marv erickson ph 623-414-3500. if you live in phoenix and need an amazing dr he is the man.) dr erickson said there wasn't much we could do, they were one their way and he told us to head to the hospital!! i called my mom and told her to hop on a plane and she did the next day:)
when we got to the hospital i was having tons of contractions and was nervous and excited to finally meet our babies. (more nervous than excited...working in the ob/gyn field for 8yrs prior i somehow always thought of the worst case scenerios, thank goodness for spencer's mellow and calm demeanor through the whole experience.)  anyways by the time we started the c-section (quincy was breech so we had to do a c-section) i was dilated to a 6-7 and the nurses laughed at me because i was having so many contractions and didn't really say much or need anything...and i thought to myself well i've basically been contracting since 19wks so i was use to it:)  then it was time to operate,


 i remember thinking couldn't they have gotten a bigger table to lay me on i was huge. and then they strapped me to the bed, i could barely breath and spencer says, "they are cutting you open now. and i looked at him with that look that wife's give their husbands and told him to stop giving me a play-by-play.  seriously who wants to know that they have just been cut open with a 2in scalpel! not me!  and then in no time at all baby a: tenley magnolia, was out and i could hear her cry 5lbs 11oz. spence told me she was looking good and then she was handed off to one of the 10people in the room, then baby b: quincy joanna, was pulled out and she was crying too, 4lbs 10oz!!! perfect!! i didn't get to see the girls for several hours(4hrs) because of some complications i was having but, spence did a great job running back and forth from the nicu to tell me how they were doing...and they were doing perfect they were only in the nicu for 2hrs just to be monitored and then they were sent to the happy and healthy nursery!!  it was  a great and successful delivery both babies arrived in the world without any problems!! thank goodness!! and that is pretty much the story of how the twinners got here!
i can't believe that they are 1year old. it is hard to imagine that its been a whole year that i have been able to snuggle, laugh, hold, feed, cry, wrestle, read, and love them!!! i am ever so grateful to my Heavenly Father for allowing me this wonderful experience of being a mom. there is really nothing better...i knew i wanted to become a mom, but i never could have imagined how wonderful it is, and how grateful i am to have this amazing opportunity.  i love them so much!!

 first week home with the littles....oh so tiny tiny tiny!!

even the premie clothes seemed huge.  but they were such good babies...especially because i had no idea of how to be a mom.

 this picture says it all, "how are you going to take care of 2 babies....me laughing i have no idea!""

 poor tenley has always been the easier, self-sufficient baby and was bottle propped since birth all 5lbs 11oz had to be brave from the get go!  don't judge me, i was only one and there were two of them.  and those days when i wanted to just cry because i couldn't do it all, especially running on only 2hrs of sleep total a day,  i would think of what laurie martin told me (aka my saving grace here in az, she is mom of 14yr old twins) "Heavenly Father sent me two babies at time, and if He thought i was capable of taking care of two babies then by-gally i am. (i still tell myself that)

 so tender....need i say more:0

 bottles, bottles and more bottles.  feeding every 3-4hrs 24hrs a day times 2= one tired mamma!! diaper changes every 3-4hrs 24hrs a day, times 2 =12diapers a day!! if not more:) the first 8months are just a blurr of bottle feeding and praying that they would sleep.  but we all survived it!
and now that they are 1yrs old we get to say adios to the formula!! (since they were born early our dr said to wait 2more wks but i'm so excited)  we went through 24cans of formula a month at $15 a can...you do the math!! and i would pre-mix the formula and have 12bottles ready to go in the fridge at all times (12bottles really only last 6feedings) so now we are going to just buy ourselves a cows and get these girls chubby with some whole

 side by side...forever and always!!

amanda the amazing mom of twins...she taught me everything i needed to know...especially how to relax and just enjoy the babies!! amanda is really an amazing mom, she makes taking care of 2babies look so easy, so glad that she had twins first so i could learn from her!!

quincy's first bath...i love that face she is our little spit-fire red head:)

our trip across the boarder to mexico with friends.  5months old and still not sleeping a wink. 

but we had fun anyway

spencer is such a good dad.  i am so lucky to have a husband that enjoys being a father and all that goes with it. i had a friend tell me that i am so lucky i had twins because spencer has to help.  and she is right i am so lucky i have twins, but spencer really is the kinda guy that would be helping and complete hands on even if we just had one baby.  he is such a good dad, and loves the girls so much.  i love watching him play and talk with the girls.  he is such a great dad and the girls light up so much when he walks through the door! this next year with him away will be tough.  good thing for skype and cellphones!

eating rice cereal....the girls didn't so much like it, it took a lot of patience and time, but finally by 8months they decided they would swallow and eat squash for every meal:)

tummy time was so fun.  it was crazy when they started rolling over, then crawling, then standing, and soon to be walking...wow the first year has flown by and so has each little stage in their life!

tenley and quincy are such good friends, i love seeing them play with each other and look around the room for each other.  i do enjoy and relish one-on-one time (when one is still sleeping) i try to make up for all the time that they have to share me.  it is my biggest fear that one day they will be sad

 that they had to share my attention.  so i really try to make sure that i am equal in everything that i do...oh goodness i hope they know that.

everything is double when you have twins. double at the exact same time.  which is hard and tasking sometimes, but it really means that there is double the love, double the laughter, double the fun, double our enjoyment.  -i often find myself singing that double mint gum song: double your enjoyment oh no single baby can freshen your life like double babies can!!

and even though they look totally different, and people are shocked when i say that they are twins, born just 2minutes apart.  i think that it is great they can be different because the rest of their lives they will have to share so much!

these girls are exploring everything! and if one finds something fun and new then the other is right behind to discover it too!! the cupboards and our bedroom are great for exploring!!

they are growing up so fast!! and both have such fun personalities!  and now that they are 1, i can say that maybe i can have another...but i really am enjoying these twins and soaking up every moment i can.  we might not do a lot, and running in the jogger or going to grocery store are our big adventures, but i find its the simple things in life that allow us to play and enjoy each other.

tenley is pretty talented with this walker...she will turn on a dime and run over anything in her path...even if its her sister! she is cruising and she loves how much Independence she gets from this walker.

easter is my favorite holiday (and yes its because of all the jelly beans) and i love that the girls get to share a birthday close to easter! its such a fun time of year, there really isn't anything better than spring time.

gotta love those bums!! and the amazing arizona sun! the girls are becoming more aware of grass but would still prefer to eat it than anything else.

...share everything, even a swing!!

happy birthday girls, thanks for coming into our lives and making them so much brighter!  spence and i both prayed and tried so hard to get you here safe, and now that you are here 

we want to love you and take the best care of you that we can, because you are ours for just a short time, and time keeps flying by.