HAPPY RETIREMENT/ANNIVERSARY!!

June 8th was a big day!! Tyler & I celebrated our 7 year anniversary which happened to fall on the same day as my last day of school! Am I dramatic or what?! I thought I would just take care of a couple of big life events all in one. The last day at Sandy Elementary was definitely a bittersweet one- on the one hand obviously excited to be home with my baby boys and on the other sad to leave teaching after 6 years. I have made some wonderful friendships over the years there and have learned A LOT! But I'm not hanging up the teacher sweater quite yet... down the road, it would be nice to go back and teach maybe when the kids are older.

As for the big day of love, Tyler's sweet mom took on the challenge of watching our boys overnight, so we could have a night of sleep :) The most amazing gift you could give us at this point in time! We went to dinner at the Red Lobster & then stayed at Anniversary Inn. We had an absolute blast!

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

Happy 4 months to our beautiful 10 lb. baby boys! This past month has been extra crazy busy with both of us working again. Who knew you could function on such little amounts of sleep?! Although we've learned that when there's a will, there's a way! We are so blessed to have such wonderful sitters watching our boys... between both of our moms, my stepmom, and Suzanne (a family friend) - the boys are in good hands! Thankfully school is almost out though... we're officially on the countdown. The other great news is that we are finally out of quarantine! The doctor gave us the green light to bring our boys out of the house. We are ready to make our debut! Watch out world... the Smith boys are a-coming!

Turner & Beckham

Dad & Beck

T.K. riding our ferocious beast, Bacon

Beckham smiling

T.K. smiling

BACON SMITH

Well it's official... we got ourselves a lemon! Our poor weiner daughter Bacon has had a rough life, and we're coming to find our kids don't come cheap! We figured out the other night that we've spent a good $5,000 on this dog, and I'm pretty sure we haven't seen the end of it. The issues began a few years back with her diagnosis of Hemolytic Anemia (basically her body was attacking its own red blood cells). Well one week in the animal hospital and a blood transfusion later (yes, that's real) ... SHE LIVES! So that was a little miracle in and of itself, but unfortunately, she's back in the hospital. This time she's dealing with a Mega Colon (pretty common in cats but not so much for dogs). Her body just can't pass things through like it used to, which means that her sweet dad has to give her enemas a couple of times a week. If that isn't love, I don't know what is! She's slowly getting worse, and we're trying to be optimistic but aren't sure how much longer she'll be around. She has been an amazing dog these past 6 years and a great companion for us while we were waiting for our kids to get here. We sure love you Bacon!

PHOTO SHOOT!

MODEL BABIES! Tyler's sister, Bryn, came out to take some "Newborn Pics" (2 months) of our handsome, little men. She has such an amazing talent, and the pictures turned out so cute! Check out her photography blog: http://brynsphotos.blogspot.com. I'd also like to give a shout-out to Tyler's sister, Haley, for the DARLING monkey hats... please believe she hand-made them! Talk about some talented aunts we got here! Can you guess which twin is which??

Turner & Beckham

Turner - who started out the smaller of the two but is now the bigger one :)

Beckham - please believe I get to snack on those cheeks ALL day long!

Please appreciate Beckham resting his arm on that big ol' belly of his

Definitely the cutest bums I've ever seen!!

Beck

T.K. yawning - he is constantly full of funny faces

YIKES! Tyler scaring the hiccups out of them :)

JUMBO BABIES!

Well it's official... we've hit the 7 lb. mark at 9 weeks! We got some jumbo babies on our hands! Life couldn't be better with our sweet boys at home! We've had them home 5 weeks now, but it feels like forever. Life is definitely crazy, but we're loving every minute of it! The boys sleep a lot of the time, but they conveniently wake up at the exact same time starving when it's just mom at home... and they DON'T like to be hungry. Good times!

Beckham & Turner

Turner ready to go to the doctor

The Beck

Please appreciate the fun shoes my friend, Emily, helped me make them :)

Meeting their sister, Bacon

WELCOME HOME!!

After 40 days in the NICU, the big homecoming had arrived! After recovering from all the infections and issues the boys faced, the final task was to gain weight. The boys needed to have 2 consecutive days of weight gain. After 3 false alarms, they finally gave us the go-ahead! We were super excited and nervous at the same time. When we went to go get them from the hospital, we were changing the boys into the new outfits to come home and wouldn't you know it... Beckham decided to have bloody stools! Good news is we didn't come home empty-handed... we got to bring home Turner. And the even better news was that Beckham got to come home the very next day! Our family is now complete!

Tyler with Beckham

Last scrub in!! Yay for my raw hands!

Beckham

Turner

THE NICU ROLLER COASTER

Happy 1 month to our beautiful baby boys! What a month it has been!! The first day in the NICU, the case manager came to talk to us about what an emotional roller coaster the NICU can be. She wasn't kidding! We have had our fair share of trials in the NICU but are extremely grateful for modern day medicine and the amazing people taking care of our babies.

Because the boys were born at 32 weeks, we knew we'd have some issues to deal with - the first came with the head ultrasounds. The nurse began by saying how great Beckham's looked & the whole time Tyler & I were thinking, ok, so what's wrong with Turner's... They went on to inform us that Turner has a cyst on his brain, but it is nothing to worry about. In fact, many adults have cysts on the brain, and they would never know it unless they had a head scan.

The boys initally lost some weight, which is completely normal, but was a little worrisome to us when Beckham dropped down to 3 lbs. 7 oz., and Turner got down to a whopping 2 lbs. 15 oz. Thankfully, at 4 weeks, our boys are up to a healthy 4 lbs. 14 oz. (Turner) and 4 lbs. 15 oz. (Beckham). We're pushing 5 lbs. folks!

Another challenge our boys have gone through is NEC/Pneumatosis which is an infection in the intestine wall. It can be a really scary thing if the wall gets punctured, but luckily, our boys both pulled through like champs. The treatment involves 7+ days with no food and iv fluids through PICC lines. Beckham got to experience NEC first, and Turner was just cruising along. We were even told to plan on his homecoming that weekend. As we're driving to our discharge class, we got a call that blood was found in Turner's stool... and cue Turner's turn with NEC. Thankfully he pulled through his round of NEC quickly.

As of today, our boys are both back to eating and hopefully on the up & up. We are so blessed to have such amazing, supportive family and friends to help us get through this challenging time. Those boys are the world to us!

Ty preparing to change a blow-out... the gloves are coming out!

Me & itty-bitty Turner

Twins reunited for the first time since birth (3 weeks old)

T.K. & Beckham

Turner with Grandma Linda

Grandma Terri Jo Berri

The Beck-ster!

T.K. (or TKent as Grandpa Kent likes to call him)