(Notice Kirsten's head in both pictures leaning on Maddox)Twins rock, they really do. Ours could not be more different, but I don't know what they would do without each other. As many people know, the twins were born at 32 weeks. This, of course, made the whole ordeal pretty scary. I happened to be in Utah on business when Heidi called to tell me she was on her way to the hospital and that I needed to get home NOW! With the help of some close friends (Jeff Jensen, Chad Willardson, and a few others), I was able to make it from BYU campus to Heidi's bedside in just over 4 hours. I still think it is some kind of record.
A few hours later, and rudely interrupting a great episode of "Lost," Kirsten and Maddox were born into a frenzy of doctors and nurses doing everything they could to make sure the babies survived. Poor daddy Trevor was all alone (after the initial family visitors) because they knocked Heidi out as soon as the babies were out of her tummy. The only contact I had with her for about the first 24 hours was when I had to wake her up from her trauma and drug induced comma to ask the code to get into the car. It was like 4 in the morning and my brain was not working. Interestingly enough, Heidi remembered it right off the bat. I think she would have had a hard time remembering my name at that point, but the code to the car, no problem.
The twins spent the next month in the CHOC NICU. It was an amazing place and as small as our little guys were (I could fit my wedding ring around their wrists), they were actually the healthier babies there. I am still in awe of the way those nurses mix science and faith to make sure the babies are well taken care of. When the month was over, the babies had both reached about 5 lbs and the doctors thought they were ready to come home. We didn't really agree because Kirsten had a nasty habit of forgetting to breathe. In the hospital there were all kinds of alarms that went off when it happened. At home, it was just us. We did not sleep a lot those first few days.
Their personalities have not changed from the moment they were born. Maddox is the quiet one that is perfectly happy with a little truck and some space on the floor to push it around. Kirsten, on the other hand, is much more interested in people... and their attention. In fact, I'd say that it's very possible that the whole "forgetting to breathe" thing in the hospital was just a way for her to get some more of our attention! Regardless of their differences, the first question they ask when they wake up is, "Where is Kirsten?" or "Where is Maddox?" It is really neat to see how much of a comfort they are to each other.
One down side of having twins is that they work as a team to figure stuff out. Usually it is stuff that we would rather they did not figure out, like crawling out of their cribs, opening doors, opening cabinets, squeezing toothpaste, and fitting diapers on their heads. They also figured out how to make the most annoying sound in the world... you know, the one from "Dumb and Dumber." They used that one extensively on our recent trip to Utah.
Most of all, they have been normal little kids, and along with our other kids, they have filled our lives with a lot of work, laughter, frustration, smiles, noise, exhaustion, and poop. But through it all they fill our hearts with amazing joy that makes everything else worthwhile.
With mom and Ayden put to sleep by the steady screaming of other people's kids, the rest of us were able to skip the salad completely and go straight to the chicken pot pie stew (the special for the day) and load up on frozen yogurt and cookies. I woke Heidi up in time to help clean up the kids and accidentally steal one of the high quality plastic water cups to add to our expanding collection of assorted accidentally-stolen cups.
Congratulations to Casey and Ryanne on their recent engagement! I don't have any pictures of Ryann so I had to post this one of Casey and I in New York instead. We took the three day long trip shortly before I got married and we had the best time (Heidi still will not forgive Casey for telling her that she was not invited). Neither of us had much money so we almost made a game out of how cheap we could do the trip. I will give a few examples of the depths of our cheapness: 1. We took the red eye Jet Blue flight that arrived at JFK at about 2:00 am. 2. Instead of taking a taxi like normal people would have done for probably $50 to $100, we decided to take the free shuttle to the train station and take the subway from JFK to Harlem ($3.00) where we stayed with friends. I think it took a little over an hour, and yes it was scary (even for super buff Casey). 3. we slept on hard floors and couches at a myriad of friends homes. 4. We bought some cookies the first day, stuck them in a backpack and used those for about 3/4 of our daily sustenance (the other 1/4 was filled with hot dogs and pizza from the street). 5. Instead of taking a tour of the harbor we took the free ferry to Stanton Island and back. Our one big splurge was tickets to see "Fiddler on the Roof." Overall it was a great trip and it will probably go down in history as the cheapest 3 day trip to New York that anybody will ever have. All in I think I spent just under $300. That included airfare, lodging, food, and show tickets.
