Why are my kids so AWAKE?!

Samuel has been up since at least 6:00 p.m. and now its 2:45 a.m. and he's still awake. I don't get it. It's not like I let them sleep all day. Audrey used to be like this, too. It was not uncommon for her to scream from 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. The only time she wouldn't scream in between then was when I was feeding her which was every 2 hours at the time. Yep....and there's Samuel crying again. Ugh.

My shift usually starts at 1:00 but tonight it started at 12:45 because the kids have been fussy since around 7:00. Even when it was my turn to sleep I couldn't really sleep because I can hear the screaming so I just came downstairs at 12:45 since I knew I wouldn't get to sleep at all the next 15 minutes anyway. I don't know what's worse....being the one down here dealing with them when they're like that and then getting to sleep later on or it being my turn to sleep but hearing them screaming so not really being able to sleep for a few hours but then starting my shift at 1:00 and staying up all day.

Samuel is still screaming and I just tried feeding him again and changing his diaper so I guess I'm just gonna go hold him even though it won't matter. I am so sick of this. This is why I've never understood how parents can keep their kids in their room with them when they are babies. Don't they cry ALL NIGHT LONG and keep you up? How can you even sleep at all if they are in there with you?

It feels so wrong

So after 4 years, I am back on birth control. It feels so strange to be preventing pregnancy and almost kind of wrong! It was January of 2006 when I found out I had a problem (I went off of birth control in July of 2005) and would have difficulty getting pregnant. We tried for so long (well....it felt like a long time to me...it was only 18 months but other couples try for MUCH longer) to conceive Audrey and now here I am today with three children.

I am very pleased with how my family turned out. You always wonder where life will take you and now I'm just thrilled to watch my children grow. I do love that they're so close in age even though it is very demanding at the moment. They're going to love the same things at the same time and when we go on vacations, we'll be finding things to entertain one age group....not 3 or 4. Granseur and I are already dreaming about making a trip out to the Outer Banks next year with our family. It's our favorite vacation spot and we can't wait to go back. I'm really looking forward to family traditions too like pumpkin picking and going to the mountains to pick out a Christmas tree, etc.

Anyway, its an interesting point in my life to be in to realize that I won't be having anymore children... especially after trying so hard to have them! It consumed most of my thoughts at the time and I still consider infertility and our struggle with it to be a big part of who I am even though it does not dominate my life anymore.

Happy Birthday to Us

Granseur's birthday was yesterday. He turned 28. My birthday is today...I'm 26. Oh and Happy Anniversary to us as well. Our 4th anniversary was July 2nd. We were kinda busy with babies though as you can imagine so I didn't post about it.

Ready to run!

I had my follow up OB appt. today and everything looks good. I can go ahead and start exercising now. YAY! I feel so much better about myself when I do this. We ordered a double jogging stroller today that way Granseur and I can run together. We already have a single jogging stroller for Audrey. I looked at triple jogging stroller but they are just enormous and super expensive ($800-$1000). It's just not practical. There's a 5k I'd like to do in September....so that's my short term goal. Within the next year I want to do a half marathon and the year after that I'd love to do a marathon, but that's a while from now. I know I need to start out slow. I have a bad habit of going all out when I start an exercise routine. I messed up my knee the last time I did that. So even though I want to give it everything I've got right away in order to lose these last pounds, I know I need to build up my fitness level again slowly.

Speaking of weight....I'm already down 50 pounds! I lost those pretty quickly. Heck....almost 14 of that was baby so I guess those don't really count. But, I've been down 50 pounds since about 3 weeks ago. I gained a total of 65 pounds this time around (same as my last pregnancy) but I still had 5 more pounds to lose from Audrey to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight when I found out I was pregnant again. So I really need to lose at least 20 more pounds....but I'm aiming to lose 30. That's the weight that I think I look and feel best at.

I had to buy a dress recently for a wedding that is in a couple of weeks. Luckily I found something that doesn't look too bad, but I still hated spending money on something when I am hoping to lose more weight. And I did need the dress.... When Granseur had the ceremony to receive his PE certificate, I tried on everything I had and it all looked terrible or did not fit. I did not want to go through that again!

NO, it is NOT like having twins

For some reason everyone who has had children anywhere from 11-18 months apart from each other feels the need to tell me that it "is just like having twins." Um....no....its not. I'm sure the older child is sleeping through the night and only eating three meals a day. Additionally, if I only had one newborn, they would go to sleep at some point during the night and then I could sleep when they slept. However, one of them is ALWAYS up during the night. They are on the same feeding schedule but for some reason someone is always disgruntled about something during the night. As soon as I settle one child down, the other one will start up.

The other night Granseur heard me get into bed after calming Samuel down who had been upset for an hour and a half. Then he heard a baby screaming again. He said, "Shannon, just let him scream...he's got to be exhausted, he'll go to sleep soon." Well the problem is....it was Anderson who wanted to start. It's like they know when their brother has stopped so the other one can start. Last night and all day today were exceptionally awful. (It's still bad... even though I'm here typing at the computer, Granseur is in the living room right now with two mad babies.) Even if they do go to sleep at the same time it always seems to be when Audrey is awake and needs attention. For instance, I finally got the babies to go to sleep together this morning around 7:15, well Audrey was up at 7:20. She even slept in....I think because the boys kept her up all night.

So anyway, I think I will just have to punch the next person who says, "its just like having twins."

I am going to try to take video of our very loud house soon. I missed it today. Both babies were screaming and Audrey had a toy duck that is extremely annoying quacking songs at us at the same time.

I've put my happy face on for the most part for the past 6 weeks...I think I'm entitled to a little complaining. I LOVE my babies...but geez! Can I get five minutes to myself?! My peaceful time today was this evening when I took Audrey out to Wal-Mart to get more baby wipes. The ridiculus part?..... I bought three large cases of wipes. Each case contains 7 packages. With three children I go through about a box of wipes a day which means that those cases will only last me about three weeks.

Every day I tell myself.... "I will make it through this day."

Baby movies!

Audrey dancing

More dancing

Walking around

Audrey playing with a toy .... not quite how you're supposed to.
In this video Audrey actually says a sentence! Her very first sentence! Granseur said as an engineer he's proud that his daughter's first sentence was, "I fix it." hehe

Samuel and Anderson

My husband, the PE

The day after Anderson and Samuel were born, Granseur found out that he passed the PE (Professional Engineer) exam! It is a HUGE deal. He got his engineering degree from college, then he had to take the EI (engineering intern) exam. Before you can even apply to take the PE exam you have to work under a professional engineer for four years. He has worked so hard for this. Both the EI and PE are 8 hour exams each.

While he was studying for the PE I hardly ever saw him. He would go to work and then stay in town and go to his parents' house to study usually until midnight or 1:00 in the morning. He would only come home from work every other day for about an hour so he could eat but mainly to give Audrey a bath. Since I was VERY pregnant, I could no longer do this task myself. After her bath was over he would leave and go study until midnight or 1:00 like usual. He was also still the scout master for the boy scouts at this time so sometimes he'd be gone all weekend as well. That means that a whole week could go by and I would only see him for about three hours total. He couldn't study in our house because at the time we were living in a two bedroom 900 sq. ft. house and he couldn't get away from the noise or Audrey demanding his attention. This went on for about 4 1/2 months.

He found out he passed when his cousin, who also took the PE exam, called him and said, "congratulations!" Granseur said, "On what? The babies?" Brian, his cousin, said, "Oh, well I don't know about any babies." Right then Granseur knew what he meant because you can check if you passed or not on the internet. It takes about three months to get the results back so he had been checking for a while but it had not been posted yet. Brian checked online as well and saw that he passed and since they have the same last name, I guess saw that Granseur passed, too! I asked if he was upset by the way he found out. He said, "Heck no! I'm sitting here looking at my two new sons and knowing that I need to be able to take care of them. It was a great way to find out."

I am so proud of him. We both (but especially Granseur) made sacrifices so that he could reach this goal. There was a ceremony on Thursday evening to present certificates out to the new professional engineers. Here's a couple pictures.

Look how happy he is!