Bear Hugs!

Social butterflies

Tyler & Harper try out their new pod seats. 

Not quite ready to hold up their own heads yet to sit up...

 but they are getting close!

The girls made their "Raleigh debut" this weekend with a trip to Leigh and Oliver's.  Our friends were kind enough to welcome the entire White family into their home.  We spent Friday night catching up with everyone and introducing the girls.   They are quite the social butterflies these days.  It is so much fun to share our experiences of them growing up with our friends and family. Everyone is genuinely interested in how much they have grown and how they are doing.  We are already such proud parents.  I can't wait to look back on these pictures with Harper and Tyler years from now and point out who everyone is.

Saturday marked the next stop on the girls' social calendar heading to Larry's house for lunch. We had a nice visit with Grumpa and Lib and of course the girls attracted the attention of the neighbors who stopped by to visit.  We hated to leave, but timing is everything when traveling with 12 week old twins.

Finally we landed at my parents house for Saturday night.  Pop and Honey were excited to see their granddaughters and arranged for other family members to join us for dinner.  We got to see Mama, Jane, Mary Louise, Ann and Steve and enjoy several hours together and a delicious Chinese takeout dinner.  Elizabeth's fortune cookie read, "No need to worry!  You will always have everything you need."  I think this weekend proved her fortune already to be our reality. Elizabeth and I already have everything we need... great friends, a loving family, and two precious little daughters.  It is so easy to get caught up in the day to day that I sometimes forget what is most important.  This weekend reminded me of that.  I am grateful for all we have and look forward to all the memories ahead.

Here are some pictures from the weekend!

A Day In The Life of Tyler & Harper

a little playing...

a little smiling...

some hanging out...

... and a little napping!

All Hands on Deck

Lauren & Hill Kelso (13months)

with mom & the girls (11 weeks)

This weekend we had some of our wonderful friends come visit and stay with us. Staying with the Whites used to mean late night drinking followed by relaxing on the couch all day the next day recovering. Well, not so much anymore... the minute we have an extra set of hands enter the house, the guests are put to work and it is all about the babies. The girls loved having so many visitors and loved all of the attention. Tyler & Harper had a weekend of being held non-stop and even managed to squeeze in another happy hour with other babies.

Katherine & Royer Culp catch a nap with dad and the babies

Our poor guests left exhausted this weekend, while we felt much more rested than normal because there were so many extra helpers around! Thanks for all hands on deck this weekend. We really appreciated it!

Here are some pictures from the weekend of visitors.

Happy Baby Girls

Tyler & Harper are now almost 11 weeks and are really coming into their own personalities! We are having lots of visitors this weekend & cannot wait for everyone to meet the girls.

Here are some pictures of Tyler & Harper over the past week or so...

Love Is In The Air!

Happy Valentines Day! 

Two little cupids showed up at dad's work today for a surprise visit. 

As you can see Tyler & Harper did not find dad's job that interesting...

 and slept through most of the visit.

It's the weekend and dad has baby duty

(started on Saturday night and finished Monday night - sorry Elizabeth corrected me - Tuesday night)

While most people look forward to 5 o'clock on Friday afternoon as the sign of the end of their work week and the beginning of their weekend, "one man three ladies and a chihuahua" starts his second job - weekend baby duty. We have come up with a schedule where Elizabeth does the night feeding during the week and I do them on the weekends to give her a break. That said, by the time Sunday night rolls around I am looking pretty rough. I don't know how Elizabeth does it..selling bonds is much easier. But with all the work that caring for twins requires, does come great reward. While the girls are only ~ 10 weeks old they definitely know when they parents are around. Sometimes I am not sure if they smile when they hear me or if they are smiling because they just did a #2, but either way I convince myself those smiles are just for their dad. They are so proud when they hold their little heads up all by themselves...you can just tell they want to say "Mom and Dad - look at me!" Tyler and Harper have come into their own personalities already. Their little smiles make changing diapers, mixing formula, changing outfits, cleaning up, burping them - "weekend baby duty" well worth every minute.

The Dedicated Dad

So, 2 major sporting events have happened this week: The Superbowl & The UNC vs. Duke game. Ian, the dedicated dad, was looking forward to both events for weeks. Unfortunately for Ian he missed the endings of both games... While most dads were watching the last 10 seconds of the Superbowl, Ian was helping to clean baby spit up off of mom, Tyler, & the whole nursery- therefore missing (what I heard was) an unbelievable ending. And so goes to say... the UNC vs Duke game had a similar ending. Being the sweet dad that he is - Ian offered to do the nightly bath duty and last feeding by himself and Tivo the game so mom could go to bed. So, as soon as the babies were fast asleep Ian ran down to watch the game. Well, our Tivo stopped recording at 11 and the game didn't end until about 11:15- so he had to find out what happened this morning. A dedicated dad if I have ever seen one!

2 Months Old

Tyler & Harper are 2 months old now and have doubled in size since they were born. We will know the official new weight tomorrow after their 2 month check-up. The girls are such happy little babies and we are so lucky to be their parents!

Check out some pictures of the girls over the past few weeks. I will hopefully have time to post again later this week- for now its time to give the girls a bath!

Just Hanging Out

Here are a few pictures of the girls at 2 months old. They are already learning to smile for the camera! We will get some albums up this weekend with a lot more pictures...

Tyler takes a snooze in her toy bin...

too much playing makes her tired.

Harper strikes a pose and flashes those baby blues for the camera.

Tyler (L) & Harper (R)

The Number Game

Ok, so Ian decided to let "The Mom" start posting pictures of the girls on the blog since his free time hours are few and far between these days. Ian's posts may now come only on the weekends!

So, here it goes... my first official post.

Above: The Girls show off their new hats... and seem pretty embarassed!

Well, people always ask "What is it like to have twins?" There is not really a way to describe it, but I thought some numbers might help put it in perspective.

Below is a re-cap in numbers of our past 24 hours:

Number of Babies: 2

Number of Weeks Old: 8

Number of Feedings: 16

Number of Ounces Eaten: About 50

Number of Diaper Changes: 22

Number of Baths: 2

Number of Baby Einstein CD's listened to: 2 1/2

Number of Hugs & Kisses: Lost Count

Number of loads of baby laundry: 1

Number of hours mom slept: 5 1/2

Number of hours mom wished she had slept: 10

Number of outfit changes: 7

Number of times mom walked in to peek at the babies sleeping: 12

Number of Bottles cleaned: 16

Number of times Pearce looked Jealous: 100

There is never a dull moment in the White Household these days, but we could not love being parents (of twins) any more! I will post some new pictures of Tyler & Harper before the end of the week. For now I'm off to bed.

Current Time: 3:47am

Where do babies come from?

In the midst of trying to capture those precious little first moments in our girls lives, this one fell right in my lap. We were hanging out with my family, see post below, this past weekend and my cousins were in town. There is never a dull moment when the White crew gets together...you just better make sure you are on the right team!

I am sure Elizabeth wishes they just "jumped out"....

Play Time!

We all hit the road last weekend for our first road trip home to visit with family & friends. The girls loved all of the attention and their feet never touched the ground as you can see from these pictures

The girls are a little over 7 weeks now and are becoming very into holding up their heads and moving all around. Even Pearce is falling in love with his sisters and runs to their side every time he hears a cry! Harper & Tyler constantly coo at each other and are developing their own way of communicating with one another. Some pictures below of the girls having some playtime together...

Tyler figured out how to suck her thumb.

Hanging out with our animal friends.

Big Brother decides to join our tummy time.

I really want to crawl!

A week of firsts....

This week was a big week in the White household. The girls are 6 weeks old now and are growing up so fast! This week Tyler & Harper had a lot of "firsts" & wanted to share them with you all.

Our first snow. 

We did not go outside because it was too cold. 

We just watched it from our nursery window at 4am. 

(Yes, we were up!)

Our first time feeding ourselves. 

These bottles are genius! 

They have come in very handy when mom is alone

 at 4am trying to feed both of us!

and...

Our first time sleeping in our own cribs.

Our parents decided we were old enough to move 

from the bassinet in their room to our nursery. 

Everyone is sleeping much better now!

Cheers!

Over the weekend the girls had their first happy hour...

well, sort of...

While Tyler & Harper enjoyed some milk, 

the adults sipped on some champagne.

We hope this becomes a weekly tradition!!

Mom's hair

The girls have really started to notice their parents recently. The other day they were particularly fond of their mom's hair and herein lies the story that followed.....

MOM'S HAIR

Harper was very interested in mom's hair. She wanted hair as long and pretty as her mom's so she tried to pull it right off mom's head. Unfortunately, that did not work.

She plotted and planned and decided to be as bad as she could. Staying up at night, crying loudly, and making messes during diaper changes..unfortunately dad got caught up in this bad behavior.

Now Harper is usually a very good girl, but this was all part of her master plan to wear mom down and get her to fall asleep.

Once her mom was finally asleep, she cut off her hair and took it for herself!

Well not really. Elizabeth went in for the mom cut today and is donating her hair. Harper only gets it for the night. Don't worry girl - you will have beautiful hair, just like you mom soon enough.

Growing like weeds

We got a great report from the pediatrician last week. The girls are growing like weeds. Harper trumped her sister weighing in at 7 lbs 12.5 oz (Tyler was 7 lbs 11 oz). It seems like just the other day they were down to 5 lbs each. Actually it was about a month ago so they have come a long way. Now if they could just hold their own bottles and go to the bathroom solo we would be in business!

Things have been going well. Elizabeth is doing a great job taking care of the new expanded family. We are still trying to get into a routine, but when the girls are going through growth spurts and having to eat every 2 hours sometimes, you have to settle for any structure you can get - even if it changes every couple days.

We are getting them started early....Go Heels!

Pictures galore!

Tyler holding onto Harper's arm... 

The girls are really starting to be more aware 

of each other these days.

We keep getting requests to put up more pictures of the girls and since time is of the essence these days I decided to forgo the witty prose in favor of creating several online photo albums to share.  Check them out at the links below.  

The girls go back to the pediatrician next week so we get to see how much they have grown. We can't wait! Enjoy the photos... lots more to come soon!

Christmas 2007

Just the girls

Bath time

As you can imagine it is getting tougher & tougher to find time to post. Even if the girls decide to sleep for 3-4 hours - after you feed them, clean bottles, do laundry, eat something yourself, clean up a little bit and sit down for 15 minutes- then its time to do it all over again! Not to mention- if they decide to stay up the majority of the night - the 15 minutes of down time turn into 15 minutes of naptime for the parents! Its easy to see how the days can get away from you. The girls are almost 4 weeks old now and time has flown by!

Sleeping in the "Floor Nanny" during the day of course.

(We have our days & nights confused right now!)

I was joking with Elizabeth the other day about not brushing her teeth until ~ 11 in the morning. I made the comment I can always squeeze in a couple minutes to brush my teeth. Low and behold, it was around noon a couple days ago and there I was with baby and bottle in hand thinking about how I had not had an opportunity to brush my teeth for 2 minutes! Hopefully we will get into more of a schedule once the girls get a little bigger. Right now we are focused on making sure they eat enough and gain the weight they need to. They love their bath time and we just started using their little tub yesterday. Here is a video from "bath time". I had to edit the majority so they can't get mad at me in 15 years when they find out this was on the blog! We also had a little formatting issue going from Mac to PC....click the link below.

"Bath Time"

Merry Christmas from Our Family to Yours!

Tyler & Harper's First Christmas!

We are counting our blessings twice this year!

Harper (L) & Tyler (R)

Happy Holidays!

Love,

The Whites

The first few days as a family

Everyone is home and we are starting to settle into our new life.  There are still a lot of visitors and we are living the good life with our baby nurse helping out, but Elizabeth and I are definitely getting the hang of this parenting thing.  I am getting used to this home cooking...

  

The girls went to the pediatrician on Friday and both are gaining weight.  Harper is back up to her birth weight and Tyler is not too far away.  They are eating well and are still pretty quiet at this point.  Apparently this does not last for too much longer so we are taking advantage of it.

The days are flying by and Christmas will be here before we know it.  Looks like the White family will be staying put at home this year.  Baby steps....   

Here are some more pictures:  link to pictures.

  

Harper gets to come home!

We got some great news on Tuesday.... that Harper was able to come home on Thursday of this week.  I didn't want to jinx anything by putting that in writing on the blog so this is the first post about it.  I guess it worked as the whole family is now home together!  

This has to be one of the best days in my life seeing our two little girls back together again.  We have not seen them together since minutes after their birth and even then it was only for a few minutes.  We can now officially start our new life as a family of 5 (yes that includes Pearce).  

We are having a big dinner tonight (thank you to all my coworkers) and will be popping a little Dom to celebrate.  I will keep an eye on Elizabeth since she has not had a drink in 9 months+.  

Enough talking, I know all everyone really wants to see are the pictures so take look! by clicking the link:   link to pictures.

What a time to get sick!

Well we made it home safely, but it appears I brought home a little more then Elizabeth and Tyler.  I decided to go to urgent care last night after running a temperature of 101.2.  I went ahead and got a shot and a zpack in hopes of knocking this out, but I have been bed-ridden since we got home and will probably remain so for the next day or so.  Fortunately our moms have been there to help Elizabeth since I can't get around her or the girls for 72 hours.  That said, it may be a couple of days before I can get some new pictures up.  

Everyone (except me) is doing great and Pearce is actually adapting to the new family.  Little does he know there is one more on the way!

Pictures 12/6

Started this yesterday, but had internet problems so I could not get it posted.

Getting to the update a little earlier today. We just left Harper and Elizabeth is trying to get some down time before we have visitors. Tyler is doing great. She is eating almost double what she was eating yesterday so we are excited about that. It can be tough to get preemies to eat initially so a normal feeding for most can be a bit of a struggle for a preemie. Her sister is doing well also. She is still in the ICN, but moving from "intensive" to "special" tonight. Harper's feedings have been going well so they anticipate taking her IV out tonight and hopefully she will be able to come home early next week.

**Update from today. Harper's IV is out! She was moved over to "special" and is doing well. Her feedings are up and they will watch her next week to make sure she is strong enough to come home. She will need it to handle her sister and Pearce!

Harper yesterday - IV was still in...."Kangaroo care" is the new thing. Basically they say that skin to skin contact is really good to help regulate the baby's vitals, plus it keeps them really warm - which they love.






Here is Tyler from yesterday. She is all dressed up. It is all downhill for me folks. These girls are going to be spoiled rotten. I am going to attempt to "borrow" that blanket tonight! It is a lot more comfortable then what Elizabeth gave me!

Pictures 12/5

Here is a brief update.  I will continue to post updates and add pictures over the next few days when I can find time.  Hopefully this will get a little easier.  Elizabeth is doing great.  She was able to shower, walk around, and switch to a solid food diet today.  Tyler is doing well also.  She has lost a little weight which is expected for all babies.  She is feeding regularly and stays in the room with us for the most part.  Harper is in the ICN (intensive care nursery). Originally they moved her there to watch her shallow breathing or apnea, a common issue with premature and c-section births.  She had an IV for fluids, a CPAP to help with her breathing and an air tube to help with the air in her stomach caused by the CPAP.    We got great news this morning that her CPAP, basically a breathing tube hooked up to the nose, came out overnight and they left it out as her oxygen levels were up to normal.  That was followed by more great news of Harper's first feeding with mom today.  Unfortunately we found out she would have to stay another 5-7 days, due to a slight drop in her heart rate during a nap today.  A common issue associated with apnea is bradycardia (so much so they have an "a and  b" monitor).  While we were disappointed with the news we are still encouraged by her feeding and the prospect of her IV coming out soon once her feeding is regular.  After the IV removal she won't be "hooked up" to anything, rather just in the ICN for monitoring. 

In other news, the hospital food is pretty stereotypical - consisting initially of broth  and green jello, then transitioning to powdered eggs and bland grits today.  Fortunately we have some great family looking out for us and bringing in food from the outside world.  I must admit - I am a big fan of the ice chips.  My bed is a couch in the room with standard issue hospital sheets and blankets.   By the time I get to lay down, that couch feels like a posh bed in a 5 star hotel!

Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers.  We appreciate the flowers, emails and messages even though we have not had time to return them!  

Here is a link to some pictures.

  

The White twins are here!

'Tyler' Elizabeth
7:40 am
5 lbs 8 oz
18.5 inches 





'Harper' Hutchens
7:42 am
5 lbs 5 oz19 inches