November, Part 1

 The month of November didn't start out great. When the boys went in for their 2 week appointments they had both lost a significant amount of weight. So we had their lingual frenulum (they were "tongue tied") cut to see if that helped with their sucking and the next several days consisted of feeding babies constantly trying to stretch their tummies and get their weight back up. It was stressful and frustrating but with the help of lots of family members we go their weight back on track. I had started out basically just nursing but after they lost all that weight we had to give them formula until I increased my milk supply. However Dash struggled with nursing and after having the bottle Liam stopped getting much from nursing. So after 6 weeks of trying everything to make some kind of combination of nursing and bottles work we went to just bottles and life became much less stressful.

Here they are so small! Dash and Liam

 

 Liam

 

After bath time

Dash and Liam

 

 Meeting Uncle Corbin and Aunt Stef

 Dash- Picture Perfect

 Gabrie loves her baby brothers and runs home from school each day so she hold one and watch "Wild Kratz" (her favorite show)

 Enjoying all the snow! Livvy running in while Gabrie gets a snowball ready (:

 Wide Eyed Dash

 The snow slide Gabrie and Daddy built.

Halloween

Gabrie decided last year that she would be a witch this year and then found this her hat about a month before so we came up with a witch outfit to match. Here she is before school that day. Her school had a costume parade and Livvy and I went and watched.

Grandma and Grandpa stopped by to help me (:

 They truly were a help and I had help from someone just about every day for the first month and then close to that the second month. We have been very blessed with such wonderful family, friends and neighbors!

Looks like everyone enjoyed a nap with the babies that day (:

 Gabrie runs home from school so she can "hold a twin", she is such a big help!

 Livvy as Alice in Wonderland. She was scared of most of the characters at Disneyland but on our last day she gave a surprise kiss to Alice! I found this cute costume and knew she would make the perfect Alice! I had to include all of these pictures because they are hilarious!

 Dianne and David with Liam and Dash

This is the best picture I got of Gabrie, Livvy and Zackary.

 

 Shane, Zackery, and Darcy

It was their first time meeting the twins.

For Halloween Dash was a dog and Liam was a Monster, best picture I got (:

 Luke took the girls all over and they got a ton of candy!

At Home with the Boys

 Here some pictures we took those first few weeks.

Dash and Liam with their matching blankets from Great Aunt Dianne.

Storytime

Livvy laying down with the boys 

Liam and Dash

Haha!Too funny!

Livvy had a little bit of a hard time remembering Liam, and would call both babies Dashuwal or Dashy because a character on one her favorite shows is also Dashy. So one day I asked her Liam's name and she said "Dashy?" I said "no the other baby is Dashy, what is this baby's name?" she said "Dashuwal" and again I said "no that is Dashiell, what is his name?" She guessed "baby A?" and I said "well yes, but what is his name?" She guessed again "Tweak?" It was so funny! Tweak is another character from her favorite show.  

Everyone "sleeping"

 Just cute:

Livvy

Liam and Dash

 Dash and Liam in the bassinet they shared for the first week but then they got too big and went to the crib.

 Liam looking tiny in his swing.

 Dash in the first outfit I bought them(:

 Liam and Dash

Dash

Dash was born at 5:10 p.m., was 19.5 inches long, and weighed 6lbs 10.8 oz.  

We first heard the name Dash at the movie premiere for my sister-in-law, Jen's movie "The Resistance Movement" one of the other actor's names was Dash and we really liked it. Later we found out it was Dashiell but he went by Dash. We weren't sure about Dashiell but we loved Dash even though it wasn't as traditional as the other names we have used. After polling friends and family we decided against it but could never agree on a different name. The night before the twins were born Luke got several baby name books and one of them was about baby names from literature and it actually had the name Dashiell!  Underneath the name it said "This is quite possibily the coolest name in the book" and I was sold! Something about having it reaffrimed in a book helped us decide. His middle was easy. We liked the name Cole for a first or middle name and we liked it in honor of Luke's mom, Collette. He will share the middle name with Uncle Justus and a couple of cousins.

Dash is a lot like Gabrie and Livvy, really strong neck, loves to stand, and always moving! And he lets you know when something is wrong!  He always has his hands in tight fists and for the longest time he seemed to always be in a little ball with his legs pulled up when you held him. He loves the swing and to be snuggled and started sleeping through the night at 7 weeks!!! His nicknames are Dash (of course), Dashy, and Dashuwal(from Livvy). We just love him so much!

 Luke letting us know this is baby number 2 (:

We have a few more picture of him in the hospital since he was with us the whole time.

Liam

 Liam was born at 5:07 pm, was 19 inches long (though I think he was a little bit longer), and weighed 6 lbs and 8oz. We had considered the name Liam before we knew if Livvy was a boy or girl, so this time Luke really wanted to use it. It has become really popular so I wasn't sure but Luke loved it so much and it was just about the only name we could agree on so we were pretty sure one of the babies would be Liam. His middle name was much harder to pick. But when Granny came to visit us in the hospital she suggested Lawrence, my grandfather and uncle's name. We thought it sounded good with Liam plus it had a family connection so we went with it. Luke is still considering changing Liam's middle name to Sloan so that it fits better in the songs that he likes to sing about the babies (Sloan is also Luke's middle name). He is also content calling him Liam Larry in his songs.

Liam is by far our calmest baby. The first week home both babies lost a bunch of weight because they weren't getting enough to eat (the worst thing you can tell a mother!) but he never really fussed or let us know anything was wrong! He cries, of course, but will just lay in his crib until he falls asleep. He always seems to have his fingers stretched out straight. He likes the swing, to be on his tummy, and to be held.
 So far his nick names are Lemur, Li-yummy, Leemie, (from Daddy), Little Liam (from Mommy),  Tweak (from Livvy) and Lemen (cousin Mamie). We just love him to pieces!