Building a Bethards

Y'all, we've been parents for 6 weeks now. We've been parents of two for 3 weeks. Life has changed drastically in the last 6 weeks, and we love it. We just experienced our first Christmas with babies who were having their first Christmases. So much fun. We got to go see Santa at the Bass Pro Shops with our older baby and she did great; we got an incredible picture with Santa that I'm sad we can't share. She was so happy in his lap, she had a huge smile on her face!! We now have a plethora of items that say "Baby's First Christmas" and I love it. Seven weeks ago I couldn't tell you what day of the week it was without first thinking about what day of the cycle I was in, today I can't tell you what day of the week it is at all without remembering what day it was yesterday or looking at the calendar on my phone; I have no idea what cycle day it is without looking at an app on my phone, and that feels amazing. The last 6 weeks have been crazy,...

We are now one week into being a family of 5 (4 humans and a dog). What a crazy weeks it's been. Thankful for my mom who has been able to stay with the newest itty bitty so I can work part time. We are so in love with these girls and thankful that God has called us to parent them, no matter how temporary it may be. Since accepting our second placement we have had several of you ask how you can help us, so here are some ideas! The number one thing we covet is your prayers. Prayers for functioning on little sleep; prayers that we parent these little well; prayers for biological families and their ability to do the court required things to get their babies back if that is God's plan. Just pray for us. A week into being parents of two we are beginning to see more tangible things that we could always use more of, the biggest of those being diapers. Boy to babies go through a lot of diapers each day!! While the girls are at home we are using hybrid cloth/flushable diapers ...

This still counts as later this week, right? Finally getting a chance to sit down and get out my thoughts about the last few weeks. We've had our precious little for 3 weeks now and we are all adjusting fairly well. We got our newest itty bitty just last night, straight from the hospital! Wow. Almost 2 years of infertility and now within 3 weeks we have two babies!! And I didn't have to go through the discomfort of pregnancy or pain of labor! Yes, it also means that there is a good possibility that I'll have to give both of them back to their biological families and once again be left with an empty crib, but for now I will enjoy these babies. Our little is still struggling to get in a rhythm with her naps, but is doing so much better eating than when we first got her. She takes food from the spoon like a champ and is now working on straw drinking! This girl requires a dark room with music or silence to sleep, so we are starting to understand why she won't sleep a...

I wrote the post below after our first few days with our little one and forgot to post! Mommy brain is a real thing, y'all. And just over 2 weeks in now its even worse! I'll post more about how things are going sometime this week :) 11/25/2015 Well, we've got our first weekend and our first two week days in the books. And I'm happy to report that we're all still alive! Our sweet girl had a pretty good first night with us, only waking once for a bottle then going right back to sleep. The first full day we had her, Friday, I was off so I spent the day with her so we could start working on getting her on some sort of a nap schedule and so that we could get to know each other and start the bonding process. I also got her enrolled at a new daycare. She pretty easily went down for a morning nap the first day, the afternoon nap was rougher, but it eventually happened. That second night she slept through the night and woke up in a good mood just babbling away in ...