First trip home

Our first trip home was kind of a mixed bag.  It was wonderful in so many ways because we were reunited with our family.  We spent Thursday-Monday at the lake house with the whole family (even Jim, Sue, Bart, and Jenny came out) and we did the normal lake things.  Well, we did the normal lake things for a cold weekend, which meant that we only ventured outside a couple of times for walks.  Mostly, we spent time inside holding babies, playing with the girls, eating wonderful meals, and playing Mexican train dominos. Ellen commented afterwards that it was a wonderful time. 

The trip was just a little too fresh for Forrest and me to declare it "wonderful."

We learned that travelling with babies is tough tough tough.  The trip out there was ok.  Carter started the trip in a terrible mood.  He was having digestive problems (what else is new?!?!) an he screamed for the first hour.  I had to sit in the backseat and hold him on his stomach, which is the only position he could tolerate.  Fortunately, we stopped outside of Jackson to feed them, and although he wouldn't eat, he did get over whatever was paining him and he fell fast asleep.  The rest of the drive was uneventful, as they just slept.

The tough part of the weekend was that they were just out of their routine, which meant they had a very hard time sleeping.  We had previuosly enjoyed about 6 weeks of great night sleep.  Their typical nighttime schedule includes a bath and a bottle right before a 7:00pm bedtime.  They would then wake up between 2:00am and 3:00am for another bottle, and then sleep until 6:00am or 7:00am  It was wonderful to have only one night feeding.  Instead of dividing up the feedings (like Forrest and I did for the first few weeks of their life - a necessity for survival!), Forrest and I shared the night feeding each night.  I grew to love that time with Forrest, as it was quiet an we could just talk about whatever we wanted.  Sometimes I read articles to him from my iPhone.  Sometimes we'd just sit together in silence and feed the babies.  Regardless, it became a nice time for the two of us. 

Travelling plucked the babies out of THAT fantastic schedule an thrust them back into the "eating every 3 hours" schedule. So, needless to say that exhausted us.  We were so eager to get back home so that we could get them back on their normal schedule, but alas it's just not that simple.  10 days later, I think we are finally back on our schedule.  Yes, for 10 days following the trip, they (read: Olivia - our tough sleeper!) got up every 3 hours to eat at night. 

I don't have many pics from this trip.  It's a shame because there really were some wonderful times.  I was just so busy and worried about keeping them happy and helping them sleep, that I just frazzled myself into a tizzy.  However, I do have a few gems:

Forrest and Carter

Morgan and Olivia

I just love this pic of Caroline.  She's so pretty, she takes my breath away.

Holding Carter at the Jalapeno Tree restaurant in Gun Barrel City - great dinner!

Three of the four at the Jalapeno Tree.

We are now looking forward to our next trip home over Spring Break.  I am going to take off a couple days of work, which I think will help.  Plus, the babies are a little older, and I think it will only get easier (until they become toddlers, then I imagine the car ride will be way worse!).  It's a small price to pay to get to see our family.  We miss them so much (especially the cousins).