We made it to the 2nd Month!

Things in the Lyons household have been just as busy and crazy as ever in the last month!

The big news of the last month is that I attended the parents court hearing where they were contesting if CPS had probable cause to take their kids or not. We don't have to attend court but it is open to the foster parents. We learned in PS MAPPS (Yes - some things have proven to be beneficial!) that the best way to get information on your case is to go to court. If it was determined that CPS didn't have probable cause the kids would go home the very same day which also happened to be the day before they could start daycare. I am glad I went because I learned tons of information on this case! Needless to say, we still have the twins. It was determined that CPS did have probable cause but perhaps CPS didn't try hard enough to place the twins with relatives. So for the past month we've just been waiting as it's possible they could be placed with grandparents, siblings, etc. at anytime.

The second biggest news of the past month is the excitement of starting daycare! We no longer have to depend on family to help us every single day. (A HUGE thank you to all those that helped us survive the first 5 weeks AND more or less still let us make it to work) Within about 9 days of starting daycare baby boy caught a cold. Of course he caught it while Jon and I were on our first getaway and we had family watching them (Thanks Lisa, Ryan, & Kris).

We have also been to the doctor twice in the last month. The first time was for baby girl as she had been throwing her food up for a day and had a bad diaper rash. We also took her because we got a note from birth mom telling us how bad the diaper rash was and that we should be using diaper rash cream (we had been) and that birth mom was very concerned about baby girl. The doctor determined it was just a GI bug and as long as she was staying hydrated, he wasn't too concerned. The second visit was due to another note from birth mom along with a call from the CPS case aide telling us that baby boy was fighting to breath and I needed to take him to the doctor right away. I won't get into how angry I was at this phone call but basically my thought was if he's fighting to breath then maybe you should take him to the ER because by the time I get an appointment, he'll be dead. Needless to say, I'm a rule follower and I took baby boy to the doctor that same day. Birth mom never showed even though she had the same amount of notice I did. The doctor confirmed baby boy had a head cold and there wasn't much we could do for him as long as he was still eating.

MILESTONES:

• The very exciting milestone of this month is we are getting smiles from both babies and not just gas smiles, real smiles in response to our smiles! 
• They are both able to hold their heads on their own now (most of the time)
• Baby girl likes when Jon plays with her bottom lip
• We've also hit some milestones with Miss Maggie as she has started giving the babies lot's of kisses. Baby girl has decided she likes Miss Maggie's kisses and proceeds to open her mouth for some french kisses! Baby boy does not like Miss Maggie's kisses and turns his head away which only makes Maggie try harder!
• First 5k
• First time at the zoo
• First sleepover at Grandma Shantz's house
• First Halloween

For their first Halloween we dressed them up as Thing 1 and Thing 2 as would only be appropriate given our baby room theme and the fact that we have twins. Sorry I can't share all the adorable pictures but here's what their outfits looked like!

Month 2 is behind us....let's see what month 3 has in store for us!

Dr. Seuss Room

I'm amazed that in 2 short months we went from a guest room and office to full blown children's room and office/guest room. After we picked the theme (Dr. Seuss in case you missed the last few posts), it came down to selecting colors. We already knew we wanted to do a grass/sky scene so we had something to stick the decals on. Check out the decals here: Dr. Seuss decals! Then we went paint shopping!

And started painting the sky....

Well first comes the typical name painting on the walls - no room is complete without a Lyons stamp! "Baby" is a custom made blue to match the colors in the Dr. Seuss decals. "Lyons" is a traditional light blue. It took awhile to choose as the Dr. Seuss blue was very vibrant and fun but in the end we decided on a more sky blue color. 

The room sat with just the sky blue and green, grassy hills for weeks while Jon pulled off the pale yellow base boards and nailed on new, fancy white base boards. For those that don't know, our house was flipped and the paint job was awful! They painted EVERYTHING this disgusting pale yellow color. By everything, I mean base boards, window trim, air vents, closets....literally everything! As we update rooms, we are slowly fixing their laziness.

After the adoption shower, it was finally time to start putting the room together. Jon put together the crib and toddler bed with Maggie's help of course. 

I worked on putting the books on the bookshelf, taking apart the diaper cakes, putting diapers away, putting sheets on mattresses, organizing toys, etc. Look how tiny little kid clothes are!

Yesterday we got to put the finishing touches on the room. Dr. Seuss decals went up, truffula trees went up and picture frames went up. We can now say we are officially ready for our children!!

Interesting fact: The dresser in this picture is the dresser my parents used to change me!

The curtains in this picture were made by my mom. They have little truffula trees on them.
The pink, yellow, & blue truffula trees in the corner are from our adoption shower!

What do you think of our future children's room?

Foster/Adoption Shower

This past Saturday our families threw us a foster/adoption shower. Think baby shower but the woman isn't pregnant, otherwise pretty much the same idea. I was amazed to see that we had over 50 people show up (spouses & kids were invited)! 

The food was what else but NACHOS! Jon's family brought all the makings for nachos including beef AND chicken! There were chips, cheese, beans, jalapenos, tomatoes, lettuce, sour cream, salsa, and guacamole. Jon and I have a strange addiction to nachos, it all began when we were dating...there's a good story behind that one. Ask us about it sometime!

The theme was Dr. Seuss of course. My mom and sister did a superb job transforming the room into a Dr. Seuss wonderland. They had truffula trees hanging from the ceiling, Dr. Seuss activity pages for placemats, Dr. Seuss books for center pieces, green (deviled) eggs & ham, Cat in the Hat cake, Thing 1 & Thing 2 cake, Lorax punch and much much more!

Green (deviled) eggs & ham

One Fish, Two fish, Red fish, Blue fish,
Will you have a goldfish?

The Truffula trees

Table settings & Karl, Kari & Stephanie

The Lorax punch

CAKES: Thing 1, Thing 2 & 2 baby things, Cat in the Hat,
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish NEW fish! 

Lorax nutter butters

Welcome New Lyon Fish banner

After some socializing and eating we played our first game. Dr. Seuss quotes with missing words. Of course Jenna Cochran, first grade teacher, won! She got all of them but 1! The second game was guessing how many goldfish and worms were in a jar. Kris Lyons won the goldfish and Ron Lobitz won the worms. I'm not much of a baby shower game person so my mom kept it short and sweet at 2 games.

Then we opened presents so the kids could go out to the pool and swim. We received so many wonderful things. Bath toys, books, car seats, stroller, mattress, diapers, stuffed animals, crib, baby photo albums, baby learning videos, toys, gift cards, etc! We are so thankful for our wonderful friends and family that are helping us on our adventure!

The gift table

Diaper tricycle made by my mom

Barn my dad fixed up

I hope our child loves to read because we received piles of books! We didn't originally plan to buy a bookshelf but now we'll need one. I love reading so I'm excited to open each of these books when I have little ones to read to!

 After we opened gifts, we socialized a bit more and then headed down to the pool for some fun! It was an amazing evening and we are so very thankful for all the hard work our families put into it and for all our friends and family that came to celebrate with us!

The only thing I regret is not taking more pictures! I'm missing pictures of people, if anyone has any please e-mail them to me!

Parenting Preparations

Our families are throwing us a foster care / adoption shower on June 29th and my sister has been bugging us to get registered so she can send out the invitations. The invitations are extremely adorable, what do you think? 

We think she did an AWESOME job - Thanks Lisa! 

I don't know how first time parents figure out what they need and what they don't need. There are SO many things at baby stores and 50 different types of every item. Do you want a big bottle or a little bottle, a slow flow bottle or a fast flow, a jogging stroller or a regular stroller and then do you want a single or a double? Baby stores are very overwhelming for first time parents if you ask me. We did manage to have a little fun and not just get stressed out. Jon had a lot of input on the diaper bag as he didn't want to be carrying a pink purse, what do you think of our selections?

My biggest concern is the stroller. I refuse to own 3 strollers. Everyone suggests a regular stroller and an umbrella stroller since they are so compact however I'm concerned I'll also need a jogging stroller. We are trying to find a stroller that can be used everyday and I can take jogging. I spent a good 30-45 minutes at each store testing strollers, running down aisles with them and testing their turning radius. Don't think that I was the only one having fun though, Jon was making sure they could do some wheelies! Does anyone have some good advice on strollers?

 

 

This week we also had our CPR/First Aid Certification course. Neither Jon nor myself have ever taken a class like this and we heard from other people in our regular class that it is quite boring so we were less than thrilled. Luckily we had an excellent teacher named Nick from Heart Savers who was extremely interesting! After about a 30 minute run through of CPR we got to practice on Bob (Adult mannequin) and Stewie (Baby mannequin). Here's me saving Bob's life :)

After our break we completed the First Aid certification. We also found this class very interesting and practical. We learned what to do for internal bleeding, asthma attacks, allergic reactions, seizures, strokes, scrapes and cuts, eye injuries, nose bleeds (interestingly enough you actually don't put your head back and pinch your nose like we were all taught), tooth injuries, burns, poisoning, and bites and stings. We now have a handy book with phone numbers and quick reference for all the different situations. I'm very happy we had to take this course.

Any advice for first time parents from all our experienced friends and family?

Home Preparations & PS MAPP Class 4

     This past Saturday we began home preparations. The current guest room is going to be the new kid's room and the office is going to be converted into an office/guest bedroom. Jon and I spent a couple hours going through the closets and getting rid of stuff including Jon's wine barrel desk which he loved but truly hardly used; his brother Kris was more than happy to accept the wine barrel's as a birthday present. The old office is now a guest bedroom and my office when no one is staying with us. The children's bedroom is awaiting a new paint job; Jon and I have decided on Dr. Seuss Blue!  Jon came up with an awesome idea for the big piece of wood from his old desk: he is going to make a children's table shaped like the hat from cat in the hat! I'm sure this means more tools are going into next month's budget!

       We've also started preparing for our home inspection by adding a lock to the coat closet door. This is going to hold our bleach, spray paints, and roach spray and perhaps our alcohol if that's required. We still need to figure out what to do with our prescription and over the counter drugs as they have to be kept locked at all times. Suggestions are welcome. We don't have a medicine cabinet in our bathroom so that idea is out. Take a look at our Home Safety Inspection Checklist page to keep tabs on how our home preparations are coming!

      This past Tuesday we had our fourth PS MAPP class. Overall this one was much more interesting. The discussion of the night was attachment and different ways to help the children attach to you. I think the main thing I took away from this class is all kids need certain things in order to attach and form a relationship. It's just going to be a little hard at first since the children have been removed from everything they know. They are going to be scared, sad, and confused when they come to our house but through consistency and support, attachment can happen.

We are looking forward to some more home preparations this weekend, stay tuned!