Christmas Family Photos

It was so incredibly special to have our very first family photo shoot for Christmas and something I always dreamed of (if you know me well you know I am obsessed with pictures so any excuse for a photo shoot and I am in). So here are the rest of my favorites from our Christmas Family pictures by our friend and wonderful photographer Tonya Mae Photography

Daddy with his girls

Makayla Faith

Makenzie Grace

Huffman Family of Four

Sweet little Makenzie

Wild child Makayla

The BEST Christmas gifts EVER!!!!!!!!!

This face?!?!

A true very special delivery and blessing from God!

Sweet little Angels

ALWAYS holding hands...so sweet!

Makayla LOVES her feet!

Get me out of here Mom!!!

Only stocking stuffers I need!!! (Yes they are still holding hands :)

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and Blessed New Year and may we all remember the REAL reason for the Season!!!

XO, Traci

Truly Blessed

It is so incredible to look at these pictures above and see how truly blessed we are. It's so hard to believe that two Christmas's ago we were having our first miscarriage. Then last year at Christmas we were pregnant with twins in our first trimester but still scared/nervous as can be. Now this Christmas we have these two precious little girls to love, cherish, and spoil. It may not always happen according to our plans, but it always happens according to HIS plans. God is so good and we are truly thankful for our many blessings!





Wishing you all a blessed and Merry Christmas!


Pictures taken by Tonya Mae Photography at our Christmas Photo Shoot. Will share more wonderful pictures soon!

What's been going on

Here is a recap of life lately for us in pictures and in no particular order...

We celebrated our very first Thanksgiving together as a family of four and what a great day it was. We have so much to be thankful for and praise God for especially this year.

It was a day full of family, fellowship, great food, full belly's, cute kids, a family softball game, football, relaxing, and most importantly giving thanks! 

We had our first official playdate with the sweetest baby and friend in the world, and what a precious time it was! I could go on forever about how much I love this girl and her family, but lets just say I have been dying to see them. Plus I now know why all of you love playdates so much...the babies have fun and are completely worn out afterwards and the moms get real adult social time! I can't wait to be brave enough for the next playdate!

The girls turned 5 months old (too bad they are almost 6 months in like 12 days and that is how far behind I am)!!! The girls are growing, changing, and learning daily. Both are trying to crawl although they still cannot sit on their own 100%. They are still tiny little peanuts and in 0-3 months clothes, but getting closer to moving up very soon.

We enjoyed the annual Turner Bake Day. Always a great time of family, decorating, and yummy food and the girls just added to the day and made it that much more special this year!

Look at all those cookies!!!

The girls and Carl attended their first Apex Christmas parade to see the best Santa Clause in the world ;)

As you can see from this pathetic pouty face Makayla was not a fan of the loud noises, but did enjoy the lights.

Makenzie sat with our Aunt T and loved it and was even waving :)

Makenzie hung her first ornaments

Makayla hung her first ornaments as well

We took a road trip to Wilmington to spend time with our best friends, celebrate a birthday at a fun (much needed) girls night out fondue dinner, and to celebrate a baby shower for the newest addition on his way Cayden who we cannot wait to meet!

So that is some of what's been going on in our lives lately. Hope that everyone is enjoying the holiday season and doing well!

**Please keep my mom in your thoughts and prayers as she just had a partial knee replacement surgery this week and is on the road to recovery...thank you friends!!!

MIA

I know I have not been blogging lately and have been a bit MIA, but I assure you we are here and ok. The truth is I don't have time to go into detail, but I am just Exhausted and even a bit overwhelmed and stressed. When I am not feeding or holding/consoling one baby than I am feeding or holding the other. Sleep is non-existent for me and if when I do have a free few moments to myself there is other things that take priority. On one hand I am disappointed that I don't have more time to blog because a huge part of doing a blog for me is documenting the memories...this has been my online scrapbook that I look forward to sharing with the girls one day, but at the same time me giving all of my attention to the girls is way more important than any online scrapbook of memories. The good news for me is that I take a bazillion pictures and videos so I will always have those to share the memories and look back on.  

So for now I will be blogging occasionally and randomly, but not stressing if I cannot. In the meantime I will try and at least share some pictures and videos so you can continue to see our cuties and know that we are ok. 

And so it begins...

It's official Makayla Faith through her first little temper tantrum throwing her paci and all. If she is already doing this at 5 months old I can only imagine what is to come. Love you my sassy little girl!

Who me?!

Loving their nanners

M and M's first time eating nanners...YUMMMMY!!! I can't wait to make and try out all types of nutritious foods with the baby bullet! It comes with recipes and recommendations, storing containers with dating on it, and is super quick and easy and saves a ton of money on buying baby food...I highly recommend it.

Eating bananas

Back on November 8 we fed the girls bananas for the first time and not just any bananas, but bananas that I made with my awesome Baby Magic Bullet. A friend gave this to me back when I was pregnant and I thought it would not be until at least 6 months old until we tried this thing out. However with all of the issues the girls have had with their reflux and throwing up our pediatrician suggested we try to give them cereal or oatmeal by spoon if we were up for it up right before the girls turned 4 months old. She was comfortable with this so early because since the girls were two months old we had been mixing in oatmeal with their bottles of breast milk in order to thicken it up to help with Makaylas laryngomalacia and their reflux. So we waited until just after the turned 4 months and gave them the oatmeal by spoon on November 5 and they did pretty well. So three days later we decided to go for it with the bananas and as you will see in the video the girls seemed to love it! Now they LOVE to eat and Carl LOVES to feed them!


Click the link below for the video:
Girls eating nanners for the first time

On Halloween I was feeling like complete crap from that nasty cold going around and it was a long day between the girls 4 month check up and shots and the long weekend we had. However this was the girls first halloween and there was NO WAY I was missing out on taking them trick or treating for the first time. We were a little hesitant because the weather was nasty, but we decided that we would take them to some of the family and then we would dress them up again for Carls family when we got together to celebrate my birthday later that week.

Even though it was nasty out and I felt horrible the girls looked so stinkin cute and I am so glad we were able to take them to see a few people. It put a big smile on everyones faces and our sweet M & M's were very well behaved and too adorable not to show off.

As you can see in the video it was late and the girls were tired but you can see a glimpse of their first halloween.

November 15, 2011

There is really no nice way to say this other than this past Tuesday sucked...

I know that last week I said that I was going to try and catch up on the last couple of weeks, but unfortunately we have had a lot going on and with the girls who was I kidding...I just don't have the time or energy! It has taken me all day just to get to this point of this post between everything going on. I still have a couple posts to get out there like Halloween and all of their cuteness when I find the time though.

Basically though from the first of November the girls have been sick and all out of whack. We were very fortunate up until that point as far as their sleeping at night went. Then as soon as they hit four months between getting their shots and getting that horrible cold thats going around and then I actually got a stomach bug which the dr thinks Makenzie got a bit of as well things went downhill at night. For the past 2 weeks the girls were up EVERY 2 HOURS to eat!!! It was worse than when they were newborns! It was like an alarm clock went off in them throughout the day and night and if it was more than 2 hours (sometimes less) watch out world for the loud cries!!! Needless to say I was going crazy!

So Monday night I said that's it...we're going to try them in their cribs and see if that helps. We have still had them in our room because their room is upstairs and honestly I knew once we put them upstairs that Carl would no longer help me at night and when they are up all throughout the night to eat it is so helpful to have Carl to change them after I feed them. However it was time...they are four months old for crying out loud. So we tried it out...long story short the night did not go well. We knew it was going to be a work in progress though so I was not too shocked I just did not expect to be up until 5 am. At 5 Carl finally woke up and came upstairs and made me go down to bed and I gladly did.
This brings me to my original statement on part of the reason Tuesday sucked. At about 7:15 Makayla woke up for the day and I asked Carl to be the one to go upstairs to get her which he immediately did. I actually drifted back to sleep when the next thing I know I hear the first of many loud crashes and bangs and Makayla screaming.The noises will haunt me forever and there is no way to put them into words, but I knew exactly what was happening after the first bang and scream. Carl was falling down the flight of 14 steps with Makayla...I had no clue if he dropped her or held onto her. On one hand I wanted to lay there frozen because I was so afraid of what I might find at the bottom of the steps...because at the end of those 14 steps is a small area of hardwood floors then the wall and front door with the door stops protruding from the wall and how could a 4 month old handle crashing into any of that. The reality is I could not lay there I jumped up and ran at full speed ahead...in fact we have one of those tall metal baby gates up in between the hall to our bedroom and the living room because of our dog and I seemed to forget all about it because I ran right into it with my stomach so hard that part of it came out of the wall. When I arrived at the end of the stairs I could not breathe or speak and I was crying, but somehow I muttered slowly "what happened is she ok". Carl said that he protected her and did not drop her...he may have squeezed her to death but he did not let her fall! Such relief...she was just screaming out of fear. It took me a while to recover from my heart attack...I think it was scarier for me because I could just hear those terrifying noises and had no clue what was going on...the fear of the unknown is tough! I still have a hard time even talking about it without getting upset it was that serious and scary y'all! Thankfully Carl is an amazing dad and protected her at the sake of hurting himself. The rest of the day Makayla did not want to be put down and honestly I did not mind one bit...I didn't want to put either of them down but they are so big I can't carry both of them so easily any longer. But I was just so thankful that Makayla was ok I just wanted to love on her. Carl banged himself up but he was just thankful his sweet little monkey Makayla was ok! This was by far the scariest moment we have had as parents so far with many more to come I am well aware. It was such a quick ordeal, but one that also could have changed our lives forever. The whole thing really put things into perspective for me though...it did not matter that I am completely sleep deprived and frustrated all that matters is that we have two beautiful healthy babies and yes at times things will be difficult, but at the end of the day I just need to thank God for how blessed we truly are and thank Him for protecting my family at all times!

The day got better when I found out some exciting news from a precious friend that afternoon. The rest of the evening went smooth...I made a cute video of the girls that is on Facebook, we had a yummy dinner with the girls grandpa and great grandma, followed by a smooth bedtime in their cribs. Things were starting to look up and for once they were not up exactly two hours after we put them down.

Then all the good came to a screeching halt when we got the devastating news that our best friends brother passed away tragically (when I find the time and strength I will try and share more on this subject). Which brings me back to my opening sentence Tuesday simply sucked! I am sorry for being so blunt...I always try and keep this blog as positive as can be, but this is the reality. It's been a crazy weeks of ups and downs and all sorts of emotions and it just is what it is.

The girls 4 month checkup just happened to be on halloween so of course we had to dress them in orange tutu's with little pumpkins for their appointment (daddy just loved them lol).
Unfortunately that morning I woke up and could not even swallow my throat hurt so bad and I could not breathe. I had the dreaded cold that has been going around and that Carl had the week before. I started getting sick throughout the weekend and I'm sure all of the birthday festivities and pushing myself did not help make things any better. My main concern was the girls though and how do I not get them sick. So at the doctors that morning we spent quite a bit of time talking about how to treat them and take care of them if they did get this horrible cold because lets be honest I'm their mom and breastfeeding them so it's basically inevitable that they were going to get it. The doctor did offer me a pretty little mask to wear, but she also made it sound pointless since they had already been exposed.

The rest of the appointment was a typical checkup. They got all of their stats for height and weight and all that good stuff and were examined from head to toe. Makayla weighed 10lb 12.6oz which puts her in the 3rd percentile for her weight and her height was 23in putting her in the 9th percentile. Her head circumference was 15 3/4in which is in the 22nd percentile. Makenzie weighed 10lb 7.8oz which puts her in the 2nd percentile for weight and her height was 22 3/4 in putting her in the 6th percentile for height. Her head circumference was also 15 3/4in and in the 22nd percentile. As you can see we have tiny little peanuts especially for the weight and height, but don't let that fool you they are STRONG as can be and doing great!!! I was a little worried because their weight gain has slowed down and they went down in their percentiles, but the doctor was not too concerned and said as long as they are gaining weight that is what they want to see. She did suggest we do a weight check in 4 weeks just to double check things for everyones sake and I was all for it.

After they were all checked out and we talked with the doctor for a while it was time for shots. Because it was halloween all the staff was dressed up and our doctor was Peter Pan so her nurse was Tinkerbell. Needless to say I think the girls may never like Tinkerbell now since she gave them the shots and hurt them, but hopefully they were so young that they won't remember. Overall it was a good appointment and the girls handled it like champs!