We are still here

I have been trying to switch over to another computer in my spare time since my other one was starting to give out on me. I haven't been able to switch over my pictures yet and don't have my programs set up on this one to upload pictures so bare with me.  You will have some Joye twin fixes soon.

The girls are getting so big. Last weight check had Adleigh around 16 lbs and Liana a tiny bit over 15 lbs. So imagine walking around the house carrying those two big ladies! Adleigh, Liana, and myself are all trying to get over a cold or something that we got over the weekend. Somehow Wade managed to escape it.

I can't believe that in a month and a half we are going to celebrate the girls' one year birthday! And I have to cut this blog short because Adleigh just woke up from her nap and is talking to her mobile. Too funny.

Belly Laughing

You are going to love this video. I don't know why in the world they ended up laughing so much to what I was doing, but I loved every second of it! Before I got the camera out, Liana was actually the one really laughing and then eventually Adleigh felt like she should start too. They sound so adorable doing their little giggles.

Eating prunes

Wow...how did I used to be so good at blogging and now I am miserable at it? Anyway, we are so close to it gettting warm and being out of RSV and flu season. The girls will get to make a public debut a few weeks from now! Wade and I are so excited to bring our little beauties out.

Right now the girls are talking even more (making a lot of ahhh sounds...Adleigh is starting to do some consonants). They are both rolling over like machines. Liana is still learning how to get from her stomach to her back, but she is doing pretty well.

The girls are almost done with trying stage 1 foods. Liana has become a master at it. We say she looks like a baby bird with how wide she will open her mouth for the food. Right now we are doing squash and she is loving it. Adleigh however isn't quite there yet. She has to hold the spoon in her hands before she will open her mouth so needless to say we don't get much food in her mouth. She is getting better though.

The two videos I am posting are of each girl eating some prunes. I think they are funny because it looks more like chocolate sauce. They are adorable! This way you can witness that Adleigh basically takes the spoon out of my hand to feed herself!

This is a good sign

Doesn't it make you feel good when you see your kids reading a book?

Joye twins and the box

This video is way too cute! My girls are getting so big and they love to talk. You are going to love Liana with her favorite toy, a soft shape sorter without any of the shapes in it.

Back from a really long blog drought

So that blog drought was pretty lame, but I am back better than ever with some sweet twinsies.

So in the almost month that I haven't blogged. Here are some new updates. By the way today the girls turned 8 months old (corrected age is 5 months)!!! I can't believe they are growing up so fast.

The girls ate some rice cereal and didn't seem to ever really like it. We just tried to move on to bananas yesterday and that made for some fun faces. Here are two good ones.

Liana has started talking. She is more of a responsive person instead of long babbling. So it is quite a bit harder to get her on video, but here is the best one so far.

Adleigh now rolls over from her stomach to her back. It still doesn't happen every time but she is getting a lot better.

Liana does this thing where she kinda bunches up in a ball and tries to kick herself over from her back to her stomach. We are getting closer, but she gets kinda stuck on her side.

The girls have become fascinated with anything that lights up. So all of their favorite toys are things they can push that make music and light up.

I entered the girls into the Beautiful Baby Contest and have some awesome pictures of them. The one I entered is the first picture I have of both of them smiling. Here it is.

Hope that was a good one month wrap up! The twins told me to start blogging more so that people can see what they are up to. So I can't disappoint the babies :)

Adleigh Talks

Adleigh has started to be really vocal these days. I caught some of her conversation to her bug friends. I am holding her and the camera so prepare for some moments where she isn't in the picture. I wish I knew exactly what she was saying. Enjoy!

Going Backwards and the TV

Well, the day I wrote my last blog the girls decided to spice up my life again, mainly Liana. She started waking up like crazy. I really have no idea what brought it on. My possible list of culprits is bad naps, Liana's reflux, too hot in their room, etc. I have tried to fix all of those and we are waking up less, but Liana is still only sleeping in 2 hour increments. Adleigh really only wakes up for a bottle, but she had been doing only one and now she wants 2 again. Maybe we are going through a growth spurt? Anyway...keep us in your prayers because we are now in month 4 with little sleep.

I just had to post this series of pictures. We don't let the babies sit like this in front of the TV, but they do get really interested if we are watching it. So, we did these pictures to see what they would do and I think it is so funny!

Bear Suits and Updates

Well, I haven't been posting lately because I was just utterly exhausted. Each night I would be lucky to get 3 hours of sleep and that would be just in 30 minute stretches. I was running on nothing. Through the night the girls would go back and forth crying until I would pick them up. Thankfully, our physical therapist mentioned a mom of triplets who found peace through Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. And it just so happened that my sister gave me the book when I was pregnant so I found it skimmed through it.
Our changes: We went to an earlier bedtime and stopped waking them up for a top-off feeding. It has been about 3 nights now and we have seen vast improvements! Last night Liana slept 9 hours straight! I am praising God for getting me through that stretch cause I think I was about to be a crazy lady. Anyway, I should be back to blogging now.

Since it is freezing outside the girls wore their bear suits to the doctor and of course I took some pictures.

I do have a few updates about the girls medically. Adleigh went to her cardiologist and we found out she still has her ASD which is a medium sized hole in the atrium of her heart. So far it hasn't gotten any smaller since they last checked her which was about 10 lbs ago. She will go to the cardiologist every year until she turns 3 or 4 and they will evaluate then if it is still too large and if they will need to close it.
Both girls were cleared by their eye doctor that their ROP had resolved and they will just need to go back when they are 1 year old.
Liana is pretty much back to her old self. She is getting used to her shunt and is playing more and laughing a lot. Her scars look really good and hopefully as she gets bigger we won't really see them.
I think that is all the updates for now. Thank you for praying for our sweet girls!

My Favorite Things (part 3)

So, this is installment number 3 of my favorite things in baby world. Sorry it has taken so long. I have been trying to post this for 4 days but I had to give up on blogger video since it is SOOO slow. So you will get youtube uploads instead from now on.

Number 3 isn't really a product it is more of a change that we made in our routine that ended up being really smart for us. When we first brought the girls home, they got baths every other day, it was in a really awkward time and the girls would cry the whole time. So, we decided we needed a bedtime routine and we put their baths into the mix. We give them baths now around 6:30. Then they get toweled off and put in a big blanket. We give them their bottles and after bottles they get a massage with lavender baby lotion and then we dress them for bed. But the best thing is sometime between feeding and their massage Wade pulls out the guitar and plays for our babies and whoever is here joins in. Usually, we get what Elevation played the previous Sunday or what they are going to play that coming Sunday so it is kind of like the babies get their own worship time! The girls love the new routine and it makes them look forward to bath time.

Here is a video of our bedtime routine with the whole family singing to the girls. Adleigh and Liana are making really funny faces in it. Enjoy! (especially you Pressley)

Christmas Cheer Wrap-up

Happy New Year everyone! I figured since we are so far out from Christmas that I would just wrap-up the last photo shoots into 1 blog post.
Liana having a blast.
ummm...what is Adleigh doing?

Christmas Day...they kinda look like elves.
Wade's parents and his grandmas.
Liana getting a present. (We had to do an outfit switch because Adleigh pooped in hers.)
Adleigh wearing one of her presents.
The girls getting their huge mirror for the play room from Grammy and Grandaddy.Reading the Christmas story to the girls.

Day 2 of Christmas Cheer

And the models take their positions...

Liana giving you the "sweet eye"

Close-ups!!
Wade's mom got these blankets and had her sister put an "e" on the end of joy. So cute. They each have their own blanket.
I love Adleigh's pouty face. And yes, I purposefully tried to make their hair into mohawks.

Surgery Update and Day 1 of Christmas

So I tried to post a blog over the holidays, but it had a video in it and things would just not work!

After Liana's surgery it was a little rough. She cried a lot and we just chalked it up to she is recovering from her surgery and not liking a shunt being in her head. Well, it had been about a week since her surgery and she was still acting the same so I decided to call her neurosurgeon's office and told them how she was acting. They said it didn't seem normal and instead of bringing her back in 3 weeks for her scheduled appointment they wanted her to come in that day. We got another CT scan and they said everything looked normal. But her fontanel (soft spot) was still really sunken in and kind of hard so they decreased the rate of the fluid draining through her shunt. I feel like that has helped a ton! She still seems to get a little irritated, but a lot less crying (and by crying I mean the type of cry that makes you think she is horribly miserable and saying, "Mommy, please help me." Heartbreaking!)

One thing we have noticed is that she has taken a few steps back in her tummy time. She used to almost do a full push up and lift her head so high. She had rolled over totally to her surprise a few times too. But now she struggles to even lift her neck up. When I try to put her hands under her so she can push up she just lays her head down. Thankfully her physical therapist comes back on Tuesday (we had off this past week) so we will be drilling her on what we should do.

Finally, the girls had 4 days of Christmas cheer. We put on a new outfit starting Monday and leading up to Christmas and had some awesome photo shoots. Here is Day 1's hits.

Adleigh having fun.
Adleigh with a sweet smile.
Liana with a silent laugh.
My beautiful girls. Adleigh looks kinda weird.
If only you could see me and Grammy behind the camera. We were doing crazy dances, making baby squeals, and shaking toys. And for all that we get these faces.
Hope you enjoyed Day 1!

Hopefully now that crazy Christmas is over I will be able to do a little better on my early new year's resolution!!

The Surgery went well

We got home from the hospital yesterday. Liana's surgery went well. They had to put in a shunt to drain the cyst and fluid in the ventricle. She ended up having a pretty rough night at the hospital and wouldn't eat anything. She became dehydrated and had to be put on IV fluids. She still seems to be in a little pain. On top of all that, she has her reflux that makes her not feel so good. So overall, little Liana did really well, but just keep praying that she would recover completely and not be so irritated. Also, pray that we won't have any complications with her shunt...like infections or any malfunctions. We go back in January to get another CT scan to make sure everything looks good and is functioning properly.

From our end, I think this was the hardest part for me to go through. It was hard to have our baby home with us for 3 months and get to know her personality and see all her smiles and then go into the recovery room after the surgery and hear her crying and not being able to be consoled.

We are so thankful that everything went so well and we are blessed to have caught everything so early so that she wasn't having any outward signs of anything being wrong. In fact, when we were at the neurosurgeon the day before the surgery, the doctor and many nurses talked about how amazing it was that she was so happy and alert and had no limitations to the right side of her body since the left side had such a large cyst. Our prayer has been that we will never see any negative side effects of Liana having her bleed and I believe God is going to show everyone what a miracle baby she is! We are so thankful for all of the prayers you have lifted up for our Liana.

At The Hospital

They just took Liana back for surgery. Her CT scan yesterday showed us that her left ventricle had gotten a lot larger and a cyst had developed inside it. There are two ways the surgery could go. The most likely possiblity is that they will put in a shunt to remove the pressure, but they may be able to just put holes in the cyst for it to drain on it's own. We know that whatever way the surgery goes, God is going to completely heal her. We have seen so many miracles with our girls and we believe we are going to see another one. Thank you for all your prayers!

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We need your prayers

Wade has written about this already, but I wanted to put it on my blog as well.

Yesterday we went for a cranial ultrasound to check Liana's brain. We go to these like every two months or so and yesterday's results there were not good. Liana's left ventricle has been enlarged from the bleed, but when we saw this scan it had gotten substantially bigger. The scariest reason could be that the ventricle has gotten clogged with the blood resolving and the spinal fluid that is made there is swelling the ventricle. The only way to remedy this is to put a shunt in the brain. When she had her bleed, surrounding brain tissue was affected. So another reason is we might be seeing that affected brain tissue dying and in its place is just fluid now.

Either way, we are continuing to pray for a miracle. I am praying that this will just give her a bigger platform so that God can show the doctors something impossible happen in her brain. I am praying that a scan will show that nothing is wrong and they will wonder if they got the right baby's chart. Please rally with us to pray for sweet Liana.

We go today at 1:45 to get the CT scan and then discuss everything with our neurosurgeon afterwards. Please pray for us during that time.

Also, our dear friends the Freemans need your prayers. Please go to their blog to know more about Kayleigh's situation.

Seriously, can babies be any cuter?

Whenever I take out the camera, the girls turn on the charm. Does this mean that they are going to want to be baby models or something? I think Adleigh might be turning into a comedian with all these amazing facial expressions.


Adleigh staring intently at her toys above her head.

Liana signaling that the photo shoot and play time is over!
A little update for you:
The girls got their RSV shot today and we found out they both weighed 11 lbs 12 ozs. We are trying to figure out now what to do with Liana's reflux. She cries a lot during the day and then wakes up every hour or two during the night crying. She is on Reglan right now and I have been reading about some side effects of that and I want to see if we can experiment with some other ways to help her. We definitely know that she is refluxing because we see her gag/burp and then she will cry. She is also on Axid which makes her food less acidic once it is in her stomach, but that doesn't seem to change much right now. So if anyone has any ideas on things I could mention to her doctor let me know. Keep her in your prayers because I know she has to be miserable spitting up her food all the time. Thank you so much.

My Favorite Things (part 2)

This is part 2 of an ongoing series of my favorite things we have for the babies. Today I want to show you a toy that the girls really enjoy.

Wade's mom found these awesome baby barbells online and ordered them for the girls. The girls have keys, rattles, and little phones but they would drop them immediately after we put them in their hands. They seemed to be a little too heavy or the handle was a little big for their hands. So enter the barbell...it is the perfect size. They weigh an ounce and rattle and the girls will lift them and hold them in their hands for a long time. They also realized that they can get the lip of the barbell to their mouths and kind of gnaw on it. Not to mention that they look so cute holding them and we make tons of little jokes about them lifting weights.
Here is Adleigh with one of her barbells.
And Liana is the one who loves her barbells the most. She will keep them in her hands the longest and will put both of them in her hands more often than Adleigh. So the video is of Liana working out and loving it.

In the Photo Booth

When I see these pictures I think of the girls in a photo booth making crazier and crazier faces. The last one of Adleigh cracks me up so much!

Thanksgiving...really late

I know I should have posted this like 5 days ago, but this video was too cute to keep to myself.


I am so thankful that God blessed us with these two amazing girls. I can't imagine my life without them. Wade mentioned the other day that whenever Liana smiles he immediately thinks about how the doctors said we should take her off life support. I can't even believe that was even a thought in their minds when we see how smart and beautiful she is.

There are so many of you that I am thankful for:
Our amazing church who supported us through so much and the crazy amount of financial help they gave us.
The nurses that were vital in taking care of our babies in the hospital.
The doctors who made the touch decisions on surgeries, medications, breathing assistance and so much more that I don't even know about.
All the people who prayed hard and read the blog each night so that they would know specifically how to pray for them.
Everyone who helped us through almost 6 months with grass cutting, delicious food, gifts for the girls and more.
Wade's family, especially his mom and dad (and Jamie too!), who have given up their time to help us take care of the girls everyday.

So thank you for being amazing and for keeping up with our precious babies. You are gifts from the Lord to us!