Coming Home

As some of you may have heard through facebook and on the news, Benjamin and Caroline came home yesterday!  We found out the schedule coming home day a week ago which meant we had to get busy preparing for them.  There was quite a bit to do since we originally planned on them coming home mid-late June.  I spent a couple days just organizing the most recent load of baby donations/gifts with the help of Mike and Meg.  We rearranged the dining room and living room to accommodate all the baby gear, and cars will no longer fit in the garage.  Somehow Dave managed to fit the 10+ large bins of clothes in the attic (sizes bigger than 9 mo); 9 mo and under I stuffed into dressers, bins, and closets in the nursery and future baby room.  I still have one more baby shower left, not sure where that stuff will go!  Here's a shot of our new dining room...

We also had our day of learning with CPR and car seat education classes.  Dave definitely took over the CPR class making sure everyone practiced enough.  I met with our pediatrician and visited my friend with quints +1 to get a preview of my life in 3 years.  I had a blast building Legos, coloring, and playing tea party!  Of course, I did get to leave after a couple hours and I wasn't in charge, but their mom is awesome and hope I can do as good a job as she is!  All the last minute cleaning and returning/exchanging stuff and dropping Maggie off with her Kritter Sitters was worth it on the official coming home day!  Unfortunately I wasn't feeling well yesterday, so we didn't get them home until dinner time.  They did great in the car even through Houston traffic!  Our friends brought over dinner and helped with the first two feedings :)  Dave and I survived the night and got a few hours of sleep in too.  He had to work today, so I decided to challenge myself by doing the morning feed alone before calling for help.  I'm happy to say I was able to feed both of them at the same time and handled the whole day all by myself!  It makes me feel better to know I have the ability to handle two babies (even if these are the 2 laid back babies).  I will definitely be yelling for help when the next 2 come home!  Dave's parents are visiting for the weekend and I've already put them to work :) Here's a picture of us about to leave the hospital including 2 of our favorite nurses:

Yesterday was a big day for all our babies!  With Caroline and Ben leaving, we are now down to 2 NICU rooms.  Andrew moved in with Allison (both in cribs) and Levi moved in with Leah.  All 3 of our CPAPers became non-CPAPers this past week!  It's so nice to see their cute faces!

Some fun things from this week... we got to meet the CEO of Texas Children's.  He was very nice and we took some pictures for hospital history business.  I also bumped up my birthday girl's night celebration since we'd have babies home before my actual birthday.  It was so much fun to hangout with some of my favorite friends one last time before our hangouts consist of feeding babies.  Here's my super yummy Milky Way cake made by the lovely Patricia (holding the cake):

So, it's been a busy week for the Pack!  I'll try to keep updating as babies come home, but I will choose sleep over blogging.  Thanks for the continued prayers and support, and for those of you who have offered to help out- get ready!