one last reminder

hi everyone! we changed the web address of our blog so i am reminding you of our new name fabfeeneyfive.blogspot.com and asking you to resign up for email updates on the new blog. this will be my last post to fabfeeneyfour.

see you over at fabfeeneyfive.blogspot.com

pray for shelby!

fabfeeneyfive.blogspot.com

hi now that we have expanded our family to five, we wanted the blog's url to reflect the change too! from now own follow us at fabfeeneyfive.blogspot.com. all powerful google does not allow blogger users to create a url redirect so this static page serves as our notification and redirect to our readers.

new stuff will be posted at fabfeeneyfive.blogspot.com

we are NICU parents

hi for those of you who have not heard Shelby Lily Faith Feeney arrived on tuesday 10/8/13. she surprised us with how much hair she had and by having a congenital heart defect and a cleft palate. two hours after her arrival she was taken to children's hospital in boston. there we learned that she also had two problems with her esophagus. she has had one surgery to correct one of the esophageal problems. her open heart surgery will be on wednesday 10/15 please pray for her.

once the heart surgery is complete, doctors can can resume checking her for additional birth defects and health problems.  please pray for her, our family, and the doctors.

i will not be updating the blog as frequently in the next coming weeks.

a great saturday

thank you God for an amazing day with dan and the girls! today we went to the hingham shipyard, enjoyed wahlburgers and looked at the boats. a fabulous way to spend a saturday as a family of four.

decoding sinky

the girls know a lot of words and for the most part all of them a clear or clearly associated with what they want.

except sinky. they say it a lot.

it is not stinky, cause they say stinky shoes and their sinky does not sound like stinky.

and song requests for 'skinna marink' are sinky accompanied with the hand wave that goes with the song.

this morning i hollered upstairs to dan "can you bring me my water bottle when you come downstairs? thank you"

my thank you was followed by tamsin's 'sinky'.

ahhh haaaa!!!! sinky is thank you.

but to be sure we tested it, handing her toys or simply saying thank you she replied 'sinky' after hearing it in context it is more a 'sink yeee.'

sink yee for reading

things keep on running

well the girls are off and running. good times. running, can't even open a baby gate without one of them dashing to get out.

they are so much fun! we opened up the living room to them, so they have free reign of just that space. there are three baskets, one for stuffed animals, one for books and one for hard toys.  as of right now all they do is play with the books, they take them out, come over to you holding it saying 'buk buk buk' asking you to read. tamsin enjoys sitting in the stuffed animal basket.

Tam on the left, Pie on the right 

they are also enjoying using a fork and spoon at EVERY meal. the mess the mess the mess, for the most part i am ok with it but i just dont have the energy to do a load of laundry at the end of every day.

we have all had a few colds. at the end of august i was sick for two weeks and now i am sick again, and i cant take any good meds. bummer.

they still have extreme stranger fear. basically if you dont see them daily it is going to take them a few hours to warm up. dan and i cant leave them in the nursery at church, so we alternate who sits with them each week. they refused to be comforted by anyone, held by anyone or even pushed in a stroller by anyone.

teeth are coming in left and right. they know a lot of words and signs which makes things kinda easy, at times, and they love to chatter chatter chatter.

i can't believe in about a month there will be a third one.

when do they know what they know and brain things

watching the girls learn, remember and do from memory are some of the most fascinating and enjoyable things. this in tandem with watching their personalities develop makes it even more enjoyable!

for starters when the heck does fear develop? tamsin is afraid of pandas, dont know how or why but she is. we have other animals with black and white faces but its a panda that sends her in to hysterics. this started a while back (i think i may have mentioned in a post but i dont remember when exactly) and i removed a panda stuffed animal. we have a color book,  the page for black and white shows a panda and i read it to them a lot. right after we learned tam is afraid of pandas i stopped showing her the black and white page. then maybe 2 months ago since had been a while since she had seen a panda i showed it to her again, still terrified. how does that work? fear? remembering? recall?

i started teaching them animal noises about 6 or 7 months ago, a few they picked up right away like cow and duck and dog. after i would ask (and respond) what does a doggie say; i would follow it with 'what does mumma say?' and then hold a finger to my mouth and say 'shhhh'. they never really got the 'shhh' and finger to the mouth. but then a few weeks ago they started back up with it! with out me prompting!! the dogs bark and they 'shhh' them!! again fascinating. their brains learn, remember and recall information. so cool.

i read them chicka chicka boom boom. when we get to the point in the book when the letters fall out of the tree elyse gets upset (not quite tamsin panda upset but agitated). i noticed it and made a mental note of it over the past few months but never really thought about it. then yesterday i put in our chicka chicka boom boom dvd. as soon as the letters fell out of the tree elyse started crying. we played it a few times and each time it was the same thing. crying. is she sad? does she feel bad for them? i cant believe she is empathizing or feeling emotions for letters or whatever it may be. or maybe she is like mumma and doesnt like the messy chaos of the letters in a jumbled mess. whatever it is, it is amazing to see the growth and development in her and tamsin.

God is pretty amazing and its so easy to see him, his creativity and his God-ness in them.

end of summer

the end of summer has been fun, we spent the last week of july at craigville with NonaPa, Auntie Pammy, Uncle Jay, and Tiaan. the girls didnt really like the beach, they warmed up to it a little by the last day; i am hoping next year they will really like it. i didnt get to swim as much as i wanted because i didnt realize walking on the sand would leave me so tired and sore so i spent most afternoons relaxing at the cottage.

i really cant get over how munch fun the girls are. they took their first steps a few weeks ago; their preferred mode of transportation is still the happy knee bounce but each day they are walking more. their personalities are so different, but i have learned the not to try to describe them. in the past i have said 'oh tamsin will be the sensitive sweet one' and while that is partially true she isnt as smoochy smoochy as i thought she would be. so i guess ill just say they are both happy and really funny but very different from each other.

we have started letting them do the stairs when its time to go up for a nap or bed.

we had their 1 year appointment and it went well. the doctor was impressed with how much language they have. they are really tall and healthy.

i am trying to enjoy these last few weeks of me and the two ladies before shelby gets here but it is getting more difficult as i am tired and sore sooner in the day. when we were at the pediatrician last week scheduling their 15 month appointment it hit me that i will have to bring 3 kids to the doctors. and it wasnt until that realization that other ones started hitting me. ill have to feed a newborn and tamsin and elyse. seriously, that whole process never hit me, ill have to cut up nectarines or a cheese sandwich feed them and possibly comfort or feed shelby at the same time. im grateful that elyse and tamsin play so well together, i know they will be able to entertain each other.

we are excited for shelby and we will be back at tobey hospital in wareham to have her. originally we were going to deliver at south shore but we were not happy with resistance we got from the doctors and  'hospital policy' when it came to our birth plan. rather than fighting them or going through that hassle we just decided (at 30 weeks) to go back to doctors and a hospital who will do the things we want with out us asking or fighting for it.

tickle tickle and other cuteness

the girls love tickling feet and they will tickle their own if there is no one else around.  you'll hear "ticka ticka ticka" and see them folded in half touching their feet.

elyse does this thing with her eyes. its a comical eye roll that is hard to describe. she rolls her eyes around her head while tipping and bending her head in several directions.

tamsin does toots on her own arm.

to get from point A to point B they do what i call the "happy knee bounce" and it is exactly what it sounds like. when they bounce to much and get too much air they fall, thankfully catching themselves with their hands, on all fours.

i cant wait to meet shelby!

7/26/12

Last year once I hit 20 weeks or so the doctors told me I (and dan) should have a hospital bag ready just in case. it sat in my car, transferred to dan's car and waited. on 7/26/12 we had a routine doctor's appointment and non-stress test at the hospital. we drove to wareham, with our bags. with an elevated blood pressure i stayed so they could keep an eye on me. then i delivered the girls one and a half days later.

a free moment

we will be quite busy over the next few days so im taking this opportunity to update everyone now. the girls are well, crusing around but not walking yet. sometimes they will use the push toys to walk but nothing on their own. as i am typing elyse just launched a toy across the play area. they are saying a few things: ball- for ball; baaahh- for bottle; baahhbuull- for bubbles; mumma and papa. they mimmic sounds for cows, ducks, sheep, trains, lions, dogs. lots of jibberish too.

we had their first birthday over the weekend. i didnt go crazy but their first birthday's will probably be the only times i decorate with balloons, banners and decorations. we had a nice time.

Ell Dubs

Ell Dubs aka LW aka Lawrence Welk. 

I was out Sunday but I am pleased to announce that Dan told me when LW came on TV the girls stopped playing, became hypnotized by the music and dancing and started dancing themselves. 

Reflecting on (almost) a year

elyse and tamsin are swiftly approaching the one year mark and while i am marveling at their physical, social and mental development i am more in awe of what God has done in my life and the feeney family over the past 11/12 months.

i cant believe i have been a mom- doing mom things, diaper changes, feeding babies, cleaning bottles and toys, errands with two kids, walks to the library- for a year! this is my identity now, this is my job, its what i do. that thought still takes some getting used to. (ive mentioned to a few people, i was at a drs. office and they had the same HP4250 lazer jet printer that suffolk had and i got all emotional when i saw it.  yes i even miss the printer!)

i think the most freeing thing about this year has been knowing that these girls arent really mine. keep reading. God gave them to me and dan to raise and show them what He is like.  i really cant imagine not having Christ in and through all this. prayer gets me through night terrors, sleepless nights that turn into cranky days (for the girls and me), fevers, stresses trying to leave the house, screaming fits and worrying about bills. prayer has become more than a frantic search for peace, it has become a stream of thanks and comfort.

they are God's and he has begun a good work in them and will finish it to completion when Christ returns. all i need to do is be obedient, faithful and humble before God while i parent and he will correct and cover my mistakes and bless my successes. love God then love Dan and then love the girls.

i love my crazy ladies.

tam, mum, pie

barbed wire?

anyone have any luck using barbed wire in a crib to prevent your kids from pulling themselves up to standing during nap time?

worth a thousand words

here are elyse and tamsin fighting over the blanket for their new sister. (still deciding on a name)

tam tam giving it a squeeze.

tamsin giving it a kiss

thanks for nothing!!

i called the obgyn today to see if they had any more info on what the baby was. maybe in the report the ultrasound left a note "is this a testicle? could this be a labia?" but apparently the ultrasound tech didnt even bother to check off which gender it is. so just as i thought she just told us a girl to tell us something but didnt even really know. 

boooo!!!

a deangelo girl?

this morning we found out our baby is very healthy! and uncooperative. the ultrasound tech told us based on what she could see, which wasnt much and "don't go paint the baby's room based on what I tell you because its not totally clear"........... our baby could be a girl!!!!! pretty anti-climatic huh?

so if anyone has frequent flyer miles at an ultrasound place that i can cash in and use, can get me in free some where or can smuggle me into a hospital to have another ultrasound i would appreciate it.

Poop stain

How does one get a poop stain like this out!? I soaked it for 30 minutes with borax and tide. At least we will always know who the culprit is.

too sweet not to share

last night at dinner tamsin was sitting next to me and she kept playing with and kinda tugging my elbow. this went on for like 5 minutes when i leaned down, she pulled my face into hers and opened her mouth for a giant smooch. she kept my face close to hers and kept smooching it went on for a minute. it was amazing.

also as i sit here typing this i am watching jimmy fallon and cracking up. the girls are on the floor laughing copying me each time i laugh.

I have decided to put the girls to work.

The girls are starting a vaudeville act and taking it to The Great White Way. Their show will be called "The Amazing Exploding Feeney Twins" and will feature singing, dancing, laughing and for the grand finale their butts and diapers exploding everywhere.

I think we have ONE OF THOSE

And by 'one of those' I mean a child that coughs and cries and tries to gag herself when she doesn't get our attention.

T Guess A Which M One S It I Is N

36w6d

36 weeks 6 days

The girls arrived on 7/28/12 at 36 weeks and 6 days and today is 4/12/13 which is 36 weeks and 6 days since the day they were born. pretty cool.

New name more crazy

In October the girls will be big sisters and we will become the Fab Feeney Five. At the end of May we will find out what we are having, but we do know there is only one baby this time.

Happy Easter

Here are the pre-festivity photos and the end of the day family fun photos. Tamsin is in the pink, Elyse is in the white.

Good MORNING!!

Thanks Elyse!!! Tamsin did the same thing but Papa changed her, and Mumma is the one crazy enough to take a picture of this and post it. I couldn't stop laughing!

First trip to the park!

We went to the Whitman Town Park today! It was pretty crowded so we didn't stay long. Tamsin is in the pink hat and Elyse is in the blue hat. 

I love you and a kiss

Today I was holding Tam, facing me, I said I love you and she gave me three big kisses! Best smooch of my life.

One year ago

It is so crazy to think that it was only a year ago that we found out about TWO babies! It feels like Elyse and Tamsin have been here forever.

Elyse and the bottle

Peas Please!

The girls had peas today for lunch. If I would have given them the bowl I think they'd have licked it clean. It is funny what they like and don't like: Pears NO WAY, jarred Bananas NO WAY, fresh bananas YES PLEASE! Elyse loved fresh avocado, but when I added cereal she wanted nothing to do with it. Tamsin did not like the avocado at all. Last week I went and bought some jarred baby food to have in the house just in case, or so I can keep it in the diaper bag and not worry. And Sunday I made my first batch of baby food- 1 batch of butternut squash and 1 batch of carrot, parsnip and sweet potatoes. They love the root trio. It is so much fun to see the faces they make when they try a new food.

Grape Jelly Moustache

Today I put a little grape jelly on Elyse between her upper lip and nose, she kept flicking out her tongue  to lick it off. It was very cute, maybe mean, but very cute.

Patty the Pig

Elyse and Tamsin, mostly Tamsin, go NUTS for Patty the Pig on Sprout. Patty hosts the Sharing Show and any time she is on the screen Tamsin shrieks, smiles and rocks back and forth. It is adorable. 

what a day

the girls were up super early this morning, 4 am, we fed them and put them back down for second sleep. they slept until 5:30 and we got them at 6. because they were so tired and didn't nap when they normally do it has been rough today! they screamed, for 2 hours both of them. it is amazing how much they need a consistent routine. they went down for their nap a little early, at 1pm, so i hope they nap until at least 3:30 so they will be back on track.

they are sitting up on their own and they are also growing like crazy! they are in 12 month clothes!! because they are growing so quickly i had to get them in their first cuffy's shirt. they turned 6 months at the end of january and they'll have their next drs. appointment this friday. at that appointment we will talk to the dr. about starting solid food. i am very excited!