A new arrival, the end of a love/hate relationship, and more

I know I haven't been very good with keeping this blog updated lately, but last week was such a busy week and I'm thankful it is over!

First, the most exciting news is that Delevan Richard Chandler arrived on Monday night.  We made a short visit yesterday, and introduced the boys to their new BFF.  Of course he slept the whole time, oh I remember those days, but I did get a little snuggle time with him.  He is so adorable and tiny and it is so hard to remember that our boys were even smaller when they were born.  The Chandler's are doing well and adjusting to their life as a family of 3.  We look forward to many more visits in the near future, and can't wait to see the three boys grow up together.  Congrats again guys!

Now, to the end of my love/hate relationship.  As many of you know - I am not known to keep my feelings hidden now, am I? - pumping was not my idea of a good time.  At the beginning, it was literally a matter of spending 30 minutes every 3 hours hooked to that damn pump.  Not a big deal since the boys slept so much, but still not fun, just because of all the adjustments new babies bring to begin with.  Around the 3 month mark, I slowly spread out the length between pumps and again looked forward to that day that I could drop even more pumps and quit.  There's nothing like living your life around the next time I had to pump.  My long-term goal was 9 months, but once I started back to work in September, I really wondered if I would even make it that far.  Every break I got, I pumped, which is hard considering my prep time at school consisted in needing to make copies, prep science supplies, etc, which is hard to do when attached to a pump.  It's amazing how much I learned how to multi-task, just to get things done, including drive and pump at the same time (not as hard as it sounds actually).  As the boys started eating solids and the amount they drank lessened, I talked myself into dropping pumps.  It's amazing how hard it was to really drop pumps, considering how much I despised doing it, just because it turned into such a mind game.  I had been pumping, and pumping, and pumping, and drinking as much water as I could, and eating oatmeal in everything - homemade granola bars, oatmeal in every cookie imaginable, bowls of oatmeal for breakfast, you name it, I did it.  Just to get as much milk as I could.  Then, the thought of dropping pumps and losing ounces?!?  Not fun, but slowly I accepted it.  Then, 9 months came - my Christmas break - the perfect time to stop pumping so my body could get adjusted to it while I was home.  Not so quick.  The boys had a pretty bad cold and I couldn't fathom the idea of stopping pumping since they were getting the nutrients to hopefully get better even quicker because of the antibodies in breastmilk.  So, I continued.  It wasn't until last Wednesday, February 8, 2012 - exactly 10 months, 1 week, and 1 day of pumping, when I did my last pump.  I'm happy to have been able to persist for so long and give the boys the best nutrition they could get for those 10 months, but damn, it's such a good feeling to be done!  Today I actually packed my pump away.  Troy suggests that I go out and take it to a field and shoot it to pieces.  I'm not sure about that one, but lets just say I'm glad to see it off the counter.

In other news:

• I had my first math test last Tuesday.  Not sure on the results yet, but it was pretty easy.  There was a question or two that I was unsure of, but overall, I think I did well.
• The boys have been acting so cute lately.  When they get tired, they like to rest their head on our shoulder.  Or, if they are crawling, they'll just stop, mid-crawl and lay down on the carpet.  We even put the oversized pillows from our couch on the ground and they like laying on those.  

• The boys are notorious for wiggling their way away from us during a diaper change.  Unfortunately, Logan doing so last week resulted in a wet shirt after he peed on it at grandma's house when he was crawling away from her - oops!  I couldn't resist getting this picture, when he snuck away from me last week.

• As for us, nothing too new is going on here.  We've been really bad with putting together dinner ideas, so we've been doing a lot of easy meals and a few too many frozen meals.  We put together a better menu for dinner this week and we're making 4 new meals, so we'll see how this goes.  If anyone has any great meal ideas, I'd love to hear them.  Nicole did a great blog post about her monthly meal list - 31 different meals!  How awesome is that?  Our meal tonight was one from her list - an oldie that we hadn't had in years - Chicken Crescent Rolls.  Thanks to Val and Derek during our CMU days for that recipe!!!    
• The boys are lovin' all their food lately.  I think their most recent favorite would have to be the Cheddar Broccoli Bites I made them a few weeks ago.  Today I made them sweet potato fries with cinnamon.  I figured baking them would be better (and less mushy) than boiling them and cubing them up.  

They are especially good at sticking their hands in their mouth after having a bite of food, and then sticking their hands in their hair.  Then they get really crazy hairstyles to top it off!

So, that has been our week, in a nutshell.  I am hoping for a much less hectic upcoming week.  Then to next week with only 2 working days and a scrapbooking weekend to look forward too!  Have a great week everyone!!!