Close

twins

smith twins: 8 months old.

8months15As the months pass it’s so amazing to learn how different our little guys are from each other.  They are completely different in every way.  And it’s their differences that we love about each one.  It’s becoming more and more fun to have twins. Yes, there are still lots of hard days — but just having them here with us outweighs any sort of bad.  As parents of twins, Greg and I feel so blessed that we have so much help at my parents house.  Of course we would get through it if we lived on our own, but having the help and family around really takes the stress off our shoulders.  Everyone here loves taking care of them, so once in a while Greg and I can even sneak out for an evening together.

8months

8months2

8months5

8months3

8months4

8months6

Rohan is becoming a little less smiley and watches more.  Yes he still has that beautiful smile, but it comes out a little less.  I think he’s realizing that he doesn’t know new faces, and prefers the faces he sees everyday.  Rohan loves to be carried.  He’s not very mobile at the moment — only being able to roll — he watches Kieran zip here and there on all fours.  Sometimes he attempts to get up on all fours, only to sway forward and backward — a little timid to move forward. He started shaking his head for “no” — it’s really adorable to see, (but not for long, right??).  He also says “mama” and “dada”, but if I ask him to say “mama” he shakes his head “no.”  It’s become a fun little game between him and I.  Rohan is a solid baby.  Solid cheeks, solid thighs, solid little feet.

8months7

8months10

8months11

8months9

8months8

8months12

Kieran is so funny.  He is a ball of energy, that’s for sure!  He’s rolling, crawls fast like lightening, and pulls himself up to a standing position.  Sometimes he even attempts to crawl up on kid chairs.  He’s a daredevil.  When he falls he gets right back up — unless he bonks his head real hard which happens alot these days.  The boy needs a helmet! He’s very cheery, and is quick to smile.  He loves to give kisses, the only problem is that he has enough slobber for two babies.  It’s funny to listen to him talk because he has so much to say.  Lots of syllables, sounds and slurs.  Compared to all my babies, he’s significantly lighter in weight.  Weird, since it seems like I usually have the rolly polly ones.

8months13

8months14

8months16

8months17

smith twins: 7 months old.

I’m so behind on posts!  So let me begin my catch-up with the twins turning 7 months old. I missed their regular monthly shoot, so I decided to make it up with my beloved Instagram photos.  I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, I love Instagram. I’m currently in the process of making our family photo book for 2012 capturing an almost day by day Instgram photo — so excited about this!

rohan

IMG_20121119_105417

IMG_20121119_102454

IMG_20121115_135139

IMG_20121125_130324

Rohan: sits up with help.  rolls over onto tummy, but then can’t roll back, so let’s out a big wail for help.  can say “umma” (“kiss” in my language) multiple times. smiles all the time.  bottom two teeth crowned.  camera ham.  loves baby food. calm + gentle.

kieran

IMG_20130122_231233

IMG_20121122_174113

IMG_20121120_181459

IMG_20121125_130140

Kieran: crawls.  sits.  says “mama” and “dada.”  bottom two teeth crowned.  so energetic/always moving.  loves real people food.  loves to be where the action is. resilient.

smith twins: 6 months old.

I did something a little different for the boys’ 6 month update.  You may remember Dhara’s 10 month film.  I thought it would be lovely to do a little family film in similar fashion.  I’m so excited about this one — Josh filmed it, but he wasn’t sure if he got enough footage.  I wasn’t sure either, but I love a good film challenge!  After sitting down and going through each clip, I found bits and pieces that I loved, and reacquainted myself with Final Cut Pro.

The final product contains all the necessary pieces that really make for a successful Smith Family film: my husband sporting his fall beard and a lumberjack shirt, our comfy cozy leather chair that reminds us of a baseball glove, a beeeeautiful fall afternoon, and a baby, or two.  Enjoy : )

smith twins: 5 months old.

I’m still a whole month behind on these little guys’ monthly photo shoots.  They just turned 6 months old — but these 5 month photos have got to be posted!  My lovies are getting to be big boys!  I can’t believe I have two sons!  Two rolly polly bundles of goodness who are completely different in every way possible.  At times they don’t even feel like twins because they are so different.  Rather, it’s like we’re caring for two babies who could have been born to us consecutively instead of at the same time.  This month it was all about the boys recognizing familiar people, smiling a whole lot, laughing out loud, grabbing things, and lots of baby talk.  Oh, and their hair has finally started to come in, so say goodbye to my baldy boys.

Rohan is definitely the bigger one of the two, but both boys are above average and have the chunky thighs to prove it!  This month they both began rolling.  Rohan was the first to roll due to his heavier weight.  He easily can roll from his back to his tummy, but not the other way around.  When he gets tired of being on his tummy, he sets his forehead down on his arm and cries like there’s no tomorrow — it’s hilarious to see, but of course we quickly scoop him up for a hug and lots of kisses! Rohan is not at all afraid of strangers — he’ll give anyone that huge handsome grin.

Kieran is our mover, shaker and thinker.  While he couldn’t roll as fast as Rohan initially, he can roll from his back to his tummy, and can roll back to his back, and quick too!  He can also scoot from one place to the other.  Kieran is very loving.  I love the way he tenderly holds my face and gives me wet slobbery kisses. Kieran is more apprehensive when it comes to new people — he will stare you down like no other.  But not to worry, he has beautiful, twinkly, almond shaped eyes that make you forget why he’s staring you down.

smith twins: 4 months old.

It’s neat how much your love can grow in a mere month!  We totally are in love with these little guys.  Their personalities have blossomed in such a short time. This update should have been posted sooner, but I thought better late than never. It’s so fun to watch these two grow together.  Every morning around 6 AM they wake me up with their chatter.  They start off in the crib together the night before, but by morning, one is usually in our bed.  So once they awake at 6 in the morning, I bring both into our bed, position them so they are facing each other, and then wait expectantly.  It usually takes them about 10 seconds to notice one another, but when they do it’s all smiles and coos and baby jabber for the next 15 – 20 minutes. They touch each other’s face and really communicate with one another with their “ahhh’s” and “ohhhhs”– it’s the sweetest thing!

Oh Rohan, Rohan Rohan… Your smiles never cease.  They are forever constant. One meaning of your name is “healing/medicine” — and it reminds me of the verse, Psalms 17:22, “A merry heart doeth good like medicine…”  This verse is so very appropriate for you.  I can see you delighting our hearts with your pleasant sun shine eyes and great big smile for as long as we live.  May God use you to heal hearts, and bring joy to people’s lives.

Kieran, you are so light on your toes, energetic and so full of life.  You are so precious, and so charming.  You love looking at the world around you.  Your name means “shining light”, and it reminds me of Matthew 5:14, “You are the light of the world.  A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”  Your presence cannot be hidden because you make yourself known.  For fun, you love listening to the sound of your own squeals, and I love it too. We love all the chirps, coos, and baby words that come out of that adorable mouth.

these basket photos make me crack up because kieran is sitting on rohan’s lap. my two dear little boys! eeeee…love it!

smith twins: 3 months old.

It seems that blogging is much harder to do when you have more than one child, at least that’s been the case for me.  Gone are the days when I had all the time in the world when it was just Miss Dhara and I at home during the day.  These days it’s all about putting babies down for naps, taking short walks around the house with them when they’re awake because they love to look at the world around them, feeding, making meals interesting to my daughter, cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning.  The cleaning never ends.

But what’s the most exciting part of these last 3 months?  My baldy boys are over their colic/gassiness, well for the most part!  It feels sooo good to put them down for naps that last longer than 10 minutes!  They also smile alot now, and coo, and baby talk — oh, let the fun begin!  I was waiting for this stage, and whew, we’re finally here…

Rohan, not as serious as in the photo set above.  He is actually quite the opposite. I imagine him to be of the jolly sort when he’s older because he is all smiles.  His smiles consume him, as if he’s going to fall over from the sheer joy of it all.  I wasn’t able to capture any of it in this shoot because he was so enthralled/stunned by the camera.  I think he’s going to be a talker — he absolutely loves being in your arms, looking you right in the eye, and making conversation.  Rohan is also my squishy one.

Kieran is energetic and also loves being near people like his daddy.  These days he’s pretty enthralled by his fist and what it tastes like.  When you move his hands from his mouth, he’ll give you a charming smile like he knows he’s doing something he’s not supposed to be doing.  He also loves standing on his legs.  Kieran is generally very laid back and chill, but when he’s mad, oh he’ll let you know!  And Rohan is generally happy and cuddly and super expressive, but when he’s sad he makes it known.  Let’s just say that both boys have quite the set of lungs, and use them well!  It’s so amazing to Greg and I how different our two boys are.

the aunty who helps me with the kids loves to sit on the floor (in true Indian fashion), and dhara loves it too, so all on the floor they go!  dhara reading to the boys with her book upside down.

smith twins: 2 months old.

[Overdue May 25th Post/Photos].  My baby boys are growing into chubby little fellas.  It’s weird to think I gave birth to tiny 5 pound babies when my daughter was a 9 pounder!  Now, at 2 months old, they look alot like Dhara when she was born [in terms of their size].  This last month was really rough.  My poor babies were colicky/ gassy.  They still cry alot, and don’t sleep very long before gas pains wake them up.

This second month was the month I was supposed to be on my own with the kids since everyone at home works.  (Eeeee!  Home alone with colicky twins and a toddler is a scary thought).  The first month was covered with Greg staying home for 3 weeks, and then my super helpful sister who took off a week of work to help me with the kids.  This second month would have been a nightmare had it not been for my mom who was prayerfully determined to find help.

So we hired a Liberian woman named Cecilia to help me with the kids during the day.  After a week we realized that wasn’t going to work out.  Next, we immediately found the sweetest Indian aunty to help us with the kids.  She’s a godsend, I love her!  And she loves the kids like they are her own grandchildren — I love watching her with them.  The funny thing is that I only speak English and she only speaks Malayalam (our native dialect) — but we make it work and it’s better than I could have imagined — thank you Jesus!  So with her help, the both of us have managed to run around the house like crazy women consoling these two little ones.  Even though it’s been rough on the boys and us, these little guys have really begun to carve themselves into this family, and we love them for it:

Rohan: A sweetheart.  He’s sooo cuddly + squishy, just look at those cheeks!  He’ll give you a full blown smile, and it’s the most endearing thing.  He reminds me of my dad + brother.

Kieran: Also a sweetheart!  He’s strong + serious, yet will smile at you from the corner of his mouth revealing a very charming smile.  He reminds me of myself + Dhara.

rohan / kieran

practicing their synchronized swimming moves

on one of the quilts grandma sandy made for each of them

 

mama day 2012.

[…I’m a week late in posting this — unfortunately my blog time has been cut in half!  But I’m hoping to update it at least once a week from here on out.]

You won’t usually see me in photos — let’s just say I’d prefer to stay behind the camera.  However, after Dhara was born, I started thinking that for posterity’s sake, I needed to be purposeful in being in the occasional family photo, like here and here.  Even though I dislike being in photos, I think it’s important that my children have photos of us together.  I want them to have photos of a young mama with her young kiddos.  There’s something beautiful about seeing a picture of your parents when they were young parents.  I want to make sure that in all the hustle and bustle of this life, my kids have a few pictures of me to look back on — even if it means only once or twice a year like Mother’s Day and Christmas.

Mother’s Day this year was pretty swell.  It started off on Saturday with Greg’s parents coming into town and cooking us an amazing meal of grilled barbeque and teriaki chicken, grilled steak, grilled pork tenderloin, beans, quinoa, cornbread, lemon meringue pie, cherry pie and a large bowl of delicious fruit.  What a blessing that was!  Thank you Dad and Mom, it meant so much to us!

On Sunday (Mother’s Day), we ended up staying home from church because the boys have been really fussy due to gas.  Greg let me get a few hours of rest while he watched the boys — a real treat since sleep is so hard to come by these days!  I was also given the gift of an awesome, awesome retro pistachio colored Kitchen Aid Artisan stand mixer.  And lastly, my darling husband and daughter got the garden ready for this year’s small crop — there was no way I could do it with the twins this year.

love how my little busy bee, dhara, is perched on the edge of the garden bed

[If we’re friends on Facebook, you may have noticed my love for Instagram.  Been using it everyday since I got the app a couple weeks ago — it’s such a great way to capture life everyday, because for the most part I don’t have a camera handy, but I do have a cell phone!  Love it!]

Mother’s Day got me thinking…  In the 4 years we’ve been married, we’ve been blessed with three children.  I always wanted kids, a large family even.  However I must say that child rearing is hard — the hardest thing I’ve ever done — and my kids are young, all two and under!  The challenges only get bigger from here on out.  Motherhood means laying my life down for them on a daily basis — not an easy task!  It takes discipline and selflessness.  And yet, there’s a joy that comes when I look at my children, even though I know life isn’t easy.  There’s a love that grows for them every single day.

I feel so blessed to be called a mother, and be given such a cool and out-of-this-world-rewarding job to care for these little treasures. [2011, 2010].

smith twins: 1 month old.

rohan [left] / kieran [right]

rohan [left] / kieran [right] by CHP

The boys are already a month old!  It’s the weirdest thing to look at the two of them and know they are mine — these two sweet sweet baby boys.  I know the common term among little boys is that most are “mama’s boys,” but I never really liked that term — maybe it’s because I usually like to go against the grain of tradition.  Dhara is my mama’s girl — she’s my buddy, my little partner in crime.  However, Greg tells me that in time these boys will occupy a part of my heart that not even my little girl can.  I’m excited to see what that feels like.  We shall wait and see.  : )

Rohan is my baby with the stormy blue-grey eyes.  He’s the elder and the smaller of the two.  He smiles all the time in his sleep — his smiles revealing two huge dimples which I love.  He makes the funniest old man noises when you move him around in your arms — I joke that it’s because he hates being manhandled.  The past few weeks have been hard on him because he seems to be having a bad bout of gas which often wakes him up from his slumber.  If he’s not troubled by gas, he seems to be a very content baby who loves watching his surroundings with great big curious eyes.

Kieran is my sturdy boy.  He’s strong and contemplative and loud.  His sturdiness reminds me of Dhara when she was born — she was also a strong little baby.  Most people who see Kieran say he looks like me.  He loves when you talk to him.  He’s beginning to smile more and more, and like Dhara, he’s got one dimple on the left cheek.  He loves to sleep and can sleep for a few hours at a time during the day.

kieran [left] / rohan [right] by CHP

I’m not going to lie — caring for two babies (and a toddler) day in and day out is not easy.  I never thought it would be easy, but I never thought it would be this hard!  The looong nights of feedings, the endless diaper changes, constant bouts of gas, and two babies crying at the same time.  Whew!  Sometimes I just want to give up.  But the thing is, I can’t give up — this is a train that’s going whether I like the grueling pace or not — no stops, no breaks.  I know this newborn stage is rough, especially since they were born 4 weeks prematurely.  Even though it’s rough, I know it’s also fleeting and will be done before I know it.  A part of me is looking forward to a couple months from now when they are more engaging and sleep longer through the night!  All in all, we are totally in love with them and feel so blessed to be given two little boys even though it may be hard at times.  They are a gift and we are grateful.

rohan [left] / kieran [right] by CHP

A huge thank you to Chelsea Hudson Photography for the amazing photos of the boys!  If you remember our love story from a month ago, we won a photo shoot and we chose to use it on the boys!  Love her stuff!!!  Check out her blog for more of her lovely work.

rohan hudson + kieran tozer.

Our twin boys are finally here!  Meet Rohan Hudson + Kieran Tozer.  (First names pronounced “row-haan” and “keer-in.”)  And 4 weeks early too!  Rohan and Kieran, fraternal twins, were born at 36 weeks gestation via cesarean section on Saturday, March 24th, 2012 because my water broke at 3 AM that morning.

Rohan, the elder of the two [by a minute], was born at 9:32 AM at 5 pounds/6 ounces and 19.25 inches long.  Kieran, was born at 9:33 AM at 5 pounds/13.4 ounces and 18.5 inches long.  Greg and I are truly in awe of these little people. It’s the sweetest thing to see our two boys laying together in their cot, forehead to forehead like best buds.

Like Dhara’s name, it was important to us that we choose meaningful names that represent our heritage.  The boys’ first names are Indian.  And if you are wondering about their middle names, Greg was keen on naming them after mighty men of God who lived their lives for the glory and honor of God.  Men who made an impact for the Kingdom.  Men who the boys can look to as a godly example and inspiration as they grow into men.  When Greg told me of his idea for middle names I immediately fell in love with it, hence the names Hudson and Tozer!

Rohan:  in Sanskrit, it means the one who takes the higher path; ascending; it also means healing, medicine / Hudson: after Hudson Taylor; radical missionary to China, man of faith, purpose, and resolve — a man who changed a nation.

Kieran:  in Sanskrit, it means ray of light / Tozer: after A. W. Tozer; Christian writer, a man of clarity and understanding, a man who knew God, encouraged others and helped others passionately pursue God.

our little smith dudes

Health-wise, we are so thankful that the boys have normal levels of jaundice, unlike what we went through with the Dhara-girl.  And my incision from the c-section is healing nicely.  Exciting news — we also may be going home today! [We joke that the babies aren’t really ours until we have permission from the hospital to take them home — until then, the babies belong to the hospital.] Overall, we are so grateful for all the prayers and love we received these past 9 months, and are so excited to now be a family of five!