30 1/2 weeks

My update from my last dr. appt. is in my previous post. I have another in depth ultrasound on Tuesday and another regular dr. appt. on Wednesday so we will see if we have progressed anymore. Hopefully not yet. We need these girls to get a little bigger before they come out. Here is a picture of me at 30 1/2 weeks with this pregnancy vs. my first pregnancy with Dane. At my 30 week appt I was measuring 36 weeks. Babies are estimated at a little over 3lbs a piece.

   30 1/2 weeks with Dane                         30 1/2 weeks with twins

Christmas

We had a really fun, relaxing Christmas. First, a couple of days before Christmas, I took Dane up to Josh's work in Park City where they had a santa come and these pictures will show you how much he hates santa.

But he loved the candy cane he got

 We were lucky to have Josh's parents come out and spend some time with us. On Christmas Eve we had Josh's uncle and his family over for Christmas Eve dinner. My first time hosting a holiday dinner! Now that we have a kitchen and a bigger house, we can do these things, yay! It was a lot of work, but it was so great to be able to host for once.

On Christmas Eve night, our little family tradition is that we all get a new book. Just a regular book, not a Christmas one. (Except this year he got two, "Yummy Yucky" and "Twas the Night Before Christmas" since we didn't have that book yet) Dane loves books and I want him to continue to enjoy it, so we each get to open our one present on Christmas Eve, which is a new book. Then we can grow our library of books around the house.

I LOVE this first picture. Dane looks so grown up.

Christmas morning we were up around 8 and we brought Dane downstairs. His big gift was his slide, which he really likes. He loves slides at the park and anywhere we go, so I thought he would love this thing. Well, he loves to stand at the top of it and slide his toys down, but doesn't care to go down himself that much, lol. He's already gone down head first twice, good thing I was there both times to catch him, yikes. Then he got a few smaller gifts, which were all a hit. I think his favorite was his little toy tool set. He LOVES to play with Josh's tools (which have been used and around the house for the past few months with all the work we are doing) and he will see Josh use them and copy him. He will use a stud finder correctly, a screwdriver, hammer, measuring tape, etc. all in the correct way because he sees Josh do it. It's so cute. So, he loves to use his little tools to help out.

He loves Yo Gabba Gabba and after he saw his slide, he saw his stocking and went straight for it with a big smile on his face. He loves his little Brobee.

I got Josh some clothes (nothing too exciting, but that's what he wanted) and he got me a really sweet diaper bag that I've wanted, but never wanted to spend the money on :) We really enjoyed spending the day together as a family.

Pictureless update

I don't feel so bad about not updating because I look at other blogs from my friends and it's been over a month since they've done anything either, so I'm just following the trend. It's obviously a busy few months with the holidays, family and such that I think we all have good excuses. I need to do a quick update on Thanksgiving, Dane (who is almost 15 months, yikes) and Christmas. I also need to add a picture of me now at 30 1/2 weeks. Hopefully that picture will be taken today, lol.

But I will do a quick pictureless update:

1. Thanksgiving was great, we spent it with our wonderful friends, The Cliffords.
2. Our kitchen and floors are done, and our house is started to feel like a home.
3. Dane is the sweetest, smartest little guy I know. He talks so much, but he's definitely a mama's boy lately and that's not helping the bigger I get.
4. Christmas was so fun! We have my in laws here, which we are so lucky to spend time with, and Dane loves all of his fun toys. It was definitely a fun Christmas, even though Dane is still young, he loved to open presents.
5. And here is what has been occupying my mind most lately:

The girls are doing great and growing wonderfully. I'm just recently starting to feel the effects of a huge belly this pregnancy. At my appt. on Monday though I was told that I was a finger tip dilated and already 70% effaced. That has me much more nervous and feeling unprepared than before, lol. This whole pregnancy I have been assuming that I shouldn't have any problems and that they will probably come mid-February (that would be full term, 37 weeks). But who are we kidding? Twins on AVERAGE come at 36 weeks, which would be Feb. 4 and that's only average. Half come earlier than that. My dr. didn't put me on bedrest but definitely told me to take it really easy and do the least amount of everything possible. When he checked me he even said, "Woah, one of the girl's heads is RIGHT there." Not what I wanted to hear of course. Not only that, but the last few evenings I've been having contractions. Mostly braxton hicks, but a few that were stronger than normal. I am soooo not ready for these girls to come yet. It's too soon, they need to grow and thrive longer in there and I haven't started setting anything up yet. I could still be really lucky and they may still wait until February to come, but now all I think about is, what if they come soon, what am I going to do? But I know everything will be ok and I just need to relax and not stress about it.

Besides, who can really be prepared for 3 kids under 16 months? Oh boy, what an exciting, exhausting, wonderful experience the next few years will be. Wish us luck :)

Baby bump

Hopefully you're not too sick of the bump pictures. It's just nice to put them here because it's fun for me to look back on them later on down the road. (There is a 1 week difference in the pictures, I have been slacking lately)

       24 1/2 weeks with Dane                          25 1/2 weeks with the girls

 At my last appt. (which was about 2 weeks ago), I was 24 weeks, but measuring 28 weeks if it were a singleton pregnancy. So, that's pretty normal to measure about 4 weeks ahead with twins. Now that I'm almost 26 weeks, who knows what I'm measuring, but now my appts are every 2 weeks, so I'll find out Monday at my next one how big I really am. I also took the gestational diabetes test at my last appt. and got the thumbs up for no diabetes, woohoo! It's more common with multiples so I was nervous this time around. And for the record, I think the sugar drinks taste good, haha. It's pretty much just like watered down orange soda and I love orange soda.

Everything else is going smoothly so far with this pregnancy and I couldn't be more happy. Last pregnancy, it was around 29 weeks that I went into the hospital for contractions that were 2-3 minutes apart. I ended up being able to leave the hospital the same day, but had contractions from then until the end. I also started having extremely bad back pain that also landed me in the hospital and a chiropractor. I'm crossing my fingers that none of that happens this time.

I have a little time this weekend between the holidays and home renovations, that I will try and post a little about Halloween and Thanksgiving, which I really need to do. And maybe throw in a few of the pictures of whats' going on with the construction in our house. But no promises :)

And a picture of Dane, because he's just so cute and because I can:

21 1/2 weeks

With things being so busy lately, I totally spaced taking a 20 week picture to compare with my previous pregnancy. So, the best you will get is a 21 1/2 week shot of the twins vs. a 20 week shot with Dane.

         20 weeks with Dane                       21 1/2 weeks with the girls

I actually think I look pretty similar in these pictures. At my last appointment though, which was just before 20 weeks, I was measuring the same as 23 weeks with a singleton, so just slightly bigger. I'm starting to get the aches in my back that I had last time, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't get as bad as last time. There were days when I would just cry from the pain and I had to keep an ice pack on my back constantly. It was awful. So, let's just hope that doesn't happen this time.

I'm also starting to get Braxton Hicks already. They don't hurt at all, but they're definitely starting. My dr. said that was ok because it does usually happen sooner with each pregnancy as well as sooner with multiples, but just to take it easy. I know what contractions feel like (I got them early with Dane too) so I'll just keep an eye out for those. I'm really sad too because Josh and I had planned to go to Arizona for Thanksgiving to visit family and it may have been our last trip until the babies came. I asked my dr. what she thought and she said it's up in the air and she would tell me at my next appt. whether or not it would be safe to fly. Well, my next appt. would be like 1 1/2 weeks before we would leave, so I didn't want to buy a plane ticket, just to be told that we couldn't go. So, we decided to stay here for Thanksgiving and spend it as a family. I am excited about that though just because we have never spent Thanksgiving with just us before. We are always out of town or with other family members (which is wonderful as well). But hopefully we will have our new kitchen done by then and I can cook a real turkey dinner for the first time!

We still aren't any closer to choosing names at all for these girls. Before we had Dane, I had way more girl names than boy names. Then after Dane came, we had a handful of boy names that we still really liked and thought we could use if these were boys. Well, now I feel like we're starting from square one :) It's fun and we still have plenty of time to think about it, but choosing 2 names is way harder than just 1! I thought it would be nice, but we can't even come up with enough names that we actually love. But we will do what we did last time and come to the hospital with a few names in mind and wait to see their faces before we decide.

I can't believe we're more than half way done. It's so crazy to think about. If we have these babies at the average 36 week delivery time for twins, then we only have about 3 months left. What the heck, I am so not ready this time around :) I feel like there is still so much to be done before they get here, so let's hope and pray for their safety and my sanity, that they stay in there as long as possible.

Dane is 1!

Dane turned 1 a few weeks ago and we were in New York, so I am just getting around to blogging about it. We had such a fun trip and were so happy we got to see family! And so happy for Zack and Vanessa for tying the knot! (Pictures above are from the wedding)

Dane is such a big boy now. I seriously can't consider him a baby anymore because he seems so grown up. He does and says so many funny things that I can just see his personality coming out so much. It's adorable and my favorite age so far!

We got him a cake with a car on it (since that is one of his favorite things) and celebrated with family, balloons and presents! We were going to do a little party for him here when we got back, but with everything going on (moving, trip, house renovations, etc) we don't feel ready to really have anyone over for a party. But he got to party in NY, so that was plenty.

Here are some pictures:

He did not want that hat on (and looks half asleep)

Blowing kisses, with Aunt Hally

When everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to him he got SO excited and started smiling from ear to ear. It was SO cute....About to blow out the candle. 

He got frosting on his hand and was NOT having it. He's never been a neat, clean boy, so this was a surprise. I thought for sure he'd dig in and get crazy messy. Not the case at all. 

Trying to force him to get messy, lol

But he preferred a fork. (With cousin Parker)

Present opening time

More blowing kisses

His other favorite thing... balloons. He loved those things.

It's crazy how fast he is now learning things. You can teach him something that morning and he'll be doing it later that day. He's seriously such a little smartie pants. I mentioned this on facebook, but at his 1 year appointment, his pediatrician told us that Dane was one of the smartest 1 year olds he's seen. He said usually around 1, they hope to have the baby saying around 3-4 words and Dane has a vocabulary over 20-25. If we ask him to say or do something he tries to repeat us.

Here are some other things he's doing at 1:

- If you ask him how old he is, he tries to say "one" and puts up 1 finger

- Again, he has a huge vocabulary. Some of his favorites are, "no, no" while shaking his finger. Especially while doing something he shouldn't like touching plug outlets. (We have covers in them), but he will walk over to them, shaking his finger, saying "no, no" while he tries to touch them. He just doesn't get the "no" concept yet.

- Ways bye and says "bye"

- He follows instructions really well. If I ask him to get me a diaper, he will. If I ask him to give something to daddy, he does. If he has something he shouldn't have, I ask him to give it to me and he will. As of now, he's a great listener.

- Will give us kisses all the time. He's full of love. He blows kisses, gives kisses and hugs, etc. It's so sweet, I love it.

- Will do the motions to songs like, "Itsy Bitsy Spider" "If you're happy and you know it" "Wheels on the Bus" etc.

- Can point out, eyes, nose and mouth

- When you ask him where something is, he holds out his hands and shrugs like saying, "I don't know"

- Can now climb stairs, but not go down them very well... so we still need to be very watchful.

- Love his shoes and socks and says, "Sh" for both. 

- Walks so well and sometimes tries to run. When he does that though, he gets a little caught up and can't keep his balance as well. But I'm chasing him around everywhere and I had my first, "OMG, where is Dane?!?!" moments. Very scary, but he was just around the corner on the other aisle.

- Still loves to dance

- LOVES books, cars, ballons, balls, dogs and slides

- Favorite foods - Bananas (which he calls nanas), apples, applesauce, yogurt. We give him everything we eat. There isn't much he hasn't tried. 

- Has 6 teeth, with a 7th that just popped through a few days ago

- Can unlock the iPhone (he pushes the home button and swipes his finger to unlock - yikes)

- Sleeps almost 12 hours a night (straight) and 2 naps during the day

- Is totally ticklish and will laugh so hard when you tickle him

- Loves to put caps and lids on and off of things

- We don't watch much tv, but to get him to sit still for a diaper change (which is such a challenge) he loves Yo Gabba Gabba. We never got that channel before so he never watched it, but he loves it now.

- Loves to carry heavy things over to me (i.e., boxes, bags of diapers, the diaper bag, etc.)

He is so cute and does so many things and I love that we can interact and play together. He's such a big, fun, and lovable 1 year old and we're so lucky to have him. I can't believe he's going to be a big brother in just a few months. 

And a few pictures from the wedding: