Caramel Apples

I will first apologize to my friend Jen, because I told her I wanted to make these with her, but I was dying to make them yesterday, so I did it without her. (Don't be mad, lol) But they turned out AMAZING. I love the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory apples and decided to make most of them like the apple pie kind. I did a few others as well, but none were as delicious as the apple pie. It was really easy and really fun and got me excited for fall!

And I will tell you this... they actually tasted better than Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. No more spending $5 for an apple when I can just make it myself. This could get dangerous :)

Recipe:

Caramel Apples

I was able to dip 9 medium size granny smith apples and still had enough caramel left to fill an 8x8 greased pan with some delicious caramel.

Ingredients:

2 C Brown sugar

1 C Corn syrup

1/2 C Butter

1 Can sweetened condensed milk

1 t. vanilla

Directions:

Combine the first 3 ingredients and after the butter is melted stir in the can of milk.

Cook to soft ball (230 degrees with a candy thermometer). Stir constantly.

Stir in the 1 t. vanilla.

Remove from heat. Dip apples into the caramel, then if you aren't using chocolate, roll in nuts, or candy.

I dipped them in caramel, placed them on a greased cookie sheet and let them cool completely. You can put them in the fridge if you want to speed up the process. Once cooled, drizzle with chocolate and cover with toppings.

I melted semi-sweet chocolate chips and some white chocolate chips.

For the apple pie apple, I used melted white chocolate, then sprinkled on a cinnamon and sugar mixture. I used on the other apples, crushed Skor bar for the toffee flavor and M&Ms (which melted down because they were too heavy).

Other suggestions: Sprinkles, crushed Oreos, mim M&Ms, mini chocolate chips, chopped nuts, crushed candy bars.

Also, you can use popsicle sticks or any wooden stick to hold the apples. I just found some sticks in the craft section at Smiths. Worked beautifully.

Week 16

We've made it to week 16 and I'm feeling back to normal. I wasn't totally sick before, but mainly exhausted. Now, I'm feeling really good. I saw the babies last week and they were wiggling around and so cute. One was facing the camera and one had it's back to us. Only 2 more weeks until we get to know what we've got!

On a couple of side notes... we bought a house that we close on this week (hurray!) and Dane is a walking machine. He was walking before, but he was always nervous to go on the hardwood. Now he just walks around everywhere and hardly even wants us to hold his hand anymore. It's so cute to hear the little pitter patter of his feet coming around the corner. He just follows us around all over the house.

Now for the bump pics.

16 Weeks with Dane

16 Weeks with Twins

Gender Guesses

We find out what we're having on October 3 and if you have any desire to guess, there is a poll on the right of the blog.

I'll tell you what we know so you can have a little bit more of an educated guess... we are still unsure if they are fraternal or identical. The doctor's are guessing fraternal, but that could mean any combination of gender. I'm telling you this because obviously if they were identical, then boy/girl wouldn't be an option, but we just don't know! Leave a comment with your guess too so I know who thinks what.

I'm dying to find out, but we only have 2 1/2 weeks left! Just in time for our trip to NYC so we can share the news with family. Yay!

11 Month Update

I love this age. Everyday Dane just gets more and more cute and fun. He is really growing and learning so much. I can't believe how much he changes from day to day. Here are a few of the new things.

- He's walking!! I would definitely say he's walking now. He will walk on his own all over the carpet, but step onto the hardwood floor and if he doesn't have your hand, he's not going anywhere. He will walk everywhere holding our hands, but if I let him go on his own on the carpet he will walk wherever he needs to go. He's taken 20 steps in a row on his own, so I would definitely consider him walking now. And again, he never crawled, lol.

- Saying more words! He says, "Ka" for car and makes a noise for the car (it sounds like gargling). He points at them outside and his toy cars and just LOVES cars. He says, "Ch" for "lunch." He says, "Duh" for duck. He says, "Pah" for pig. Says "tar" for guitar. My favorite is when we say prayers and say "Amen" he says (all by himself without us asking) "men!" So adorable. Those are the new ones that I can think of at the moment. And it's funny because he's getting good at signing now, but he can say the words, so it's kind of funny. He will sign "ball" and say "ball" at the same time.

- He finally started standing up in his crib. He's been able to pull himself to standing for awhile, but just recently realized he can do this in his crib now.

- He learned how to drink from a straw. Hurray! It's makes it easier than trying to get him to drink from a cup and then he grabs it and spills it on himself :) It's also the cutest thing ever to see him drinking from a straw.

- He's generally a VERY happy baby. You can get him to smile so easily and he loves to wave at everyone. He gets mad when he falls down walking and can't get back up. Since he can't crawl to somewhere to stand up, I need to help him sometimes.

- He is in this biting stage where he thinks it's funny to bite you. Mainly just me though, so don't be worried. He will come over, grab my leg and just go at it. And it doesn't feel good when he's got 6 teeth in there.

- Another funny thing he does, he LOVES to have you smell his feet. He will either just stick his foot in your face, or you can say, "Can I smell your feet?" and he will gladly offer them up to you. And once you start, he can do this for a long time.

- Loves the DVD "Baby Signing Time" As soon as he hears the music he just smiles. It never fails. (yet)

I love watching him grow and learn and explore the things around him. He is just such a smart, loving boy and his personality is really blossoming. I am excited to plan a birthday party for him too! We will be in New York for his actual birthday, so we will get to celebrate with family. I'm excited about that. We may do something low key at home so that I can make a cake and not have to bring his presents out to NY, but we'll see. He LOVES balloons and it'll be fun to have those around for him to play with. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful, sweet spirit that I can teach and love and have with me forever.

These are taken from my phone, so not the best quality.

His first sucker

He LOVES to "play" the guitar. He actually strums it.

Eating a pear (one of his favorites, and mine), probably watching Super Why or Signing Time

First little electronic ride at the store

Meeting a mini horse

Wanting me to smell his feet :)

New 13 week belly shot

Well, it's that time again. And I know it's my second pregnancy, so not as exciting for everyone else as my first, but I am still going to post belly pictures for my record and to see the difference between the two pregnancies. I know I'll be showing much more (and faster) than before, since it's my second time being pregnant and since there are two babies instead of one.

I never got morning sickness with Dane, but did have a little with these babies. I would get nauseous if I hadn't eaten much and I did throw up a few times, but I think that's getting better. I think my biggest symptom is exhaustion. I felt ridiculously tired all the time, but that I think is getting better as well. It's a lot harder when you have a toddler to chance around, then the first time, I was just sitting at a desk all day. So things are different this time around, but it's not bad and I'm happy for that.

I've decided to switch doctors as well. Not because I didn't like my other doctor, he was great and delivered Dane. But he doesn't deliver at the hospital with a NICU and I just want to be safe and know that the care is there for the little ones if needed. Hopefully they come when they're ready and don't need the NICU, but you never know with twins. And with Dane I had contractions at 29 weeks and 32 weeks that put me in the hospital and they said they may happen again. So, I just want to be extra careful.

Enough waiting... here are the pics.

Pregnant with Dane at 13 weeks           Pregnant with twins at 13 weeks

Family of 5 coming March 2012

Our two new bundles of joy. We were as shocked as you are. This picture is of them at about 8 1/2 weeks. We are now 12 1/2 weeks and they look like babies instead of blobs. We love these little ones so much. 

You don't need to remind me how our hands will be totally full (with 3 kids under 1 1/2), we KNOW it's going to be tough. But I can't even begin to tell you how blessed we feel and how lucky we are. With Dane it took us 3 1/2 years and what a miracle he was. Doctors told us if we wanted more kids we shouldn't wait to long to try. Well, we were surprised when it didn't take long at all! When we saw the pregnancy test we both were like, "what?!?!? no way did this happen naturally!" We made a dr. appt. and were just expecting to find out that our sweet little baby was healthy. The ultrasound machine was frozen and needed to be restarted and it was taking too long and Josh had to get to work. So, he left. I told him, I'll let you know how the baby looks and send you the ultrasound pic. When the dr. did the ultrasound to see how far along we were, the first words he said was, "ummm.... there are two." I could not even believe it!!

With Dane we had a 50% chance of him being a twin (since we did invitro) and we were blessed with one miracle. We don't have twins in our family and I didn't do any fertility treatments this time and with a 1% chance, we are naturally pregnant with twins! We are due March 4, but with 37 weeks being full term for twins, it looks like they will be coming in February. We also made the gender ultrasound appt. and it's only about 1 month away!! I can't wait to find out what we're having. Also, the dr. is guessing that they're fraternal since they're in separate sacs, but he said that is just a guess. They could still be identical, we just don't know yet. I know everyone says this, but I just want to healthy babies. I am nervous about having 2 girls though. I don't know much about girls and we don't have any girl clothes. So, I'm hoping for at least 1 boy so there are less things to buy :) 

Now it's time for the belly pics. Those will be coming soon, because I'm definitely already showing - yikes. Oh and to make things a little more exciting, the dr. guessed I'd probably gain about 60 pounds. Yup, you read that right, 60. But then again, I did gain 50 with Dane, holy moly.

Josh and I are ecstatic to say the least. We really could not be any happier.

Dane 10 Months

Our sweet boy turned 10 months! (Almost 2 weeks ago, oops). I've just been so crazy busy with life right now that my blog has been put on hold for awhile. But there are so many new things happening, so look for some really exciting posts soon!! (I'll give you a hint - we may be moving to a house!)

Dane is really getting to be such a big boy. I feel like he's starting to be a toddler more than an infant. I don't know when that technically happens (a year maybe?) but he's just acting so big.

Here's what he's been up to lately:

- My favorite milestone - sleeping through the night!! He actually started doing this at exactly 10 months and he's been doing it since. And I mean sleeping almost 12 hours straight. His first night he went from 7:30pm until 7:00am. I honestly didn't think this would happen for a LONG time. He was still waking up 1-2 times a night before this, so I thought he would have to get down to just once per night before nothing, but he was just in a habit. He wasn't actually hungry. So, hurray for us!

- Takes 2 wonderful naps a day. Very unlike what he used to do (30 min. naps). His first nap is almost always 1 1/2 hours and his second nap is anywhere from 1-2 hours.

- Gives open mouth kisses. Today he came to give me a kiss on his own, I didn't even ask for it. It was probably the most tender thing I've ever experienced.

- Shakes his head "no" when he doesn't want something. Sometimes even says, "no!" Not too thrilled about that one :)

- Clicks his tongue with his mouth. I don't know how he learned it, but it's so cute.

- Pulls himself up on everything and wants us to hold his hand and help him walk everywhere, ALL THE TIME. (He's even taking his first steps! The most he has done is 9 steps in a row on his own, but he's almost 10 1/2 months now, so that will be put in his next post)

- Doesn't crawl still

- Has 6 teeth. Top two, bottom four.

- Everything round is a "ball." He points to watermelons in the store, balloons, and actual balls and says "ball" to them all.

- Loves to open and close doors and drawers (especially the refrigerator door).

- Favorite toys - toy cars and balls

- Is such a smiley, happy baby that we adore sooooo much.

"Planking" if you've ever seen pics of people doing it, haha

Some family pics (all of the pics are on facebook)

More to come!!!

9 months and growing!

Here is what's happening at 9 months. Don't have stats yet, dr.'s appt. isn't until Monday.

- I would finally say that his eyes are green! They definitely aren't brown and they definitely aren't blue. But if you click on the picture above, they totally look green.

- Still not crawling, but rolls around to get places and can turn in a circle on his stomach using his arms, but can't move forward or backwards yet. I'm not at all worried and in no rush to baby proof everything.

- Waves, but it's usually a minute or so later. It takes a little bit to process, haha.

- Talking a ton and said (what I would call) his first word! Besides "mama" and "dada" when he sees a ball he says "Ba!" He also says "ba" when we are getting him ready for a bath. And we have a book about bubbles and every time I read it to him he says, "bubba, bubba" over and over. He's going to be a talker! He also says things like, "mom" "dad" "fa fa" "no no" (doesn't know what it means though), etc. Mainly he just knows, what mama, dada, ball, bath and bubbles are. Adorable.

- Loves to stand. Will stand any chance he can get, but it's usually him holding our fingers to stand. He'll walk holding our fingers too, but not great.

- He sings. It's hilarious. He's done this the past two Sundays at church. When we are singing, he will just say, "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" over and over again.

- Has 4 teeth now, top two middle and bottom two middle.

- Only wants his mama. He's in that stage. He'll go to people, but only if I walk away and am not standing there. If I am, he will reach and whine for me. It's cute, but my arms get tired :)

- Gives high fives, so cute!

- Starting to be mainly on 2 naps. Rarely does he need 3, but it still happens on occasion.

Now for some pictures.

We go to the park a lot together

Snuggling with Dad on Father's Day

First 4th of July - We went to Sandy for some festivities, went to the Real Salt Lake game (Dane's first) and then put him to bed and we did fireworks with our friends outside. Low key, but totally fun.

Dane's first climbing experience. And definitely not his last. 

He loves Jen

First trip to the zoo. It was ridiculously hot, so not the best first trip, but I still think he liked it. Here he's pointing to the elephant.