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:

Happy Birthday!

To our little baby Dane

Happy Birthday!

We are in NY right now for our brother's wedding (yay!), but we will do a small celebration for Dane here for his 1 year birthday!!

He has been blessing our lives for 1 year now! What an amazing year it has been. 2 years ago, I would have never thought we would be where we are now. A beautiful little boy and 2 sweet girls on the way. Heavenly Father really knows what's going on, even if we don't.

Dane is honestly the cutest, most lovable little guy ever. In the mornings, daddy gets him out of his crib and brings him to bed with us. He lays down, rolls into me and spoons with me for a little while. I love my morning snuggles with him. He's the smartest and quickest learning 1 year old I know too. He does so many cute things and has this personality, that I didn't know a 1 year old could have. We ask him how old he is and he tries to say "1"! It's so funny.

When we get back from our trip, I will post more about all of the fun things he does and says, but for now, just know that my heart is full with love for this little guy and I honestly couldn't be happier. It's definitely hard, being a mom isn't easy, but boy is it worth every second.

I love you my sweet Dane! Happy birthday!

We are having...

I've sure everyone already knows... but for those of you without facebook, we are having....

TWO GIRLS

We were totally shocked, but EXTREMELY excited! Two little sisters that can be best friends and a sweet older brother to look after them. From the beginning we thought we would have more boys, then our ultrasound tech at 15 weeks thought one of them looked like a girl, so then we were thinking 1 of each. But to our surprise, there are too little daughters that I get to take to get mani/pedis, talk boy talk, get them ready for dates, dress them in the cutest dresses, and that daddy gets to spoil and love those sweet daughters of his. 

I can't say enough what a blessing this is for us. We can't wait for the journey ahead! And for a few details, the babies measured exactly on target and are looking as beautiful as ever. When we get back from NY I'll have to scan some of the pictures they took because they are so cute. Especially this one, where you can see all 4 of their feet right next to each other. I love it. Also, the dr. said since they are the same sex, they can still be identical depending on when the egg split. So, there is a 25-30% chance of them being identical. I think that would be totally fun, but of course we don't care if they look the same or not, we're just happen we have 2 new blessings to welcome into our home. 

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!!!