21.5 weeks...

and nothing really exciting to report unfortunately! Of course that's a good thing :) My appointment last Wednesday went well, blood pressure was fine, weight gain has improved, and both babies looked good on the quick ultrasound. Couldn't really ask for more!!

Some friends from church had their baby a little over a week ago. She was born early and has been in the NICU, hopefully she'll be released this week. What an awesome thing to be thankful for this Thanksgiving huh? Here's a pic of a Bib I made her over the weekend. I hand-embroidered the little details on the cat's face :) It was my first try... came out a little crooked, but hopefully no one will notice. I also made a onesie and some booties to match.

In other news, M&D are going to be coming down around Dec. 11th!! YAY!! I can't wait to hang out with them and show them around our town. They might choose to do a 3d ultrasound while they are here, so that would be exciting!

20 weeks!!

We made it!! The lovely half-way mark! Here's a pic of my ever-expanding waistline:

And just so we can compare... here is one from right after our first ultrasound confirming we had twins (around 6.5 weeks or so)

Quite the difference huh? I'm excited, but a little nervous to see just how much this belly can expand over the next 20 weeks to come!!

Update and Ramblings...

Well, M & D got some wonderful news last Friday... they have one girl and one boy on the way! Yes, their shopping will be a little tougher since they can't just double up on every outfit, but I think the blessing of a boy and a girl is worth the extra work! Needless to say they are over the moon with excitement. As far as other pregnancy news go, everything is pretty uneventful! I've really begun to notice my belly the last few days, it's starting to get in the way of my keyboard, and anyone who looks at me KNOWS I'm pregnant... there's no "I wonder if I should ask her" moment anymore. I'm enjoying having a baby belly, and of course I love maternity pants!! I wish they made cute non-maternity clothes with such comfortable waistbands! The babies are doing wonderful too. At the ultrasound they looked perfectly healthy and were growing right on target, if not a little on the big side. My weight gain isn't as high as some books say it should be, but my doctor is happy, and says as long as I'm staying active, and not losing weight that he's not worried! So we keep chuggin' along.....

To switch topics, I'm very frustrated with the election this year. I can honestly say I don't agree with either McCain or Obama on some key issues for me... therefore I will be voting for someone else... I know that they don't really have a chance at winning the presidency, but at least I would not be contributing my vote to someone I know I won't be happy with. Then the whole Prop 8 thing. Will a supporter of "Yes on Prop 8" please SHOW me where it says gay marriage will be taught in schools?? Also while you're at it, please tell me why you "as a Christian" (I know it's not true of every prop 8 supporter, but churches seem to be scaring their members into voting Yes) have the right to judge someone else because of their beliefs?? Did Jesus judge anyone?? No, I didn't think so either. First off let me say that I am a Christian, and I believe I'm a "good" one at that. My family goes to church every week, I volunteer in the children's ministry, we tithe, we attend our small group studies, and I do my best to treat EVERYONE with respect. No, I did not grow up in any church, yes I did have a child out of "wedlock" etc etc etc. I am NOT claiming to be perfect, but at the same time, as a Christian, I know that it is my duty to raise my children in God's word, and to teach them to have good morals, and how to be TOLERANT of others who may not have the same beliefs, or follow the same "guidelines" we do.
My mother is in a beautiful homosexual relationship and has been for about 8 years. Do I think it's "right"?... no, I do not. Do I respect her? YES! Do I think she should have every right that I do? YES! And we have taught our kids that even though our Bible and our God says their relationship is "wrong", that still DOES NOT give us the right to judge them, or treat them with any less respect. The Bible gives everyone the right to make their own choices... good or bad... Who am I to stand in the way of that?
On another note... a particular VP candidate has a stance on teaching abstinence in schools that I do not agree with at all. Obviously it's successful... I mean look at her daughter! ha! (Bristol will be my Halloween costume by the way... I will be wearing an "Abstinence works" shirt, a name tag that says "Hi my Name is Bristol" and carrying a hockey stick and a stuffed Moose.) Before you flame me... I think abstinence until marriage is a WONDERFUL thing. I will encourage my daughter to remain abstinent until marriage, but it is also my job to make sure she knows how to have safe-sex if she chooses to do so before marriage. I think teaching safe-sex is vital in bringing teenage pregnancy rates down. No one can stop teens from doing it. It ultimately is their choice... so why not give them access to the information they need to make an educated decision for themselves? I am one who chose to have pre-marital sex, and I do not regret it. You can also bet that my mom made sure that I knew I could ask her for any sort of birth control at any time, and you can bet that I did ask her to buy me more condoms when my boyfriend and I ran out... I had paid attention in my sex-ed classes and I knew that STD's or Teenage Pregnancy was not something I wanted to deal with because I had been EDUCATED on the topic. Lucky for me it was taught in my school, and my mom was willing to answer any other questions I had. The problem comes when parents choose not to talk to their kids about things like safe-sex, or even drugs for that matter. Sheltering our children from the "real-world" will not prepare them to live life in it!

Ok... Off my soap-box and back to work...

Yes I'm a slacker...

It's true, there's no denying it... I am a horrible slacker when it comes to keeping this updated! So here's some quick updates:

- Currently 16 weeks 4 days along, and feeling pretty good! Weight gain isn't as much as we'd like it to be, but my OB isn't concerned at this point, so I'm still eating as much as I can to put the weight on!

-The "BIG" ultrasound is this Friday! WOO HOO!! Very exciting

-I got a 17 month old Colt this weekend! His name is Duke, and he's a grulla pain/QH cross. He's already had some ground work done, and is halter broke. He leads well, ties ok, bathes, and picks up his feet really well. It's so nice having a horse that is a "normal" size for once! The trip to pick him up was a little chaotic dealing with bad trailer lights, an old straight-load trailer, and a one-lane road for most of the way home... people don't like driving 55 mph behind a horse-trailer, and for some reason they tailgate, honk, and as they pass they'll even give you a dirty look... Uh, sorry for obeying the LAW!! They've obviously never pulled a trailer with live cargo before. We spent most of the weekend trying to get him adjusted to "ranch" life as he's never been around cows, chickens, barbed wire fencing, or even just out to pasture. He feels much more comfortable in the little calf-corral, but I can tell he's lonely and wants to be with the other horses too. I'm sure he'll get more comfortable onces he gets used to all the noises, and other animals... then being out in the pasture won't seem so daunting!

-S brought a kitten home from work last night. Another C.O. found 3 kittens in the prison trash compactor, and saved them! My husband is not normally a softy when it comes to saving animals, so imagine my surprise when he shows up with the cuddliest little grey (gray?) kitten! He even stopped on his way home to get some wet cat food, a toy, and a collar :) How cute is that?? He said the kitten wouldn't stop crying when he went to get out of the truck, so he slipped it inside the chest of his jumpsuit and took it inside the store with him!! Now I'm asking myself "who is this man and where is my husband?!"... The whole thing was completely unlike him, but I'm not complaining :) My dog loves it already, but my old grumpy cat could do without... so we'll see how it goes!

-Kids are both doing good in school. R is sounding out lots of words now, and she LOVES rhyming. P is mostly doing better with homework, but still forgets it some days. We've just decided to take away soccer practice on the days he doesn't finish his homework, or forgets to bring it home. We do it without rubbing it in, because I think he likes the negative attention... so this way he's still losing priveleges, but at the same time we aren't giving too much attention to any bad/less-than-ideal behavior.

Well that's about it! I'm off to eat lunch :)

14 Weeks!

WOOO HOOO!! 1st trimester is over, and we're on to the boring (well mostly) trimester. Other than trying to find out the sexes, I sincerely pray that the second tri is very uneventful! My nausea is almost completely gone now, but I still deal with some pretty strong food aversions that can be frustrating... especially when trying to pack something to take for lunch! As far as the fatigue goes... I'm starting to think that it will never let up! My body did not want to wake up this morning!! I am ALWAYS early for work (gotta be to get decent parking around here) and today I barely made it in on time. I think I got dressed, ate, packed lunch, and was out the door in less than 20 minutes! Anyways, we had our first regular OB appointment, and everything looked good. It was so nice to see my regular OB again too :) Our big gender ultrasound is scheduled for later this month (at 17 weeks) and M&D will come out for that one! Hopefully their little babies cooperate and aren't shy!! That evening we're planning a family BBQ at my house so M&D can meet some of our close family and friends. It should be an awesome weekend! The next 3 weeks just aren't going to go by fast enough....

12 weeks...

Wow!! I'm slacking on blogging!! I blame it on the CONSTANT fatigue :) Luckily there isn't really much to update on really... things are going nice and smooth! The queasiness is letting up, but the fatigue is getting worse. I'm hoping things will pick up again in the second trimester before I get sluggish again in the third. My house is looking pretty bad!! We had our NT scan on Tuesday, and it was really neat to get to see the babies looking so much like babies now. Baby "A" was a stinker, and at first refused to get in the proper position to get the measurement. Then once it did, it started kicking Baby "B" in the back! Baby "B" would wave it's arms and stretch out it's legs every time like it was startled by the kick. The scan went good overall, and the babies look happy and healthy! "A" had a heart rate of 160, "B" had a heart rate of 163. Next week is our first OB appointment, and it should be a pretty quick one just to ask a few questions and for him to look at my records. I'm sort of hoping for an ultrasound again, but I'm not going to get my hopes up since I've had so many already! I just love seeing those little babies moving around in there :)

As for stuff at home, we have figured out what part of P's school problems are! (yay!) His Mom is pregnant! Of course we realize that it's going to be a big adjustment for him being the only child at his mom's house, and he is a VERY big "mama's boy". Now just comes the hard part of deciding how much to let slide... we can't let him think it's ok to slack on school work, but at the same time we have to be a little understanding that a big "life change" like this WILL have a big affect on him. So the fun begins...

25% down....

YAY! 10 weeks down, around 30 to go! Of course with two it'll most likely be less than 30, but I'm going to go as long as possible! Weight gain is up almost 2 lbs. now :) I don't know how I haven't gained more with how much I've been eating! I really haven't thrown up that much at all either. Look at my belly!! (excuse the weird look on my face... concentrating on holding the camera still!) I can't hide it anymore. Of course not too many people have asked me if I'm pregnant, I usually get women at church who say something like "So... how are you feeling?" You can tell they want to ask if I'm pregnant, but of course are afraid of offending me if I'm not :) Today I'll be scheduling our Nuchal Translucency ultrasound at a really great hospital here. I'm excited to get so many ultrasounds! I'm hoping with twins that my OB will do a lot more than the 2-3 that I got with R... and we got more than normal with her because they thought we had a problem with low fluid. Also more BIG news! I SWEAR I felt the first little flutters of movement yesterday. If I held really still at my desk and stared at my belly I could even SEE them! Some felt like muscle twitches at first (can your uterus twitch??) but then I felt the distinct "popping" I remember feeling with R! The best way I can describe it is that it feels like a popcorn kernel popping open while under a pillow... weird, I know... but seriously that's the only way I can think of describing it. I'm going to try to catch it on video for M&D. I don't know if I just got lucky and one of the babies was close to the front of my uterus (which is larger than a grapefruit now, babies are about the size of golf balls, in case you were wondering!) and it was easier to feel, or if one was just really active... either way I know no one believes me that I really felt it, but I KNOW I did :)

R LOVES LOVES LOVES preschool! She just acts like it's not even a big deal... she just takes it in stride! I forgot to download the pics of her on her first day, but I will try to tomorrow. P's back to school night went ok. The teacher gave us a better understanding about what to expect as far as homework goes... which is nice, but at the same time we shouldn't need to check on a 9 year old... if he says his homework is done, he's the one responsible for making sure it is.. not us! As far as the talking in class goes, Mr. L said P is not his worst student (doesn't make me feel any better), and that P just needs to learn to stop procrastinating... since he has until the end of the week to turn in late work he thinks he can talk in class during work time and then do the homework later... Mr. L had no advice on how to teach him that though... so basically we aren't any better off. I want to be completely hard on him (ie: take him out of school for a week and let me home school him, no sports, no fun, lots of chores), but S doesn't... it's so hard not to just throw my hands up in defeat.... my 3 yr old knows not to talk in class!! Why can't a 9 yr old do that??? UGH!! Ok...done with my rant now :)

Teaching Kids Club tonight! Last week we had a new little boy (Tommy) who I believe is Autistic, but I don't think the parents have had him officially tested. It was challenging, but even more rewarding when I could tell he enjoyed (and was focusing on) the crafts we did. During song and story time I pretty much spent the whole time trying to physically stop him from pushing or pinching other kids. Luckily the older kids are used to being pushed a little, so it didn't phase them too much, but I still can't let him just run around doing that... Off to go search the Internet on tips for helping him! Hopefully tonight will be a little easier.