24 Weeks

23 Weeks

 23 weeks

I weighed myself today and couldn't believe that I'm only 5 pounds less than what I weighed when I delivered Braysen at 39 weeks. Crazy! I still haven't gained as much as I should have gained by 23 weeks with twins, but my doctors are happy with my weight gain and are happy with the girls' weight gain, so everything is a-ok! Pregnancy symptoms are still the same as they have been. I've been trying my best to stay off my feet as much as possible, but it's definitely not easy with a 2 and a half year old!

I forgot to mention last week that I cut my hair. As if you couldn't tell, right? Not really a fan I having short hair right now. I really miss my long hair. But trying to blow dry and style my hair while sitting on a stool and trying to keep a 2 year old occupied and under control was just becoming too difficult. It was taking too long to dry so I just had Val chop it off for me. It's just hair. It will grow back. And it's not the most drastic or shortest I've ever cut it.

 My cousin Shay just got home from basic training (and had his 21st birthday on Friday) so we went to TAPS to celebrate.  Braysen still loves the balloon man there. Here he is with his Grinch balloon.

 I forgot to post his Santa picture. We went earlier this month. I like to go early and during the week because I hate having to wait in line. So does he. He has started this new squinty smile. He had squinted eyes in every picture they took, so we just had to pick one and go with it.

 And I never posted pictures of his big big boy bed. Please don't mind the crib parts under the bed. We are waiting to get all the baby stuff out of his closet and into the nursery before we can put his old crib parts in there. He has done really well in it and so far has not fallen out. We have had a few close calls where I've gotten up at midnight to pick him up and move him closer to the wall because he was teetering on the edge of the bed, but so far, he has stayed near the wall almost every night.

22 Weeks

22 weeks and we finally have some names for these babies!

Naming Braysen was a nightmare. Long story short, Tony is super picky about names and I was an elementary teacher, so almost every name that came up reminded me of a student. That is how we ended up with such a different name for him.

Brynlee Jade

 We actually had her name picked out LONG ago. This was the only name we could agree on for Braysen if he would have been a girl, so we decided we would use it if we ever had a girl (honestly thinking we would never have a girl).  I have since come across another little girl named Brynlee (with a different spelling), which was heartbreaking, but we decided to go with it anyway.

Berlyn Reese

It was never our intention to have all our kids' names start with the same letter, but somehow it happened. Tony has been rooting for this name from the get go. It was not at the top of my list but we have to compromise somewhere, right? This name was really important to him because his family is from Germany, so he was really pushing for the name, but spelled "Berlin". I compromised on the name, he compromised on the spelling. Works, right?

I saw the doctor on Friday and both babies are still doing fabulous.  They are both about a pound each (one is 16 oz and one is 15). They are growing evenly and are measuring just right, which is great news for mono-di twins! They have become a lot more active in the past week. It's so strange to have 2 of them in there, because at any point during the day, at least one of them is moving.

 

Nursery Progress

The nursery is Painted! There are still a few places on the baseboards and closet that need to be hit with a Magic Eraser, but I'll do that during nap time today. UPS dropped the cribs off about an hour ago, you may be able to see the boxes in the hallway. I've been threatened with my life if I get caught assembling them, so out in the hallway they will stay until Tony gets home. :)


Braysen has been playing all morning with the toys he got over the weekend for the Schuler's Christmas.

I thought he had an insane amount of monster trucks before. Now the number he has is just downright ridiculous. This isn't even all of them

21 Weeks

 Please excuse my attire. We're leaving for Havasu today for Tony's family's Christmas and we have a long drive ahead of us. I'm trying to be comfortable and am not about to get dressed just to take my weekly picture. You may also notice a little hand in the picture. :) Somebody once again did not want me to have my picture taken.

The chalk board for this week sums up exactly how I've been feeling. For those of you that have called, texted, or even emailed me in the last few weeks (a huge THANK YOU to all that have) it's been really difficult for me to lie so I don't. I'm not doing that great at all, and as I've said before, my body is having a difficult time with this pregnancy. It's hard for me to complain, though, because the girls are doing SO WELL. Their growth is fabulous, their fluids look great, and my doc keeps telling me that my cervix looks, and I quote, "beautiful" (ha, only a perinatalogist would use that word to describe a cervix). So while my body is failing me, the girls are perfect so far, which is what's most important.

  I have been really worried (what else is new) about the nursery. We had a lot of work to do to turn our guest bedroom into a nursery.  You may remember back to this post where I explained that this room and closet had basically been turned into storage for everybody in our home.  It has now been cleared out and Tony is almost finished painting. The babies' cribs are set to be delivered on Monday, so I'm hoping their room will be painted and ready!

Our to-do list for the last few weeks has looked like this:

• Garage cleaned out - still in progress
• Garage sale - never happened
• My car back in the garage - big fat FAIL!
  
• Nursery painted - almost done!
  
• Cribs ordered
• Christmas decorations
• Braysen's big boy bed
• Changing table refinished  - still in progress
  

I think my biggest frustration is that there are many things on this list that I cannot do or am not allowed to do.

We needed Braysen's mattress for one of the baby cribs, so we took the toddler rail off of his bed and extended it to it's full size. So, yes, my little guy is in a full size queen bed now. :( But he LOVES it!

Well, it's time for us to leave for Havasu, I'll post pics later!

Dingy

Dingy has been very busy since he first arrived. Here are some of his shenanigans:

Marshmallow Snowman

Brought a gingerbread house, which we still haven't done yet. It's been a busy week

Turned the milk green (Daddy was not a fan of this one)

Hanging out in the play room

A little dirtbike riding

Ziplining elf. Braysen LOVED this one!

Braysen was not happy that Dingy was playing with his fire truck

Just a little fishing

20 Weeks

 

20 weeks today! I had another appointment with the perinatologist yesterday. He checked the babies' growth and said everything looked good. Just like at the last appointment, he was looking for twin-to-twin transfusion. After the ultrasound, he told me that this appointment was a big deal (he didn't tell me in advance, I'm sure, because he knew I would have been a stress case). He said this was the big appointment where they most often catch twin-to-twin transfusion. After this point, there is only a 15% chance that the babes will develop it. One baby was 11 oz and the other was 12 oz, so they are both measuring on track and evenly. That's 23 oz of baby in there! That would be like a 27 week singleton pregnancy, where a baby usually weighs 1.5-2 pounds. That's just baby though, not accounting for all the extra fluid, additional amniotic sac, and additional blood volume with twins. Whew, no wonder I'm exhausted by the end of each day!

Christmas Tree Drama

As I've said before, my body is not really dealing very well with this pregnancy. It has been sure to let me know when I've done too much in one day. I am no longer able to attend two events in one day because by the end of the day I am literally laid out on the couch. This is not me at all I hate saying, "No" and try to attend everything. If in the next few months I have to cancel on your or decline an invitation to do something because I already have too much going on that day, I'm sorry!

Yesterday was a case in point. After running some errands in the morning and doing some housework I was pretty tired. Later in the day we decided to put our tree up. Tony helped me piece it all together but then had to leave for work. Braysen and got all the lights working and then went to go get our box of ornaments.  By the time we got back, two strands of lights had stopped working. I messed with it for a little bit but then was in so much pain that I just turned off all the lights on the tree and had to lay down.  Braysen was pretty upset that we couldn't decorate the tree last night, but mommy was done for the day.

The lights still aren't fixed. Tony's schedule for Mon-Wed this week is basically returning to work 8 hours after he gets off, so we'll have to wait until Thursday or Friday to let him mess with the lights.

But when we woke up this morning, Dingy had started decorating the tree for us!

My mom came over after work to help us finish what Dingy started. 

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas!

I've been trying to begin with our Christmas decorations all week, but it seems like every day something has happened to stop us. I decided that this year I'm not going to spend an entire day doing everything. I just don't have the energy for it this year. We have just been doing a little bit each day.

Yesterday we put up the garland and our stockings.

"What's dat?" Braysen asked me after I got all the stockings hung. "I wanna wear it!"

I took his stocking down and explained what it was for. He seemed to understand and even told me. "For Santa to put my bat monster truck?" Every time he asks for that monster truck I tell him that he should tell Santa that's what he wants for Christmas. He seems like he gets it this year. He is going to be so much fun this year at Christmas!

North Pole Breakfast

I wanted to do Elf on a Shelf last year with Braysen, but I didn't want to cough up the money for that pricey little elf thought he was too young for it. I was going to wait until after Christmas and pick one up at Target's after-Christmas sale, but we never made it out of the house that day. My mom did, so she picked up one of the very few elves they had left so we could have it for this year.

Our elf came to visit us the day after Thanksgiving. I really wanted to do a North Pole breakfast to introduce him, but didn't want it to interfere with Thanksgiving so we waited. I saw everybody's pictures on Instagram and got excited and wanted to start right away, but was able to hold out until the end of the week.
 

"It's Christmas up there!!" were the first words out of his mouth.

Opening his present from the elf. He brought antlers, Christmas jammies, a coloring book, and lots of supplies for Christmas crafts.

Snowman Pancakes

Of course he ate all the marshmallows first.

While we were eating breakfast we talked about what we should name our elf. When I asked him what he wanted to name the elf, he immediately said, "Dingy!" Huh? Are you sure? About two hours later I asked him again, and his response without hesitation was, "Dingy!" Ok kid, Dingy it is.

19 Weeks

Braysen joined me for the picture this week. He wouldn't let me take it alone. We made his handprint into a turkey for the chalkboard this week, but as you can see, he wouldn't leave that alone either.

Swimming Lessons

I don't have an 18 week picture from last week. It was a crazy week and weekend. Braysen had the flu, then once he recovered, I got the flu. I recovered and a few days went by and then it was Tony's turn. Somewhere in there I had to catch up on housework and a few block orders that didn't go out in time because of my illness. We did, however, find some time in between sicknesses to make it to Braysen's first big boy swimming lesson. He has been in the water with me for every lesson, but his teacher wanted to move him to the next class up. We were pushing him big time to move up anyway because after the babies come it will be next to impossible for me to go and get in the water with him every week.  Aside from that, I wasn't exactly thrilled with getting my pregnant-with-multiple-babies behind into a swimsuit each week.

Either way, Ms. Beverly thought that Braysen was ready for the next class up so she bumped him a little early.  They are technically not supposed to move on to the next class until they are at least 3.  He did so well! In his class there was a 3 and a half year old and a 4 year old. He was willing to do some things that they weren't! He loves his teacher and listens to her very well. I've always been dreading the day that I start him in preschool and have to let somebody else make sure he is behaving, but I do feel better about it after seeing him listen to Ms. Beverly.

 

Some Ultrasound Pictures!

 I've been hesistant to post ultrasound pictures because some people are weirded out by them. Consider this your warning. If you don't want to see them, then don't scroll down!
















Yesterday the perinatologist was checking the babies and their growth and for abnormalities. Both babies are still transverse, as they have been since my first ultrasound. .  Baby A is unbelievably active! At our gender ultrasound at 14 weeks, she was kicking the heck out of her sister! At every ultrasound, Baby B has been much more mild mannered. Baby A has her head on my right side and Baby B's head is towards my left side. I feel most of the movement towards my left side, which just so happens to be where Baby A's feet are. Crazy little girl! Of course he didn't let us out of there without a few souvenirs.

Baby A - It was tough for the doc to get a clear shot of her because she was moving around so much.

Baby B

Baby A's foot - One of the only clear shots he was able to get with her.

Appointment with the Specialist

After our 14 week early gender ultrasound, I was not completely convinced when we were told that the babies are girls. We went this afternoon to see the specialist for the first time. I will see him every two weeks so he can check on the babies. He confirmed that these little babes are girls!

Tony normally can't get off work in time to make it to my appointments, so my mom usually goes with me to keep an eye on Braysen. Today she was in Norco for the day, so the plan was for her to meet me at the doctor. Tony ended up getting off in time to meet us there. Thank goodness he did because Braysen started puking in my backseat about 5 minutes after we left the house. I really didn't want to reschedule my appointment because it's a little tough to get in to see the specialist. After I got Braysen cleaned up in a parking lot, we were on our way. My mom met us in the parking lot and then took him home so he could get some rest.

My little sicky-poo.

 
Tony stayed with my for my appointment. I usually don't mind going to the doctor by myself, but was glad he was at this appointment because it was a little scary. The doctor measured all the babies' body parts and looked for defects, which my previous doctor never did when I was pregnant with Braysen.

I loved the specialist. He eased my mind about a lot of things I've been worrying about. The amount of weight that he wants me to gain corresponds to what my OB told me.  He also advised me to ditch my high heels, stay off my feet, and keep them elevated as much as possible because of the issues I've been having with the veins in my legs. Not thrilled about that, but what can you do? He said everything looked good and he was very happy with what he saw,  but something tells me that things can change rather quickly if he wants to see me to check on the girls every two weeks.

Now tomorrow I will be on the hunt for some compression stockings that I will have to wear every day and some whey protein powder that he wants be to add to my daily smoothies because he wants to make sure I'm getting enough protein.

I will post some of the ultrasound pics tomorrow!

Beginnings of a Nursery

Starting on the nursery is a huge undertaking. Before I can give any information about the nursery, I need to give a little background on our garage.

Yes, our garage. Moving into this house was chaotic, to say the least. The day we were set to move was the day I ended up having Braysen. Braysen and I stayed at my parents' for a while Tony, family, and friends moved the furniture and boxes into the new house.  All the garage items and boxes were put in the garage, and Tony still has yet to find the time to organize and put everything away. The garage is probably the only place I stay away from when it comes to organizing because I don't even know what half of the tools are.

So our garage is a complete disaster. And that's putting it nicely. I actually snapped some photos of it, but then realized that Tony would probably be mortified if I posted the pictures, so I decided to save them for later, just in case I need them in the future for blackmail. ;)

Because of that, we've been storing all of our holiday decor in the closet of the guest bedroom, which is what will become the nursery. Also in that closet are the tubs of Braysen's baby clothing and toys, along with all of my tubs of teaching materials that I had to bring home last year  when I left my classroom. Because I have taught so many different grade levels, I have a lot of teaching stuff. So much so that it won't all fit in the closet and is also o n the floor I the guest bedroom.

My dad and his friend Doug came by today to pick up all of our guest bedroom furniture. The furniture is going back where it was moved from, my old bedroom at my parents'.

We decided we are going to have a garage sale to help pay for nursery furniture. So now that I have more space in the room to move about I started organizing which of Braysen's baby clothes I want to keep and which we need to get rid of. We are just out of storage space to be keeping things we no longer need. Tony is also working on getting the garage organized and cleaned out so we have more storage space out there and so hopefully we can get my car back in the garage. He has also agreed to do away with tools that he doesn't use in our garage sale, so wish me luck with that!

Here is what the room looks like now. I know it looks like a mess, but I swear I know what I'm doing!

17 Weeks

This week's picture was less than easy to take. I was on my way out the door to a baby shower and it was Braysen's naptime.  He was having a complete meltdown.  I think it was a combination of him knowing I was leaving and the fact that he was tired.  Anyways, it was pretty hard to get a picture without him in it. Tony was only able to get one before Braysen got to me, so that is the picture for this week. I included some pictures with Braysen, just because I thought they were funny.

I've been able to feel the babies move since around 13 weeks. I thought maybe I was crazy to feel them so early, but when my doctor asked me if I've been feeling any movement and I told her yes, she said that she wasn't surprised at all. This past week there has been a significant increase in their movement.  They are so much more different than Braysen! He was more of a "poker" when movement first started. These little girlies are more into wiggling and dancing, at least that's what it feels like.