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