Nellie's babies

Miss Nellie has started using my belly as a headrest (I'm sure it had nothing to do with the peanut butter sandwich sitting on the other side of me :)).  Sometimes the babies kick her and she'll pull back and look at the belly in amazement.  Then she'll lay her head back down and the cycle begins again.  Friends already :)  I'm excited to see how much she'll love them when they get here.

I hit 30 weeks yesterday!  At this point every week-no every day is another milestone for twin pregnancy.  The goal is to keep them cooking.  Every day inside the mother's womb is equal to two days on the outside-development wise.  I had an appointment with the Peri today (high risk OB).  Cervix (surprisingly) looks great., a bit of funneling at the top, but no more than usual.  It was still measuring over 3.5, so thats good.  Lets hope the momentum continues for 8 more weeks!  OK thats getting kind of cocky, but I'd love to make it to full term and get to bring these babies home with me instead of watching them from a NICU window.  

The babies look perfect (of course!) and are both about 3.5lbs already.  I'm carrying around 7lbs of baby, no wonder my body is so sore!  My pelvis and groin feel like they are being pried apart by the jaws of life...pun intended?!?  I'm happy to be sore as long as they stay put and stay healthy for another month or two.  Baby Girl gave us a good scare though.  The Peri was looking at her heart watching her chambers/valves and her heart went into tachycardia (HIGH heart rate) and was over 204.  The Peri told us to give her a minute to settle herself down and after she stopped and rested for a few (terrifying) minutes she was able to regulate back down to a normal heart rate-about 150.  Whew!  He told us that her chambers/valves were all working perfectly, so she was probably just being really active before we got to her.  They always measure Baby A (her brother) first.

They are so sweet :)  We got some good shots of Baby Girl's profile, she has a sweet little button nose and pouty little lips like her daddy.  We can never see Baby Boy because he's always got his head jammed into my pelvis/cervix and he's always facing my spine.  He wants to keep us guessing what he looks like until birth.  We keep trying to guess if the wavy lines we see on the ultrasound images are hair.  M and I both had LOTS of hair as newborns, so if they don't I'll be shocked.  

This is newborn ME.  I think I must be yawning here?  (Mom, can you chime in).  Anyway, take note of all that hair!  We have some newborn pics of M here somewhere and he had a full head of curly beautiful blond hair.  I'm betting on the twins being redheads!  How cute would that be?!?

Have a wonderful week!

A shitty car update and some pics

As you can probably guess, we were handed a big poop sandwich today.  The Jeep is out of commission.  Its a 6 cylinder and one of the cylinders is CRACKED.  Mother f*cker.  I'm sorry, but thats really the only appropriate thing I can think to say right now.  I apologize if I offend.  We owe a couple thousand still on the loan (which isn't bad), so our options are to rebuild the cylinder or that block of the engine-to the tune of $2000...not including labor, have an entirely new engine put in-to the tune of $2500-$4000 or sell it for parts and buy a new coche.  Man this sucks.  Right now, we're probably going to have it towed to get a second opinion on it before we make any big plans.  My dad seems to think that Firestone isn't really equipped to diagnose something so deep in the motor, and they can't repair it anyway, so we're taking it to someone who can.  

We could get a newer used car, but we have two babies coming VERY soon and adding that much to a loan we already have is just not smart.  Sure, we have a good chunk of savings, but these days, you need savings so we're not touching that at this point.  Plus, I'm barely working since I'm on modified bedrest, so we to have a buffer until I go back to work after the babies come.  Sometimes I really just want to crawl into a hole and sleep until someone fixes my problems for me.  M's no use right now either.  He's beyond FURIOUS and theres a lot of b.s. going on at his shop right now so he's getting it piled on too...not to mention that he's completely running our home on his own since I'm essentially bed/couch ridden except for a few hours a day.  God love him.

I realize I'm usually upbeat and pretty cheerful about life.  I can take a hurdle every now and then, but this is testing my sanity.  I'm so over the "short end of the stick".  I have so much good in my life, and I know that, truly I do, but right now I feel like there's a big arrow over our heads that says "shit on these guys they got too happy".  I just goes to show you, you think you have life all figured out and you're HAPPY, content and looking forward to the future, then the rug gets pulled out from under you.  My mom keeps telling me, "it will all work out for the best, it always does."  I hope you're right mom, I really do.  I had a good convo with Momma bear tonight, had a good cry and I'm hoping that bright side of the scenario blinds us pretty soon.  I'm ready for good news :)  

Speaking of happy things :)  Some of you have been asking for updated baby belly pics, well, here ya go!  These were taken tonight at 29w3d.  I'm doing pretty well, big and sore and hoping the rest of pregnancy passes quickly.  As much as I love feeling these two pumpkins kick and move and having this special time with them, I'm ready to meet them (well I'm ready for the next 4 weeks to fly)!  I'm ready to see their daddy and our family/friends meet them!  Not now though babies, you're stuck with me for a minimum of 4 more weeks.  

We've had Nellie (dog) for almost 2 years.  We had two cats prior to her Charlie (the little one who's lighter) and Elvis (the big dark guy).  In these two years the cats have never warmed up to our poor sweet Nellie.  Seriously.  When the cats see her they hiss and bat at her and when she sees them, she chases them like rabbits...its that damn coon hound blood.  Well, lately the cats have had a change of heart.  The change of heart seems to wax and wane, but hey, we'll take what we can get!  Last night (M worked the night shift) all three were in bed with me.  Nellie was in the middle, Elvis next to her and Charlie was on M's pillow.  No hissing, no fighting, NO BLOOD!  This evening I walk to the bathroom and this is what I see.  Frenemies!  Baby steps my friends, baby steps

I hope everyone is warm and cozy on this chilly, snowy evening!  

Crib assembly: Not for the faint of heart

Today its snowing like a beast, so we thought hey, what a great day to clean out the guest room, nursery and assemble the cribs.  Sounds like a decent idea for a Sunday afternoon, right?  I'll start by saying, we had NO idea what we were in for.  None.  They just say "assembly required"...they forget to tell you that you might need IV fluids and a 8 hour nap after you've completed said task.  If you're about to build your baby's crib, drink heavily prior to attempting this task...unless you are the expectant mother (of course).  Liquor up your husbands ladies, trust me, they'll thank you for it.  

From the get go M was dreading this task.  He's about as un-skilled as it gets when it comes to assembling things.  This proved to be no exception.  We got all the pieces out and made sure we had everything, then the fun began!  We quickly realized we were in over our heads.  Between M's impatience, the lack of labeled parts and my big belly not letting me do much, crib #1 was a JOB.  We fumbled through the first several parts and eventually finally got the hang of things.  It took us three hours to assemble this poor bed!  

Here's M working on one of the sections I couldn't reach.  I love this pic because it totally looks like he gave up, I swear he's just finishing up the screws on that side :)

At this point it was do or die.  Crib-2 M&A-0

Crib one COMPLETE!!!

We did it!  Crib one was finally fully assembled!  Now did we move on to crib two or call it good?  Even though we had been through hades and back, we decided to tough it out and move onto crib two.  I mean, if we didn't at least start crib two, who knows when we would have attempted it again. We couldn't give up.  We just wanted it DONE.  Much to our surprise, crib two's assembly went MUCH smoother!  We had crib two together in less than an hour and a half.  Woop woop!  We're now available for hire if anyone you know is assembling a crib anytime soon ;)

Here's M zooming through crib two's construction as Nellie supervises

Would you look at that?!?!  M tightening the screw on crib two.  DONE!!!  Two assembled cribs right down the hall from my bedroom.  OMG.

Charlie couldn't stand that we kept him out all day.  As soon as we let him in, he started exploring.  Apparently cribs are at the top of his "love" list too.  

So we got to check off one of the most difficult parent-to-be tasks, EVER.  As difficult a task as it was, after it was done we laid on the floor, in between our babies cribs and just smiled.  In just a few short months this room will hold our sweet twins.  This room will see lots of sleep deprivation, lots of poopy diapers and most importantly, lots of love and laughter.  Despite the pain in the ass that it was, it was a right of passage you never forget :)  We are hoping to get the changing table and glider in soon...I believe both require assembly.  Oh the joys of parenthood!

Post holiday ramblings

I really have nothing to blog about :)  I clearly gave up on my "31 day blog challenge".  Ooops.  I'm no good at structure and remembering to do things everyday.  I'm much more of a fly by the seat of my pants, listen to my emotions kind of gal.  I'll try my best to squeeze out a stellar post for you.

Christmas was nice.  Besides wishing we were home and it being 60+ degrees, we enjoyed the day.  We ate too much ham and laid around watching Christmas classics all day.  We enjoyed our last Christmas just the two of us.  Hard to believe in just a few months our little family will double in size.  Just crazy!  Good crazy, but crazy nonetheless.

Little Miss Nellie was quite the show stopper.  M jokingly tied a bow around her neck, thinking she'd paw at it until she untied it.  Nope.  She liked it!  She wore it all day.  See... (please ignore my crappy iphone pics)

Isn't she just too much?!  She's a great interlude to my next point.  I'm now going to plug the ASPCA-so if you don't like animals, charities or donating to a worthy cause, move along to the next blog :)  Two of our three pets are rescues.  The third we consider a rescue because he is from my mom's farm.  They don't neuter or spay (shame on you Momma!) and their cats breed like...well farm cats.  In the rough and tumble Ozark Mountain wilderness, none of them survive past the age of one.  We've seen more than our fair share get swooped up by hawks, not pretty.

So Elvis, the farm cat, became our first pet 5 years ago.  Charlie followed just 8 months later and Nellie came to join our family 2 years ago this March.  They can be a handful, but we love them, all their quirks and the fact that we can give them a loving home where they feel safe and comfortable.  It breaks my heart to know that people can look into the trusting eyes of an animal and abuse/neglect them.  They just want to be loved.

Animal adoption is such an amazing experience.  If you have the means to care for/adopt an animal (and that is VERY important), check out your local shelter!  There are so many wonderful pets just waiting to be loved.  If you're not the animal type or if you're at your max-like us, you can always donate your $ or time to the ASPCA.  I cry through every.single ASPCA commercial.  We go to the website for the shelter we got Nellie from every week to check out their new dogs and cats.  We can't go into petsmart on adoption days for fear of walking out with a new pet (its how Charlie came to be pet #2, seriously).  There's just something about soft furry animals needing some TLC that tears at my heart.

I've linked the ASPCA website several times above, you know, in case you wanted to visit it ;)  Every city/town/county, etc has an animal shelter, if you can't adopt or foster-volunteer, donate or whatever strikes your fancy.  Its a great feeling!  We volunteered at Zuma's Rescue Ranch last year.  I'm not sure how many horses were there, but they had so many great programs-of the four-legged AND human variety.  There was a special pasture for abused/neglected horses that were still too skiddish to be around humans.  The horses in that pasture all had deep scars, burn marks (other than their brands), patchy coats, were dangerously thin and had fearful eyes.  Just completely broke your heart.  Check out the website, great organization!

OK, I didn't mean to go off on that long of a tangent, my apologies.  I hope everyone is deflating from all the yummy Christmas food and looking forward to 2011!!!

Hungry for knowledge?

Sunday night M was in a bad mood.  Things just weren't going right for him.  Cranky doesn't even begin to cover it.  (Sorry babe, I have to give the back story or this post won't be as funny).  He had just cleaned the entire house-both floors-all three bedrooms-all three bathrooms-kitchen...you get the idea, he worked hard.  The house was immaculate!  He doesn't have a night stand on his side of the bed, so when he reads a book he just puts in on the floor when he goes to bed.  ANYWAY, he came downstairs asking me if I'd seen his book.  For those of you that know me, you know I don't pay much attention to detail, so no, I hadn't seen his book.

He's on the hunt for it, his books are VERY important to him-he has book cases full of them.  After a while, I heard stomping and see M fuming down the stair in a huff with what was left of his book in his hands.  Sweet little Nellie-dog had drug this book under our bed (where she brings all her victims) and had her way with it.  She worked hard on this one too.  The first 100 or so pages were stuck together with dried slobber.  Being the good wife that I am, I tried to show M that he didn't need to throw the book away, that he could still read it.  I painstakingly pried every single page apart.  After all that, its still probably not worth keeping BUT I had to try, right?

He takes meticulous care of his books, he gets upset when a page is bent.  All I could do was laugh!  I mean...its a book.  A replaceable, $30 book.  Meanwhile, Nellie is sitting next to me and as soon as she sees the book, she starts backing up into me-she KNOWS she's in trouble!  

Perhaps the funniest thing about all this is the book she chose to destroy :)  The name says it all.  

The good news is, Nellie was soon forgiven and M realized that it was silly to get so worked up about a book.  You can bet he'll be really careful where he leaves his books from now on!

For what its worth, this isn't a new talent for Miss Nellie.  So far her record includes: one military Bible, one high school diploma (M's), 4 pairs of stilettos, countless cheap plastic hangers and tons of toilet paper.  There is no method to her madness.  When the mood strikes, nothing is safe.  Its a good thing the mood doesn't strike often :)  

O' Christmas Tree

For as long as I can remember, Christmas has been my absolute favorite time of year.  When we were kids, holidays were a HUGE deal in our house.  My parents always did a fabulous job of making them special.  You know that warm cozy feeling you get just being completely happy with your family?  I love that!  Its the best part about the holidays.  Since getting married, M and I have tried to start our own traditions.  Today, we put up the tree-we listened to Christmas music, made Christmas cookies, lit Christmas tree scented candles, ate turkey day leftovers and just basked in the beauty that is Christmas.  Gosh I love this time of year!  

Without further ado, our tree :)

I love this tree.  Mainly because it represents our lives up until this point.  My mom gave me some of my childhood ornaments, M and I have made an ornament for every year we've been together, we got a ton when we got married and every year we try to pick out a handful that represent us at that point in time.  I love unwrapping all the ornaments and reminiscing about why we chose that ornament or where we were when we made that one.  Just gives you the warm fuzzies, doesn't it?

And in the dark, because I love the glow of the lights.  Yep we have like twice the strands as any normal tree :)

Last but not least, our little reindeer.  M has been looking for reindeer accessories for Nellie for EVER.  This weekend at Petco, he found them.  Never mind that they were $12, she hates them.  The good news is, we LOVE them on her, so we try to get them on her for a photo op every couple hours.  I think she's warming up to them ;)  She looks thrilled, doesn't she?!

I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving and start to the Christmas season!