SO yesterday, we had our first level-2 ultrasound at the hospital.  They took 110 pictures of my insides and the babies, and here are the results:

• I have a “cervix of steel” according to the nurse.  Eric was so proud.  But it is good and thick, which means those babies aren’t going anywhere for a good long while!

• Both babies are developing normally.  They liked what they saw in their brains, their hearts, and the rest of their development.

• Both babies are very acrobatic at the moment: flipping, kicking, flailing a bit.  I still don’t feel them much, but from the pictures, I can’t imagine it will be long now!

• AND…since you’re all dying to know…Baby A weighs 9 oz. and Baby B weighs 11 oz.  Good sizes for both!

Oh, and here are some pictures for you, too!

Baby A (Righty):
(A face looking down from the top and two little feet)

Baby B (Lefty):
(a little profile and one foot with all its toes!)

Oh, and did I forget to mention that Baby A is our boy and Baby B is our girl?

Happy Thursday!

Wednesday

Sadly, I awoke this morning to another (smaller) ant battalion on my counter.  Apparently they decided to come up through a different crack in the caulking.  I guess traps or something are going to have to come into play before they give up on my kitchen entirely.  I was also annoyed to realize that they’d made it to my kitchen island, with my help!  So I spent the first half-hour of the morning cleaning my kitchen up.  I guess it makes for a productive day, but still!

Last night was the return of one of our favorite shows – Eureka!  It’s on the Sci-Fi channel, and we are very happy to have it back.  It’s one of the few shows we will watch every week.  So fun!!

EDIT: Also, Eric says that this link should now work if you want more pictures of me, the nursery or the babies. END EDIT

And lastly, some pictures for you to enjoy.

Me at 15 weeks (end of June).

Me last night at 19 weeks (the yellow wall behind me is the newly-painted nursery, btw)

Well, I slept better last night.  Thankfully.  I also figured out how my hands keep falling asleep (especially the left one) when I wasn’t sleeping on them. Apparently, at night I’ll slip them under my belly for support (sometimes without my knowing it…last night I was purposely NOT doing that!), and then the weight of the babies puts my hand to sleep.  Sheesh!  It has been a bit disconcerting to keep waking up in the wee-hours to the feeling that I’m wearing Mickey Mouse gloves.  Perhaps a pillow would be better support…

Yesterday, I stayed home all day.  But I was fairly productive.  I cleaned all the spider webs off our front porch and around our front door.  It was just getting gross!  I also made bread (in the bread maker) to go with dinner, but then we ended up having something different for dinner than I’d planned.  So the bread will probably be cracked open today instead.  I made and received a couple of phone calls (that actually had purpose to them!), and I seem to have successfully (and without chemicals) eliminated my ant problem from the weekend!  WooHOO!

Today’s agenda must involve a small grocery run.  My grocery budget is horrendously overspent this month, but with two more days to go, I’m running out of important things (milk, bread, yogurt), stuff I eat regularly during the day.  So I must ruin my budget a bit further.  However, I decided to try an experiment for August.  Yesterday, I made a tentative meal list for the entire month and then figured out what groceries would be required to make all of those meals, dividing them between the first half and second half of the month.  So now I have a two-column list (which is surprisingly short) that should keep me (I hope) a little closer to budget while still putting food on the table.  We shall see…

Last night Eric cleaned some carpets in the upstairs.  I read a book and offered moral support.  And as I had slept very poorly the night before, I went to bed to read/unwind about 9 p.m.  It was quite a lovely evening, really!

Okay, that’s about it, I think.  Happy Tuesday!

Monday Morning Bullet Points

As I didn’t sleep very well last night, I don’t really feel like trying to remember stuff in order, so here are the snapshots…

• This week, I am 19 weeks pregnant.  I’ll try to get a picture up for you ladies in the near future.

• I woke up on Saturday morning to another ant attack.  This time, there were teeny-tiny reddish brown ants crawling in a ring around my sink.  I realized they were coming up from around the caulking at the back of the sink.  So I spent the first hour of my Saturday killing ants before I cleaned, washed, and wiped down my entire kitchen.  Grrrr!

• Saturday afternoon, we spent a couple of hours with a couple who had twins last December.  Very informative!

• Both sets of parents were here some this weekend.  My parents stopped by briefly on Saturday night; Eric’s parents came for a few hours yesterday.  It’s fun to spend time with family.  Especially when they come to me!

• Sunday’s sermon was about who Jesus is.  It wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before, but what a great reminder that we really can (and should) just stand in awe of who He is and what He does for us.  It’s far too easy to let Jesus become ‘old hat’ instead of reveling in his majesty.

• Standing in church is one of the hardest things about being pregnant for me.  The slope of the floor is murder on my poor, stretched-out abdominal muscles.  I’m wondering if I’ll even make it to the 3rd trimester before I will have to stay seated for much of the service.  Sheesh!

• I’ve recently joined the world of pregnancy heartburn.  Tomato products seem to make the back of my throat just burn.  *sigh*  But at least it waited this long to start!

• One of the best things about my nephew is how is little face just lights up when he sees me.  And he’ll just squeal happily when I talk to him.  It just makes my day!

• My husband is downright fantastic (in case I haven’t mentioned this recently).  He made dinner on Friday night (just pizza, but I didn’t have to do it!), watered all the plants, finished painting the nursery (he hates painting), and spent as much time as I wanted to sitting on the couch.  What a guy!

• Eric mentioned yesterday that, while he won’t be too upset with the genders of the babies, his preference would be (in this order): boy/boy, boy/girl, girl/boy, girl/girl. 

Okay, I think that covers the basics.  Happy Monday!

I actually have some real thoughts in my head today, but as I’m leaving for C-ville in a few minutes, I don’t think I have time to elaborate them.  Suffice it to say that my thoughts relate to focus, a familiar bible story, and my own concerns about how to productively fill the next 4-5 months without melting away from boredom.  I need purpose in my life again!!

Yesterday, I did finally manage to get a gallon of paint.  This time a cute little old man was working the paint counter.  We chatted while he mixed my paint.  Also, I think the paint matching devices they now have are way cool!  I just put my little sample in the machine and it pulled up the closest match.  And it’s pretty darn close!  I could hardly tell the difference.  Last night, Eric painted one coat over the entire stencil border and one whole wall.  It’s amazing how dingy a yellow wall can get after 5 years and how quickly a fresh coat of paint will brighten it right back up!

I was going to clean my kitchen and sweep the kitchen floor yesterday, but just as I finished loading the dishwasher, Michelle called me!  We chatted for a good long time, and as a result, my floors are still filthy.  I guess I’ll have to work on that later. Maybe tomorrow.

Okay, well, I have to run.  Happy Friday!

Eric didn’t get up until 7:05 today.  He usually finishing his shower at that time.  It was nice to sleep in, but it was a bit odd.  This morning when we prayed together, he specifically asked for things to do at work today.  I guess he’s really bored this week…never fun.  Poor guy!

I have a new favorite thing.  Yesterday I went to Babies R Us to do some looking around (specifically at cribs, gliders, car seats and stroller options).  Once the time comes to do some registering, I think I’ll pretty much know what I want.  But, before I left, I ran over to the maternity section and found a support belt.  It was $15.  It’s a wide elastic band with some velcro.  I figured, for 15 bucks, it was worth taking home and trying it out.  If it didn’t work, I could bring it back.  So I bought it.  And put it on.  And it is fan.tas.tic!  My belly has been really stretching recently and pulling in odd ways.  It’s gotten a lot more painful.  Just a 4-inch band of elastic makes a HUGE difference.  I could stand up and walk upstairs without pain.  I had a lot more energy last night. WOW!  Best $15 I’ve spent in a long time!

I loved the cooler temperatures and lower humidity yesterday.  I turned off the A/C and opened the windows.  It was just lovely!  The breeze kept the house comfortable.  I hope it stays this way for a day or two!

I realized yesterday that I must find something productive to fill my time.  I had very little to do yesterday (thus the trip to the baby store), and today isn’t looking much more pressured.  I’m sure I’ll miss this time in a few months, but I’m much more the type that thrives on activity.  At least SOME activity.  So we’ll have to see what I come up with for today…

And finally, something funny for all of my English-type friends out there.  Eric showed me this video yesterday.  I was amused.  Enjoy!

Happy Thursday!

I haven’t got much to share today, sadly.  Yesterady wasn’t an exciting day.  Of course, some of it was feeling really tired from poor sleeping the night before.  The rest of it was just a quiet day.

I did not end up getting the paint for the nursery yesterday.  The guy there was a bit frazzled for some reason, so he was having problems communicating well with customers.  The people in front of me were downright confused before they left to call someone to clarify exactly what they needed.  And he stressed me out by the manner in which he told me that he needed a dry paint sample, that he couldn’t use wet paint (and it couldn’t just dry for 15 minutes). So I took the paint stirrer and went home again.  I have two dry samples this morning, so the shade of yellow should be as close as it’s going to get.  And I guess I will try again today.

EDIT: Here’s the paint situation.  The room intended to be the nursery is yellow with the alphabet stenciled around the top of the wall.  Unfortunately, as it was a little girl’s room originally, the color choices for the alphabet are distinctly girly (lavender, coral, sage green).  I would never choose these colors (except maybe the green), and they are very difficut to match to gender-neutral baby stuff.  So the yellow will stay, and the alphabet will go.  They did leave us a small amount of the exact paint color (called ‘daffodil’ when it was originally used 7 or so years ago), but she didn’t leave any info about where they bought it or what brand of paint it was.  And it will not even begin to cover the stencils (every room we’ve repainted has required 3-4 coats to cover her color choices).  So we have to get more paint in a very close shade of yellow so that we can paint 2-3 layers to cover the stencils and a touch-up coat on the rest of the walls. END EDIT

Of course, coming home paint-less meant my afternoon, which was going to involve some work in the nursery, was now very, very open.  So I cleaned up the piles of stuff around the house and put lots of things away (like folded laundry).  I even made our bed.  Then I sat down and read for a while.

Eric grilled steak for dinner, so we enjoyed that.  He spent the evening “hacking” a friend’s computer (with permission), and they were quite entertaining to watch harass each other online.  I tried to find something to watch on television (no luck) and ended up reading some more until Karen called.  We chatted for about half an hour.

Today’s agenda is pretty open, too.   Not sure what the day will hold at this point, but I think the sun is just starting to peek out from the clouds.  It’s supposed to be a bit cooler today, so that should be nice!  Happy Wednesday!

Random Things

So I could whine all through my post about how I didn’t sleep well last night and was far too easily worried last night (seems to be the rule since my “nudge” last week…will need to work on/pray about that one more).  But instead, I think I will do a random, happy post about the good things I have to share…mostly to remind myself!

• I’m buying paint today for the babies’ room.  I’m very excited.  It will just be a coat of as-close-to-the-same-color-as-I-can-get, but still, it’s progress!
• The thunderstorm last night woke Eric up, too, so he let me snuggle with him until I felt less worried.  him!
• I don’t have to water plants today because of all the rain last night!
• I got to talk to my friend in Colorado yesterday for the first time in months.  She’s great!
• My friend sent me, by email, another of those ‘quizzes’ to fill in about yourself, so I thought I’d add it today for fun.

WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? IF SO WHO?  
    NO

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
    Last Friday

DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING
    Sometimes

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
    Smoked turkey

DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
     Almost

IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
    Depends on the day

DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT?
    Far too often

DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
    Yes

WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
    No

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
    Raisin Bran Crunch

DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?    Yes                            

DO YOU THINK YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?   Sometimes

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM ?
      Strawberry

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
     Their height

RED OR PINK?
     Red

WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
     My sharp tongue

WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
       neither (still in my jammies)

WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE?
      Dinner last night (tortellini, bread, salad) 

WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
       The whir of computers in our loft

IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
        Blue

FAVORITE SMELL?
       Vanilla

WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
      Ghena

FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
      The Olympics

DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
      Yes

FAVORITE FOOD?
      Fruit, chocolate, anything that someone else makes for me!

SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
     Happy endings

LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
       The Holiday

WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
       Pink nightgown

SUMMER OR WINTER?
       Summer

HUGS OR KISSES?
      Hugs, unless it's Eric

FAVORITE DESSERT?
      Cookies, fruit pies or crisps

WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
      From Dawn to Decadence

WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
      Blue fabric

WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT?
      The Girl with Eight Limbs (National Geographic)

FAVORITE SOUND?
      Not sure...

ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
      Beatles

WHAT IS THE FURTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
     Australia

DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
     None that I'd call 'special' 

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
     Springfield, OH

The Recap

So the weekend was busy, but I did take time to relax, too.  Here’s the scoop…

Friday:  I did make it to my parents’ house, and I helped cut green beans.  (I’d guess my mom has canned all weekend.)  I was quite a bit tense from the rear-end “nudge” I got on the way down.  The quick version: I was first at the red light.  Light turned green.  I roll forward, see the ambulance coming into the intersection, stop.  The lady behind me doesn’t see ambulance, doesn’t stop.  She really wanted it to be my fault.  It wasn’t. 

Anyway, thankfully we weren’t going at all fast, but it still freaked me out a bit.  After all…I’ve never been pregnant before…I don’t have a clue what should concern me!  So I was just a bit on the emotional side all the rest of that day.  I drove home about 4:00, and Eric and I had dinner on the couch (ham sandwiches) and watched The Incredibles.   Also, sometime in the middle of the night (after my nightly jaunt to the bathroom), my rational side kicked back on, and between that and some real, faith-based prayer (choosing not to be afraid is much easier said than done), I stopped being so fretful. 

Saturday:  Okay I did fret a bit on and off throughout the weekend, mostly because I had more aches and pains than usual.  Of course, that could just be because I’m 18 weeks along with twins, but I would’ve preferred it didn’t happen the day after being rear-ended!  So on Saturday, I did some chores and stood too much.  I realized this when I was walking around the grocery store, so I sat on the couch and read a book for a couple of hours.  Then we went to a cookout for the evening which was lots of fun.  And I didn’t have to cook dinner!  Lovely!

Sunday: Only one unusually hard tightening sensation in my abdomen all day.  That made me feel better.  And of course, on Sundays, I do very little anyway, so that probably helped!  We went to church, headed home for a meatloaf dinner, then goofed off for the rest of the day.  Eric finished clearing out the babies’ room so we could vacuum and clean the carpets.  I did a lot of looking online for baby things.  We read some, watched some television, and made homemade pizza for supper.

Oh!  And about 7:00, our doorbell rang.  It was our next-door neighbor.  She wanted to know if I’d want her summer maternity clothes, which she will never wear again and doesn’t want to pack/store when they move in a couple of months.  Um….yes!  So she brought me over at least $100 worth of name-brand maternity clothes and wouldn’t take anything for them.  It was such a helpful gesture, and now I have clothes, but didn’t have to spend any money on them.  I must think of something nice to say thank you.

Today’s agenda is somewhat vague.  I have a load of laundry I should do.  Other than that…no idea.   Happy Monday!

Quick Prayer Request

So it was sort of a stressful morning for me, and it would make me feel better if my Xanga friends would say a quick prayer.

On my way to C-ville today, I was rear ended at a stop light.  We were both stopped.  I started forward, but then stopped again because an ambulance was entering the intersection.  The lady behind me didn’t see the ambulance, didn’t stop, and hit me.  There didn’t seem to be damage to either cars, and I’m pretty sure all is fine with the babies. My neck and shoulders are a bit tight tonight, but frankly I don’t care much about that.  I did call my doctor’s office and they didn’t seem concerned (though they gave me some things to watch out for). 

But would you just pray that all would be well.  Thanks!