Big Babies!

I officially entered into my 3rd trimester already on Friday!
28 weeks! Woohoo!
I can't believe how fast the time is flying by!

I also can't believe how big I am either!

Last week I saw my OB/GYN and like they have been telling me, I officially go on modified bedrest starting September 8th. That basically means I have one more week of work already and school just started! I feel soem stress as there are plans and such to get in place before I take my leave here. The stress of dealing with my district's policies on maternity leave are not leaving me happy either!

Anyways, Chuck actually accompanied me to this doctor's appointment. She explained what modified bedrest means. She told me no shopping (which I can do online anyways), no cooking and no cleaning (which I don't really do those anyways!). For now, I am still allowed to drive a car but I should try to stay off my feet as much as possible. I haven't really swollen up but am starting too. She did my first internal exam (I forget how pleasant those are). Nothing going on which is good.

Friday I went to the high-risk doctor for another ultrasound. I love ultrasounds! And with 2 being in there, it is super cool! Bascially everything looks great! The doctor was surprised that Baby A is nearly 3 pounds already! He said that is the 90th percentile for this time in utero. Baby B is 2 pounds which is average size. He was shocked that my babies are "good-sized" for twins which is also what he told me back in July too. They just keep growing. I asked him how big I can expect them to keep getting. He said that if I made it to 37 weeks, Baby A could be 8 pounds! Holy Crap! That is how much Gracie weighed at birth and she went 41 weeks! I guess I grow 'em big somehow! But I can expect them each to put on 1/2 pound a week from now till the end. I'm wondering just how much bigger I am going to get. I'm also wondering what clothes are going to fit me too?

Here are the twins as of now....

My big baby, Baby A. This 4D picture is hard to make out but if you look to the right, you can see a foot. This baby is sort of folded in half. On the left, you can make out the face with the eyes and the nose.

Here is Baby A's profile.

You can totally make out Baby B's face in this picture!




And this one seems a little scary as you look down on Baby B's face. It looks like a little skeleton. You can even see the teeth!

August 28, 1990

Today is August 28th. 19 years ago was one of the worst days of my life.

At the time I was 11 years old at the time. It was the day before school started and we had just gotten home from a pool party. We had friends over and we were showing them our new kitten, Katy. We had just gotten her from the pound. It looked like it was going to rain. The power went out and I went to unplug some things in my room. Just then a big thud hit the house. My mom's friend started screaming for us to get in the basement. I came running as I had no idea what was going on. Mom was in the garage trying to pull the new van into the garage as it was hailing. The hail was softball size! I ran to the basement with my sister and our friend. I stopped at the bottom and looked up. My mom, her friend, and her two kids, one who was holding Katy, were stuck at the top. I screamed for them to get down as the walls that lined the basement quickly cracked and blew away. The heavy door that led to the garage behind them blew away and I could see things flying all over the place. No sooner had they made it down safely when all kinds of crap fell down the basment stairs trapping us down there. Then it started raining into the basement as we checked each other for cuts. Minutes later we heard neighbors yelling to see if anyone needed help. My mom flagged them down and they pulled us out of one of the basement windows. Here is what we saw.



View from our driveway. Garage is complety gone. The green room was our living room.

The kitchen. Notice how some of the plates and dishes are still in the cabinets.

My room. My closet still had clothes hanging in the closet. The outfit I wore on my Baptism (as well as my grandma, my mom, and Gracie) was still sitting in a shirt box. The lid was missing but the tissue paper was still folded gently over the outfit preserving it.


Mom and Dad's room and my room. I know God watched over this day as you can still see the wooden cross hanging on the wall in my parents room.

The new van that blew off the driveway and rolled over in front of Amy's room. When pulled upright, the sucker still started right up!

The family room.

The backyard.

It was the scariest day ever but so many little miracles happened that day as well. I thank God that my family was protected. I still miss those I know that died on that day.

19 years later, I still am scared of severe weather.

19 years later, I still go in my basement.

19 years later, I still have nightmares.

19 later, I still remember it like it was yesterday.

Fun at the Zoo!

Today we went to the zoo again. We are members so we can go for free whenever we want. But today was special because Daddy, Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Amy went with us! It was the most perfect day for it too. We walked, well, Gracie and I rode, around the zoo.

Gracie had fun petting and brushing the goats at the children's zoo.

Mommy met Crissey the Cow, how fitting huh?

Gracie saw her mama llamas. She is obsessed with this book called "LLama Llama mad at mama."

Gracie loved watching the dolphin swim.

She also saw her favorites-giraffes!

We also met some dinosaurs.


We also were lucky enough to meet "Dolph" (Rudolph, Gracie's favorite movie friend)

Here she is trying on his antlers.

Gracie even rode the carosel not once, but twice......

on the panda

and on the tiger

Then of course we had to stop so Gracie could buy her favorite animals-giraffe, panada, and zebra.

It was a perfect day for family and fun!

Playdate Fun!

It's getting harder to post as I have been busy getting ready for school to start ;(. So that makes me incredibly tired! A few weeks ago now, some of my college girlfriends and I were reunited with another college buddy, or ASA sister, and her son Adam. We had a great time! My friend Jessica has started her own photography company and Amy wanted to have Adam's one year pictures taken. So we went to this park in Manhattan. Teh kids had fun and Jessica even took some pics of Gracie Lynn. I will post those later. After that, we headed back to Jessica's house for some lunch and play! Scott was sharing his little tubo of balls and the kids had a blast. Gracie loved jumping inside it and throwing the balls out and making a mess of course. All these little playdates we keep having have been amazing to watch. I have watched Gracie start to become a bit more social but also it's neat to see how she shares and treats others. While she is still a bit shy, she is making progress and acts like a polite little girl! Too bad mommy has to go back to work and these playdates become few and far between. On the other hand, soon Gracie will have 2 playmates to play with whenever she wants!

Baby Days of Summer!

All summer long on Thursdays, my friends and I have gathered at my BFF Dana's house for some swimming in the sun with the kiddies! Granted this summer has been rather cool and rainy, today was probably the perfect day! The temperature was right, there were no clouds, no humidity, no chilly breeze. It was the perfect day because it was most likely our last as most of us have to head back to work. Yuck! I wish summer could last forever! Anyways, Gracie just loves swimming! (Too bad Grandpa tore down our pool) We played in the different tubes and did "motoroboat", "pop goes the weasel" and "ring around the rosy." Today everybody had a good day swimming and Gracie was even social and said "hi" to all her friends and even called them by name-Allie, Scott, Sean, Emily, Meghan and Jared. Now we jsut have to figure out what we are going to do with these kiddies over the winter!

Double Duty Diaper Bash!

Yesterday was our big "Double Duty Diaper Bash." Despite the hot weather, who knew who would be hotter than blazes out, everyone came with thier diapers and had a good time.

Chuck, Gracie and I had twin shirts to wear. Since I ordered mine, of course it was tight in the belly region so I chose not to wear it since it was so hot outside. I setteled for my moo-moo of a dress instead! Here is Gracie wearing hers though.

Chuck was busy manning the grill for hours! He was busy making his famous kabobs, hot dogs, hamburgers and whatever else. Everyone ate well and we have more than enough food leftover too!

I also made my famous diaper bash cake. Turned out pretty well huh?

Even though it was hot, we set up a tent and plenty of chairs and played beanbags all day and night too!

It was so good to see everyone. Chuck and I don't get out much and I enjoyed visiting with everyone.

Eveyday friends....

College Friends...

Old friends....

Neighbor friends...

Work friends.....

No diaper bash would be complete either without the vodka watermelon. Yes, this baby was busy soaking up the juices all night. Mark couldn't wait to cut into it and many enjoyed eating it. Jello-shots were also a must. It made me slightly sad that I couldn't partake in any of these activities.

And of course, Chuck decicded to do an encore performance of modeling his Depends. We recieved these at the last bash but Chuck couldn't resist being an underwear model. I won't lie, I held on to these because there are some days lately that I think about wearing them at night so I don't have to keep getting out of bed to pee!

And finally, we wrapped up the night by counting all the Pampers diapers we received. The final count of all the sizes were 2,834! That is almost double what we got last time! That is good since we are having double the babies this time.

Thanks to everyone who came! We loved seeing you! Hope you had a good time!

And thank you for the diapers! We will have many days of happy, dry bums ahead of us!