The Roberts Family

Postpartum Joys

2012-01-27T16:29:00.000-06:00

Well, I am now 8 days postpartum and I have a few things to say. Now, I am going to be as simple as possible and refrain from being too graphic :)

Here are my "Joys" of Postpartum. Note that if I use quotations around the word "joy", it is safe to assume that there is some sarcasm behind it. Please also note that these are in no particular order. I am confident that all of these have taken the number one spot on the list at least twice today :)

The First "Joy" of Postpartum: Lack of Sleep

Not only have I had extremely restless sleep for the last 6 months, but throw two babies into the mix who have their days and nights mixed up, and you have a woman (and her hard working husband) who is running on empty. They came to us sleeping 4-5 hrs at a time during the day and as soon as 10pm hit, they were wide awake and ready to eat every two hrs. Once 7 am rolled around, they were back to their 4-5 hr stretches. Ugh. Now, it is also pertinent to note that although they were giving us two hour stretches between feedings, you start counting from the time they start eating. So, say they woke up at 10 pm to eat, it then takes at least one full hour to change their diapers, nurse them, feed them from a bottle to make up for my lack of milk (*more on this "joy" later), pump, and put them back down. By the time our heads hit the pillow, our precious bundles of joy (no sarcasm here, I promise!) were up again an hour later. The first night we got 3, 1 hr stretches. The next night, exact same thing. One other point, my cute little Street is a binkie boy! We love this for the most part, but when they are this young, the binkie pops out quite frequently. Anytime it did, he was sure to let us know about it. So, the "1 hr stretches" we had, really consisted of hopping out of bed every few minutes to stick that darn binkie back in. Ah!!

Monday brought a visit to the Pediatrician. We asked for some tips on getting their clock switched around and she said to be sure to wake them up every 2-3 hours during the day to eat and it should help them fix their night and day mix up. Well, since I am a very tired mama, waking them up every two hours to eat was a little too much to handle, but I decided every 3 was do-able. I'm glad we listened. The next night brought them eating every 3 hours and the next night we got one 4 hour eating stretch. Note that this means we got a 2 hr sleep stretch, and a 3 hr sleep stretch, respectively.

Also, something important to note: They have very different personalities when it comes to sleeping. Livvi is very much like Daci was. If we let her, she would go at least 4-5 hours at night as well. Problem is her cute younger brother likes to get up every two. When you have twins it is VERY important to keep them on the same schedule. So, poor Livvi gets woken up every two hours to eat. Luckily, she has a very easy going temperament and doesn't seem to mind in the least. Mom and Dad on the other hand....have something to say about it :)

Second "Joy" of Postpartum: Pain!

Lets just say the word "tear" is not one that a woman likes to hear after delivery. 'Nuf said.

Third "Joy" of Postpartum: Nursing

One of the side effects of Lupus is low milk supply. With Daci I had virtually nothing. I also had a few other things happen that lowered it even more. I got Shingles 3 weeks after giving birth and had to go on a steroid. I only had a crappy electric single pump to use while I was in the "pump and dump" phase of the medication and lost a lot of my supply. Then, my Lupus became really bad (we didn't know it was Lupus at the time). I was supplementing with her from day one and by the third month all I would get after a pumping session was about a 1/4 ounce between the two sides. It was really hard for me to give it up and I felt a lot of guilt associated with it. Why do we do that as women!? When I hear a story like that from someone else I say, "Well its obvious you had to stop, you were killing yourself! You shouldn't feel guilty for something you can't control. I'm sure you were a much better mom once you stopped putting yourself through the exhausting routine of trying to nurse, feed from a bottle and pump!" But alas, it doesn't work that way on ourselves, does it?

This time, I was very hopeful it would be different since my Lupus is diagnosed and under control. And it has been different. I do have more milk than I did the first time around. I would even have enough milk, if I only had one baby. But, I have two babies, and there isn't quite enough milk to go around. Soooooo, I have been doing everything physically possible to get the supply up. I nurse and pump round the clock. I drink tons of water and eat a healthy diet (thanks to my mom!). I went to the lactation specialist yesterday and got great tips. I am trying and trying. I want my babies to have breast milk, it is very important to me, thats why I am putting myself through the tiring routine. But it is just that...tiring! My body is working on overload trying to produce the amount that I need and I am pooped!

Not only is it hard not having the supply but I am also very sensitive in that region. Lets just say lots of blood, scabs and little pieces falling off. Too graphic? Sorry about that! One thing that has helped? Shields!

Fourth "Joy" of Postpartum: Emotional Roller Coaster

I am a MESS! I will be happy and excited and encouraged one moment and 10 minutes later, the roller coaster is at the bottom of the hill and I am a sobbing, bawling, soggy basket case. I think I cry every hour over things that I would never cry over. I am so stressed about nursing and so tired from not sleeping that every little thing puts me over the edge. Luckily, I have a mom and grandma that insist that I take a nap once a day or I may be checked into the hospital again....for other reasons.

I am completely, 100% overwhelmed. It is taking 3 (4, when Rick is home) adults to take care of two babies, a postpartum girl (that's me), my cute Daci, meals, the house, the grocery shopping, and the laundry. Every time I think of not having these extra sets of hands I have an emotional breakdown. Cue the tears.....better stop writing about this one.

The Only REAL Joy of Postpartum (notice, no quotes) That Really Matters: My Babies!

It doesn't matter how hard it is to have babies, feed babies, or sleep train babies. It is all 100% worth it! I am smitten by these two! I seriously could stare at them forever. They make the cutest little faces and noises and I am so annoying with my, "Mom! Look at this!" or "Grandma, how funny is this!?" or "RICK! Wake up! Look how cute they are!" Haha. Really I love these two more than I can express. Despite all the hardships of postpartum...they are the true JOYS in my life.

Cue Snap Happy Photos:

STREET:
Birth Weight: 6 lb 8 oz
Going Home Weight: 6 lb 1 oz
Weight at First Dr. Appt., Day 5: 6 lb 5 oz (10th percentile), 19.5 inches (25th percentile), Head Circum: 13 inches (10th percentile)
Weight at Lactation Specialist on Day 7: 6 lb 9 oz

Bright eyes

Occasionally finds his thumb

All ready for his first doctor's appt.

Such a sweetie! He was wrapped in a pink blankie at the time, so I changed the photo to black and white :)

Chillin out in the boppy

Loves to have his fists next to his face

LIVVI:

Birth Weight: 6 lb 3 oz

Going Home Weight: 5 lb 12 oz

Stats at First Dr. Appt, Day 5: 6 lb 1 oz (10th percentile), 19 inches long (25th percentile), Head circum: 13.5 inches (25th percentile)

Weight at Lactation Specialist on Day 7: 6 lbs 5 ounces

Our Happy, Easy-Going Girl

Ready for the Dr.

Smiling in her sleep

THE DYNAMIC DUO:

I love that they sleep together

They always end up facing each other and scooting in close together . Livvi always rolls up on her side.

FAMILY TIME

With nursing I kinda live in comfy silky button up jammies right now

Lovin me some Livvi

Daddy and Son Tummy Time. Street loves his tummy!

Great Grandma (GG) with her second and third great grandchildren

Grandma feeding Street

Aunt Carly feeding Livvi

Another Important Joy (no quotes!): My Sweet Daci Bug

Daci has done great through all of this! My mom and grandma have been sure to do lots of fun things with her and give her lots of special attention. She also loves to do "Big Sister Helpers". She throws away the diapers and brings me things that I need. She loves the twins and hasn't had too many behavioral problems....just a few occasional ones :) Love you Daci Doodle! Thanks for being a trooper with your emotional mom!

Grandma and Daci making cookies

Such a big helper!

Playing in the snow!

Birth Story and The First Few Days

2012-01-22T22:23:00.003-06:00

I arrived at the hospital at 7:15am for my induction. I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty nervous and anxious! Its kinda strange going into it knowing you will be putting your body through labor and coming out with babies at the end! I just went into labor naturally with Daci, so to actually know when I was going to start labor was weird!

They started my paperwork at 7:30am, got my IV going at 8am, and started my pitocin at 8:30am. They said they like to mimic natural childbirth with how they do their pitocin, so they started me at a 2 and increased it by 2 every 15 minutes to get me into labor slowly and naturally. By 10:20am I was dilated to a 4.5 and the pitocin was at a 14. They broke Livvi's water at 10:30am (yes, I had two waters....I never thought of that before, but I guess it makes sense!) and I was at a 5. My contractions were coming in every 2 minutes and they were definitely strong, but I wasn't experiencing any pain yet. My nurse asked me about 45 minutes later if I wanted the epidural. I wasn't really in pain yet, but knew that I was going to get it, so figured "why wait?" I got the epidural at 11:20am and luckily I did because I progressed very quickly from then! I got really nauseous and dizzy and wanted to throw up and I knew I was in transition. I told the nurse I thought I was but could tell she was a little skeptical but she checked me and I was at an 8.5 at 12:45. She said, "Ok, we will have you sit here for a little while and I'll let the Dr know that you are getting closer." Literally 10 minutes later I felt rectal pressure and wanted to push. The nurse was really sweet but I could tell she didn't think I was ready. She went to find Livvi's heart rate and couldn't find it so she was going to put a probe on her head. When she reached in to do it she goes, "Oh my! You are complete and ready to push!" Everything went so fast from there. Rick jumped into scrubs, we put our caps on and they started wheeling my bed to the operating room (I had to deliver in the operating room in case anything happened and they had to do an emergency c-section to get Street out). My mom had to stay behind because they only allowed one person in the operating room with me :( As I was being wheeled down the hall I started vomiting and they wouldn't let me stop because they didn't have the monitor on Livvi's heart rate so they had to rush in. I was trying to vomit into my little bucket and it was just sloshing everywhere. Yuck! It only made me more dizzy! Once in the room they lifted me from my bed onto the table, threw my legs into the stirrups, and told me to wait for the contraction and start pushing! Luckily, after I threw up I was able to regain some of my composure. When the first contraction came, I pushed and my Dr. said, "She is almost out! Keep pushing!" She popped right out on the second contraction! Then, he checked to see where Street was at. He said that he was still a little high so over the next few contractions we would work to get him down lower. On the first contraction I pushed and he went straight down to the cervix! Next contraction and he was out as well! It seriously went so well and so smoothly and I can't believe how quickly it all went! I probably pushed for a total of 15 minutes between the two babies.

Livvi Maren Roberts was born at 1:16pm and was 6 lb 3 oz and 19 inches long. Street Frederick Roberts was born 9 minutes later at 1:25pm and was 6 lb 8 oz and 19.5 inches long. It was the perfect pain free delivery (afterward has been a different story! ha!) and my babies are so adorable!

Right after we got back to my room. Livvi was COVERED in vernix and was pretty swollen in the face since she was in the birth canal. Street came out looking perfect because he didn't have to sit in the canal at all. Livvi is a lot more fair and has lighter hair. You can definitely tell she is a girl. She looks very petite and feminine. Street is absolutely the most handsome baby boy ever! He has darker hair and skin than Livvi and his face is a lot more round. Once Livvi's swelling went down we could see how much she looks like Rick! I will have to post a pic of she and him face to face. It is seriously crazy how alike they look. She has his nose, eyes and ears! Street looks a lot like a Pedersen and I think he looks almost identical to what Daci looked like as a baby. He actually looks a lot like my brother, Easton did as a baby.

After I nursed for the first time they moved me to my room and took the twins to get their first baths. Rick got to go watch and take pictures.

Livvi's first bath:

So happy and content afterward :)

Street's first bath:

Grandma with Livvi. I'm so glad I got to have her with me in the hospital!

My sweet, clean babies :)

A few hours later Rick went and got my Grandma and Daci to come see the babies. This is Daci with Street for the first time

Meeting Livvi

Street

Holding Livvi

My cute Daci Bug

Daci opening a present from the twins...a Big Sister necklace!

Our new family of five!

Proud parents of cute twinners!

The next day my mom, grandma and Daci came back to visit. Daci was so excited to hold the twins again!

Street on the left, Livvi on right

We love putting them together :)

Getting Livvi ready to come home. She was so alert!

Street snuggling with Grandma when he got home

Love my precious boy!

GG holding Livvi

Sweet Livvi

Our first night was EXTREMELY rough! They are completely backward. They were up all night long. Good thing they are so stinking cute :) This is them this morning. Awwww.

You would never know that this cute face was such a pill all night long!

15 hours...and Counting :)

2012-01-18T15:56:00.000-06:00

As I sit here and type this I only have 15 more hours of being pregnant with twins! Ah! Whoot Whoot! SOOOO happy! I am very ready to get these two out of my poor stretched out tummy and into my arms. We are excited beyond belief. We are also terrified. Can you blame us? Our simple life is about to be turned upside down. I think we are ready. It helps to have so much help here. Just having my mom and grandma here the last four days has been the biggest blessing. I have been miserable and exhausted and pretty much incapable. They have been great to take over, clean my house, cook meals, and play with Daci all day long! I'm so grateful they will be here to help me get these twinners on a schedule, allow me to heal, and continue to give Daci the attention I know she will crave even more once they are here.

I went to my LAST Dr. appt today. I didn't gain any weight this week, I am still measuring 44 weeks, I am still between 3 and 4 centimeters dilated, and everything still looks great! I'm thinking its definitely time for these babies to come! The Dr. I saw today, I haven't seen since the very first few weeks of my pregnancy. She walked in and looked at me and said, "Oh my goodness! You made it 38 weeks!!! I can't believe it! This is amazing!" With my Lupus and going on bedrest so early it really is a miracle how well this pregnancy has gone and that I was able to carry them the full 38 weeks. I am so blessed!

Thanks for all your support and love throughout this pregnancy! As hard as the last part of it was, it was also a fun journey and something that I will remember and cherish always. Thanks for sharing in it and allowing me to document it!

Loves!

Winter Fun

2012-01-16T11:38:00.001-06:00

It finally snowed here in Chicago! Daci couldn't have been more excited. She has been waiting for snow since December. Every morning she wakes up and asks if she can build a snowman with daddy, but there is never any snow. The days it did snow, Rick was working, so he wasn't able to build a snowman with her. That didn't stop Daci though! She decided she could play out there all by herself. We watched from our sliding glass door as she had fun in the snow. We felt like abusive parents because it was 16 degrees outside and we sent our little girl out there. She was so insistent though, and then we couldn't get her back in! She refused to come in.

At first she dug around and stomped in the snow.....but after a while she decided all she wanted to do was eat the snow. Luckily it was fresh and clean :)

Enjoying the delicious snow

She would blow on the snow before she would eat it. I think she thought that if she blew on it, it wouldn't be as cold :)

Rick and I got to go on one last little date....before the world ends as we know it :) Haha! Seriously, I don't know when we will ever go out again. Thanks Carly and Micah for offering to take Daci so we could go out again! We had fun!

And really exciting news: My mom and grandma got in last night! Wahoo! SO excited to have them here. I think Daci is even more excited! She can't get enough of them. I think she is going to wear them out before the babies even get here :) Of course they have already spoiled her to death. My grandma brought Daci her Christmas present. She made her a build a bear Cinderella Bunny and Daci loves it! My mom brought her a cute new outfit. Now....COME ON BABIES! We are ready for you!

37 Weeks

2012-01-13T10:33:00.004-06:00

6 Days....and COUNTING! I can't believe that in 6 days I will be getting induced and soon after that I will get to hold my babies! Oh, and what may be just as equally exciting is that I will not have a ginormous ball sticking off of my abdomen anymore! I'm not gonna lie, the last few weeks have been ROUGH. I literally feel like my organs have been squished to pancakes and they aren't functioning correctly anymore. I also feel like my round ligaments have completely stretched past their limits and may never go back to their normal size. I don't know how it is possible to grow more than two babies...I have a new found respect for women who carry 3+ babies!

I turned 37 Weeks yesterday. My non-stress test went great this week again and my regular OB appt also went well. I am dilated to a 3+ (bigger than three, but not quite four), I am at 46 lbs in weight gain so far, and the surprising (or not so surprising) statistic is that I am measuring 44 weeks. Ah! Last week I was measuring at 42 weeks. I knew I had grown a bunch this week. All of my maternity shirts are belly shirts :( There is only like one shirt left that I can wear without showing an inch of skin at the bottom. I am constantly pulling them down and have given up on jeans all together. I live in the same two sweatpants. Oh boy, am I ready to have my tummy shrink :) I know that having the babies on the outside of me brings a whole new set of problems and stresses and discomforts, but bring them on! I'm done with this set of discomfort :)

I know I complain a lot, I really shouldn't say anything, I'm just trying to document what it was like for future reference because I know Heavenly Father has a tricky way of making you forget it all :) In all seriousness though I am SO grateful for how smoothly this pregnancy has gone. I could have had a lot of problems with my Lupus and carrying twins and I know that many, many prayers have been answered. As hard as it is to carry two big babies (doctors are projecting 7lbs each), I couldn't be more happy that they are healthy and have developed properly.

Funny story: My mom's friends were looking at my blog and one of her friends said, "It looks like she is carrying a torpedo!" Hahaha! I thought that was the perfect description!

Whelp, here it is....my 37 week picture. The next, and last, picture I will have of me with a belly will most likely be right before I deliver. I'm guessing that I will look pretty scary in that one, because I won't have been able to get ready like I do for these :)

This one isn't as pretty of a background, but you can see how far my belly hangs out from where my legs are. How am I standing?

Reminiscing

2012-01-10T18:07:00.002-06:00

*For those of you who saw a newborn on your blog reel...sorry, it isn't the new babies :)

Wow, my emotions are running very high today! Daci and I just spent the last two hours watching videos of her as a baby and looking at pictures of her. I'm trying to make sure that she understands that there are two little babies that will come into our home soon. She has loved watching herself and is fascinated with what babies do! Of course, I start bawling my head off every time I start a new video. She was such a precious baby and I can't believe she is almost three! Here are some fun shots of Daci since she was born:

Day she was born

Video of her the day we brought her home....don't mind my annoying baby talk :)

6 weeks old

2 months old

Blessing Day- 3 months old

3 months old

4 months old

6 months

7 months

9 months

1 year

15 months

18 months

2 year birthday party

2 and a half

Changes

2012-01-09T08:31:00.001-06:00

I woke up at 4am for the 6th time to use the bathroom last night and never fell back asleep. Lovely. As I was laying there until Daci got up I couldn't help but think about the last three years. Daci and I have been little buddies all day, every day for almost three years! It has been just the two of us during the days and I feel like she is a part of me. When I'm not with her, there is a piece of me missing. I can't believe that is all about to change! She won't be the center of my attention anymore. It won't all be about her. I will have to divide my love and attention among three children now! How weird! I pray she handles it well. I hope it isn't hard for her. I hope she doesn't feel neglected. I hope she knows how much we still love and adore her, even though she isn't the only princess around anymore. I love my little Doodle Bug and have loved the last few years of just she and I hanging out all day. I don't know why it is all hitting me at once, but I have decided to really cherish the last few days we have as the two musketeers :)

"Any Day Now!"

2012-01-05T09:13:00.000-06:00

Well I am 36 Weeks today!!! I DID IT! WAHOO! I'm so happy we made it to 36 weeks! I would love to make it to 37 weeks...well I would love to make it to 37 weeks and 3 days, which is when my mom comes, but I am SO happy I made it to 36 and that these babies are healthy and strong!

I went to the doctor yesterday. Stats:

LOST 2 pounds. Yay! Getting rid of some of that extra Christmas weight I put on :) So far I am at a 42 lb weight gain....I'm still 8 pounds less than I was when I delivered with Daci and there are TWO of her in there right now. Actually, they are both bigger than she was right now.

Measuring at 42 weeks pregnant. Ugh! The nurse just laughed when she told me that. And then she gave me a "You poor thing" look :)

Dilated to a 3 and 75% effaced.

I have been contracting A LOT this week. Before this week I was having maybe 10 contractions a day. They weren't ever painful, in fact I probably had more, but didn't notice them because they really don't bother me. Starting this week I was having them a lot, like sometimes every 7 minutes apart for a few hours, and then they would go away. On Tues after my Non-Stress test I had them for about 6 hours every few minutes and I thought FOR SURE I was going into labor that night....and then they stopped. And then yesterday I hardly had any. I am so confused! When I explained all this to my doctor she said, "Any day now!". I guess since the contractions are making me dilate (I was a 2 last week), that I am getting closer. We'll see how long it really takes for these two to come out though. I think I am finally prepared (as far as having everything I need.....not mentally :) ) for them to come whenever.

Anyone want to guess on what day they think they will come? Sometimes I think they are coming like tonight or tomorrow, and other times I think they will make it to their induction (the 19th). It just depends on how I feel :)

Now for some pics! I went over to my friend's, Ashley's, house on Tues and she taught me how to make car seat covers and a nursing cover! I had so much fun just chatting and making things for the new babes! Ashley was a great teacher and I'm so grateful she took time out of her BUSY life to help me :) Thanks, Ash! They turned out pretty cute, right? Just don't look too closely at the stitching....its kinda all over the place...but, it was my first time :)

Does anyone else think its wierd that there are TWO carseats?! I still can't get used to it.

Livvi's carseat cover. I did the underside in the matching polka dot that I did Street's in.

I just did both sides the same on Street's carseat cover

Hard to tell what this is, but its a nursing cover. Sewing that boning in, to make it pop away from your chest, was hard!

What's in a Name?

2012-01-02T16:40:00.001-06:00

Well, we have decided on names for our little twinners. We've had them picked out for a while now, but I'm weird about names. I don't know, I guess I feel like if I say them out loud people are either going to think they are strange, or I am going to hate them when I hear them coming from my mouth :) Also, picking a name is very difficult for Rick and I. I like different, but any different name I throw out there he thinks of all the crazy things that people are going to call them or associate with the name. Ah! So frustrating! Picking out ONE name for Daci was hard enough.....then trying to do TWO was nearly impossible. BUT, we did it :) I want to give you some background on why we chose the names we did.

A little background. My mom's side is Icelandic and my dad's side is Scandanvian. Rick's mom's side is Greek and his dad's side is German. We searched through these origins the most.

First, I will start with Daci:

One night while Rick was at basketball practice I was searching through Greek baby names and found the name Dacey. It meant 'glittering white' and I immediately fell in love with it. I wrote it down on the long list of names I was going to present to Rick when he got home, and moved on to the next page on the site. When Rick got home I said, "I found it! I found the perfect name! And, guess what!? Its Greek!" I told him Dacey and then held my breath and to my surprise he liked it! Ever since that night when I have tried to search for the greek name "Dacey", I can't find it! I only find it under Gaelic and Celtic origins. What!? Its like it was meant to be that it popped up once while I was searching, and never again :) We messed around with the spelling for a while: Dacey, Dacee, Dacy, Dacie, and Daci. We finally settled on Daci because it ends in an "I" like "Kori" :)

Picking her middle name was easy. Rick's mom's (Penny's) maiden name was Paraskevolpoulos. When they moved here from Greece they shortened it to Paras. I love them name! And I love that it isn't spelled like the traditional "Paris".

So, she became Daci Paras Roberts

Now for the Twinners:

Baby A-Girl:

Her first name is both a Greek and a Scandanavian name, perfect because Rick is Greek and I am Scandinavian! It means "shield or life". It was spelled with a "y" on the baby site but we chose to end it in an "I" because of "Kori" and "Daci"...keeping with the theme, ya know :) Her middle name is Scandinavian and rhymes with my mom's name "Karen". My middle name, Danae, also rhymes with my mom's middle name, Renee, so I liked how that worked out. Her middle name means "pearl".

So baby girl becomes Livvi Maren Roberts

Baby B-Boy:

His first name comes from my mom's maiden name, Overstreet. His middle name is going to be the same name as his daddy's and grandpa's.

Baby boy becomes Street Frederick Roberts

So, in just two and a half short week we will have Street and Livvi make their way into our tiny (literally, ha!) home and make our family quite large. We are so excited!

Our Fun and Lazy Week!

2011-12-31T09:24:00.001-06:00

We have spent a lot of time indoors as our little family. Daci has loved playing with all of her Christmas gifts and has also become quite the artist. I have been scrapbooking a ton (almost done with 2011! I want to finish before our crazy 2012 starts!) and she sits next to me for hours and draws. She has always just drawn scribbles and lines and circles but recently she started making actual forms out of those scribbles! Our sweet neighbor brought this cute washable horse over for her....you can draw on it and then wash it in the washing machine and start all over again. She's been drawing "people" this week. She draws them JUST like I did when I was little....I even still have my first picture saved in my baby book (Thanks, Mom!). I would do a circle for a body, two eyes, a nose, a mouth and legs coming out of the circle with circle feet at the end....no body :) Daci was intently drawing on her horse and said, "Look, Mom! Its a wicken witch!" (She has been obsessed with wicken (not wicked) witches since Halloween). This time she drew the face with a bigger nose and straight hair coming off the top. I was so proud....and so was she!

The Wicken Witch (the green "figure" on top)

Proudly showing it off

With Rick being home all week, which I have LOVED, I have been laying in my bed upstairs a lot. This week I have been contracting A TON. If I am standing or sitting, I am contracting. And, they are really sucking the energy out of me. I am exhausted! I am also having the round ligament pain daily. Rick has been so sweet to let me sleep a lot. He and Daci have gotten so close and I just love watching them. He has been such a good daddy. He has been doing tons of puzzles with her, working on the ABC's with her, teaching her how to write the ABC's, reading to her, and playing with his new snazzy helicopter with her. She has loved having him home! One afternoon I came down after a two hour nap and found this:

How cute is that! Rick said she just climbed up on his lap with her blanket and cuddled with him. If you know Daci, you know this is huge. She hates to cuddle! She doesn't sit still for more than 5 seconds at a time. I love that she and Rick have gotten so close!

And, I had quite a few requests for a 35 week photo. At the time of my post I didn't have any that I dared post because I haven't gotten ready all week :) Its kinda hard to get ready nowadays. It hurts, takes forever, and Rick has to basically dress me :) But, yesterday I went to take the Illinois Drivers License test. Yes.....I have lived here a whole year and a half and haven't done it yet. AND, why the heck did I wait til I was 35 weeks pregnant, bloated and puffy to get the picture taken that I will have on my license for years to come?! Who knows. But, I sure am glad I did it. I passed with flying colors and officially have my license! Is it weird that I thought it was fun? I kinda miss the whole studying and taking test thing. I know, weird...but I haven't done it forever!

Here I am at 35 weeks, 1 day. Getting larger by the second. Oh, and my first two stretch marks just popped up. Boo! On a happy note....I only have 20 days til induction and 15 days til my mommy comes! Can't wait for the excitement that is about to begin....okay maybe I can :)

Pregnancy update-35 weeks!

2011-12-29T10:00:00.001-06:00

I am 35 weeks today! 3 weeks from today is my induction date. It seems so close, yet so far away. I had my weekly appointments yesterday. The babies are still doing great. I had my non-stress test and just like the last three weeks they were as busy as ever! The nurses love my babies because they make their jobs easy :) Non-stress tests can take up to an hour each week, depending on how much they move. They have to get 30 minutes of movement to see how their heart rates react. My sweet children are just as wild and crazy as Daci was in the womb. It makes it nice for the non-stress tests, but I have a feeling our hands are going to be quite full when they come!After my non-stress test we had the growth ultrasound. Both babies are exactly 5lb 6oz! They are each growing at a half pound a week. If they make it to their induction date they will be at least 7 lbs each. Then I had my regular OB appt and I am dilated to a 2 and 60% effaced. I haven't been feeling all that great. I think the 11 pounds of babies hanging off the front of me might have something to do with it :) My round ligament pains are getting more and more frequent and a lot more severe. I don't sleep well at night between getting up to use the bathroom every hour and my back killing me from bearing the weight of my tummy. Luckily Rick has been home with me this week. He has been such a big help. My weight gain has shot up the last two to three weeks. I started retaining water and I am quite puffy. I am at 44 lbs so far. My blood pressure is still good so I am grateful for that. I am measuring at 41 weeks! I get lots of funny looks and eyes popping out of people's heads when they see me :) Funny story, yesterday in Target I had one of my round ligament "episodes" start up. I got bright red, sweaty, nauseous, doubled over in pain and was visibly shaky. Once I finally Made it to the register the lady took one look at me and said, "Honey are you going into labor!?" I jokingly said, "I might be!" She panicked! She asked when I was due and I told her not for three more weeks but that I was carrying twins so I look like I'm due today. She's like, "No, you aren't making it three weeks you are having those babies today!" I tried to assure her that I was fine while at the same time trying to keep it together because I felt like I was going to die :) I came home and Rick put me straight to bed. I laid in bed in awful pain for 5 hrs, got up to eat, and went right back. During those five hours I was contracting every 10-13 minutes. Luckily the contractions stopped being so regular and went back to being random once the evening hit. The doctors say that 90% of babies born at 36 weeks get to go home with their parents and at 37 weeks pretty much all of them do. Gotta make it to at least next Thurs, but would love to make it to 37 weeks!Like I've said before, my blog is sort of my journal so that I can remember what was going on when I get around to scrapbooking about it. Im sorry if this post was boring, or sounds whiny. Just want to document what the last few weeks of this pregnancy has been like :)

Christmas Eve and Christmas

2011-12-27T08:14:00.000-06:00

A few disclaimers to this post:

1. I think if you have read my blog very often, you know that I am "snap happy". I take a bajillion pictures and don't know how to edit what I put up.....just to let you know, this is about a third of what I actually took. So, now that you all know that I know that I have a sickness, lets move past it and try not to judge :)

2. I have officially hit the puffy, fat, ugly stage of pregnancy and I'm pretty depressed about it. As much as I want to cry when I see these pictures of me, I know that it is important to document this time of my life, so I just take a deep breath and hit "upload". Last week at my 34 week appt I was measuring over 40 weeks for a singleton pregnancy. Lovely. I also gained 5 lbs in one week. I am retaining water and its not a pretty sight...just FYI.

CHRISTMAS EVE

Ok, on to exciting things! On Christmas Eve morning we took the girls to see Santa at the mall. It is Micah's family tradition to go to the mall every year on Christmas Eve so we thought we would join them. Daci was so excited. Unfortunately the Santa was pretty darn LAME! He wouldn't even look at Daci, or ask her what she wanted for Christmas, or talk to her, or smile or say "Ho Ho Ho!" Pretty lame. Luckily, Daci didn't seem to mind :)

They had these cute cut outs you could take pictures in while we were waiting in line.

The mall pretty much wore me out and sent me into quite a few contractions so I came home and took a two hour nap and then woke up to make The Pedersen Family traditional Christmas Eve dinner. I made homemade Chicken Noodle Soup, homemade gluten free breadsticks, and our delicious "slush". We had Carly and Micah over for dinner and it was a lot of fun!

After dinner, we continued the Pedersen tradition with frosting sugar cookies for Santa. Everyone was pretty worn out by then and both Daci and Rick weren't feeling well so we kinda just slopped on some frosting and called it good :)

Carly brought a yummy cookie and ice cream dish that she made...here are she and Micah enjoying it with some Oberweis Egg Nog

After dinner and cookies Carly and Micah left and we did our Christmas Eve presents with Daci. She was SO excited to open up a present!

She got PJ's, slippers, and a book

Lovin' her pj's and slippers

So excited about her book

Then she helped Rick and I open our presents. My mom sent us our PJ's so we could still participate in that fun tradition. This year she did SUU shirts (since almost everyone in our family either went to school there, or graduated from there) and basketball shorts. I think she was mostly thinking of what I would fit into :)

We read Daci her book and then tucked her into her bed. She was out like a light within a few minutes...it was a very busy and exhausting day! Later that night I snuck downstairs and snapped some pics of what Santa brought Daci :)

Santa brought her: puzzles, books, a My Little Pony Doll, a Princess Belle dress up dress, a Memory game, a Strawberry Shortcake purse, and a new stroller because hers was broken

CHRISTMAS MORNING

Daci woke up at 7am on Christmas morning. I, of course, had been up since 4:30am....I am not sleeping at all lately. We told her that we think Santa came for her and she got so excited!

Waiting at the top of the stairs

Seeing her loot from the stairs....so excited!

Rushing down the stairs to claim her prize

So many toys! Which one should I grab first!?

She loved this My Little Pony baby doll that talks to her and calls her Mommy. It hasn't left her side since this second.

After she looked at all her stuff from Santa we went to open presents by the tree. We skyped with Rick's family while we opened the gifts from them. Daci got a Snow White dress up dress and a Princess Ariel doll from Yia Yia and Papou. They gave us our stroller and video monitor for the babies. They gave me some sheets for my new bedspread I got for my birthday, and they gave Rick an indoor RC Helicopter. Thanks Yia Yia and Papou!

Daci opening presents from Yia Yia and Papou, and Rick and I. We gave her a remote control car, fridge phonics by Leap Frog and a Cinderella barbie.

Me opening a present from Rick...some Mac eyeshadow!

Daci gave Rick her present and was so excited for him to open it!

I framed a finger painting she did for him. She is showing him her handprint in the middle of it. She was so proud.

Awww :)

Rick's parents got him a little indoor helicopter and he LOVES it! He has been flying it all day, every day :)

Daci playing with her toys

In front of her treasures

She got a Strawberry Shortcake remote control car that she absolutely loves. Rick was teaching her how to use it here.

Later in the afternoon we skyped with my family and we opened our gifts from them. My parents got her the game Candy Land (which she LOVES playing!) and some awesome books. They got Rick a Nordstrom gift card and me some fun clothes...can't wait til I can fit into them :)

Opening our mail from Daysha and Easton. They gave Daci some awesome Princess Ariel PJ's and some princess coloring pages, Daysha gave me a beautiful necklace and journal, and E gave Rick a cool Nike Chicago shirt and an iTunes gift card.

After we skyped with my fam, we headed over to Carly and Micah's house for dinner. We did The Roberts traditional dinner: Ham with cherry sauce, funeral potatoes, and brussel sprouts. It was delicious!! We also exchanged our gifts with Carly and Micah.

Daci gave Leni her present...a little Minnie Doll. I love this look on Eleni's face!

Micah got Rick personalized golf balls. Rick loved them!

I didn't get any pics of Carly and I exchanging gifts :(

Santa brought this awesome playhouse to Eleni and the girls had a blast playing in it all night!

And this is what the girls look like when they watch tv at Carly's house. Oh they are so goofy!

Family pic. Super sad about what I look like, cuz Daci and Rick look so cute! Oh well....only a few more weeks :)

We had a wonderful Christmas! It was a lot of fun to have our own little Christmas with just our family! We sure missed our families back home in Utah though. I can't believe how spoiled we were by our families and friends! Thanks for the generosity! We love you all!

Sugar Cookies

2011-12-23T16:41:00.002-06:00

In my family we frost sugar cookies on Christmas Eve and leave them out for Santa. I am really excited to carry that tradition with Daci. We made a morning out of making sugar cookies together and had so much fun! There were lots of things that she loved about it:

She loved helping me count each cup or teaspoon as they went in the bowl

She loved hamming it up for Daddy when he was taking pictures

She loved turning on the beater

She loved to hold it with me as we beat the ingredients

Of course she loves to eat the beaters once its all mixed together

She LOVED picking out which cookie cutter we would do next

And she loved being able to cut them out

Daci loves to bake but she especially loved baking sugar cookies. She loved watching me sprinkle the counter with flour and rolling the dough out with the rolling pin. After watching me a few times she had the steps down and when I turned my back for just a second she took over :)

We had a lot of fun together. It also tested my patience a little bit :) She is so independent and after she figured out how to do it she wouldn't let me help anymore. I guess I'm a little bit of a perfectionist (or so Rick says) so he thought it was hilarious watching me squirm while she would do things not quite the right way :)

Once There Was A Snowman, Snowman, Snowman!

2011-12-22T08:21:00.003-06:00

Daci has been SOO into snowmen this year. She wakes up every morning and asks if there is snow so she can build a snowman with daddy. Since there hasn't been any snow (don't I live in Chicago?!), we decided to build our own indoor snowmen. I saw these on pinterest and fell in love! Carly and I have been trying to do a craft a week with the girls and thought these were just perfect. We followed the tutorial on this site, but tweaked a few things to make them our own. If you can't tell from the pictures below....the girls loved this craft! I think Carly and I may have liked it even more :) I mean c'mon, look how adorable they are!

Filling the socks with beans (I didn't have enough rice). Don't mind that Daci doesn't have any pants on, it was an accomplishment getting at shirt on her :)

Leni filling her sock with beans

Then, I kinda forgot to take pics of the middle steps. Whoops :)

Daci loving the snowmen

So proud

Aren't they cute!?

The girls with their snowmen

Eleni was proud too :)

And now he sits on our hutch next to the Christmas Trees!

Ornament Making

2011-12-19T13:36:00.002-06:00

Today I was working on the last of my handmade Christmas gifts and I set Daci up at the table beside me with a craft of her own. I wasn't sure if she would be able to do it by herself, but I thought I would let her start and if she needed me, then I would help her finish it. Remember those beaded candy cane ornaments you did as a kid in school? I wanted Daci to do one of those this year and looked everywhere for the supplies. All the craft stores had those kinds of beads but they were multi colored, really expensive, and you had to buy a ton of them. I was frustrated and decided to give up on the idea until one day I was in the holiday section at hobby lobby and they had little ornament kits for $1! Score! So today was the day that I pulled them out and Daci LOVED it! I explained what a pattern was and told her to do it red then white then red then white. I didn't really think she would get it but right away she started saying "Red then white, red then white" as she put each bead on! I was so impressed! I said, "Daci you are so good at making a pattern!" She said, "I know! Like Mickey Mouse!" That right there made me feel 100% better about letting her watch tv :) Haha! She learned something from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, wahoo! After about 10 beads she got sick of the pattern and wanted to do it her own way. But, at least she knows what a pattern is :)

Concentrating very hard

Showing off her pattern

After 45 minutes of stringing beads....and giving up on the pattern :)

Its a candy cane!

She hung two of them on the tree...do you see them? She is very proud :)

Keeping busy!

2011-12-16T10:26:00.000-06:00

We've been keeping busy here at the Roberts household! I like to keep myself distracted so I don't think about how soon it is til the babies come and also so I don't think about how far away it is :)

Daci and Eleni had fun fingerpainting for the first time:

We had our Ward Christmas Party last weekend. It was so fun for me to get out and see everyone!

How cute is she anyway?

I started the 12 Days of Christmas for Rick. I wanted him to have a special Christmas since he has been doing so much for me lately. Our van was pretty much our gift to each other this year so I thought I would do little, inexpensive but meaningful things for him each day. One morning I woke up at 5am and made him breakfast for work. This is a huge thing for me. I'm sorry, but getting up in the morning to do breakfast is just not my thing. But, I know that he absolutely loves a good breakfast, so I did it for him :) I made him stuffed strawberry and cream cheese french toast. He loved it!

I also have been doing a bunch of papercrafting for gifts. I made 60 cards in one day. 20 of 3 different designs. It took me quite a while but I am happy with how they turned out!

I love this birthday card I made. Sadly, the picture doesn't do it justice. The colors are all really pretty together. Close To My Heart teamed up with Cricut and made an awesome cartridge! Both the cupcake and the roses are cut from the Cricut, then I embossed, glittered, and bejeweled the cupcake and rolled the flowers. I love that even though they all cut out identical, they all look different once you roll them,

I also made this "4You" card

And this "Thank you" card

We also have been working on this dresser for the babies' room. I found this on the side of the road on trash day and swiped it :) It was pretty sad looking when I found it. It had never been sanded and was spray painted white. It was also missing the two top side by side drawers. We sanded and painted the whole thing and Rick turned the missing spot into a shelf. I found these cute baskets and knobs. I absolutely love the finished product! What do you think? Sidenote: Hobby Lobby only had 7 ceramic knobs. I ordered another one and it should be here next week :)

I was 33 weeks yesterday. Exactly five weeks to go! I set my induction for Jan. 19th at 7:15am. That is my 38 week mark. The doctors said that anytime after 37 weeks the twins would be just fine to be born and they would go straight home with me. My mom gets in when I am 37 weeks and 3 days. I'm thinking that would be the perfect day for my body to decide to go into labor :) We are really excited and anxious!

Mail!

2011-12-09T08:17:00.001-06:00

Like I said in my last post, we have a tradition in our family where the kids get an ornament at Christmastime from my grandparents and my parents have also carried this on with Daci. Daci is so excited about Christmas, and with me not being able to shop very much, I have done a lot of online shopping. Every afternoon when the doorbell rings she yells, "More presents!?" I usually have to tell her that they are for Christmas, and then she pouts for a while :) But this week she got two different packages in the mail! The first was from my grandparents. They sent her her ornament and she was so excited to open it, she couldn't even wait to get her coat off or have me help her.

Trying to open it by herself

Trying REALLY hard to open it herself :)

I finally got her to take her coat off and sit down, I cut the top of the envelope open and she went to town

Seeing her ornament for the first time

Proudly showing off her Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus ornament. Thanks GG and Great Grandpa O!!

Yesterday a big package came in the mail from my mom with all of our Christmas presents and Daci's ornament. She was so happy when I finally gave her one she could open....she was getting more and more frustrated with each package I told her to put under the tree :)

Here is the progression of this present opening:

Finally got her box

Ripping it open

Pulling out the bubble wrapped ornament.... "What is it!?" she yelled excitedly :)

"IT'S HELLO KITTY!"

Hanging it on the tree

So proud of her new ornament :)

I LOVE Christmas with kids. It is the BEST. Can't wait til Christmas day :)

Its Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!!

2011-12-05T13:43:00.001-06:00

We have had a fun last few days here! Last Thursday I turned 31 weeks and everything is still looking good :) Here is a photo:

In case you were thinking that I still look somewhat small, the next photo will give you a better idea of how I look relative to normal people :) Poor Rick looks like he is being swallowed by my tummy! Today I uploaded some pictures to the computer and Daci saw one of me and goes, "Woah! You are FAT!" I said, "Hey! No I'm not, I'm just pregnant!" She said, very seriously, shaking her head, with her eyebrows raised, "Nope, you are FAT!" So sad :( But so true. I don't know how I'm going to handle the growth that is going to happen in the next few weeks. I am already dying!

Rick's company's Christmas Party was held at a restaurant downtown called Vivo. I was so excited my doctors said I could go if I promised to sit during the party. It was so much fun to actually put normal clothes on, do my hair and makeup, and get out of the house!!

Carly and Micah at Vivo

This weekend we spent a lot of time decorating the house and setting up the Christmas Tree! I knew it would be fun this year with Daci, but I didn't know how much fun! She had a blast putting on the ornaments! This is our first Christmas Tree since we have been married. I bought brown and gold ornaments and turquoise ribbon to wrap around the tree. Then, we hung all of my childhood ornaments. My grandparents always sent their grandkids an ornament each year. Daci absolutely LOVED looking at all my fun ornaments and finding a good place for them to hang. Daci has also accumulated some ornaments since my grandparents decided when their grandkids start having kids, that they get the ornaments instead. My mom has also decided to carry on the tradition so Daci gets ornaments from my grandparents and my parents each Christmas. She was so excited to hang all of her special ornaments!

After the tree was done she kept jumping up and down and saying, "Hooray! Its Christmas!"

This is one of my favorite ornaments. My Great Grandma gave it to me in 1988!

I also have a ton of beautiful ballerinas

I've been working on a bunch of crafts in my bedrest days. We put them all up this weekend. I made a banner that says "Holiday" and I got a garland and some pretty picks to go across the top of the hutch.

I did white pennants and random stamped holly leaves and berries, then I made red accordian flowers and sponged some chipboard letters red and covered them with glitter

Here is the lower half of our hutch:

I made these the same way as I made my candy corns for Halloween. I wrapped strofoam cones in green yarn and then attached sparkly pom poms for ornaments. For the stars I sponged chipboard stars in yellow then covered them in glitter. I attached them to toothpicks and stuck them in the top.

My mom (www.karenpedersen.blogspot.com) designed this cute little box. It is an advent calendar. There are 24 tiles inside, each with a special activity to do as you count down to Christmas.

The big 12X12 box is one that my mom designed a few years ago. I store my Christmas cards that I get in it. I found those peppermint picks at JoAnns and put them in a clear vase.

I bought a bag of cinnamon scented pinecones at JoAnns and glittered them. I put them in this glass vase and my house smells like Christmas!

Here is our banister.

Our three handmade stockings. My mom made me my stocking for my very first Christmas. It is white lace with green ribbon and my name is cross stitched in green. Rick's mom made him his stocking for his first Christmas as well. She cross stitched the whole thing. I made Daci her stocking for her very first Christmas. Its not traditional Christmas colors but I think it still turned out cute :) I love that we all have handmade stockings from our moms!

Some of the pretty picks in our garland on the banister

And on my kitchen table I have a Nutcracker (I was in the Nutcracker ballet 10 years in a row, it has a special place in my heart) and a bowl of the cinnamon glittered pincones

This is the first year I have decorated my house for Christmas and it is so much fun to get in the spirit! Its even more fun to have a child that is so excited about it :)

Thanksgiving and a Pregnancy Update

2011-11-28T13:27:00.001-06:00

We had so much fun on Thanksgiving! We were originally going to just do it really low key at our house and just have it be our little family. We got a turkey and potatoes and all the fixin's and Rick was going to help me put it together while I sat at a chair at the counter :) A few days before Thanksgiving, a friend of ours from the ward called and said she was trying to get a few of the families together that weren't really doing anything. Since we didn't have family out here, she thought she would give us a call! We had so much fun with The Wrights and The Richards in our ward and it made me realize how much your ward really is your family when you don't live by family. It was a special Thanksgiving and Daci had a blast with her little friend, Addy. They spent most of the day playing Princess Dress Up. In fact, Daci was so excited about the Princess dresses that she wouldn't sit still long enough to eat ANY of Thanksgiving Dinner! By the end of the night, she was sure munching on all the veggies that were leftover :)

Daci and Addy. They got their own little table.

Family Pic

Now for the pregnancy update. I have been to my regular OB once a week this last month and everything is looking good and I haven't dilated anymore since our first little "scare". I also haven't gained any weight in the last 3 weeks! Wahoo! I am hovering right around a 30 pound weight gain so far. This makes me extremely happy considering I gained 50 with Daci!

I went to my high risk doctors today to get a growth ultrasound done and the babies are doing wonderfully! Baby A (girl) is 3 lb 5 oz and Baby B (boy) is 3 lb 6 oz. That means I am carrying almost a whole pound more than Daci was born at! What!? She was only 5 lb 15 oz when she was born and I have 6 lb 11 oz of baby in me with 8 more weeks to go. I said to the doctor today, "So, it seems like they gain about a pound every four weeks, does it start to slow down now?" He laughed and said, "Oh no, it speeds up! They will gain 1 lb and a half to 2 pounds by the next time we see you at 34 weeks and then another 1.5lb-2lb before delivery." Wow! I always thought they would be smaller than Daci considering there are two of them, but I guess I was wrong :) Sounds like they will each be around 7-7.5lbs. This is just a testament to me of how much my Lupus affected my first pregnancy. We had no idea I had Lupus at the time so I wasn't on any of the medication I needed to be. I retained A TON of water with her, gained 50 lbs, and she was only 5lb 15oz. I am SO grateful that everything turned out okay with her. We are so very blessed because so many things could have gone wrong. I'm also so grateful that we know what is happening in my body this time and can take all the precautions necessary for the twins to be healthy and strong!

The doctors are very happy with how healthy the babies are and with how well I am doing now. A few weeks ago I would have said I didn't feel well at all and that I felt like I could have the babies at any moment. Now, I feel great (except for that I am EXTREMELY uncomfortable :) ) and feel like they will go all the way to 38 weeks. I know this is because I have slowed down and taken it easy. I was pushing myself much too hard before. I also know that I couldn't have done any of this without the wonderful women in my ward that have helped me out so much with Daci and with meals for my family. The doctors say everything looks great and that I don't necessarily need to be on bed rest but that I need to continue to take it easy. I can go out for a quick run to the store if I need to, although it wouldn't be smart to take Daci because I can't lift her into the cart. I can do little meals here and there for my family on the days where the ward isn't bringing in food. I can even do little outings for my sanity, as long as the outings aren't walking around and I can sit the whole time, like going to the movies (Breaking Dawn here I come!), or to an hour or two (or three if I'm feeling ok) of church!

I feel so blessed to have the love and support out here that I do. I'm so grateful to be a member of the church and have an instant built in network of friends and support. We have loved living out here in Naperville and I feel like this is where we are supposed to be at this time in our lives. Don't get me wrong, I still miss my family and friends in Utah SOOOO much! Sorry this turned into a testimony....I'm just feeling especially blessed today.

Now for some pics! They are getting so big now that it is hard for them to get good pictures of the babies anymore. These are a few of the ones that turned out okay:

Little Girl with her foot by her face

Little Boy with his foot AND hand by his face

Side profile of Baby Boy with his arm up across his face

Some Summer Fun through Studio J

2011-11-18T07:12:00.001-06:00

Along with my regular scrapbooking, I also like to do some digital scrapbooking. I use the program Studio J which is through Close To My Heart. I put these layouts together months ago but just ordered and printed them. When you have them printed they also send you jpegs of each of them. These are just a few layouts of the Summer Fun we had, I'll share more when I get more printed :) You can click on the picture to see it bigger and read the journaling.

This Little Girl

2011-11-17T08:45:00.001-06:00

This little girl can go from sweet.....

.....to sassy......

.....in a matter of moments!

And I wouldn't have it any other way :) Although some days I wish she would just be one of those angelic, sweet little kids that listen to every word their mother says and does whatever is asked of them. But then I remember that I love that she has such a fun and spunky personality. She is always surprising me with what comes out of her mouth and the new creative games she comes up with. She has SUCH a wild imagination. She is so hilarious at bedtime. Rick and I will turn the volume off on the TV and just listen to her up in her bed. She is hysterical. She sings everything....at the top of her lungs....and it is just a constant stream of talking and singing when she is in her bed. She makes up the funniest stories and adventures for her dolls and stuffed animals.

We definitely have our hard moments. Like when she flat out says, "No" when I ask her to pick something up, or when she walks in the other direction when I tell her to do something, or when she says, "Calm down, Mom" and rolls her eyes when I get upset with her. Seriously, where is she learning all of this!?

But I love my spunky little girl and am so grateful that Heavenly Father sent her to me. I was the complete opposite of her as a child: quiet, obedient and eager to please. Heavenly Father knew I needed someone to test my patience, I guess :) Love you Daci Bug!

Some things she is doing lately:
-Biting her nails....just her right pointer finger. Ugh
-Getting out of her bed to turn her light on and then running back. She is so obsessed with having the light on! The other morning when Rick's alarm went off at 5am there was light flooding into our room. He went to tell her to get back in bed, that it was still too early to get up, and she was sound asleep in her bed. She had gotten up in the middle of the night, turned it on, and went back to bed. What a goober.
-She will randomly walk up to me and say "Howd'ya dooooooin?" It always makes me laugh. Even when I am mad at her :)
-She loves getting her picture taken all of a sudden. Every time I have the camera out she asks for one.
-She has recently become obsessed with the show Strawberry Shortcake on Netflix. One day she was playing on our iPad, stumbled upon it, and asked to watch it. Now she is hooked. And now she knows how to turn on an episode by herself, so if the iPad is left out, Strawberry Shortcake is on.
-She also loves Little Einsteins and can sing the whole theme song by herself
-She loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse too
-She knows all the songs on the radio. We get in the car and she immediately starts singing along, pretty crazy to hear her singing the words to grown up songs.
-She LOVES to play at other people's houses. Since I went on bedrest she has been playing at a lot of her friends houses. She loves it so much that she yells at me to let her go back when she gets home. Sigh.
-She loves to watch me bake and cook. She pulls up a chair to the counter everytime I start making something.
-She insists on sitting in the back of the cart when we go shopping
-She loves to put all of the groceries up on the belt for me at the store

Rick's Birthday

2011-11-12T15:33:00.001-06:00

We had a fun celebration for Rick's birthday this year. I wasn't able to do much for him since I wasn't supposed to leave sitting position. I always make him Homemade Oreo Cookies for his birthday and I was so disappointed I couldn't do it this year. But then, Carly offered to make them for me! Yay! I spent the day on modified bedrest over at her house. She made the cookies, and I frosted them. I made this banner using my Cricut (in sitting position :) ) and Carly picked up balloons for me. We ordered Lou Malnati's Pizza, got an Oberweis Ice Cream Pie, and had Oreo Cookies. It was all delicious!

Funny Story: Rick's mom got him a dress shirt from Nordstrom and I was wrapping it earlier in the day. Daci was watching me and getting so excited for Rick's party. When Rick walked in the house Daci ran to him, yelled, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY! We wrapped your shirt! And we made you cookies!" Oh great, both surprises of the day....ruined :) Haha! It was pretty darn cute though. She was so excited for him!

Eating Lou's pizza

Don't mind me....getting to the scary stage. Yuck.

Opening presents

His amazing Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Pie from Oberweis

Blowing out his candle

Rick's brother Sam got home from his mission last week and he came out to visit us.....well, I think he mostly came for his cute nieces :) He adored Daci before he left. She was 10 months at the time and Carly was pregnant with Eleni so he hadn't even met her yet. It was so fun to watch him with the girls. Daci was really shy around him for the first few hours but then she warmed right up to him. She loved playing with him! He was a big help while he was here. He and Carly took Daci and Leni to the Children's Museum one morning while I laid in bed :)

I made him a cross-stitch of the Campinas Brazil Temple (he served in Vitoria, Brazil) and gave it to him while he was here.

And for good measure...a pregnancy pic. I am 28 weeks here. I'm slowly but surely getting there :)

Of course Daci had to be in the pic, its getting harder for her to peek out from under my bump!

Ha-ppy Birth-day to Daddy

2011-11-10T08:42:00.001-06:00

Happy Birthday Daddy! We love you!

A Trip to the Children's Museum

2011-11-08T07:45:00.000-06:00

Carly and I took Daci and Leni to the Naperville Children's Museum two weeks ago for a little outing. The girls absolutely love to go there! We love to take them there because it is such an educational and interactive environment, and we don't have to do much while we are there...just sit back and enjoy :) Daci gets this really serious face when she is concentrating. She rarely smiles when we are doing things like this, she loves it though...I promise!

Playing with the Glowsticks:

Building with Shapes:

Playing in the Music Room:

This is just an area with lots of toys and a little clubhouse. Daci decided to move a bunch of furniture and toys into the clubhouse and make herself at home :)

Water Painting:

At one point Daci got so frustrated with my camera constantly in her face that she came right up to my face, put both her hands on my cheeks and looked me right in the eye (like I do to her when she is in trouble) and said, "Mom, NO MORE PICTURES!" I couldn't help but tease her after that! So I kept saying "Daci, Daci, Daci, Daci, Daci..." until she finally looked up at me with an exasperated smile

In the water and wind area:

Trying to pull the bubble up around them, didn't work very well this time :(

In the building area:

Pictures on the big Chair:

And of course, we couldn't finish off our Downtown Naperville trip without our tradition of stopping for a Red Mango with the girls :)

Halloween Festivities

2011-11-04T11:46:00.000-05:00

WARD TRUNK OR TREATING PARTY:

While Rick and I were in Texas, our ward had Trunk or Treating. Rick's parents got Daci all ready and they went to the Ward Party with Carly, Micah and Leni.

Daci and Leni before the Party

Daci and her Papou

Princess Peach

Trick or Treat!

Fred with his two granddaughters

HALLOWEEN:

We had so much fun on Halloween! I'm glad I got to experience this with Daci before I went on bedrest. The whole day she couldn't stop talking about how she would be a princess that night and go trick or treating. She kept saying, "I be a princess, mommy be mario, and daddy be 'weeji' and we go trick or treating!"

This dress used to be Daci's Aunt Sophie's dress when she was young. When Daci was in Utah last month she found it and instantly fell in love with it! Sophie was sweet enough to let her take it home with her and she has lived in it ever since. I cleaned it up really nice for Halloween and got her some gloves, a crown and a wand. She was so excited!

Princess Peach has very flipped out hair so I sprayed Daci's hair really well with hairspray and went to town. She ended up with some very 70's looking hair, but after a little while it loosened up a bit and looked so cute.

Luigi and Princess Peach

Daci LOVED trick or treating! She would march right up to the door, ring the bell, and yell "TRICK OR TREAT!" before anyone even opened the door :)

We went to visit our friends the Jaynes', they had a bunch of people from the ward there at the same time.

Daci was excited to see her friend, Kate

Mario and Princess Peach

Then we went to visit Carly, Micah and Leni. Rick downloaded the SuperMario Brothers theme song to his phone and everytime we went up to a door to trick or treat he would play it. When we got to Carly and Micah's house he put it on and Daci had a little dance party :)

Mario and Luigi save Princess Peach!

Update

2011-11-03T07:59:00.000-05:00

I was on bedrest all day yesterday. I went into the hospital again last night and they monitored the babies and I for an hour. I didn't have one contraction while I was there. They gave me my second round of the steroid shot that speeds up lung development and sent me on my way. But not without telling me I had to go on modified bedrest. Pretty much that means getting up only when I have to like to use the bathroom, shower, make food for Daci and I, etc. I can't really go out anymore or do any hard core cleaning. I'm pretty bummed about it. I have so many things I want to do! They think the exam they did on Tuesday set off the little contractions and are worried that I am already starting so they are being extra careful with me.

On the plus side, I am 27 weeks today! I'm really excited about that. Even better, the babies are extremely healthy. When I went in for my growth ultrasound last week Baby Boy was 2lb 1 oz and Baby Girl was 1 lb 15 oz. The doctor said that they are right on track. At this point, they are the same size that just one baby would be in there, he said they start to taper off and get a little smaller than a singleton would be at about 32 weeks. I had a fetal echocardiogram done on them yesterday and my pediatric cardiologist said their hearts are beautiful. Everything is structurally perfect and functioning just like it should. The bright spot on the little girl's heart that they saw early on is barely visible anymore. It is fading just like they though it would. They are VERY active babies. Every time I go to an appointment the nurses and doctors say they are really busy and make their jobs difficult for them :) I tell them that they are making my job difficult as well, but I do LOVE feeling them move and seeing my belly bounce around like popcorn. I am so grateful that they are doing so well and that I have doctors that are very thorough and concerned with both the babies health and mine.

I'm also grateful for such a concerned hubby. Rick has been so great to help out with Daci and the house and to show his love and concern for me. The downside of his doting is that he insists that I am on full bedrest, not just modified :) Its making me very frustrated :) I'm grateful he is worried though and I know without him insisting, I would probably be overdoing it.

Hopefully I won't have too many eventful pregnancy posts in the next little while. I will be sure to post something more fun tomorrow. Like Halloween pics!

Temporary Bedrest...Again

2011-11-02T08:38:00.000-05:00

I went in for my OB appt yesterday and I was dilated to a half centimeter. They sent me to labor and delivery to be monitored because they were worried that maybe I was having minor contractions that were opening me up. Mostly I think they are just being ultra cautious with me because I am double high risk with twins and lupus. I'm so grateful that I have doctors that watch me so closely and take all the precautions, but it also stresses me out a little :) I was on the monitor for two hours and I am what they call "irritable", I'm just having little contractions randomly. They said it could be due to the fact that I had just had an exam, and it could also be due to the fact that I was dehydrated, they weren't positive. So, they decided to start me on the steroid shots that help the babies' lungs develop quicker in case I do go in to early labor. They sent me home on modified bedrest (they said I could go to my dr appt I have this morning and thats it) until tonight and then I go back in for more monitoring, my next dose of my shot, a fetal fibronectin test and an exam.

A part of me is stressed that the babies will come early, but mostly I feel calm and think they are going to make it, it just might be a boring next 10 weeks while I mostly sit on my butt :) I do these updates mostly for me, I like to keep a record of whats going on in my pregnancy. I promise I am not doing it for sympathy or to worry my friends and family. I think everything will be great, just keep these little twinners in your prayers :) Thanks for all your support! I have so many great friends out here that are helping me, and it is the biggest blessing since I don't have family around me. I will post more when I know more!

Our Babies

2011-10-31T16:48:00.000-05:00

Baby Girl at 26 Weeks:

3D of baby girl. She was laying on her side with her face buried in the membrane the seperates them so her 3D picture is a little distorted. You can see her little hand up under her chin. The ultrasound was hilarious to watch because little boy's foot is right in her face and he just kept kicking her and then she would kinda head butt back. I think we are going to have our hand's full!

Another baby girl pic

Baby Boy at 26 weeks:

He's got his hand up by his face too.

3D ultrasound of baby boy. I think he has the same nose, mouth and chin that Daci did as a baby. We will see if I think that when he actually comes out :)

All snuggled up with his hand up to his face

And the newest addition to our family....Our new minivan! Whoot Whoot! Can I just say this little puppy has made me SO happy!? We have been a one car family for a really long time, and up until we moved to Naperville it has worked out great. It has been really tough only having one car now that I have a bazillion doctor appointments to be to and a toddler who gets stir crazy, not to mention me :) We got a used Toyota Sienna. We love our new van and can't wait to fill it with two more babies!

Family Pictures 2011

2011-10-27T08:37:00.000-05:00

We had our family pictures taken this last weekend at McDowell Grove. We just had Carly come snap a few pictures with my camera and I think they turned out pretty good! Here is our favorite (I know it is the same pose as our Family Picture 2 years ago that is in our blog banner. We didn't expect it to be the one that turned out best):

We did a few Maternity shots at the end. I am 25 weeks here (26 weeks today!).

When I took this shot Rick goes, "Oh, don't do that! That is so trendy!" I said, "Hey! I like these shots!"

So then, he runs over and sarcastically says, "Well you gotta do two hearts since there are two babies!" And this is what resulted. I know we look extremely crazy in this picture, don't judge. I just had to document how silly my husband is :)

Pariveda Conference

2011-10-24T08:49:00.000-05:00

Rick's company had their annual company trip. They call it Finfest (their mascot is a Dolphin). We went last year and had a blast! Read about it here. This year we stayed at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort in Austin, TX. It was beautiful! It was right along the Colorado River and there were so many fun outdoor activities to do at the resort. I, of course, opted to lay in bed for three days straight and it was so nice and relaxing! I've found when I'm not told that I HAVE to be in bed, I really enjoy it :) I think I also enjoyed it much more than my bedrest because I didn't have any responsibilities to worry about. I didn't have to feel guilty staying in bed. Fred, Penny, and Sophie came out to watch Daci while we went to Texas and it was so nice knowing she was in good hands! Thanks Roberts Clan!

This year, Rick and Micah decided to get a group together and be one of the presenters at Finfest. They have been working on this project for MONTHS and have put a ton of work into it. I went to watch their presentation and it was absolutely incredible. They were all so well spoken and did such a great job. I was so proud :)

Brian, Micah, Rick and Jim. They did a presentation on Enterprise iOS Device Management and App Distribution. You will have to ask Rick what that mouth full means, because I wouldn't know the first place to start :)

They had so many incredible meals that I definitely left my "cave" for :) The first night they had a big dinner out on the lawn. So yummy! Here we are at dinner:

The last night they had a big party and the theme was Superheroes. (Last year it was an 80's theme). Since I am 25 weeks pregnant and looking more and more like a whale everyday, there weren't many superhero options for me. There was no way I was squeezing into spandex! Rick came up with the great idea of us being the SUPER Mario Brothers. I, of course, would be the fat Mario, I had the perfect belly for it :) I spent weeks putting our costumes together. We didn't want to just buy the cheesy Halloween costumes, we wanted to be legit and put it all together ourselves. Here is the finished product, I think we look pretty darn good!

Rick with his friends Brian Chae and Micah. Brian was Kato from Green Hornet and Micah was Clark Kent.

These are all the girls from the Chicago Office. Most are wives, and some of them work in the office with Rick

The whole Chicago Office and their dates

Jim, Micah, Brian and Rick

Some of the Clark Kent's (Micah is on the right end)

We had so much fun on our trip! It was great for me to relax and Rick had a blast with all his work friends. They did a lot of disc golf (Rick was the champion) and hitting balls on the golf range. It was fun for Rick and I to get away one last time before our these little twins come! FYI-I am 25 weeks in these photos.

Shower Time!

2011-10-18T19:03:00.000-05:00

My wonderful sister-in-law, Carly, threw me a shower for my friends out here in Naperville. She put so much time, energy, and money into and I appreciate it so much! I helped her put together the decorations and make some of the food, but she was the genius behind it all. Thanks so much Car! So glad you are out here with me!

The INVITATION:

Carly and her husband, Micah designed this cute invitation. I love it!

The DECOR:

We used my nursery colors (Pink, Green, Blue and White) as the theme of the party. We made paper chains and pom pom flowers together. I made the banner (which I am going to hang in my nursery) and the tags that are on all the food.

The complete decor, after all the food was set out. It was really hard to get a good shot with the light coming in the patio door but it was beautiful! My friend, Amanda, did all the fresh flowers. Thanks, Amanda!

The FOOD:

Carly did Strawberries and Lime Curd....to DIE for!

I made gluten free cupcakes (the pink ones) and Carly did regular cupcakes (the blue ones) and we decorated them together

Carly found these ADORABLE owl cupcake pops and we just HAD to make them. They were a TON of work, but so worth it! Carly did all the hard work, I just painted all the fun candies on with her.

Carly made a white chocolate popcorn mix with pink and blue M&M's in it. We found these adorable green party favor boxes at Party City and I made the tags on them that said, "Ready to POP!"

We also cut out fruity pebble treats into the shape of a bottle and Carly piped white chocolate on them

I seriously HATE this picture of me, but I had to get a picture of us in front of all our hard work :) I have officially hit the chubby face stage, and I am NOT happy about it! It doesn't help that I am standing next to Carly either :)

Opening Presents:

I got so many great things for my shower and I am so grateful to everyone who came and supported me! The picture above is a handmade quilt from my friend Mary, isn't it beautiful!? My friend Ashley also made me one that is blue and green and it is gorgeous as well!

I got lots of great clothes and many other things. Thank you everyone!!!

After I opened presents we sat around and talked for awhile. It was so much fun!

The LOOT:

My mother in law and Carly went in on my carseat. Thank you! That is definitely a necessity :)

Here are some pictures of my "loot". I got the quilts, diapers, wipes, beautiful handmade burp cloths and nursery decor, books, blankets, bath and toiletry supplies, a baby carrier and lots and lots of great clothes!

Thanks to everyone who came! I had a blast! So much fun, that it put me in the hospital. Haha! I love my ward out here and I'm so grateful to have been welcomed by everyone!

Update

2011-10-17T16:42:00.000-05:00

Thanks for all the sweet comments and concern! I went to the doctor this morning and they did an ultrasound to measure my cervix (sorry if thats TMI!). Everything looks good and there is nothing to worry about! The fFN test that they did in the hospital on Saturday that came back positive is just a preliminary test. A positive result doesn't always mean anything but it could mean that you will go into labor fairly soon. When you get a positive result they pair it with an ultrasound and if the ultrasound looks good then there is nothing to worry about. The pains I am having are just a result of carrying twins and doing too much, so I just need to take it easy and not do as much as I have been. I am SO grateful that everything is still okay and that I don't have to be on bedrest! I wish I had known that the bedrest would only last a day and a half, I would have enjoyed the pampering a lot more :) Instead, I was worrying the whole time about what I would do if I had to be on bedrest for the next 13 weeks! The first morning that I didn't get out of bed with Daci, she was so sad. She kept pulling on my arm and saying, "Mommy, I want you get up! Come downstairs with me!" It broke my heart! It was so hard to explain why I had to lay in bed all day and not be with her. Rick was so amazing this weekend. He did all of my work, plus his own. Daci was so well taken care of, and I was treated like a princess. So grateful for a wonderful husband, daughter, family and friends! Love you all!

Temporary Bedrest (Hopefully!)

2011-10-15T18:56:00.000-05:00

My sister-in-law threw me a beautiful baby shower today with the ladies in my ward (pictures to come soon!) I was having the time of my life! Seriously, everyone in my ward is so sweet and gave me such wonderful and thoughtful gifts! Right at the end of the shower, when there was just about four people left, I got this sharp, shooting pain in my lower abdomen that went all the way through to my back. I nearly buckled over in the middle of the room. I ran to the bathroom and just slumped over on the floor. I was nauseous, dizzy, and sweating. The pain was so intense. It was just like what I experienced a few weeks ago when I was walking downtown with Rick, but magnified. After about 20 mins of not being able to regain myself I asked Carly to call Rick to come over. He came over and we decided to call the doctor. She told me that when carrying twins, they never risk it. She wanted me to go into labor and delivery. I checked in and got all hooked up to the monitors. By now the intense pain had subsided but I still wasn't feeling well. The nurse did a fFN test. Fetal Fibronectin. Its a test that determines the likelihood of preterm labor. We waited in the room for about an hour for the results and they came back positive :( They told me I had to go on complete bedrest for the weekend and on Monday I have to go get some more tests done. I am so discouraged! Things have been going so well with this pregnancy and I don't want them to take a turn for the worst! I'm glad I went in though, and that they are going to do everything they can to make sure I don't come too early. Let me just tell ya though, I've been on bedrest for a total of 3 hrs and I'm already going looney! Seriously, how is someone supposed to be on bedrest when they have a very active toddler who just wants her mommy to play with and hold her? Luckily, its the weekend and Rick has been so sweet to do everything. Hopefully the rest of the tests will come back normal and I will just need to take it easy the rest of the pregnancy, not be on complete bedrest. I have too much time left!

What you've all been waiting for.....I know it :)

2011-10-11T16:44:00.000-05:00

Remember this bad boy? Well you can read all about my remodel of the left side here: http://streebor.blogspot.com/2011/05/two-months-downand-im-still-not-done.html. The left side took me two months. I decided to start the right side and was bound and determined to finish it faster, I mean it is about 1/8 of the size of the left side, right? Well, I started it July 7, and I finished it October 7th. Wow, thats kinda pathetic. However in my defense, it has been crazy around here what with my pregnancy, painting the whole upstairs, crafting, a Utah trip, and all that mommy mumbo jumbo that I do on a daily basis. Anyway, I may be a slow poke, but its done! (Well, the downstairs is done.....but we won't talk about the upstairs banister right now! HA!)

After sanding it down on July 7th

And the finished product!!!

So what do you think? This could be my single most proud renovation I have done. Seriously, re-doing a banister is a TON of work! It looks like it is black in this photo, but it is a dark walnut color. I am soooo happy with how it turned out!

And who is in the mood for some fall festivities? I have never decorated my home for holidays. I guess I always felt like I couldn't justify spending the money when I lived in rentals but now I am so sad I never did! PLUS I still haven't spent hardly any money on my fall decorations, I made most of them and it has added some fun flavor to our home!

On my kitchen table I have a table runner my mom gave me a few years ago. I sprinkled fall leaves in my new tray and made myself some candy corns. Thanks to my friend Jenna and her tutorial: http://jjreynoldsfamily.blogspot.com/2011/09/candy-corn-decor-tutorial.html

I also sprinkled leaves on my hutch and put out some cute Halloween candle holders that I bought last yr after the season for $1!

I have been in the baking mood. Most people know that I love anything pumpkin! My friend, Gentri, posted this recipe on her blog and it is TO.DIE.FOR! Of course, I make it gluten free for my family and it is still SCRUMPTIOUS! Love it!!

I made a "BOO" banner that I saw on pinterest to string across the top of my hutch

And of course my "must haves" for the season. Marshmallow Creme pumpkins in my cute new candy corn dish found in the $1 section at Target!

Comparisons

2011-10-03T12:38:00.000-05:00

So I am feeling huge and uncomfortable and......whiny! I know I'm carrying twins, but come on, why do I feel so much more uncomfortable than I did with Daci?! This weekend Rick and I celebrated our anniversary (6 weeks late) with an overnight trip downtown. We got to stay in the Hyatt Regency with Rick's hotel points he has earned from traveling. It was such a treat! We had an amazing room with an awesome view! I was so excited when we got there. We headed straight out to dinner at the Grand Lux. We wanted to go to a fun but affordable restaurant that was pretty close to our hotel. We found the Grand Lux and it was only .4 miles from the hotel. Totally do-able, right? Wrong! We walked there and I did pretty good, I mean I was crampy and tired but I seemed fine. We had dinner and then started heading back. We stopped in to Nordstrom to look around and I all of a sudden got extremely light headed, dizzy and nauseous. I had this horrible pain starting in the front and radiating all the way to my back. I went in the bathroom and sprawled out on the floor, shaking really bad. Then I started dry heaving. It was awful! Every time I stood up the room would start spinning! After about 30-45 mins of this, I was stable enough to stand up and Rick got us a cab and we went back to the hotel. I just kept thinking, I am only 22 weeks! I feel like I did at 40 weeks with Daci! Well, I have been looking at pictures from the first pregnancy and I think I have figured out why :) Here is a comparison of the two pregnancies.

On the left is me at 14 weeks with Daci....I still have a flat tummy. On the right is me at 15 weeks with the twins. Ah!

On the left is me at 21 weeks in Italy, on the right me at 19 weeks with the twins.

On the left is me at 35 weeks with Daci, on the right, me at 21 weeks with the twins! Holy Macaroni! I look like I did when I was about to have Daci and I had already gained 50 lbs by then! Man alive this could be a long 15 more weeks :) The doctor said today I will gain another 1-2 lbs a week from here on out, which means I will probably gain 30 more lbs knowing me. That is not very comforting considering I have already gained 27 lbs. I just keep thinking, "Maybe it will come off fast this time since I will have NO time to eat once the twins are here!"

Anyway, enough with my pregnancy ranting :) Here are some precious pictures of my peanuts. These were taken last Thursday at 22 weeks. They are looking so good!

3D picture of our little boy. He was folded in half at this visit. Can you see his legs tucked up to his face? :)

3D picture of our little girl. She has her cute little hand up to her eye.

Regular picture of baby boy. See his leg in front of him? :)

Baby Girl

PS Sorry about the poor quality of the ultrasound pics. Our scanner isnt working and I can't figure out the best way to take pics of the glossy paper. If I turn the flash off, it is all blurry. If I leave it on (like I did this time), some of them get whited out. The 3d pic of the baby girl for instance, I took that at least 10 times and that was the best I could get. If any of my camera savvy friends have any advice, I would greatly appreciate it :)

Here are some pics from our anniversary weekend. I met Rick at his office and got to see it for the first time. Kinda fun to see where he spends his days :) This is just one of the Conference Rooms he was set up in that day.

The view from our hotel room

The beautiful buildings of Downtown

My cute hubby and I celebrating our fifth anniversary. Oh how I love him :)

Weekend Activities

2011-09-26T11:03:00.000-05:00

I was 21 weeks on Thursday. Everything is going really great with the babies so far! I went in for my weekly hearts check and so far there is no sign of heart block. The babies sure are getting huge and their movements are getting harder and harder :) With Daci, she was always stuck up under my right rib. This time is no different. The right rib is the favorite place to be, the only difference is that there are TWO babies that like to be under my right rib! Little boy flipped breech this week and now his head is under my right rib and his body curves around and his feet are at the bottom and then baby girls feet are right under my right rib. The last few days has been quite interesting because they are CONSTANTLY moving in that spot! I keep thinking the girl kicks the boy in the face and the boy head butts her back in retaliation :) I have had really bad lower back pain the last two weeks as well, I can't sit or stand for very long. It feels much better to lay down. The most comfortable position is on my back, but I'm not supposed to sleep on my back so it makes for a very sleepless night. I will sleep for about 30 minutes at a time, then I have to flip to the other side, and then I lay awake for 30 minutes while they have a boxing match in my stomach, then I fall back asleep for 30 minutes, and the cycle continues. I really shouldn't complain though because I am just so grateful all three of us are healthy and progressing nicely, plus, I'm pretty sure its going to get a lot worse with the weeks to come :) Thats all to report with the pregnancy. Here are some photos:

Baby Girl.

Baby Boy from straight on, head is the left circle, stomach is the right :)

We had a very exciting weekend. Rick's dad, Fred, or more affectionately known as "Papou" came into town for a Milwaukee Bucks golf tournament. Daci couldn't have been a happier camper! She loves her Papou so much. We went to the Wheaton French Market on Saturday morning and it was so much fun. The weather was perfect crisp, cool Fall weather and the girls had a blast running around with Papou!

Rick's favorite thing at the market....the donuts!

Daci and Leni running and dancing around

Daci picked out a pumpkin

Daci begging Papou to hold her and Leni giving Daci hugs :)

She was either in his arms or hanging on his leg all weekend!

Happy Girl with her cheese curd!

Trisha the Twister. We sure got a kick out of her and her balloon animals!

Later that day Rick took Fred down to the Prairie where we love to go ride bikes and go for walks. Ricks favorite part of the prairie is that there is an RC airplane airstrip there. I took a nap while the boys took Daci down to play. Daci had a blast!

Sunday after church we celebrated Carly's birthday. Carly and Micah made a delicious Greek meal and I made Carly's birthday cake. She requested a coconut milk cake.

I made her this frame with the poem that I love to match the banner I made for Eleni's room for her birthday.

Projects, Projects, and More Projects!

2011-09-21T13:19:00.000-05:00

I have been inspired to decorate my house! I don't know if this is part of my "nesting" phase or what but I have been working like a mad woman to get some things done on my house. I'm excited to share what I've been up to!

While Rick and Daci were gone I got really in the mood and did some fun craft projects and also went to town on Daci's closet. She has a really big closet, luckily since there will be THREE kiddos sharing it :) We only have one dresser for her room and we can't afford another one so I decided to be thrifty! I found $11 bookcases at Menards, built them all by myself, and organized the closet. I wish so badly I had taken a before picture. Imagine stuff everywhere, and thats what it looked like :) I had about 8 big boxes of baby clothes in the bottom of the closet, Daci's toys thrown in there, and a bunch of other junk. I spent three whole days going through the baby boxes, taking everything 0-6 months out and putting it on shelves and hanging it up, boxing up stuff for Goodwill, and not to mention painting the whole closet. Yes, I am 20 weeks pregnant with twins, huge, uncomfortable, and VERY proud of myself :)

Here is the finished product. Well, sorta. As you can tell, everything in there is girl stuff :) We don't have any boy stuff yet. I did a bookshelf for baby girl on the left and a bookshelf for baby boy on the right. The "drawers" will be the plastic containers I got at the dollar store. There are onesies for each size up to 6 months, socks, shoes, hats, etc in each of the bins. Hanging up to the left is baby girl clothes 0-6 months and Daci's clothes are on the far right. The middle is empty but will hopefully be filled with baby boy clothes soon :) The top shelf is lined with blankets, burp cloths, diapers and wipes. The bottom right of the closet has plastic drawers full of toys and a laundry basket of Daci's big stuffed animals. I know I have so much more "stuff" to get and I just hope it all fits in there somehow! PS- That star won't be there once I get all the clothes in there, its just there til I decide where to hang it :)

I have also been working on nursery decor. The room is already shabby chic pink, green and white. Since we have to squeeze a little guy in there and I don't want him to have an identity crisis, I have decided to add blue in there too :) So we will have light pink, light green, light blue, and white be the colors of the room. I finished painting their room about three weeks ago. I'm so glad I didn't go with the girly pink I was thinking of doing when we first moved in :) Its just the pretty neutral that I have through most of the house and I'm really happy with it.

First thing I decided to do was make a fun bow board. I originally had the bows just hanging from some ribbon in Daci's closet on the rack, but I needed to create more space so I decided to make a cute wall hanging for them. I saw this online and loved it. I bought a cork board from Goodwill for $1.99, spray painted it white and mod podged the front of it with a cute green and white damask print. I then got some fabric on sale at Joanns and covered the board (I mod podged it on), got some pink ribbon from Joanns and strung it across the front, and made some blue paper roses for the corner. Voila! A bow board.

Then, I decided to make some frames for the kids room. I bought a pack of three wooden frames from Goodwill for $.99, spray painted them white, modpodged some fun pink, green and blue scrapbook papers and then made paper roses in the alternating colors and glue gunned them on. They will be hanging vertically on a narrow wall in their room with Daci's pic in the pink, Baby Girl in the green, and Baby Boy in the blue. Pretty good for about a dollar a frame, right?

My friend posted this poem on her blog a few weeks ago and I fell in love with it. I seriously get tears in my eyes every time I read it. It explains perfectly how I feel about being a mom. It talks about both the craziness and joys of being a parent. I had to have it in their room so I got another frame from Goodwill (I'm telling ya, I am learning to bargain shop!), spray painted it white, and mod podged this pink and white damask print. Finished it off with more paper roses. Love it.

I've also been working on my main floor. We have soft turquoise couches with a brown, tan and turquoise accent chair. Almost everything in my house is blue and brown so I wanted to try to bring in some more color. I have big plans :) Here are a few projects I have done:

A wreath I saw online and was so excited about! I found this wreath at Savers for $4.99. I was all proud of myself, thinking it was a steal, but then saw them at the craft store the next day for the same price. Lame! Anyway, got the wreath at savers, the nest, bird, eggs and felt at Joanns, and I already had the scrapbook paper. I searched and searched for the perfect ribbon and couldn't find any and then lo and behold in the bargain bin up front they had my perfect color for only $1. Score!

I made the felt into roses just like I do my paper roses. The leaves are a combo of scrapbook paper and pages from a dollar store book that I ripped out. You cut them in the shape of leaves, fold them in half, and then I edged them in brown ink to give them a vintage feel.

I am bringing some of this corally/pinky/red color into my main area. I mod podged this R. I had this cute stitching that my old boss gave me for my wedding and I just love it. Only problem was that the frame was a red that didn't go with my house at all. I spray painted it brown and mod podged the paper on the front.

They are currently displayed on my hutch

Sidenote: The top left and bottom right pots in the hutch were made by Rick in high school. He is AMAZING at pottery and I am so proud to have his beautiful artwork in our home!

I found this tray at Goodwill for $1.99. It was originally black with a french bistro picture in the bottom. I spray painted it brown and mod podged the bottom with scrapbook paper in the turqouise and corally color. I also love flowers, but hate that they die so quickly and are so expensive so I decided fake flowers would be perfect for me :) I LOVE hydrangeas, and I also love this chartreuse green color. I found the flowers and the perfect coral pink sprigs at Joanns, paired them with a dollar store vase and clear marbles, and put them on the tray.

The tray sits on our kitchen table and we put our salt and pepper, our butter dish and usually our keys and Rick's wallet get thrown in there too :)

Last project for today, I promise! I made this wreath that I found on the internet. I bought a styrofoam wreath at Joanns and two dollar store books. I painted the edges of the books, let them dry, and ripped out all the pages. Then I rolled each page and started attaching. It took forever! I'm kind of a perfectionist and I had to have every roll just right, mine looks nothing like the one I found on the internet, but I'm still really happy with it! It is hanging in my downstairs bathroom. Do you love my blue wall!? Its actually got more green in it than this picture shows. Its like a robin egg blue. I just love the cream wreath against the wall. There was also no ribbon on the wreath I found on the internet, but I wanted to add a feminine touch :)

There are FIVE rows of rolled up pages.

And, just cuz I can't do a post without my cute Daci......

How cute is she anyway!? I was taking pictures of all my projects and she was like, "Mommy! Take a picture of me!" What!? She usually hates getting her picture taken, shes too busy to stop and look at the camera and smile for two seconds. I couldn't pass the chance up, and I'm so glad I didn't. I am in love with these pictures.

She has been really sick the last few days. Poor thing has been coughing up a lung. My heart breaks when I hear her coughing for hours on end at night, knowing she can't be getting any sleep. She is the happiest little girl when she is sick though! She makes my life easy. She is so sweet and cuddly and not whiny in the least. Today she was doing a little bit better and I knew she was sick of being cooped up in the the house the last few days so I took her for a walk to the CVS to get a treat. I know, bad mom. Shouldn't get her treats when she is sick, but I couldn't help it. She was so happy when we got back! She picked the marshmallow creme pumpkins, which I was ecstatic about because they might just be my favorite thing about this time of year :)

Hopefully you are still here! Sorry it was such a long post. I hope everyone is having a great week!

Rick and Daci's Utah Trip

2011-09-15T12:23:00.000-05:00

Rick and Daci are back from their trip and boy can I tell you its great to have them home! I sure missed them! Rick says my last post's title ("Family-less!") made it look like I was jumping for joy that they were gone. I think I hurt his feelings :) I quickly explained that the exclamation point was trying to make it look like I was shocked. It was quite the shock to wind up family-less. Although I did have a lot of fun, I did miss them every second of every day!

So, lets start from the very beginning. I was a nervous wreck for Rick to take Daci on the plane by himself. He seemed to think it would be a breeze, and I knew otherwise :) I was secretly hoping she was her usual crazy self on the plane so that he would understand what I go through when I fly with her because he obviously had no idea if he thought it was going to be easy :) Well, they got to the airport quite early, only to find out that their flight was delayed an hour. I talked to him a few times in those two hours he was stranded at the airport with her and it seemed to be going just as it usually does. I was selfishly a teeny tiny bit happy for about one minute, and then I just felt bad. I know how hard it can be with her in the airport! Luckily, once they got on board she did pretty well and even fell asleep for the last hour of the flight....something she has never done for me.

*sidenote: because I, the anal photographer, wasn't with them on this trip most of the pictures from this post are from Rick's cell phone. I also stole some from my mom's facebook page :)

Daci sound asleep on the plane

On Saturday morning I got up and went to the temple. It was the first time I have done a session by myself. It was so nice to not worry about rushing home to a babysitter and just sit and enjoy the beautiful temple.

On my way to the temple I called Rick and asked him what his plans for the day were. He said he was just going to hang out and maybe work a few hours. When I got out of the temple I called him and he asked what I was planning on doing. I told him I was going to watch Easton's SUU Football game online while I worked on getting the babies' room all organized. He said, "Oh fun, I bet you wish you were going to the game though, huh?" I said, "Yes, I wish so bad!" He goes, "Well, I'm on my way there right now!" I didn't believe him for a while. I mean the game was 3.5 hours away. I was surprised he wanted to drive down there, watch the game, and then rush back for a wedding reception he had that night. Turns out he really was on his way! He checked the schedule, saw they were playing, and decided he wanted to go watch. I was so jealous! I was also really glad he went. We lived in Cedar City for a year and we absolutely loved it down there!

The rainy game

Easton and Rick after the game

My mom and Easton

My dad, Easton, Dawson and Rick

Easton and his cute wife, Daysha

After the game Rick drove over to the house we used to live in and snapped a pic. He sent it to me on my phone and I got tears in my eyes! I absolutely loved Cedar and we loved our house. We lived in the basement of this house. You walk around back along that path to the right of the house to get to our front door.

Sunday night Rick sent me this picture and I got tears in my eyes again! E, Daysha and my family stopped by the Roberts house to visit Daci after they went to Daysha's cousin's farewell. I didn't know they were stopping over so when he sent me a pic of all my fav people in the same house I got jealous again :)

Daci stayed with Fred and Penny (Papou and Yia Yia) Friday, Saturday and Sunday and then Monday morning Rick drove Daci over to my parents house to stay because Fred, Penny and Rick had to work Monday and Tuesday. Daci had a blast with Grandma Karen, Grandpa Dan and Dawson. My dad went to do stairs at the football stadium for his workout and my mom took Daci to the park and creek that was near the stadium. Daci had so much fun running around by the creek and playing on the jungle gym!

She is holding the shot from the pretend doctor kit. She was kinda attached to it the whole trip :)

Wednesday morning when Rick was packing he put some stuff in the suitcase and then walked away. When he came back in, Daci had put all of the things that she got really attached to into the suitcase to bring back to Chicago :) Rick took them out and left the room again and when he came back she had piled them all back in the suitcase. She was not going to leave Utah without them! So funny!

Daci was a terror on the plane ride home I guess. She whined the whole way and Rick was fit to be tied when I picked him up :) Here is a pic of her on the way to the airport, maybe it was bad she fell asleep? Shoulda waited til the plane :) The first thing Rick said when he saw me was, "I'm so glad you can do her hair again! I sure can't make it look good." Haha!

I'm so glad my family is all back together. I missed them so bad! I did lots of fun things while they were gone and will be posting about them soon.

PS-I'm 20 weeks today!

Family-less!

2011-09-12T16:59:00.000-05:00

Well, I am family-less, and have been since Friday night. Rick had a business recruiting trip out at BYU this week. About a week ago I made a sarcastic comment after a long, hard week with my adorable little one: "Why don't you take Daci with you?" He decided he liked that idea. He wanted to give me a break and we knew how much Daci would love to see her family. She misses her grandparents and aunts and uncles SO bad! She is always asking when she gets to go to "Hootah" again. So, Rick and Daci headed to the airport at about 5pm on Friday and I have been a free woman ever since! It has been an incredibly relaxing and productive last few days. I have been falling asleep reading at night; I haven't done that in years! I have been doing lots of crafting. I have been walking around stores, child-free, for hours at a time :) And, I have been getting the nursery ready! Its been nice to have this time to myself but I am sure missing Rick and Daci a lot! Now I know how Rick feels when I leave him in 'Cago and take Daci to Hootah :) Love you two so much and can't wait to have our little family back together! A special thanks to our awesome families who have done such a GREAT job watching Daci and making her feel so loved. I'm glad we have such sweet and involved grandparents for our little Daci and soon-to-be twinners!

This is a pic of Rick and I on our anniversary date. We went to dinner and a movie and I can't believe I haven't posted it yet! Sure love my hubby!

I'm sure Daci is being just as mischievous as this picture depicts out there in Hootah!

19 Weeks

2011-09-09T19:13:00.000-05:00

I'm 19 weeks yesterday and I had an appointment today. I have one every single week from here until 28 weeks to check for heart block in the babies. Now that I have met my deductible, I am totally fine with going in every week :) Its fun to get to see my cute munchkins so often and I really like that my doctors know me so well already. My doctors in Utah had no idea who I was or what my medical conditions were.

Last Friday, at 18 weeks, they did my in depth Level 2Ultrasound. Rick came with me tothis appointment. The ultrasoundtook about an hour and a half for both babies. Rick was having a really hard time watching and listening (he is EXTREMELY squeamish. No really, think of squeamish and then go way past that, and that is Rick!) and it was so funny because I think the ultrasound tech thought he was reallyweird for playing on his phone the whole time. Little did she know that if he didn’t take his focus off ofthe phone, he might pass out right there :) I'm just grateful that he came, even though it was hard for him. They took a few 3D ultrasound pics ofthe babies but I almost wish they had just done the normal pictures. Both babies have their faces so buriedinto the uterus that they look funny and distorted. I know they are going to be so adorable and beautiful, butthe pictures are just kinda creepy :)

After the ultrasound tech recorded everything, my doctor came in. It was my first appointment with him and he was the first of my doctors that I didn't really like. He just didn’t have a veryfriendly bedside manner. He wentthrough everything with me and said they had a “finding” with Baby A. She has a bright spot showing up on herheart, which generally means she has a calcium deposit on her heart. Ipanicked! Why wasn’t he explainingthis further? What was a calciumdeposit? Was it something to worryabout? How would it affecther? I as calmly as I could askedhim these questions. He said thatit is actually quite common and they haven’t found it to be dangerous atall. The calcium deposit almostalways goes away before the baby is even born. Still, I wasn’t getting any emotion from him and it was likepulling teeth to find out what this thing was. He said he had a handout if I wanted to look it. Yes,please! I read the handout andfelt much better about the situation. It sounds like its pretty normal and nothing to worry about. In VERY rare cases it can indicateDowns Syndrome, but I don’t have the other risk factors associated with that soits not likely. We just pray thateverything is ok with our baby girl and that she will be healthy andhappy. At my 18 week appointmentmy weight gain was at 19 lbs. Yuck! But my doctor said she was really happy with that. She said with twins its important to gain weight and that she was hopingI would be right around 20 lbs. Iweighed myself again this morning at 19 weeks and I’m at 21.5 lbs. Ugh. I am going to be so big! I sure hope it comes off fast!

Here I am at 19 weeks:

Daci couldn't stand that I was getting my picture taken without her :)

Our baby boy:

Our baby girl: (The big blob on her cheek is her fist up to her face)

Last Week

2011-09-06T09:46:00.000-05:00

Last week we did a lot of random things. Heres an update!

We had a fun dinner with two couples in our ward. My friend, Ashley, had us over for dinner and I was in charge of dessert. I made Gluten Free Eclair cake. Its one of my favorite Gluten Free Desserts :)

Daci being her cute self before we left for dinner. Isn't she looking SO big!?

Fun at the Park. We went to the park three times last week. Daci loves the park and it gives us a chance to get out and get her worn out before naps :)

On Tuesdays Rick and Micah stay in Indiana (they are commuting to Indiana everyday for work, they stay over one night a week so they can get more done, rather than waste work time on driving). Carly and I usually get together and do dinner together on Tuesdays. Last Tuesday we both didn't feel like cooking so we made an afternoon out of going downtown Naperville. Downtown Naperville is seriously one of the best parts about living here. I love it! We took the girls to get a Red Mango, then we walked around and went in the shops for about an hour, then we ate dinner at Chipotle, then we walked the River Walk. It was such a beautiful day!

Daci and Leni in their matching strollers, reading for an afternoon on the town!

Eleni enjoying her Red Mango!

Daci pulls the weirdest faces when we ask her to smile lately. She looks like she is in pain :) Oh well, at least she is looking at he camera, right!?

Me with the girls down on the River Walk

Daci watching the Ducks

The girls enjoying the fountain

This Sunday was my friend, Angelique's, birthday. We had her family and Micah (Carly and Leni are in Utah) over for a big feast! I made Cafe Rio, all from scratch. It turned out SOOO yummy! Luckily it did, because it was A LOT of work :) I swear I had been cooking since 6pm the day before :) I also made her a cake. Daci had so much fun helping me with the cake. She watched me frost the whole thing. She is such a good raver! The whole time she was like, "OH MOM! That is so beautiful!" "Oh Mom! You are so good at that!" "Oh mom, so pretty!" Haha, I was cracking up! I told Rick to take notes, she already knows how to rave and make me feel good :)

These pictures are special to me because my mom and I use to bake together and then eat the beaters together. We are carrying on the tradition. Daci LOVES this tradition :)

Angelique's cake

I'm SO bummed I didn't take better pics of the dinner that I worked so hard on. This was after we had eaten and lots of stuff was gone. Oh well :) I made pork, beans, rice, guacamole, pico de gallo, creamy ranch dressing, ya know, all the fixins!

Ang with her cake while we were singing to her

And the "big girl" news of the day.....Daci moved to her big girl bed! The last three days she has been jumping out of her crib! We would hear a big thud and then see Daci on the stairs smiling a few seconds later. We were super nervous she was going to hurt herself so we decided it was time to make the change. This was really hard for me, not just because my baby is growing up, but because I really enjoy her being confined in her crib until I decide when its time for her to get up :) We set up her bed yesterday morning and then I pulled her onto my nap to have a talk (I've discovered if I have "talks" with her before we do anything like going into the store, then she knows what to expect and the experience is much more pleasant). I started explaining that she was a big girl now and that she gets to sleep in a big bed and tears just started streaming down my face! I got so emotional! This was like the last thing she needed to do to get away from anything baby and it broke my heart. She is such a big girl and not my little baby anymore!

Yesterdays nap time was quite the experience. She got out of bed at least 10 times. We had to keep putting her back and telling her we don't get out of bed until Mom says its ok. I was pretty upset because I SO need her naptime still! She normally is in there for 2.5-3 hrs and it is a very nice and needed break for me! When bedtime rolled around I was praying she would stay in there. She did! She didn't get out once! Maybe she was pooped from no nap? :)

When we went in to check on her she looked like this, all snuggled up i the corner :)

We moved her to a more "normal" postition

Well thats it for the random updates! I had a doctor appointment on Friday also, which I will post about soon. Have a great week!

Fun Giveaway!

2011-08-31T10:49:00.000-05:00

My friend has an adorable little shop and she is doing a fun giveaway today! Head on over to littlelulusnest.blogspot.com for a chance to win! I am DYING for her cute wreath!

A day in the Kiddie Pool

2011-08-30T13:17:00.000-05:00

One of my friends, Laura, has us over every once in a while to run through sprinklers and play in their kiddie pool. Carly and I went over and met some other friends in the ward there. The kids had a BLAST! We also had a great time enjoying some girl talk :)

Eleni

Maggie

Daci, Kate, Eleni, Carly and a new little boy in the ward

Annie with Maggie, Daci and Kate

Annie with Daci and Eleni. She is so good with the little ones!

Annie and Eleni

Our Rained Out Air Show!

2011-08-25T09:22:00.000-05:00

Chicago has an amazing Air Show every year. We went last year right after we moved here and it was one of the highlights of our year. We have all been anxiously awaiting the show this year and were excited to take Carly and Micah with us.

The morning was looking pretty overcast and gloomy and we were nervous it was going to get rained out. We decided to be optimists and head down to the city anyway. We got there early and got a good spot on the beach and waited for it to start. It started at 10am and we saw three little prep routines to get us ready for the big show. They were really cool and we were excited for the big events to start. But then....they announced a 30 minute halt in the show due to weather. It started to sprinkle and we decided we could wait out a 30 minute drizzle. Boy, were we wrong. The drizzle turned into a 3 hour downpour with a ton of thunder and lightening and caused the show to be stopped until the late afternoon and thus, ruining our fun day. We waited the storm out for about an hour. In fact, we were one of the very last people left on the beach. It got really scary with big thunder and lightening right around us and the lake. We finally decided to make a run for it to a nearby freeway overpass. By that time though we were all soaked to the bone and miserable. We went back to our car to wait it out, thinking it would pass quickly. By 12:30 though we were all freezing, Daci was soaked to the bone and we were exhausted. Poor Rick. I felt so bad for him. He was SO excited for the show and had been talking about it for weeks. I felt awful that he was going to have to miss it! We decided to head back home. The traffic was awful and we were miserable in our cold, wet clothes. When we finally pulled in at 2:30pm the weather cleared and it was beautiful. They started the show back up about 10 minutes later :( What a bummer! We were so sad to miss it, I think Rick still isn't over it :)

Despite it being a lamesauce day, we did get some fun pictures before we got rained out. Enjoy!

Daci anxiously awaiting the start of the show, with her box of Wheat Thins of course :)

Gloomy, but beautiful lake front

The first little "teaser"

Rick watching

This was really cool. They let parachuters out over the water and they did all these cool maneuvers with smoke and stuff.

The parachuters coming down onto the beach

These planes came back out and did some amazing passes. They stay in this tight formation the whole time! I can't believe they don't crash!

After these, they called for a pause in the show. We snapped some family pics while it drizzled a bit.

I promise Daci was really happy! She just kept pulling the WIERDEST faces when we tried to take pictures :)

Then, the storm happened! We stayed on the beach in the storm for about 30 minutes and then decided to head to the underpass. It was like the apocalypse or something. There were a TON of people all huddled up and freezing. We all looked homeless :)

Daci was soaked to the bone. She was such a trooper though. She never cried, but you could tell she was miserable!

So a sad day, but an entertaining story! We hope next year is much better :)

My 2 1/2 Year Old!

2011-08-22T19:12:00.000-05:00

My Daci Bug turned 2 1/2 on Sunday the 21st! I can't believe it. Seriously wasn't she just a tiny baby in my arms? It blows my mind.

We went to her check-up today and everything is looking great. She is 30 lbs 5 oz (70%), 37 inches (80%), and her head circumference is 19 inches (50%). She got to wear her underwear to her appointment and the doctor was very impressed :) She also got a free spinny toothbrush because I filled out a survey.

Daci is definitely in a stage right now. The only way I can describe her is: HANDFUL! She is seriously testing my limits! She is so smart and knows exactly what she should and shouldn't do and loves to push me to see how far she can go. Like I've said before, my fuse is definitely a lot shorter since I got pregnant and I am having a hard time keeping my cool. As hard as she is right now, she is also so much fun. I just love her spunky and determined personality. I only hope and pray that we can learn how to channel it for good :)

Some things about Daci right now:

-She loves eggs
-She loves tacos
-She loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
-She loves all the classic Disney Movies
-She loves to play at the park
-She loves to quote movies
-She LOVES nursery
-She loves all her friends and especially loves it when we go to play at other people's houses
-Unfortunately she likes to bully her little cousin, Eleni
-She has to do everything herself. I can't do anything for her anymore.
-When she is sad she has to bring me her blankie and lay on my shoulder
-She loves music and has to know the title of EVERY song that comes on in the car. I usually don't know them so I just make up a title for them because she won't drop it until I tell her one :)
-She says, "Whatchu doin ner?"
-"What you say, Mom?"
-"I miss my daddy mom, will he come home safely?" We pray for Rick to come home safely if she goes to bed before he gets home so she always asks me if he will come home safely :)
-She loves her grandparents and aunts and uncles and is constantly asking if she can go to their houses
-She compliments my cooking at the dinner table, "Mmmmm! This really good mom!"
-She tells me I'm pretty. "You so beauful Mommy!"
-She loves to dress up. She always puts bows and dresses and makeup on and then runs to Rick or I and says, "I so beauful!"
-She loves her princess potty and potty trained in just one week
-She loves her crib
-She loves to read Dr. Seuss books
-She loves to look at my scrapbooks
-She can't wait for the twins. She says, "You have two babies in your tummy. A baby boy and a baby girl. When they comin mom?!"
-My favorite, she knows her full name now and anytime you say something like "Daci your so silly" or "Daci why you being so crazy?" She'll say, "I not silly! I DACI PARAS ROBERTS!" "I not crazy, I DACI PARAS ROBERTS!"
-She loves to know everyone's names
-She twists her hair with her fingers and I'm so afraid she will go bald!
-She loves to push my buttons :)

After her nap today I took her out for a little "photo shoot". Here's my Bug: