Belly shots

16 weeks 2 days

 18 weeks 2 days

 20 weeks 2 days (we take these on Sunday.  I don't normally dress up during the day.  Brent's lucky if I have clothes on at all when he gets home)

I realize (and enough people have told me) that if I'm this big at 20 weeks, I'm going to be huge.  I told Brent I'm not going to be a house, I'm going to be the whole freaking cul-de-sac.  And you know what?  I can't wait.

I FINALLY felt the babies move.  At about 17 weeks I felt my first kick.  But then I didn't really feel anything for a couple weeks.  Then at 19 weeks Baby A started moving up a storm.  I actually got to feel him have hiccups!  It was the cutest thing :)  Baby B is a little tougher to feel because his placenta is in the front, so if he kicks he gets the placenta and not me.  But I started feeling him a little a couple days ago.  Best feeling ever!

The Results are IN!

We had our anatomy ultrasound today where they look at all the parts (heart, kidneys, stomach, bones, etc.) and found out that we are officially going to be the parents of two little BOYS!  Neither baby was shy about showing us the goods.  As soon as the ultrasound tech put his wand over baby A he had his legs spread like he was telling us, "Hey guys, check out what's going on HERE!".  And baby B was just as open about sharing his gender.  But his little hand was up by his face after we saw the goods like he was embarrassed.  It was cute :)  We're pretty sure of the names we like, but we haven't finalized anything yet. 

I haven't had an overly emotional pregnancy like you sometimes hear about.  But after I found out for sure that I'm going to have two sons, I get choked up every time I start really thinking about it!  I still can't believe this is happening to us.  At the beginning of the year we weren't sure we would ever have kids, and now look where we are.

They gave us a cd of pictures but it has about 394 folders in it for some reason so hopefully Brent will figure it out when he gets home so we can post some! 

This looks like a fun pillow

Let's face it.  I don't have too much going on right now.  Besides the fact that my awesome brother-in-law came up to visit us this past weekend, the main thing I think about are babies, babies, BABIES!  And I figure I've waited my turn long enough for this whole pregnancy thing that I deserve it. 

I feel like I've had a fairly easy pregnancy.  I don't have much to complain about (and I really don't want to complain about anything anyway!), but I've realized that I am a total hypochondriac right now.  I didn't realize that pregnancy was so full of little aches, pains and stabbing sensations.  So when I feel something like that I automatically assume something is very wrong. 

Take my poor cervix, for example.  It's just down there doing it's own little cervix-y thing, all closed up and keeping my babies safely on the inside.  Last week, however, it decided to start hurting.  Like someone was taking a needle and stabbing it.  Somehow I convinced myself that my cervix was dilating early and the babies were ready to come NOW.  Luckily this happened right around my last doctor's appointment and he said it's pretty normal and it's probably just a baby positioned down there weird.  That made me feel a little better, but it didn't help when the very next night I have a dream I was giving birth at 20 weeks and I wanted Drew Carey to deliver them (I guess he had some vacation time to take from Price is Right).  So weird. 

That's another thing.  Pregnancy dreams are WEIRD.  I've always had weird dreams.  Like, vivid, detailed, intense dreams that I have no idea where they come from.  But somehow pregnancy makes them even weirder!  Last night I had a dream I was watching Mt. Rainier erupt while I was rubbing Macie's tummy.  She started growling and I looked over to see what she was mad about and Chip was driving away in a truck.  On his own.  And he was a good driver! 

On Sunday my bladder started bugging me.  I felt like I had to pee right after I peed.  Literally after I finished, I felt like I had to go again.  I knew what it meant.  Bladder infection.  Yuck.  So today I finally sucked it up and went to have a pee test done.  And of course I have to go to the walk-in clinic where all the sick people go.  As soon as I walked through the door I grabbed a mask so I didn't have to breathe in their sick germs.  The funniest part was people were going out of their way to walk around me.  FAR around me.  And I wasn't even sick!  But they probably were, so they can keep their strep germs to themselves while I go try to aim my urine into a cup the size of the top of a soda bottle. 

They called an hour later with the results and it turns out everything was perfectly clear.  The nurse told me that I'm at the stage in pregnancy where the constant need to pee usually lets up.  I asked her if this was the case with twins and she quickly changed her tune.  Apparently one of the little turkeys (I'm guessing baby A since he/she is lower) decided that my bladder seemed like a good place to relocate.  And so even after I pee I will still feel like I have to pee.  I bet Baby A thinks it's a pretty funny trick to see how many times I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. 

Now I'm just counting down the days until Friday when we find out for sure what's cooking in there.  We know what Baby B is for sure, but Baby A is trying to be mysterious.  I don't have any preferences, as long as both babies are healthy and growing away like they should.  But I am so excited to find out for sure so I can start buying clothes!!!

My First Craving

I haven't really had any cravings during my pregnancy.  Sometimes certain food sounds good, but for the most part I'm just trying to avoid stuff that makes me gag.  Last week, however, I got my first craving.  Caramel popcorn!  Normally I LOVE dessert and sweet stuff, but since I'm not eating chocolate while I'm pregnant (I haven't had it since August 3rd and I actually don't miss it anymore!) and super sweet stuff like cake and cookies is overload for me, I think caramel popcorn is the perfect mix of salty and sweet.  And man did I want it!

I went to the outlets with my friend and her two boys last Friday and got some at the Rocky Mountain Candy Store.  It was good, but not what I was looking for.  Then I saw the Target weekly ad on Sunday.  There it was!  Holiday Poppycock!  I had to have it, but since it was Sunday I was forced to wait a day.  So yesterday morning off I went to Target.

I got there and they were finishing up the holiday section.  I didn't want to have to ask where it was, but I couldn't find it so I had to give in.  Even though it was in the ad, they didn't have it yet (BOO!) but they said the normal poppycock was in front with the nuts.  So I went up there.  I couldn't find it there either, so I asked one of the male workers.  Do you know how embarrassing it is to ask for Poppycock?  I had to say, "Do you guys have Poppycock, you know, caramel popcorn, in stock?"  I was afraid if I just asked for poppycock he would think I was hitting on him.  We looked high and low, but they didn't have any. 

So next I went to Safeway.  Nothing.  Big fat fail.  I was getting hungry and tired so I decided to make Bartell's my last stop.  Negative.  Seriously!  It's not THAT uncommon!  Give a pregnant girl a break!  I got home and ate lunch and started calling around to places.  Luckily the first place I called (Walgreens) had it! I had a blood draw and an ultrasound yesterday so before my appointment I left some extra time to stop.  I bought 2 bags and when I checked out the lady that rang me up said, "You must have been the one that called earlier."  I guess it's not every day you have a frantic girl calling in to see if they have Poppycock in stock. 

My blood draw took 5 minutes (even though I left time for an hour since it took forever last time) so I had a lot of time to kill before my doctors appointment.  So i spent my time in the car stuffing my face with Poppycock.  And it was as gloriously delicious as I remembered it.  After our doctor's appointment I went back and bought two more bags.  Will I eat it all before I move on to something else?  Probably not.  But at least I have a food storage amount of Poppycock in our cabinet that would make our bishop proud.

IVF

I wanted to blog about our IVF procedures and I figure I should do it now before I forget. 

We had to do two invitro fertilization (IVF) procedures to get these two little turkeys to grow in my womb.  We did a fresh and a frozen cycle and the two were so different in terms of how I felt both physically and emotionally.

Towards the end of February we started our first (fresh) cycle.  For the first two weeks, all I did was take a birth control pill.  They want to have complete control of my hormones so taking the pill flat lined them so the fertility place could make them do what they want.  After two weeks I began Lupron shots.  Lupron is the hormone they give 8 year old girls that start their period too early to make them stop.  It has other functions, but that's what I got out of it.  Basically it was just another thing to suppress my hormones.  I did the Lupron shots (in my stomach) until the day before the egg retrieval. 

After a couple weeks of shots, they checked my hormones and they were low.  So I got to start my stimulation medications.  I did my Lupron shot in the morning and then in the evening I had to do two different kinds of stim meds.  One of them burned like a mofo so I got a free swear word ever night when I did that one.  Some nights I didn't have to use it, but for the majority of the time, I made it count.  After I started those I had to go in to the fertility place every day/every other day to see how my follicles were responding.  They had to monitor me VERY closely because they didn't want me to hyper ovulate, which can be extremely dangerous.  I was a slow responder for the first couple days (they had me on a super low dose just to be careful) but once the meds kicked in my ovaries did a great job!  The first few days I was paranoid I wouldn't respond and they would have to cancel the cycle so I would lay on the floor with my legs up on a wall in an 'L' shape to get the blood to flow to my reproductive parts.  Hey, it might be silly, but I would do whatever I could to help.  So I would go to Seattle every day to get an ultrasound and a blood draw to make sure my follicles were still growing.  Finally, 10 days after I started the stim meds, my follicles were ready to go!

They want your follicles to be around 15-18mm for them to do the procedure.  I had 18 follicles growing.  That means that my ovaries were the size of lemons and I was super tender and looked a little pregnant without actually being pregnant.  Once we got word the egg retrieval was a go, I had to get my first butt shot.  36 hours exactly before the procedure was scheduled, Dr. Brent Anderson had to administer the shot.  It was an HCG shot to get my eggs to mature the rest of the way and get ready to be harvested.  I was terrified because the needle was huge, but it actually wasn't that bad. 

So in we went to get my eggs taken out.  The worst part of the whole thing was the stupid IV they gave me in my hand. It hurt so bad!  And I remember being worried the medicine they gave me wouldn't knock me out.  So they gave me extra.  And boy oh boy I was out cold.  Brent and I had a goofing around conversation before I went in for surgery about his part in all of this and apparently when I started coming to that's the thing I was most concerned about.  I turned to Brent (I don't remember this.  It's just what I'm told) with the nurse in the room and asked, very seriously, if he spilled his specimen.  I guess drugged up me doesn't have a good memory, because a few seconds after he answered me, I asked him again.  In front of the nurse.  "Did you spill your stuff?"  Poor guy.   And then I wouldn't stop talking about how amazing the apple juice they gave me was.  I liked it so much I asked for another one.  Because it was the best. apple. juice. ever.  This is why I'm glad I never did drugs. 

The next day they called to update us with our eggs.  They had gotten 17 eggs, 13 were mature.  Out of those 13 they did ICSI (where they pick a sperm and put it in my egg) to those 13 and 10 fertilized.  Of those 10, 9 divided and started growing.  They watched the eggs for 5 days and after 5 days we had the embryo transfer.  When we went in for the transfer 7 of them were blastocysts (excellent quality embryos, so they were very excited) that we could use for IVF.  Since we didn't want to have a future reality show, we used two of the 7.  The other 5 got frozen for later use.

5 days after our egg retrieval we had the embryo transfer.  90-45 minutes before the procedure you have to drink 35 oz of water and not pee.  And I had to take Valium.  I learned two things.  Drinking that much water at one time and not peeing is torture, and Valium is fun.  Really fun.  I laughed a LOT.  I was a lot more outgoing than I normally am, too.  So we went in to the transfer room with my bladder as full as could be.  They showed us our little embryos on the screen.  They did assisted hatching, where they take a little laser and make an incision in the shell of the egg to help the embryo hatch out.  Apparently when you get pregnant naturally, your body had to do this on it's own.  So they do it to help it get out of the shell and (hopefully) implant.  They did a stomach ultrasound (and pushed down very hard on my full bladder) and inserted a tube into my uterus where they wanted to put the embryos.  After everything was all set up (and I was mostly focused on not peeing on the doctor) they brought the embryos in and we watched on the ultrasound as they transferred them to my uterus.  I had to lay there for 10 minutes after everything was done to make sure they settled.  I have never had a more relieving pee in my life as I did after the embryo transfer. 

The next 48 hours after were spent on bed rest and for ten days after the transfer I had to take it easy.  I also had to do daily progesterone shots in my butt.  Dr. Anderson administered those (seriously if you ever need a shot in your booty, Brent is your guy).  I was terrified of these because they were supposed to hurt so bad (and the needle is HUGE), but it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be.  I also had to wear estrogen patches to help with that hormone.  They were just little sticker-like things that I put on my stomach.  Ten days after the transfer I went in for a blood draw to see if I was pregnant.  I wasn't.  So I cried a bunch of tears, ripped off my estrogen patches, and then chugged a bunch of Diet Coke and went to Las Vegas for my birthday. 

At the end of May we started our first frozen cycle.  From May until the middle of July all I had to do was take the birth control pill.  Then I had to wear the estrogen patches to help the lining of my uterus grow.  I had to go in to the fertility place twice before my egg retrieval to make sure everything looked good.  TWICE!  That's it!  6 days before the transfer we started progesterone shots.  It was heaven. 

So the transfer went the same as the first for the most part.  We used 2 of our leftover 5 frozen embryos and they said they dethawed beautifully.  We did the transfer on Brent's birthday and I told Brent that when our kids learn about sex and calculate when they were conceived I can tell them not to worry because they weren't conceived on dad's birthday, they were dethawed.  I drank all my water, they pushed on my stomach and off I went to bedrest.  At 5 days after the transfer everything started smelling stronger.  That's the first thing I noticed the first time I was pregnant so I started wondering.  At 7 days after I couldn't wait anymore and I took a pregnancy test (somehow with the first cycle I had the willpower not to do this).  It came up with two dark lines RIGHT away.  I also did tests on day 8 and 9.  Both super positive!  We went in for our blood test and our number was through the roof!  The nurse actually told us, "I don't say this very often, but you can be VERY excited about that number". 

I had to continue with my daily butt shots and estrogen patches until 10 weeks of pregnancy.  So the total shot count of the first cycle was 57 (43 in the stomach, 14 butt) and 59 the second cycle (all butt) for a grand total of 116.  And I had 25 blood draws.  After all this I will never complain about a shot again. 

Brent and I are so lucky that we had the opportunity to do IVF.  All the pain, tears, shots, money and frustration was more worth it than I could ever describe.  Being pregnant is the most amazing experience and I am so lucky that I get to go through it.  Now our next big milestone is finding out what these babies are for sure (they have a guess, but aren't positive) in a week and a half!

Happy Halloween!

 Chip definitely picked TRICK for this Halloween.  Seriously, he was such a brat all day.  It started at 4:45am when I heard Brent start yelling about something.  Turns out Chip decided going outside and going potty didn't sound appealing so he just lifted his leg and aimed out of his cage.  I do have to give the goon credit, at least he was smart enough to aim away from his favorite blanket. 

Even though he spent the majority of the day causing mischief, he still let us put on his costume for a little bit to take pictures.  He didn't mind the cape, but he wasn't a fan of the crown.  It didn't stay on too long. 

 Macie, on the other hand, is a perfect animal to dress up.  As soon as you put anything on her she freezes.  She stood in the position for ten minutes while we took pictures and moved around her.  This was her 4th Halloween costume.  You'd figure she be used to it by now.

 And then came the trick-or-treaters.  Since Chip likes to charge outside when we open the front door we had to stick the little goobers in their cages.  After an hour of barking Brent decided to let them out.  That lasted a couple minutes.  Then Brent called me upstairs because he had something to show me.  I knew he was up to no good.  This is what I found.

Both doggies stuck in Chip's cage.  They weren't even mad.  Apparently they thought it was hilarious.  Macie didn't even care when Chip kept pinning her against the side.  She just kept smiling! 

 Happy Halloween from our little rascals! 

Happy Second Trimester!

I was officially 14 weeks pregnant last Friday and got to say see ya to the first trimester!  The first trimester confuses me because there are 3 ways to calculate when the second trimester starts.  And all of them have different starting times.  One is 12 weeks, one is 13 weeks, and one is 14 weeks (or around there).  So I waited until the latest one to officially say I'm out! 

We had an ultrasound yesterday and it was amazing, like it always is!  I've been thinking the last few days that if I had stayed pregnant the first time, I would have been due yesterday.  It was crazy to think about, but I wasn't even sad since now I get double the happiness in a few extra months :)  I honestly think that our first baby didn't want to come here alone and knew that if he/she waited a little longer they would have a brother or sister to be here with.  I'm so excited that the babies will have each other and hope they are best friends.  Even though yesterday at the ultrasound they were head butting each other... :) 

I can't complain about my first trimester, either.  I was pretty exhausted, but got to take naps every day (which is awesome!) and got pretty queasy from about 10-13 weeks.  I really wanted to be able to say I had twins and didn't throw up once so more than a few times I fought back the nausea.  But my hard headed-ness I inherited from my mother prevailed and I didn't throw up!

Brent and I went maternity clothes shopping on Saturday and it was so fun!  I have been dreading it since I hate shopping for jeans normally.  But maternity clothes are unlike any clothes I have ever worn.  So freaking comfortable!  My normal jeans were getting uncomfortable when I was sitting and when I ate I had to refrain from unbuttoning them in the restaurant (ok, confession.  I actually did unbutton them on Saturday at lunch and just walked out holding my coat in front of me).  I ended up getting one pair of jeans to start with (since I usually wear warm-ups during the day) and 4 skirts for church.  Now I'm way excited to go to church on Sundays.  Oh, and for the learning part. 

Here's my first bump picture.  It's little, but you can finally tell it's there.  I know I'm in the "is she chubby or pregnant?" stage to strangers, but I know it's babies!  I refused to stick my stomach out to look more pregnant than I really am, so this is why it's taken a while to post the first picture.

How Baby A and B Came to Be!

This is going to be a long post.  But I had a hot flash the other day and realized I hadn't had one in a long time and almost forgot what they were like.  So I realized I need to write this all down now before more time goes by and I forget.

When you're growing up, you learn in sex ed that if you have unprotected sex you will get pregnant.  And even if you wear a condom and it breaks, you will still get pregnant.  They forgot to mention the part that there is really only this teeny tiny little window of time when the guys sperm can swim up through 73 obstacles to get to your egg where it has to power through and fertilize it, have it travel down and magically implant.  And that's if your hormones aren't a little bit out of whack and/or the guy doesn't have a tiny issue with his sperm.  Just let me say right now it is NOT that easy (but I will tell our future children if they have sex they will get pregnant). 

In early 2008 we decided we were ready to make a baby.  Brent liked this idea.  I on the other hand started buying ovulation predictor kits, charting my temperature, and tried to figure out how long I needed to lay there for Brent's swimmers to make it up to where they needed to be.  After a year of doing this (and 83 negative pregnancy tests later) we realized it wasn't going to be that easy.  So I went in for an appointment with an OBGYN (who is my current OBGYN now and I LOVE him!).  Apparently I ovulate late in to my cycle, which means the second half of my cycle doesn't have enough progesterone to support a pregnancy, if I did actually get pregnant.  So he started me on Clomid.

I was on Clomid for 3 months.  50mg, 100mg, and 150mg.  50 and 100 didn't do much except give me VERY bad hot flashes.  Seriously, I am not looking forward to menopause.  150 mg of Clomid made me a hormonal Clomid monster and gave me really bad cysts that sent me to the ER.  No more Clomid for me after that. 

Our next step was to try intrauterine insemination (IUI).  Basically they take Brent's sperm, wash it down so it's just the swimmers and get rid of the semen, then take a super tiny thin tube and insert it into my uterus.  One big problem with this is that you have to have your timing down so perfect that even if you're a few hours off, it might not work.  So for three months we tried to do those.  No luck.  By this time we had already been trying for over a year and a half and I was getting pretty frustrated.  We decided that we were going to take a few months off and then in 2010 we were going to learn more about invitro fertilization (IVF). 

In January we met with a fertility place in Seattle.  They said we were young and healthy and we had a VERY good chance of being successful with IVF.  In fact, I think the odds they gave us were almost 80%.  So we set up a schedule and ordered our ridiculous amount of fertility medicine.  Here's an actual picture of SOME of the fertility medicine I used.  We had to order a lot more.

 As excited as I was for the possibility of finally getting pregnant, I was also bugged.  When you're trying to have a baby, everyone around you is getting pregnant.  And having babies.  And after we were trying for as long as we did, people were getting pregnant and having babies a SECOND time.  And here we were, still unsuccessful and spending all this money on something that might not work.  I was pretty bitter.  But still, with such good odds we definitely knew that IVF was the next step we wanted to take.  We decided to go ahead with the procedure after we got back from vacation.

We went on our cruise at the beginning of February and when we got back I had to wait for my period to start so we could begin the process.  My cycle ranged between 30-31 days so I knew almost exactly what day I would start.  Day 31 came and went.  Day 32, 33, and 34 also came and went.  I figure all the traveling had screwed up my body, but for some reason I decided to take a pregnancy test.  And it was POSITIVE.  I cannot write down the words in this blog to explain the amount of sheer joy and excitement we felt.  After two years of trying, the month we were going to start IVF, we got pregnant!  We went in for a blood test and they said, "Yep!  You're pregnant!".  They wanted me to come back on Monday for another test to make sure my levels were going up.  I have never in my life felt so elated and just complete happiness.  It was such a miracle.  I looked at all the fertility meds and shots I wouldn't have to take and was really happy about that, too! 

Obviously the story didn't end well.  Or else I would have a baby right now.  We went in for our blood draw on Monday and that morning I had started spotting a little.  They reassured me that was common in early pregnancy and to just wait for my levels.  They called with the news in the afternoon that my levels had dropped and it wasn't a viable pregnancy.  They said if we were emotionally ready that we could wait for my "period" to start in a couple days and begin the IVF process.  I went from the happiest I had ever been in my life to the most miserable.  I couldn't believe that after we had been given such a blessing that it had been ripped away.  It took us two years to have a miscarriage.  I really thought after that I would never have a baby.  And to be completely honest after that, I was so mad at God (it took me a few months, but I got over it).  Nothing anyone could say was comforting and I was completely devastated.  But we went ahead with the IVF cycle anyway. 

I'm going to do another post completely on the IVF process because I want to remember that, too.  But it took a couple months from the beginning to end of our first cycle.  It was pretty rough on me physically and emotionally.  And we found out the day before our Vegas trip for my birthday that it didn't work.  I'm actually not surprised our first cycle was a failure because my body was pretty screwed up after that and I was still so upset from our miscarriage.

In May I decided I was no longer letting infertility rule my life.  I had stressed about having a baby for over two years and I missed out on just living life.  So I decided that's what I was going to do.  I started working out.  That did more for my inner well being than anything ever has.  I started feeling better than I had in years.  I was physically getting healthy (the IVF cycle made me gain weight and I wanted to lose it) and emotionally I was feeling great.  I made a goal to run the Leavenworth 1/2 marathon at the beginning of October and started training for that.  From May on I was a completely different person.  And I liked who that person was.

After our failed fresh IVF cycle we decided we were going to do a frozen cycle.  We had 5 embryos left from our previous cycle that were chilling away in the freezer at the clinic.  So at the end of May we started a frozen cycle.  I won't get into detail on this post, but a frozen IVF cycle is amazing.  I didn't have to start shots until a few days before our embryo transfer.  I just had to take the birth control pill and then do wear estrogen patches.  It was AWESOME.  Not only was it easier on my body, but I was at a good place mentally.  7 days after we did our embryo transfer (we did our transfer on August 4th, Brent's 30th birthday), I took a pregnancy test.  And right away it came up positive.  I also did one 8 and 9 days after, both positive.  On day 10 we went in to the clinic for a blood test and our number came back so high that we couldn't help but feel like this could actually be happening to us.  And we've been smiling ever since. 

It might have taken us 2 1/2 years, 3 Clomid cycles, 3 IUI's, a miscarriage, and 2 IVF cycles (which included 25 blood draws and 116 shots) to get pregnant.  But looking back on all that it honestly seems like nothing.  When I go in for an ultrasound and I get to see our little babies hearts beating away, and them wiggling all over it makes everything worth it.  I'm not grateful for trials.  But I am grateful for the lessons that are learned from the trials we are given.  I'm grateful for the person that I've become during this process.  I'm so grateful for the man that I married, and dealing with this has shown that we can withstand so much and at the end of the day, we're still so in love.  I look back on everything and realize that I've had an easy life.  So much was given to me.  But this was something that wasn't just handed out to me.  We had to fight for it.  And I wouldn't take back a single thing because it's helped me appreciate being pregnant so much more than I would have if I had gotten pregnant right away.  And in a little over 5 months from now, we're going to have two little miracles come into our lives that made absolutely everything worth it. 

Recent pictures!

Since I'm considered a high risk pregnancy we get to go to a LOT of ultrasounds.  Seriously, I'm 12 1/2 weeks pregnant and I've already had 8 ultrasounds.  It's awesome.  And since there are two turkeys in there we have to have an ultrasound at every dr. appointment so they can see both heartbeats.  On Friday I had an early screening for Down's Syndrome (everything looked great!) and it was the best ultrasound yet!  Here are a few of their cute pictures.

The first two are Baby A.  Friday was my first stomach ultrasound and since Baby A is down there further it's a little more blurry.  It's ok though, Baby A was the star of the show with all of the OTHER ultrasounds (and thank goodness those are done!).

 Baby B!  I still can't get over the fact that they really look like babies and THIS is what is growing away inside of me! 

 I like this picture because you can see Baby A below a tiny bit.  During the ultrasound Baby A was kicking at Baby B.  I hope this isn't a sign of things to come...

Now that the secret is out, I'm going to do a blog about how we got these little pumpkins here.  It was by far the most difficult thing I've ever had to go through.  But now that I look back at the last 2 1/2 years and this is the outcome, I wouldn't change a thing. 

First Movie

Brent got a Flip Video a while ago and he found out how to make movies.  This is his first one.  It makes you laugh, makes you cry, and makes you laugh until you cry! I promise it's worth the 1:12 of your life to watch it
:) 

Here is the link in case the video doesn't work!

http://sharing.theflip.com/session/7795247922b0620651db04c05f35e6d6/video/18243117

Life Update

Life has been strange/crazy lately, but I wanted to write down some feelings I've had lately.

• I have been using all of my self-control lately and have not decorated our house for Halloween yet, even though I want to sooooo bad.  I need to express my excitement for fall somehow, so I've been wearing my Halloween socks.
• I am so glad summer is over.  It's my least favorite season.  Seriously, I will never understand why people like to go out in 80+ degree weather and sweat.  And squint from all the sun.  Don't get me wrong, I like the occasional sunny day.  But sun every single day makes me angry.  Good thing I live in Seattle.  The only thing that got me through the miserable hot days was the new AC we bought from Costco.  And I am sooooooooooo ready for fall weather, fall colors, apple cider, gala apples, candy corn, and Halloween decorations!  No season makes me as happy as fall.
• My mom and dad got in a motorcycle accident.  Mom got a severe concussion and dad broke his leg.  I am so lucky that's all that happened.  It drives me crazy when people say, "Do you know what could have happened???".  Obviously I do, but it didn't, so lets be grateful and move on. 
• Brent's sis and bro-in-law are moving their family to Portland.  This is awesome.  They're some of our very favorites.  They'll only be 3 hours away and we can meet up at the Great Wolf Lodge!
• Brandon Flowers new cd came out Tuesday.  It's awesome.  And he's hot.  My husband knows Brandon Flowers is on my Top 5 list of guys so I don't feel bad saying that.  And he wears suspenders so that makes him hotter.
• I was at Safeway the other day getting balloons for my mom's birthday.  A girl came up and said, "Can I help you ma'am?" I instantly looked around for the lady that must have gotten there after me and was getting helped first.  Then I realized I was ma'am!  I know I'm not a teenager or even in my early 20's, but I don't think I'm at the ma'am stage yet!  Luckily today when I went the cashier that helped me called me Miss.  MUCH better. 

I can't think of anything else to blog about right now, but hopefully we'll have some exciting fall things going on so I can write about that!

Buddies and a Birthday!

Some of our favorite people came to visit us a couple weeks ago!  Our friends, Korry and Taffee, live in Utah and we don't get to see them too often.  But luckily for us they had a wedding to go to up here so we got to spend a couple days with them!  We made sure we showed them some of our favorite things in Seattle.

Brent picked them up from the airport and took them to Trophy Cupcakes.  Then we all went to Brown Bag for breakfast.  We stopped at home to pick up the furries and headed off to Deception Pass and Fort Casey.

Chip was excited to be there

 Korry, Taffee, and Jaci

Their daughter Jaci is ADORABLE.  And soo good!  It was her first time at the ocean

Macie was in heaven all day long. She loves being outside and was such a happy girl

We renamed the fort Fort Chip because he decided to mark it as his own... no respect for historical forts...

I actually made it to the top of the lighthouse this time!  There's a ladder you have to climb at the top and I chickened out last time.  Taffee came up with me

They spent the night so we had even more time to have fun!  The next morning we hung out and then took them to downtown Seattle to meet up with Korry's sister.  This day also happened to be Brent's 30th birthday!!!!!!!!!  

This was a big birthday for him so I wanted to get him something special.  So 3 weeks before his birthday I ordered him an iPad online (they were all out at the stores around here).  Of course the stupid thing didn't show up until the day after his birthday.  So for his birthday he got to open the case for the iPad minus the actual iPad.  Oh well, it worked out.  And it has brought us closer together :) Brent comes to bed earlier and instead of reading I watch stuff on the iPad with him.  Thanks Apple for helping make our marriage stronger!

A Trophy Cupcake.  My favorite part of the picture is Chip lurking in the background

Chip Makes Weapons

Chip has a lot of favorite things.  And one of his favorite things is playing with toys.  This is one of the toys we got him a few months back.

And this is what it looks like now. Seriously, it looks like he's going to try to bust down our front door with it.

This is his newest toy that we've added to the collection.  It's not exactly this toy, but the shape is the same.  Or at least it was.

Now this is what we have:

How in the world do you even get it to look like this??

Well, Chip will demonstrate.

Don't mess.

Slammin' with Sam

A little while back I was ranting about the Immigration Law in Arizona to Brent.  That made me rant about more and more and more until I'm sure my face was super red and veins were sticking out on my forehead.  I told Brent I was going to start doing "Slammin' with Sam" on our blog every now and then so I can rant about stuff that pisses me off or gets on my nerves and he doesn't have to hear about it.  I figured I'll say a few things that bug me and then I'll give a Slammi award to something that REALLY annoys me.  I'll try to keep my offensiveness to a minimum and the really un-politically correct things I'll make sure I only share vocally so no one can hold it against me in writing.  So here we go (and yes I'm in the mood to vent).

-Unflushed public toilets.  Oh I'm sorry.  I didn't realize it was so hard to lift your foot off the floor and push down on the handle to flush it.  Don't worry about the person that uses the stall after you.  I don't mind seeing whatever surprise you left in the toilet and then cleaning up after you so I can use the bathroom. 

-Story toppers.  I can be pretty shy (especially in crowds) and it takes a lot for me to tell a story.  So it seriously pisses me off when I start getting in to one and there is a story topper around. 
Sam: "So the other day I went to the Mariner game the coolest thing happened.  This guy started to..."
Rude interrupting story topper (in a much louder, look at me, I want attention voice): "Oh my goodness!!!!!  I can't BELIEVE I forgot to tell you guys this!  The other day I bought stock in the Mariner team and now I'm a part owner!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!?!?!"
Not only do I not believe it, I don't care.  So go away and stop talking over my story.

-When people lick their fingers and touch a paper they're going to give to me.  Come on now.  How hard is it to separate two pieces of paper?  I do not want your saliva and germs covering the paper I'm going to read.  Not only do I have to make sure my fingers don't get within 6 inches of that spot, I have to make sure Brent's fingers don't go near there either, if he's going to be reading it after me.  If you really have that hard of time with paper, maybe you should be handing out something that's easier to separate and leave that job to the professionals.

And the Slammi Award for the Day goes to:
-People that wear something (a shirt, dress, hat) that is the same color as their hair.  No one drives me as crazy about this as the current Bachelorette. 

When she was on the Bachelor, I swear every single article of clothing she owned was yellow.  IT IS TOO MUCH FREAKING YELLOW with your blonde hair!  You wouldn't wear a yellow shirt with yellow pants (actually, she might).  That would be tacky.  So why is it ok to have your yellow hair hanging all over a yellow dress/shirt??  It's yellow overload!  And Monday's episode was the worst because she had a yellow hat on.  It drove me crazy.  There was actually a joke on 30 Rock about how a character had on red lingerie with her red hair and it was too much red and I freaked out because I have said that forever!  Too much of the same color is not a good thing.  I'm not sure if my hair is considered blonde or brunette right now, so I'm just going to avoid both colors and call it good.

The story of Maggie and Emma

Today is our kitties 4th birthday!  I thought I would share the story of how they ended up in our family.

Our first year and a half of marriage we lived in a little apartment in Provo while I finished college.  For the first eight months I was content being a newlywed and having Brent all to myself.  We were married in May of '05 and the following February of '06 I was offered a great job from a company based in Seattle where I got to work from home.  The first few months were great.  But then I started getting lonely (uh-oh...).  I knew what I needed.  I started craving the pitter patter of little feet, and my beta fish, Lucky, was not cutting it.  I wanted a kitten!  However, my husband said that he would NEVER have a cat.  So I tried to put it in the back of my mind.

By the time August rolled around I was going crazy.  One day I just happened to be perusing the Utah Humane Society website when I saw they were having a special on kittens.  What luck!  Brent happened to have a random Wednesday off for some reason and I buttered him up by suggesting we go to the Jordan River Temple (which happened to be strategically located near the Humane Society).  After the temple I suggested we should go look at all the cute animals.  Brent fell for it that time, but after he learned that "look at the cute animals" means look, find, cuddle, fall in love with and bring one home.  We got there and it was cats galore!  After a few minutes of looking I saw the most adorable kitten I had ever seen.  I took her out of her cage and she snuggled up to Brent (smart kitty).  After a long discussion, talk, disagreement, whining, pouting and extreme happiness we decided that this kitten was going to be our new addition!

We got up to the front to get her and the people reminded me of the deal they had going on.  It was Buy 1 Get 1 FREE!  I quickly remembered the kitten had another brother or sister in the cage with her that had been sleeping.  I walked up to the cage and at the risk of sounding like a bad mother, I know I made a face when I saw the little cat.  We all know Emma is a gorgeous cat and is so sweet and adorable.  But if you are not expecting to see what baby Emma looked like, you would be shocked, too.  Now I REALLY felt like I was saving a cat.  Emma had a really funky head.  And it made her look special.  I was scared no one would want to buy the special kitten.  Plus, who am I to separate two sisters?  So we got Emma, too.  As we were walking out of the Humane Society the lady yelled, "Enjoy your new babies!"  I couldn't wait.

Oh, I forgot to mention the apartment we were living in did NOT allow pets.  100% absolutely no way, no how, no if's and's or but's about it.  People had tried, had gotten caught, and had to get rid of them.  But I'm not someone that likes to be told what to do.  So we got our girls home and had to make a few adjustments to our apartment so we didn't get caught.  First of all we had to move my piano about 3 feet away from the window so the kitties couldn't get on to the window sill.  We could never open the window blinds, because we were scared one of them would jump on the ledge (this caused Emma to crash headfirst, at full speed into our front window at our new house the first time she saw it.  Sorry Emma!) and we had to put blankets down all over our floors to try and pad the little kitty paws running all over the place.  Our neighbors had to suspect something.

We only had a few close calls.  One time they had to paint the door to our apartment. This wouldn't have been a big deal, except for Brent and I were in Vegas that weekend.  So our friends offered to babysit our illegal family members.  The other time still makes me sick to think about.  I was NOT in the mood to go to class that day (that was normal, but I still usually went) and for some reason I decided to skip.  Not 10 minutes into the time I would have been in class we got a knock on the door.  Our apartment manager was there to change the furnace filter.  Lucky for me, I wasn't dressed appropriately to have a guy come in so I said give me a few minutes and come back.  I was freaking out grabbing the litter box, food dish, scratching post and every ball, mouse and fish toy I could find.  I threw everything, along with the kitties, in our bedroom.  He came back and I found out our furnace filter happened to be right next to our bedroom door.  So I sat in front of the door and had to have a completely normal conversation with this guy, while I was silently hoping no crash, meow or little paw sticking out from under the door would give me away.  Somehow, we managed to get away with it.  A couple weeks later we bought our house.  Oh, and Brent saying he'd never have a cat... well, he's still never had A cat :)

I can't believe the kitties are already 4 (and I still can't believe we got away with getting them!).  They have been such a cute addition to our family and we've loved every second of having them.  Happy birthday kitties!!

The actual first picture of Maggie taken at the Humane Society (Brent has his temple tie on to prove where we just were)

Baby Emma.  Enough said.

The grown up, adorable Emma

Grown up Maggie

Maggie's still not a fan of Chip (especially when he's lurking).  But she deals with it

Screw you, stupid jeans

A couple months ago I had surgery that made me gain and lose some crazy lbs (the water weight, bloating, medicine I was on, and the fact that I slacked off on working out a little while before it) and I had to get a new pair of jeans because my old ones were too snug.  Not to mention I am VERY anti-muffin top.  So I had to find a new pair before the sides started creeping over my old jeans. 

Well after everything was said and done I felt gross and wanted to try to get into shape again (and I needed to get out the aggression of my inner she-Hulk).  I've been busting my butt for the last 6 weeks.  The only problem was I've been wearing comfy pants most of the time (housewife perk) and I had no idea how my jeans would fit. 

Today I had to run some errands to I got ready and threw my new jeans on.  What would you know, but the stupid things were snug.  Not snug like, woah there camel toe, but snug like parts of me are becoming more muscular and filling out parts of my pants that had not previously been filled out.  This still really bugged me.  I mean come on, I ran 4 miles yesterday.  I'm not saying that to be like "oh good job me" but who works out like that and their jeans get TIGHTER?!?  Oh, I also refuse to weigh myself because I don't want the number on the scale to have any impact on my self-worth.  So I have no idea what is going on with my annoying body and if anything I'm doing is even helping.

Later after I was changing to get ready to take Chippo for a jog.  I looked down at my jeans and realized I had my old pair on.  Like the pair that I could no longer button a couple months ago.  And they freaking FIT.  Talk about an awesome surprise and extra motivation to keep working out!  And a perk for Brent is now he'll probably see me in actual pants rather than my sweats :)

Whitewater Rafting on Memorial Day Weekend

Back in January when we did the float trip on the Skagit River our guide was telling us about whitewater rafting on the Wenatchee River.  My wild child of a mother was all gung ho and ready to take on the rapids.  Well, as luck would have it about a month ago we got the Groupon deal of the day and it was for Orion Whitewater Rafting tours.  So not only did we get to go whitewater rafting, we got it for half price!! 

We made our reservations for the Saturday over Memorial Day weekend because that's the earliest you can do it.  Well let me tell you, the river was WILD!  Since it's so early in the season and there was still snow melting in the mountains there were crazy rapids!  I was pretty freaked out when we hit our first rapids, but by the end I was sad to be done.  Here are pictures of the fun day:

We met up in Cashmere which is 15 miles east of Leavenworth.  We were an hour and a half early, so we had time to walk around town

Getting ready to go with our wetsuits on!  I still don't know how to flip the picture so flip your head!

The bus drove us back up to Leavenworth where it dropped us off

We went with a couple of my mom's crew buddies, Larry and Sam.  They are so fun.  Sam is so freaking hardcore.  She just got back from New Zealand a few weeks ago where she went bungee jumping.  She's always doing adventurous things and has been whitewater rafting a ton.  Oh yeah, and she's 70.

Waiting to set off!

I said if Larry had been in the middle, it would have been a Sam-wich :)  My mom rolled her eyes at my cheesy sense of humor

I couldn't really take very many pictures on the river since it got crazy, but I took them when I could!

About halfway through we had to get off and take our rafts around a dam.  Here's my cute momma waiting to get back in the river!

People would stand on the side of the river where the crazy rapid parts were and take pictures.  Then they put a thing on your windshield that said go to this website to get your pictures.  It was seriously like paparazzi.  So I went and of course you can't copy the pictures to your computer.  But no one can stop me from taking pictures of the pictures :)  So here are some of the pictures they got of our raft (crappy quality of course since it's a pic of a pic!). I'm on the right side behind Larry.  You can see his hat and sunglasses and I'm right behind that.  My mom is the second one on the left side.

Ok, you can't even see Larry in this one because there's a giant wave going over him.  So I'm the first person on the right side

I'm the only one in the raft not wearing the yellow jacket (besides our guide in the back)

I liked this one because you really can't even see our raft in the picture :)

We are officially hooked on whitewater rafting and are planning on going in September to do the Tieton River, which is supposed to be the fastest river in Washington to go whitewater rafting on.  I can't wait!

Oh, and I fell in the freezing cold snow melt river when we were taking the raft out to walk around the dam.  Well Sunday I woke up and felt sick.  Right away Brent blamed the river.  I wasn't convinced it was from that (or I didn't want to believe it :)) and on Monday when I woke up I couldn't swallow at all so I went to the doctor.  Turns out I have strep.  So HA to my cute hubby who tried to blame it on the cold water :)  They put me on antibiotics and steroids to help and I feel a million times better today.  Now Brent just has to deal with my roid rage.