The Anderson's

Annoyed

2011-12-16T09:00:00.000-08:00

The boys are teething right now so it's been a rough little while at our house. Pretty much anything gets on my nerves right now and instead of yelling at Chip for being Chip, I figure it's more therapeutic to vent about it on the blog. So these are some of the current things that are driving me nuts.

-Teething. It feels like it's an eternal process that tortures everyone in our house on a daily basis. Riley has 3 teeth, Noah has 2 and is working on the third. I feel so bad for them and wish there was something more I could do. I got my 12 year old molars when I was 19 (in some ways I was a late bloomer. Others, not so much) so I can remember how much it sucks. I couldn't imagine getting a bunch all at once and not being able to express with words how you feel. But it's still rough for all of us.

-Noah has some issues. He won't sit up. Zero desire. I try every single day to prop him up between my legs, put toys in front of him, hold him there. But he arches his back and makes his legs go straight so he just ends up laying down. I know he's not developmentally slow. He can crawl super fast, is starting to climb and is a little too smart for my own good. But the kid won't sit. I feel like it's getting to the point where he's going to be walking to his classes at BYU (yes, I want my kids to go to our alma mater) and then when he gets there, he'll lay down on the ground for the lecture.

-Just saying'. Can there really be a more rude thing to say? People think they can say something SO rude, but then if they add "Just sayin'" to the end, it justifies their rudeness. "Maybe if you spent time cleaning while the boys were sleeping, you wouldn't feel like your house was a disaster. Just sayin'". No, if I spent time cleaning while the boys were sleeping I would go insane because I had no down time while they napped. And then when you were insensitive and said something stupid to me I would want to key your car next time I saw it parked somewhere. Just sayin'.

-Noah and his food processor issues. My boys are TOUGH. They aren't scared of anything. They crawl after me when I vacuum to try to help. They love dogs of all sizes. My moms dog is 75 pounds and instead of looking at her in fear, Riley and Noah look at her like she's going to be a fun thing to ride around the house someday. So when I busted out the food processor to chop up Oreos for our Christmas treats, it shocked me that Noah got this look of sheer terror on his face and started screaming. So like any psychology major would do, I figured exposure therapy would help him get over his little quirk. No such luck. By the time I was done using it the poor kid was planking on our living room floor and his face was a snotty mess. I got him calmed down and started using our beaters. No problem there. He was fine and didn't bat an eye. But then when I went to wash the food processor he started screaming again. Needless to say, Brent will be taking him upstairs tomorrow when I have to use it again.

-Our neighbor and his Mustang. Even though I don't think he's old enough, our neighbor is going through a midlife crisis. One of the things he did to make himself feel more manly was he bought a Mustang. And man does he drive it like he's compensating for something. And I know this from how he drives through our NEIGHBORHOOD. He starts the engine up, lets it sit there for a few minutes while he revs it. Vroom vroom. So fun when Riley's asleep in our room with it right outside. Then he pulls out. No joke, the other day when he drove away he PEELED OUT of the cul-de-sac. Come on guy! You go 30 feet before you have to turn left to go out of the neighborhood. Was that really necessary? Then he drives at top speed in front of our house to get to the main road. Don't get me wrong, I tell Brent all the time that we bought an Audi, so we need to drive it like an Audi. But on the FREEWAY. Not through our neighborhood where my kids are going to someday be playing. That's ridiculous. Brent told me he saw him a while ago and he now carries a gun in the band of his jeans. At least we know he's packing SOMETHING. This is also the same guy that had to knock on our door because his remote control helicopter got stuck in our backyard and he needed us to get it.

Whew, I feel better.

Opposites Cause Trouble

2011-11-23T20:48:00.000-08:00

Do these look like faces that cause mischief?

Yes. Yes they do. These boys are so amazingly different. But man, they cause trouble. They don't act like babies. Babies are supposed to lay there and look around and coo. Make cute baby faces and smile. Riley and Noah have a lot more going on in their heads. They're like full grown people that can't talk yet. They're plotting in their little baby heads and are waiting for the perfect moment to reign over the house. Example: one night they were both snuggling and giving me love on the floor. Well, Noah started yelling and distracting me. In the four seconds I had my back turned on Riley, he dove at the empty candy wrapper on the floor. I'm sure they were planning that all along. Good work boys, except next time make sure it isn't empty.

They also plot during nap time. Riley will wake up before it's time to be up. When he's JUST about to fall asleep again, I hear Noah yelling from the other room. A lot of times I will set Riley down a LITTLE too early to go get Noah back to sleep. Riley wakes up while I'm in with Noah and then it's all over. Way to get out of nap time early boys.

As they work on taking over the household, they are also doing some pretty fun stuff. And it's crazy how different they are developing. Here are some of the things that they can do:

Noah:

-Noah rolled over for the first time at 3 1/2 months.

-He can hold his bottle all by himself. I LOVE it. I get it ready, plop him down in the bouncer and he feeds himself. When I try to get Riley to do this he looks at me like, "Isn't that why you're here Mom?".

-Noah clapped on purpose for the first time last week. I started bawling. It made him seem like such a big boy!

-Noah mastered the army crawl yesterday. His arms and legs to in all sorts of directions, but somehow it all works out and he zips across the room.

-He got his first tooth and it's on the bottom.

-Noah is definitely a Daddy's boy. No one makes him laugh like Brent.

Riley:

-Riley didn't roll over until he was 5 months. He is officially crawling, as of last week. He crawls past mounds of toys to get to the blinds, Chip's bone, or the towel we use to wipe off the dogs feet. He can also sit by himself for a while (Noah straightens his legs when I try to make him sit. This kid has zero desire to sit up. He figures, why sit when I can STAND!).

-Riley has one tooth and it's on the top. You can see it when he smiles now. It is so cute, but I'm going to miss the gummy smiles!

-Riley is such a charmer. He will look at someone and give them the sweetest smile and happy coo.

-Riley loves almost everyone and is super outgoing.

-I think he's turning into more of a Momma's boy.

They sleep unswaddled at night now. We put them in their cribs, rub their backs, and leave. They can put themselves to sleep! I can't wait for this to happen at nap time...

They are definitely buddies!

They are already making their complaints known

Love these little turkeys.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T15:02:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween from our (not so) Angry Birds!

It was a big day at the Anderson house! The boys and I went to visit Brent at work in Seattle. They were so cute at the office and it was so fun to show off their costumes. Then when we got home Noah celebrated Halloween in style by getting his first tooth!

Riley also decided to celebrate Halloween by causing mischief. While I was getting Noah down for their nap, he rolled over to the back door and grabbed a towel we had over there. The towel we use to wipe off Macie and Chip's paws after they come in from outside. He was sucking on it when I came downstairs and had mulch on his face and everything. Gross. I grabbed the towel (but not before I got a picture. The damage was already done, right?). Man they are starting to give me a run for my money...

Here's Your Sign

2011-09-08T14:58:00.001-07:00

When you go out in public with twins, you get a LOT of attention. And I constantly get asked the same questions. Here are a list of the questions/comments that I hear the most that drive me up the friggin' wall.

1. Are they twins? ... One lady actually said, "Why am I asking that? Of course they are!" so I let her slide. But I want to come up with a comment to answer people back when they ask that. So far I can only think of, "Yep.". But come on. They're pretty much the same size. Their car seats are identical. They don't dress the same, but they dress similarly on most days.

2. How can you tell them apart???

This is Riley.

This is Noah.

Maybe they look KIND of the same in some pictures, but in real life they look completely different. Needless to say it's mostly men that ask me this question.

3. I wanted twins until I had one kid and realized how much work it is!/I can't imagine more than one at a time! Mine are spaced out and it was crazy. I never know how to respond to this. I have never had one kid so I don't know what it's like. Plus we are lucky that we got some pretty awesome kids, so two isn't as big of a deal as some people might think. That or people are wusses.

4. Do you get ANY sleep? Yes, actually. But when I tell people I do they look at me suspiciously like I must give my kids Benadryl every night.

One week at church Brent and I walked out in the hall to feed the boys. There was another couple with two kids (the same size and dressed similarly). The first thing out of Brent's mouth was, "Are they twins??"....... I looked at him and before I could say anything he said, "I KNOW! I knew as soon as the words were coming out of my mouth!!".

5 months

2011-09-08T14:58:00.000-07:00

Here is their 5 month picture! Note: 5 month old babies are WAY harder to get a cooperative picture out of than 4 month babies. Apparently by 5 months they've developed opinions. And Noah was trying to play steam roller over Riley the whole time. But in the end it worked out. And they've almost grown so much they're off the blanket!

And Noah wanted to show how awesome he's getting at holding himself up. He was rolling across the room today. So crazy to watch! Riley also rolled from his back to his tummy for the first time today. Pretty soon they'll have barrel roll contests across the living room.

Life: Updated

2011-09-07T15:48:00.000-07:00

Confession: I suck at blogging. But I have two very good reasons for that. When I look back to what my life was like before the babies I should have been a super blogger, writing something every day. I should have also been in the most amazing shape ever. I had the time. But NOOOO. My time was spent cleaning, working out (a little) and watching Keeping up with the Kardashians. It's amazing how crazy life can change in a year. Riley and Noah are 5 months tomorrow. I can't believe how big they are getting and how wonderful their little personalities are. They are SO different, but they are each so amazing.

Riley went from being the handful to being the most chill baby. He just likes to look around, eat his hand, and talk (he talks CONSTANTLY. I wonder what our house is going to sound like when he says actual words). He's learned that if he talks when he's falling asleep, it will keep him up longer. What a little punk. He can roll from his front to his back over both shoulders. The first time he did it my mom, Grammi, and I cheered so much we scared him and he cried. Whoops. We were a little more quiet the next time.

Noah was the most relaxed kid at birth. And for the first couple months. Then something happened. Man was he fussy. But we've tweaked their schedule a little and he has been soooo much happier again for the last few weeks. Noah rolled over for the first time at 3 1/2 months. And it was from his back to his front. Our pediatrician was impressed with that. But now he rolls all 4 ways (front to back and back to front over both arms). He's starting to roll more times in a row so he'll roll away from me and Riley and I'll have to go get him and bring him back to us. He's also becoming a serious mama's boy, which I LOVE :)

At 4 months I was brave enough to take them to the store for the first time by myself. After I did it once, it gave me serious confidence and now we go somewhere every day. Mostly Safeway and Target, but sometimes we REALLY go big and go to Costco. I figure they'll like that place even more when they're older and can eat the samples. They also went on their first roadtrip this past weekend to Portland to visit Brent's sister and her family. They did AWESOME. They were so good in the car and were great sleepers while we were there (I was so worried they would stop sleeping through the night since they were in a strange room, but they made me proud). It was so fun and relaxing to get away and just relax. Brent's sister's kids were so cute with the boys. Their oldest got Riley to laugh and it was the sweetest thing.

I feel like their are 3,293 other things I need to blog about, but nap time is almost over. So here are a few recent(ish) pictures.

4 months!

2011-08-08T11:28:00.000-07:00

One Month

Two Months

Three Months

Four Months

Happy 4 months to the best babies EVER!

Babies Blessing

2011-06-13T17:14:00.000-07:00

Riley and Noah got blessed at church on June 5th. While it was one of the most chaotic before church Sunday's of my life, once we got to church it was one of the best ever. Brent did such an amazing job and I am so proud of him. Neither boy made a peep during the blessing (actually both did REALLY well the whole meeting. I don't expect that every week) and I felt the Spirit so strongly.

I've seen countless baby blessings since I joined the church. But it is a whole new experience when you are the one that is having your child blessed. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be a mother to these two amazing boys. I was able to bear my testimony (something I don't do as often as I probably should), but I still couldn't say everything that was in my heart. I don't have words to express what these little guys mean to me and how lucky I am that I got picked to be their mom. I've said it before but I will never say I'm grateful for trials. But I'm grateful for all that I've learned after the trial is over and how much I appreciate these boys. They are the best little boys and I'm so glad I get to be a part of their lives and see the wonderful people they grow up to be.

Riley getting ready

Noah getting ready

Handsome Daddy and Riley

Me and Noah Bear

My favorite part: they all had matching ties :)

My mom got her black eye white water rafting the day before. She's hardcore like that

Brent and his parents

Brent's sister Karin and her hubby Jordan. Riley and Noah with their cousins Matthew and Isabelle

Noah Photoshoot

2011-06-13T17:04:00.000-07:00

Noah is just so freaking adorable. No more words necessary

Riley Photoshoot

2011-06-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

I love how expressive Riley is and I LOVE taking pictures of him. Here are some of the ones I've gotten recently.

Changes

2011-05-27T15:16:00.000-07:00

It's so crazy how much the boys have changed in the short 7 weeks of their life. I keep thinking, I can't believe they're 7 weeks old already! But at the same time I feel like, they're only 7 weeks old??? The past 7 weeks have kind of felt like one very long day :) But a good day.

The boys have changed a LOT. Riley went from screaming for hours at a time to yelling when he wants held or fed. Such a nice change. His little personality cracks us up all the time. He is definitely a spunky little bugger. Noah was our calm, laid back child. While he's still calmer than his brother, he's definitely found his voice and he's not afraid to use it. His cry breaks my heart. It is the saddest sound to me for some reason. Probably because he didn't really cry at first and so now when he does it makes me sad.

I've seen them both smile now. Nothing long enough to get pictures of, but it was the cutest thing. The first 5 times or so I saw them smile, I cried. Not the reaction I expected to have, but I was so overwhelmed with joy and how absolutely adorable it was I just started crying. I'm better now, but it still melts my heart every time.

I don't want to say much about their night time routine because I'm afraid I'll jinx myself. But I will say that I like how it is. From the first day we have forced them to be on the same routine. When Riley woke up to eat, we woke up Noah. Every. Single. Time. We also forced Riley to wait 3 hours between feedings. He would start screaming at 2-2 1/2 at the beginning, but Noah wasn't ready to eat yet, so we just had to listen to him yell. But it paid off and now they go between 3 and 5 hours when they eat. And now normally at night it's Noah waking up first to eat. I'm also sooooooooooo lucky that I have the best husband ever. He takes the first night time feeding around 11 so I get to sleep from 9-3. That makes my day so much better. A lot of days I don't fall back to sleep much after the 3am feeding, but I still got a solid 6 hours of sleep before that so I'm ok. Best hubby ever.

I'm definitely starting to mellow out. When they would both cry at the same time I would get so tense and frustrated and usually end up crying myself. It's still a little overwhelming, but I can handle it a lot better. I've also learned when Riley starts fussing because he doesn't want to sleep (he really fights it. He doesn't want to miss anything) to just hold him in his tight swaddle and wait it out. Way better than at first when I would give it a few minutes then pass him off to Brent, who's like the freaking Baby Whisperer with that child.

I love my life. I can't say that enough. Every day is exhausting, but it's the best thing I've ever done. I could say that on every single one of my posts, but it's true. No matter how hard the day was, all it takes is a little smile or some happy kicks when we're listening to the new Lady Gaga cd to make it all worth it.

Alycia took the boys newborn pictures back when they were 11 days old. Here are some of them!

One of our children was more cooperative. And we have a ton of awesome pictures of him. The other one wasn't as cooperative, but Alycia is good at what she does and we still got some awesome shots.

Sweet Noah

If you didn't know who the cooperative one was, you do now.

The green picture is the picture we got when they did our embryo transfer. So it's their first real picture. Then our first ultrasound picture when we found out we were having twins. Then the real deal :)

The face we got the first month of his life :)

This picture cracks me up because he still makes the face all the time when he's trying to bust out of his swaddle like Baby Hulk.

Pictures!

2011-05-22T20:36:00.000-07:00

I take so many pictures of the boys, but I realized most of them are on my phone. So I've been trying to take more with our camera (what's the point of getting a nice camera if I'm not going to use it...that's what Brent told me tonight). Here are some of the ones we have. It's amazing to see how much they've changed from they were born!

Riley and Noah at 2 weeks

One of their Easter presents. Riley wanted a taste.

Peek a boo!

Riley tonight (6 weeks 2 days)

Noah tonight (6 weeks 2 days)

This picture cracks me up. The flash went off and this is what happened.

Lately they LOVE to lay on blankets or their play mat and kick. It cracks me up so much when their little legs are going so fast.

Busy, busy life

2011-05-10T22:31:00.000-07:00

Life has been crazy lately! Brent had a week of paternity after the boys were born. Then my mom came and helped for a week. Then my Grandma was here for 2 weeks. Now Brent has his second week of paternity leave. That means next week is my first week alone with the little buggers. We'll see how that goes :)

In the last few weeks we've celebrated my birthday and Easter (April 24), Chip's birthday (April 25), our 6th anniversary (May 6) and my first Mother's Day. Mother's Day was by far the best Mother's Day of my life. The babies reminded me that I'm a mommy and woke me up for their 12, 3, and 6am feedings. Brent made me chocolate chip muffins for breakfast and they gave me my Mother's Day present. The boys each got me a pearl earring and Brent got me a matching necklace :) I've never had real pearls so I'm excited to be able to wear them for nicer occasions! Brent (and the boys) did a great job with my present. My mom and sister came up in the afternoon for dinner and we all just hung out and relaxed. Even though I still helped with all the bottles, I didn't have to change a single diaper. That part was awesome, too.

Mother's Day was very overwhelming for me. For the past 4 Mother's Days all I wanted was to be a mom. The 2 before this one I actually skipped church because I didn't want to sit in the congregation and listen to the importance of being a mom when I wasn't able to be one myself. To be able to walk into our boys room and to see the two cutest little guys lying in their crib... words can't explain how blessed I feel. I will never be able to explain how lucky I am to be able to be their mother. They melt my heart and make me laugh every day. Mother's Day was also the day their turned a month old so that was pretty special. No matter how exhausted, frustrated or overwhelmed I might be, once I saw Riley and Noah and held them in my arms, I knew that this is what I was supposed to do with my life. I am meant to be a mother. I've had many jobs, but nothing has even come close to this. This is the reason I am here. And I feel so blessed to have two amazing children that I get to teach and who will teach me as well.

Noah doesn't cry. He just lets out little yells. And even then it's not often. But here is proof that it does actually happen.

Noah's first roll. Keep 'em coming kid!

My cute boys!

Riley after his bottle

Noah's look of determination

I LOVE the poses he does when he sleeps

The boys also had their one month check up today. Since they were born they've both gained 1 lb 14 oz. So Riley is 8lbs 10oz and Noah is 9lbs 6oz. I feel like they're both getting so big! But Riley is still only in the 18th percentile for weight and Noah is in the 35th. So they're still pretty little :) I could NOT imagine what a baby looked like in the 75th percentile if Noah seems big!

Sweet Little Riley Guy

2011-05-03T22:06:00.000-07:00

Even though he likes to yell a lot, this kid melts my heart when he's calm and relaxed. So sweet! Love this boy!

Heart Melter

2011-04-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

I cannot stop looking at this picture. It seriously melts my heart so much. Love this little Noah face.

Pictures at home

2011-04-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

Noah contemplating the meaning of life

This happened while Brent was at Target and I was home alone. This picture makes me laugh so hard I almost cry. I survived and got a really good picture out of it :)

Poor Riley was playing Edward Scissorhands with his face.

Sweet Noah

Noah's first bath at home

Riley's first bath at home

Cute little brothers. They love each other so much! It melts my heart.

The Birth Story

2011-04-15T11:22:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, April 8th, was the day I had my c-section scheduled. At the beginning of my pregnancy I knew I wouldn't make it that long. Who makes it a week past what is considered full term with twins on their FIRST pregnancy? Um, that would be me. At my last doctors visit I was measuring 47 weeks. My doctor happily told me that I was his second biggest stomach measurement EVER. Yay? Definitely a good thing, but not if I had any ambitions to become an ab model in the future (luckily I don't).

Since my hospital bag had been packed for a month and a half, we didn't have much to do to get ready. Friday morning we checked in at the hospital at 5:30am, with a surgery time scheduled for 7:30. After we checked in they brought me to a room I would be recovering in after surgery. I changed into my gown and got my vitals taken and the babies monitored. They made me drink some really nasty antacid stuff that tasted like a warhead, minus the sweet part. I got my IV and my awesome doctor and anesthesiologist came in to talk to me. At 7:30 I was walked over to the OR and Brent was left by himself for a few minutes to put his scrubs on while I got my spinal block.

Once I got to the OR they sat me on the table and I could not stop shaking for the life of me. They said it was completely normal and that it was just from nerves. Then they said, "Don't worry, there's nothing you can do to stop it." Talk about magic words. I am not a fan of being told I can't do something. So I sat there on the OR table and willed the shakes out of me. After about 20 seconds I was done shaking (so maybe these stubborn boys waiting until they had to be taken out at 38 weeks to come into the world take after their mother a little) and they gave me a shot of lidocaine to numb my spine a little. Then they put in the needle for the spinal block. It was not bad at all. I was pretty nervous about this part, but it was NOT a big deal. I started feeling more numb and Brent was brought into the room (he looked so cute in his scrubs). The big curtain was drawn in front of my face and the c-section started. I had no idea they were even cutting and thought that I was going to feel it, but before I knew it the anesthesiologist told me, ok we're getting close! At 8:00am Riley Charles was born weighing 6lbs 12 oz. At 8:01am Noah Rlynn arrived weighing in at a whopping 7lbs 8oz. I will save the math for you. That's 14lbs 4 oz of baby that was hanging out in my uterus. No wonder I was measuring 47 weeks. I started crying when I heard them cry for the first time (I'm choking up now just thinking about it, but everything makes me cry right now. And I mean EVERYTHING) and could look over to my left and see them being cleaned off. Brent got to help cut Riley's cord while they delivered the placentas and stitched me up. They told me I would feel a lot of pressure but it really wasn't bad at all. I expected my c-section to be so much worse than it was. It was honestly not bad at all. Recovery was a little rougher, but still not as bad as other people had made it out to be.

Once I was stitched up we got out of the OR and went back in to the recovery room. I had hemorrhaged during surgery and was bleeding more than they wanted me to, so I had to stay in there a little while longer while they gave me pitocin to help slow the bleeding. During this time they took the babies vitals and Brent and I were able to be with our sons (crying again right now) together as a family for the first time. They put Riley on my chest for Kangaroo Care while Brent held Noah. It was one of the most amazing moments of my entire life. I've been told how people feel when they are with their kids for the first time, but I didn't know what to expect. It was the most calm, peaceful, amazing love I have ever felt in my life. As the days go by my love for them gets stronger and stronger and I cannot put in to words the way these boys make me feel. They are the most miraculous little humans I have ever met and when I even start to think about how blessed we are to have them in our lives, I start crying (see a trend?).

After the bleeding had slowed down we were taken to our hospital room where we would stay until Monday morning. My parents came and got to meet their grandsons. Seeing my parents with newborn babies is the most adorable thing. You can see how much they love them and it just melts my heart how excited they get just being around them and talking about them. My friend Alycia came that evening to meet the boys and she took some awesome pictures (that's nothing new, she always takes awesome pictures). The next day our good friends Dan and Brianne brought their cute family to visit. It was such a nice stay at the hospital and it was so fun to have people come say hello and meet the babies.

The recovery part was the hardest. I tried to sit up a few hours after surgery and ended up throwing up. I was so mad! I was pregnant with TWINS and didn't throw up my entire pregnancy. A few hours after surgery and I'm gagging and reaching for the barf bag. Annoying. A few hours later, though, I was able to sit up and then stand and take a few steps. Later that night I walked to the bathroom for the first time. By the next day I was doing a few laps around the halls with the babies in their little portable cribs. It was definitely painful, but it was not as bad as I expected. I'm still in pain, but I've been taking my pain medicine to help. I refused to be stubborn about that. I was offered it and so I took it and I think it helped a lot.

Now here we are and the boys are a week old today. I can't believe they're already a week old! They are seriously the most adorable little babies I have ever seen in my entire life. I love their little personalities (already VERY different) and the little facial expressions they make. Even after only getting an hour of sleep last night (ahem...Riley...) I can't help but adore everything about these guys.

Now on to the fun part! Pictures!

Cute boy in his scrubs

Drinking that nasty antacid stuff

Proud dad!

My mom brought the boys a birthday cake

Proud Grandparents

Riley after his first bath

Noah after his first bath

Sucking on his brothers head

Heading home!

Meeting Chip for the first time

The babies are coming, the babies are coming!

2011-03-23T12:14:00.000-07:00

Well, maybe not today. But SOON! I get to go off my contraction blocking medication Friday (I will be 36 weeks) so we'll see if that makes a difference. My doctor said that when your uterus is this stretched out sometimes it has trouble contracting so I just might make it to 38 weeks. April 8th is the official date we have scheduled for our C-section. Baby A just does not want to turn his little breech butt around, so we don't have a choice other than to do a c-section. And I am 85% ok with that. My doc told me that recovery from a scheduled c-section can be easier than a difficult labor. And who knows how labor would be, so I guess it will be nice to go in and just have them take the little guys out! I am pretty scared for how much it's going to hurt after, though.

As of Monday I was measuring 43 weeks. That's 3 weeks more than someone at full term with one baby. And I still have two weeks to go. Needless to say, I'm huge. I found that I have zero sympathy for other pregnant women. Luckily I don't have whiny pregnant friends. But some of the people I'm "friends" with on Facebook drive me nuts. They complain about every little ache and pain and how tough it is to be pregnant. Here's an idea. How about you look at your tummy and be grateful for the little life you have growing in there. I said at the beginning of my pregnancy that I will NOT complain about anything that has to do with being pregnant. So when people ask me how I'm doing I smile and say good. Because I AM good. I refuse to complain about swelling or pain or how many times a night I have to get up to pee. Because the reason that I feel that way is because I'm carrying two little guys! Even if I have days where I don't feel the best (and that's ok) it's because I get to be a mom of two sweet little boys very soon. I'm sure my feelings have a lot to do with the fact that we tried for so long to get pregnant and the steps we had to take to get there. So in some ways I look at that as a blessing. Maybe if I had gotten pregnant right away I would have been Pregzilla when I got to this point. While I definitely wasn't happy about it at the time, I'm grateful that I was able to go through what I did so I can realize how special it is to be able to carry a healthy baby (or two!) and how I need to focus on the positive aspects of pregnancy.

My doctor also told me that 75% of twin pregnancies don't get as far along as I am now. Most are born between 34-35 weeks. Brent and I were SURE that these babies were going to be born in early/mid March. But here I am, still gestating away. And I owe so much of that to Brent. I don't have to do anything around here. He gets home from his super busy day at work and does whatever chores need to be done around the house. Then on Saturday he does all the big stuff (vacuum the house, mop, clean the bathrooms, etc). I miss cleaning sooo much (I'm nerdy like that), but it's been so nice to not have to worry about having a messy house or trying to do it myself. He is such an amazing man and I'm so grateful for all the support and help he's been these last 9 months. And because of him and the fact that I can lay around most of the day, our babies are big enough that they probably (cross your fingers) won't need NICU time for being small. Our last growth scan at 34 weeks had the babies weighing in at 5lbs 3 oz and 5lbs 8 oz. And this week during my doctors appointment the doctor said that they're really starting to look chubby in the ultrasound (which is awesome because chunky babies are so cute!). Plus, I told Brent that right now as the babies are still growing in me they're getting Girl Scout Cookies, banana smoothies, PB&J's, etc. When they come out they get formula. I can't blame them for wanting to stay in for as long as they can!

It's crazy that we're at this point. Everything is built, (mostly) washed, organized, and the cribs and pack n play have been tested out by Maggie (they all are still standing after Moo sat in them for a little). So now we just get to sit (or in my case lay) and wait for these cute little buggers to get here!

Maternity Pictures!

2011-03-09T12:27:00.000-08:00

Talk about talented! My friend Alycia is an AMAZING photographer and she took some pictures of me and Brent in downtown Snohomish. We had such a fun time hanging out and getting our pictures taken. Brent also happened to be going home teaching right after, so that's why he's wearing a suit. But since he wears a suit 6 days a week anyway, it is pretty accurate to real life. If I was trying to make myself accurate I would have had a sweatshirt, comfy pants, and a pony tail. And the pony tail would be if I was extra ambitious that day.

I know maternity photos are supposed to be about the mom and her bump, but I can't get over how hot Brent looks in the pictures. That's right, I said it. I think he's hot.

Thanks for doing such an amazing job, Alycia! If anyone wants to check out her website or book her for pictures her website is: puzzlepiecephotography.com
and her blog is http://puzzlepiecephotography.com/blog/

Fur Balls!

2011-02-20T21:19:00.000-08:00

My awesome friend, Alycia, is an amazing photographer and I told her that it drives me crazy when I try to take pictures and the flash makes my pets blink or makes their eyes look demonic. So she got out her camera bag and dug around for a second and whipped out this light diffusing thing that clips on the top of your camera and makes the flash not as bright. I was playing around with it tonight and I LOVE it!

Macie absolutely HATES getting her picture taken. But for some reason when I had the light diffuser in my hand she wanted to sniff it. So I let her. Then I put it on top of the camera and she was soooo intrigued! She actually let me take a bunch of pictures of her and they're some of the best we've gotten of her in a long time! She also got her teeth cleaned Friday and a bath yesterday so she looked extra pretty.

I love this one!

Chip was napping when we started the Macie Photoshoot

But woke up pretty soon after we started and wanted in on the action.

Little poser.

The kitties came downstairs later and I tried to get some pictures of them. Emma did pretty well, but only let me take a couple. I love this one of her, even though she's kind of giving a stink eye.

Maggie, on the other hand, was much more difficult. She might be a hardcore Momma's girl, but she takes after her dad when it comes to having sensitive eyes and blinking for pictures :) In every picture I took of her, her eyes were half shut, or shut all the way. Oh well, she's still a cute girl.

Little Chunks

2011-02-14T11:56:00.000-08:00

Every 4 weeks we have a super detailed growth scan of the babies to make sure they're growing well, one isn't a lot bigger than the other and their fluid levels are good. We had one this past Friday. What we found out makes me laugh a lot.

I'm currently measuring 37 weeks, even though I'm only 30 1/2 (my doctor said I'm right on track for having twins) but then I started thinking about how big I'm going to be in a few weeks! During the growth scan they measure 3 different angles of the head, a couple different measurements on the stomach, the thigh bone, and the upper arm bone. I think there might be another one, but I forget what it is. Anyway, they take all these measurements and calculate them to see what the babies weigh and how big they are measuring. At 30 weeks Baby A weighed 3 lbs 6 oz and Baby B weighed in at a whopping 3 lbs. 14 oz.! I thought that sounded pretty big. And then they took out the comparison chart.

Turns out the chart is for singletons. So my twins were getting compared to single baby growth rates at 30 weeks. Baby A was in the 81th percentile for weight. And Baby B was in the 96th percentile! I am growing some seriously large babies! No wonder Baby B's cheeks looked chubby in the 3D ultrasound pictures :)

This did make me super happy, though. I keep reading that this is the time that twins start slowing down in growth since they're almost out of room. So my minimum goal is to keep these little (or not so little) guys in here until they weigh at LEAST 5 pounds each.

3D Babies!

2011-01-21T11:46:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of me at 25 weeks 2 days. I've grown a lot since then. I've gone online and checked out pictures of other moms having twins at 25 weeks, and surprisingly I could be a lot bigger!

Last week (at 26 weeks) we had an ultrasound and they were able to get some 3D pictures of the little guys. Their little faces melt my cold black heart already.

Baby B was a little less shy posing for pictures. I think it looks like he has chubby cheeks already!

I absolutely love being pregnant. Sure, there are some things I am really looking forward to after the babies are born (like eating cookie dough and putting on my right sock. For some reason, I have trouble with the right one), but for now I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to grow two little babies. Especially now that they're moving around so much! Last night I was laying in our Love Sac and looked down at my belly and something moved across it. I don't know if it was a knee or an elbow or if he was just flipping over, but my entire belly looked like it had a mind of it's own and it was crazy!!!

On the coordination scale from 1-10 I'm normally a 4 (MAYBE a 5 on a really good day). Pregnancy makes me go into the negatives, if that's possible. Especially if I'm trying to climb out of the Love Sac or roll out of bed. I feel like a weeble wobble all the time, except for the fact that when I'm down I normally stay that way.

Seeing these pictures of the little guys makes me so excited for them to get here! But I would definitely have them stay inside me for a couple more months so they can finish growing and chunk up a little more :)

Little Update

2011-01-11T14:31:00.000-08:00

Aside from Christmas and New Years, I feel like we haven't been up to much. After we got back from Utah for Thanksgiving I had a doctors appointment and discovered my cervix was beginning to funnel (open) at the top. Considering I was barely 20 weeks pregnant, it was not a very good thing. So he put me on some meds and told me to keep off my feet as much as possible (a very nice way of saying modified bedrest, without using those words). Since I would much rather spend time laying around at home than laying around at the hospital, I did a very good job of not doing much. And it paid off! My last visit I was able to stop the medication and he told me to keep taking it easy, but I didn't have to be quite so extreme.

My last visit I had to do the gestational diabetes test. I was a tiny bit worried since the chance of developing GD with twins is a lot higher, but luckily the test results said I didn't have it. Next appointment, thanks to my Rh negative mother sharing her negative blood type with me, I have to get my Rhogam shot. I'm pretty much a pro at getting shots by now, so it's not a big deal. But I still told my mom she owes me a Blizzard since it's her fault. :)

We've gotten most of the big baby items now, and it's so crazy to think there will be two little boys here to use them soon! I definitely procrastinated a little on getting stuff because I've been pretty superstitious about the whole pregnancy. But I figured that I'm 25 weeks now and it's probably time to get some stuff for these little tikes. I've also been pretty emotional lately about being pregnant with these boys. I walked into the nursery the other day and saw all the stuff we had and started crying. I just honestly never thought I would get to this point. And now we're about to have not just one but two little miracles come into our lives. I will never be able to describe in words how much these babies mean to me. And even though we had to go through so much to get them here, it is completely worth it. Trials suck. I'll never say I'm grateful for them. But I'm grateful for when they're over and that I've learned so much from them.

I've always known how lucky I am to have Brent. But he never fails to amaze me even more than he already has. When I was put on bedrest, he completely took over the house. He works 10-12 hours a day and comes home and takes care of the house. On the weekends he does an amazing job making sure the house is clean and everything is in order. It's been hard for me not to be able to do things around the house (especially since I was a crazy cleaning lady before), but I'm so grateful for him stepping up and taking over everything. Not just that, but he does it with a smile on his cute face.

I'm getting pretty huge and I'm perfectly ok with that. But chances are I probably won't be putting many pictures up on here :) but to paint a mental picture of what's going on: Brent told me when I had my robe on the other day it's funny because the tie on my robe is getting shorter and shorter. Pretty soon I wonder if there's going to be anything left to tie!

Belly shots

2010-12-06T11:30:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-11-19T13:56:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-16T17:44:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-09T10:23:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-07T20:36:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-11-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-26T13:24:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-08T12:31:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-17T13:09:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-08-16T13:33:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-08T16:26:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-17T14:32:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-14T08:25:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-08T18:37:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-01T16:38:00.000-07:00

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.

They're hereeeeeee!!!!!!!

2010-05-26T14:43:00.000-07:00

When we were in Vegas last month the M&M factory was giving out samples of their newest creation. We walked back and forth 3 different times so we could get as many as possible. They give you this crunchy goodness, and then tell you they're not going to be in stores for a while. Well, today I was strolling down the aisles of Fred Meyer and there they were!! There were only 2 bags left AND they were on SALE! So of course I bought them both. And I will gladly add time to my daily workout so these can become a new food group. They are THAT good.

Where Rice-a-Roni and Danny Tanner live!

2010-05-24T14:47:00.000-07:00

For Brent's big Christmas present (the one that almost ruined Christmas) I got us tickets to San Francisco. Brent hadn't been there since his high school debate days (hehe) and I had never been there. It was awesome!!

One thing I didn't get a picture of that seriously cracked me up every time I thought about it: we were walking down the street on the second day after Alcatraz and I noticed a bush. It was weird because there were no other bushes on the street and it looked out of place. Well the longer I looked I realized it was NOT a bush. I realized this just as we were a couple feet from it. All of a sudden the bush parts and this face pops out and screams, "RAAAAAAA!!!!!!" at Brent. It scared him half to death and I couldn't stop laughing! Then the more I thought about it, the funnier it was to me. That guy must have done really well that week asking for money because he obviously didn't have to worry it about it that day. And not only did he have time to scare people, he had time to find a bunch or random branches and tie them together in a 3x3 square and have it look pretty legit! If I had thought about all that while we were there, I would have totally given him a dollar. Homeless people need to do that kind of stuff more often. I would totally give them money :)

Our hotel was only a block from Chinatown

We had a rough time the first day getting around. Brent wanted to save money and take the BART (like the subway). I was fine with saving money, but we had no idea where we were going and what we were doing. Not to mention we were in a strange city. I was not a happy BART camper. We ended up figuring it out though, and it was great once we got the hang of it. This is what I looked like the first day riding the BART.

We got to go to dinner with Brent's good friend, Tim, and his fiancee, Amy. This place was on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives and was AWESOME. It was Puerto Rican food and it reminded Brent of his mission

After, the four of us went to Ghirardelli Square to get sundaes. YUM!

We went here for breakfast Thursday and Friday morning. This place was also on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. I had chocolate chip french toast and it was the best breakfast EVER! Quick story: on the bus tour we did of the city our tour guide said, "We're now entering the sketchy area of the city. Make sure you don't walk through here at night! In fact, avoid this whole area if you can." Brent said, "Isn't this by where we ate?" Sure enough, just as he said it we rode past Dotties. Whoops. I guess ignorance is bliss.

Our Worldmark we stayed at. It was an awesome location!

On Thursday morning we went to Alcatraz. While we were waiting to go on the tour finally someone other than me got pooped on!! Luckily for him I had tissues and hand sanitizer to clean his head off. I did avoid that part of his head for the rest of the day, though :)

Going to Alcatraz!

As Prison Mike would say, "Don't drop the soap!"

Brent and his cute audio tour headphones

This is the ACTUAL Rice-a-Roni cable car! It was way cool to see it! There was a 2 hour wait to get to ride it, so we passed

We did a 48 hour hop on hop off bus tour. It was nice because we got to see everything!

It was so freaking awesome to see the Golden Gate Bridge! I love seeing stuff in real life that you've seen all your life, but haven't really SEEN. SOOOO cool!

Our second day on the bus tour at the Japanese Tea Gardens

This was the other thing I was sooooo pumped to see. The Full House houses!!! I have 8 pictures that look exactly like this on my camera, but I'm not getting rid of any of them!

The last night we were there we went to an A's game. They were playing the Giants so it pretty fun. Cross town rivals!

Our seats were way good, especially for getting them when we got to the stadium!

Thursday morning I woke up to find I had a little friend come visit me. Not THAT friend (I wouldn't mention that on my BLOG) but the little monster known as PINK EYE. When I think of pink eye, I think of little kids. How in the world I got it, I have no idea. Especially since I use hand sanitizer all the time. But it didn't stop us from having fun. I just looked like a demon as we did our touristy stuff :) Brent took this picture at the game to show my evil eye

We had so much fun and can't wait to go back again!!

Reason #15,294 I enjoy being a housewife

2010-05-16T23:19:00.000-07:00

Because when your mom asks you on Wednesday afternoon if you want to go hiking on Friday, you can say YES!

Growing up my parents took us on a lot of vacations and we saw a lot of cool stuff. The only problem was that 99% of the time it was somewhere that had to deal with nature. I complained the entire time when I was younger, but now that I'm getting old I'm starting to appreciate the stuff I used to whine about.

We went to Lake 22 (what a random name for a hike) in the Mt. Baker National Forest. It was 5 1/2 miles round trip, which meant I got to see a ton of cool stuff AND I got to count it as my workout for the day!

So green and northwesty!

There were soooo many waterfalls since we went early in the hiking season

It looked like you could potentially see a cool view to a waterfall so I sent my mom over to check it out :) she said it wasn't worth it so I just waited until she got back

You hike up through a forest for a while and then it opens up to a steep field you hike up

Finally to the top! At the top we had to hike through snow!

Pictures can't do it justice. It was so beautiful!

Stopping for lunch!

Most of the lake was still frozen over

There were a TON of waterfalls from all the melting snow when we got to the top

One of the coolest parts was that since it was getting warm all the snow was melting and there were avalanche warnings. We weren't close enough to have to worry about anything, but we got to hear FOUR avalanches when we were relaxing at the top! It sounded like a gun shot and then you could hear a little rumble. The best part was we actually SAW one of them! In this picture I saw snow rolling down through the trees and it ended up coming out at the bottom where it opens up and there is the snow pile. SOOOO crazy!

My mom had hiking shoes and I just had my Nike's so I sent her first in case she fell through the snow. There was one point where the snow was melting below but it seemed thick enough to walk across. My mom cruised across and when it was my turn I slipped and fell in the snow. Whoops. When I tried to get up I picked a bad spot to put my foot and it went straight through the snow into the little stream of freshly melted snow. So freaking cold!

The hole my foot made is to the right of my knee. Mom laughed. A lot. But only once she realized I was ok :) I didn't mind since I laughed, too!

I had so much fun and I can't wait to see what other nature adventures we can go on this summer!

These are a few of my favorite things...

2010-05-11T15:09:00.000-07:00

These are a few of my current favorites!

I could do a whole post on Nutella. I don't know where it's been all my life, but I'm glad it's here now. We buy ours at Costco because it's WAAAAY cheaper and you get a TON more! My wonderful mother picked me up some the other day. When she gave it to me she asked what I ate it on (waffles, english muffins, crepes, pizza...the possibilities are endless). I told her the truth: a spoon.

I am a germaphobe. And I wash my hands probably between 30-40 times a day. I LOVE Bath and Body Works foam soap. It's all ready for you to get rid of all the gross germs. Just pump, rub, and rinse! (that's what she said)

I had to stop working out for a little, but now I'm back into the swing of things. My sister-in-law has been doing amazing working out and getting healthy and has motivated me to work harder. I am LOVING our elliptical. It's smooth, pushes me, and I don't even have to leave our house to feel like I got a great workout in.

It's been really nice here lately, so I've also been jogging/walking with Chippo. Macie and Chip are terrors together on walks, but individually they are great. Mace needs about a 20 minute walk and Chip needs 45. So he and I go jogging to get our energy out and then Mace and I can go to cool down. And he looks SO happy when we run which makes me happy and melts my heart :)

It took me a while to get into her. Lets face it, she's weird. But man, can she sing! Usually when I workout on the elliptical I listen to Linkin Park because angry music gets me pumped up to work hard. But her cd is so upbeat and is so fun to workout to. And it's really fun to drive and listen to it. I'm officially hooked on Gaga.

I have a hard time having patience with this guy. He has a lot of energy, constantly wants to play and loves to get into things. But lately my patience with him has been a lot better. I'm sure the jogging helps, but he's also turning into a great boy. And since I'm being more patient, I'm also yelling at him less and loving him a lot more. Honestly though, how can you not love that face?

Happy Half a Decade!

2010-05-05T10:00:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow it will be 5 years ago that Brent and I got married. I cannot believe that we have already been married FIVE YEARS! I think about who we were when we got married and who we are now, and I feel like we've grown up so much. The last couple months have been really hard on us, but life is slowly getting back to normal and this past weekend I had more fun than I've had in a very long time. It was so awesome to be able to go out with Brent and just goof off. I've seriously laughed more in the last week than I have the whole rest of 2010.

Brent's in Utah this week for work training and I miss him so much! Our relationship has grown so much since we first got married, and we're at a place right now together that I feel so blessed to be at. Our struggle with infertility sucks. Plain and simple. But lately I've been thinking about how I married Brent for HIM and how he married me for ME. I didn't marry him because he was going to be a good dad. I mean, I know he's going to be an amazing dad. But there are so many reasons I married him, and I married him for ALL of them. Not just the fact that he's going to be a wonderful father. I married him for his humor and his charm. I married him for his curly hair, and even though it's gone I like his short hair even better! I married him because he's my best friend in the whole wide world and there is not a soul that knows me like he does. I never met anyone that I can completely 100% be myself, until I met him. He sees all of my moods and loves me through all of them.

Don't get me wrong. There is nothing more I want than to be a mom. But I'm starting to realize for the first time since we've been struggling with infertility that I might not ever get pregnant. And if I don't, I still have Brent. I still have the person that makes me laugh more than anyone. I still have the person that tells me I'm beautiful every day. I still have my best friend. And even if I don't get to be a mom to a human (I will always consider myself a mom to our furries!) there is no one else in the universe that I would rather have gone through this with.

Sometimes I look at him and wonder what I did to deserve such an amazing, loving, caring person. But it doesn't matter what I did, I DID IT! :) :) and now I get to be with him forever!! Before I met Brent I didn't have the best luck in relationships. But when it really mattered, I ended up with someone better than I ever could have dreamed for myself.

The past 5 years have had some struggles. But they have been the best 5 years of my life. I've cried, laughed and loved harder than I ever thought was humanly possible. No one has ever and will ever make me feel as special and significant as my husband. If the past 5 years are any indication to what my eternity looks like, I'm one of the luckiest girls in the world. Thanks for everything love. I'm so glad that my forever is with you.

Happy Birthday Chip!

2010-04-26T12:41:00.000-07:00

I'm always sad when April 24th is over. But this year we had a new reason to be excited for April 25th. Chip's birthday!! For his birthday we got him a day at Day Camp at Petsmart. He LOVES to play with the big dogs there and always comes home exhausted (which is a bonus for us). He had day camp on Saturday and we picked him and Macie up on Sunday after we got back from Vegas.

Chip spent a lot of the day sleeping, but he did wake up to go on a walk and for his birthday treat!

He ate his, and even shared one with Macie!

This was the most awake picture I was able to get of him on his birthday

Chip has been such a cute addition to our family. He's always full of energy, spunk, love, and randomness. I always tell Brent that I've never met an animal that makes me laugh as much as he does.

This was the day we met him. We knew he was going to be trouble, but that didn't stop us..

How could you resist this face? He still always makes this face. He's such a happy go-lucky guy

Chip loves:

Playing with toys

Wrestling with Macie (he still lets her win)

Licking Macie's head

Looking out windows

Socks

His friend Ellie

-Going on walks
-EATING
-Running around like he's crazy
-Petsmart Day Camp
-Playing with other dogs and making new friends
-Chasing kitties

Chip does NOT love:
-Being left alone
-Getting put in his crate
-When Macie gets attention and he gets ignored
-When he wants to play and Macie ignores him

Chip can:
-Sit
-Lay down
-Wave bye
-Jump and twirl
-Leave it
-Bow (sometimes)

Chip's stats:
Weight: 25lbs
Height: Tall enough for Macie to walk under
Head size: Huge. Especially his nose.

Happy birthday buddy! We love you so much!

Happy Birthday to me, Las Vegas style

2010-04-25T18:50:00.000-07:00

About a month ago I got a card in the mail from Brent that said I needed to check the dogs into the Pet Hotel around the time of my birthday because we were going on a trip! He wouldn't tell me where, but he said clues would be coming. The only other clue I got (and it was a big one) was that we were flying somewhere. Finally on tax day, he let me guess where we were going. I guessed Vegas, and I was right! What I didn't know was that he also invited my mom to go with us. And then my sister and godfather decided to come along, too! We got there at 8am on Thursday and started partying!

We went and watched the baby lions play at MGM

We loved the gardens at the Bellagio

Brent surprised me with tickets to 'O' that night. We were in row A. I thought that there would be a few rows in front of us that might be reserved for people, but we were the VERY FIRST ROW. It was actually a splash zone :) Not quite as extreme as Shamu, though. It was so awesome to be that close. And it was such an awesome show! It was my first real Vegas show (other than the Tournament of Kings and 'N Sync when I was younger) and I was not disappointed!

Friday we walked around a ton and went shopping.

The new city center was really neat to see, and it's HUGE!

My godfather left that afternoon and that night the rest of us went to Freemont Street. This dog was part of a magic show. His name was Elvis Pawsley and he was so adorable!

We ended up deciding to go to the magic show that night and it was very entertaining. I actually got called up on stage to help with a trick! I was pretty shy but there was one point where he told me to dance while he drew my card and I busted out a booty dance. Brent was proud :) Here we are with the Magician and his assistant. I'm holding a picture that he drew of my card I had drawn. It was such a cool trick!

Saturday was my actual birthday and my sister had to leave early in the morning. So my mom, Brent and I went and partied it up for one more day.

We went shopping, rode the roller coaster at New York, New York (PAINFUL and so not worth the $30) and went to the Coke Factory to try the "Flavors around the World"

Some of the flavors were actually pretty good (Fanta Kolita was my favorite) while some made us downright gag (Beverly from Italy)

I didn't know what I wanted to eat and I was tired of eating at buffets so I decided to see if they had a Cafe Rio in Vegas. And they DID! So we entered it into our trusty GPS and set off to find it.

I was so happy that I got it for my birthday lunch!

When we got to Cafe Rio we noticed that right next door a Nielson's Frozen Custard had just opened next door!!! It was fate (and gluttony)!!!! Brent and I shared the one I'm holding. I just had to point that out.

Here is a picture of Brent with our rental car that we named Gregg the Egg

It's a Mazda 5, which is pretty much a combination of a car, van and station wagon. It was the strangest car I've ever ridden in.

For the rest of the day we went down to the Stratosphere, Circus Circus, Treasure Island and took a ride going south on the strip. It was so fun to relax and people watch. We ended up getting home this morning and were finally in bed at 3am.

I had such amazing birthday and I'm so lucky to have a husband that would plan such a fun surprise trip. Thanks so much baby for the great time and for everything you do!!!!

He who has yet to be named

2010-04-02T20:03:00.000-07:00

I should have figured when we were going car shopping that we were going to probably be buying a car that night. After test driving the one we wanted, we knew we were HOOKED! But of course you have to play it cool, so the salesguy doesn't see how much you want the car. We feel like we got a great deal on it and it's the most fun car I've ever driven!! Brent said that even though his '05 Honda is now my car, I can still drive the new one sometimes :)
So say hello to the newest addition to the family!

Our Audi A4 Quattro!

I wonder what poor Tinker is thinking...

There are so many cool features on this thing that I didn't even know existed! It has heated mirrors and a heated rear window and at 41 degrees it automatically kicks on! Also, I love being able to listen to my Ipod in the car! One cool feature that it has that I'm not quite used to yet is bluetooth in the car. My friend called while I was driving the music shut off and it said, "Call from Alycia". Well that's awesome, except I didn't know how to answer the call! I figured it out and it was so cool to just be able to talk while you were driving without an actual bluetooth (the speakers are up by the inside front lights). And if I want to call someone, I just say, "Call Brent" and it will call him!

Also, it has a fun prank feature. I'm sure it's not supposed to be used this way, but I think it's hilarious. You can set a speed warning and if the person driving the car goes over a certain speed, a loud beep starts going off. Well the best part is you can set the speed warning at 20 mph! Brent would kill me if I did it, but I keep thinking about him driving to Seattle in the morning and the speed warning going off the whole way because he didn't know how to shut it off :)

There are a lot of other awesome things that I don't really understand yet, but it's fun to mess around with everything when I'm the passenger. The biggest problem we're facing right now is what the name is going to be. I think since Brent gets to drive it the majority of the time I should get to named it :)

The Audi dealership actually accepted Tinker as a trade in, but since she's dangerous to drive they're sending some guy named Junior to our house to pick her up :) I wonder what Junior is going to look like, because this is what I'm picturing...

Tinker the Stinker

2010-03-31T15:41:00.000-07:00

On Saturday Brent took Tinker (our old Honda) in to get the brakes checked. They said we needed new back brakes and a new tire. So we decided to get the new tire that day and make an appointment to get the brakes the following Saturday. When they took the tire off to put the new one on they noticed that the CV axle was broken. Apparently that's an important thing and you shouldn't be driving your car without a working one. Whoops. After all these repairs it was going to cost as much to fix the car as it was worth. So now tonight we're going new car shopping. I'm a little nervous because I'm kind of a sucker (just look at my Kirby vacuum).

Even though I can't wait to have a car that doesn't take 20 minutes to defrost, I have a special place in my heart for Tinker. She was a pretty hardcore car. I mean, she got STOLEN and then found! And she didn't even let the bad guys take the cd player! She's been the car I've driven since we got married. And before that I didn't have a car at BYU so I LOVED having her. I'll post a better picture later, but until then here is the back of her.

We'll miss you Tink! Now off to find a new one! :)

Cruise Day 7, Cruising back to Puerto Rico

2010-03-15T17:23:00.000-07:00

Today was spent cruising back to Puerto Rico so we spent all day on the ship. We were exhausted from such a busy week and ended up waking up at noon! We got going and went up and played a round of mini-golf.

I got 2 back-to-back holes in 1! We don't keep score when we play anymore. I think it's better for our marriage.

This dog reminded me of Macie :)

I wasn't feeling the best so after we played and walked around a little I went back to the room and relaxed.

On our way to dinner we stopped and got a picture with Alan!

The sunset that night was GORGEOUS!

This was our waiter, Vipin. I loved that you have the same waiter, stateroom attendant, etc. the whole time so you can get to know them. It was awesome meeting people from so many different countries. I couldn't get over how friendly everyone was.

This is what Alan left on the last night. I'm still trying to figure out what it is.

This was seriously the vacation of a lifetime. It was the most relaxing, fun, and exotic vacation I have ever been on! I think one of the things that made it the best was the fact that I got to share it with Brent. We were sad to have it end, but we were also so excited to get home to our furries because we missed them sooooo much! Thanks baby for the best vacation EVER!

Cruise Day 6, Barbados

2010-03-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

This was our last day of going to a new place and when we got to the top of the ship this morning we thought, "Oh this place is going to be kind of lame." Here is the view we had.

We could NOT have been farther from the truth. I want to move to Barbados! And then I can go vacation in Dominica :) Today was our last excursion. We had a 4x4 tour of the island and snorkeling by a couple shipwrecks.

Brent and I climbed up these rocks to get some good pictures. While we were up there a Barbados police man whistled at us to get down. Once we got down we saw the big sign that said No Climbing on Rocks. At least we got the pictures :)

Our ride. The group of people we ended up with were awesome! There were 9 of us in the back of this thing and we had so much fun talking and goofing off with them.

I snapped this picture as we drove by. I was pretty impressed with myself. And this is 100% real!

The had sugar cane (or "suga kayne") fields EVERYWHERE. Our driver told us they were marijuana fields. I'm betting those were on a different part of the island.

This was our first of 2 stops. The beach was gorgeous! I couldn't get over how crazy big the waves were.

This is also where I did my good deed for the year

See the rock in the left of the picture? Well, after we got our picture taken, I was standing there taking pictures. One of the old ladies in the group walked over to get her picture taken where we were and a wave came up and knocked her back. She looked like she was going to catch her balance but I ran up and reached out to her just in case. Well, as I did that she almost fell back but reached out and grabbed my hand. Just as I grabbed her another wave came crashing over. Luckily, she stayed upright and was fine. It was scary, though, because she was right by the jagged rocks and if a wave had taken her down, I don't want to think what might have happened. She kept coming up to me the rest of the trip saying how I saved her life. :)

Look at those waves!

Another drive-by picture I was pretty proud of.

I had no idea bananas grew upside down!

So we got to our second location and got on a little speed boat that took us to the place we were going to be snorkeling. It was the most unreal gorgeous place I have ever been in my life!

The water is really this color!

Now, while I'm glad I have the opportunity to snorkel, I found out that I am NOT a fan. I kept forgetting to breathe through my mouth and I was too small for the life vest so it kept riding up. But it was an awesome experience.

These were taken with Brent's camera. It still works!

There were sooooo many fish and you could feel them zoom past you as you swam

This is a view of one of the shipwrecks. It's kind of hard to see, but you get the point

After we were done snorkeling we had a half hour to just relax on the beach. The other people in our group stayed on the boat and drank rum punch, but Brent and I swam and chilled on the beach until we had to go back.

The sand was soooooooo white and soooooo smooth!

The beach that we were at was voted one of the 10 best beaches in the world. I can totally see why!

Later that night we had our second formal night!

I got to wear my new necklace! :)

After dinner they had an adults only (you'll see why) game called The Quest. It's basically a giant scavanger hunt with items in the room. It was hilarious to see how people get when they're competing (and probably mostly wasted)

One of the things you had to do was someone in the group had to give the Cruise Activities Director a lap dance. Guess who volunteered.

I am pretty proud though, because after I finished the Cruise Director who was the MC for the game said, "That was GOOD!". I guess we all have our talents.

Brent was the one that got nominated to dress up like a girl and then do a dance routine around the room

Needless to say the guy behind him won. My bro-in-law said Brent looked like a feminine Mr. Rogers. I can't look at this picture now without thinking about that comment and cracking up!

Our group didn't win, but we sure had a lot of fun!

When we got back from the night, Alan had this waiting for us!

Cruise Day 5, Dominica

2010-03-08T23:14:00.000-08:00

We found out the day before we got there that it's pronounced Dom-a-knee-kah and we were saying it wrong the whole time! Oh well, we said it right after that :)

Today we woke up and the view from the ship was absolutely amazing. Dominica is the most fertile island in the Caribbean (which means they grow the most marijuana) and it was soooo green and gorgeous! This was the view from the ship that morning

I seriously could not get over it! Today we were going on our second excursion. It was a ride around part of the island and a waterfall/hot springs tour. So we met our group and headed off bright and early!

View at one of the stops on the tour

The first place we arrived at was the waterfall. This spot was in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean 2, where Jack Sparrow is rolling around on the giant wheel. A lot of the movie was filmed in Dominica and it was really cool to see it! Anyway, we jumped in this FREEZING water to swim through caves to a waterfall.

This is where we first got in

When we bought our camera it claimed to be freeze proof, shock proof, and waterproof. Well we figured this was probably the best time to test and see if the people at Olympus were a bunch of liars. Just in case, we took Brent's camera.

This is what we swam to. It was gorgeous! Brent and I both climbed up on a rock and jumped in

Good form, but minus points for holding his nose. Brent didn't get a shot of me jumping, but I did!

If you turn your head sideways, this is part of the view on the way to the waterfall.

We got back to the van and drove to our next location. On the way there we saw some of the volcanic activity on Dominica. This was the steam coming out of one of the volcano vents.

Next we arrived at Screw Hot Springs. There was a big sign when you first came in that said, "Sulfur is orange, not dirty". Pretty reassuring for a germ freak like myself...

There were three hot springs and a cool pool. The first one was waaaaaay hot and the second two felt sooo nice. After you're done you jump in the cool pool to shrink your pores back up (and lock in all the dirt).

Here we are with our adorable tour guide, Jan. She was hilarious!

After we finished at the hot springs they brought out fresh fruit to snack on. Oh my goodness.. I had the best mango I have ever had in my LIFE! And since it was so good after I got home I went to Trader Joe's and bought a couple. Big mistake. Trader Joe's mangoes do not equal Dominica mangoes.

No children were harmed in the making of this photo op

While we were at the hot springs, our van driver made all these cute little animals out of weeds they had by the van! Crazy!! He and Alan need to have a competition.

Later that night we ventured over to karaoke. I'm 99% sure my husband was the only sober one that performed that night.

For some reason, he chose to do YMCA. I didn't support this decision, since he didn't know any of the words, other than "Y-M-C-A!"

But he must have done a good enough job because he had the biggest turn out on the dance floor!

When we got back that night, Alan had this waiting for us :)

Up next: Barbados!!

Cruise Day 4, St. Kitts

2010-02-20T21:48:00.000-08:00

Today was my first day in a foreign country other than Canada. Crazy!!! We had no plans so we decided to walk in to town and see what kind of tours they had going on. We were walking towards the tour center when a local stopped us and said he had a minibus tour that was $20 a person. In the tour center it was $60 a person. Hmm.... that's a lot of shopping I could do with the difference! As we walked toward the minibus and the other tourists (the part in New Moon where all the tourists are taking a tour of the Volturi castle before they ended up being vampire lunch did cross my mind for a split second...) it seemed legit.

We drove around the entire island with a few stops along the way. At one stop a local opened the van door (I was the one sitting right next to the door so I could have been the first victim), but I ended up being the one that lucked out! Because this guy jumped into my lap!

I got to get out of the van and hold the little guy for a couple minutes. He was sooooo soft and cute. And he had a diaper on so I didn't have to worry about any unwanted bodily fluids on my shirt. Brent was prepared with Purell when I got back in the van and instantly told me, "We are not getting one." Part of his argument was that we don't even know what to feed it, but them I reminded him that he'll be fine because monkeys eat bananas! :) This was pretty much the highlight of the day for me and I couldn't stop giggling after holding him.

After that we stopped at some beautiful gardens that had a view of the rainforest on the island

I know we have a rainforest in Washington, but this was a hardcore rainforest! And it was my kind of rainforest because they don't have any snakes on St. Kitts!

Another pretty overlook we stopped at. This is the Atlantic Ocean side of the island. Our guide told us that you can't swim in it because there are a ton of sharks.

Our next stop was at the Black Rock Cliffs. These rocks were formed by the volcanoes on the island.

Our last stop of the tour was at the beach. We were here for an hour. Since we were fried from the day before we couldn't go out in the sun. But we got to sit on a picnic table and eat lunch and have this view for an hour!

We both ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. Now, I don't know about you but it takes me about 5-10 minutes to make 2 grilled cheese sandwiches. Well on St. Kitts they don't move very fast because it took 45 minutes for ours to come. I guess when you live on the island you just relax!

The tour took 4 hours and it was so fun to get to see another country/culture. Later that night this guy was sitting on our bed:

Next blog: Dominica!

Cruise Day 3, St. Croix

2010-02-18T15:44:00.000-08:00

Today we woke up in St. Croix, another one of the US Virgin Islands. Today our plans were to go to the BEACH! I've never been anywhere tropical before, so I always figured pictures of the Caribbean were photoshopped to have super blue water. FALSE. The water really is that blue!!!

We rented a couple beach chairs and an umbrella and stayed here all day long. It was sooo relaxing!

View of the ship

We were sitting on our chairs and all of a sudden this guy walks his horse down to the water. And then he keeps walking it INTO the water! The horse started swiming (who knew horses could swim?!?) and then he kind of held on and swam along next to it. It was crazy!

A little while later we were laying on the chairs again and looked over and saw a couple getting married! About 50 feet from us!

We got back on the ship to get ready for the first formal night. We started getting dressed and I could feel that I got a little sun. Well I looked at Brent and saw a "little sun" was more than a little! This is what my back looked like:

We didn't have any aloe, so we had to spend $13 wonderful dollars on a bottle of it. Needless to say we were in pain the next few days. But it's all tan now!!

After we got ready we went to an art auction. It was our first auction and it was so fun! We saw a painting that we loved and ended up bidding on it and winning! Crazy!!! There were even some paintings by Picasso, Rembrandt, and Salvador Dali! No one bid on any of those though, they were around $30,000!

Sold to US! I love the bright colors!

At dinner

When we got back to the room that night, this was waiting for us:

Up next: St. Kitts!

Cruise Day 2, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands

2010-02-17T15:24:00.000-08:00

We woke up early and were ready to roll! We went up to the top of the ship and saw the most beautiful views. As soon as I saw it all, I wanted to move here. But then as the trip went on, I wanted to move to all the different places we went :)

We had our first excursion in the morning, parasailing. Now, if you ever have the opportunity to do this, GO. It is NOT scary at all. It is absolutely amazing. I'm even pretty scared of heights, but it didn't affect me at all. There were 4 of us in our group and the guys that were taking us kept asking if we were nervous. The funny thing was that I wasn't at all! Not even butterflies! I was just super excited. Maybe I was destined to be an extreme sports kind of girl!

I love how concerned my cute husband looks in this picture

We got up to 350 feet. You can go as high as 600, depending on the winds and weather. I'm glad we didn't get THAT high!

When everyone finished, they asked who wanted to drive the boat back. Brent jumped at the chance.

He did great and the guy told him, "Ok now you're going to park it." Instantly my blood pressure went up 20 points because I had visions of owing the parasailing company thousands of dollars to fix the side of their boat. Well Brent just manuvered the boat in there like he'd been a little sailor boy all his life. I was VERY impressed!

After parasailing we went into the main town for shopping! I learned my new favorite phrase on this trip. DUTY FREE. It's awesome! Let's say Brent was going to get me a necklace at a jewelry store in Seattle. Well they had that same jewelry store in St. Thomas, and even though the necklace was the same price, there wasn't tax! So we saved a good chunk on taxes! Brent ended up getting a sweet watch and I got a necklace and some earrings. I love duty free shopping!!!

We also found the best chocolate I've ever eaten. And I have eaten a lot of chocolate in my day! We walked around a few other stores and Brent was very patient while I tried on rings. I was just having fun and trying on the bling-iest ring I could find. I tried on one that was $32,000!! The funny thing is that I actually like how mine looks on me better than that one did. Still, it was pretty funny that the sales guy was like, "Ok well that's the retail price but I can give it to you for $25,000!" Um, yes sir you could. And I could also buy a car for that.

After shopping we walked around and explored the island.

A view of our ship

We walked up a bunch of stairs to Blackbeards Castle. The castle was closed that day, but we got close enough to see the tower.

We walked around a little more and then headed back to the ship. We had to get ready for the SUPERBOWL!

That night they had a big Superbowl party in the theater on the ship. They had two sides, one decorated for the Saints, and one for the Colts. Brent wanted the Colts and I didn't care, so we sat in the middle. They gave away a bunch of football related prizes and threw out some stuff to the audience. I caught some beads (I didn't even have to show anything to get them!) and Brent caught a mini football.

We got back to our room after the game and this was waiting for us on the bed:

How cute is that?? Alan, our stateroom attendant, was one talented guy! And yes, those my sunglasses :)

Up next: St. Croix!

Cruise Day 1, Puerto Rico

2010-02-16T17:55:00.000-08:00

We just got back from the best vacation EVER! It was so relaxing and I saw so many amazing things. I tried to burn as much of it into my brain as I could, because some of the stuff I saw couldn't be described with words. There are too many pictures to put up and still have room to write, so I'm going to do a few blogs about the trip.

We flew into San Juan, Puerto Rico on Friday and spent the night. We got in late and by the time we got to our hotel it was midnight. We walked around the hotel for a little and then went to bed. We got up in the morning and it was sooooo sunny and warm!

We had 1/2 a day to spend in San Juan so we walked around Old San Juan looking at stuff.

The streets were soooo cool!

Those that know me pretty well probably know I have a fear of birds. I HATE it when there are huge groups of them and when they fly around me or over my head. Well we went to this little square and people watched for a while and there was this HUGE group of pigeons.

Now, I know I haven't had spanish class for quite some time, but I remember enough to know this means 'do not feed the birds.'

Well apparently not everyone got that because there were a bunch of people throwing bread crumbs to them. Some of the pigeons were even landing on people! And we wonder how people end up with the bird flu...

So all this is going on, yet little innocent me on the bench away from the birds is the one that gets pooped on!! How gross is that?? Thank goodness I had just bought a bunch of hand sanitizer. And thank goodness it wasn't on my head!

Pretty sure this is how you get food poisoning, but hey, it's still pretty cool!

It said on our cruise info that we could board the ship after 2. Well Brent and I were super excited to go and we got there around 1. Luckily we still were allowed to board. It wasn't crowded at all yet, so we spent a couple hours just exploring all over the ship. We went on the Royal Caribbean cruise line and it was soooo pretty inside!

That night we played (and lost) bingo and enjoyed a (virgin) mango daiquari.

The ship set sail that evening at 8pm and it was so cool to see it set off! Well it was cool until about an hour later when I thought I was going to puke. Apparently I get a little sea sick :)

The next day we woke up and we were in St. Thomas! I will blog about that tomorrow :)

Floating Down a River in the Middle of January

2010-02-03T16:38:00.000-08:00

Two Saturdays ago my mom organized a float trip down the Skagit River to see the eagles. This is the time of year where they're around and you can see hundreds of eagles during your trip.

There were 12 of us in our group (11 of who do crew with my mom. I was the odd man out). We got all bundled up and ready to go and got on a bus that took us to the river!

I haven't worn a life jacket forever. Well let me tell you. They tighten up those things until you feel like you have a corset on. I should have let all my breath out like horses do while their getting their saddle put on because I had a hard time breathing after that.

Cute mom is ready to float the river!

They had two types of rafts. One that the guide paddled for you, so you have a relaxing float down the river. Or they have the kind you could paddle yourself. I was all for the guide paddling, but I was definitely in the minority. That'll teach me to go rafting with a bunch of rowers :)

Our guide ended up being hilarious. He said the most eagles he had ever seen was about 600. He said it was kind of eerie and they were everywhere you looked. Well, we saw about 10. Even though we didn't see too many, we still had a blast goofing off and paddling ourselves down the river.

One of the other downfalls of being in the paddle boat was they all do this at least 2 times a week. I do not. My arms felt like they were detatching from my body halfway through the trip.

A nest. After I saw how big they really are, I learned I will never let Macie anywhere an eagle might be. She would be a goner!

One of the guys we saw. There was one that actually scooped down and grabbed a fish in the river. So cool!

In this picture I have on EIGHT (no exaggeration) layers on my top and four on the bottom. I was lucky I wore so much because even then I was chilly!

We all had so much fun. The guide also does white water rafting in the summer and now my mom is planning on some trips to go do that. Thanks for the fun day momma!

Ahhhwooooooo!!!!!

2010-01-31T17:19:00.000-08:00

For Christmas my mom got us an AWESOME present. A night at the Great Wolf Lodge!! Now I know most people think it's a place to take your kids, but Brent and I are kids at heart. So I think that counts.

We were supposed to go a couple weekends ago, but Brent's grandma passed away and he went to Utah to attend her funeral. So we rescheduled for this weekend. Well, when we got there they had a hold on the reservation, but forgot to go ahead and change it so we didn't have a room!! That wouldn't have been a big deal except for the fact that they were sold out. We drove 2 hours to get there, and there was NO way I was getting back in the car and driving home. My intimidating husband took care of everything and we somehow ended up getting a room. The only downside was that I had gotten out of the car and was ready to cause quite the scene, but then it all worked out and I ended up with all this adrenaline and rage inside of me. Good thing I'm so sweet and it went away quickly :).

I've heard a ton of commercials on the radio and seen some on tv for this place, but it doesn't do much justice. It was AWESOME! We spent 4 hours playing on all the fun things they had. Our favorite was a waterslide called the Howlin' Tornado. It's a 4 person circle raft that is a normal waterslide at first. But then it shoots you into this giant tunnel thing and you go up and down the sides like a snowboarder goes on a half pipe! While you're flying through this thing there's all these lights going off. It was crazy and so much fun. We rode that 5 times. I also loved the wave pool. It was my first time in one, and it was a blast. The waves can get crazy!

There was this part that had all these water contraptions that would fill up with water. Well you could hold them and then wait until someone walked under and dump it on them. Let me tell you... this is where the kid came out in me and Brent. There was one point where it was 2 9-10 year olds and Brent and me working the things. There were also water guns that you could squirt people with as they walked by. This was hilarious until Brent squirted the family with the baby. Then I feared for his life as the dad was glaring at him. Whoops.

After we ate we wanted to take pictures, but I was almost dry by then. So Brent volunteered to be the model.

This is the place where we caused mischief. The giant bucket would fill up and dumb TONS of water everywhere.

Here are the water guns that almost got Brent beat up.

The bucket is starting to dump water while Brent waits for it.

It's coming!

I can barely see him!

Wave pool!

Brent Abdul-Jabaar. Look at that form (and that whiteness!)

This could be my favorite picture of Brent ever.

Next he went across the lily pads. I was really impressed. He went fast and stayed on!!

Uh, ya think?

Ok, let me tell you about the awesomeness that is this thing. Not only is it the pass to the waterpark, but it's also our room key! But that's not all. It also linked Brent's credit card to it so people could just scan our bracelet! Brent said I didn't even need him! :)

My awesome bracelet bought me this delicious peanut butter rice crispy treat paw. So cute (and yummy!)!

Our original room had one bed. But the room they gave us had two beds. So Brent and I played Ozzy and Harriet and slept in our own beds! But it was still close enough so we could jump to the other persons bed and snuggle :)

Thanks mom for the great Christmas present! We will DEFINITELY be going back! But next time we will probably call ahead of time and confirm our reservation, just to be safe.

Eye Had a Rough Day

2010-01-26T14:35:00.000-08:00

It's been two years since my last eye exam and since I have monthly disposable contacts (yes that means I only change my contacts every 2 months), I figured it was time I should go get new ones. Not to mention the fact that I can't really see out of my right eye.

I would just like to start off this story by saying that I am not stupid. But man, today at the eye doctor was rough. I got there and the receptionist asked a few questions and had me come around to look at something. I didn't hear everything she said but I caught that she wanted me to look at a picture of something. So I got up close and looked in this little lens (I thought it was a little weird since you normally do that stuff in your exam, but I was a new patient here so I just rolled with it). So as I was peering in she said, "Um, that's a camera." Whoops. I guess what she had said was she wanted to TAKE my picture.

So I get back into the exam room and the doctor starts looking at my eyes. When I want a self-esteem boost, I go to the dentist. They rant and rave about how amazing my teeth are. When I want to be slammed back down to earth, I'm going to go to the eye doctor. The first thing he said to me was, "Your corneas look AWFUL!". In case I didn't hear him, he moved over to the other eye and said it again. I was actually mildly offended so I said, "Well that's great for my self-esteem.". I said it jokingly, but Dr. Meany didn't respond. In fact, he kept going. "Woah, you NEVER see this with this type of contacts! I can't believe what they look like!" and "I can't believe your corneas...". OK. Enough about my freaking corneas!

So I tell him I can't really see out of my right eye that well and that I know I need a stronger prescription. So he does all the little flips and lens changes and then sits back and stares at me. At least I think he was staring, I had my contacts out. He then tells me, "I can't believe this. There is no way your right eye and your left eye are what the last people prescribed you. I think you switched your lenses." Now, as much as I want to think that I did NOT switch my lenses and the doctors really just messed up and told me the wrong number for the wrong eye, I'm betting that didn't happen. Which means that I have been wearing the wrong prescription in the wrong eye for TWO YEARS.

By this point I was just drained and didn't want to be here anymore. For one final kick to my ego he said, "Ok sit back and cover your right eye." I did. He looked at me and said, "Your other right eye.". I promise I learned my right from my left when I was four. Or maybe I didn't since I've had my left contact in my right eye for the last two years and vise versa.

So now I have to go back next week to have a check up to see if my poor overprescribed left eye and my underprescribed right eye have corrected themselves and are seeing what they should. On the bright side I can see REALLY well out of my right eye now. But on the down side my poor left eye has been overworking itself for two years and now I can't see as good out of it until it fixes itself.

Man, this was a hard day. Next our fertility doctors are probably going to tell us that you can't get pregnant through the belly button and we've been doing it wrong for all this time and that's why we're not getting pregnant (kidding).

Say NO to More Fur!

2010-01-15T22:42:00.000-08:00

I was deleting old emails the other day when I found the pictures of Macie and Chip that the breeder had on their website when they were puppies. SOOOO stinkin' cute!

Baby Macie! This picture melts my heart! Brent and I like to reminisce about how she looked like a nerdy little kid on their first day of school pictures with her hair all combed back. I love how she didn't have her brown eyebrows yet, too!

Baby Chip and all his adorable fluffiness... it seems like he was just this big! I can't believe how fast he's grown up.

I always hear people say how they knew they were done having kids after the last one or how they knew they were supposed to have one more, they just had a feeling. Well this is EXACTLY how I felt about our furries. Somehow I think the ladies in Relief Society would look at me like I was crazy if I agreed with them and used this example...

The other night Brent was goofing around and asking Chipper if he wanted a new little brother or sister (he was talking about one that barks). Instantly my legs went numb and I said "HELL NO!". After we got the kitties, I knew I wanted a puppy quickly after. After we moved to Seattle I always felt like I could have another dog. Especially for Macie to have a buddy to play with. We looked for a while and when we found Chip we knew he was the one. Within days of adding him and the insanity that follows him to our family, I knew it was complete. NO MORE FURRIES.

We do like to have things in two's....two kitties...two puppies...who knows, baby two babies sometime soon? :) But for now we are content with our little zoo.

I want to hit and hug you at the same time.

2010-01-11T18:30:00.000-08:00

Around the beginning of December Brent and I decided we needed to get in better shape for our upcoming cruise, and to just be healthier in general. Plus, hopefully I will gain around 30 lbs this year (Baby Anderson!) and I want to be in good shape for when that might happen.

We were at Target one day and we came upon the Jillian Michaels 30-Day Shred. We are Biggest Loser fanatics so I don't know what we were thinking buying a workout dvd from this crazy person. But we did.

So we started on Level 1. The first time we did the dvd Brent was dry heaving. After he showered and collapsed on the bed. I went downstairs to get something and almost tumbled down all of them. It turned my legs to jelly and it took me a good minute to get down 14 stairs. As the days went on we kept going and it got a little easier.

Then we moved on to Level 2. Brent did it by himself one night (I was at my mom's) and he told me that he thought I would like it a lot more. I tried it the next day and he was right! It was more fun, but WAAAAY harder. I don't usually sweat, but man, this got me to!

We haven't moved on to Level 3 yet (I'm scared.), but it's amazing to see how much of a difference there is after just 3 weeks doing the video! We also don't do it every single day. There is no way my joints could take that (I sound like a senior citizen).

So if you want a good way to shape up, I would highly recommend Jillian. You will want to punch her during the work out, but hug her after. It's totally worth it. Get ready to get SHREDDED!

Wave bye bye!

2010-01-08T15:02:00.000-08:00

Not his best, but you get the point :)

Gooooooaaaaalllll!!!!!

2010-01-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I think I have adult ADD. Especially at sporting events. But one sport that always has my attention while watching it live is HOCKEY! Lucky for us, Everett has a team and they play about 8 minutes away from our house.

On Saturday we took this lady:

to the game with us! We had a lot of fun watching the zamboni drive around and watching the players warm up. Brent even went and bought a cow bell before the game (a lot of people there ring cow bells...).

The game was awesome except for one part. There was only ONE fight!!! And it was at the beginning! The main reason I go to hockey games is to see the fights! Anyway, after 3 periods it was tied 5-5. This was good for the team but bad for my ears. Every time we got a goal or did something good, Brent rang his stupid cow bell right next to my head.

During the break between the second and third period we also got to play chuck a puck. You buy these little foam pucks for a dollar each and throw them onto the ice and the person closest to the blue dot in the center wins. I, unfortunately, thought you had to get it on the Les Schwab mats on the ice so I was aiming for the completely wrong thing and didn't get very close. But I did get it about a foot away from the mat :)

Anyway, after the 3rd period we went into a 5 minute overtime. Well no one scored there so we went into a SHOOTOUT!!! Keep in mind, the only team I have ever witnessed a shootout is on The Mighty Ducks. So this was very exciting. Each team got 5 tries to see who made the most goals. Our team went first.

After 5 turns, both teams had made three, so it went to a SUDDEN DEATH SHOOTOUT!!! Both teams missed the first and then we made our second. The other team had to make it or they lost...

And they missed!!!! We won!!!

Apparently, that calls for more cowbell.

2-m-0-e-0-h-9

2009-12-31T15:44:00.000-08:00

On the scale of "this was the absolute worst year of my life" to "this was the most fantastic awesome year of my life" this year was rated "meh". There were a lot of fun things we did. And then there were some not so fun things that happened. But overall I would describe this year as just a year. Nothing devastating, nothing spectacular.

We didn't go too many places, but we had some of our favorites visit us!

When we did go on vacation, we went to Utah (for 9 days...) but we got to see some of our buddies we miss sooo much!

And we got to make a new friend

We also went to a real live ranch while we were in Utah. Not exactly my idea of the perfect getaway, but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity that I will never forget.

My favorite trips of the year were being in NYC for this:

And going to Phoenix this year for Thanksgiving (you know it's a great trip when you were sad to leave and wanted to stay an extra few days).

Brent had an awesome year at work and still loves his job. I'm so proud of him for all the long hours and hard work that he puts in to provide for our family.

A couple of us had some medical issues:

But thankfully we recovered.

Although we had another frustrating year of unsuccessful fertility treatments, we learned a lot about the power of a positive attitude and relying on someone other than yourself.

Even though my reproductive oven hasn't decided to start baking anything, we did get to add this guy to our family.

And this little girl loves him so much!

Even though these girls could do without him.

I'm glad this year is coming to a close. I have a feeling that 2010 is going to be an awesome one and I can't wait to see what is in store for us. Happy New Year and hasta la vista 2009!

The Christmas that Almost Wasn't

2009-12-29T19:57:00.000-08:00

Ok, that's a little dramatic. But when it happened, I was pretty sad. It all started Christmas Eve when I got Brent's big present ready and stuck it in his stocking. Later that evening Brent told me that he was going to go get my stocking ready and wrap one more present. Well I completely forgot that I had put his present (in an UNSEALED envelope) in one of the stockings. He happened to grab the same stocking and when he looked inside he thought it was something from last year.

So he opened the envelope and saw ...Seattle to San Francisco....2010.... and ran up to the bedroom. He held it up and asked what it was and I started bawling. So Brent got his big present Christmas Eve. And I learned to do a better job wrapping presents and putting them out when they're actually going to be opened :) It's funny now, but it was pretty upsetting then. The one cute thing was that I had been tracking where Santa was all day on Google and when this happened I looked and he was in Seattle :)

We woke up Christmas morning at 6:30 and were ready to go!

We opened presents and had homemade egg mcmuffins for breakfast. Around one my mom, dad and Bubba all ate lunch with us.

The furries got to wear their Christmas Pj's and LOVED every minute of it (ok, probably not really, but they humored us).

We ended Christmas by going to Sherlock Holmes with the fam. Talk about a great way to end the day (ahhhh Robert Downey Jr...). The movie was sooo good! I would definitely want to own this one (and not only because RDJ is in it :)).

We had a great Christmas and are looking forward to the new year!

'Tis the Season!

2009-12-20T17:56:00.000-08:00

What kind of mother would I be if I didn't take some pictures of my furries during the holidays?

Macie Claus

And the Reindeer

Please ignore the giant pile of blankets. It was hard enough to get them in the same picture, I couldn't be picky about what the background was :)

Merry Christmas!!!

What's the difference...

2009-12-11T13:51:00.001-08:00

What's the difference between Santa and Tiger Woods?

Santa stops after three Ho's.

Bahahha!