Pumpkin Patch/Carving

Last Friday we went to a Pumpkin Patch with the kiddo's. They had a good time picking out pumpkins and even more fun carving them. It was a nice evening of pumpkin guts and sharp objects! haha :-) Here's some PICTURES of the fun.

19 weeks

We've made it to 19 weeks already--and I'm considering this my 1/2 way point!! YAY!! Most twin pregnancies deliver by 38 weeks, so that is my goal. Morning sickness is all over and has been replaced with other issues! JOY! I went to the chiropractor for the 1st time today and have a feeling I'll be visiting regularly. I have a separation in the pubic symphysis and let me just say it HURTS! I hope none of you ever have it. Walking hurts, standing hurts, putting on clothes one leg at a time hurts, etc. .etc. The list goes on. Hopefully this will help because from what I understand it can just get worse as the babies grow. I guess we'll see. Let me just say that this pregnancy is totally diferent than Elliot's. I'm very much looking forward to meeting these little one's in a few months ;-) Please pray my body will heal and the pain will go away! Thanks!

Florida Trip

We've been in FL almost a week now and have been enjoying ourselves. We haven't done too much: just relaxing and spending time with family. Elliot seemed to have about 4 days of jet lag where everyone was saying how sweet and quiet she was! Well, she's adjusted now and back to her normal self. We went and had her photos taken today and she was super good for it. She enjoyed posing for the camera.

She can't get enough time with her cousins. Everyday she wakes up and says, "Are my cousins coming over today?" It's so sweet. They are all having a blast when they are together. I'm so thankful we have this time for them to spend together and make memories. I think she definitely misses her Daddy though. The first few days she kept trying to save him parts of her food. I had to tell her that it wouldn't be any good in 3 weeks when we get back home. One morning she woke me up and wanted a hair bow in her hair (yes, we do do her hair even though it never looks like it in pictures! haha). Then she said, "I want to show Daddy my bow." So sweet.

Here's some PICTURES of our trip so far.

El Paso, TX

This past weekend we all got to go out to El Paso, TX for 4 days. Elliot and I drove and Wes flew his plane to be part of the Amigo AirSho. We had a great time. Elliot's favorite part of the weekend was watching the Army's Golden Knights skydive! She is still talking about. We got to go to a special event for all the airshow participants on Friday night, and then we went to the show on Saturday. A nice guy invited the 3 of us into their "Chalet" to eat. You can read about that at the link: it was new to us too! Here are some pictures of our day at the airshow.

So, another favorite part of my weekend happened in the bathroom. Yes, random....but Elliot said the most hilarious thing! She looked at that toilet seat and said in the most pitiful voice, "This potty is an oval. I wish it was a crescent moon." I thought it was odd and just laughed. Well, days later we stopped at a rest area on our way home and she informed me, "This seat is open, it's a crescent moon." Ahh, I finally got it! If a toilet seat isn't a complete ring (open in the front like many public potty's) she considers it to be a crescent moon shape.

Appointment

I had another doc. appt. today. Everything went really well. They had the results from my level 2 ultrasound last Monday and the babies look very healthy. No signs of any malformations or anything like that. :-) According to the ultrasound my due date would be March 11th (which is my mom and grandma's birthday!) However, I doubt we'll make it that far. I'm only 17.5 weeks pregnant, but my uterus already measures at 20 weeks! So...everyone that says I don't even look pregnant-you're wrong!! haha. Maybe my height hides babies?

Of course, they did another ultrasound today. They don't look much different, but were bouncing around with great little heartbeats. The top one's head is to the left and the bottom's head is to the right.

Elliot got to feel a baby move last night! It was exciting. I'm not sure if she really felt it, but I put her hand exactly where it was and she was talking about it later. I'm sure as they kick and move more and more she'll really get it. This time she just had to push in on my belly and you could feel a lump where the baby's hiney was poking out.

Happy 29th Birthday Wes!

Today is Wes' big day! We had his cake at our Bible study on Tuesday night and he got to open his new coffee pot/grinder from his mom and new skateboards from me and El. How fun! Tonight it's grilled ribs for dinner (guess that doesn't work out too great when he has to cook his own meal! oops!) Then we're off to El Paso, TX for 4 days for an airshow and to see friends! Wes will be flying and Elliot and I are driving out there.

Ultrasound

We had an ultrasound today and it was super fascinating (as always). Both babies look great and are measuring perfectly! The u/s guy let us push on my belly where a baby was and you could see it move in response to the pressure! Isn't that crazy?! One is very low ("A") and it's head is at the top of my cervix. It was in an akward position so it was hard to get pictures of that we could understand. "B" is a bit higher up and right under my belly button. It was very photogenic today. Baby B's butt is in A's face!! :-) It was funny! The guy gave Elliot a picture of each baby and she was so excited. She wants to hang them on the wall in her room. She kept saying "this one's the girl, and this one's the boy." (Which we really don't know...she just says this all the time!) You could also see the blood flowing from the umbilical cord to the baby and apparently everything looked as it should! For what it's worth they said 1 baby was 6oz. and the other was 5oz. I totally do not trust u/s for determining weight, but my only experience is much later in pregnancy.

I scanned some of the pic's in and will describe them below. I hope you can see them as clearly as we were able to.

BABY A's WHOLE BODY! (feet on the left, then long legs, spine bends around, and it's head is on the bottom. You can see one little hand next to it's face too)

BABY B (It was looking at us in this shot...kinda alien looking, huh? It's chest/body is the white oval toward the bottom and it's arm and and are there too)
























BABY B PROFILE (head is on the left, body in middle, and you can see it's knees bent up on the right.





















BABY B's FOOT (Now isn't that precious? Do you see all it's little toes pointing down?)

Apple Annie's Orchard/Pumpkin Patch

We had such a great day today! I had this idea to go explore this place thinking it was only like 30 minutes away. Well, turns out it was more like 1 hr. 15 min. drive. :-) We decided to go anyways and our main objective was to go to the pumpkin patch and let Elliot pick a pumpkin, but we got to do so much more!! There was a whole u-pick farm that we got to enjoy. You can get a little wheel barrow-like cart and buckets and go out to the fields. Elliot thought this was GREAT! Every vegetable we went to, she wanted to find a "baby-sized" one. We have the tiniest red peppers I've ever seen! Most of the squash were HUGE, so we got the smallest we could find-and the same with the cucumbers.

Picking a pumpkin was hilarious! Elliot had to have just the right one, and wanted it to be small. We thought we had one, but then it got rejected. We searched and searched and she finally found a miniature one that made her extremely happy! After I pulled it off for her, she ran toward Wes saying, "I got the perfect one Daddy." (which is cool, because lately she feels the need to call him Wes or Uncle Wes! haha)

OH...and they had caramel kettle corn which was probably one of the highlights of her day! I think that was pretty much her dinner tonight. oops!

Then, we headed down the road to the Apple Orchard. Here we had some apple smoked hamburgers and picnicked under the pear trees (or apple's...I dunno?) It was nice. Then we got a bucket and an apple picker and headed out to the orchard. It was super slim pickin's so we had to walk far to even find one apple (it's the end of the season). Elliot had a blast and loves carrying her own bucket around. A child's expressions are the most wonderful thing! I can't imagine this being nearly as fun as it was without her! It's so neat to see her explore, learn new things, and get so excited about things we think are mundane.

At the end of the day we got a slice of homemade apple pie and it was SOOOo good! Elliot said, "This place has apple pie?" with the biggest eyes I've ever seen! For dinner we enjoyed most of our pickings: fresh corn on the cob, green beans, tomatoes, and apple and it was delicious. So much for my protein intake, but it was great! To see more pictures of all the fun CLICK HERE.

Okay, so we totally got carried away with pictures....and here are 2 videos! Enjoy!

ELLIOT PUSHING HER WHEEL BARROW WITH VEGGIES!

WES and ELLIOT JUGGLING!

Pic's

Yesterday Elliot got to stay with our friends, The Hersman's, while Wes and I went to training for The Truth Project (http://www.truthproject.org/). She loves going over there and playing with all the kids. Tracy took some pic's of her and they are so cute! They were just playing around, but Elliot cooperated a little bit. You'll have to check out the photos HERE.

16 weeks/Wes felt a baby!

Okay, so we're now at 16 weeks....crazy how time passes by so quickly! Last night I was laying in bed with my hand on my belly and all of a sudden felt this bulge pop out! It felt like the top of a ping pong ball! I grabbed Wes' hand and he got to feel it too! WOW--I had no idea you could feel babies this early!! It would go away and then push back out a few minutes later after it moved over a little. I'm pretty sure it was showing us it's "hot biscuits!" It must be inspired by the Big Sis! haha. It's so just neat that all this movement is happening and people still say they can't tell I'm pregnant! They must just think I got some chub. :-)

Some more good news--I walked past Rotisserie chicken at the commissary today and didn't feel sick! This is a first. Before, I had to do the last 1/2 of my grocery shopping with my nose plugged so I wouldn't get a wiff of those chickens! YAH!

I had a funny story to tell about Elliot, and I can't seem to remember what it was. She's been super sweet (for the most part) lately. Maybe I just can't concentrate b/c she has our keyboard on DEMO mode and it's playing the Star Wars theme at a rediculously loud volume. Then, she gets her drum sticks and pounds the congas as loud as she can! AHH! She just brought me a rattle for the babies. It's now resting comfortable up my shirt. haha. I posted a 16 week pic.

It's an hour or so later: but I remembered the story and had to come to the computer to type it. We were sitting in the living room earlier and Elliot starts to pick her nose and says, "What's in my nose?" I tell her, "Probably a booger-that's usually what's in there!" She non-schlantly replies, "No, a bead." I pick her up and look in her nose, and sure enough there's a bead up it! haha. We got her to blow it a whole bunch of times and it finally shot out. ;-)