~January~

Here's a quick recap of January....I'm kind of glad this cold month is over:)

On New Years Day we enjoyed "all you can eat" pizza at Craigos. I definately took advantage of eating for 3. We went there to celebrate mine & Easton's Birthday.

Afterwards a sledding party. Jaden doesn't love the cold but Landon for the most part does. It's fun to see him venture outside.

Jaden also did Ice Skating Lessons. His real goal was to learn to ice skate & be able to play ice hockey. He's actually good at it but really didn't enjoy it. There were days I was dragging him there. I think this will be another sport we check off of his list of possibilities. I'm waiting to find that one sport he enjoys & excels at.

Jaden also had a school singing program. He doesn't enjoy singing....I'm making it sound like he doesn't like anything. So I definately went to the program with a knot in my stomach. He had his moments of pure enjoyment & other times when he wasn't even paying attention. They had some fun dancing numbers that were hilarious & he did seem to get into those...maybe dancing is in his future???? I don't think Chris would agree.

Twin Update!

Some of you may have heard that we had a few crazy things going on so I thought I'd write a quick post about what's going with the girls.

A couple of weeks ago I got a phone call saying the Dr.'s from Salt Lake wouldn't be coming down this go round but that they could do the appointment video conference. So yesterday I had this appointment....I checked into the hospital for this appointment.

The ultrasound tech seemed to struggle getting good measurements because they were moving so much (this didn't surprise me since my stomach is constantly being kicked). Once the Dr. came on there was some concerns because they were measuring about 20% apart. He didn't like not being able to confirm and check things on his own and felt they were identical but wasn't able to tell definately so he told me he needed me to come down to Utah within a day or two.

So a couple hours later my mom & I headed to Utah for my appointment this morning. After a very thorough visit it's been determined that they are identical and they DO share a placenta. He said the shared placenta can be a large concern because of twin-to-twin transfusion. One is currently measuring at 1lb7oz and the other is 1lb3 oz....both a little over a week behind. The smaller size is probably a result of the two vessel umbilical cords.

So there is nothing alarming or super scary at this point BUT there are a lot risks. I now will have an ultrasound every other week and at 30 weeks a weekly non-stress test. This is to monitor their growth. If there does become a huge problem there is a surgical procedure in LA they do with a lazer to split the shared vessels....this would be a last resort.

Thankfully there's nothing to be worried about at this point & there's nothing to do but monitor them. I'm so grateful that I don't have to go on bedrest and can have normal activity. I've been working on their nursery & am getting excited:):):)

In no particular order

In an effort to catch up...here's lots of pictures without any words. I'm almost ALL caught up! Yay!!!!!

Were still here

I'm usually a much better blogger & blame it on the fact that I lost my photoshop disk & my computer crashed & had to have everything re-loaded. Having faith I'd find it I kept looking & waiting & finally gave in to ordering it over the internet two weeks ago. Well, if I had paid close attention I would have realized I ordered the mac version therefore I still can't put my picture collages together from Christmas nor finish my 2010 book....it's funny how lost & behind I feel without it so I may forgot ordering over the internet & go to office depot. So hopefully pretty soon I'll have lots of pictures to share from our wonderful Christmas holiday! Here's our family on Christmas eve; I'm always behind the camera & so this is a rare moment that we are all together. The boys are in their christmas pj's. Today I had my 20 weeks appointment. As I pulled up to the office I started feeling a little anxious for my 2 1/2 hour appointment. The good news is that all the organs appear to be great & functioning correctly. They did find one concern in both babies. They should have a 3 vessel umbilical cord & both of them have a 2 vessel umbilical cord. This may or may not be anything.

Usually if there's a problem they'd find something in addition to this wrong. But because it's twins & because they don't know if they are identical my visits just doubled (they were already more frequent with twins) & I'm being referred to high risk twin doctors that come from SLC every 3 weeks.

If the babies are identical they want to watch twin-to-twin tranfusion really carefully with this cord issue. The placenta is located at the back & it will be unlikely that they'll be able to tell if there are one or two placentas until they are born.

If you are interested in understanding this better (I don't totally know what it means) here is a link I found about it plus pictures. http://www.obfocus.com/high-risk/birthdefects/single%20umbilical%20artery.htm It can sound alarming but keep in mind they didn't find anything else wrong so we aren't worried at this point. I have an ultrasound appointment with the high-risk Dr.'s in 3 weeks where they'll evaluate the rest of my care for the pregnancy & double check that everything else appears to be function correctly.

Here's a picture the tech got of the babies together...she was so excited! I think the girls are adorable.

And last of all here are my little hunters. I'm not a huge fan of kids playing with guns but we have a hunting wii game that the boys love. I've been integrating in their brains that we hunt animals for food & if we shoot one we have to eat it. The guys in my family hunt so I'm trying to let them know that is the only time they can play with guns. Now, I'm crossing my fingers they never actually shoot something because I don't like to eat elk or deer meat & as I'm preaching it, we have to eat it:)

The babies are.......

Today I had a doctors appointment & kept having a small sliver of hope that they would have to do an ultrasound to find heartbeats & that just maybe I could tell what sex they were.

Of course, the Dr. found the heartbeats within a second and there was no need for an ultrasound. As I was leaving he asked in passing "are you going to do a sneak peak for Christmas?" I didn't know he did those...of course!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So tonight we gathered family & had cake. It's a two layer cake & the possibilies were a white layer for "they couldn't tell". Two Blue layers for boys or two pink for girls, or one of each.

And one more interesting thing. I know I told many of you that they weren't identical. This was an assumption on my part because there are two sacs. I was told by my cousins wife a couple of weeks ago that wasn't true (she just had twins) & then the Dr. told me this today & told me not to rule out identical babies because we don't know if I dropped two eggs (if I had taken fertility drugs this would have been the likely case) or if my egg split. So these babies just might be identical.......unless below shows you a blue layer & pink layer:):):)

The NAUGHTY side!

After we put the Christmas stockings up Jaden immediately determined that one side was the good side & one side was the bad side & he rearranged them accordingly.

Jaden & Chris have personalities that conflict a little bit & they get frustrated with each other easily. Jaden has made these frustrations known by making Chris be on the naughty side since they stockings have been up.

Yesterday I went to lunch (Chris came home to watch the kids) & when I came home Chris pointed out that everyone was on the good side but him. As a side note Jaden & I have never been on the naughty side & Landon moves back & forth....it depends on whether they are best friends that day or are struggling to get along. Chris & I couldn't stop laughing over this & we asked him why daddy never gets to be on the good side. Jaden said that daddy gets mad at him all the time...I reminded him that mom gets mad too but he said I only sometimes get mad so it's ok. I should also mention that I brainwash Jaden about 5 times a day with "I'm the best mommy in the whole wide world" or when he asks me why I did something for him it's because "I'm the best mommy in the whole world." I gotta remind him how lucky he is:):):)

Lucky for Chris, Jaden said that if daddy helps him build something today he'll move him to the good side!

Landon.....a big boy!

Landon had the opportunity to attend a toddler lab this semester. It's a lab for 18mo-3 year olds put on by BYUI students. Unfortunately they won't hold it this next semester because they don't want their students driving on the roads in the winter. I didn't take pictures because the observing area is behind a one sided window but the students took tons & told us they were giving them to us at the end of the semester. I didn't realize it'd be in dvd format so I'm unable to pull the pictures off to post. They did print a couple from their printer & gave them to us...thus the poor quality scans below:)

He attended once a week for an hour & 15 minutes and it ended up being such a wonderful thing for him. He's overcome so much hestitation and shyness & he really enjoyed going each week. I remember a year and a half ago when I was completely overwelmed with my clingy boy & worried he'd never be independent. Mentally it was a challenge to have him there constantly, not be able to leave him, have to carry him everyone, no one wanted to take it him...it was really hard.

The activities were amazing & different every week. Some weeks they'd have a water station, sand station, & foam station. They had us leave an extra set of clothes because they told us they probably would get dirty. They had singing time & snack time too. It's crazy to me to think that Landon will be old enough to attend pre-school next fall.


His class & teachers. It was a great student/teacher ratio

He loved the water station & wasn't afraid to get wet!

This was a picture they took on his first day so that they could put it by his coat hook. He was so scared:)