The week before Christmas

We have had so much fun playing with Becca, Katy and Ruby. My camera cord must be packed in a box somewhere in my garage, so unfortunately all the great pics I'm capturing wont be accessible until we unpack-and I have no idea when that will actually be. Thankfully we've snapped a couple with Mom's camera. This week we fed Ruby, changed Ruby, made Ruby smile and smooched her all over:

How adorable is that child? I swear she is the prettiest baby I have ever seen-the pics don't do her justice. She is also an incredibly easy baby. She plays and coos and eventually squeaks because she's hungry.  We adore her. Lucy has loved having a baby around. She has told us that she is Ruby's big sister. When I explained that they were cousins she told me that they had to be sisters because she has a big sister shirt (I got her when we got pregnant) and she loved Ruby sooooo much.  Lucy is a great helper with the baby. She is always there to help us get burp clothes, toys etc and loves putting Ruby's binkie in. She also likes reading her stories and stroking her head-she'd stroke and kiss her face, eyeballs and everything else if I'd let her! I'm very glad she is getting some practice before we have two babies around here.

This week Lucy also got to spend a lot of time in Grandma Karen's kindergarten classroom. I think we were there three times this week and Lucy now has her own spot on the carpet and a desk to work at! She used to be tentative around the big kindergardeners-but she looks like one of them now! She listened to stories during carpet time, made her own gingerbread house, did her math worksheets and read a story as a group during reading time. She likes to participate and raises her hand as she shouts out what she thinks is interesting information to the class and grandma. It is really cute to watch her interact with the big kids on that level-but also kind of sad-she acts/looks so grown up! Thankfully she has a whole year of preschool before she leaves me for school.

I have loved standing up for this week! It has completely changed how I look at events and do things.  My next appointment is Wednesday and I am really hoping I can be normal for a little bit longer.  I feel really good-so that has been nice. People tell me I'm not that big too-although at barely 20 weeks I should hope not! I feel big though and am in that awkward stage where I bump my stomach into things because I forget how big it is-or maybe thats because I've hardly walked around with a tummy yet!  I am feeling the girls move a lot more-so this whole thing is feeling pretty real now. Guess I should start looking for twin books and figure out how this is actually going to work! Anyway, cross your fingers for me. 

Moving

I wonder how many of my posts are titled Moving? Yes, we have moved again! We have had a wild couple of months. We enjoyed our short time in Irvine, but after my two weeks of strict bedrest we decided that we wanted to come "home".  Danny was not enjoying his program and decided that it wasn't taking him where he wanted to go professionally.  We toyed with sticking around southern CA and some job options there, but decided that given our situation, it would be a lot easier to be by family.  After Thanksgiving we drove home and packed everything up in one week (and when I say "we" I mean "Danny").  Last Saturday my parents came out and helped us clean and pack the truck and then Sunday we drove back here and unpacked. We have rented a cute little house in Pleasant Hill that we really like. This week we are painting and then we'll take our time moving in. We'll stay at my house through Christmas to be closer to the fun when Becca, Katy and Ruby arrive. We can't wait!

In pregnancy news, I am 18 weeks! Last week I had the big ultrasound and we learned we are having two girls! We are very excited. When I told Lucy she said "Of course!" like there was really no other option.  Coming from a family of three girls, I think it will be awesome. My practical side is ecstatic because I already have a ton of girl clothes all in the perfect season (Lucy's birthday is in April too).  These babies will get some wonderful hand-me-downs which will save me a ton.  At 15 weeks I saw my perinatologist and she put me on moderate bedrest earlier then I had expected-so for the last weeks I have been laying down a few hours in the morning and then most of the afternoon and evening.  Danny has done a great job taking care of me and everything else. The bedrest hasn't been too bad because I can get up for meals-which was one of the hardest things about my last pregnancy-it is hard to digest laying down!  One thing I have missed is my appetite-I have to force myself to eat and drink because things are still tasting gross and without much activity I am simply not hungry.

I can whine now because I received some awesome news today. I've transferred my care up to Northern CA again, so I met with a new perinatologist today. After looking at my cervix (freakishly long today-go me!) he said that he thought my previous doctor was a little conservative and wants me to stay up for the next two weeks as a kind of experiment. I have an appointment right before Christmas and we'll see how the standing/activity/sitting affected me. I am beyond thrilled. It felt like a huge burden was lifted off my shoulders. I have been pretty good at making good choices about what I can and can't do during this period of bedrest-but to not have to think about it at all is such a relief! I can be a mostly normal pregnant-with-twins mom now! To celebrate I took Lucy to the Disney store to look around and think about what she wants to ask Santa for-something frivolous I would never have done before! She thinks she's going to ask for a Rapunzel doll. If Santa had any cash he would want to get her a lot more then that-they had so many fun things! I love spoiling my cute girl.  Anyway, those are the current events. I need to find my camera amongst all of our bags and start taking pics again so I can share our fun Christmas activities. Until then!

Thanksgiving!

My sisters will tell you that I hate Thanksgiving. That is not necessarily true, but it hasn't traditionally been my favorite holiday.  I always appreciated getting out of school for a few days, I love being around my family and I love that the Christmas season starts directly afterward. I guess I just don't like the food. Anyway, this year we have come home for Thanksgiving.  We are being smothered with attention from the grandmas and grandpas (almost literally smothered. My mom just asked Lucy if she could kiss her shoulders. Lucy said yes:) Yesterday we went to Tangled with my parents. Lucy has been really excited about seeing this movie in the theater for a long time. We LOVED it. It wasn't scary at all-which is a relief, Lucy is in a phase where she thinks everything is scary-and it was really sweet. We came home and played, I lay on the couch of course, and then got to go to my grandparents house for thanksgiving dinner. We had a terrific time and Lucy was very well behaved, which is a relief because Grandma Kay's house is a minefield of pretty Hummels, china and glassware.  I'm always anxious that she will accidently break something.  We ate a terrific meal and had a great time chatting. It has been one of my favorite Thanksgivings ever.
I have been feeling a bit stressed lately. I haven't blogged it, and will have to give the details later, but next week we are moving back to northern California. We have had a crazy couple of weeks trying to find new housing up here, get out of our housing contracts up there, I stress about my babies, my food intake, my liquid intake and I'm frustrated just laying around while everything happens around me. We're just a little overwhelmed.  Anyway, I was trying to be grateful yesterday, but still just feeling generally stressed about things.  Then I remembered our Thanksgiving last year.  Although things are tricky right now, the Christy of 2009 would have been thrilled beyond belief to see where we are now.  I just craved a healthy Danny and the knowledge that I'd be able to have children in the future. I have both of those right now. It has taken Danny a year to fully recover, but right now he is my Danny again.  I feel so lucky to get to carry these babies. It is very likely that this is my last pregnancy and while it will not be normal or easy, I am so grateful that I get to experience it.  Life is always challenging, and I have everything that matters.
Hurray for the Christmas season! I'm going to go turn on my Frank Sinatra tunes right now!

I read my blog post from last year and it was fun to read what she was thankful for last year. I just asked her and here it is:
food
hamburgers
tv
pencils
computers
pictures
princesses
disneyland
tvs again
baby Ruby
Mom
Zara (her best friend in Irvine)

Then she started saying all the items that were around her-garbage cans, kleenex etc. Crazy girl.

time

I was thinking about how I have blogged four times in 3 days after a month long hiatus. Then I was being mean to Katy for not reading my blog and she commented that she had a child now (my child) how was she supposed to have time to read blogs, let alone blog herself. That is true. Thank you Katy for being the new mommy so I can....lay here and blog.

I LOVE...

this show!! Masterpiece Mystery never ceases to thrill me. Katy was talking to Becca -in my hearing so I felt included in the conversation-and Becca had never seen Sherlock!  That made me wonder if there were other poor people who were going about their lives not knowing about Sherlock. Let me enlighten you. Sherlock is the new mini-series on PBS-Sundays at 9PM. It is Sherlock Holmes set in modern London. I was immediately intrigued, but worried it would be chintzy-Sherlock using a phone to do internet searches and using a high tech lab-takes away the mystery doesn't it? No. It doesn't. The acting is amazing and the writing is clever. Please go catch up on PBS.org.  I would feel a lot better.

Christmas cards

One of my favorite things about the Christmas season are the Christmas cards. Each year my mom puts up the cute pictures we receive and saves the letters for me to read. She ends up saving most of the envelopes too to double check against her address book. I LOVE reading the updates people send out of their families. I LOVE seeing their families change and grow year after year. I have always tried to get my family to do a Christmas card. Most years Mom agrees if I will write it. I have written many a Christmas letter for my family, but after everyone edits their little paragraph it usually doesn't resemble my original:)

Now I have my own family. Each year I really want to put out a Christmas card, but when the time comes I feel silly.  Not much is usually going on with us, so I don't feel like we have much to say. Mostly I am obsessed with the picture.
Last year I didn't get the same joy out of Christmas cards. Everyone looked so happy and content and I wasn't feeling like that.  We had had a hard year and I wasn't feeling very grateful, I was feeling jealous.  So I decided I dint want to send out a card. In the end I was so mad I hadn't! It doesn't seem like a big deal-but with whatever issues I was having-it became a freakishly big deal to me.  Seriously, it became a weird obsession last year, I'm not sure I can explain it. So last night Danny asked if we were sending a card out this year.  Like usual I said, "No, we don't have a family pic we all really like, why spend the money etc etc." Danny laughed at me and reminded me that I'd be furious about that decision come December and insisted we do one. Now I'm excited:)

So I immediately started looking online at Christmas cards. I was disappointed by the selection on some sites, but then I saw Shutterfly's holiday cards. They have a HUGE selection!  (PS they also have some really cute twin baby announcements too:)  So far these are my favorites-but with so many I haven't even begun to look!

 I also love this cute Thanksgiving card-it would be nice to get them out while I am just laying here!

Then I got excited when I saw on a friends blog that Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly! That takes away one of my excuses! I haven't used Shutterfly before but am really excited to try them out.
I also saw that they do photo calenders. We have given my mom a photo calender every year for...a long time. She has kept every one up around her bed and switches the pics each month-just to see the new pics. One year I purposely didn't give her a calender because she doesn't really use them(except for their photo-ness) and she was so bummed! As a result she just keeps getting them. Anyway, I'm excited to have some new templates to work with this year:).

So now I have blogged about it, I better get them out on time right?

Utah

I hate playing catch up-but when I look back I would hate to not see our first visit to see baby Ruby! So right after our fun Disneyland trip with my Dad (which was thoroughly documented in a previous post) Dad and I drove our CRV to Utah in what we called "The great Anderson Car Exchange". You see, Old Dieter, our old Honda Accord that Katy has been driving, finally died.  Poor Dieter, he will be missed. Well, when contemplating a new car, my parents were generous enough to consider the needs of all of their daughters and do a gigantic car exchange that would solve everyone's needs. I had the CRV, which we loved, but knew that I couldn't fit three car seats in the back seat. BEcca had old Chester (which I got at 17 and has been driven by the girls since I went to college), but he isn't going to last forever and my Momma had her van. So Mom got a brand new van (lucky dog!) gave me her Toyota Sienna (I made out like a bandit), we gave Becca the CRV (she made out like a bandit too) and Katy got Chester (katy didn't make out as good:(. Anyway, that is the background on the great exchange. Dad and I had a fun drive. I was only 10 weeks at this point, so I was still feeling pretty nasty and tired every day-but Dad took good care of me. I think we drove circles around Cedar City because I couldn't imagine eating any fast food except and Arby's roast beef sandwich. He found me one too:) Anyway, we were very anxious to get to Springville where Becca and Ruby were waiting for us. Ruby is the most beautiful child (besides my own I guess:) I have ever seen. She looks so much like Becca to me. She has beautiful rosy cheeks, adorable little eyes-she is perfect. My favorite thing was burping her. There is nothing better then burping a baby because you get to snuggle up close, she was happy and content after eating and I always managed to get a good hearty burp out of her! Lucy ADORES Ruby.  She had been sick about a week before we left for Utah and still had a little cough so we had three rules. 1. No touching or kissing Ruby's face 2. Always sanitize before touching her anywhere 3. If you need to cough, cover your mouth in your elbow and run away. She was pretty good at rule #1. Super good at rule #2 (Daddy has taught her well) and #3 was hysterical. You'd see her thinking then all of the sudden she would be sprinting down the hallway as far as she could get from Ruby before coughing a tiny bit. So cute.

We had expected to have a low key trip. Just stay at home and stare at the baby. In the end we plopped that baby in her car seat and drove around Utah to visit lots of family, shop and eat. Unfortunately Becca and I were both totally worn out most of the time as a result, but we had a lot of fun too. One outing that was important to us was going to Cornbelly's -a big pumpkin patch/play area. It is now officially a tradition to go there because we had such a fun time going with Lucy last year on one of our relief week trips to UT. We had a great time and it was the only place I took any pictures.

That week I experienced a Utah miracle. I only threw up once and hardly felt sick at all. I was hungry and actually ate. It was bizarre after feeling like death for so long. The cherry on top was I was able to eat at Bajio, my absolute favorite place in the world, many many times and hold it all down! What I wouldn't do for a good enchilada right now...
 Ruby after her very first real bath

 Lucy throwing rocks in the water on a beautiful path by Bec's house.

A night out in Springville celebrating Becca's birthday.

Danny was able to fly up for the weekend for the Lindsay Aline concert in SLC. I hardly saw him, but it was so much fun to meet up in the city and see the show. Lindsay was amazing and it was in a terrific venue. Danny did get down to Springville to meet Ruby one night-don't they both look exhausted?!

Anyway, we were there a whole week, but it still managed to fly by incredibly fast. We did the car exchange and drove little Chester home to Irvine. Dad, who must have been feeling crazy and missing my momma, dropped me off in Irvine and then continued driving home-that is like a 15 hour drive-poor guy.  We had so much fun. Now I anxiously await Becca coming for Christmas to see Ruby again-amazing how fast these little babies get big!
PS: yes, seeing Ruby made me super excited that I'm having a baby
PPS: Yes, seeing and remembering the amount of work one baby takes made me absolutely terrified to have two babies at once.

Posts galore!

This past month, every time I've thought of something I want to blog about I've told myself to hold off and wait for bedrest-knowing that I'd have PLENTY of time to document all the happenings of this month. Well, I am one week in and haven't felt like sharing.  Mostly that has been due to logistics. Last week Danny's laptop broke. Two days later, my desktop mysteriously turned itself off and wouldn't turn on again. Not three days later Danny's i phone suddenly stopped working. We went down to the apple store each time one of our devices broke. It almost made me lose my faith in apple. Fortunately they were able to fix the laptop ( although it was 2 months out of warranty. grrr.) they fixed my desktop for free (thank Heavens) and even though Danny's i Phone was 60 days over the warranty-the guy looked at him (having seen him in the store several times that week already) and handed him a brand new phone. Our luck turned at last! Anyway, I have been computer less for a little over a week.  The other tricky thing is my physical situation.  I don't think I've mentioned how I think this pregnancy is going to play out. While pregnant with Lucy we discovered I have a short cervix. Most people discover this after having a late-term miscarriage, so we felt very lucky that we were able to save Lucy by getting a cerclage at 18 weeks (they stitch your cervix shut in an effort to keep you from delivering very very early.) When we attempted to get pregnant with twins, we knew that this could make my issue a little more tricky-because twins are double the weight on your cervix and are already at higher risk for premature delivery.  While I have heard several different opinions, my perinatologist wanted me to get a cerclage at 13 weeks and then be on strict bedrest for two weeks while my body healed and the stitches gained stregnth. At 15 weeks I can walk around again, I'm just supposed to take it kind of easy and not lift anything heavier then a milk carton. At 20 weeks I will be put on moderate bedrest, which means I can get up in the morning, get ready, eat breakfast, go on a short errand/play with Lucy then lay down for 2-3 hours.  After lunch I'm supposed to lay down for 3-4 hours. After dinner I should be down for the rest of the night. This lasts from 20-35 weeks (Christmas- April)when the stitches are removed. During that time I'll have a take home contraction monitor which sends signals to the hospital making sure I'm not in labor. That sounds pretty cool. The real risk this time around is pre-mature labor. It doesn't necessarily hurt, so it can be difficult to know if that is what you're experiencing. I've already taken the class so I hope I can tell if it happens. Pre-mature labor can start your cervix dilating-but with stitches trying to keep my cervix shut-that is bad news.
So Tuesday was the cerclage. My youngest sister Katy flew in on Sunday to take care of us during this two weeks bedrest.  It was so nice knowing that she and Lucy were having fun while Danny and I spent the day at the hospital. I'll spare you the details, but I did not enjoy the cerclage. I was given a spinal, but had to stay awake for the procedure.  I brought in my ipod and tried to listen to a book on tape so I didn't have to listen to the doctor and nurses talking about what they were doing. Nasty. Anyway, after about five hours of observation and making sure the babies were okay I was sent home at last. Since then I have been confined to the couch. I had forgotten what that feels like. I'm sore and cranky most of the time, I expend hardly any calories so eating is a chore, digesting laying down is less then comfortable,  and most tv is awful. Now that I'm done whining however, Katy has been incredible doing all of my jobs. She has kept the house clean, fed us fun meals, done a craft with Lucy every day, and watched shows with me. Somehow she has found the time to read like 7 books too-crazy.
Anyway, that is what is up. I need to write some catch up posts about our trip to Utah, Lucy, and how we have made decisions that will completely change the next weeks, months and years of our lives.  Wasn't that a good cliffhanger?

Disneyland

(Lucy with her favorite letter at the end of the day)

Yesterday we went to the Happiest Place on Earth. My favorite part is always the beginning-getting tickets, walking in the gates and walking through the squares and Main Street. It is just so exciting and thrilling to know you have a whole day ahead of you! Lucy and I skipped and jumped through Main Street we were so excited.  I have never been in October and the park was beautiful decorated in autumn colors with pumpkins everywhere. 

We went straight to the Princess Faire and I stood in line while Dad, Danny and Lucy went on Its a Small World (that is one ride I don't mind missing:)  Talking about it later, seeing the princesses was everyone's favorite part. We ended up going through three different times:) The first time through Lucy met Aurora and Snow White. She is always a little timid at first, but got more and more comfortable. The second time she met Jasmine, Tiana and Belle. We thought we were through at that point, but as we were leaving there was a change of "shift" and Cinderella came in. Lucy has never met Cinderella and she led us right back into the line so she could. We were able to say hi to Aurora and Snow White for a second time. By the end Lucy was telling everyone her name, what she was going to be for Halloween, what her favorite rides were, and giving them big hugs. It was so fun to see the absolute adoration and joy in her face meeting these girls.

Lucy loved going on rides as well. Lucy and I did Winnie the Pooh and Dumbo while Dad and Danny did Splash mountain and Indiana Jones. Historically no one gets too wet on Splash Mtn., but this time around my boys got completely soaked to the skin. Seriously, I think I saw a dry patch on my Dad's calf.  It was not a warm day so that was when Danny got a bit whiny:) He ended up buying a PJ set so he wouldn't be walking around in wet jeans all day.

It was predicted to rain by the mid afternoon-but by noon it had started pouring. Dad and I had ponchos (very stylish I know:), but Lucy only had what I thought was a water proof jacket (not waterproof) and Danny only had his coat. We ended up getting both of them ponchos, but regardless, all of us got pretty wet yesterday. It didn't keep us from going on rides and seeing the Princesses though! It was actually very nice to have a thinner crowd. We never really had to wait in line very long. 

                              (trying to dry out during a brief break in the rain)

 The one dissappointment was that there was no parade. At the end of the day they had a little "cavalcade" of characters. We sat in the rain to watch-thinking we would see a bunch of Lucy's favorite charachters, but in the end it was pretty lame-one car with Minnie and Mickey (who cares-look how excited Lucy is!)  and one bus with some miscellaneous characters. Oh well!

 By the end of the day, we were all exhausted. Its hard to have so much fun!

Conference Weekend

I love conference. It is like a vacation, you get to stay in your jammies as long as you want, lounge around the house and snack all day while watching. It was especially exciting this weekend because Grandma and Grandpa Leininger came to visit and watch with us.  Lucy was ecstatic.  Saturday morning they played with Lucy while Danny and I went to a giant baby sale given by the local twin mom group.  We got there early and still waited 30 minutes in line to get in-it was WILD. The heavens were smiling on us because when we went in I saw a double stroller complete with two identical infant car seats and bases.  They were in PERFECT condition. The owner was working nearby so she was able to tell me how it worked for her twins. She was incredibly clean because looking at it, it didn't even looked used! They wanted $150 for the whole set. New it would have cost me $400.  We didn't have that much cash on us at the moment so Danny went out for cash while I got my first lesson navigating a double stroller in the midst of hundreds of people scrounging for good deals. It was a bit crazy-but by the time Danny got back I had two preemie outfits, a cute bouncer, a twin book and some cute clothes for Lucy.  It was a total success and I have been super excited ever since. Unfortunately it meant we missed Elder Hollands talk-can't wait to read it soon.  Lucy loved sitting by Grandma during conference. She jumped up in excitement every time someone said Book of Mormon, Prophet, or Jesus Christ-I guess she feels a strong connection to those particular gospel terms.  Needless to say she was excited most of the time.

In between sessions we went to the fun farmers market near our house. Marilyn and I ditched out early for another sonogram. I have had three in one week! I was glad that Marilyn could share this one.  Last week I met with my perinatologist and learned that the safest thing for my babies would be to get a cerclage at 14 weeks. I'm happy about this because it makes me feel like the babies are a bit safer. Unfortunately she wants me to start bedrest at 20 weeks-just before Christmas. I'll be down for 16 weeks. Anyway, maybe I'll get into all of this in another post. The point is I've been feeling pretty upset about it for the last couple days. Marilyn and I were talking about it and what life would be like for the next months on the way to our appointment and I wasn't feeling very optimistic:) I had a complete attitude adjustment seeing my babies. They are so tiny (about 3 cm right now)-you can see their little hearts beating. That is my favorite part. It is rather surreal to see two babies too:) It was very fun to share it with Marilyn.  We returned home for the afternoon session and during the rest of the meetings I was able to focus on gratitude. When I look at those little babies, it doesn't matter what I have to do to get them here. They are miracles and I am so lucky they're mine.

We had so much fun with Gma and Babba. Lucy woke up this morning as they left and for the next twenty minutes I could hear her talking to herself "I don't want them to go. I want Gma to stay forever. We have room for Mommy, Daddy, Me, Gma AND Babba."  Our house felt even more like home with them here-we're pretty used to living together:) I would be in mourning but I still have something to look forward to-my Dad is already on the road on his way to visit us. We can't wait:)

Haps

Currents happenings around here:
* We had thought our on campus housing was "graduate family housing". Instead we have found it is " graduate AND family housing". This means that Lucy is the only child in our building, the people above us vacuum at 11:30 PM, drunk hooligans were flirting outside one of our windows really loudly at 1:00 AM, and all the cute early twenty-somethings that live around look at me (with my water bottle, sweat pants, oddly extended tummy that still just looks weirdly fat and biking preschooler) like I am a huge weirdo. Kind of disappointing. I wanted to live on campus so we would be close to other families in our situation. Oh well.
* Lucy does have a new "best friend" who lives in the building next to us. When they see each other they throw their arms around each other and declare their undying love for each other. It is very cute. We're going to the library with her today and Lucy is super excited.
* Irvine finally feels "home-like".  It is a shame that I became a completely non-functional human being when we got here-because our location is slightly tainted. Like if I went home to northern California I'd suddenly feel great with energy and an appreciation for food again. Not likely...
* On Friday Danny and I went to my first OB appt. and we got to see two little babies and hear two little heartbeats. It was kind of surreal. I meet with a perinatologist this week to talk about my complications and I have another appt. to get a sonogram to double check that the babies are in their own sacks.  Fun to see them so much so early on.
*Danny started work this week. He is so on top of things. He is working as an intern for a very cool real estate company. He is getting a great education.
*UC Irvine is snazzy. I didn't know too much about it before coming here-but it is really nice. The school has tons of money I guess so the buildings are new and really nice, they can afford to steal their professors and coaches from Stanford, and they can throw so much money at their programs they're growing like crazy.
* My sister Becca had her baby and I am dying to go see her. She is the cutest baby I've ever seen.  My dad is coming to visit us next week and will drive Lucy and I to Utah for a visit. I am so excited. 
*We explored Laguna beach this weekend and it was super cute. Here is proof:

 I caught her mid air