Snip Snip

We just got home from a great trip to Zions National Park where we met Becca, Kyle, Ruby, Kaity Nieman and Allan. I can't wait to go through my pictures and look through Beccas. That said, I am SO happy to be home. The twelve hour drive almost killed me. Normally I don't feel very different being pregnant-I love getting kicked and I'm not too uncomfortable yet-but I was seriously uncomfortable on that drive. My back is still killing me. Anyway-to today's post:

 Lucy just came up to me in full Cinderella regalia and said she was going to use her magic wand to turn me into something else. At first she turned me into a horse. Then a mouse-she thought that was hilarious because she'd flip me from mouse to human very quickly. Finally she asked me what I wanted to be. I told her that I wanted her to wave her wand and have our babies come out so we could meet them. She instantly dropped her wand and told me she'd be right back. She brought this tool:

She said that all it would take was a couple "snips" and they'd be out. II think I'll take the back pain and wait a couple more months thank you.

Valentine

Happy Day after Valentines Day! I woke up on V Day planning on writing a sweet little "I love you" post for Danny (especially since I had completely forgotten to even write him a note). He was already driving to work and Lucy was lounging in front of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. It takes me a minute to get out of bed these days, I have to grunt, throw my body to one side then sit on the edge of the bed for awhile to make sure I'm steady. I'm not that big yet, but I guess it takes awhile for my head to remember there is a bunch of extra weight out in front of me.  I started to find some cute pics of Danny, but then my mom came to pick us up for a fun day out. The instant she walked in she said it smelled heavily of gas. Great. Our little house has an ancient stove and range that looks cute and retro but frequently makes us smell gas fumes. I had been sucking in this air all night so didn't notice it.  After checking to make sure we hadn't left the gas on, I left and hoped for the best (not the smartest thing, but oh well.) We had a fun day doing errands and making Lucy a new blanket for her bed.  Coming home that night with Danny we entered the house to serious fumes.  Danny called PG&E and I shut myself in my room with the windows open so my babies could breath some clean air. Thank heavens PG&E is freakishly prompt and in thirty minutes he declared our oven hazardous, took the gas levels in the house and said we just had to air out for awhile, we didn't have to leave the house.  Anyway, I tell you this to explain why I am posting my V Day post on February 15. I love Danny every day of the year-so it doesn't really matter.

I Love Danny Leininger.

Here he is when I met him. We hiked Half Dome with some members of our ward. We have no pictures together-just with the parent we went with. We talked along the trail and I thought he was the most attractive man Id ever seen. At the end of the hike we drove home together-we both sat in the back seat. I remember saying a prayer of gratitude that when I took off my hat after the hike-my hair looked cute. How does that happen?! No hat hair? No sweaty hat lines? Nope-we were meant to be:)

Do I have a single picture of us dating? yes-one single picture that I need to scan. Sad but true. I guess its because we were "going on dates" for about three weeks-so its awkward to take pics together in that phase. Then we were "dating" (aka "going on dates AND kissing") for only two or three weeks before we hit the "engaged" title. I guess we were too busy kissing to have anyone snap a pic of us:) Then all of the sudden, we were getting married!

Now we've had six years to travel, finish school, have a baby, move five times, each gain and lose about 30 lbs(pregnancy and cancer will do that to you!), and get pregnant with twins. We have a fresh start this year with our little house, new babies and new jobs.  Happy V Day Danny!

a month ago...

Becca and I were talking about how since we made blog books (she got one for her birthday of her first year of blogging and I made one ages ago) our blogs have changed. Suddenly, I rarely write and feel like I have to document all the big events and special occasions. For some reason the pressure of that keeps me from blogging the daily stuff. That, or I just have nothing to say, which is frequently the case too. I'm always surprised when I read a blog about a pregnant girl and she manages to write something daily about her pregnancy. It took me almost a week to come up with the first paragraph of my post yesterday! While I want to document it, I feel great- what else is there to say? Anyway, in an effort to document, at least with photos, here is our Christmas one month late.

Before Christmas we lived at my house and played all day. Lucy loved decorating the tree (check out the crazy dressup from GG!) and making a gingerbread house with Aunt Becca.

On Christmas Eve we went the the Leiningers. We took BART to the embarcadero and enjoyed lunch at the ferry building and some ice skating (well, I took pictures:) Lucy had never been before, but was super excited and had a terrific time. She wasn't afraid to fall and even fell on purpose several times to show us she could.  We had an incredible time. We also went into the Sheraton and saw "snow" fall.

Christmas morning Lucy was thrilled to see a Rapunzel doll. I'm afraid her hair totally grosses me out-but Lucy didn't want it braided (sick) so it is now a ratty mess of hair. She loves it though:) We had a fun Christmas morning at the Leiningers and then went to the Andersons for a second Christmas morning (they always wait until we get there to open the presents) and had a great time.

 This is what Ruby did while we opened presents:)

After Christmas we spent a week at the Leiningers with all of the siblings and cousins. I hardly saw Lucy for days while she was having a blast playing with her cousins upstairs. As a result I hardly took any pictures of all the fun-but I did catch Lucy and Camille doing a ballet show.

We also had a great day taking a ferry to Pier 39.

Like usual, we were totally spoiled this year. We had so much fun and were able to see all of our family. Danny's fam helped us paint the interior of our house amidst all the fun, so after everyone went home we decided to finally move into our little house. Next post needs to be a tour!

25 weeks and then some

So I finally remembered to have Danny take a pic of my tummy.

We went on a little walk over the weekend-can I tell you that I LOVE that it is January and 65 degrees?! Winter is over around here!  So things are good. Saw the perinatologist last week and my cervix looks awesome. He told me not to expect that for too much longer because these girls are going to start gaining weight now, but not to be worried because everything is right on schedule.  I am feeling great-which is awesome. I don't think I look very big yet, but I still manage to forget my tummy is there and bump into random things/try to squeeze through spaces there is no way I can get through. I have had an awesome 2nd trimester so far. Oh, except for the shingles. Yes, I have had a rash on my tummy that I ignored for about a week and then it seriously started itching. At my appointment the doctor confirmed it is shingles-which is just the chicken pox virus resurfacing when your body is under intense stress. Thankfully the anti-biotics have started helping and I'm not quite so itchy-I have heard that shingles are incredibly painful-so I feel lucky that I avoided a bad case.

In other news we are 89% moved in to our little house. We have lived here a week and I have decided that I LOVE it. I love the feel of it. It is small-so we can set the thermostat to 67 and it stays nice and toasty. I love having a garage-so I can run out to the car to get something and feel safe. I love having a garbage can and recycling bin just outside the side door. I love our new dresser:

The pic is from when we first dragged it into the house-I wish I had taken a before pic. The guy that owns our house had this dresser outside in his shed-it had old rusty pulls on it and was in the original wood. It has a pretty serious crack down one side of it-but I thought the piece was too cute to take to the dumpster-so for about $40 we turned it into this! I love the bright color and think it turned out really cute. I'll have to post some pics when we get all the pictures hung, but our little house is feeling homey and cute.

Perspective and Pregnancy

I haven't been a very good blogger/journal writer for awhile, but I just wanted to read something quick before going to bed-so I read some of my own blog.  Last summer I wrote a little bit about my experience with IVF the day before I took my first pregnancy test. I almost cried for myself-which sounds weird to type out.  I vividly remember writing that post and feeling so many different emotions, and now reading it I just wanted to protect my former self and give her a little heads up. I want to give her some of my perspective and save myself the incredible sorrow I felt.  Here I am reading it with two little girls inside me.  Now I'm glad that little embryo decided not to stay, because I feel strongly that we are supposed to have two.  We've had a pretty long period of doubt, confusion and fear and I feel like things are finally righting themselves.

So speaking of pregnancy-I just hit the 24 week mark.  I feel awesome-I love my round tummy and love feeling the girls move. They are moving more and more these days. In fact, at my last sonogram the technician caught them kicking each other. At one point Baby B kicked Baby A right in the bum! I hope they don't come out bruised:) I have gotten some leg cramps that leave me limping around, but that is my only complaint-well, other then Danny saying I waddle around which is totally not true-limping looks a lot like waddling.

 I haven't reported back but right before Christmas I saw the perinatologist and he gave me the go ahead to live a normal life-standing and walking! My cervix was looking awesome and he explained that bed rest and cerclage basically do the same thing-so why risk the cerclage if you're going to lie down? I said "bless you" and have lived a normal life since then. It has been amazing. I'm afraid I have no sympathy for the average pregnant girl because this is awesome.  Being mobile has taken a huge stress off of us. It may not last the whole pregnancy-but I am going to enjoy this time as long as I can. I took a tummy shot when Becca was here (I hardly took any with Lucy since I was laying down and wish I had). So here I am barely at 18 weeks.

 I think I was this size at 30 weeks with Lucy:)
Here I am at 24 weeks.
(coming with Dr. update)

Last days in Irvine

It feels like we left Irvine so fast.  One day we thought we'd be there forever (or at least a couple of years) and the next we were packing up again! Looking back I'm not sure how we physically managed it. Danny was in charge of everything and did a fantastic job taking care of us and moving. In the last days we were there Lucy got to spend a lot of time with her best friend Zara. The only thing I was sad about leaving in Irvine was Zara and her awesome family. A couple days before we left Melanie and I took the girls to have their picture taken with the UC Irvine Anteater. They were taking free pics in the bookstore so we got there kind of early in case lots of kids showed up. Instead, lots of adults showed up! Our girls were the only kids in line. Lucy and Zara decided they were best friends the first time they met and really loved playing together.  I'm glad we have a memento of their friendship.

 So, how creepy is that Anteater? They took a second shot after putting the face mask up a bit, but I didn't get it...definitely creepy.

Just for fun here is a pic Lucy drew of herself with baby Ruby:

My Belle

When I finally found my camera cord in a box the other day I realized I hadn't downloaded any pictures since Halloween.  That isn't too bad because I didn't take a single picture in November-there wasn't much happening in my line of sight from the couch:) Then I took several hundred in December. While annoying, I'm going to try and catch up a bit for the future blog book.

For Halloween Lucy was Princess Belle. My mom had bought the costume earlier in the month and given it to her early. She wore it every day in October! That meant when Halloween finally rolled around, half the glitter off the skirt was on our couch and the sheer netting was practically falling off. I was able to do some little alterations so it looked presentable-but we didn't play it very fancy this year. (although she loved her beautiful gloves and brought along a fan for extra fanciness).

We spent Halloween night with my cousins, Grandma Joyce and Katy (she had arrived that morning to help when I got my cerclage).  Danny made some delicious vegetable soup and I provided the cuban bread. Danny loves dressing up for Halloween but doesn't like to think about his costume in advance. For example, this is what I came home to on Halloween in 2005:

He was cooking dinner for me and decided he couldn't stand not doing anything for Halloween, so he improvised a Zorro costume. Well this year as we were walking out the door he grabbed a broom, taped his glasses and asked me to give him a lightening scar with my eyeliner.  He makes an adorable Harry Potter.

Trick or Treating was funny this year. Lucy was very good at asking for candy and saying thank you and then she'd run down the path, throw her arms out wide and yell "Mom! I did SUCH A GOOD JOB!" We had families following us around the block to see this happen after every house-they thought it was hysterical.  I hope that excitement lasts a couple more years:)