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

Lesson Learned

The other day I let Lucy sit in the large section of the cart at Costco.  As we were piling everything onto the conveyor belt I finally noticed that to cushion her bum she had sat on our two loaves of bread.  Very clever.  Now our sandwiches look like this:

Irvine, California, USA

Last week we finally moved down to Irvine. It was a horrible trip. I threw up on the side of the road the whole way down, we got a ticket twenty minutes into the drive, it was frustrating. Fortunately things improved once we got down here. Irvine is the complete opposite of Davis. It is a suburban utopia. You drive on large streets that connect huge shopping centers to beautiful home developments. It is incredibly clean with tons of beautiful palms. I find it very easy to get around and appreciate having a Target five minutes in every direction. Danny appreciates Newport Beach. Our first day we drove straight to the beach. We have been three or four times since.  After years of driving an hour and a half to Santa Cruz for our surfing/beach fix, Newport is awesome.

I’ve been lucky that Danny hasn’t started school yet. I’ve been much more sick then I was with Lucy and mostly just exhausted. Danny has moved us in, made all our meals, let me sleep in, everything.  As of last night, we finally feel moved in.  Hopefully we'll start feeling more at home soon too.

Announcement

So I thought of several cute ways to make this announcement-but now that it is sure, I can't wait to just shout it out. I am pregnant!! And with TWINS!!! We could not possibly be more excited.  We found out about ten days ago but today we got the word that it is twins.  I feel so incredibly lucky. I have the best endocrinologist. I don't know what else to tell you. Life as I know it has changed again:)
Our babies before they went in...

I LOVE PEETA

This morning Katy, Lucy and I stood in line and Costco just waiting for the doors to open. I looked around at our competition and decided to forgo the cart so we could have more speed. Katy put Lucy on her shoulders, the door slowly rose and we speed walked our way to the book section. Then we noticed no one was behind us and most people were going to Costco early for the good parking and other goods.They don't know what they're missing!
I picked up the first copy of Mockingjay. (There was only one little stack of them-crazy. Other crazy thing-they were ten bucks at Costco in hard copy. I couldn't believe how cheap!)

Katy got the second.

It was exhilierating. I ran off to get something and left Katy like this:

Now we're home, Cars is on and I have an hour and a half of uninterrupted reading to do.