23 Weeks and a wonderful "No Labor" Day Weekend

Aloha! Here's my 23 week shot. We are all doing good. Babies are growing and active. Mike has been busy with work and training for his Honolulu Century Ride (100 mile bike ride) in a couple of weeks. And I have been, well, i've been gestating I guess. Growing 2 babies is hard work apparently and an errand here or there pretty much wears me out.
This weekend in honor of Labor Day, good ol' Uncle Sam gave Mike both Friday and Monday off and we decided to use this 4 days off for some "fun in the sun" instead of the usual "laboring around the house".


Friday we went to the North Shore, ate at one our faves, Pizza Bobs, then went to Sunset Beach, browse the shops and get a yummy shave ice. Here are some pics from Sunset. Mike and I got into a conversation about what a pregnant girl sees, so i took a pic to show him. I realize it may look a little inappropriate, but of course i do have bottoms on!

My usual beach position these days

What I see...you may notice the beginnings of an "outie"
and this is what I want for Christmas, if anyone can find me one
On Saturday, Mike and I went to a children's church teacher training in the morning and then headed straight Waikiki to celebrate my friend Marybeth's birthday at a beach park by the military resort, Hale Koa. Beach parks are an awesome thing that Hawaii offers the public. They are parks in the sense that there are trees and grass, picnic tables, grills, playgrounds and bathroom facilities--but the best part is that they are right in front of the sand with easy access to the water and beautiful views. And to top it off the beach park we used had access to the military hotel, so we could also use their pools and take advantage of their yummy soft serve ice cream! I didn't get any pics this day, but we had a really good time just hanging out with lots of good friends.

Sunday we went to Church, but i woke up quite a bit tired and sore from the past few days adventures, so directly after church we came back home so i could rest. That night we were supposed to participate in a church-body scavenger hunt, but because i didn't feel good I stayed home and Mike went ahead since he was supposed to be a driver. From what he said they drove all over the island and the clues were super hard. The final destination was at Kailua Beach Park, one of my personal favorite places on the island, to have a potluck dinner. He seemed to really enjoy it and I hate I missed out--hopefully they will do another one!

Then for Monday, Bryan and Marybeth Williams called us and invited us to spend the day with them at Pililau Army Recreation Center, which is basically a bit of beach on the west coast of the island that is owned by military. They have cabins directly on the beach to rent and the lagoon is the same lagoon that tour boats bring people to swim with the dolphins. We take kayaks out to the middle of the lagoon and can watch the dolphins jump around and show off right beside our boat, or if your brave, jump in and swim with them. I've done this many times with the Williamses, but apparently every time has been without Mike--so this was his first time out to see the dolphins. We spent most of this day just sitting around enjoying the beautiful views and good company. I have posted a lot pics below. I tried to be better this day and not push it too much--learning my lesson from Sunday. I stayed under the tents for most of the time, except when i could convince my sweet hubby to hold on to my float so i could rest in the water and not float away. Everyone had a great day and it was the perfect end to a long fun weekend!

Pretty Umbrellas

Mike and Bryan and Jordan coming back from seeing the dolphins

Helping Jordan off the boat

*notice in the corner, Elizabeth body boarding WHILE eating a tootsie pop*

Mike playing with Jolene--she LOVES the sand

Marybeth, Bryan, Cher and Mike playing with the volleyball

Bry going for the dive

Jordan playing in the sand, a little close to the volley action *notice mike running to the ball in the background*
Jolene was worn out!

One of Hawaii's favorite sports, rowing --it was a beautiful afternoon!

21 weeks and Nursery Construction

Here's my 21 week pic...

This weekend was a long one for Mike and I--Friday was Statehood Day for Hawaii (50 years as a part of the big USA)--so he had the day off which was great for us because it gave us 2 full days to work on the nursery.

It's still very much a work in progress. We still need chair railings, base boards, hanging shelves, a glider, a changing table, another mattress, curtains and whatever else i decided i want to decorate with, but here's a little sneak peak.

Before Pic

Mike the Painting Master

My Contributions...taping
Baby Boy's side

Baby Girl's Side

We're Halfway There!

This week marks our halfway point--20 weeks. Technically though, we have probably already passed the halfway point being that most all twins are born early. Still, it's a milestone to celebrate. I can't say it has exactly flown by--there was definitely times when i felt so bad that i thought this would never end. But i can, for the first time, honestly say that the good is outweighing all the yuck and the excitement is really catching up with me.

As of Monday this week I could clearly identify all the feelings inside of me as the babies moving and not just a bunch of stomach noises and gurgles. Since Monday there has been pretty much non-stop movement at all times of the day--most of it i am thoroughly enjoying, but occasionally its painful at night.

Yesterday, we had our big ultrasound appointment where they measure and get pics of every part of the babies body. An hour per baby--and i can't imagine doing it for 3 and 4 babies. By the time the two hours were up i was so sore from all the pushing and poking i could hardly get back to my car. Still this morning it feels as though someone used my stomach as a punching bag.

Baby Boy was very cooperative. We learned that he is considered "baby b". His placenta is in the top part of my abdomen--which means more room for him and he will be the "younger brother" coming out second. Baby Girl, or "baby a" placenta is positioned more around my pelvic area, where there isn't as much room so it is much harder to get to her and get good pictures. Actually the techs and doc gave up on getting all of her pics yesterday after spending well over 45 mins pushing the same spot trying to get a few more measurements. Also, fun fact for those of you inquisitive minds, although the babies will move many times within the placentas, the actual placentas will never change places, so Baby Boy will always be on top and Baby Girl will always be on the bottom.

Their measurements were almost identical--both at 9 1/2 inches, which is standard for a 20 week old. After 20 weeks is when genetics kick in and babies grow at different rates, determining whether they will be short or long. Baby boy weighed 15oz and Baby girl at 14oz. Average is 12oz at 20 weeks, so for twins we are doing great. They say i need to continue getting as much weight on them as i can now since they will most likely be born early and as delivery time gets closer there will come a point where there is just no more room to grow anyway.

We were given many pics--to see them all check our pic website, but i put the best down below-- some of our favorites and the harder to read ones i illustrated for you.

Baby Boy Profile--whole body with legs bent

Baby Boy's funny face with a BIG smile

Baby Boy showing off, using his hand as a microphone

same--but my version
Baby Boy's insides and fingers/ Baby Girl's foot

illustrated--if you look closely at the Baby Boy blob, that little black dot is his bladder--just in case you were wondering ;)

Baby Girl laying on her stomach
Her 1 and only profile shot, she likes to cover her face with her hands


this is a bit scary--Baby girl with what looks like her head unattached to her body...don't worry, it's just an illusion, she is bent so the neck is further back and you can't see it..check illustration below

all curled up, rebelling against the technicians, Baby Girl and her mommy were both DONE with all the poking, she is literally hiding her body in response to all the pushing

same--illustrated

My favorite...Baby Girl showing off a little bit--again check illustration

HEADSTAND!!

It's all about the changes

These past few weeks have been about making room in our house and making changes in our lives and of course more changes in my body.

1st--Here is my latest belly pic--this is right at the beginning of 19 weeks. I keep track of my measurements weekly--weeks 16 through 18 were fairly steady, which was a bit of a relief, but then all of sudden this week has brought on a 3in. increase in my mid-section.

2nd--This past Wed. we finally got to go to our first appointment in the multiples clinic of the hospital instead of the over-crowded and frustrating OB clinic. What a change! There was only one other waiting mommy in there besides us. The chairs were like movie theatre, rocking captain seats instead of the standard uncomfy metal chairs. There was a flat screen tv hanging on the wall. The nurses were friendly, and the doctor came right out to get us from the waiting room and to introduce himself. He filled us full of information and was patient through our questions. This first appointment was a quick one and I was led to believe it was just an initial intro to the clinic--but a nice surprise, we got to see our little ones too. They are getting so big--the first thing Mike and I noticed was the clear definition in their spines. It was just a quick look this week, but next week we have a 2 hr. ultrasound appointment to take all their measurements, see how they are growing and check for any abnormalities. I know we will be receiving LOTS of pics and I will post them as soon as i can.

3rd--Making room in our house! We have been cleaning out our closets, cabinets, under the bed, and the garage trying to make room for these little ones. Houses here are much different than at home. Ours is pretty little and there is basically NO storage. We have been trying to come up with creative ways to store what we need to keep and then we are purging everything else. Last Saturday we had a garage sale--honestly i would have been fine with the dumping it all, but mike wanted to try and see what we could sale. So, we advertised on craigslist and all the early birds showed up at 6 am and we sold almost EVERYTHING. We even sold things that weren't originally for sale. Apparently the locals really want anything military--including old uniforms so everyone came in asking for those. One man even bought a pair of goggles and scissors that were in a junk pile on our washing machine. We made quite a bit of money considering what we were selling. We are using the money for a date night to a restaurant in town that I have been CRAVING and then to see a movie. It's been a while, and i am so ready! The rest will be put back in the baby fund to get everything they will need.

4th--we sold the jeep--we think. I mean we have a buyer and she has taken the title to the bank to get the check cut. We are very relieved to have this sale almost behind us and to get what we are asking for it.

5th--Our friends are almost all gone. This is the one very reluctant change. I will post more later with some pics, but for now 3 families are gone, and we have one more to go next week. Right now it doesn't seem real, but i am sure as the weeks go by we are going to really feel the loneliness where we once had so much going on.

6th-- We have started a new bible study with some people at church. This is a kid-friendly bible study so that families with small children can still be a part of a small group. We meet every Friday for dinner and then bible study time. It is good for Mike and I to extend our activities and build new relationships, especially right now with so much going on. And soon we will be a part of these other families with little ones of our own and I know they will be a big support.

So i guess that's all for now. Happy weekend everyone!

ahh...Saturday Mornings

Oh how we love our Saturday mornings!

1st to McDonalds to feed the baby monsters--no problems this time, although Sherman and i didn't try and complicate things.

2nd to the Garage Sales! -- i had checked on craigslist the night before so we would no where to go first. The first 4 or so were duds and it seemed it just wasn't our day--but then... we found a moving sale with a military family, two baby girls and everything in the house was for sale!

We got this Bumbo chair and tray along with the tummy time mat below for $20, both don't look like they've even been used. Just the bumbo chair alone is $50 then an extra $15 for the tray at Walmart--so i'd say that's a deal!

This cute surfboard tummy time mat is actually on our registry, they make a boy and girl version although i have only seen the blue one on island--and it's $20 at Target, so we basically got it for free.Then we got all these clothes for $5....all newborn sizes and nothing in the first pic has even been worn before--probably cause most people don't need too many newborn clothes, but since there's a good chance our babies could be a bit small, and they were such a good deal, i didn't want to pass them up!

more of the $5 clothes....little Sunday dresses with bloomers!
and a super cute 0-3 month bathing suit--which are virtually impossible to find i have realized

It was definitely a good garage sale day for baby girl...poor baby boy is going to have to wait...it's so much harder to find cute boy stuff!

Also for some good news, we received our first package from Amazon today with baby boy's bedding in it! I am in love and can't wait for baby girl's to come in so we can start painting the room. I will give a sneak preview soon!

The rest of the day will be spent organizing the bathrooms, cleaning out underneath our bed and then hopefully we'll have dinner with our friends and their new little girl.

Happy Weekend!

mmm..mmm...Carolina BBQ...

So I found a recipe for Carolina BBQ in the crock-pot and gave it a try this week. It turned out great...and made enough to last us the entire week!

Here's the recipe if you wanna give it a try, especially if you are like us and can't run to the local BBQ hut whenever you want.

~SLOW COOKER CAROLINA PORK~

INGREDIENTS

1 (5 pound) bone-in pork shoulder roast
1 tablespoon salt
ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons hot pepper sauce
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes

DIRECTIONS
Place the pork shoulder into a slow cooker and season with salt and pepper. Pour the vinegar around the pork. Cover, and cook on Low for 12 hours. Pork should easily pull apart into strands.
Remove the pork from the slow cooker and discard any bones. Strain out the liquid, and save 2 cups. Discard any extra. Shred the pork using tongs or two forks, and return to the slow cooker. Stir the brown sugar, hot pepper sauce, cayenne pepper, and red pepper flakes into the reserved sauce. Mix into the pork in the slow cooker. Cover and keep on Low setting until serving.

Goodbye Jeep, Hello Mommy Car

Some other big news for this week is that Mike made our first family car purchase. Not ready for the minivan yet, we got a 2007 Ford Edge that has hardly been used--only had 7500 miles on it adn the inside looks brand new. It's super nice, but a far cry from the rides we are used to! We are really happy with it and it's just one more thing to check off the list as we make room for these 2 little ones.

Oh Ewa Beach McDonald's...how we love you

...okay, maybe love is a strong word, but we really do appreciate all the laughs you provide us on the weekend!

Mike and I regularly go to McDonald's on Saturday mornings, or at least we used to before getting pregnant. But now that my appetite is coming back we are getting back into our routine. There was a new cashier this morning and it should be said that we have many communication problems at this particular store, so i was thinking as we walked up to her, maybe this morning will be better.

So first I order a sausage biscuit with cheese. The cashier gets a real confused look on her face and turns around to look up at the menu behind her and this is when i think "oh no, here we go again".... so i say, "um, you just need to ring up a sausage biscuit and add cheese" to which she replies, "oh (awkward laugh), ok". Then I ask if i can get a packet of mustard. To which the cashier replies, "we have spicy mustard dipping sauce". I tell her I just want the regular mustard and then she kinda shrugs and says "we don't have that kind sorry, kinda weird, I know (awkward laugh). I decide at this point to forgo the mustard even though i am thinking ...what the heck does she think the yellow stuff on all the hamburgers they sell is?

So I give up, move over to let Mike order--he was smart and didn't try to add anything special--but at the end she asked if she could get a name for the order. Mike replies, "sure, Mike" and our wonderful cashier replies "ok sherman, thanks for coming to McDonald's".

So what can we do but laugh? I ended up trying something new-- dipping my biscuit in ketchup because i have a serious need for condiments, and Mike acquired a new nickname--Sherman. Oh McDonald's, what would we do without you?

17 week update

It's official, the clothes buying (and cutting off of tags) can begin. We had our other ultrasound this morning and "baby a" is 100% all girl. So God blessed us with one of both and we are so excited we can't quit smiling.

I am running a little short on time--but here are the pictures they gave us today. The ultrasound tech was so nice and even showed us some video of the babies in 4d which is usually very expensive to do. She also printed us a couple of 4d shots that I posted at the bottom.

Baby Girl Profile

Baby Girl looking at us straight on--showing off her alien face
4d of Baby Girl--profile shot facing the left--the blob looking stuff right beside her face to the left is her brother's gestational sac...he's still squashing her...guess they like to cuddle! And that's a glare right above her ear..not elf ears, just in case you're worried ;)
and this is Baby Boy with much more room and a great 4d profile shot--he's facing to the right with his hand up in front of his face like he's sucking his thumb and legs curled in.

Sorry I don't have time to illustrate for you ultrasound illiterates...maybe later!

Sweet Sixteen

We've hit 16 weeks now, 2 weeks into my second trimester, feeling better every week, and ever growing as you can see.

On the baby front, all things are well, we are in between clinics right now--but have our first appointment at the twins clinic in about 3 weeks. Although with the last blog i had mentioned feeling better, after returning to NC, i had a bit of a relapse and it took a few more weeks to really start feeling better. I finally started getting an appetite back, nighttime can still be occasionally rough, but manageable compared to before. I am hungry constantly and even had my first wake up in the middle of the night where i just had to have a little snack. My new multiples pregnancy book says this is a very common problem to have--but i sure hope it doesn't become a regular thing.

So for our big news, just in case you haven't heard it anywhere else...we went for our gender identification ultrasound this past Saturday. Drumroll please....

That's right...its a boy, and here's the stuff to prove it! And boy oh boy, he is taking up ALL the room in the belly. He was stretching and kicking and wiggling and basically stuffing "baby a" into a small little corner. Not unlike the sleeping situation in the Hawaii Burns Household...but to save us from a couple of unnecessary words later, I won't reveal who is the crowder and the crowdee!

And here's a look at Baby boy's body shot. His crazy alien face is looking straight at you...a ham for the camera already!

Now on to poor Baby A--brother is taking up so much room and light it was virtually impossible to get a good shot to confirm its gender. We tried for a while, even took a break to walk around and do some jumping jacks in the effort of moving them around....but even with all that action, (and it was the most action this body has seen in a while!) brother wouldn't budge. While we couldn't get baby to be still long enough for a pic, we did get a couple of quick looks, and to our untrained eyes and our techs impressively trained eye, no one saw anything that looked like little boy parts, but without a clear picture we all decided that we would only be 90% sure that "baby a" is a girl. The tech said they would fit us in next weekend just to make sure. Hopefully they will have changed positions. But for now we are celebrating the possibilities of one of each and I treated myself to a shopping trip at the Carter's and Osh Kosh outlet stores just to get some gender specific clothes..and i had a blast! They are all hanging up ready to go in the babies closet--but no worries, in the event of sudden change the girl's clothes still have their tags.

This is a pic of of "baby girl (we think) a" being squashed by her brother. And just in case you are ultrasound illiterate.....scroll down

this should help set the scene!