Father's Day?

I knew that Father's Day was coming up.  No, really I did.  I bought a t-shirt to decorate with the kids probably two weeks in advance. 

But I know I've mentioned this before, and I'll say it again: I have pregnancy brain.  These darn babies are taking EVERYTHING I've got, apparently...including my brainpower.

So I forget things.  Like Father's day.  Not entirely, mind you...it did keep popping back in.  Unfortunately intermittently. On the Sunday before FD they announced it in church, and I audibly gasped.  Really?!  How did it sneak up on me?

Two days before the day I remembered again...and I had to apologize to HH, because I doubted that I could get his gift done in time.  His reply was so great:

"Paige, how long does it take to make root beer floats?  Seriously, it shouldn't take a week of preparing."


ahhh, I love that guy.

And then on Saturday I gave him my debit card so that he could take the kids to the grocery store and buy the root beer and ice cream, because I'm super nice like that.  And I'd planned to make him a dinner that I know he likes a lot, but I forgot to put a key ingredient on his shopping list ; )  and so we just had a last minute thrown together meal.  Happy Father's Day, indeed.

He fared better than my Dad, though-- I couldn't call when I remembered to do so, and forgot at all the right times.  He got a belated phone call the next morning.

Which was my MIL's birthday, who I also forgot to call!  (but don't worry, Mama J: now you'll get you belated Mother's day gift AND your belated birthday gift...I'm just prolonging the anticipation.  Maybe you can just pick them up off my kitchen counter when you come up to meet the new grandbabies later this summer?)

And that, my friends, is how we roll these days.  I'm totally going to stick with blaming D & E
{who at this moment are trying to break free from my belly and it looks like I have an alien (or vampire?) inside me.  I love that...as long as they don't REALLY break free}.

(BTW, I saw yesterday where someone named her new twin girls Andromeda & Persephone.  I might have spelled them wrong, but I'm sure I won't be the only one.)

The most current stats and projects

Last week I had four appointments in three days.  At 32 weeks, here's what I learned:

Ultrasound:
Both babies are doing fine. 
They have similar fluid levels. 
They measure 4#3oz and 4#5oz, which is right on track. 
Baby E is now head down, which was a big surprise to me.
No signs of preterm labor.

Appt with Nurse-Midwife Sally:
I've gained about 15 pounds thus far.
My measurement was 42.  I might have gotten that big with Moose, since he was a big boy and he went overdue by 9 days...but I'm getting into uncharted measurements.
Blood pressure is still healthy, but up a little bit from my normal.
Sally thinks I'll probably go until 38 weeks or so, but is hopeful that the babies will be upper 6 pounds, rather than over 7 pounds because sometimes when the uterus gets that big then it's so stretched out and doesn't work quite right during labor...it kinda gets freaked out.
I turned in my birth plan, which she went over.  Every single thing on there got a response like, "Yes, that's good/reasonable/understandable...BUT"  and then she'd explain what could go wrong and why they might toss out the birth plan and do some other horrible sounding thing.  I KNOW things might not go according to my ideal...I don't need to be told about it with each visit so that I leave feeling worried about things that aren't now and may not ever be a real concern.

Hospital Tour:
Everyone else on the tour was having their first baby.  Then there was HH and I with our three kids and expecting twins and having never been in the hospital.  I bet the other soon-to-be-parents were glad to only have ONE upcoming child.
The hospital looks nice enough, and the birth suite was comfy.  Too bad I won't get to deliver there...the O.R. didn't look nearly as soothing.

My first NST:
I'm sure they serve a good purpose, but it felt like a waste of time. But the babies passed, and were pretty good about letting their heartrates be found.
I'll have these weekly...the only scheduling for twins is during the weekday, and it takes about 2 hours...which means that I can't have my husband home to stay with the kids and I can't take them with me.  So it may be a "non-stress" for the babies, but definitely a "stress" for me.

Other:
We went down to Seattle yesterday for my sister's graduation from Bastyr (way to go, Laura!) and there was traffic at 12:30...so maybe I should just plan on traffic no matter what time I start labor.

HH and I have been working on the nursery: 
He installed a new light fixture
HH is working on repainting (he'd used flat paint when he did it last time and I can already tell that it'll be a horrible mess within days of people actually using the room...so I lovingly and certainly not naggingly asked him to redo it all in a better finish.
I painted the closet door trim, the back of the bedroom door, and the bedroom door trim in the coral pink of the striped wall.
HH rehung the door, using new black hinges and doorknob.
I refinished the dresser (which turned out so great and I can't wait to show you!), the frames, a little shelf, and a little thing with hooks on it.
I printed out a picture of the Salt Lake Temple that I found for free online.  Before printing I altered some of the colors so that they match the coral better.
Pictures will be forthcoming, but first the painting has to be finished and carpet needs to go in...then I can start moving things in and getting situated.

This week is a sewing week (as soon as I get off the couch): 
A couple of alterations of things that SHOULD fit me until the end (including a little cotton dress for the birth and the most fantastic maxi-dress that my sister Judy helped me to pin to shorten in the back...I might just wear it every Sunday from here on out...maybe even every other day too, since it is awfully comfortable),
mending,
crib sheets, bumper, ruffle crib skirt
rocking chair cushion and ruffled pillow
diaper stacker
ruffle curtains
blessing dresses (yeah, they still aren't finished)

I don't know how much of that will actually get done, but that's the focus for the week...and thankfully I don't have much scheduled this week so maybe I will actually do some of it.

A Post about Moose

Moose recently turned terrible.  I mean two. 
But both apply sometimes.
Sometimes he's the cutest little thing and is sweet and cuddly and clever.  Unless he wants something to go a certain way and it's not happening.  Then he's a pro at throwing tantrums and getting aggressive.  He's been like that for most of his life, though, so it has nothing to do with his age.

But I digress.  He had a birthday.  I thought it would be fun to take the kids to the Rainforest Cafe, which is down by where HH works.  So we picked Daddy up from work and went out for a super fun dinner.  The kids loved it just as much as I'd hoped.

We were right by the Gorillas.  I thought I'd gotten a video of the gorillas when they were moving, but when I got everything off my camera there weren't any videos.  Bummer. 

The kids also really loved the alligator.

After that we went home and Moose opened his presents (he got a magnetic train set from my Aunt, and a mixer truck from my parents, a hard hat & book from his sisters, and a tool set from HH and me).

Then we sang, and relit the candles three times trying to get a picture before he blew them out.  Seriously, as soon as the cake was anywhere near him he'd blow them out. 

The cake isn't the greatest, but it was pretty much the easiest, and the kids liked it.  And it still tasted good.  We didn't eat it that day--the kids shared Moose's dessert at the restaurant, and we got home too late for anything more anyhow.

At any rate, it was a good day. Even if he's a total stinker a lot of the time I am SO glad to have that little boy in our family.  He is all boy, and it looks like that's what we'll need : )

    

A Post about Monkey

For her birthday, Monkey was given gymnasics classes.  I'd bought a Living Social deal for 4 classes at a local gym.  I "upgraded" to 5 weeks because this session has 5 weeks instead of 4. 

Anyhoo, she's done great.  She has so much fun when she goes, and for the rest of the week she says things like, "I can't wait to go to gymnastics class!"  Which makes me feel bad that we only have one week left.  But such is life.

She's in a class with 3 little boys.  No other girls.  She doesn't care, though.

Here is a little video of my little Monkey : )  It has been such a pleasure to watch that sweet little thing having so much fun and learning new things.

Quick post about baby prep

K, so I'm totally supposed to be working on this month's layout...I neglect my blog all month but as soon as I'm supposed to be doing layout I swear my blog calls me like a siren song.
Anyhow, last weekend all three of the kids went to my parents' house and I worked on baby stuff:  I mostly got the hospital bag packed, I revised the birth plan, I spray painted the rocking chair for the nursery, I washed/folded/organized the baby clothes, and I cleaned my house.  It was fabulous. {Sadly the house cleaning was undone within 24 hours of the kids' return}
This week I've worked on getting a few more things into the hospital bag, gotten the cleaned covers back on the infant seats & got them into the minivan (just typing that word makes me feel like I've "arrived" as a mom, lol).  I hung two new picture frames in the hallway (and repositioned the existing three frames to accomodate the new ones). 
And today my sister and my Mom came to help.  My Mom watched the kids while my sister, Judy, and I painted stripes on one of the walls in the nursery.  My sister also moved the lockers out of the nursery & into the spare room, and the dresser out of the spare room & into the living room (it needs refinished before it can go into the nursery).  Here's a picture of the wall, though I'm going to be adding black scroll squigglies on the edges of the stripes so it's not the finished product.  The rocking chair is also there, but I'll be distressing the edges a bit, so that's not the finished product either (but won't it be cute with a little coral-pink cushion?!!).

Also today, I burned the labor CD.  Here's the playlist:

Canon in D {Pachelbel}

Make you Feel my Love {Adele}

Dream a Little Dream of Me {The Mamas & The Papas}

Ode to Joy {Beethoven}

What a Wonderful World {Louis Armstrong}

Let it Be Me {The Everly Brothers}

Stand By Me {Ben E. King}

Turandot: Nessun Dorma {Pavarotti}

La Vie En Rose {Louis Armstrong}

Stai Con Me {Raf}

(it's possible that I'll just have Canon in D on repeat...I've listened to it repeating for labor before...soothing and somewhat trance-like because it's so repetitive)

I'm hoping that having done the daunting striped wall (which wasn't nearly as bad as I'd expected, but that's probably because my sister did most of the work) it'll help me have momentum to do the other little painting things in there & then get busy on sewing the crib bedding/curtains/etc etc etc.

Today I'm 31 weeks  (so somewhere between 5-9 weeks left, hopefully).  I'm happy to have had such a relatively healthy pregnancy thus far...but I always feel like bedrest or preterm labor is looming.  I hope not, because I still have so much to do.  I'm trying to get the essentials done first: like the birth plan & hospital bag.  If the nursery doesn't get done it won't be the end of the world, since the babies will be in our room for a while anyhow.  Though, of course, having the nursery all done and pretty would be nice.