Five Christmases

Starting the Saturday before Christmas, we had five of them in four days. Here is how they went:

Saturday: My extended family at the Pizza Ranch. This is the only time of the year we get together, so it was super fun to see my cousins and their kids! It was the first time I have meet two of them, and my cousin and their adorable daughter came all the way back from South Carolina. It was a fun time to watch all the kids play and interact with each other.

Sunday: DH's immediate family - time was spent eating supper, opening presents, and playing with all the new stuff. Macyn received some Minnie Mouse play sets, a little people castle, a Cinderella carriage, and a puzzle.

Monday: Christmas Eve spent with my family. We decided to have a late afternoon/early supper around 3:00 so we could all be home at a good time. I was feeling quite nauseous and got a little sick right  before we left. I decided to at least try and go to Christmas and felt okay the rest of the day and kept all my food down. DH & I got this fun yard game - Big Birdie Golf. I also received some maternity clothes and a flat wallet. Macyn got a play doh set, clothes, Baby Alive, crayons, a Barbie, and a Minnie Mouse. Fortunately, I started feeling better before church so we decided to go. We ended up sitting in the front row so that was quite the experience!

Tuesday: Christmas morning was spent with our family opening presents. We didn't go too overboard this year since we knew the Grandparents would set her up pretty well. She received an easel from Ikea, color wonder pages, fingernail polish set with a nail dryer, some some from bath and body (yes we have a girly girl) and a "baby that takes a bath."

 There is a funny story about this "baby that takes a bath." We decided to go Christmas shopping way back in November and we had all the gifts in the back of our SUV. We went to pick up Macyn and didn't even think to hide the presents in the back. So what does she do? She looks behind the seat and exclaims "A BABY THAT TAKES A BATH!" So I explained to her that we did get her the baby for Christmas, but she has to wait until then to open it. A couple of weeks had passed and I decided to ask her what she wanted for Christmas. This is how it went:
Me: Macyn, what do you want for Christmas?
Macyn: A baby that takes a bath - it's in the car.

DH bought me some touch screen gloves, some handi bac, and a Snoogle - the seriously best pillow ever, whether you are preggers or not! Even Macyn liked it and she proceeded to use it all morning while watching the parade.

I bought DH a new Vikings polo, a grill spatula, movies, and Battleship.

Tuesday Lunch: Lunch time was spent on Josh's extended family. We also had another one of DH's extended family Christmas at night, but we were so Christmas'd out that we decided to pass. We did visit his Grandpa before the meal, so at least we got to see him on Christmas.

Tuesday Night: We decided to head out and drive around a check out the Christmas lights in Maurice. Macyn LOVED it. She made comments of, "That's pretty awesome." "That's really cool" but my favorite one was when she saw a whole bunch of toy soldiers lined up and said, "There's the marching band!"

Unfortunately, in the night Macyn got the stomach flu so she had an extra day at home after Christmas. Fortunately, it wasn't a severe case of the flu, so she was pretty much back to normal after one day at home.

Our Christmas weekend was super busy, but it is always nice visiting and seeing our families.

Sunday Best

Macyn really likes her Christmas dress. It is purple with hearts, so she can wear it all winter and not just Christmas. She also likes her "elf" look (that's what we think she looks like). A classic red & green jumper with a turtle neck and boots!

Sledding

We received some fresh snow, and on Friday night on the way home from daycare,Macyn asked if she could go sledding. (we got her a sled for Christmas but were planning on giving it to her early). Here is how our conversation went:
Macyn: I want to throw snowballs at Dad
Me: Not tonight, it's already dark out
Macyn: I want to go sledding
Me: You don't have a sled
Macyn: Yes I do
Me: No you dont..
Macyn: Yes I do, my pink one!
Me: You don't have a pink one
Macyn: Yes I do - its in the garage. I will show you when we get home.

Seriously. Nothing gets past her! She was still just as excited to get her sled on Saturday and head outside to try it out. We have a good enough slope in our front yard that we have a decent "hill" for her to go down on.

A Timeline of... Twins!

I have been off of this blogging thing for about a month now, but I will be trying to be better to keeping this updated as much as possible! For those who don't already know, we are expecting a couple of new little ones in early spring. Here is a little bit of what has gone on since I have gotten a BFP (big fat positive), and what I have been doing instead of blogging)

3 Weeks (September 23-ish)
I took a pregnancy test 1 week before a missed cycle and it came back positive! I was pretty surprised I had a positive reading already. It said on the package that 60% of pregnancies can be detected that early.

5 Weeks
Did you know in our family picture there are actually 5 people?

6 Weeks 
Macyn's birthday party! Really wanted her to wear a "big sister" shirt, but I thought it would be too early to announce. I have always been a firm believe of keeping my mouth shut until you know everything is going smoothly - aka hearing a heartbeat.

7 1/2 Weeks
Thursday night Vikings football game in the cities! We made a long weekend out of it and hit up some shopping. I also came down with some pretty bad bronchitis the previous week that ended up lingering for 8-9 weeks. Awful! Needless to say I ended up sleeping in the car instead of shopping for part of the trip. Between walking around, bronchitis, and being pregnant, I was extremely exhausted.

9 Weeks
First doctor's appointment. I knew it was pretty early to hear a heartbeat, but I was really hoping we would so we could at least tell our parents and possibly others that we were expecting. It was around here it was getting a little more difficult to hide my belly. I attributed it to just showing sooner with your 2nd than your first!

So we went to the doctor, and could not find a heartbeat. My Dr. then brought in the portable ultrasound machine to see if there was indeed a baby in there and/or hear the heartbeat. We received this precious little picture of our baby:

We still couldn't hear a heartbeat, but my Dr. claimed she could see it's little "flaps" aka. arms and legs moving. The baby was measuring 1 week ahead in size, and so was I. Now, take note - there is only ONE visible baby!

A couple days after our initial appointment we told our parents, but explained we were waiting to tell others until we heard a heartbeat with the doppler.

11 Weeks
Another prenatal appointment, mostly to listen for a heartbeat. And guess what?! We heard it (one heartbeat that is)! This was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so we told all our family the following day about our news.
I would be getting an ultrasound within the next couple of weeks because I was measuring 1-2 weeks larger at the time and she wanted to make sure the dates were right. I didn't think much of this because Macyn would always measure between 1-3 weeks ahead.

12 Weeks 1 day
Time for our "dating" ultrasound. Everything looks really normal until the moment the ultrasound tech uttered the words, "Do twins run in your family?" My heart sunk into my stomach and I was like, "why?" And she said, "well, you are definitely having twins and they look like they are identical."

Holy cows. Seriously? And sure enough, they started measuring Baby A:
Length: 7.23 cm = 13w 3d
Heartbeat: 155 bpm

And here is Baby B:
Length: 7.42 cm = 13w 4d
Heartbeat: 169 bpm

And here are their two heads together....I actually had to go in for a second scan the same day because the radiologist wanted to take a look and make sure they are identical. As of now they are still going with that, but it could change whenever I have my next ultrasound. Identical twins are higher risk than regular twins, so it means more doctors appointments and more ultrasounds. 

 

So after only seeing 1 baby, hearing 1 heartbeat, there are two! We were shocked but she shock has worn off and has turned into excitement. I will be 15 weeks tomorrow, so I will try to update a little more :)