Christmas Tree Farm

This year we took a trip to a local Christmas tree farm to look for our tree.  We thought this would be fun for Tori but she ended up being pretty grumpy until we got to the petting zoo :)

Tori loved the goats and the pony!  She has no fear of animals and loves to get up close to them.  She petted them until it was too dark to see any more!

 She loved the pony!

 We got to make ornaments out of the tree stump slice and some stamps and ribbon.  The perfect craft for a toddler since it didn't take long to complete.

 Tori with her ornament and our hot cocoa and popcorn.

 The tree farm was a fun little outing that we will most likely do again next year with all three kiddos!

28 Week Appointment

I had my 28 week appointment last week and both babies are still doing great!  Lizzi is measuring 2 pounds 9 ounces and Liam is 2 pounds 12 ounces.  I go back next week for my 30 week appointment and imagine I will be going weely after that.  My goal is still to keep the babies cooking until at least 34 weeks.  I am still trying to work until after Christmas which would put me at 32 weeks.  I have been feeling pretty good except for struggling to get comfortable at night.  Maybe it's the body's way of getting me used to only sleeping for an hour or two at a time.

Here is our sweet baby girl Lizzi!!!!  We finally got a picture of her pretty face!!!  <3

 This one is a little hard to see but it's both babies' hearts.  The large circles are their chests, the small dark circles with the arrows pointing toward them are their hearts.

 This sonogram is of the top of Liam's head....he already has some hair growing!!  It is labeled on the left hand side of the picture and its the fuzzy white line.  The sonographer said that 28 weeks is the earliest they see hair starting to grow so he may have a head-full by the time he's born (and explain all this heart burn!). 

 Another artist's rendering of fraternal twins at 28 weeks.....getting big!!  I'm wondering where all my organs are now?

Festival of Trees

We took a little trip to the festival of trees so Tori could tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas.  She LOVED all the trees, especially the huge tree covered with candy :)

 She had to ride the train twice.....and cried both times when we dragger her away!

 She did great with Santa this year!  She told him she wanted a horsey for Christmas and gave him a big hug.

 She hugged and kissed the little gingerbread baby cut out while we waited in line to buy their famous cookies!

 Yum!  The best part! :)

A Few Pictures

We headed to the park today to take a few fall pictures before it got too icky outside and before I get too big to want to have pictures taken.   Tori was very tired but she did great, and said "cheese!" almost every pose we asked her to do.  Thanks Jeff for taking them for us!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from Mario and Princess Peach!!

 Tori had a great time trick-or-treating!  Brian would pick her up so she could reach the door bell, she would ring it and say trick-or-treat (which sounded like Chuck-e-Cheese) and then say thank you at each house.  She kept telling us she was having so much fun :)  We took her through a neighbor's haunted house they do in their back yard each year and and loved that too! 

 We ran into a little Mario and he got SO excited to see the "real" Mario and to see Princess Peach.  It was so cute!

We had a fun night and Tori came home with lots of candy.  She's getting so big and each holiday just gets more fun!!

Six Months Down!

Well we've made it to 24 weeks!  It is a little comforting to know that if the twins were born at this point that they would have a chance of surviving but they definitely still have a long way to cook before they're ready.  All three of us are still doing well, no complications yet.  I'm now going to the doctor every other week for closer monitoring and growth scans.  The babies are getting cramped already and we still have at least 10 weeks to go.  William is measuring 1 pound 10 ounces and Elizabeth is 1 pound 8 ounces.  They are still in the same positions, with William low and head down with his feet on the upper right side of my stomach kicking his sister in the head (see sonogram picture).  Lizzi is lying horizontal across the top of my stomach with her head on the right top and her tush on the left top.  Her feet are down by her brother's head kicking him in the head and back.  :)  No wonder I usually feel them both moving at the same time....they're waking eachother up each time.

Sonogram picture is Liam's leg on top and Lizzi's head.  You can see how thin the membrane is between them, its the thin white line under his leg.

24 Week Belly....getting big!!



I love these pictures :)  Here's a drawing of fraternal twins at 24 weeks.  Look at how big those babies are!  This pregnancy is going so fast, I can't believe we only have a few months left!

Crafty Mommy Weekend

Ok, so yes I'm very behind on posting.....but hello, we're not only getting ready for one new baby but two new babies! So any way, one of the many reasons why I haven't posted in a while is I've gotten into craft project mode! We asked Brian's brother, Scott, to draw some monkeys that match our nursery bedding on the walls of the babies' room. We're completely done painting the three monkeys and just need some finishing touches before I post pictures of the twin's nursery. So biggest project is done! yay! The next project I started was to start making some hair bows and hair clips for Tori's bangs that are growing out and some for baby Elizabeth. They're so much fun to make! The type I enjoy the most are the flower clippies but I am trying to work more with the boutique bows, so maybe those will become less frustrating and more fun as I get better at making them.  Here are a few...

 So after making several hair clips I started to realize that I have no where to store them..... and so another craft project began!  I made each girl a hair bow holder!  The only thing still missing on them is I want Brian to get some small hooks the next time he's at the hardware store to put at the bottom of each holder for headbands and pony tail holders.  Very easy project and each holder only cost about $5 to make!  Feel free to ask if you want the super easy directions!  These were the first clips that I made....Tori's holder is filling up fast!

My favorite bow so far....Cardinals baseball :)

The last project of the weekend.... the twin's nursery letters!  They're finally done also!  We let Tori paint Liam's letters all by herself then we just went over them to make the brush strokes a little nicer.  She loves crafts, especially painting, so she did a great job making the letters blue.  Can't wait to get them on the walls and go shopping for the final pieces for their room. 

I tried to use this project to talk to her more about having a baby brother and sister but she still doesn't seem to understand what's going to happen in a few months.  She will tell me that the bottles and baby clothes are for the babies but doesn't seem to understand that we're actually bringing two home soon.... boy will that be a shock for her!  She loves to be our big helper so we're hoping that by having her help do everything with the twins that she won't become jealous and that she will fall into the big sister role easily but I guess we'll just have to wait and see!  Only 11 weeks until my goal (per the ob) of 34 weeks!

So they were wrong....it's a BOY!

So we went to the Doctor for my 20-week sonogram and had an hour scheduled for the anatomical ultrasound of both babies.  Brian took the morning off work since he has missed many of the sonograms.  The sonogram tech was checking baby A from head to toe and when we got the "goods" SHE HAD GROWN BOY PARTS!!!  The tech knew we had been told we were having two girls so she checked from several different angles and showed us about 10 views all of which were conclusively BOY!  Brian was SO excited when she told us that the first sonogram was wrong!  We don't even mind that we've done some shopping and the nursery is almost finished!  Brian is so excited to be getting his boy :) We're also very happy that both babies are very healthy, everything looks perfect with them, and that my body seems to be handling the twin pregnancy well.  No talk of bed rest yet!  The doctor said it may become a reality the closer I get to 30 weeks but for now I can continue with any activity that I am comfortable with including continuing to work.  I have been worried about being forced to leave work earlier than planned but we're still hoping I will make it to mid December.  We were also very happy that both babies are measuring big for their gestational age.  Our boy is estimated at 12 ounces and laying head down and our girl is at 14 ounces (almost a week ahead!) and laying vertex across my diaphragm.  We couldn't have been happier with the appointment!  Now we just have to figure out how we're going to work some blue into the nursery and do some shopping for baby boy clothes!!  :)

Nursery Progress

Well we've made a lot of progress on the twins nursery!  Excuse the fuzzy pictures, they're all taken on my phone but at least its a preview.  We are keeping Tori in the same room since it is the smaller room and the twins will be sharing.  Their room is a good sized kids room with a walk-in closet for all their clothes.  The room was originally purple.  We painted the whole room orange then added a fuscha stripe.  I used a paint pen to make the circles (matches one of the prints in the bedding). 

 We've only bought one crib so far but we got it put together and decided how we will arrange the furniture.  Here's one crib with the bedding in the room.  Its starting to look like a nursery, but we still have a long way to go.

 Ok, so this is a super blurry picture but it is such a cute story.  Tori likes to have all of her stuffies at the foot of her bed but the other night she threw them all on the floor to play with them.  We left them when we turned out the lights and put her down to sleep.  She didn't fuss about the animals at all and just said her normal good nights and I love you's.  After we left she must have climbed out of bed and put them all back on the bed and arranged them all around her.  We went in the check on her before we went to bed ourselves and this is what we found. :)

St Louis Hot Air Balloon Race

We went to St Louis last weekend for the Great Forest Park Balloon Race in St Louis.  We've gone every year since before Tori was born and it never disappoints.  We drove the van down Friday night to go to what they call "The Glow" where they let you walk onto central field to see the balloons up close and watch them use the furnaces to make the balloons light up. 

 Tori was a little scared of the furnaces so we had to keep a distance from them but she had so much fun pretending that the balloons were going to fall on her.  She kept holding up her arm to block the balloons and yelling "watch out!" 

 The STL zoo balloon was Tori's favorite.  She loves "Emmetts" (elephants) and kept trying to tickle the balloon from far away.  I even showed her this picture and she tried to tickle the computer :)

 After the glow they cleared the field and had a firework display!  We haven't been to the glow for a few years so this was a new addition for us.

 Then we spent Saturday morning at the zoo since its right by central field where the race is held and we got great parking since we were there so early (we had to walk 1.4 miles each way the night before!).

 The hippos were posing for Tori and she was loving it!!  There were other little kids around and she kept asking them "You see it!?!?!" 

 And then we finally saw the elephants!  She's been talking about seeing them for days....  She also got the see the lions (pumas, tigers, leopards and other big cats too which she called all of them lions) which she proceeded to "Rawwwwrrr" at as loudly as possible!  One the the leopards was sleeping on a rock fairly close to where we were able to stand and it actually woke up and looked at her like she was crazy. 

 Then off to the balloon race.  There were supposed to be 90 balloons this year, but I think many of them didn't show since there was rain in the forecast.  Remember last year when it was scorching hot?  Well this year we wore jackets and hats!  It was actually a little chilly!  It was fairly windy also so the huge Energizer Bunny and a few of the oddly shaped balloons couldn't make it off the ground.  There were still many that did tho, and Tori had a great time cheering them on.

 One of Tori's favorite snacks right now is popcorn so she was very excited to see the giant popcorn bag.  We just had to bust out our own supply for some fun pictures :)

It was still a fun day and we had such a great parking spot that traffic wasn't even an issue (I think it took us an hour just to get out of the park last year).  We finished off our trip with a run to West County Mall for some chick'fil'a and a shopping spree at Motherhood.  We're not sure if we're going to attempt the trip next year with all three kids but we will definitely continue the tradition as the kids get older!