Moving Day!!!

just when todd and i were ready to give up on selling our house last summer, and hero saved us in the form of an ecentric, bubbly lesbian named Darla! we heard about her after she sold rach & chris's hosue in 1 week so they could move to new york. they gave us her number and since our house had been on the market for over a year(since i was pregnant!) and after at least 50 showings and cleaning AND 2 newborns, our old realtor releases up and we signed with darla. long story short, the day she put up the new FOR SALE sign we had a showing that afternoon and a full price offer that evening!!! 30 days later we moved!

so after the shock of selling the day our house was listed and getting our full asking price, we had to find a new place-pronto! we looked EVERYWHERE! from ua to hilliard to grove city to westerville, again we were ready to give up with our agent said, you know, there are several houses in my neighborhood that fit your criteria, let's take a look there in reynoldsburg. our criteria for our "dream home" was:

1. QUIET street. after living on whittier right next to the post office, we were ready to say goodbye to mailtrucks, fire engines, traffic, and shouting passerby's

2. BIG backyard. as we only had a cement parking spot in the back, we really wanted a place for the dog and the twins to play

3. 3+ bedrooms. it was really important for us to be able to give rhys & kyle their own room eventually, especially cause they are twins, and a boy and girl, we wanted them to have their "own" space

4. 2 bathrooms. somehow i couldn't imagine sharing a bathroom with 2 teenagers or kids for that matter!

5. Studio/Playroom space. somewhere i could paint while still having space for the twins to be with me safely

before after! *notice the "windows" to my studio on

the other side!!!

we honestly didn't think we'd find that, especially with our limited price range, but like the "story of our lives" as soon as we were ready to give up, we found it! granted, there was bright blue carpet in the kitchen, it had our 5 criteria, even if it was in reynoldsburg! we found our dream home... and moved in nov 1st 2009

the big blurrr

holy crow! has it really been a year since my last post?! did i really just say "holy crow"? its march 24th 2010 and the twins are 19mo old. i remember people telling me oh, it goes so fast enjoy every moment and thinking, yeah right! but during that big blur of 10+ diapers a day, all of sudden i found that we had moved into a new home, the babies became toddlers and i turned 30...so in a nutshell so to speak i will attempt to sum up the last year and try yet again to blog at least once a month, thats a do-able goal, right?

sweet potatoes...mmmmmmmmmmm!

so the twins will be 5 months old tomorrow and have been eating rice cereal every evening for awhile now. the doctor said we can start introducing "orange vegetables" this month...so last night we tried sweet potatoes!

they still can't sit up by themselves, so instead of getting out their highchairs, we put them in their carseats on the dining room table! we used their little bibs and spoons and it was so cute!

both weren't too sure what to do at first and as we spooned it in, they kinda just spit it right back out.

after about 3 spoonfulls though rhys was opening his mouth wanting more and swallowing! he ended up eating half the container! kyle on the other hand made faces and spit most of hers out. we can't tell if she just isn't used to eating with a spoon or if she just doesn't like sweet potatoes!!!

we're going to try again tonite...

summer 2008

by the time august rolled around, it was super hot and i was super uncomfortable! i had been told to stop working the first week of june and two weeks later i was put on "home bedrest" which meant i was only supposed to go/up downstairs once a day and wasn't allowed to be on my feet for longer than an hour a day. i was only 22 weeks and was dilated 2 cm. so basically i wasn't able to drive, walk the dog, paint (i stand at an easel) or anything else other than lay on the couch and "grow babies".

needless to say...i watched ALOT of harry potter and read tons of books and magazines. i found it was really hard to find much info on twins though. i read all the usual books like the "baby whisper", "pregnancy for dummies", "week by week pregancy" and i even had todd read "what to expect while expecting" paraphrasing what he thought i needed to know. i was warned about that book being told that it talked about EVERYTHING that could go wrong and tended to freak out most expectant moms. plus it only had a meager paragraph or two on mulitples and didn't prepare me much for the idea of two babies coming out! actually all those books only had a page or two on multiples really, and didn't tell me more than i knew already. just stuff like you need to rest more, eat more, and will be more sick cause theres two babies instead of one!

in july i really started freaking out about the idea of not only having two babies come out of me, but taking two babies home from hospital and what we were going to do! todd even made me stop reading baby books and made me go back to harry potter for a couple weeks to calm down.

finally, todd's mom came across a book called "twin set" written by two very different moms of twins. i loved it cause they both talked about what worked for them while pregnant and beyond with real examples and advice. this worked out really well timing wise cause i ended up in the hospital for a few days cause i was having contractions at only 24 weeks...the first real week babies a chance to survive outside the womb. anyways, they were able to stop labor and gave me steroid shots to help develop the twins' lungs cause it looked like they were definitely coming early, just not that early! i was sent home, but had to go to the dr weekly to check the babies growth and well being.
by about 32 weeks, i was so big and pretty unable to sleep or do much of anything, the fear of the babies actually coming out started to be outweighed by actually wanting to get them out!!!

that photo was taken the week before i had them and my biggest regret was i didn't take photos every week of my pregnancy! i went back and looked and there are only a couple...i don't remember it, but todd says i was very anti-pictures most of the time...i do really wish i had taken at least one the day we actually went to the hospital and had them but it all happened so fast we weren't really thinking about me or that, just the idea that we were about to become parents, of twins!!!

Its a girl AND a boy!!!

after finding out i was pregnant, then finding out i was pregnant with twins we decided the fact that there are two was the surprise and couldn't wait to find out what combo of babies we were having!
from the second dr.'s appmnt and ultrasound, dr. shepherd said she thought there was a boy and a girl cause the heartbeats were pretty different. i also started having dreams around that time, and i kept seeing one of each too. just after mother's day todd was able to feel the babies move and when we kept talking about what they were, he felt they must be a boy in there cause the kicks were so hard! plus my main craving during may was cheeseburgers! i'm pretty sure i ate more cheeseburgers when pregnant than i did in the last 3 years!!! todd thought because i was craving so much beef, when normally i avoid anything beef, there must be at least one boy in there. plus, we have 3 nieces and another on the way, so we were hoping for at least one boy!
finally may 25th came and the ultrasound tech may us sign this thing saying we wouldn't sue if she was wrong and we held our breath as she looked at "baby a".
"well, baby a looks like a girl, yep! see there? i'm very sure this is a girl!" i remember squeezing todd's hand then and him smiling huge. it took awhile longer for "baby b" to move into position but when he did, he was definitely "all boy" as the tech said! a few tears formed i was so happy. so perfect! our family four pack!!!
on the way home we started discussing nursery ideas. we had started to register, but held off on "decor" cause we didn't know what we were preparing for!!!

two, two what?!

i’ve never really blogged before, and have started more diarys/journals than i can count. but here goes...
it all changed in january this year when i found out i was pregnant. i will never forget that day. i took a test after school right before todd was home expecting the negative i had gotten so many times before...when i saw that little pink plus sign! i called todd and luckily he was driving down our street! i didn't say anything, just "come in the house, now!" i showed it to him, still in shock and he just says "no way" and said let's do another one. it also showed 2 pink lines, meaning pregnant, but it was expired! so we bought a third!!! after 2 years of a rollercoaster of emotions, the pee stick finally showed two very dark pink lines. ( 3 times!!!)
about 3 weeks later, we’re in the waiting room of the doctor’s office as they hand us this booklet with the first page outlining the costs of having a baby. you know like hospital costs, and todd jokingly says "oh look! its only $1400 extra (after the $3600) to pull another one out of you, i guess you get a discount since they’re already in there!"
literally five minutes later, we’re looking at the ultrasound screen and dr. shepherd (yes, not from grey’s anatomy though :) hesitates and finally says "well, you’re definitely pregnant!" my first thought was that oh shit, something is wrong with with it, its missing arms or something. she asks us if we know what we’re looking at. of course we have no idea. i say well, there are these two blob-like like thingys there, what are those? she replies, well, they are definitely two!
"two what?" i ask,
"two babies, you’re having twins!!
and thats how it all began...