20 Weeks and A Name

I have officially made it to the half way point with baby girl. Half way for someone with "normal" pregnancies anyway. For me, who knows when I really hit that point, but we'll call it today. We have been busy shopping, planning and mulling over names for this little one for the last little while. And I think that we have finally come to a first name conclusion. Hooray!

Here's a little background on the name we have chosen (if you want to know, if not skip to the end.) For those of you that don't know the whole story, at my first 2 appointments with this one, we were told that we would most likely miscarry again. My blood work was all wrong and they couldn't locate the baby nor a heartbeat either time via ultrasound. We were distraught and sad and didn't know what to think when the Dr. kept telling us, "let's wait one more week before terminating." And then was told the same thing the next week, "let's wait one more week." I came home heartbroken and told Mike that the the only thing we could do or have control over was to have a little faith. I even joked with him that if it hung in there and it was a girl, we needed to use the name Faith as a middle name. Finally that 3rd appointment, a shocked me and an equally shocked Dr. found a heartbeat. A good, strong, fast heartbeat. It was amazing and not at all what I expected when we went in.
Fast forward a little bit and Mike was certain that they were going to tell us that we were having another little boy. Again I muttered the words, "lets just have a little faith that they will surprise us." We would have loved a little boy all the same, but still our hearts were pretty set on having a girl. And when they told us it was a little girl, the name Faith rose on the ongoing list to be both a consideration of first and middle name possibilities.
After the small scare again in Omaha, I think it became abundantly clear to us that the only name that fits this baby truly is Faith. We discussed multiple names together and that one always seemed to trump the others. So it's now 95% official...This baby will have the first name of Faith.
We are agreed that we both love it. No decisions, just ideas of a middle name so far. But at least we are making progress. Baby Faith is on her way.

Easter At Our House

The Easter Bunny managed to make it to our house this year even though we were all exhausted from our trip. The boys woke up to baskets of goodies on the counter this morning.

Here's a close up of Caleb's loot. Yes he himself chose a pink basket this year. We still have no idea why but he insisted, so we went with it. He left it out empty before going to bed in hopes the Easter Bunny would find it. Not only did he find it but he filled it with lots of candy. Then he added a couple sets of Micro Ridez, stickers and some Sidewalk Tattoo's with chalk.

And here's a closeup of the twins loot. The Easter Bunny found cute wheel barrow's for them and used them as baskets. Then they each got their share of candy, a new Goofy and Donald Duck, stickers and each got a new monster truck.

We spent some time looking through the baskets and showing Mom and Dad every single piece of candy and toy the Easter Bunny left for them.

Then it was time for the long awaited egg hunt. Caleb was chomping at the bit to get started and kept spotting them all over while we made him wait for the twins to be ready. When we said "go" he was off like a lightning bolt. He was nice and let the twins find some of their own as well.

I think he found more than plenty for himself!

And the boys were happy with the few they found.

We spent time emptying all of the contents of the plastic eggs into a bowl. They contained candy, more stickers and a few even had some coins in them for the piggy banks. Then it was off to the races with the wheel barrows.

The boys spent the morning, eating some candy and playing with their new trucks and things. Then realty set in and all the things neglected while we were away needed to get done. We got to spend some time in the nicer weather getting yard work done, inside doing laundry and then going grocery shopping. Tonight we got to meet Papa Ringo and Grandma Judi in Provo with Uncle Ryan and Melanie for dinner and to get our beloved doggy back that they were babysitting. It was a nice ending to our Easter Day. Even with the chores and business, it was a good day indeed.

Omaha 2011

This years Omaha trip was a little more laid back than usual. The first couple of days, the boys arrived without me while I was in Dallas. Mike spent some time with his siblings playing video games and go-carting and the boys spent lots of time with Sue and Grandma Annie playing away. I arrived on Sunday evening just in time for dinner with everyone. On Monday we went to the Space and Air Museum (SAC) and the boys got to walk around and see all sorts of military planes and even some old cars they had on display. They had a great time and were thrilled to leave the gift shop each with a new toy plane or a space shuttle. Our second destination ended up being closed, so we made an unplanned stop at the outlet mall (it was just right there, I promise) and I made off with some more great deals on girly stuff. Then it was back home to prepare for another family dinner and small late Bday party for the twins. And Caleb got to go to Tai Chi class with Great Aunt Sue and talk to her teacher in Chinese. He loved it.
On Tuesday, I went shopping with Aunt Peggy and Kari and scored some Huskers stuff for Mike and Caleb some little outfits for the twins and of course a couple bags full of pink stuff. Meanwhile Mike and Grandma Annie and Sean took the boys to a play place and let them run off energy. Poor Aunt Sue got to stay home after her septic tank sprung a leak on us. She ended up waiting all day for the sewer people to come fix it for her. It made for a lot of fun jokes and razzing from the family about what a "crappy day" that turned out to be for her.
Wednesday didn't quite go as planned. Mike and I went and did some grocery shopping in the morning with the twins for some items we needed to fix dinner on Thursday while Caleb went to Tai Chi again. I had started having a few minor pregnancy complications the night before and when they were still going on on Wednesday morning, I placed a call to my Dr's office here in Utah. Even though we were pretty sure that everything was ok, the on-call Dr there suggested that we go to the ER in Omaha and get checked out as a precaution, so we called Grandma Annie over to watch the boys and off we went for a 4 hour detour. Everything there checked out pretty ok and I was just told to take it easy and follow up with the Dr when we got back. Meanwhile, Grandma Annie, Great Grandpa and Great Grandma had fun with the boys at Sue's house coloring eggs. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and then we all went out to dinner for some pizza.
Thursday was spent all day at Sue's, relaxing some more, doing some laundry and packing up. Mike and I prepared homemade lasagna for the entire fam for dinner and we got in a lot of visiting for our last night there. We left early Friday morning and drove to Cheyenne before we stopped for the night and then we made it back home Saturday afternoon.
We had a great visit, even with the minor detours. Although I don't miss Omaha itself, I do miss all the family and wish we could see them more often. Enjoy some pics from our trip.

DALLAS!!!

The long awaited Dallas trip finally came and went. My sister and I took off early on Friday morning and flew out there. We found our way around fairly easy thanks to my sisters GPS on her phone (Lola) and got all checked into the hotel. We wanted a pretty easy going day from there and went to the Cheesecake Factory for some late lunch/early dinner and then wandered around the mall where this little gem jumped into my shopping bags for little girl. RAH!


After some sleep, we headed off the next morning to goof around and bam! Who would have known it was try-outs? Pretty fortunate timing if you ask me. I made the squad! lol :)

We went to the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum and had an absolute ball there. We went to that museum, the adjoining wax museum and through a mirror maze all at the same place. I was having camera issues all day (don't ask) so my sister took all those pics. If she posts them soon, I will steal them and share. All the rest of the pics were taken from my phone. Then it was time to go locate the stadium. We found it with no problems and let me just say, IT WAS BEAUTIFUL! Brought a little tear to my eye.

Since we found it so quickly we went to grab a bite to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings nearby then headed over early to brave the parking crowd and hung out with the other die hards in the parking lot until the doors opened. Once inside, we had a good time in the pro-shop buying souvenirs. Ok mostly I had a good time, but she bought Kenny stuff at least. We got very lucky and got front row parking and once inside our seats were right where the escalator dropped us off. Very little walking for us. We found our seats and marveled at the inside of the stadium (ok again more me, than her). Look at how huge this thing is. This is the mostly empty pic.

We were excited and ready for Kenny in our new fancy hats we also picked up at the mall the day before.

I looked behind us and notice our seats were right in the section of a few of my all time favorite players. I couldn't help but take a couple pics.

We got a little surprise and found out the night before that not only would we be seeing Kenny Chesney and the Zac Brown Band, but we would also be seeing Uncle Kracker and Billy Currington. Whoo Hoo! My phone sucked at trying to get pictures on the stage but here's Billy on one of the screens.

And Zac Brown Band.

And by the time Kenny was up the stadium was full- This is my full pic. Isn't it the most awesome thing ever? Just me and about 60,000 of my friends.

Kenny came out, my phone was almost dead and I was loving it too much to take pics anyway. It was an awesome concert. I am so glad I was able to go with my sister and have some fun. All in all, it lasted almost 7 hours! We definitely got our monies worth. Then it was back to the hotel and I flew out early the next day to meet my hubby and kids who had already made it to Omaha without me for the 2nd leg of our vacation. Stay tuned for those pics.

17 Weeks and the Weekend

This has been a pretty good weekend so far. Mike decided to work from home on Friday and got started early in the day so that he could have a break in the middle of the day to go to the Dr and run some errands with me. It was time (already) for my regular 17 week checkup. It was pretty mellow. We listened to the heartbeat and he did a quick ultrasound like normal and he decided to check for himself if this was a a girl. He fully agreed with Fetal Foto that it is a little girl. We are seriously so excited. And in other great news, we think we have found a work around to the Progesterone thing. ( I'll explain in another post). While we were running the first errand after the appt, our friend Laurel let us know about a huge kid stuff consignment sale that she was currently volunteering at and we just happened to be on that side of town so we decided to run on up and check it out. I went a little crazy with the girl clothes and shoes but they were all so cute and in such good shape (some still with store tags on them) all for each $1-3 each! I couldn't pass it up. Here's my mostly pink haul. After we gathered up the kids from school and the babysitter, we came home for a while to allow Mike to get some more work done and then it was time again for our 2nd complimentary visit to Fetal Foto. We went and this time the tech found it in less than 3 minutes and said she was 100% sure that it is a girl as well. So finally after 3 different techs there and the Dr. I think Mike is convinced. :)

We had a good dinner together at IHOP in that shopping center and then since Cold Stone was right next door, I decided that we should officially celebrate and do it right so we walked over and bought us an Oreo ice cream cake. When we got home and it was time for dessert, I layered on the pink sprinkles. The Girl Celebration was on!

Today started out with some more errands and a bunch of house cleaning. I told myself to be good but every store I went in had such cute girl stuff that I couldn't resist buying a few little things. After the housework was done, we ran another errand on the other side of town and then took the boys for a little surprise and took them to Chuck E Cheese for a little late lunch. They had a ball. It was the first time the twins really started understanding what was going on and wanting to play the games. It was so funny to watch them try to play and throw their hands in the air and say "Horray " and "I win." Then we ran across the street to the mall to walk around. And you guessed it, I found more girl stuff both at Gymboree and Childrens Place. But it was all on sale or clearance, so I get some points right? Oh yes, this little Girl is going to be hard on the budget. She already is and she's not even here yet. Heaven help us. :)

Think Pink!

Being the impatient people that we are, we wanted to know what this little one was before we went on vacation in a couple weeks, so we opted to go to Fetal Foto and find out. I was thrilled when I called to make an appt and they told me I was already far enough along to find out so we scheduled an appointment for Tuesday night. We went and took the boys with us and this little one was completely uncooperative. It had it's legs crossed and the cord between them and would not budge from that position no matter how hard that poor tech tried to get it to. She "guessed" that it was a girl, but told us she would rather us come back again for another visit to look again and gave us a voucher for a free visit. So we made an appointment for this afternoon and tried again. This time the baby was a little more cooperative and here are a few cute shots.

I call this one the high-five shot. and a little foot kicking me

Here's that cute little face

And Bam! The money shot.

That's the one and only shot baby GIRL allowed them before she promptly crossed her legs again. She's so modest already. ;) The tech was so nice today and felt like we didn't get enough good shots of the girl parts and while she is 98% confident that is in fact a girl, she again gave us a voucher to come back for a third visit, just to get more pics. So that one is scheduled for Friday evening. If she cooperates, I'll post more.

Bikes for the Birthday Boyz!

We waited until after the party when we were having a relaxing day at home on Sunday to break out the presents we got for the twins. We found them these cool 2 in 1 trikes. They are trikes now but when they get a little bigger they turn into big wheels so we can enjoy these for years to come hopefully. Mike put them together during nap time and the boyz have been having fun on them ever since.

We also spent some more time playing Monster yesterday and trying to scare Mom. I love these

Little Monsters!

Monster Party

The Monster Party was another success. We had some of the cutest monsters hanging around our house and it was a nice enough day that they spent some time outside during it. I can't believe my babies are turning 3 in 2 more days. Where does the time go?

Grizz Game 2

We have had a busy Birthday weekend for the twins. We started off on Friday by going to a friend's birthday party and then right after that, another Grizzlies hockey game with my entire family. We all had a great time, even if the Grizzles ended up losing again 3-1. Here's are some pics of a couple fights, some action and the fam having fun.

Then today was time for the party. Pics to come!