36 weeks and my new expectations

well – we made it! 36 weeks and counting. I will have the girls tomorrow morning  so they will be 36 and a half weeks! I still can’t believe it. sadly, charlie and I came down with another respiratory illness. we put charlie on antibiotics right away on saturday (the benefit of being married to a MD), but I am not sure it has helped much.  I am hoping I can recover enough to not be coughing non-stop with an incision and over my new little girls, but seeing as how I am still coughing every few minutes I am not too hopeful I will wake up tomorrow back to normal.

 

I had another ob and ultrasound this afternoon and the girls looked great. they are getting so tight inside that the measurements are not that accurate. they estimate them to be around 5 lbs 4+ ozs. bill and I think they will be about 5.5 lbs tomorrow. I can’t wait to hold them tomorrow and while 5+ lbs seems big now (while I have 2 crammed inside of me) I know tomorrow they will seem so small!

here is a picture of me and the girls tonight at 36.5 weeks.

charlie checking out his baby sisters.

I have been thinking that I need to set new expectations for myself now that I will have 3 kids under 2. here are a few that I have been thinking about:

• my kitchen and house will not be constantly clean. there will be dishes in the sink and sticky countertops. you will probably leave with yellow dog hair if you come over.
• I will not write thank you notes within the day that I receive the gift. I am just going to make a list and not look at it or think it is a “to do” of mine. they will get done when I have time.
• when I am able to workout again, I am going to adjust my expectations that a good week of working out is 3 times a week instead of 6-7 days.

these boots were made for walking

lily has a new spring accessory – red boots!

she is an atopic dog (tendency to be allergic to a ton of stuff) and is always licking her paws raw and causing sores, etc. bill and I had enough so we ordered her these boots so if she starts licking a lot we can put them on. once we received them I put them on her and she didn’t move the rest of the night. we had to force her to walk in them and she was acting like such a baby.

here is a clip of us forcing her to walk. I love the high stepping.

yesterday was beautiful outside so when bill got home from work early we decided to take lily on a walk to make her realize she can actually function in her new boots. with all the warm weather a ton of snow had melted and charlie loved jumping in the puddles. it was so cute to see him splash around.

charlie also has learned what fire hydrants are. we have one outside our house and when he started talking about it I told him that we can look at fire hydrants, but we don’t touch them because dogs pee on them and that is gross. since then he has been repeating “fire hydrant dog pee gross!” when looking out the window at them. here is a video clip of charlie telling us about it. I crack up at his hand motion when he talks about dogs peeing.

To Him who is able…

to do immeasurable more than we can ask or imagine…(eph 3:20). as I am nearing the end of this pregnancy, I wanted to reflect on God’s faithfulness to us over this past year.

when bill and I started talking about having kids I always thought it would be fun, exciting, and a bit chaotic to have them close together. I loved having siblings close to me in age and wanted that for our family. after we recovered from the sleepless nights charlie brought, we were delighted to find out we were expecting another baby due in december when charlie would be about 20 months old. perfect – I thought. a month later when we found out we lost the baby we were sad and I was disappointed “our family plans” would be changed. I knew God had a plan for our family, but I was saddened that my vision of having kids really close in age was disappearing (little did I know even having kids 2-4 years apart would be busy, but that is a whole different point).  we were overjoyed when we found out we were expecting again in august and were so grateful to see a little heartbeat at 6 weeks. I had to go back in at 8 weeks to verify my due date and at that appointment we discovered there were TWO little heartbeats. I was in shock – never when imagining our family or thinking about God’s plan for our family did twins enter my mind. we rejoiced with the news. after that appointment, I would lay in bed with my mind racing trying to logistically figure out how our lives were going to function with 2 babies joining us at the same time. I was in awe of how my Lord was giving me the desires of my heart in a way I never expected. at our 10 week ultrasound we learned our girls were at a high risk of developing twin to twin transfusion. it was devastating. we prayed constantly and asked our loving friends and family to pray for a miracle. we knew God had a plan for these girls, but were not sure if it would be the same as we desired. I remember feeling covered in prayer and at peace throughout such a fearful time. at our 12 week ultrasound we learned that the fluid indifference between baby a and baby b was gone. we fell to our knees in prayer amazed at God’s protection over our girls. as the pregnancy ticked by we continued to watch our Lord faithfully answer prayer. the girls have remained transfusion free and have grown shockingly equal this entire time. we prayed for a “full term” (or what a doctors deemed was the best time) pregnancy and I am nearing the 36 week mark on sunday. we prayed for my ability to carry the girls and care for charlie over the pregnancy and I have been able to stay active and keep up with my super active toddler throughout this pregnancy (the hardest weeks were the first 14!). while I do still get nervous about our upcoming delivery of the girls, I continue to reflect on God’s faithfulness and provision for us all. He has these girls in the palm of his hands and has a perfect plan for their lives. we rest in the fact that he has all of our days written in His book of life.

we want to thank our friends and family for praying for our family. our desire is that our family will bring Glory to our Lord and Savior. as I write this the girls are rolling and moving all around and in just 6 days (or less) we get to hold and love on them (I go in wed am for a scheduled c-section). our household will be crazy and my type A personality will have to chill out, but I am more than amazed that we have a God who loves us so much that he cares about the details of our lives. that He is able to do immeasurably more than I could have ever asked or imagined by blessing us with these 2 girls.

charlie happenings

charlie is a busy busy boy. mostly playing cars and demanding those around him to join in the fun. a typical line coming from charlie these days is: “HEY MOM!!!! COME!!!!” even if I am right next to him. the best is when someone besides me is over (like pappy, bill, laura, etc) he sometimes forgets that they are playing with him and will say “HEY MOM!!!” then look up and realize it is pappy and say/scream “HEY PAPPY!!! COME PLAY CARS!!!”. or after he puts the cars or trains in a row or line he will scream “HEY MOM! COME SEE! RIGHT DERE (there)!!!”

we really need to work on his smile. this is the face we get when we ask him to smile.

he is talking up a storm and is putting a ton of words together. he regularly uses 5-7 words in a string and occasionally goes up to 10. tonight when bill was putting him to bed and they were going through his Jesus storybook Bible charlie pointed to Jesus and said “Jesus…God’s own son”. bill was stunned. it is sweet to see him soaking up God’s word and really learning what we are reading and talking to him about.

charlie also loves beesball (baseball). he loves to hit baseballs off his tee - most conveniently after his bath before bedtime to delay bedtime. he makes contact with the ball only about 30% of the time.

action shots.

here is charlie in action.

we broke down

and upgraded to iphone 4s. I was originally going to stick with a basic phone because I didn’t think I really wanted to deal with an iphone, but my friend convinced me that facetime is a great feature for her kids to see their dad every day even when he works late. after thinking about it, I realized I would love to be able to call bill and have him say hi to charlie and have charlie see bill even for just a minute or two. it is heartbreaking to hear charlie say dada home? or miss dada? or hold dada? every night around when bill should be home. so we decided to go for it. why not? we have been spending up the waz lately anyway.

thanks to laura we were able to go to the AT&T store before it closed one night and go out to Pescara, a restaurant we have been wanting to try for awhile.

here we are being lame during our coffee and dessert time taking pictures on our iphones.

I was pretty skeptical that I would even like my iphone. well – I love it. I am going to try to keep my all my calendar and to do list stuff on it and hopefully with the girls coming it will make my life easier. only time will tell.

34 weeks

I can’t believe I am posting about my 34 week appointment! the girls were adorable today. baby a was practicing breathing constantly and sucking all of her fingers really hard. she looked hungry already! baby b was practicing breathing too. it is so sweet to see them preparing for the next step of entering this world. both girls weighed 4 lbs 12 oz! I feel so proud that they both put on about 1 lb from my appointment 2 weeks ago.

baby a sucking her fingers (her face is on the right).

baby b’s profile.

my wonderful friend rachel took some maternity pictures of me this past weekend. thanks for documenting the belly rach!

charlie’s 2nd birthday party

yesterday, we celebrated charlie’s 2nd birthday. I am SOOO glad we had this party a month early because it was a joy to watch charlie soak up being celebrated and delighted in before his sisters take over the show for awhile.

we started off the morning with charlie coming into our big bed and opening 2 gifts from us. they were 2 dr. suess books. he was happy to read them with his fire truck balloon and siren truck.

after coming out and seeing the decorations and running around the island and through the streamers 1 billion times we got charlie dressed and fed.

here is a clip of charlie running through the streamers.

then he was able to open a gift from aunt suz and uncle dan. he was pumped to see another thomas train!

a few family pics before church. only a couple more weeks of being a family of 3!

me and my birthday boy on my 29th birthday.

after church we continued to open a few gifties from nana and pops. we had to spread the love out otherwise it was present overload.

do you think he was excited?

he also had a blast playing with balloons with pops. I don’t play with balloons because the squeakiness of the balloons makes me want to puke (pregnant or not!).

I love his face in this picture!

then guesties started arriving.

nicole, cayden (4 weeks old), and me.

charlie just wanted to “hold baby cayden” and nicole was so patient with him. he was kissing him the entire time. we had to pry charlie’s hands off of cayden because he finally started crying. charlie was so sweet and gentle with him.

then the gifts started. uncle pete and aunt margit gave charlie a “rev up”. the guys at the party played with it the entire day. I am still trying to figure it out! charlie loves it he just needs a bit of help to work it.

bubba and pappy gave charlie another precious gift. it is a leather bomber jacket that bill wore as a little boy. bill’s aunt lynn purchased it in rome in 1982.

charlie modeling the jacket…not sure what is up with the face.

then bill brought up a gift for me. now let me explain that I had made it clear to bill that I really didn’t want charlie’s birthday party turning into mine and I really didn’t want any gifts. we have been purchasing tons of stuff for the girls and I bought a diaper bag so I told him that could count. as charlie’s gifts were wrapping up bill came up the stairs with this big bag. I was so relieved when I saw the diaper bag in the bag. I thought…fine if he wants to give me a gift then at least he stuck with “my plan”. then he handed me a little card and it started the hunt. he had written really sweet cards that marched me through all of the pockets of the diaper bag (one of the features we really liked).

going through the bag…

as I continued to go through all of the cards I was suspicious that bill might have decided to purchase another eternity band for me. I have been talking (probably since our wedding night) about how I would love to stack different eternity bands on my ring finger and I have definitely mentioned that we are approaching a perfect storm….our 5 year anniversary (june) and carrying 2 babies. I did not, however, think that he would have purchased the ring without us looking at them and evaluating them. not to mention he was wicked busy the past 2 weeks. so as I was going through the bag I gave bill a few different evil glances and comments. then I got to the end and sure enough bill had gotten me another band! I was delighted and surprised (which I don’t always like). then in typical steph fashion (ie: no filter!) I say “did you get a different size?” and bill graciously answers “it is the size I can afford”. it is all on video so I can never forget that I say the dumbest things sometimes. thankfully, bill knows me and realized that I loved the gift.

getting the box…

here is the new set up.

after that surprise we moved on to cake. back to c little!

charlie and his 2 bffs – addison and kaia. sadly, this is the only picture we have of the 3 of them! wish I would have sat them on the couch for a picture.

singing “happy day to you!”

bill gave charlie free reign with his slice of cake.

do you think he liked it???

kaia gave charlie two books and he LOVES them.

then charlie wanted to thank kaia and say goodbye. we have NO idea where he learned to “kiss” like this (eyes closed and head tilt!)! bill said he is 2 going on 21!!! thankfully, hans, kaia’s dad, swooped in to rescue his daughter.

with that we had to end the party. happy birthday to my almost 2 year old little boy! we love you so much charlie!