A little bit of life lately

Here is a snapshot of a little bit of our life lately. It's been a fun Christmas season so far, and we have had fun getting together with friends. I have been feeling like a puffy mama lately. My hands and feel are getting swollen and it's hard to wear my shoes and wedding ring. You can't really tell just by looking, but when you type as much as I do in any given day you definitely notice little sausage fingers! Small price to pay, but not so fun. :) Other than that and the occasional headache...well lets me honest, migraine, the pregnancy is progressing well! Loving the fact that we are officially a "girl family" more and more everyday!! Here are a few pics of some things we have been up to lately.

Our small group Christmas party....I didn't get any pics of the amazingly cute decorations, but it was awesome. The party later turned into a sock bun tutorial party...how did we do!? :) 

Max & Levi went to see Santa. I wasn't there for this but couldn't help but post. Beyond precious!

 



The belly keeps growing and growing and growing....if you are tempted to say, "You don't look that big for twins at 18 weeks" take a look at 12 weeks! Oh my! The way a body can transform in 6 short weeks is crazy. :) I have to add that around the time of that 12 week picture I was walking around all week saying, "Oh my goodness Lance...I had no idea my stomach would get big so fast!!"

 

I'm just sitting at my computer laughing at the potential for "largeness" in the coming weeks and months. What is 18-24 and then 24-30 gonna look like!? I guess time will tell!! 

 

Here is our nursery bedding....I thought I was going to coordinate and not be "matchy-matchy" but I changed my mind and we are going with identical lavender and white bedding! I LOVE it!!

That's about all as of lately. Not sure why the pictures all posted kind of weird. Happy Monday. I saw 32 kids today and am looking forward to my couch, a movie and a giant glass of water...whew!!

Prayer

I have been trying to gather my thoughts on this horrible shooting in CT all weekend. It is just really so hard to grasp. How can this happen? How could a person do something so horrible? What in someones life leads them in this awful, scary directions causing a complete loss of emotion or empathy for others.

I was thinking today about how I believe that every human being has some level of goodness in their soul. How could they not? We have been created in the image of God. We come into the world perfect, and although we are instantly subject to the evil nature of this world, we have goodness within us. All of us do.

So many times when you hear these stories of awful, brutal tragedies, the end result is the offender ending his or her own life. Is it because they are afraid if they get caught they are going to go to jail? I doubt it. I think it is because they are deeply troubled and conflicted withing themselves. The literal battle between good and evil, is tormenting them. In these cases evil wins. Satan claims another person.

I know mental illness is real. I won't pretend to understand a thing about it because lots of people go to school for lots and lots of years to be the experts on this stuff. However, as an outsider I think we are all overlooking something very real right here in suburban America and that is that Satan is STILL prowling around like a roaring lion seeking to kill and destroy. All I could think of when I was thinking about the gunman who shot these kids was "evil". There is no other word I can think of to describe something like this. I thought to myself, "this person was truly evil". But evil comes from Satan. He feeds us lies big and small.

I hate guns. I would be happy to live in a world where no civilian is allowed to have a gun. But I'm not sure this is the biggest issue here. As Christians we know that evil exists and it is our job to pray against it for the sake of those that can't pray it against themselves. Children. As of today I am praying over the hearts of my two unborn children and my little girl in Africa. I am praying that God enter into the deepest parts of their souls and protect them from the evil one. I'm not a parent yet, but this has been eye opening for me to realize that is it my responsibility to pray that only God enter the hearts and minds of my children because there is a powerful force out there that would love nothing more than to steal and destroy the pure heart of a child. I want my kids to hear the word of God prayed over them so much that once they are older they will believe it and pray it over themselves.

We can increase gun laws, and raise awareness on mental illness, which is all so important. However, we also have the power of prayer on our side and we know that Satan has no power over the holy name of Jesus. Tonight I find myself wondering how much of a radical change we could make if every parent pleaded with God daily for the hearts of their children. If every church begged God to enter where Satan lurks. This was a reminder that this battle is not over. Spiritual warfare is still so real and with my little ones on the way I am feeling a HUGE sense of responsibility for the protection of their little pure souls.

Something I will be thinking about.

WEEKEND

Not much to post on today.
Babies are moving around like CRAZY!
So happy it is the weekend.
Looking forward to sleep.
House needs to be cleaned.
Groceries need to be bought.
Lots of Christmas parties to attend.
Baby GIRL bedding to be registered for.
Some adoption books need to be finished so I can start my next round of reading.
Considering memorizing another chapter or two from the bible. Still blessed every day by memorizing most of James. Suggestions?
Christmas gifts need to be purchased. I have ZERO people.
Friend who just lost her grandma needS a big hug.
Husband who is amazing every day needs one too!

LOOKING FORWARD TO MY WEEKEND!! HOPE YOUR IS GREAT TOO!!

The tale of two "winkies"

This weekend was our gender reveal party! I have been looking forward to this since the time we found out we were pregnant and looking forward to it even more once we found out we were having twins! But let me back up a bit and tell the whole story of the weeks and months leading up to this party.

When we found out we were pregnant we started having routine ultrasounds pretty soon since I was considered "high risk" for a while. Anyway, around 10 weeks I casually said, "I wish we could know the gender of the babies, too bad it's too soon". My doctor looked surprised and said "Really? Because I think we can actually see what one baby is." He then proceeded to say, "unless the cord is in just the right spot I think I see a winkie on Baby A". That's the word he used! :) 

Fast forward a couple weeks and I started seeing a regular OB. I was telling her how the specialist saw a "winkie" and she looked and looked and said, "I think he was right. I see a bright little spot right there that looks like it just may be a boy." I then asked her if it was baby A she was talking about and she said no it was baby B! She said it was too early to tell for sure but regardless there was a possible "winkie" spotting on both babies! I started imagining life with little boys. Only really looked at little boy clothes at the stores and gave my boy names some serious thought! :)

Fast forward another month or so and I had another ultrasound. I told her we weren't going to find out the gender until we were with our family. She then told me if I didn't want to see what the gender was I probably needed to look away because it was very clear! I assumed this meant boy on the particular baby she was talking about. I mean that would be what was easy to spot right?! So I didn't look and went home sure it was two boys and maybe just maybe a boy and a girl.

We had our anatomy scan on Friday and Bethany went with us to find out the gender and then keep it from us. When it was time to scan the "gender parts" she told us to look away. It then took her less than what seemed like 2 seconds to type it up on the screen to tell Betho what it was. Further, proving that it was of course boys in there! 

Betho kept it to herself for the next 24 hours and made cookies with cake balls in them. Delish! She filled all the cookies with white cake with the exception of two which had the color of the gender in them. We had family and friends over and every person got a cake ball cookie. Then at the same time we all broke our cookies in half and waited to see what colors were yelled out. 

Well in about 5 seconds I hear PINK and start immediately looking to see who has blue! Then about 5 seconds after that I hear PINK again!!!!!  Ummmm.....my head was spinning! I was in complete and utter shock!! TWO GIRLS!! Have I mentioned that having twin girls has been my dream since I was a little girl! I really just could not believe it. I told Lance I couldn't believe we just broke open some cookies and our lives were changed forever! 

So, in the next few months we will be adding two little girls and then in the months following that we will be adding a third little girl when our Jane Jordan finally comes home! It still hasn't sunk in. Not sure when it will, but we are so thankful!!

We CANNOT wait to meet you sweet little Nora Beth & Zoe Rose! I don't think we will need to worry about Jane lacking love in this house of sweet SISTERS! I am very blessed! :) 

Someone is outnumbered, but very excited! :) 

 Two little cookies that changed everything....hehe!

Waiting out the traffic....

I work late on Tuesday night (at my old job from when we lived in town) and due to the hail and huge storm I am choosing to sit in my office until almost 8pm so I can wait out the crazy people on the hwy! I am kind of cringing to see if my new car is damaged from the hail. :(

Anyway, not much to post about so I guess I will just ramble on for a few minutes. I experienced my first run in with braxton hicks contractions today. Did you know with twins you can expect all symptoms to appear like 5-8 weeks early! hehe I woke up this morning to my stomach feeling so tight and then seriously took 3 hours getting ready for work because my instinct was telling me to just take it easy today. So I did! :) I called the doctor and they explained to me what it was and it made me feel much better.

I am officially feeling very pregnant. Like, puffy and just much larger in lots of places. And it is just very all of a sudden. I will be honest, as much as I have been on cloud 9 with this pregnancy I have struggled a bit with the creeping numbers on the scale. I really had to stop and force myself to put things into perspective today. I am having twins. There are TWO babies with all there accompanying parts in my belly and I am going to gain weight. Maybe a lot. Probably a lot. I think it is time I just embrace and make a plan to get rid of it post baby! I know this is SO ridiculous but I had it in my head I would go almost full term with these babies and only gain about 20 pounds. Yeah, not gonna happen! Not sure where I even got that!!

Friday is the big gender ultrasound! Have I mentioned I am excited!? I really am. I still cannot believe this is happening to me. That this is the current reality I am living out. It is just so very exciting and surreal. I think my guess is two boys but we will see. I'm not sold 100% on my all blue outfit for the party. But no combination could go wrong! 2 boys and Jane can maintain her position on her thrown, one of each and Jane gets a sister and two girls, well, everyone is still happy but good luck Lance! :) I really just do not care one bit. I just want to see healthy little babies on Friday when we go in. However, I have been at peace this whole pregnancy about the health of these babies because no matter what they are, healthy or not, they are the little people God created them to be and we are the people He chose to parent them! I pray for their health every day but I know they are already perfect! I feel so blessed!! 

Aside from pregnancy I am still learning how to be a school Speech Therapist and it's not easy people! I. do. so. much. paperwork. and I. see. SO. many. kids! I think by the time I leave to have these babies my caseload will be over 70! Talk about multi tasking...and have I mentioned that is not my strength in life? Yeah, its really not. But I love the little munchkins I work with and hope amidst all the legal junk and paperwork I am making a little bit of a difference! But it is a very big change from having one child walk into my office at a time and spend an uninterrupted hour with me or going into rooms at the nursing home and just chatting about feeding and swallowing goals with patients who have just had a stroke. But I continue to be blessed by my job and am very thankful for the part time opportunities I will have once I am a mommy to 3!

Not much else to report. I am excited for the holidays and for opportunities to get dressed up and eat peppermint bark! ;) I have a Christmas party with my college friends this weekend and I am pumped. We are all just as close as we were in college and are all kind of in different stages of life ranging from single and dating, to engaged, to married with no kids to being pregnant and having kids. It is so refreshing spending time with these girls and I look so forward to little things like this!!

Stay tunes for the big reveal.....counting down the hours to get another look at my precious little ones!!

Off to fight the (hopefully died down) traffic! :)

Here is the latest "bump" pic. I think this is at 16 weeks on the dot. And yes I know, my outfit is awesome! ;)