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Sorry for the silence. It was crazy for a while with people in town for the baby shower, then a LOT going on around the house for a while will all the awesome stuff we got! I kept meaning to post something last week, but always forgot! Can we blame it on the pregnancy brain? [...]
I just got done putting together my 27 week photo, and for fun, I decided to compare it to last weeks to see if you could tell I’d grown at all. And boy, could you! Check it out.
They are each just over 2 pounds (plus the weight of the placentas!) and are roughly 14-15 inches long. They’re getting so big! It’s no wonder it shows in my belly. I also had my OB appointment today. Belly growth wise, I’m on par for someone pregnant with a singleton at full term (40 weeks). Crazy!
This last weekend was Darren and my 6th wedding anniversary. To celebrate, we decided to make a long weekend trip of it and combine it with a babymoon. So, on Friday afternoon, we caught the train and took for for Seattle for the weekend! We had a blast and, even though I couldn’t do a lot, we got to do some new and exciting things!
On Saturday, with Darren being the tech geek he is, we had to hit up the Microsoft store. It was like watching a kid in a candy store! We both ended up winning $25 gift cards and brought him home a new controller to use on both the PC and the XBOX 360. Here’s a quick snap I took inside the store. This was just one XBOX station they had set up for demoing. I think these boys were all brothers. Their dad was there on another station, too. It was a family activity!
We also got to try Seattle’s version of doughnuts. Here in Portland, we have VooDoo Doughnuts. It’s a must when visiting. Top Pot Doughnuts is Seattle’s must doughnut place. And delicious it was.
We also got to watch history that day. Darren took me to the baseball game (Mariners vs. White Sox) and the Mariners got creamed. To say the least. In the history of the MLB there had only been 20 perfect games pitched. This means that the winning team’s pitcher pitched the whole game and never once let anyone get on base from the opposing team. Only 20 times has that happened. We got to, first hand, witness the 21st Perfect Game. Only, it wasn’t the team we were routing for that won. It was bittersweet, but I just loved being at the ball field and eating my hot dog. Pure bliss.
Sunday was our actual anniversary, so we decided to go check out the Space Needle. We’d both been here before, but (to the best of our knowledge) we’d never been to the top. We later found out from Darren’s parents that he had been to the top before; he was just too little to remember.
After the Space Needle, we rode the Monorail (another first for both of us) to the Seattle Public Library. For those that have never been, if you’re in Seattle, definitely check it out! It’s not your typical library, and the architecture alone is worth the trip! Afterwards, we went to dinner on the waterfront. It was a GREAT weekend and I’m so glad we got to go! It’ll be our last escape before the babies come. It was my first experience on a train, too, and it was amazing! It was nice that I was able to get up and walk around, go to the bathroom whenever I needed to (!) and relax! Some things I wouldn’t be able to do if we had driven.
I can’t wait until our little ones get big enough to take on vacations!
Well, we did it.
A high school classmate of mine puts on a virtual race every year called the Powder Blue 5k. {What’s that? Click here to read all about it.} Since I’ve been trying to stay active through yoga and walking since I got pregnant, and my racing days are over, at least for a while, I thought it would be a great challenge for me to get out there and see if I could do it – at over 6 months pregnant with twins. It was quite possibly the most unconventional 5k ever done, but we did it.
It took 2 hours and a quick 10 minute caffeine jolt break at Starbucks {we split an iced coffee}, but we finished. We walked the whole way – me being quite slow at some points, but it was actually a lot of fun! Even if I will be useless the rest of the day. We used one of the walks from our Portland walk book, picked a pretty decently flat urban walk and made an afternoon of it. We even escaped a parking ticket since it took longer to walk than we thought!
The point, though, is that we finished. And if I can do a 5k {even if it took me 2 hours} as pregnant and uncomfortable as I am, what’s your excuse?
Here’s a not so great picture of us afterwards; tired, and looking straight into the sun.
Go here to see the results of everyone else and where they did their race!
My mom has this thing where she sings the same song to all her grandchildren. She’s already informed me that she’ll continue the tradition with my children. It’s a cute song and it’s one that she and my grandma used to sing to me and my sister. In any case, I thought it would be fun to incorporate it into the nursery. So, check out the new addition.
Don’t mind the stuffed animals. They took over the glider this morning. And apparently, they brought their blankies.
The nursery is far from being complete. But I am slowly getting things ready for babies. You’ll still have to do a lot of imagining when seeing the ‘in progress’ photos. Here’s an update of the monster panels I made. They’ve finally been hung! Hurray! (Took long enough, right?) Here’s where you’ll have to use your imagination. They look tiny in the photo because there’s hardly anything on that side of the room yet. The car seats are sitting on the floor underneath, but you’ll have to pretend that there is a pack & play or a crib there instead.
And, since most of you know, and those who don’t can obviously guess from the previous photos, I’m decorating the room in monsters. I was able to find some super cute monster wall decals to put on the opposite wall. You’ll also have to do some imagining here, as well. Right now, it kind of looks like a clump. To the left of the decals a framed print will hang. To the right, just out of the pictures, is the closet door. So it won’t actually look weird once it’s all put together.
I’ve got a couple more projects in the works right now, so hopefully those will be done in the next couple of weeks and I can get better, updated pictures up. One of them is that I actually have a changing table now! It’ll sit just to the left of the glider, but I’m in the process of getting it ready to strip and repaint, so it’s in pieces right now.
Oh, and happy 25 weeks! Maybe you’ll get lucky and I”ll post a belly picture tomorrow…
I’m absolutely loving the fact that I’m not using shampoo anymore. It sounds so strange, but my hair has never looked or felt better! I now have natural shine and smoothness that I wasn’t getting when using shampoo. I’ve even turned my sister onto the idea. Here’s a couple of things she had to say about it.
I haven’t used shampoo since we started talking about this.In fact I haven’t had to use any product at all! My hair is much softer and more manageable!
I love that if i don’t have time to shower first thing in the morning I don’t have to throw it up in a pony tail to hide the nastiness until I do get a shower! And it used to take me 15 min to straighten my hair and now its a 3 minute job!
She also mentioned to me that she found a cucumber lemon ‘Shampoothie’ to use once a week. I’m going to try it today. If it’s anything like the baking soda or vinegar, I’m going to love it! Here’s the link. It’s really just one peeled lemon and a peeled cucumber blended together. The lemon acts as the shampoo and cucumber, the conditioner. So, really, you could just do one rinse with this or combine it and use it after your baking soda (in place of the vinegar).
I realized that I didn’t post the recipes for the mixtures, and if you didn’t click the links, then you still have no idea what to do! It’s really easy.
For shampoo: Mix 1 tbsp baking soda with 1 cup water. Mix well. I put mine into travel size sqeeze bottles and just shake them a bit before using them. If you have thick or curly hair, you can add extra baking soda. If you have thin or fine hair, add a little less. Play around with it until you get the perfect amount for you. Apply to your scalp area, massage in and eventually work in your ends. Rinse.
For conditioner: Mix 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar with 1 cup water. For this, I actually put mine into a little 3-5 oz spray bottle. I find it’s sometimes easier to use the spray bottle than just pouring it. Though, I usually put half into the spray bottle an half into a squeeze bottle. Just in case. It acts as a natural detangler, which is great! Just mix it up and give it a shake. I focus it on the end of my hair, but put a little up near my scalp as well. Gently rub hair together to work it in and rinse.
That’s it! That’s all it takes to get great looking hair without the shampoo/conditioner chemical build up.
I started a pregnancy blog just after we found out we were pregnant – before the end of the radio silence on here. I love the reflection questions they ask. I thought I’d post some from the last couple of months.
FOUR MONTHS
What I least expected with this pregnancy was: the morning sickness. I never thought it would last this long!
What has changed the most in my life with this pregnancy is: everything! We’ve waited so long for this, and I can’t believe it’s finally happening. It’s brought me and Darren so much closer and we’re so excited to expand our love and our family, and that is definitely something I would never take back.
At my prenatal visit this month I discovered that: we’re having a boy & a girl! We couldn’t be happier!
FIVE MONTHS
The first time I felt you kick: I felt baby girl at 16 weeks and 4 days. Of course, I had no idea which it was, except it was baby A (no gender yet!). It was right below my belly button. It took a little longer to feel baby boy since his placenta is in front on the right side – not until 18 weeks and 2 days until I was sure that it was him. I felt him up top near my ribs on the left side.
It felt like: Both felt like gas a little, but was different and I KNEW it was the baby. I was in bed trying to fall asleep when I felt baby girl, and I was at an ASMP function when I felt baby boy. Both times it was incredible, and to this day, I haven’t gotten tired of feeling them move. It always makes me smile!
The strangest food craving I’ve had is: craving TONS of oranges! For those who know me, know that I don’t like oranges, especially mandarins and orange juice (more specifically OJ with pulp!). But recently, I’ve gone through a box or two of Cuties, and can’t get enough oranges. And pulp? No problem! Bring it on. Maybe it will stick?
SIX MONTHS
Buying maternity clothes was: Um, it feels like so long ago! I’ve been wearing maternity clothes since about 8 weeks! I’ve been lucky enough to get a ton of hand-me-down clothes, so I haven’t had to buy too much.
The biggest change in my body has been: My belly button. It’s gone missing! Actually, soon it may become an outie…
My favorite change in my body has been: the fruit cravings. I’m hoping this sticks.
At this months prenatal visit I learned that: the genders haven’t changed. Yay! Still a boy and a girl – doing very, VERY well. Next appointment I get to do my glucose test.
I’ve been noticing lately that I’ve started getting a lot of shampoo and conditioner build up in my hair. I never used to have this problem. I’m not sure if it’s partially due to hormones and pregnancy, but I don’t like it. It leaves the hair next to my scalp looking greasy even when it’s not. Yuck.
So I started doing some research. I had read somewhere before that using some type of vinegar can help strip your hair of these chemicals and get it looking healthy again. I stumbled on this site, Simple Mom, and found that it has a few great recipes for hair care – and a TON more! It’s actually now a daily read for me. But in any case, I’m going to try the baking soda shampoo and apple vinegar conditioner they use. And since I already had the ingredients in my pantry, it’s not only going to be really easy, but really cheap, too! Shampoo starts getting expensive…You can find the hair care post here. I’m hoping it will yield great results! We shall see in a couple of hours…
With my ever expanding belly comes the realization that in a mere 3 months Darren and I are going to be parents. Talk about overwhelming! We are very excited, but with that excitement comes a bit of hesitation and fright. We can’t wait to meet the little ones, but I’m okay with them incubating for just a little longer.
Since I’m not working much these days (and quite possibly next week being the last week I’ll be working for a long while) I’ve got some time on my hands to get ready for the babies around the house. Last week, my mom came into town and we did a massive amount of baby shopping. A major region-wide resale/consignment sale was happening and we were able to score some great deals on baby things – a couple of bouncer seats, a brand new pack-n-play, a nursing pillow and a ton of plain cotton onesies to name a few. It was a lot of fun and I started to feel slightly more prepared for their arrival… Even if we still didn’t have anything to bring them home in. On her last day in town, my mom went car seat shopping with us. I thought this was going to be an easy process. I knew which car seat I was looking at and liked (and had looked at a ton of reviews!) and we had even brought in our FREE double snap-n-go, plus I’d stocked up on coupons and they were having a giant one day sale. It was much more overwhelming than that. First thing we ran into was that NONE of the car seats in the store even fit into the snap-n-go. As it turns out, it needed spare parts that we weren’t given to us. We found a phone number to call, but, of course, they aren’t open on weekends. So, as luck would have it, they had just had an online purchase of a snap-n-go (different brand) returned to the store that they would sell to us at a discount. So, we got it to work with the original car seat that I had been looking at. It worked great! Then Darren did something awesome. I was planning on getting two car seats – the same one. It didn’t matter to me if they were different, so the easiest thing to do is get the same one, right? Well, Darren advocated for the babies and said they are individuals, and we need to get them individual seats. One for a girl and one for a boy. I loved it! So we started looking around at the options of styles (and weights!!) in the car seat we wanted. We finally found the perfect ones. Here’s us with the car seats in the store, shopping, and then one of each of the car seats themselves.
My mom had to take this picture because we unknowingly dressed to match the car seats.
MI love them! The girl’s car seat is a Disney’s Minnie, and I never thought we’d buy something like that. But the character is so subtle and the design so cute that we couldn’t resist! The boy’s car seat is the original car seat I had been looking at an thinking we’d just get two. I love this plan even better.
UPDATE: I actually called the manufacturer of the original snap-n-go that we were given, and because the model we have is so old (manufactured in 2006) they don’t even make the manuals or spare parts for it anymore! I guess we’ll have to see if we can find a new home for it.
Another thing I got super excited about was and idea I came up with for decorating the nursery. The main colors we are using are yellow and grey, but we are using several accent colors (blue, pink, green and brown) and the theme of the nursery is monsters. I loved it immediately! I found the cutest little monsters on pinterest (oh, pinterest!) and decided I had to incorporate them somehow into the room. I decided to do fabric panels and cut out and put together four cute little monsters. Here’s what I came up with.
They are all 12×12 panels that will hang over the crib area. The opposite wall will have a couple of monster decals on the wall above the trunk (and maybe on the closet door?). In any case, I’m very excited about decorating now!
