My Jonah is 4 years old.

We celebrated Jonah's 4th birthday last week.  He's been asking about his birthday for months and each time we'd venture to the store and there happened to be toys, he'd ask for something and I'd have to tell him "Maybe for your birthday!".  Magic words.

Jon and I decided to get Jonah a bigger bike this year because he's been riding a little tiny one we borrowed from Jon's brother and he's outgrown it.  We picked it up the night before Jonah's birthday and Jon put it together while I decorated the kitchen with balloons.  Jon was so excited to be building Jonah's first bike for him.

The next morning we wheeled his new bike out during breakfast and his reaction was classic:

Then he got to ride it when he got home from school that morning.  It is taller than his old bike so he has to learn to hold it up and balance it which makes him nervous.  He did great!


That night we went to Pirate Island with Jon's family to celebrate and Jonah was so excited!  I don't think I've ever seen him so excited about something before.  The kids had a great time playing games and I had a great time sitting and watching and eating pizza!

We celebrated with cake and ice cream on Sunday with Jon's family.  I asked Jonah what kind of cake he wanted and for a while it was a "bowling cake" but I was able to convince him to have something a little more age appropriate (all the bowling cakes I saw pictures of online also said, "Happy 80th!").  Jonah decided on a Knuckles cake (Sonic and Knuckles).  After a few minutes of free-hand drawing the cake, I worried I'd be frosting over the whole thing with blue frosting instead. 

Happy Birthday, Jonah Boy! We love you!

An Artist Emerges

I've always tried to encourage my children to develop and explore their artistic sides.  I consider myself more of a right-brained person and enjoy expressing creativity (however poorly its done) so I'm always pleased when one of my kids shows me a project they've been working on.

Yesterday was just a normal day and as the afternoon wore on, Sophie woke up from her nap around the usual time.  We've pretty much completed the day-time potty training so when I heard her at her door saying, "I went potty!" I figured she'd done so in her diaper and didn't worry about it.  We haven't quite reached the nap and sleep time training.

When I opened the door, it was as if someone had thrown a ton of bricks constructed completely of POOP right at my face.  I looked down to see a naked Sophie with poop-crusted hands up to the wrists.  All I could say was, "Go get in the bath, now!" to which she responded happily, "OK!"  I found the soiled diaper on the floor, along with a nice giant poop streak on the floor. 

I began gathering up the dirty sheets and blankets nearby and looked up to find another little surprise on one of the twin beds.

I was pretty mad at this point and made sure to get back in the bathroom to tell her how mad I was and how naughty she was.  She responded by asking for more bubbles.

I grabbed some towels and headed back to the room to begin cleanup duty when my eyes lifted from the carpet and up to the walls.  Cave paintings.  Poop smeared everywhere.  Poop on the wicker chair where she stood to reach the walls; poop on the twin bed's comforter; poop flakes on the floor in a visible trail around the bed; poop on the wall on the other side of the bed.

At this point I decided to go back in to the bathroom in another attempt to make her feel guilty (an impossible feat) and soon gave up and decided to growl and groan and mutter under my breath, hoping someone in the cosmos would be listening and understanding my pain.

It took approximately 1 hour, 5 towels, 2 washcloths, 3 paper towels, a good dose of Oxy-Clean, 3 loads of laundry, and finally a sweep over the soiled carpet with the carpet cleaner to remove the putrid smell and remnants of Sophie's artwork.

Proud?  I say, Let's try another medium...maybe crayons on some good, old-fashioned paper.  Shoot, draw me a few nondescript scribbles and I'll secure the means for your very own exhibition and gallery.

Going to take some time...

I know you're probably going to be thinking, "how on earth will she ever find time for this!" but it's something I've wanted to do for a really long time.  I finally decided to go for it and used my birthday money to pick up my first guitar.  I learned to play on my mom's classical guitar about 10 years ago and it was already about 30 years old.  It was in major need of repair so I gave it back to her a few years ago because I knew I'd never trust myself to have it done.

I've been working on my cords and toughening up my fingertips.  Boy does it hurt!  Maybe someday I'll be able to whip out my favorite songs and learn to pick a little like my good friend James--Taylor, that is.

Don't count on any videos any time soon.  Maybe I'll have a goal of learning a song by the end of the year.  You know, I'll just strum away while I use my giant nursing pillow to hold my nursing twins.  What a sight that would be!

For your viewing pleasure...

I made a little video of the girls' ultrasound.  It's nice and short (as opposed to the 22 minutes of looking at every part of their bodies).  Make sure you turn off my automatic playlist before you hit play on the video.  Enjoy!

21 Weeks

I joined a forum for moms expecting twins in July on Babycenter.com and in the last few weeks there have been several moms who have been diagnosed and had to have surgery for TTTS (Twin to Twin Transfusion).  I couldn't help but be worried that I'd be part of that 20% of monochorionic (sharing a placenta) pregnancies that also have the complication of TTTS.  It's a scary syndrome and within weeks your babies could be near death if things go untreated.

On a happy note, I don't have TTTS!!!  We went in today for my comprehensive ultrasound where all the body parts and organs are measured to make sure growth is even and there isn't too much fluid in certain areas.  Everything looked perfect!  My babies are measuring at 13 oz each and are measuring just under 21 weeks which is perfectly normal!  I, on the other hand, am measuring at 25 weeks as opposed to the 21 that I am.  This is also great!

Baby A (I think I'll name them soon so I can call them something more personal than A and B) is still breech and Baby B is transverse and lying across the top of my belly with her feet right in Baby A's face.  How nice!  At least they don't stink.  So Baby A's face is absorbing all the kicks from Baby B instead of letting me feel them.

Here are some glimpses of the progress:

Baby A - Profile

Baby A - (From top to bottom) Feet, Leg, Arm

Baby B - (Much less cooperative) Legs

Baby B - (From Top to Bottom) Profile, Head

I asked Jon to take my 21 week belly bump picture and instead of waiting until I was ready, he just started shooting.  I think he likes the feel of my camera taking continuous shots.  Thus, the silliness:

21 Weeks

And for comparison's sake, here is my 25 week baby bump with Sophie:

25 Weeks with Sophie

For those of you that are interested, I'll also be posting a video of the 21 week ultrasound.

Car Seat Canopies for my Doublets

I finished my first project for the twins today and posted about it on my craft blog.  Check it out!

madeitmine.blogspot.com

Nothing but gratitude

This morning on my way to take Jonah and Jon to school, I noticed a package on the front porch and reminded myself to bring it inside when I got home.  I figured it was for my in-laws since I hadn't ordered anything.  When I got home, I went out to check and it said my name on it.  What??  I took it inside and opened it up and just couldn't help but break into tears.  This is what I found:

My amazing friend, Jamie, sent this to me.  When I found out we were having twins, I went on Babies R Us and started a registry just so I'd be able to keep track of all the things we needed to buy.  I never intended for it to go public. 

Be it pregnancy hormones or just overwhelming gratitude, I was totally beside myself and so grateful for her generosity.  I can't wait to snuggle with my tiny baby girls on this pillow.

Since I'm going to try to breastfeed the doublets exclusively, I knew I wouldn't make it without one of these.  Jamie, you're amazing and I love you!

19 Weeks

Well, it's been 4 weeks since our last checkup on the doublets and yesterday we got to go see them again.  My mom is in town so my sister and I scheduled our appointments back to back and were all able to be there for the respective ultrasounds. 

Once again, I was relieved to see those little hearts beating and to see them moving around.  I've been feeling quite a few kicks in my lower abdomen and was wondering how the babies were positioned since I was really only feeling it in one area.  I'm not going to lie, I was worried that I was only feeling one of them.  I got the reassuring news that they are both breech (not a worry at this point) which explains all the movement down low.

When the doctor first put the device to my belly, we caught a glimpse of the girls' heads right next to each other.  It looked like one baby was kissing the other on the cheek.  It made me realize how much they're going to love being next to each other when they come out.

The doc says I'm measuring right where I need to be.  I measured 21 weeks even though I'm only 19 which is typical for twins.  The gap starts to get larger during the second half of the pregnancy.

Another fun thing is that I'm already starting my visits every 2 weeks instead of once a month.  This is due to the fact that they'll be monitoring for TTTS (Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome) very carefully until delivery to make sure the babies are growing at the same rate.  I'm hoping and praying that everything will go smoothly and my doublets will learn to share early on!

Sophie and Jonah love seeing their sisters.  They talk about them and Jonah often snuggles my belly and Sophie gives them kisses.  Let's hope the kindness continues when they're actually here.

Being Spiritually Fed

We are living an exciting and sometimes scary part of our lives right now.  As I've mentioned before, we have many unknowns this year.  We are working hard to find our place as Jonathan gets ready to graduate from BYU again and we're moving forward into the unknown with only faith and the support of our loving families.  I've been prompted since finding out we were expecting 2 delightful babies to search for more spiritual strength.  I know I need to be on guard at all times to be able to raise my children so that they'll be safe and successful and happy in this troubled world.  How can I teach my children to pray and read their scriptures if I'm not able to do the most basic of commandments myself?

I've been reading my scriptures more fervently and seeking for answers to questions and pondering the words of the prophets.  I've been drinking in the words of those in the Ensign and have been finding exactly what I need to hear.

A few weeks ago, I was able to attend Relief Society for the first time in almost a year.  Jon and I spend every Sunday in Primary with our callings as singing time leaders.  The lesson was given by our Relief Society president and it was called, "Take Time to Be Holy".



She talked about the importance of receiving personal revelation and prioritizing our lives so that we could be spiritually fed by the scriptures and prayer, etc.  Then she played this arrangement of "Take Time to Be Holy" by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the moment the music began, I couldn't stop crying.  I bawled (sometimes audibly) through the entire song and the rest of the lesson.  It was as if that lesson had been prepared just for me.

Then just last week we had a Stake Relief Society Conference where the guest speaker was a woman who has taught in the CES Institute program for years.  Although the average age of the congregation was over 50, she spoke about the importance of family and bearing children.  She gave examples of the women in the scriptures such as Tabitha (Acts 9) and Rebekah (Genesis 24 and 25) and others who desired to have children and waited patiently until that day--sometimes years and years later--would come.  I loved her message of how the world would have us believe that having a family and bearing children is an outdated and irrelevant practice but that the commandment to multiply and replenish the earth is still valid and we still have a sacred obligation to build and strengthen our families.

This morning I opened the March 2011 Ensign and read an article by the General Relief Society President, Julie Beck.  It was called Teaching the Doctrine of the Family.  She discussed the same issues that our children and youth are bombarded with ideas that the family is less important, less stable, and non-essential to our day.  The focus is on individuals and self--self-improvement, self-image, etc.  Something she said brought me peace, "Live and teach with so much clarity that what you teach will cut through all the noise youth are hearing and so that it will pierce their hearts and touch them."  She then quoted President Kimball, "The time will come when only those who believe deeply and actively in the family will be able to preserve their families in the midst of the gathering evil around us...."

So in the midst of our unknown future there is one thing we do know: that we are doing the Lord's work by having a family and raising our children in the knowledge of our Savior and His Atonement and that the "family is ordained of God."-- The Family: A Proclamation to the World.

Artist in Residence

Our kids love to draw and paint but I've never actually seen something recognizable from either of their work.  Jonah knows how to draw shapes and can write his name, etc. but other than that, I hadn't seen much progress. 

The other day, however, he surprised us with a picture he drew on his chalkboard.  He was supposed to be asleep in his bed at night when he started calling out for Daddy to come.  Jonah is full of tricks when it comes to putting off sleep so we aren't too patient when we go back to his room to tell him he needs to close his eyes and stop talking.  When Jon walked into room, he saw a picture on the chalkboard which Jonah described, "That's Daddy, me, and my callapiter (caterpillar)."  We were both impressed with his figure drawing since we'd never seen it before.

The next evening, Jonah took the same picture and transformed it.  When he called us in to look at it, this is what it showed:

Can you guess who is whom?

Jonah explained, "This is Mommy with the babies in her belly, me, and my callapiter."  Ten babies.  If my legs stayed as skinny as they are in the picture during the whole pregnancy, you could put as many babies in that belly as you like!