An eventful Christmas morning!

Where do I begin?! I'm going to have to go back a little further than Christmas so bare with me.

So I am officially NOT working anymore, but that hasn't meant I've been able to slow down! I was quite busy leading up to Christmas trying to get the house cleaned up and decorated and getting all the last minute baby gear I thought we needed (I had a bunch of coupons that expired on Christmas Eve) and trying to make our first Christmas away from family not so "hard" on us. For those who might not know, because of being preggo with twins I was told not to travel after 27 weeks gestation, meaning we were going to be spending Christmas in North Carolina. It was a first for both of us, but we knew why we were doing it and weren't upset. As long as the girls stay healthy and growing, and we want to keep them in utero for as long as possible. Which brings me to another point, when you are right around 31 weeks with twins, don't try to make over 2 dozen gingerbread men from scratch...it might put you in labor! Don't worry I'm about to go into detail. ;)

Let me start with all of the events that led up to my eventful Christmas morning...

So Christmas Eve I decided I wanted to make Christmas cookies. And what is more Christmas than gingerbread men? I had bought two rolls of gingerbread cookie dough thinking that it would cut down on a majority of the work and that it would be a breeze for me to roll out and use my cookie cutter to make the men and bake them. Well, I was wrong. I think I spent three hours trying to roll out the dough and cut out the men, but they kept sticking to the counter or breaking. When it was all said and done I ended up with around 30 little men when there should've been closer to 40. Luckily I gave myself plenty of time to bake them before I needed to get dressed for Christmas Eve service.
Service was nice (different (for me) since it was Methodist) but I still enjoyed it and they sang some of my Christmas hymns and had the candle light vigil at the end where we sang Silent Night.
Once we got home I made a batch of Mom's individual cheesecakes and a loaf of pumpkin bread all for Christmas day breakfast and lunch. Well while the cheesecakes were baking I made Rush take who-knows-how-many pictures with me in front of the tree because we were dressed nice from church. Lets just say we both were pretty frustrated by the time we got one that was satisfactory to me. By now it is getting very close to midnight and my pumpkin bread is still baking and I noticed that my lower back was starting to really hurt. I tried laying on the couch while I waited, but it didn't really relieve any of the ache. Somewhere in the back of my head I heard some small warning bells, but I didn't want to jump to conclusions so once the bread was out, I went to bed.
That only lasted an hour and a half before the ache and smaller bladder woke me up. Knowing I am always at risk for preterm labor and that a lower back ache is a sign of preterm labor (and after talking to my sis-in-law earlier that day about a friend of hers who had her baby at 31 weeks because she had ignored the signs of preterm labor) I decided to call the Labor & Delivery and asked them what they thought. After a few minutes on the phone they decided I should come in just to be on the safe side. So at 3:30 Christmas morning I drove myself to the hospital. Before anyone gets on to Rush for not driving me, I did tell him where I was going but told him to go back to bed. I wanted one of us to get a full night's rest because I still planned on eating breakfast with his aunt, uncle, and cousins that morning.
So once at the hospital they hooked me up to monitors to follow my contractions and the girls' heartbeats. I couldn't feel the contractions but they said they were more like labor contractions than Braxton-Hicks so around 5:30 they gave me a shot to stop them, and were going to watch me for another hour before they sent me home. The contractions stopped, but one of the side effects is that it made me feel jittery and my heart race. BUT on the very bright side, I didn't ignore any preterm labor signs (that could've meant Christmas babies for us) and they were able to stop what little labor I was in. On a side note: I did get to hear Camp Lejeune's first Christmas baby crying! It was very sweet to hear that healthy cry.

So I happily left still large and pregnant, and I have one heck of a Christmas morning story for those girls when they are older! :)

*Since this post ended up so long I will be posting later about how the rest of Christmas day went down, and all the other events that have happened up to today. :) I hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year!

You could call it the end of a chapter...

Well it's been a week since I've last posted, but I've got an excuse! (Who doesn't?) ;) Anyways, I finally have a new assistant to train to take my place at Furniture Fair, and teaching her seems to keep me pretty busy for the most part. But in about a week I will probably no longer be a working woman, but a stay-at-home-and-rest-up-to-delay-being-a-mom-too-soon woman. :) Either way I am looking forward to having time during the day to do what still needs to be done to prepare. There just isn't enough time between when I get home, cook (pick up) dinner, and when I want to go to bed to get everything done.

That and December has just been plain crazy! This month (as of today) I have: 6 dr appts (most will take half of my day), 4 events (5/10 wives gatherings and Christmas parties), too many little things around the house to do to count (decorating for Christmas and getting organized for babies), and 1 very special someone's birthday! On top of it all I am officially nesting because I am wanting to CLEAN everything! And those who know me, know that that IS unusual for me. :)

But during all of this Rush and I were able to get "adult" living-room furniture (no more mix matched pieces from college!) And I LOVE it! I will try and get a picture up soon so everyone can oooh and aaahh over it. I also took some time out to bake and decorate 48 sugar cookies for a cookie exchange with some other wives. I plan on shipping a majority of what I brought home out to the guys I know in Afghanistan who won't get to be home for Christmas this year. If anyone else feels the desire to do the same let me know and I will email you the address for the guys. Two are other Marine Lts we met here at Lejeune and the other is my older cousin Ryan.

Well until next time, take care and God Bless! (My sis decided that she was going to give me a deadline to get my hospital bag together by this coming weekend and some of the stuff I need is online so I need to hurry up and order it!) :)

The REAL shower invite!

So my sneaky family and friends managed to surprise me! I had no clue that my baby shower was going to be in the King William district of San Antonio in a bed & breakfast! It was gorgeous and really fun. Thank you to everyone who helped make it such a special day for me, especially Jess, Liesl, and Robin. Y'all are awesome! So here's what my REAL invite looked like...

The reason I keep saying "real" invite is because my brother Garrett, who designed them, sent me a copy of one in an email and told me not to say anything because he wasn't supposed to send it to me. Of course he edited the location to be at the Baptist Church in Somerset. Either way, no harm done and I still LOVE my invites! :)

I LOVE coming home from Dr visits with pictures!

Today was my most recent MFM (Maternal Fetal Medicine aka my specialist Dr) appt was this morning and I must say it was one of the best! Not only are all three of us doing very well, but I left with quite a few ultrasounds of the girls' profiles! :) I didn't gain too much Thanksgiving weight, my blood pressure is great, and my cervix is doing excellent for my "condition" (meaning twins). The girls are now weighing in around 2.5 lbs each (meaning the Thanksgiving weight went mostly to me!) and the Dr. said that they have a overall difference of only 3%! Which in his eyes is nothing, so my identical girls are truly identical right now. I would say one is more active than the other but apparently one is facing inwards towards her sister and so when she moves (besides kicking) I don't really feel her. The other one seems to never stop moving now, I am constantly facinated by my dancing belly from her. One of these days I'm hoping to get it on video because everytime I call Rush to look she stops! Little toot. She does that on purpose (and I'm starting to think she has quite a bit of her momma in her.) Mom, Dad, for all those times I was a pain in the neck, I'm sorry. And rest assured that these two are going to be my payback! lol! I am wondering if they are going to be as picky as I was with how their socks and shoes feel or if they have to go to the restroom at every single store/restraunt/building that we walk into. At least I know Rush was a pretty easy going baby and toddler...right, Jean? I sure hope so.
Oh and another milestone is I've started to feel Braxton-Hicks contractions! Well I don't feel them around my belly really, it's more of I can tell something is different and when I press on my belly it's rock hard. It's kind of scary knowing that I'm almost to the third trimester, I don't feel like we are ready for them to be here! (That's probably because we aren't. We don't exactly have a place for them to sleep or even a way to get them both home yet!) But this weekend that will change, because this momma is going shopping! ;) And once I'm done shopping I'm hoping to be able to sit down and put a good dent into getting my Thank You cards out for all of the wonderful gifts we received. Who knows, maybe I can convince Rush to help... ;)
Well without further ado, here are the most recent "pictures" of the girls!

I know they are pretty repetitive in nature, but I couldn't resist putting them all up! Baby B is blurry and kind of hard to see because of "shadowing" caused by them being more developed and the fact that there are two in there. Apparently as their bones become more dense they cast shadows everywhere making it harder to see everything the Drs are looking for.
I hope you enjoy these "pictures" as much as I do! And be watching for a Thanksgiving and Baby Shower update, I'm hoping to post those once I get more pictures. :)

Official Birthday Ball Picture!

This just popped up in my inbox! They had a new option to just email the photo they took with a copyright release, so we can print as many pictures (in whatever size) as we want! Yay! :) Now who to send one to...

The 235th Marine Corps Birthday Ball, Friday November 12, 2010 (24 weeks, 6 days pregnant)

North Carolina Baby Shower!

This past Saturday, my friends threw the girls and me a wonderful Babies Shower! It was very intimate with just close friends in attendance, and we all had so much fun. The girls got some great things, and Rush and I are have a good head start on all the things we are going to need for the girls. They say pictures are worth a thousand words so I'm going to let them do all the talking. ;)

 The goody table!

 Are these not just the cutest?!? Their first bath toys. :)

 CUPCAKES! :D

 The loot. ;)

 You can't tell but there are two of each there. The pink says "Daddy's little angel" and the purple says, "I "heart" going to Grandma's!" Thank you Dallas!

 Lindsay got the girls some socks and our two mattress covers! (Those are going to come in handy!)

 Cathy got the girls some hooded towels and matching washcloths! I must admit I kind of freaked out a tad when I started thinking about bathing two, and the fact that it's starting to sink in that there are two!

 Here's my "OMG, we really are having twins!" face. LOL. Carrie got the girls two swaddles and their pacifier pods (a storage pouch so I never lose them!)

 Michele got the girls an adorable (and ultra soft) blankie that has two little bears on the corner that say "Best Friends" :) along with a Daddy's Angel bib, changing pad, bottle brush and the two cute little tank tops below in the next picture.

 Stefanie made these two adorable outfits! Onsies with an Eagle, Globe, and Anchor on the belly with matching tutus, and bows! They are going to get SO many "oohs and aahhhs" in these bad boys. ;)

 Hannah supplied us with the much needed thermometer and our first batch of diapers! We should probably look into buying up stock in diapers...

 You can't see it, but Kristen got the girls a Johnson & Johnson bath set with some more wash cloths!

 Kristal got us the ever-so-handy drying rack and dishwasher baskets for all of their bottles, pacifiers, and whatever else I find out I'll be washing on a regular basis. :)

 Stefanie's mom surprised me and sent us two beautiful sleeper gowns and (probably Rush's favorite gift) a gift card to Outback for when I send him out to get it to go!

Not pictured was the joint gift my hostesses went in together to get. They got us the exersaucer that grows with them! I think it is going to get tons of use! Thank you Stefanie, Kristal, & Kristen! It's also too bad that we didn't get a picture together.

So I found some pictures on my camera...

The pictures I found were from August 14th, 2010. The date that Rush's cousin Roy graduated from OCS! We were able to take off and drive up to Quantico to see the ceremony and help celebrate, and I was able to take a few pictures before my camera died. I'll try to describe what's happening in each picture and where Roy is (in the ones where they all look alike!) *Also Rush or Roy, if I label something incorrectly or screw something up, feel free to leave the correction in the comments and I'll edit it!*
Okay so I know it's kind of small, but Roy is the Marine located directly under Hawaii's flag at the very front. They are in formation coming in for the ceremony.

 Roy is smack dab in the middle of the picture, standing in the front, next to the guy that is all by himself.

 After the ceremony they walked out in formation. We had to wait for them to all leave before they were allowed to come back and talk to family and friends. Of course they were put to work picking up chairs that were located at both ends of the blacktop <-(for lack of a better word.) Roy is walking in front of the one guy that is taller than all the rest.

 There he is! HI ROY!

 I think he saw us, but had to pretend we didn't exist. (Just kidding, he waved back!)

 I found him! Rush and I stayed towards the back during this ceremony (located in the Marine Corps Museum) to let families get closer, so it was a mess trying to find everyone once it was over.

 Rush (I believe) is pinning on Roy's "butter bars" to his alphas. I don't know the technical term for the "butter bars", but it means he's a 2nd Lt!

 They look so much alike in this picture!

 In case you are wondering, we went further into the museum to get away from the crowds so that Roy could get "pinned" by his family. :)

 Proud Mama (Mary) pinning the "butter bars" on the lapels of Roy's alphas.

 Proud Papa (Howard) pinning the other "butter bar" on the other lapel of his alphas. Problem was trying to make them look even and symetric without a ruler. Yes, they have a ruler and guide book for how to put insignias on uniforms!

 And last but definitely not least, proud brother (Will) is pinning the last "butter bar" on Roy's cover (or hat for all the non-military.)

 Roy shaking hands (or was, I wasn't quick enough) and giving a silver dollar to one of his OCS instructors. *Roy or Rush please let me know if I messed this one up!

 Group shot! (On a side note, I can't believe how small my belly looks, once you're big it's hard to remember not being big!)

I hope you all enjoyed! We had a great time up in Quantico and are very proud of Roy! He's currently still in Quantico going through TBS (The Basic School, for Officers.)

May I have this dance?

Before I get started I just wanted to say that we also celebrated Jake's and Jean's Birthdays this past week.
So HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY!!! Sorry we weren't able to be there to help y'all celebrate, but I hope that you each had a wonderful day!

So last week on November 10th the Marine Corps celebrated their 235th birthday! And of course the Marine Corp (like every year) celebrates with dinner, dancing, and cake! One of my favorite things about the ball is that it's a formal affair, meaning I get to get all dolled up and get to see Rush in his "blues" or formal uniform. :) We didn't get to take too many pictures, but we did take a professional one there, I'm just waiting for them to email me! This year I not only got to dance with Rush a few times, but I got to have a dance with Gen. Miller, and then watch him salsa dance with his wife (Rush of course was not willing to salsa dance with me!) ;) We also watched the Gen. in charge of 2nd division do a little jig on the dance floor (he wasn't the only one dancing, but he was hard to miss since he's such a big guy!) So here are the few pictures I did take!

This was of the band that played for us during the ceremony part of the ball!

 Rush and me at our table :)

 My hair (I should've taken more pics, but oh well...)

 This is for Jess and Robin! Belly shot (25 weeks) all dressed up. :)

Hopefully I'll get the shower pictures put up soon too!

Marine Corps Marathon!

Well the MCM & 10K were a success!!! I'm proud to say that everyone in our little group finished the race without any (major) injury and was able to walk hobble afterwards. ;) Robin and I finished our 10K in one hour and fifty-one minutes, and that is with me needing a potty break and hobbling around on my gimp knee (that I didn't know I had.) As for the others I don't remember everyones' times, but what matters is that they finished!

Overall I think everyone had a great weekend, Rush and I drove up Friday and was able to eat with dinner with everyone, and even got to hang out with Roy and Will afterwards. Then Saturday we got up early and had an AWESOME buffet breakfast, before we headed out to our desired locations. Robin and I had planned on getting on the Metro and heading into DC for the day, but when we got to the station the line to get on the Metro was no kidding probably 2 to 2 1/2 hours long! So we quickly nixed that and decided to head up to Annapolis with everyone else. (Apparently someone thought it would be a good idea to plan a rally and another 10K walk today (the day before the MCM) needless to say I wasn't happy, it messed up all of our plans for the day.) Anyways, Navy was playing Duke that day so we all met up with Quinn and his Naval buddies and tailgated with them for a little bit before Robin and I headed out to explore downtown Annapolis. It was a whole lot of fun too! We stopped in a little chocolate/candy shop and got hot chocolates and a chocolate covered pretzel stick and sat by the harbor to eat and drink. Then we did some window shopping before Leland and Laura picked us up and we headed back to the hotel. It was time for dinner and to load up on carbs (more them than us, but I was still more than happy to carb up on some fetticini alfredo.) Oh and sadly Navy lost to Duke 31-34. But on a high note Baylor beat Texas and A&M beat Tech!!!! It's always a good day when A&M wins and Texas loses. :)

 Not sure who these guys are but they were good and put on a neat show near where we were tailgating. They even had some dancers that danced a "jig" or three. Pretty sure they were a club within the Naval Academy.

On to Race day! We were all pretty tired (it's hard to get to bed early when you are busy hanging out and catching up with family you hadn't seen in a while) but we all managed to get up and get ready before the crack of dawn and on the road to the Metro station. This is a picture of us in the backseat of the rent car on the way to the Metro! Quinn was a good sport and jumped in the back (where I am fairly certain I would've ended up (had I not been carrying his nieces) because I'm the smallest framed.)

Lucky for us we got on at the end of the line so it wasn't too crowded. Then us 10Kers parted ways with our Marathon runners to go to our respective start lines (us 10Kers start at the 20 mile mark for the marathon runners and we all start at the same time.) This is Lindsay our backdoor neighbor, she's due 2 days before me! She was with a group of women running for 2/6 (some wives, others mothers or sisters, etc.) who are currently in Afghanistan.

It was a pretty neat experience, there were random people cheering everyone on at different spots on the road, and there were even a few places that were blaring music (either from the radio or a small band) and we even passed a group of women drummers! Since we were the last 6 miles of the marathon there weren't too many neat sights to see, but we did stop to get a picture of the Jefferson memorial with the Washington memorial in the background.

Robin surprised me when I came out of the porta potty and took a quick picture! I have hand sanitizer in my hands (in case you were wondering...)

Once Robin and I finished we quickly found a place to sit and eat and drink from our goodie bag, and let our feet and knees have a rest. Then since we knew it would be a while before we saw any of our group finish the marathon we went to have a look around at all of the goodies being given away. We were even able to get a short massage! Our plan had been to finish and change and then go look around downtown DC but we were both hurting (me more than Robin) so we ended up not getting very far, and just went to the bleachers to wait for our group to come across the finish line. We had a pretty good view from our bleacher seats!

 Can you see Laura? I spotted the Texas Rangers hat before I saw her! :)

 Not long after I spotted Rush, first thing I noticed was that he was still wearing his gloves! He used them to wipe the sweat off his face! *I married a smart man!* :)

 Then came Quinn, strolling along, like he didn't have a care in the world!

 Hats off to you Leland for running another marathon!

Once Leland crossed, Robin and I walked hobbled over to meet everyone at the Iwo Jima Monument.

 A thumbs up! (Pretty sure that means that running a marathon is getting checked off of his bucket list, and never to be done again!)

 Leland and Laura

 This is a pretty good side belly shot of me at 23 weeks!

 Quinn and Jill

 My man in his fashionable blanket skirt! ;)

 Robin and me! The 10Kers, which we will probably do again, just not pregnant!

Once we all finally got back to our hotel we went to celebrate with dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. *This is totally a side note, but their serving portions are ridiculous! Each plate they served could've fed 3 adults! And of course we didn't know this when we ordered.* We still indulged and took home a few slices of cheesecake to eat once we had more room in our tummys! And Robin just had to get a picture of me eating mine (Rush is watching the Rangers game) with my big ole belly and faithful bulldog. :)

Over all I think it is safe to say that everyone had a great weekend. I wouldn't mind going back to do the 10K again, I just don't know if I want to do it pushing a double stroller! I hope everyone enjoys the pictures! :)