31-week check-up and the house is coming together!

Chris and I went to the doctor on Monday, March 10, for my 31-week check-up and ultrasound. The babies are doing great! Baby A, AKA Matthew James, is 4 lbs, 2 oz, and Baby B, AKA Thomas Joseph, is 3 lbs, 15 oz. Matthew should arrive first, and he's the slightly bigger baby, which is good. They are also both head-down, so they're doing what they're supposed to do! Thomas was not in the mood for the paparazzi, so only Matthew has his picture here this time.

I'm doing much better; I think I have almost recovered from the flu. I'm still congested, but that's most likely from being pregnant. Chris and I both have a lingering cough, but it's much less frequent now.

Yesterday we both got so much done. Chris spent the morning over at our Glendale apartments, collecting some late rents and working with our handyman, Matt, on tearing out and re-doing the bath/shower in one of the apartments. It's vacant right now, but new people will be moving in next Saturday. Once the bathroom's done, Ron, one of our other tenants, is going to paint it, and then the carpet is getting installed on Friday. He also collected rents over at our Sunnyslope "Estates."

Meanwhile, I was home finishing the painting in the nursery and washing all the new baby clothes. When Chris got home, he re-hung the blinds and put together the crib. The crib is nice; I bought it used through Craigs List, but it is in great shape. It is quite large--big enough for both babies for many months, at least, and it has a changing table and drawers and shelves attached. Then, Chris brought in all the bookcases, which had been sitting in the hallway for weeks now. He attached them to the wall and to each other, so that they are nice and sturdy and can't be tipped over. I brought in all the books, that had been piled up in the guest room, and loaded them onto the bookcases. They look really cute! I also moved all the condo stuff (dishes, linens, etc.) out of the guest room, and it's all ready to be loaded into Chris's truck and taken to the Litchfield condo today. So, the guest room is now back to being a guest room, and we can walk in the hallway! The living room is also almost back to normal, though it still has the stroller and baby stuff that I haven't yet gone through. Today I will do that and finish writing my thank-you notes!

The pictures are of my newly moved office (it used to be in the room that is now the nursery) and the still-a-work-in-progress nursery. I need to hang the border, and we're going to bring Alicia's dresser over from the condo. Otherwise, it's pretty much done. There is also a picture of their first shoes! Jill, Babs, and Shannon and Craig all gave us the most adorable shoes. They're different sizes, so they'll have shoes for a while.

That's all for now. xo, j&c

Baby Shower!

Chris's mom and dad hosted a baby shower for us and Megan and Aaron on Sunday, and we had such a wonderful time! It was so nice to spend the day with family and friends. Kathy made beautiful table decorations and a darling gift table. She had the food prepared by Cappizolli's, which is their favorite local (Oceanside) Italian restaurant--it was delicious! Megan and I are both having boys, and all the gifts were adorable! I can't wait to have the time this weekend to slowly go through everything and oogle over it! Thank you to everyone who shared the special day with us!

xo, j&c

Starting the 3rd Trimester!

We got the labs back, and everything is fine. I'm not going to get near any more cats besides our own! Yesterday was 28 weeks, which is the start of the 7th month/third trimester. We are so excited for our little guys to arrive! If they arrive at 36 weeks, then there's only 8 weeks to go.

Saturday I finally finished painting my new office, and yesterday we moved in. I still have some boxes to go through and throw out/organize, but for the most part, it looks really good. Next step is to paint the nursery and put up the border. Then, we can move the crib and other furniture in--and out of the hall, guest room, and living room!

Yesterday I posted our Litchfield Park condo for a vacation/business rental on Craigs List. We've already gotten 3 responses, so I think it's going to work out well to do it this way, rather than as a regular rental. Alicia will be moving to Yuma on March 1, so we'll need to get it ready on the 2nd and during the following week. We already have someone who wanted to rent it starting on the 1st!

We also have a vacancy coming up over at our Glendale apartments. I posted it for rent yesterday on Craigs List, and I've got two people scheduled to come and see it on Tuesday evening.

Next time, I'll post pictures of the house and baby stuff. xo, j&c

27-week Check-up

Sorry for not posting for so long! Here are the latest pictures of our little guys. They are both doing fine. They're a week ahead of schedule in their growth, which is good, since twins often come early. They weigh about 2 1/2 pounds each already! They're likely about 15" long.

I got into a tangle with a cat over at one of our apartment buildings last Sunday, and I've been panicking about a disease called Toxoplasmosis. It's not harmful to adults, but it can hurt the babies. I talked to the doctor about it yesterday, and they drew blood to test for it. About 50% of people in the US have already been exposed and are immune to it. I'm hoping I'm among the 50%--it's likely since I've lived with cats for so long. The test can determine if you're immune or if you've been recently exposed. If I got it from this cat, then I'd likely go on antibiotics to prevent the babies from getting it.

Chris and I both caught a terrible flu--he had it for about a week and a half, and I had it for about 2 1/2 weeks. It sidelined us from doing a lot of things we had planned around the house getting ready for babies.

We're going to be making our upstairs front bedroom into my office, so I got everything moved out (it was my craft room), and I started to paint. It's about half done, and I hope to finish painting this weekend. We'll make my current office (the back upstairs bedroom) into the nursery. So, once we move out all the office stuff, I'll paint the nursery and start moving all the baby stuff in.

We bought a crib through Craig's List. It has a changing table attached, with drawers and shelves, so it will be very handy. We also bought a co-sleeper through Craig's List; it is a soft-sided crib that attaches to the bed. In the night, I won't have to get up to feed them. If they wake up, I can just reach over and bring them into bed with us.

Chris's mom, Kathy, bought us a wonderful dual stroller, as well as two matching car seats. We also bought a glider and ottomon that arrived last week. It's an upholstered chair-and-a-half, and it's a beautiful lavender color that perfectly matches our bedroom. So, we had to move out the chaise (which is now in the family room), and the dog crates, and then Chris "encouraged" me to clean out our bedroom--he was right, it was a bit of a disaster! So, it's now all nice and clutter-free and clean. We hope to be able to keep it that way.

Bye for now! j&c

23-week check-up!

Chris and I went to the doctor for our 23-week check-up this week. The babies are both doing fine! They're right on schedule as far as their size for their age. They both weigh about 1 lb, 5 oz. The nurse took measurements of their heads, chest, and femur to gauge their size and weight. The pictures are getting a little harder to see, because they're now too big to fit entirely on the screen. So, these pictures of of their faces looking right at the camera! I hope you can see them well enough.

We also had our first childbirth class last Saturday and will have our next one this Saturday. We learned a lot. There is one other woman in the class also having twin boys!

xo, j&c

Snowy Christmas 2007!

We spent a wonderful Christmas in Idaho at the Tamarack Resort, which is about 2 1/2 hours north of Boise. My mom flew in from Oregon, Abby (Jill's sister) flew in from Chicago. Michael and Jill and Olivia and Jill's mom and dad, Helen and John, drove up from Boise. We rented a car and arrived at about 7pm Saturday evening, the 22nd. It was quite a scary drive, dark and snowing for about the last hour and a half of the trip. Luckily we were in an all-wheel drive Chrysler Pacifica, and it did just fine.

We rented a beautiful 4-bedroom chalet where we were nice a cozy and could look out at the snow. Most of the time we sat around in the chalet and played games--Sequence and Mexican Train. Some of us (not me!) went skiing and snowshoeing.

Olivia got lots of fun presents but had the most fun playing with the wrapping paper.

We came home on Wednesday evening, and unfortunately, Chris had to work Thursday and Friday. I took the rest of the week off and will go back next week on the 2nd. It is so nice to have 11 days off! I'm working on clearing out the craft room to make way for babies!

Happy New Year, Everyone!

xo, j&c

18-Week Check-up

Chris and I went to the doctor yesterday for our 18-week check-up. The nurse and the doctor spent a lot of time on the ultrasound, taking measurements and making sure everything looked good with the babies. They were very active and had good strong heartbeats. They are both about 9 oz and 9 1/2" long, which is good. Baby A is 18 weeks and 6 days along, and Baby B is 18 weeks and 4 days along. The doctor said it's fine for them to vary. They each live in their own amniotic sac and have their own placenta, which is also good. He checked several areas and was fairly certain that there is no sign of Down's syndrome, cleft palate, or spina bifida. We are very grateful that they seem to be developing normally and are in good health!

Love, j&c