Gymnastics

We signed Jack up for his first gymnastics class at the Y for the summer. It's on Saturday mornings so Paul takes him and they have a nice little Daddy/Son bonding time. Plus Paul secretly enjoys playing on the gymnastics equipment so it's a good deal for him. This past Saturday was the second class. The first class didn't go so well. Jack refused to participate in most of the activities. Despite a lot of protest about going, this week went much better. I decided to come and watch since I probably won't be able to soon. Jack tried out several of the activities, though not all and had a really good time. It was so cute to see them running around. He did the balance beam a few times and he loved to run and jump on the spring board. This cracked me up because the board didn't move at all, but he would run and jump as though it did. He also enjoyed the long trampoline. No surprises here since he loves jumping! At the end of class they tried to have the kids do a relay race. That was hysterical. The class is for 2-3 year olds. Jack did not quite get the concept, but he did understand that he was supposed to run. Which he did over and over again even if it wasn't his turn. Hopefully this class will be a good time for Paul and Jack, especially after the babies are born. 

Work Day

What a beautiful day it was today. The weather was gorgeous and Paul didn't have to work thanks to his 9/80 schedule. Although really he worked all day, just at home. He has been working really hard lately at getting projects done around the house before the twins are born. Some of these projects were started before Jack was born, so obviously we aren't super productive with babies in the house. Today Paul patched and re-coated the driveway (it looks really nice) and he painted up a batch of base he hopes to install tomorrow. Since Paul spent most of the day outside working, Jack spent most of the day outside playing. And I spent time scrapbooking, resting and sitting outside. Toward dinner time Jack got a little antsy for Paul to be done working so he could play with his Daddy. So Paul had the fun idea to let Jack "help" by doing a little painting of his own. It was really cute and Jack thought it was great. We just put some water in a paint tray and let him "paint" away. He even got his own piece of trim. I'm pretty sure that Paul is Jack's best friend and if things continue this way Jack will be Paul's best helper one day. I love the bottom picture here. Jack is so looking at Paul to make sure his Daddy sees what a good painter he is. And yes, he's wearing his "tractor" boots with his shorts, his choice. It was very cute.

Watch Natalie Grow-Week 35

Well we did it. We made it to 35 weeks, the first goal. I'm pretty happy about that and pretty happy that I've had a very easy pregnancy thus far. Obviously I've had my share of discomforts and exhaustion, but compared to many twin pregnancies, mine has been very uneventful. No bed rest, no contractions, no major concerns and my blood pressure has even been cooperating. Now I'm just taking it a week at a time. My next personal goal is 37 weeks, as that is considered full term. From what we can tell it seems that I might actually make it to 38 or 39 weeks. If you would have told me that in the beginning I would have said you were crazy. But so far my body is holding strong and the babies are too. Of course all it takes is for my water to break for things to happen sooner. I think we'll do the next picture at 37 weeks and then do them weekly until the twins are here. Of course if I go into labor before then I'll be sure to take one last picture. 

Week 33                             Week 35

New Poll

I started a poll on my blog today. You can find it at the top of the sidebar. Think you know when these babies will be born? Cast your vote and see if you're right. For reference we are 35 weeks as of yesterday. Our week number changes every Wednesday. So next Wednesday we will be 36 weeks. If you think they'll be born between now and next Wednesday vote for 35 weeks and so on. The poll closes at midnight on our due date. Happy voting!

The Big Bike

First of all my apologies to Matt and Amanda because this all started when I told them we didn't need Jack's bike seat anymore and they could borrow it. I should have talked to Paul first because he said he was totally up for using it if we just moved the seat from my bike to his. So last weekend Paul moved Jack's bike seat and Jack is in bike heaven. He LOVES riding the "big bike" with his daddy. He even likes his "bike hat". They take evening rides that often end with Jack screaming mad because he doesn't want to be done yet. We're working on that not so great behavior and tonight after he calmed down he actually told Paul thank you for the bike ride. It was sweet, as long as you could forget the tantrum that preceded it.

Playgroup Family Picnic

For the first time ever we had all our playgroup families together in one place. Really this just means the dads were there since the rest of us are all together frequently. We make quite the group. 7 families totaling 14 adults and 13 kids (almost 15). It was so much fun to get everyone together at a park (not a house) and enjoy a beautiful Sunday afternoon together. If it were up to me I would have ditched the clouds for a little more sun, but it was still very nice and the kids didn't seem to mind getting wet in the splash pad despite the cold water and cloudy skies. We are so blessed to be sharing life with these six families. They have made a big difference in my life and in my parenting and they are wonderful friends to Jack.

 Here are a few other pictures from the day. The kids enjoyed throwing food into the pond for the geese (or rocks in Jack's case), playing at the playground, running through the water at the splashpad, and eating lots of juicy watermelon.

Jack found rocks behind this garbage can and spent a lot of time getting them to throw in the water.

Life is Good

Yesterday and today were some really nice days in the Friend household. Our good friend Megan (aka Goers) came up for a visit. Our goal for the weekend was to get the nursery cleaned up and organized since it's contents were spilling out the door into the hallway. It was pretty much the last room in the house that needed a good thorough go through. Goers is really good at helping me see what things are necessary and what thing are not. She'd be very happy to tell you that we got rid of around 10 empty diaper boxes I'd been holding on to (because diaper boxes are really good quality boxes). She was a big help and the nursery is looking really good now, pretty much ready for the babies. Only minor things left to do and at some point we'll have to set up all the baby gear like swings and bouncies and such. Goers was also great at getting all the dishes clean and keeping them clean and feeding us and vacuuming and so many things. Thanks Megan! Today we got ready for the jewelry party I was hosting. I thought it was really fun to hang out with friends and family and look at pretty jewelry. I was very good at being creative with the necklaces :). Amanda, Nicole and Janet all came up for it which was fun since we don't see them too often. And thanks to everyone's help, my house is clean even after the party! Now we're resting and looking forward to our playgroup family picnic tomorrow. Praying for good weather!

Pool Party

Today we had a fun pool party. The weather wasn't quite as hot as it could have been, but it was very pleasant for sitting outside all day. And we added enough hot water to the pool that it wasn't frigid. The kids had a lot of fun playing all day, though they all had their unique styles. Mikayla enjoyed just chilling out in the corner of the pool chewing on whatever toys floated her way. Meredith discovered that she could crawl over the sides of the pool and find yummy sticks and dirt to eat. Caleb really didn't want to play in the water, but had fun playing doctor with the stethoscope and trying out all the other toys like golf, moon sand and bikes. And then there's Jack. He loved to play with everything, as long as it was outside.

All the kids took varying lengths of naps and we got to try out our new video monitors which were fun and worked well. After naps the Johnson's went home and Jack insisted on playing in the pool more even though it wasn't exactly hot out. He was a real delight this afternoon (I'm not being sarcastic). He serenaded Mikayla with an original song, mostly impossible to understand. Mikayla loved it and Tanya and I cracked up at his hysterical singing. After Mikayla left he played with his sand for 30 or 40 minutes without making a peep to me. Then he fell in the pool and got very wet and cold. After that he just sat on my lap outside for like 30 minutes snuggling. And he asked me to sing him Jesus songs. It was so cute and so nice to snuggle with the kid and sing to him about Jesus. 

Watch Natalie Grow-Week 33

Thankfully, the picture this week does not show as dramatic a difference as two week ago showed. It does seem as though my shape is a little different again, guess that happens with babies who move as much as these two. We had a doctor's appointment today along with an NST (non-stress test). Nothing really new to report except that these babies are snug as two bugs in a rug. No signs of making their exit any time soon. Which is good, but hard to imagine this pregnancy lasting +/- 5 more weeks. On another note, I have a massage tomorrow morning!!!! I'm very excited as are my hips and back.

Week 29             Week 31             Week 33

Random Pics

Just a couple of random pictures. The first one of Jack wearing his apron. Definitely some room to grow there. The second one isn't a great picture but it's kinda funny. Jack put two tub toy trains up his shirt the other day (with the help of Daddy) to look like Mommy. He was just pulling them out as Paul tried to take our picture. 

Babies Update

I'll do my best to explain how our ultrasound and doctors appointment went today. Overall they were good. But as I suspected the babies have found themselves new positions. Not the positions I expected, but then again I don't think most twins situate themselves the way ours have. Baby A is head down, quite low. This explains some of the pressure I've been feeling and the movement I feel real low. His head is sorta in my middle, a smidge to the left and then his body curves around to my right side...way to my right side. Baby A is on top. Then Baby B crosses below Baby A. B's head is not really up and not really down, but it is near my right hip. Then his body is quite flexible and he curves under A with his butt/legs on my left side. It's confusing. I could hardly tell what was going on in the ultrasound. The tech could hardly get any measurements of Baby B due to his awkward position. But based on what we did get A measured 4 pounds 4 ounces and B measured 3 pounds 8 ounces. I'd say these are very rough estimates of their sizes. All this probably helps explain the picture from last week and why I looked so different from the previous picture. All this probably also means that we will be having a c-section, though this is not set in stone yet. We'll be having another ultrasound in 2 weeks to see if we can get some better measurements and perhaps they'll straighten themselves out by then. Who really knows. Other than their positions, everything is still looking really good. So praise the Lord for that. I now will be having doctor's appointments every week along with an NST (non-stress test) every week. Dr. Ankrah chuckled today after checking me and said watch me be one of those twin pregnancies that goes full term. That's what my mom and sister have been saying all along. I guess only time will tell.

Oh yeah. And when they say you shouldn't lay flat on your back when you're fairly far into pregnancy, they mean it! I was laying on my back (not quite flat) for my ultrasound and almost passed out this morning. I got feeling really sick and thought I was going to pass out. Paul asked if I was ok and I said no, so the tech told me to roll on my left side. Sure enough I felt better pretty quickly. So it's true, the baby(ies) really can smash whatever it is that delivers blood to all the necessary places, like your head.

Jack's Room

By now many have seen Jack's new big boy room in person. But I have been meaning to take pictures and post them on here for a while. So I finally did it. Paul and I had a lot of fun putting this together for him and he loves it. It's very cute when we have guests over and Jack is asked to show his room. He get's really excited and runs upstairs and points out all the cool stuff, like the train and plane and tractor and so on. I did almost all the wall decorations with my Cricut using vinyl and they turned out super cute. And you can't see it behind the curtains but there is a jet on his window like the jet's his daddy works on. Jack isn't real big on playing by himself so while I'd like him to play in his room more, that just hasn't happened yet. However, if someone is with him he loves to play in there. His favorite things are shooting hoops from his bed (cheater!) and holding dance parties with his radio/CD player. I need to get that on video because it is very entertaining.

Sewing Adventure

I was in the mood to get things checked off my list this past weekend so that meant doing some things that I had been avoiding for quite a while. One of them was a sewing project. Jack got a play kitchen for Christmas and I thought it would be cute if he had a little apron to go with it and to wear when he helps me in the kitchen. So over Christmas while Janet and I were out shopping she got me the materials to make an apron after I assured her that I would actually make it. Yikes! What was I thinking? I made the apron this weekend and I think it turned out cute, but I did not follow the pattern very well. In fact I blatantly disregarded it for the second half because I couldn't make any sense of it. And I'm not sure if it will even fit Jack. But it's done! I thought a pattern would make it easier but maybe that's only true if you know how to read them. I haven't read a sewing pattern since 7th or 8th grade. After this experience I think it would save me a lot of headache to not attempt making future costumes for my children.