Naming our twins

Now that we know we are expecting a boy and a girl, we can get serious about names.

I've always been the name finder, and hubby has been the voter. I read from my list, and he gives his input.
That one's okay.  
Naw, I don't like that one so much. 
[thoughtful look] I kinda like that one. 
[look of distaste] No. 
Maybe. 
[silence]

And when he does come up with names on his own...let's just say none of our kids were named that way.

24 week bump

My kids aren't much better, by the way.  My six year old suggests the names of all his friends.  My eight year old recently suggested Peter and Piper... to which her dad said "hey, if it were two boys they could be Mike and Ike!"

So yeah, discussions about baby names in the past have often ended with me throwing my hands in the air, and discussions in the present leave me shaking my head or cracking up.

But naming twins seems like a much more difficult task than naming one.  I have to come up with two, and while that's not too hard, making them go together is.

And no, we will not have a Jayda and Jaden, a Harper and Parker, or even an Olivia and Owen.
I have decided that these two will have unique, individual names, just like the rest of my children.  Because I want to recognize that they are unique individuals, even if they share a birth date.
I want to treat them as two separate beings with different needs and dreams.

Oh I'll love dressing them matchy, we'll start out with a shared crib, and I fervently hope that they will share a special bond.  But I also hope that we can nurture their individuality and not shape one around the other.

So, finding two names that go together well, yet are also unique, is my newest challenge.

I'm guessing that we'll keep our tradition of not settling on any names until we see the babies, but I've already got a boy's name I love stuck in my head.  And unfortunately, the girl's name I like starts with the same first two letters!  So it's back to the drawing board for me so Dean can vote some out.

And speaking of hubby, he didn't even get a word in edgewise about choosing matchy names.
I've just decided that it is going to be that way.
Because I'm the mom, that's why.

Moving our Laundry, part 1

Guess who's excited to be spinning laundry in a brand new washer and dryer in a half finished laundry room?!?

Me! Me! Me!

Those shiny new machines almost make up for the bare drywall and open walls.  Almost.

But let me back up a little.

We've lived here for a little over two years, and have thrown around lots of different ideas of how and where to move our laundry from the moment we first looked at the house.

You see, I've been washing clothes for a family of seven in the entry way, between the front door and the door to the garage all this time. Yep, makes perfect sense to me too! I think the laundry must have been an afterthought on the architects part.

Have you guessed yet that our house was built in the 80's?
I can't wait to replace the tile this summer!

These two little laundry closets are in the farthest corner from the bedrooms (i.e. the dirty laundry), in the highest traffic area, and right next to the front window that any visitors look into when they ring the doorbell (more than once I've had to kick aside dirty laundry piles to open the front door. Talk about embarrassing)! Not to mention that I have to lock the garage door any time I do laundry to prevent the door slamming into the laundry closet's bi-fold doors. 

Had to. Thank goodness that is past tense now!

So when we started talking addition plans (because we're soon to become a family of nine) it made sense to tackle the laundry room first. This most recent round of brainstorming brought forth the fact that our master bathroom has a lot of wasted space.  Duh!!  Put the laundry in our master!

It may seem weird to you to have a laundry off the master, but I think I'll love it!

We had a large sink area, off of which is a toilet and shower room.

We decided to turn the sink area into a laundry room and turn the toilet/shower room into the master bathroom by knocking out a closet (it was the smaller of two closets in our room).

It was not a quick process, and my room is full of drywall dust despite hanging sheets and plastic over the construction areas.

But we are moving along!  Progress is good, even if it comes slowly!

I think that Dean expected me to be satisfied once the new washer and dryer were installed (this morning and five weeks after I bought them), but *shhh* I'm not.  I need my counter to fold clothes on to.  I need my sink to rinse and soak stained clothes.  I need my cabinets and shelves to store the laundry soap and dryer sheets in.

And I am really looking forward to an updated bathroom, not to mention actually using my own bathroom again.

Our plan. Or what still needs to be done.

So we plow forward.  Once the electrician/plumber has time to come back and finish his work in this area, we will fill in the walls and extra doorway, hang cabinets and counters, paint the walls, install new light fixtures and a vanity, and re-tile the bathroom floor.

Meanwhile, there has been drywall dust footprints down the hallway about every other night.

I'm actually looking forward to deep cleaning my room and mopping the whole house when this little project is done. 

It could be a while... 

but I guess I can go watch my clothes spin in the pretty new machines while I wait.

Nothing quite like family

Over the past weekend, we packed up the car and headed 2 hours west to meet up with my family.  My parents, grandmother, and all my siblings with all their kids were present coming from different parts of Arizona, California, and Alaska.
It had been almost five years since were all together!
So of course, we had to take a family photo.

And of course all ten cousins had a blast playing together.
Gosh, but I have an adorable niece and nephews!

And yes, ten kids in the house was wonderfully crazy. We adults were very glad to shut them into the garage-turned-rec-room when the noise level got out of control!

We kept them busy with faux snow balls (hours of entertainment for all ages!), sidewalk chalk, bubbles, kites, and a painting craft.  The weekend actually went really well.  I wish we had had more energy to stay up past the kids' bedtimes for some adult time, but it was still good to be all under the same roof anyway.

The weekend ended way too quickly, and we were all sad to say goodbye.

The whole crew.  We were missing two spouses.

I love the quote "families are a lot like fudge: mostly sweet with a few nuts."  And I have no problem claiming the 'nut' title! It's all good, because family accepts each others idiosyncrasies. Besides, if I'm a nut, then most likely, so are my siblings. :)

Ah, there's nothing quite like family get-togethers.
I can't wait to do it again!

Pink? Blue?

When we found out we were expecting twins, I had a fun idea for sharing the news with family.
Since everyone was getting together for Christmas, I made cards to hand out.  There was nothing on the front of the card, and on the inside I glued a picture of the best ultrasound image.

While the picture alone would have sufficed, I added little verses to the cards like:

"Double the joy, double the fun, we have two miracles instead of one!" 

and 

"We don't know if we'll need pink, we don't know if we'll need blue, 

but one thing we do know is that we're going to need two!"

Well, fast forward 10 weeks and now we do know what colors we're going to need come summer!

Sis wouldn't cooperate at my 20 week ultrasound and I have no pictures of her,
so this is the same first image from 10weeks 5days. 

We're going to need both colors!
Our family will grow by one boy and one girl, making for three girls and four boys.
I am quite excited to meet them.  And while I know that fraternal twins are simply a brother and sister that share a womb and birth date, I know I will be checking to see what characteristics they share and how much they look and act alike. Will brother be outgoing and sister be shy (this idea is so random it cracks me up! Funny the ideas we get from ultrasounds!)?  Will they both have Dean's blonde hair and blue eyes?  Will one of them be a thinker and one a do-er?
Either way, I hope they will be lifelong bosom buddies.

Seeing them at 20 weeks on the ultrasound screen and hearing their heartbeats made it seem a little more real.  It hit home to me that I would soon be holding two precious gifts in my arms!  Two little sweet smelling bundles of love.

I never really considered more than what I've already been blessed with (part of being a busy mom of five I guess); but while looking at that screen I realized that my heart had already expanded to fit these two in with the rest like it was just waiting for boy/girl twins.

It was waiting, and there was most definitely room for two more.

My joy is quiet and internal but I still might spit at you

There is a great big mirror above the sink in our hall bath.

Because our master bathroom area is under construction right now, I brush my teeth in the hall bath.

The other night, I got a good look at my belly. 

Oh my, have the twins grown these last couple weeks!

Elaina 29 months, twin pregnancy 22 weeks
I have no idea why she is eating the comb.
I have no idea how I'm ever going to get a good prego selfie.

And I guess the growth of these two babies is obvious to more than just me.

Last week at the library, a woman, another mother, came up to me and said, "oh how wonderful, you're having a spring baby!" 

I replied that I am actually due in the summer.

"Summer?!? Oh my! Well...how wonderful!" she said.

Poor lady.  I should have made her feel better by saying two were coming this summer.

Sometimes I just get tired of telling people, that "yes, really, I really am having twins, no I am not joking, yes, yes, honestly! Incredible, I know!"
I withhold the news that I'm having twins because I just don't want to deal with people's amazement/ disbelief/ incredulity.
Yes, I am still excited to meet these twins, but my joy is quiet, internal. I am in the patiently waiting stage, not the exclaiming stage. And I'm not going to share that with a complete stranger.

I'm beyond their amazement.
I am definitely feeling pregnant. With twins.

It's hard to tie my shoes after eating a big meal, I get heartburn from bending over to pick up toys off the floor, a trip to the grocery store leaves me sore and breathless, sleep is sometimes elusive, and no pants seem to fit right.

But if that is the worst of my complaints, I know I am doing pretty good.  I am thankful that I can be home, kind of doing my normal thing rather than lying in a hospital bed or on meds.

So along we plug.  Day by day.

Me - always looking forward to delivery day.
Hubby - always looking for a bigger vehicle, working on house addition plans, muddling his way through the laundry room remodel, dealing with several sub contractors to get estimates on the work we will need done, and probably wishing delivery day was farther away because it means his work load will increase before it gets a chance to decrease.

Maybe my job of pregnancy is the easier job!

I guess the next time I get comments of incredulity I will simply smile and nod and play the part of amazed yet radiant expectant mother.

Or maybe I'll spit in the perpetrator's eye. It will all depend on how much sleep I've had.