our world

Well hello there!  It's been awhile since I've visited blog land.

First off, I feel like I have to talk about the twins.  

I have done nothing about Dean's suggestion to document my growing belly each week.  Except snap one more distorted, half body cell phone pic around 26 weeks.  It's not worth sharing.  If you would like a comparison though, at 28 weeks I measured 36 weeks pregnant.  :)

But I am feeling good!  Wait, perhaps I am lying if I consider the last time I've posted.  This week, I am feeling good.  I am doubtful you want boring details of the last couple months.  Lets just say that I know what you feel like if you have pregnancy anemia or even tachycardia.  Not good. And it's not fun.  I have never felt so drained and weak in my life.

Despite that, the twins are growing well. Good thing they take everything first, and leave me any leftovers.  At almost 29 weeks, I was surprised to learn that they measured 3lbs 3oz and 3lbs 2oz (they're getting big)!  Everyone at the office assured me that it was great news that they are growing at the same rate. 

And as is usual with me, having an ultrasound makes me think about these babies as real little beings that will join our world soon.  Which pushes me to consider names (the day after every ultrasound you will usually find me listing names and/or perusing baby name sites).  And over the last couple weeks, I have thought of my babies by name, sounding them out in my mind, trying them together and separately, seeing if they take root or not.

Oh! The joy and content I will feel when I can finally welcome them into our bright world, hold them and whisper their names against their soft, sweet smelling skin!  

But I am not ready.  Not ready for twins to join our family yet. I am only about 30 weeks along.

I know it has little to do with me, and everything to do with them, but my room needs to be spring cleaned. We need to put flooring in our bathroom and hang doors.  I need to wash sheets and set up the cradle. Sort clothes and place them in drawers. Wash car seat covers. Buy diapers!

And the list goes on.

And we, of course, went off camping this past weekend instead of ticking one little thing off our list.

I knew this would be our last chance to go for a good year or more.  So we hooked up the tent trailer and went.

It was such a fun and relaxing trip that I voiced going again next month.  Dean quickly nixed that idea! 

He is more realistic than I.

And so I cherish the memories and let my mind wander:  

To the sight of my children playing with their cousins in the woods.

To napping in the warm sunshine, lulled by the sounds of the creek and the birds.

To the taste of roasted apple slices dipped in cinnamon and brown sugar.

To our family conversations (and jokes) once tucked in bed in the dark of night.

To watching my youngest two eagerly unzip the canvas windows first thing in the morning 

          to see what kind of sunny world awaited them outside that day.

A gift for a friend, a gift for myself

I had thought I was burnt out on quilting, that I no longer had any desire to piece together scraps of fabric.  Even though I've used my sewing machine plenty, it's been a couple years since I've made a quilt.

But I have a dear friend expecting her first baby. I needed a special gift... and a homemade quilt is the answer (in my book anyway).  So away to the fabric store I went.

And I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of making this quilt!

Isn't it fun?!

It makes me want to get back to my fabric stash and the sewing machine and whip up a couple more.  I think I could put two quilts to good use soon. :)

This quilt did not feel like work.
It was a joy to make.
And that is a gift I gave myself.

Insta-organized

I have blundered upon another technological time-waster.
Instagram
(see right side bar).

And I have not picked up my dslr in a good week or two because of it.

Or perhaps being in week two of mothering and housekeeping a family with the stomach flu has more to do with it.

Either way, I kind of am loving having a 'camera' in my pocket or purse at all times.
It makes it rather easy to leave my bigger camera on the shelf.

It feels really strange to not have random pictures to share...but my camera card is empty save for projects around the house, the biggest of which you've seen - the laundry room progress.
And like I mentioned in that post, we are sharing the kid's bathroom sink with them.

The only storage we have in here is behind the one big door of the vanity.  I put a plastic 3-drawer thingy under there, but do you think the kids use it?!?
It drives me batty when they leave their toothpastes, brushes, and floss all over the sink.
I've tried the standing holders as well as the hanging ones. Neither of them are big enough to fit five tubes of toothpaste (Dentist's recommendations to keep the cavities in the few kids that have them).

So my solution was to hang trays on the back of the door, making teeth cleaning supplies easier to get to, and easier to put away.
One 99 cent pack of 8 cup hooks and one $1.23 pack of divider trays (for a junk drawer) from walmart had me in business.

I marked where each hook would need to go, predrilled holes (oak is a hard wood), and simply screwed the cup hooks into the door and hung the baskets on them. This way, they are easy to remove when its time to clean the dried toothpaste off.
The only hitch I ran into was that the screws were longer than my cabinet door was thick.  So they aren't screwed in all the way, but it still works.

How's that for organization?  We now have a clean bathroom counter.  And I no longer have to put away 5 brushes and pastes before I brush my own teeth.
It's the little things in life, like hanging trays and clear counters, that are making me happy this week.

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!