Week 35

Oh my gosh, guys, it's been far too long since I've given an update. My mother informed me today that I needed to post a picture because she was sure that EVERYBODY was dying to see it. I don't know if she knows how to see how many (few) followers I have...haha. I love that she really thinks that EVERYBODY is as concerned about my life as she is. Moms are so great. I love her.

I've just been feeling sorry for myself (my huge, uncomfortable self) and letting myself get away with not doing the things I know I need to be doing. The lap top barely fits on my lap anymore (true story), so I have been avoiding it altogether. It's amazing how much you can do on an iPhone. Blogging, though, is unfortunately not one of those things.

I missed taking a picture of week 34 (tisk tisk), so here's the week 35 tummy picture:

To me, it looks just like the week 30 picture. And I KNOW I've gotten a lot bigger since then! Maybe it just feels that way. Or maybe it means that these baby boys have been growing "in" to my ribs and organs rather than "out." No wonder I'm grouchy and horrible to be around. Poor Marshall.

But there's good news! I went to the doctor yesterday and he scheduled me to be induced this coming Monday at 6:00 in the morning. Only 3 more days of pregnancy! I will be exactly 37 weeks along on that day. I know there are different schools of thought on the appropriateness of inducing labor, especially with twins, but I'm very on-board with this decision and am very excited to meet these boys!

Please keep us in your prayers through the weekend and especially on Monday. We pray for a short, successful, healthy delivery. We also pray that the babies' lungs are fully developed at this point and that they will be healthy and able to come home with us immediately. How blessed are we that we have gotten far enough along to be able to hope for those kinds of results with a twin pregnancy?!

I also pray that we have some clothes that will fit them. Ha. At the last ultrasound, they were measuring 7 lbs. 2 ounces and 6 lbs. 13 ounces. If they get much bigger than that, we can forget all those preemie clothes we bought with expectations of tiny babies!

Week 32

Week 32 Tummy Picture:

I also thought it would be fun to do a comparison of how I look right now in this pregnancy with how I looked at the very end of my pregnancy with Laney. I found a picture of the day I checked into the hospital to have Laney when I was exactly 39 weeks pregnant with her (the picture on the left). Then I took a picture in the exact same shirt at 32 weeks pregnant with the boys (the picture on the right). Pretty crazy how close they are! My face isn't nearly as swollen yet as it was with Laney, but my belly is getting pretty close to the same size. Can you imagine how big I would get if they let me go all the way to 39 weeks with the twins?! Luckily, I think 37 weeks will the the max. But still, that's 5 MORE WEEKS! It will be quite interesting to see just how big I get before I.....pop?

More Morris Movies

I find that I never have any really good videos of all the precious little things Laney does because the video camera just isn't her thing. Any time I pull it out, she just goes into a stare. And has to touch it. And stops doing the adorable thing she was doing. So I've gotten to where I hesitate to pull the camera out at all because it completely kills whatever moment she's having!

Here are a few video clips, though. They aren't the best, but if you don't get to see Laney often and want to see how her little personality has blossomed, they'll do the job. Her favorite thing these days is running away from Daddy. She always thinks he's chasing her. And her other favorite thing is a cookie...or several cookies. She's also quite fond of bubbles. :)

Week 30

It's the week 30 tummy pic. And I went all out on this one. I've been taking the easy way out and wearing my regular clothes in my tummy pictures for the past few months. This week, though, I wanted you to get the full (and I do mean FULL) effect, so I wore my tightest black maternity cami. I guess what I'm saying is I don't actually go out in public wearing this. Don't worry. And check out that face. Don't I look happy? What is this, a prison mug shot? I'm giving myself a pass on looking like an inmate, though, because I'm 30 weeks pregnant with twins. I'm giving myself a lot of "passes" these days. Just ask Marshall. I pretty much do what I want. I kind of feel like I have the same "do what I want" leisure as a really old person. I mean, who's gonna say anything about it? Not to me at least. Ha.

Laney Lately

Laney is 18 months old. Can you believe that? Here's a look in pictures at our sweet and sassy one-and-a-half-year-old who has somehow turned into a toddler without asking any of us for permission. She's a walking, running, laughing, squatting, pigtail-wearing, juice-drinking, puppy-loving bona fide toddler who has everyone completely wrapped around her sticky little finger. We love you, Miss Bug!

The Yard - Before & After

I know I've been blogging a lot lately about how I've been too busy to blog. Ha. So I'm going to show you some of the stuff that we've been doing around here so that you might actually believe me. One of the things we really wanted to get done before the boys' arrival is get our yard and back porch in working, presentable order. It needed a lot of work. Here are some pictures of our yard LAST spring. It was bad. We had been so busy with Laney's arrival and babyhood that we completely neglected it for months over the winter and beginning of spring, and by the time we looked up in April, this is what our "yard" looked like (if you could even call it that):

So, we started working on the yard/outside early this year. We extended our back porch by having an extra slab of concrete poured. Marshall then stained it all by himself. The color of the stain is called "cola." It turned out so great! Go Marsh!

We then got some new cushions for the furniture and planted a hibiscus in a pot back there on the porch (my favorite!). It really warmed things up. I'm so glad we did it. Here are the "after" pictures:

We also got our front yard looking better. When we moved into this house, there was no landscaping at all. Marshall and I planted all the shrubs and flowers last spring and even constructed the Austin stone and cement border around everything (Landscaping pros, now? What what!).  So this year all we had to do was get the weeds out of the bed, lay new mulch, and prune and fertilize the plants. I was so delighted when our knock-out roses burst into bloom this year just in time for my grandmother to visit (she LOVES flowers)! I wish I had some "before" pictures of it, but no such luck. You can probably imagine, though, just from looking at how bad our backyard looked- ha.

Week 28

So, I know I'm already 30 weeks along now, but here's the tummy pic from week 28:

I'm so big now that I constantly have the "old man pants" thing going on. In order for them to be big enough to go over my tummy, they are baggy in the hips, rear and legs. Now that I'm taking a good look at this picture, it's actually quite embarrassing. Ha! But I guess since I walked around like this all day (I tend to avoid mirrors), I shouldn't be shy about plastering it on my blog. Bless my heart.

And I feel just as big as I look. With Parker already measuring 3 pounds 12 ounces and Brooks measuring 3 pounds 7 ounces, I'm waddling around with over 7 pounds of "baby" in there. And the scary thing is that they will probably DOUBLE in size if we're lucky. My poor tummy will never look the same, I'm afraid! I can't deny that I'm counting down the days. When I went to the doctor most recently, he scheduled a c-section for June 6th (if I go that long). Brooks is currently breech (not head down), so it doesn't look like I'll be traditionally delivering them unless he flips around in the next few weeks. If he does flip, then we'll be able to decide which way to deliver.

The third trimester symptoms that have already been around for a while are still there - rib pain, back pain, shortness of breath, leg cramps and sleeplessness. Some new symptoms are also adding themselves to the list - heartburn, headaches, groin pains and swollen ankles. I bet I'm pretty miserable to be around. Ha. Well, I take that back. I actually hold it together most of the day, but then I'm REALLY miserable for Marshall to be around, for sure! He told me the other day that he thinks he's just as ready for this pregnancy to be over as I am. And I bet he's right.

I'm just ready. Ready to not be pregnant anymore. Ready to sleep on my stomach again. Ready to hold Laney on my hip like a normal mom. Ready to enjoy an adult beverage...or two...or six (I'm gonna have 3 kids, ya know!). It seems like I've been pregnant forever. It's bad. Marshall knows more about pregnancy than most of my female friends. I heard him explaining something to one of his guy friends the other day and he used the words "placental detachment." HAHA! His friend made this extremely grossed out face that Marshall didn't even notice. Poor Marsh is so up to his head in pregnancy and babies that he can barely have a normal conversation. Somebody save him.

Even though I'm really ready, I know these baby boys aren't, yet. So...7 more weeks it is. But I can't say I'll complain if it only ends up being 5 or 6 more weeks. :)

Week 30 tummy pic coming in a few days. Have a blessed week!