pictures!

captions later

a few new pictures

So, to make a short story shorter we have some great pictures of first coming home, first baths, and cute faces on Andi's point-and-shoot, however aunt Kelli took the camera with the memory card when she left today before I could pull the pictures off. So everyone will have to wait for those pictures. Here are some of the few pictures from my camera:

K in her build-a-bear dress---What a cute little girl! (More of these to come later)

Do you ever wonder what they are dreaming about?

Doesn't she look like she's relaxing at the spa for the day?

almost two weeks old

Well, tomorrow will mark two weeks since we went to the hospital and Saturday morning the babies will be two weeks old. Here is just a quick post of a couple of cute pictures:

Kennedy was practicing her "Blue Steel" modeling pose (for all you Zoolander fans out there).

Cooper found his thumb! (sorry, this picture would not rotate for me).

Family Pictures

So, with all of the hustle and bustle of the last week as of tonight we had yet to get our first family picture! Right after delivery there were things the hospital needed to do with the babies, Andi was feeling weird coming out of all the numbing drugs, and by the time things had somewhat settled down Grandmas and Grandpas had arrived. It was a busy few days. Even this week has been quite busy even when it is just the four of us. Usually if it is slow we take advantage of the time to nap!!! Tonight we finally had the nurse take a picuture of us. I included a couple more because I know that Grandmas and Grandpas and all those official and unofficial uncles and aunts want to see more of them. Enjoy!

Adventures in Parenthood

We have (un)officially moved in to the hospital!!! Okay, we are temporary guests like you might find at a ski resort, however here there is no concierge or turn down service--we do however get some room service. I am kidding of course.

Cooper and Kennedy are still working on getting ready to come home and are making some progress. Kennedy is doing the best. She is eating regularly and even passed her car seat test! (That's where she had to sit in her carseat for 1 1/2 hours while they monitored her vitals to ensure she would be able to ride in it safely without any breathing/overheating complications. Her car seat about drowns her, but she did it!)

Cooper on the other hand started taking a regular bottle and attempts to nurse in place of the tube feeding. He just needs to gain some weight now. Both of them are starting to have some very alert moments and it is fun when their eyes are wide open and they are wondering what is going on in this crazy world they came to. The expressions on their faces are so fun to watch.

Here are a few more pictures.

no SPF required!

Just as a precaution the babies are under the tanning lamps today for their skin. They seem to really enjoy relaxing. It makes me want to go on another cruise! (Though I don't think I would every opt to sip my pinacolada through my nose.) They also look pretty dang cute in their little eye protectors.

Cooper

Kennedy

Family of Five

Well, we are officially a family of five! After a very quite year and a half after Addison we are fairly sure things are about to get a little more exciting (they already have). Everyone is doing great. Cooper and Kennedy are just trying to get their little premie bodies to regulate temperature, blood sugar, and get the hang of feeding regularly. They will most likely be in the hospital for a few more days to make sure some key hurdles are overcome before they come home. The doctors and nurses seem to be very pleased so far with where they are at, and it is expected that being early they might have a few struggles. The good news is that breathing does not seem to be an issue and that is what they were most concerned about while we were in the hospital a few weeks ago, though because their lungs are premature RSV will be a real threat to them. We will be keeping everyone up to date.

The doctor has also instructed us to limit our visitors at home to avoid RSV during these winter months. We would like everyone to know that while we would love to see you and visit that it will be very important to keep these kids healthy! (especially because they are so small) While we are at the hospital anyone is welcome to come see them through the window (just call or text us so we can let you know if it's a good time), when we go home the doctor's orders are that we follow the current hospital guidelines and not have children 0 -14 come in contact with them for at least 6-8 weeks. If anyone, including adults are experiencing cold symptoms (runny noses, coughs, etc.) we hope you won't be offended if we wait to see you until you are feeling much better. We are grateful for everyone's love and support through all of this!!! We are so glad Cooper and Kennedy are here!

Here are a few pictures:

Cooper (left) and Kennedy (right) looking at their mommy about 10 minutes after they were born!

Cooper hanging out with his dad trying to get warm (look at all that hair!) too bad his sister was not so abundantly blessed. She did get some though so there is hope she will not be bald forever

Two peas in a pod.

Twenty Fingers, Twenty Toes!

Cooper and Kennedy were born at 8:19 and 8:20 this morning. 20 fingers and 20 toes!!! Cooper weighed 5lbs 1oz and Kennedy weighed 5lbs 0oz. Both wer 17 inches long! Cooper likes to scream and Kennedy was calm and peaceful the whole time. Andi is doing great and recovering. They were both breech so it had to be done the "non-traditional" way. Everything turned out great. Cooper needed a little oxygen, but he is doing fine.

Cooper

Kennedy

Are you ready to play...Turn That Baby!

Well, babies are still in the tummy. Cooper was still breech yesterday in the ultrasound we are working on getting him to turn. We've tried everything--turning out all the lights and running a flashlight down Andi's belly, drinking orange juice (gives them a sugar high and the babies move a lot), an accupressure point we read about online, and even music (specifically Jay Sean's "Down"---the lyrics fit great "Baby are you [head] down, down, down, down, down"). Someone at work today suggested a little Flo Rida, though the lyrics aren't so appropriate for children we'd have to change it to something like "gotta turn your head right down, right down". Of course Andi has also tried about every inverted position in the book short of standing on her head. Hopefully he will flip before any major labor starts. We are off to the Doc again next Wednesday. Everything else is looking good though. They are both a little over 5lbs now so we probably won't use all the premie clothes as long as we thought. We are just glad they made it to 35 weeks, though I am pretty sure Andi is ready to be done (probably something to do with the 10+ lbs of baby she's carrying around.

just the same

Nothing fun going on here. Babies are still hanging out in their mommy's tummy. Andi gets to go home tomorrow and hopefully our doc will let her do the bedrest at home. She will be 34 weeks along and hopefully the babies will hold out for another few weeks. We'll see...

we'd rather be....

Everything is nice and boring here in St. George. We even got moved to what we decided was the "presidential suite" today. Sarcastic for=an expensive room where you get waited on hand and foot. No changes today. Now on day 4 we are ready to be somewhere else....Bora Bora preferrably, but we are fairly sure that the doctor isn't about to allow Andi to fly to French Polynesia.

The good news is that now after 4 days the hospital relaxes their visitor policy and Andi can have 2 visitors at a time that don't have to be "banded". So if anyone wants to stop by and say HI just give us a call.

We are thinking at this point that we'll probably get to go home next Thursday and the babies will come somewhere around the 10th. We might still get a binary birthday...01/10/10. But honestly who knows at this point.

Thanks to everyone for checking in on us! We'll keep you posted.

Happy New Year

Well, here's the update. About an hour ago they checked Andi again and we are now at 7cm! So we are probably having these babies in the next 24 hours. They are letting her go as long as she can. She still isn't feeling any pain and the contractions aren't really strong. We're going to try to get some sleep before a big day tomorrow! Amazing how things change so quickly. We celebrated midnight with a sprite. Now it's time for some sleep.

Happy New Year! 2010 is here (an Cooper and Kennedy are not far behind!)

UPDATE!

Everyone can relax! The doctored just informed us that the nurses are measuring the wrong thing, so at one part if seems like she is further along than others. She is really only at the same 4+cm/5cm she was at in Cedar City. We are back to BORING! This is good news because that means that if she stays the same then we can still go back home to have them. 6 days to go!

We thought it would be fund to have a 01/01/10 baby, but are sure that would probably consign them to be computer programmers with such a binary birthday, but we will take another day if that means bigger and more developed babies.

We'll keep you all updated!

33 weeks and counting....

So, some of you might have heard, but yesterday Andi "won" a fun little trip to St. George, Utah for a most-expesnes paid (by insurance) ? night/? day stay at the beautiful Dixie Regional hopspital! It included an Iron county ambulance ride down the snowy I-15 corridor. The in-hospital dining includes gourmet cuisine and even some free ice chips!!! Is anyone jealous yet?

Here's the low down on how you too can be a winner! First, you must be pregnant with twins. At 33 weeks pregnant you will need your physician to examine you and you will need to be about 3cm dialated. You will get a quick stay at the Valley View hospital where they will poke and prod and monitor you for a few hours before telling you that you have progressed in labor to almost 5cm! At which time the physician will see to it that you are on your way to Utah's breathtaking Dixie!

Okay, all joking aside. When we went to Andi's routine appointment yesterday the doctor said it was time for bed rest a some monitoring at the hospital, which actually turned into some pre-term labor. Trying to slow things down they sent us to St. George just in case the babies do have to come early (Cedar won't deliver the babies if they are before 34 weeks).

So here we are. They have slowed things down and are holding out for 24-48 more hours before the babies come. The best thing would be to hold out for a week more and then we can go home and have them in Cedar, but that's still looking unlikely at this point. Everyone is fine though. The babies are still kicking, heartrates are great, positioning is great and Andi is doing fine except for dealing with the uncomfortable hospital beds. Last night we got some sleep and there were no major changes. At 11am this morning she can get the second of two steriod shots that will help with the babies lung function if they do come early.

We are joking about having one of them at 11:59 on 12/31 and the other at 12:01 1/1 so we would get a tax deduction for one in 2009 and have the New Year's baby in 2010. They could have completely different birthdays - day, month, and year! We'd probably just prefer that they wait, but there are mixed feelings about staying in the hospital for two more weeks! We will see what happens today. Watch for more updates.

All pictures are Andi-approved.

And the Nativy Goes To....

Just a quick post tonight to share a wonderful experience (pictures coming later). We got to play a part tonight in the live Nativity at Tuachan ampitheater in St. George (Santa Clara). This was the third year that we were able to be a part of it and as always it was an amazing experience. Our good friends the Stuart family actually started the live Nativity and it grew to be so big that Tuachan invited them a few years back to use their stage. It has grown and changed over the years and many people in the area volunteer on different nights to be part of the cast. Families take part as either towns-people, shepherds, angels, wisemen, and of course Mary and Joseph. It is completed with recorded narration by Dick Norse, a wonderful soundtrack of moving music, and even live animals including a horse, a donkey, a camel, and a few goats and sheep. Three years ago we took part an I (Curtis) got to be the shepherd that carried the baby Jesus over to show the rest of the shepherds. Andi was there supervising some of her treatment center girls who were angels. Last year it was rained out so we actually had a little party at the Stuarts and watched one of the first years videos when their children were young and did it for their neighborhood. This year Andi and I were towns-people and I was the third innkeeper that turns Joseph away, but then feels bad and shows them to the manger where they can sleep. Because it is a volunteer cast we show up early to get our costumes, run through our part, do a practice run thru, and then do two performances back to back (it's about 20 minutes long). My friend Adam kept joking about getting a "Nativy" award for Best Performance (hence the title of this post--no such awards exist however.)

It really is an interesting feeling to play part in the story. I think no matter what part you get you begin to see the story unfold from a different perspective than just an onlooker. It makes you wonder how the people in the story really felt and what they really experienced. It has become a favorite new tradition of mine and we hope we can keep participating each year. We are grateful to the Stuart's and the Endsley's for inviting us to be a part of it.

On the way home we were listening to the radio and I heard an AMAZING new Christmas song. It is probably one of the best original pieces I have heard in a long time. I am always looking for good new music and this fits the bill. Here is the song on YouTube. The artist is Brandon Heath, a christian artist. If you like the song it is available until Friday on Amazon for free! (part of a 25 days of free Christmas songs) Or it is $.99 at iTunes. http://www.amazon.com/The-Night-Before-Christmas/dp/B002X33IRO/

Enjoy! I think that this song summed up some of my feelings about our experience tonight. Very well written and performed:

It's hard being pregnant. First, I should say that everything is going very well. If I were only having one baby, I would be big enough to have it now. As it is, I have an estimated 6 weeks left. The babies and I are growing rapidly. We're all slightly ahead of schedule:) Anyways, the hard part of being pregnant comes in the not sleeping well at night, the swollen feet, the weird dreams, and especially the things that people say. Following, is an exchange I had with my boss' 5 year old son earlier today. It's probably what most people are thinking, but they're not five so they can't get away with saying it.
Boy (pointing to my belly): What's that?
Me: My tummy with two babies in it.
Boy: I want to see.
I lift up one of my shirts (I dress in layers these days).
Boy: THAT'S GROSE!
-Pause-
Boy: I know someone who's REALLY REALLY REALLY fat...like you. She has five babies in her belly.
As far as I know he doesn't know someone who's pregnant with quintuplets. I think he's finally come up with a logical explanation for why some people are so big.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I've been meaning to write a “thankful” post for a while. I guess better late than never. First. I'm thankful that Thanksgiving turned out so well. Curtis' parents and aunt came to our house this year It was the first time I made a turkey all by myself. Thanks to roasting bags, frozen Rhode's rolls, and successful delegation...dinner turned out great.

My biggest thankful is a wonderful husband. I knew hew as a good guy when I married him, but I had no clue how great he would be. He does the laundry and the dishes (especially since I've been pregnant), he can live off of minimal hours of sleep and never gets grumpy because of it (hopefully that continues after the babies come), he works VERY hard at his job and does it very well, he's super smart, he dreams REALLY big, he's super friendly and likes most of my friends even more than I do—just kidding guys. Those are just a few of the reasons I love him so much. I'm grateful for people: sisters, family, a great ward, wonderful coworkers, and awesome friends. I'm grateful for my babies. I'm grateful for the perspective that Addison has given us as a family and I'm grateful for these two little miracles growing inside of me. I'm grateful that Curtis has a good job that will allow me to stay home with them. I'm grateful for our cute little house...especially our baby room:) Finally, I'm grateful for the restoration of the gospel and for our Savior. Where would I be without His strength and an eternal perspective.

Thanks

I'm quite tired and going to bed shortly, but wanted to say thanks to everyone who came to our baby showers up North. You were all so generous. We came home with a car full of all sorts of baby necessities. Thank you a million times. We've been working on the big stuff, but didn't have any clothes at all. Looking at all of the blanket and the tiny little clothes makes it a whole lot more real. In the next 2-3 months, we really will be bringing two little babies home. Ahhh! I can hardly wait. It's hard to believe how much these two little babies will change our lives.

Fall Family Pictures

A few weeks ago we ventured to the Griggs' cabin to celebrate some family birthdays.  Since most of us were all in one place we took a few family pictures .  We got the CD of pictures today from Andi's sister so I thought I would share a few of them. 

Pictures of the Kids

So, here are some of the first picutres of the kids. The photographer was great, especially given she didn't have any light to help her out. It's amazing how far technology has come. The first is Baby A (Cooper) at 18 weeks and the second is Baby B (Kennedy) at 22 weeks. They say they are measuring about a week further along. So that is hopefully a good sign that they are healthy.

Do I look that big?

Yesterday, I went to get Curtis' Jeep registered and this is a little conversation I had.

DMV lady: Oh, when are you due?
Me: The beginning of February.
DMV: REALLY! I thought you were going to say next month.

I work in a doctor's office and this is an encounter I had with one of our patients.

Patient: When are you going to have your baby?
Me: Beginning of February sometime.
Patient (with bulging eyes): But you're so big!!!

It's at that point that I insist on justifying my huge belly by explaining that I'm having twins:)