chuck and ned's web debut

yeah, maybe i should re-think the title... anyway, i was in bed the other night (apparently, i was gearing up for the couple of months to come) watching alias (i love jennifer garner), and the babies were listening to bach... yes, we are one of those couples who believe playing them classical music in the womb will make them smarter :). just kidding, but they really do respond to it... so i took this little video on my phone just to send to jen out in l.a, but then i realized i could put it up on here!!!  and since i have so much time on my hands, i figured out how to do it!! i had to do it sideways to fit my giant belly in the "shot", but you can still see them moving... this is when my brother came up with 2001 space odyssey. :)  and seriously, i could watch this all day long... enjoy!

dos bebos

as kari has so lovingly nicknamed them... here they are yesterday- like i said, they're getting pretty scrunched in there, so it's a little harder to get really good profile pictures of both of them, although chuck did cooperate... not without ned contributing to one of them... :) 

i know, its a little freaky...  we still think he/she's pretty cute

we gotta have more cowbell!

i hope the title makes sense to everyone who's reading this.  if not, stop right now, go directly to www.youtube.com, and search christopher walken snl cowbell... you are then allowed to come back and resume being my friend. :) so this morning was our 28 week appointment.  we went first to the ultrasound, where everything was, as usual, perfect! these babies continue to amaze us both! they're both 2 pounds 8 ounces and are measuring right on with their gestational age.  they never stop moving, which is so awesome, except when it involves really hard kicks/punches to my bladder... then it's only marginally fun. :) chuck was still vertex and ned was still breech, so we'll see what happens with that... chuck was kind of turned away, so she couldn't get a good look at him/her- usually when we need babies to wake up or move, we use the accoustic stimulator- buzzes babies back to life, or it's supposed to... well, apparently, that's not what they use here :)  they use a cowbell! yeah, i'm not kidding- it was seriously hilarious to see her shaking this cowbell right ON my stomach to try to get chuck to turn!!! hence, the title of the post :)... so it was kind of a quick scan, because i guess as they get bigger, they're too scrunched in there to get good looks at them... so then we had our time with the doc, who i continue to fall more and more in love with every time i see him :)... ok, yeah, i'm exaggerating, but he really is great.  so everything was good with me, good weight gain, clean urine (and by clean, i mean no protein or glucose spillage- ha ha)... we talked about C/S vs. vaginal deliveries again (as we probably will at every appt until i deliver because i can't make up my mind), good fetal movement, small talk, measured my uterus, which is at 39 weeks!!!, listened to both babes, more small talk... and then he checked my cervix.  this is where my bubble bursts.  i'm dilated to 2 cm. not cool, cervix, not cool.  he told me that and my instant reply was, bullshit.  and then immediately following that, i'm really sorry for that... oops.  so yeah, i'm dilated and not very happy about it :(... what this means: he didn't officially put me on bedrest, but took me off of work, and basically told me i needed to sit/lie down as much as possible. i am allowed to go to thanksgiving tomorrow, but i'm not allowed to participate in our tradition of going down to the Plaza (a fancier and bigger fig garden village), and watching them turn on the christmas lights for the season.  it's a big thing in kc, and i had really been looking forward to that because i hadn't been here for it the last few years... it's one of my favorite things that kicks off the christmas season (my favorite time of the year, especially since we're somewhere now where snow is a possibility), but like my mom said, nothing's worth having these babies come early.  which i understand. and i'm not going to be one of those defiant patients.  so i'm not going to be doing much for the next couple months except going to the doctor all the time and getting non-stress tests... the good thing about it all is that i'm not contracting, not really having that many braxton-hicks (fake ones), my cervix is thick and little chuck is still ballotable (his/her head is not low down enough to be engaged in my pelvis and is still able to be pushed back up into my uterus)... we're a little scared here at the stork house, but i think once it's set in, we're going to be fine, and we'll make it as far as we need to go for these babies to be healthy.  AND there's still procardia (ew), terb (ew-er), and mag (ew-est) if we need it... i just hope we don't need it... i hope you are all well and stay tuned for a couple of pics of the little ones- and my ginormous belly... or as my clever brother calls it- 2001 space odyssey... :)

the owl...

ok, just a quick note about the bird- i'm on a bird thing lately, i don't know if it's the babies or i'm turning into my kooky grandmother, but i'm loving neat patterns with birds in them.  i know, it's a little crazy, i'm hoping it's just a phase... :) and no, i can't figure out how to move my title so that it's not interfering with the owl.  any suggestions?

thing 1 and thing 2

i've been getting a few baby gifts kind of since i found out i was pregnant, just because i found out right as i was leaving fresno and several nurses at work gave me presents at our going away party...:(  when i was visiting fresno, tiff had told me she found something that she had to get for me that would be perfect, but hadn't gotten around to it yet... what, you don't have time to shop for me with 3-year old triplets and little sophie?!?!? :) so yesterday, in the mail, i received a package from the schwebach part of fresno- and she was right, perfect!!!! totally perfect- you did so well, tiff :)...

thank you thank you for thing 1 and thing 2!!

babies, it's cold outside!

when i moved to fresno 4 years ago, st. agnes was slow enough at night for us to have a good amount of down time.  imagine that! every time i ask mel how work is, the reply is always, nuts!! so anyway, something all of the nurses would do to pass the time was to knit or crochet. i always thought that was kind of an old lady thing to do, until i saw some of the creations the girls were making (mary zschogner).  plus, it just happened to be the knitting was totally "in", so i hopped on board...  i never really got very far, but i did master enough to be able to make these adorable baby hats.  i've given a few of them to friends over the last few years w/the initials of the baby's first name stitched on the side.  well, i've completed the first two that i don't have to give away :)... obviously, they don't have their initials in them yet, but that won't take long to do.  i think i did pretty well, and i'm really proud of myself that i didn't have to send the unfinished product out to fresno for mary z. to sew the seam for me :)- i figured it out all by myself!! :) look at me go!

brrrrrr....

a hobbit to watch over me...

as in the gershwin tune, someone to watch over me... i know, sometimes i'm a little out there. but this little guy was a gift (a birthday gift for me for the babies) from my mom.  there is a store called the dolphin song that mainly sells pottery, but also baby/children's gifts, yarn, books, etc... there is no 'plastic crap' that i love to hate so much, just cute little toys like this one- lots of wooden products, just more along the lines of what i love for kids.  so she saw this and really loved it- it's a little house w/a tiny gnome (dwarf, hobbit?) in it... it looks big in the picture, but it's only about 6 or so inches tall...

we decided it would be perfect in the babies' nursery to watch over them. we're just trying to figure out where we can put it so it can watch over both babies... some people have guardian angels, i guess we have guardian gnomes... :)

the first of many preparations...

well, bryan and i have registered (a mind-numbing and overwhelming process), but we decided not to put the cribs on there just because they're the big-ticket items... even though, after all my research, i've found that these are consumer reports best buy- and we really liked them!! a combination i usually don't encounter!  so they're safe AND cute! :) and simple... i really need for everything to stay simple for my sanity... so here they are- in what used to be our pretty spacious nursery- we've found there won't be room for much else! but that's ok, we just need there to be a changing table and a rocker'n (shout-out to where my dad's from and how he would pronounce it might he still live there- yea carthage, mo!!) chair... and like bryan said- the babies are small, they won't take up that much room :)...

and much love to my husband, who pretty much did this all by himself, with me looking on...

don't worry, i won't go on and on... i think you all can probably figure out how i'm feeling today!! i think this is a huge step for our country, i think john mccain very graciously conceded to barack obama, i'm so glad sarah palin is headed back to alaska, and i am disappointed that proposition 8 was passed in california.  however, as bryan pointed out, it took 50 or so years from the civil rights movement for this country to elect a black president, so i guess we can't all be so progressive at once.  oh, but it's coming... :):) GOBAMA!!!!