2014 was a big spending year for Luke & I – wedding, honeymoon, house and all the other expensive little things that were a part of those big purchases. That being said, I did not invest in my wardrobe like I would during a normal year. Now things are settling down and I am having to spend money on my wardrobe – not to stay on trend but to buy things because everything else is too small. That is seriously depressing. I’m getting to the point where squeezing into my old clothes is becoming a joke and Luke thinks I am cutting off blood flow to the twins. I decided I am going to buy only the essentials and get by with as little as possible. Here’s what I think I need:

1. Black Versatile Pants: I work in a business casual environment and need a pair or two of these that I can wear 1-7 times a week. I bought a similar pair from J. Crew on super discount but can already tell why they were on sale as they have faded a ton after two washes. I bought these exact ones for my bestie, Tess, during her pregnancy but haven’t bought them for myself…yet.

2. Casual Dress: I like this dress because I could wear it to work with flats and the sleeves would keep me warm enough in my over air-conditioned office. Plus it’s perfect for slightly more than casual weekend outings.

3. Sleep Set: What I like most about this sleep set is that my favorite twin and I can coordinate nighttime outfits! Really, though, I need a light weight robe that is easy to throw on and off as the twins need to be fed. I currently have a terry cloth robe and that is way too heavy for an Arizona summer.

4. Shirts with Sleeves: I recently noticed that most of the tops in my wardrobe lack sleeves. Probably due to living in Arizona. However, now that my arms are storing the extra serving of ice cream consumed every night I have an immediate desire to cover them up.

5. Shirts with long sleeves: Just in case my forearms start storing the extra calories. Also, this is perfect for that awesome cinco de mayo party I will be attending completely stone cold sober. Viva!

6. Sexy Dress: I will seduce Luke in this sexy dress and he’ll have no option but to put twins in me. Oh wait…

So for any of you out there with experience in maternity wear what essentials am I missing and where did you do your shopping??

When we left the 14 week appointment with the unexpected news of the genders I think we both felt like “yo, sh!t just got really real.” I know I said that about the 12 week appointment and I will probably say that after every appointment from here on out but knowing their sex and being able to say the names we picked out loud makes it really freaking real, yo.

Not gonna lie, I’m not a huge fan of gender reveal parties. I don’t have anything against them and I enjoy going to them – any reason for a party, am I right? It just wasn’t something I thought we would do. If anything we would tell our immediate family one-on-one and then just tell friends as we saw them. Then my dad broke his foot. How, you may ask, does my dad breaking his foot  equate to a gender reveal party? Well, lemme tell ya! So way back in my first post I mentioned how my parents were getting shipped out to the Marshall Islands and that I was pretty bummed they wouldn’t be here to experience all of this with us. They were scheduled to leave on January 5. On January 2, my dad went to my brother’s house to help out with something and ended up slipping on ice (yes! Tucson had ice!) and twisting his ankle. He thought he just twisted his ankle but the following morning he couldn’t put any pressure on it so my mom took him to the doctor. Turns out he broke his foot in two places, had a bone chip floating around and was going to need emergency reconstructive surgery. My parents plans were put on hold to leave because of the surgery and recovery time. My dad, understandably, wanted to use a foot specialist for his surgery and the Marshall Islands being so small didn’t have one. Thankfully, he had a bunch of sick time saved up so he was able to stay in Tucson for his surgery and recovery.

When we found out the genders combined with the fact that my parents were still here, naturally, we had to throw a party. I wasn’t planning on being able to have both sides of our family together before the twins got here so this was the perfect timing. Throw in some friends and the fact that a lot of people hadn’t seen our new house and this party was destined to happen. Besides, I have to have a really good reason to get my dad to come to Phoenix. He hates Phoenix. Mostly because he always gets lost and ends up in Apache Junction. I’ve lived here for 7 years and haven’t been able to convince him otherwise. On one occasion of me trying to show off Phoenix, he did find a bar he really likes called O.H.S.O. Brewery. Luke and I purposely bought our new house less than a mile away from this bar hoping we would get to see him more…time has yet to tell.

We had less than a week to put the party together  which resulted in nothing being perfect-pinterest-pretty. I opted to make the cakes that we were going to use for the reveal because I was trying to save money somewhere and they turned out interesting. They were supposed to be two giant cupcakes from a cake mold my friend Shaina gave me a few years back but they kind of turned out like giant orbs since I had to use so much frosting to cover up the cake color. I over heard Luke’s 92 year-old grandma ask someone, “why did Erin shape the cakes like breasts?” So we had two boob cakes for the reveal.

 

We also served a blue and a pink cocktail, which turned out pretty strong since I couldn’t taste test and had a game for everyone to guess the genders. The buy-in was $5 and a pack of diapers. Winners split the money and the twins got to keep the diapers. The twins made out like bandits – they got a ton of diapers and most people donated their winnings back to the them. I think they made almost enough for their first year of college but then I gave some of their donations to Kurt to buy donuts on Sunday morning. Oops.

OK OK, I’ll get to the point! Since Luke and I already knew the outcome, we decided to have the grandmas cut the cakes to reveal the genders. Luckily, Dani caught all the action on video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eSSwuPqlwA

I love this video, it makes me laugh every time. I love that my mom and Luke’s mom kept the secret to themselves for a little bit and had everyone yelling at them. But I really love them waving knives around in all of their excitement and giving everyone hugs. A few glasses of wine may have been consumed at this point! The BOYS are lucky to have ninja grannies. We were blown away by the amount of people that wanted to be a part of this and are so thankful to everyone who came and to all those who FactTimed and called in – we weren’t expecting that and it truly made the day extra special!

 

 

 

So yep, boys it is for us!! Wanna hear something really bizarre though? Rachel can vouch for this too – but when I was younger and would talk with my girlfriends about how  many kids we wanted and all of that stuff I always said I wanted twin boys and a girl. I had no reason for thinking I could have twins, I just figured if I wanted them bad enough I would get them! So here I am 20 years later with twin boys on the way, crazy right? I’m never questioning a woman’s intuition again.

I didn’t care what combination of babies we ended up with. Luke and I openly discussed the benefits and downsides to each possible combination but overall felt so lucky to be having twins that we didn’t really care that much. I will say this, though, one of the first conversations we had after finding out about the boys is “so I guess we’ll be trying for a girl then…” Lord, help us. Me with three kids is something I would bet a million dollars against 5 years ago. Nothing is funnier than life.

Most importantly I can start planning the nursery in detail! Hopefully, we can get the nursery done by the baby shower so everyone can see it but we’ll see how that timeline goes.

Also, an update on my dad: He’s recovering as expected and should be ready to ship out by the middle of February. He’s mostly been enjoying spending his extra time with the current cutest boy in the world, Harrison:

 

 

What a week! It’s month-end close week for me which means we have to have consolidated numbers reported to the mother-ship (corporate) by Friday morning. As a result, I have had no time to get anything done blog-wise. But it’s Friday and I survived and there’s always time for frenchies, especially Zeusy!

Zeus is finally coming to terms with the changes in my body and has found a use for my belly:

 

 

A little throwback Zeus…because when he’s a demon I have to remember how cute he was:

 

Plus a few videos that I have gotten me through a mean week of crunching numbers:

 

I am looking forward to a weekend of not  much of anything! We are taking Luke’s mom on a date tonight since his dad went up to the cabin then hiking South Mountain Saturday morning. We might brave Ikea to get some furniture for our master bedroom but then I plan on watching a lot of Sons of Anarchy, working on the blog and relaxing!

What are your plans for the weekend??? Whatever you do, I hope it’s great!

How did I manage to post 8 posts and not mention or even provide a picture of the most perfectly adorable peanut butter pound cake of a dog, Zeus-the-mother-freaking Goose Leonard?

So not just Happy Friday, but Happy Frenchie Friday!

Zeus is my baby whom I dote on, spoil and worry about like he’s a human. Luke likes to think he’s number one in my life but I mean come on look at this face!

But I suppose they can be tied for first because Hubbyboo is pretty cute too

I wanted a frenchie forever. My college friends teased me that “you are going to marry the man who’s crazy enough to buy you a frenchie…” Insert Luke and it looks like they were right! When Luke kidnapped me and moved me to Laveen, I told him I wanted to get a frenchie together. He so badly wanted some company in Laveen that he agreed to a frenchie before he did a price check (score!) At first he didn’t even think they were cute, but he knew how important it was to me to get one so he stayed committed to the cause and we brought Zeusy home at 9 weeks old:

 

We instantly fell in love with Zeus and Zeus instantly fell in love with our golden retriever Jak*:

*Jak is my stepdog, Luke got him in college. Don’t get me wrong I love Jak and I love him more each day especially with the patience he shows to Zeus and the loyalty he has to Luke. This is why I will never get divorced and re-married – can you love a step kid as much as your own? If it’s anything like dogs the answer is no!

Zeus then wiggle-butted his way into Luke’s heart too:

 

And before we knew it we couldn’t picture our little family without him!

 

Sure he is a monster, a terrorist, a sh!t head, a clown, a destroyer of all things nice BUT he compensates for his demon tendencies with all the love and laughter he brings into our lives.

So I declare every Friday Frenchie Friday and I will keep you updated on Zeus and Jak’s misadventures.

 

Have a great weekend!!

We weren’t expecting much at the 14 week appointment. We just had the 12 week ultrasound and everything was in the clear and we got to see the little nuggets so we figured it was routine check up sort of thing.  I suspected the doctor wanted to see us to make sure I didn’t over indulge over the holidays and get too fat.

I LOVE our doctor but she is a one doctor practice and doesn’t even have a nurse practitioner on staff to perform routine check ups. Additionally, because she is so amazing she is at capacity on new patients and it seems you can never get an appointment. At your first visit they schedule ALL of your appointments out until your due date which is insane considering how many appointments it takes to make a baby.  As a result, her schedule is unpredictable and not a single one of our appointments has ever happened on time. We were scheduled at 1:00 pm and didn’t get into see her until 3:00. Every time this happens I get all worked up and talk about how it’s frustrating because we both have careers and nobody has time to sit around for 3 hours blah blah blah but then she shows up and gives me a hug and all is ok in my world. She is tricky like that. I was actually going to say something that day about how it would be nice if they could call and give us a heads up so we could plan accordingly but it turns out she was at a funeral – how can you criticize someone who came from a funeral to make sure you and your babies were doing OK? You can’t. I love that we see her and only her every time and that she is genuinely invested in us and our babies. I contemplate on finding a bigger practice if we have more kids but in my heart I know there’s no one for us but Dr. Sally.

On the other hand spending 2-3 hours in the middle of the day with Luke is always fun because it never happens and always feels illegal when it does. Even spending 2 hours in a doctors office waiting room with Luke is better than any 2 hours at work, ever. We know the doctor has two patient rooms so we were waiting patiently (see what I did there) for two pregnant ladies to walk out. Finally, they both did so we knew our time was coming. Before the doctor sees you, the nurse’s assistant weighs you and takes your blood pressure. Side-note: getting weighed is, for me, the worst part of pregnancy so far. I refuse to weigh myself at home, close my eyes when I’m at the doctors office and make Luke sit in the other room so he doesn’t see. I figure they will tell me if I’m gaining to little (yeah right) or too much (most likely). Back to the story:  Rosa, our usual assistant, was out of the office for our previous appointment so we were catching up with her about the news of the twins. She casually said, “so are you excited to find out the genders today?” EXCUSE ME?!?! It’s week 14 and we were not expecting any sort of genitalia news until weeks 18-20. Rosa informed us that being pregnant with multiples was considered a high risk pregnancy so that we would get an ultrasound every appointment. She also explained that in order to tell the gender the babies would have to be in the right position and willing to show off their goods. I explained that if the babies were anything like their mother was in college they would be more than willing to show off their goods! Luke and I like to be prepared and try to know what topics are supposed to be covered at each appointment so we know what questions to ask and what not. Well that tidbit of information threw us for a loop. I suppose, at this point, we should just expect to partake in one giant loop throwing contest for the rest of our lives.

When the doctor came in she skipped the formalities and went straight to the ultra sound. She knows how to please a waiting & anxious crowd. Sure enough both the little squirts we more than willing to practically bend over, grab their ankles and reveal themselves to us! The doctor confirmed she was like almost like 99.99% sure of the genders!! Did Dr. Sally know she could keep us waiting as long as she did that day knowing that as long as we left there with the genders that we would be happy? See, she’s really good at her job.

I bet after 4 paragraphs to describe one routine doctor’s visit that I would tell you the genders. Nope! Luke and I decided last minute to throw a gender reveal party the following weekend so you’ll have to wait for that post.

“What I want Wednesday” is a common theme throughout a lot of the fashion blogs I follow. I am not a fashionista but I can definitely get on board with telling the general public things I want in hopes  someone (lookin’ at you hubbyboo) will buy me something. It’s like the Secret – if you don’t put it out there how can you expect to receive? With Valentines Day just around the corner I figure today is the day to start! So without further ado:

1. Vitamix: Nothing screams romance like a blender. However, I keep telling myself this is the secret to the healthy lifestyle I so desperately want. Only $600 separates me and my ideal swimsuit body. Also, doubles as a baby food maker.

2. Santa put this Tory Burch perfume in my stocking 2 years ago and it quickly became my “scent” I’m fresh out and need to re-stock ASAP.

3. Kate Spade Clutch. I love this clutch and its sneaky little pocket in the front. I’ve got to hand it to Kate Spade’s marketing group – they’ve disguised the labor they’ve outsourced to Rwanda as a charity project empowering women with skills that enable them to provide for their families. Tomato, Tamato.

4. Francesca’s Swim Cover Up: The hubbyboo is taking me to Hawaii for a babymoon and I think this cover up is a necessity. However, I’m having a hard time imagining a 26-week pregnant belly under that cover up…

5. Kate Spade Attitude Sandal: Love the style – fancy birkenstockish, love the color and love that they will probably fit fat squishy feet so I don’t have the same footwear problems as Kim Kardashian when I’m 8 months pregnant.

6. Sam Edelman Flats: The likely hood of me wearing heels anytime for the next 9 months is right up there with the chances of me becoming the queen of England. I think these flats are a nice alternative to my standard wedges. Flat & fancy, who knew that was a possibility!

7. Kate Spade Serena Sneakers: A vans style slip on named Serena makes me picture Serena Van Der Woodsen as a skater girl – a contradiction if I’ve ever heard one. These are the perfect slip-ons for the those days (weeks, months) where your pedi is just not on point.

8. Kate Spade Gold Espadrilles: Kate. Spade. Gold. Espadrilles. Enough Said.

You might have noticed a Kate Spade trend in my list and that’s because my sister-cousin Dani works at Kate Spade and I feel it is my duty to do what I can to keep her gainfully employed. Go to Kate Spade at La Encantada in Tucson and buy everything from her. Thanks.

At the end of Sharing the news Part 2, I only managed to get through the Monday before Christmas. Sorry this story is so long winded but when I think about that week and sharing the news with the people we love most and the reactions we got out of everybody it just makes me smile. I want to remember every detail so that someday the twins can look back and see that their father and I were actually excited to bring them into this world.

Tuesday morning my dad was flying in from the Marshall Islands and I was set to pick him up from the airport. I would be flying solo since Jenna was staying with us and Luke was taking her down to Chandler to hang out with family for the day. As much as I wanted Luke there to tell my dad I was secretly happy that it would be just me and him. I live 10 minutes from the airport but of course I was 20 minutes late. Thankfully, my dad’s flight was a little behind schedule and he was flying into terminal 2 ( the one story terminal straight outta the 70s) at sky harbor. I got to the waiting area right before the gates and positioned myself in front of everyone else. I looked over and noticed a girl and her mother animatedly talking about how they were going to greet whomever they were waiting for. I could tell the girl was nervous as she was bouncing off the walls like a 4 year old. Soon enough people started appearing and one of the guys was dressed in full military fatigues. Once he spotted the girl I had been staring at he dropped his pack, ran to her, swept her off her feet, twirled her around and kissed her. I started balling. I couldn’t keep it together. I was all by myself in the middle of the waiting area crying like a loser loner wannabe whatever – thanks pregnancy hormones! My dad appeared and I ran up to him still crying. He panicked, he didn’t know what was wrong because I rarely cry. He kept asking and I couldn’t talk. Finally, I mumbled “I’m pregnant…with twins.” He became the one who couldn’t talk. As we walked toward the baggage claim I handed him the Christmas card with the ultrasound and he started to comprehend and got really excited. He asked me if my mom knew and I told him yes. I could tell he was surprised that she was able to keep a secret from him which meant she kept her promise to me (you go girl)! I sent my dad on his way to Tucson with fresh baked Christmas cookies and the news of the twins, he was a happy camper.

Spending the morning with my dad meant I left Luke unsupervised with his brother and brother in law for the day. When I went to meet up with them, Luke had lost four corn hole games in a row to Logan and he also had the genius idea to bet a shot of vodka for every game. He was a hot mess, especially in the eyes of super sober pregnant lady. We were set to go to his Aunt Sandi’s house that night to see everyone that was in town for Christmas. The entire ride over Luke alternated between singing Taylor Swift “Shake it Off” and begging me to let him tell everyone the news. I stuck to my guns and said that I would rather wait until after the appointment. He was persistent and I promised I would withhold things he loves dearly if he didn’t comply. When we walked in we were greeted by his Aunt Glenda (who had a set of twins) and peppermint martinis. I wasn’t expecting to see Glenda at all during the holidays so I immediately wanted to tell her. When we made our way to the back patio almost all of the sisters were there and so was Grandma Millie. I knew we had to tell them – I didn’t think we would have a chance to tell almost everyone in person much less at the same time. I pulled Luke aside and told him he could tell everyone and that made him giddy with drunk excitement. When Luke raised his glass for the announcement the looks on everyone’s face told me they thought they knew what was coming. Their reaction was textbook – they all went crazy at the pregnancy announcement. The hootin’ and hollerin’ (thanks to the martinis) was so loud and long Luke had to yell over everyone to finish. The “with twins” part momentarily silenced them which is quite the feat with the sisters. Drunk Luke got his way, but the moment was perfect so I too was a happy camper.

Christmas Eve morning I was able to sneak breakfast in with two of my best friends, Tess & Rachel. No matter the chaos over the holidays the three of us always manage to get together and catch up. Tess had us over for breakfast and greeted me with the offer of a mimosa. I suggested that we wait for Rachel and drink water because I “drank too much wine the night before.” I wish. Initially, Rachel and Tess were upset that I had got them “a little something” for Christmas since we don’t usually exchange gifts. Rachel tossed aside the card to love on Charlotte (Tess’s daughter)  but trusty Tess can never wait to open anything! She read the card in silence mouth agape and looked at me to confirm that I wasn’t kidding. I said, “yes, it’s true, I’m not joking.” Rachel suddenly got interested in the conversation and I had to reassure them over and over that I wasn’t lying. Then they got excited and drank a bunch of champagne to celebrate. It’s never long enough when we get together but I am grateful for the moments we do get especially when I”m holding the trump card.

You would think by all the people we had already told at this point the novelty would have worn off, but telling my extended family Christmas morning had me more excited than any present under the tree. Every Christmas my entire life, I have always had Christmas day at my grandparents house (dad’s side) after we did our own family thing in the morning. My aunts, uncles and other cousins on my dad’s side would also be there because it was mandatory (you try telling the colonel no!). My grandpa fixes bloody marys & sangria plus shrimp dip and Christmas cookies to get the party started and then my Grandma makes the best prime rib dinner on the face of the planet. Everything is  homemade with love and butter from the mashed potatoes to the gravy and whipped horseradish sauce. For dessert, we top it off with cheese pie and a round of Uno. But most importantly, we open a lot of presents. Opening presents is the one time of the year we are allowed to sit in the fancy living room! My plan was to hand out the cards last so as to not interrupt the normal course of business. My brother was delegated as santa this year so he was responsible for handing out the presents to open. I gave him strict instructions and he knew better than to mess with me. This was the llllllllllooooonnnnnnnnggggggeeeeessssssssttttttttt present handing out session like ever. I was so anxious to get to the big announcement that I can’t even recollect what presents we received. Kiel executed cleanly, but when he handed the card to my grandma she set it aside because she had bigger presents to attend to, priorities am I right? The excitement started slowly but by the time someone had finally read the entire card (thanks Dani!)  and everyone learned we were having twins the room erupted with cheer. Since my grandma didn’t open the card, my grandparents were confused by the excitement but were quickly filled in and joined in on celebration. My grandma told me that she dreamed that I was pregnant so she wasn’t surprised. I said, “but grandma it’s twins – was that in your dream?” and she said “what? nobody told me about twins, you’re having twins?” All she could hear was the commotion about being pregnant – her nor my grandpa got the details about the twins. That really knocked their socks off! They were shocked because no where on either side of their families is there a history of twins. I think Luke and his golden sperm moved up a couple ranks in my grandpa’s eyes that day – a feat even the colonel hadn’t accomplished!

These little nuggets gave us the best Christmas of our lives, I can’t wait to see what the future holds!

Before I got pregnant I had this vision of the amazing pregnant lady I was going to be. I would have an impeccable blog that would become a worldwide over night sensation and I would definitely chronicle my bump progress to the fullest extent.

The reality is I am so freaking tired that I can barely manage to write blog posts much less make the blog beautiful. I also am freaked out about the changes in my body. I am totally not embracing them, I am horrified by them. One of the few body parts I have that I love was my stomach. It’s always been flat and sometimes ripped depending on my workout and eating habits. It’s also the first part of my body to get back in shape when I commit to working out again after an extended break. I know a lot of people struggle with their stomachs so I am definitely grateful for my mom’s genes in that arena. Being pregnant, though, requires you to gain weight, a lot of weight with twins, and most of it’s in your stomach – ugh. Watching the evolution of my muffin top and knowing that no matter what  my diet or exercise regime is that I am going to continue to grow until I can’t see my toes and Luke will have to roll me out of bed completely pisses me off. However, Luke is mesmerized by my situation. He loves it – touching it, gawking at it, talking to it, putting his ear up to it (to hear the ocean?) and begging to take pictures of it. If I knew that my husband would someday be more in love with me and my appearance when I can barely squeeze into my jeans and have a legit beer belly hanging over – I would have never deprived myself of so many carbs in my early 20s! Oh the irony. This has been our song and dance so far: Luke begs to take pictures of my belly and I bite his head off. Consequently I only have 3 or 4 bump pictures but here they are:

 

Above: 6 weeks. Not much going on in the bump department yet. My butt still sticks out further than my gut! All in the same week I found out I was pregnant, finished the year end audit at work and got myself a nice little raise so Luke whisked me off to Sedona to celebrate all three! It was the first time in my adult life I didn’t celebrate with champagne but we did have an amazing dinner at L’Auberge and a much needed couples massage.

 

Above: 9 ish weeks. Still not a lot going on, but I could tell because my belly was starting to stick out over my pants. This was right before I headed out to a brunch with the girls. I threw a poncho on over the tank top and drank fake mimosas all morning to trick them out 🙂 I can’t believe at some point my belly will stick out far enough to touch Jak’s nose. I wonder if it will freak the dogs out as much as it does me!

 

Above: 12 weeks. The gut is definitely starting to bust out! Our friends Heather & Craig had us over for NYE and I was scrambling to find something to wear. Going through my closet I found this top that I had worn an few years (and pounds) ago so I threw it on, walked out and told Luke I was ready to go. I was expecting to terrify him but Instead he said “You look great babe, hurry up.” Then he did a double take and said “Oh my god! Look at that belly it’s so amazing blah blah blah…” He was actually going to let me walk out of the house like that.

 

Above: 14 weeks. It’s finally hiking weather in Arizona – our favorite time of year. We took the dogs on a long hike through Phoenix mountain preserve and I survived! My energy levels are up and down so I’m glad I was able to manage the 3 -4 miles this hike ended up being. Midway through the hike I also thought I felt one of the babies moving! Upon later research, 14 weeks is a little early to feel movement but I definitely felt something. Luke thought I was over doing it but we didn’t really have an option, we were two miles out and had to go two miles back. So we pushed on and I haven’t felt anything since. The only thing about working out when pregnant is that it is the only thing I can do all day. If I work out, it takes a two hour nap and a lot of food and reality tv to recover!

To break up the monotony of my “sharing the news” posts (I promise I only have one left) I thought I’d do a quick post on our 12 week ultrasound appointment.

We were really nervous for this appointment, well excited and nervous. We were excited because our doctor sent us to a “fancy” ultrasound place so there was the possibility of the 3D ultrasound, but we were nervous because we had been telling everyone in the world our news and we weren’t quite in the “safe” zone yet. Being the amazing wife that I am, I chose a location that was between my job and Luke’s job which is approximately the ghetto of downtown Phoenix. I also scheduled the appointment during Monday morning rush hour and of course it turns out Luke didn’t have to go to the jobsite on the west side of town that day. Luke is such a saint. I am early on in this pregnancy but I grasped the “crazy” component of pregnancy right away. For example, as we were leaving I requested that we take surface streets to the doctor’s office because I was nervous to drive on the freeway during rush hour. What am I? Blind and 90 and from Tucson? That’s a good 10 miles of surface streets, from 48th street to 7th Avenue. Luke turned to look at me to confirm that I was joking and saw how serious I was and said “sure babe, whatever you think.” Love that man. Taking surface streets means we got an even more in depth tour of the ghetto and confirmed that the “antique” shops that Luke found on yelp a few weeks earlier were actually pawn shops. Thanks yelp!

The ghetto location was worth it because that ultrasound and our tech were awesome. I think the tech was excited we were having twins because it felt like she spent a lot of time with us, we left there with 75 ultrasound pictures which I found out was not standard. A few of our friends / family who already have kids told us they got three – four pictures in total for the whole pregnancy! These twins have elevated us to VIP status when it comes to ultrasounds! It’s really amazing what what you can see these days. The tech pointed out all sorts of body parts, vital organs and facial features that I had no idea we would be able to see. Honestly, I had to take her word for most of it. I can definitely tell there’s two babies in there and can tell the difference between the head and the butt, but everything else I kind of nod along to in agreement and “ooh” and “ahh” where necessary. Luke, though, seems to be a pro or at least a better faker. Even now he can point out things in all 75 of the pictures that look like different blobs to me.

During the ultrasound each twin has to be measured for certain things so they also have to be in the right position to get the measurements. The twins are labeled as Baby A and Baby B. Baby A is assigned to the twin who is closest to the point of exit and will most likely be the first one born if Baby B doesn’t make a comeback. If they’re anything like their parents it will be a fierce battle until the end. Baby A so far has been the perfect sweet angel baby – always curled up, asleep, still and in the perfect position for measurements. Baby B on the ,other hand, is a tornado and is all over the place. When the tech first switched over to Baby B, I swear the kid was doing jump squats off the side of my uterus. It took twice as long to get the measurements because of the show Baby B was putting on. Based on that information alone Luke and I think Baby A is a girl and Baby B is a boy. Overall, the twins measurements were right on schedule as well as their heartbeats. They’re both growing at the same rate which I learned is important when pregnant with multiples. It was too early to tell the sex but we were just happy they were healthy. The other test results from the blood I gave (top ten of things I hate to do the most) came back in the clear which means no down syndrome.

As we walked back to our cars we both looked at each other and said “So I guess this is really happening?” We had been waiting for this news since November and could hardly comprehend that everything was in fact happening and that we were in fact most likely going to be parents to twins. I called my mom right away and told her the good news. She got off the phone with me as quickly as possible to tell everyone else she had been waiting to tell.

The Leonard Twins are in full effect! Here’s the best picture from the ultrasound:

 

As you can see, Baby AA is curled up sweet as a peanut and Baby BB is crouching preparing for the next set of jump squats!

Some baby growth Stats: