February 2012

Just some random pictures from February....

My belly at 28 weeks

We just did a small family party for Cameron at our house. Here are some pictures in random order.....

Getting ready to open gifts

Gifts from Grandma and Grandpa Cozzens

Yay! A new loader!

Another picture of Ethan and his knife

Lighting the cupcake

Yummy cupcakes

My little 2 year old

The boys have been loving watercolor painting lately. I love their focused faces.

35 weeks and BORED (It's a long one!)

Well it's been a month and a half since I last posted. So much has happened in such a short span of time! Let's see....both of the boys have had birthdays. Cameron turned two in February, and Tiernan just turned 4 yesterday. I'll try to post pics sometime of their birthday parties.
The biggest upheaval in our lives happened after I went in for my 32 week OB appt. They did the ultrasound on the twins and everything looked great...but when the OB checked my cervix I was dilated to a 3 and was 50% effaced. Yikes! She was so surprised because at every other appt. I was not dilated or effaced at all. So she immediately put me on bed rest to try to stop me from dilating any more and going into labor.
Unfortuantely early that next morning I woke up to really strong contractions that were 2-3 minutes apart. I began panicking! It was way too early for these babies to arrive! Ethan and I rushed to the hospital and they immediately gave me medication to stop the contractions. Fortunately I hadn't dilated any more, but the regular contractions continued until about noon, and then thankfully eased up. They sent me home that evening and ever since then I've had to remain on bed rest and continue taking medicine to stop the contractions/labor. That was almost three weeks ago.
It has been such a difficult situation-it's frustrating for me since I am basically restricted to getting up to go the bathroom and to take a shower. And I have to be laying down, not even sitting. I am the mayor of Boredom City! There is only so much tv and books you can read for almost three weeks straight! Another challenge has been that we have to find people to watch the boys since I'm obviously not able to take care of them. We have been so blessed by amazing people willing to help out in so many ways-Ethan's family and a friend of mine have been graciously taking the boys during the day, and we've had several people bring us meals. I am one thankful mama! I can tell that it's taken it's toll on the boys and Ethan, and I think everyone is ready to have things back to "normal"-even though it will be a new normal after the twins arrive!
In any case I am sooooo thankful that so far the bed rest and medication seem to be doing the trick, because at the Dr. appts. I've had since then, I haven't dilated or effaced any more-praise the Lord! So, it sounds like at this point if they were to deliver, the only possible problem would be to be on oxygen-but of course we're just hoping they'll just wait another couple of weeks until considered full term at 37 weeks. Our (or, mostly my) other prayer is that they'll both flip to be head down so that I can have a normal delivery, or as normal as a twin birth could be! Otherwise I will have to have a C-section which absolutely terrifies me-mostly the recovery part. Obviously I will be so thankful just to have healthy babies and if a C-section is what it takes that is fine, but not preferable. My Dr. said they'll decide at 36 weeks whether or not I'll have to have a C-section or not-so those babies just have about a week and a half to flip around! Right now Baby A is breech (the one closest to my cervix) and Baby B is head down (vertex.) BUT they have been in different positions every time I've gone in, so I'm holding out a TEENY bit of hope that they might cooperate. :)
Here's a few profile pictures of the twins....

Baby A's face was smushed by the membrane of the amniotic sac. You can kind of see the thin white line on the top of his forehead and nose...

January 2012

Just a couple of pictures from this month....

Tiernan has really been into puzzles lately. His latest favorite is the Hickory Dickory Dock puzzle from his cousin Lauren. He love putting the puzzle together and then reading the book.

You notice Cameron in the background being a ham...

He never misses a moment to pose for the camera

Safety goggles are on and I'm ready for work!

We've been training Cameron to sleep in his toddler bed. One day he snuck out of his room but apparently was so sleepy that he fell asleep in the hall. So cute

Just a month or two late...

Well I am finally getting around to posting Christmas pictures. I was not so great about taking pictures this year for some reason, so all you get are the ones of us in our pjs at our house.

A Benny the Bull from Auntie Tiff (and fam)

Cameron thought it was fun until he bounced too hard and fell over and bonked his head-I don't think he's got on it since...

Opening up our stockings-they loved all the construction equipment from Daddy

A flatbed truck and skid steer (look at my ever expanding vocabulary of vehicles! Four years ago I didn't know any of this!)

Unwrapping is the best part!

We put this rug in the boys' room-they love driving their thousands and thousands of trucks all over it

This picture makes me laugh because it looks like Ethan is about to stab Tiernan-why is it that I have TWO pictures where Ethan is trying to stab someone?? Hmmmm

The boys had fun putting ornaments on the tree. By the time Christmas came I think only the top half still had ornaments on it because some little fingers couldn't resist!

24/25/26 weeks!

Yes, I know it's very confusing. The ultrasound pictures were taken at 24 weeks, and the tummy picture was taken at 25 weeks, and today I made it to 26 weeks-thus the name of my post!

Okay, the above pic was taken when I was pregnant with Tiernan-like 3 weeks or so before he was born. And the pic under is me just a few days ago (at 25 weeks.) I would say I'm maybe a liiiitle bit smaller than I was at the very end with both of the boys. Yikes!

And here are the latest pictures of the twins....

Baby B was chewing on his cord-you can see the "bubbles"-that's the cord

Baby A (one closest to cervix) was breech, and Baby B was still transverse. So they were still able to kick each other-you can see the leg and foot of Baby A next to Baby B's head.

20 Weeks

I had my 20 week ultrasound this week. Once again, it was so amazing to see my sweet babies! I still can't believe I have TWO growing inside of me! We had an extra special treat that the ultrasound tech did a little bit of 4D ultrasound, which I didn't get to do with the older boys. It was so amazing to see them look like actual babies, rather than just the black and white outlines. I might be a little bit biased, but I think they're pretty cute! Everything looked really good once again: babies' heartrates were perfect, and they were growing appropriately. She estimated they weigh 14 oz. each. Right now they're both sitting transverse, so hopefullly they'll both move "head down" before it's time to deliver. I'm feeling them move more and more each day, and Ethan got to feel one little kick a few days ago. It will be interesting to see how these babies will feel compared to the older boys.
I keep trying to upload a belly pic, but for some reason it won't let me-so you are stuck with the ultrasound pics:

This one cracks me up. Baby A kept kicking Baby B in the head, and so the tech was having a hard time getting pics of Baby B. It starts already...

The next three are of Baby A:

Profile-looks like he's missing a foot!

Alien face

Still a boy :)

And here's Baby B:

Profile

Alien face

Also still a boy

Thanksgiving and November

Here are pictures of Thanksgiving weekend and November. Sorry there are a million; I've been a slacker about posting pictures of my boys. The first few were taken by my auntie Debbi:

Helping Grandpa White put training wheels on his big boy bike

Ready to ride!

It was so chilly that day, but we managed to get a few cute pics of the boys...

Wants to be just like his big brother

Riding on the rocking horse

One of the few shots where everyone was quasi-happy. Cameron was NOT into it.

He's such a ham bone usually-I'm not sure what the deal was. Apparently it was too planned.

Eating Thanksgiving dinner-or pb & js

I love these two pics of Cameron, Riley, and Wyatt. I especially love the one above where you can see the disaster of toys on the floor. You should have seen (and heard!!) my parents' house with 8, 5, 4, and 3 year olds, 2 year old twins, and a 21 month old. All boys except one. They are very brave.

Watching Madagascar

Quesadillas for Thanksgiving Eve

I love this picture because it pretty much sums up our every day life. I could have almost done a slide show of the progression of everyone pushing and crying.

Ethan is NOT amused :)

Our first big snow of the season. It took us 15 minutes to find everyone's gloves, hats, boots, and coats. And then Cameron got cold-why can't I ever find waterproof gloves for toddlers?? So he only spent probably 5 min. outside before he got cold.

All bundled up and ready to go!

One morning at breakfast they thought it was so hilarious to put their spoons on their heads. It was so fun cleaning oatmeal out of hair-I kept getting confused why Cameron still smelled like maple syrup when we didn't have pancakes.

This was the day before the storm-beautiful and no coats!

Let's compare bath pictures from a little over a year ago, shall we?

Look how much bigger they are!