Halloween 2011

This is what I got out of the shower one day to see.... Tiernan was reading a book to his brother. SO adorable.

Happy Halloween! The boys seemed to have a fun time going trick or treating this year. We went with our neighbors, and Tiernan and Thomas would race each other to the next house. So cute!

Cameron was not super excited about putting his hand in the pumpkin. Which is funny because last year he didn't care at all about it, and Tiernan was scared. They've changed roles apparently.

Still not amused

Ethan was so excited that I roped him in

Cameron was a little monkey and Tiernan was a dinosaur

Running to the next house...I was so impressed that everyone kept their costumes on the whole time. A new accomplishment.

They have become better buddies lately. Tiernan was cuddling on the floor with his blanket (he's been sick) and Cameron wanted to come join him.

13 weeks!

Here are the latest ultrasound and belly pics. The ultrasound was taken at 12 weeks, 6 days. My mom will be so happy I'm taking belly pictures, since I didn't with either of the boys. I figure I should try to chronicle my (hopefully!) last pregnancy and I think it will be fun to look later at how big my tummy gets! Just to compare though, I'm guessing this is about what I looked like halfway through my other pregnancies...Ethan will never discuss this (he's finally wisened up after eight years of marriage!)

Twins!!

What a huge surprise! We found out on Sept. 28th that I am pregnant with twins! We were extra shocked because at our first ultrasound at 6 weeks, this is what we saw....

ONE healthy baby with a little heartbeat. I still wonder where the other baby was hiding!!

So, when I went in for my next ultrasound at 8 weeks, as the nurse practitioner was looking at the ultrasound she had a funny look on her face. I immediately thought the worst, but she turned the screen toward us and asked, "Did you know you're having twins??" I clasped my hand to my open mouth, gasped, and started giggling. Oh my goodness! What a shock! Then she measured both of their lengths and took their heartbeats. Both babies were measuring right on schedule and the heartbeats were perfect (171 and 167 beats per minute.) Right now my due date is May 3, 2012, however twins are usually early. My attempt at not having a tax season baby may have failed...

Here is Baby A. At the top you can see its head. You can fairly clearly see a body and arms and legs. But maybe it's just clear to me because I've had 15 million ultrasounds!

Baby B was being a little bit shy (probably the one that was hiding before!!) Plus, it was further from my cervix and harder to see. My sister is convinced that he/she is the sneaky one and the other is a showboat. :)

We're still processing through the idea of having a four year old, two year old, and newborn twins. YIKES! The logistics are a little bit frightening. But I am choosing to view this as an amazing BLESSING from the Lord. I prayed so hard for so long for babies, and here they are! I'm only at 9 weeks right now, so not quite out of the "danger zone" as far as miscarriages go. I'm trying so hard not to be paralyzed by the thought that something bad might happen. So for now we are praying endlessly, for a safe pregnancy and healthy babies, and that my anxiety would be calmed. I can't wait to meet them!

Random August pics

Here are some random pictures of what we've been up to in August:

Tiernan loves building forts in our living room. It was so cute when both boys cuddled under the blanket together.

Tiernan has turned into such a good helper. He still loves to mow the lawn with Daddy. The past couple of times Cameron wanted to get in on the action too. I think next summer we're going to have to get another lawnmower.

He was so proud for getting dressed by himself....

My boys both love to read (Hallelujah!)

It is so cute to watch Ethan reading with them before bed.

And on a totally other note, here is my (read, Ethan's) pet project. Ever since we mounted our flat screen tv it's just been hanging out randomly about our old tv stand-there was this huge blank space on the wall that had been bugging me. Plus, the tv stand was open and the boys thought nothing was funner than pushing all the buttons on the DVD player and Wii (and VCR-shhh-I promise we really are not 65-who still has a VCR really? But I digress...) Anyway I told Ethan that I wanted a dresser for underneath, but it needed to be pretty specific measurements not only to fit the shorty wall, but also be tall under the tv. Oh, and it also needed to have doors to contain all the toys/books/aforementioned electrical equipment. You would not think this is so difficult, eh?

So after months and months of combing Craigslist-I was just sure I could find a better deal there-I finally found the most God-awful ugly old lady buffet/dresser. Yes, I am kicking myself for not taking before/after pictures-I am a rookie after all! So after primer, four coats of paint (hated the first shade) fixing the drawers, etc. etc. here it is in all it's glory. Don't tell Ethan but I'm pretty sure we probably spent as much fixing up my "find" as if I would have just bought brand new. Grrrr. But what a sense of accomplishment! I'm sure that's exactly what Ethan feels. BTW I totally chickened out. I originally had a lighter shade of blue and I was this close to putting on red knobs....but I suppose I'm still too much of a chromaphobe. Plus I hated the first blue, and I'm so glad I re-painted it and now have bling-y glass knobs. Yes, I just used the word bling-y!

Trip to Wyoming

Last week we were able to go up to Ethan's sister's husband's parents' (boyfriends dogs neighbors...) cabin near Centennial Wyoming. We had so much fun playing outdoors. And I became a believer that there is more to Wyoming than wind and plains.

Getting ready to ride the ATVs. I promise we were only riding around the cabin on dirt roads.

Cameron was not super excited about it. I think he was more angry about wearing the helmet.

One of the days we went for a hike. Here we are at the "top." It was so windy! Okay, so maybe Wyoming still fits that bill...

Pointing at the waterfall down below

I got some beautiful shots of the mountains up there.

Cameron loves riding in the hiking backpack. It's a whole new world up there!

The start of our hike. Tiernan was so mad that we were walking on relatively flat trail. He kept asking when we were going to go hiking and pointing up the mountains and asking to go there. He must be a boy, wanting to conquer!

So against my better judgement I let Ethan convince me to drive the 4Runner on a trail. He tried to tell me that it would be dirt road the whole way. Uh huh. On the map it only looked like maybe 5-6 miles....it took us literally 2.5 hours to drive it because it was so bumpy, rocky, muddy, etc. etc. Keep in mind we had two small children in car seats in the back and NO cell phone service. So if something would have broken on my car....it could have been interesting. Ethan thought it was SOOO awesome-I was trying not to yell at him for taking us on this trail we'd never been on. In the end everything worked out okay and Ethan felt like a real man because he took us over these big rocks. And yes, that is what we drove the 4Runner over.

Where is the biggest stick to throw in the water??

There it goes!

Look, a flower!

I loved how the light was hitting everything up there-absolutely gorgeous!

Can you spot the little boy poking through the leaves?

We spent a lot of time throwing rocks in the "ribber"

They got brave and put their toes in the burrrrista cold water

Cameron was trying to climb over the bridge into the water

It's amazing I got both little hands at the same time!

Why I am tired at the end of everyday

Before we had children we had some older (with grown children) friends of ours over for dinner one night. They noticed our stairwell and said "That will be a perfect racetrack for kids one day." We laughed it off-who would think such a thing?!-not realizing how much your perspective on everything changes once you have kids. Now we understand perfectly what they were talking about, and, how true it is! Our stairwell IS the perfect racetrack for running, riding trikes, dumptrucks, and driving tractors and racecars. I have some hilarious video clips of the boys screaming and running and laughing around the stairway, but of course can't get them to load. But you can imagine how funny it would be, right?

"SHOE!!"

Cameron is in the phase of bringing everything to us. It makes it really fun trying to find the other matching shoe since we can only ever find one since the other one is always mysteriously missing....I was so tempted today to just put him in two different kinds of shoes since I couldn't find a matching pair. But decided against it since I can't even blame the mis-matching shoes on Cameron yet since he clearly is not old enough to dress himself.

Running around and around

There is always at least one collision which ends in tears

Phew! All that running around makes us tired!

Good thing we have a king sized bed!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

We were in GJ for my mom's birthday this year. We made her feel like a big girl and she got numbers on her cake so we can remember how old she turned. I'm sure she was so thrilled.

One day we went swimming at the new Fruita Rec Center. It totally cracks me up that Fruita has a rec center and not GJ. Anyway, it was a beautiful facility and the boys LOVED swimming. I love how it looks like Tiernan's shirt says DANG.

LOVE this pic of Cameron and Grandpa-they are buddies