Saturday, December 28, 2013

Sledding

Today we went sledding as the weather was PERFECT for it! It was around 30 and they are calling for the coldest temps to come this winter so we knew we had to get out while we could. It's suppose to drop 50 degrees overnight and not get above zero the next few days.

We went to a nearby park that is in our neighborhood and had a lot of fun.
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Kyle was the demonstrator
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Then Isaac wanted his own turn and loved it!
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Wipe out:
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Isaac wouldn't let us leave without some time on the playground. He wanted to go down the slide, and here he is motioning and asking Daddy to come sit next to him.
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This was the best picture of the day! The slide was super fast with the frost and ice on it. I just can't help but laugh out loud when I see this! Priceless!
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Christmas 2013

Christmas Eve we spent the day hanging out at home. Our goal was to not go anywhere, well except for church that evening. We had farm animal pancakes for breakfast and colored on this big piece of cardboard:
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We made 'grinch heads' for snack (green grape, banana slice, strawberry, topped with a mini-marshmellow) Isaac loved them. 
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Then during nap we thought we'd get started on 'Santa's present' for Isaac! I spent quite a bit of time researching kitchens as I wanted it to meet a number of criteria 1) wood 2) gender neutral aka NOT girly! 3) buttons on the microwave 4) tall enough he wasn't going to tower over it or grow out of it in 6 months 5) wanted it to contain a fridge, oven, sink, & microwave. This one met all of that and then some. It has an ice dispenser on the fridge, a chalk board on the freezer (which Isaac doesn't know about yet, too bad chalk is messy), and a dishwasher. When reading reviews about this particular kitchen Kidkraft Uptown Espresso Play Kitchen the biggest complaint was that it was a pain to put together and some people complained that they didn't receive all the right parts. So the night it was delivered... by Santa's reign-deer... we made sure and went through all the pieces in-case we needed to re-order any spare parts that were not included. Luckily we had everything. Since we knew it was going to take a long time to put together we started during nap: 
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We manage to finish all 36 steps in two hours! And were finished in time for nap!! So we didn't have to avoid the basement as planned, we just carried the assembled kitchen into the closet to bring out after bedtime. 

We went to church, stopping to grab milk and gravy for the next day afterwards... after 3 failed attempts at stores closed, Wal-Mart was the winner. Of course it was :-P they don't want to give their employees time off too early. 

We came home, Isaac went off to bed and we set up for Christmas morning, I mean Santa came. 
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We woke up and made breakfast (sausage pepper and cheese omelets). Then went down stairs for the big reveal. Isaac immediately ran to the kitchen, where he discovered his food toys stashed inside (food toys were not new, but now have a home)
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He worked on his stocking, which I cross-stitched last year and assembled this season. I have two more in the works for the babies... hoping to get them done by the time they are two years old. 
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In his stocking he found: two baby dolls, a bottle and juice sippy for the babies, a small coloring activity pad, and an elmo wash cloth for the bath. 

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We continued to open presents. Since Kyle and I got a new TV on Black Friday we didn't do any gifts for each other. But we still got each other stocking stuffers. 

Here's Isaac opening a few of his new toys. Connect four, to work on those fine motor skills
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Puzzles (a number puzzle & animal puzzle)
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He got a barn for his train set as well as a tractor train with a horse and a cow
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Grandma Cindy sent him some dishes for his new kitchen
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And his cousins sent him some cool planes and a monster truck. He enjoyed the picture and had to point out each cousin "Dea" "Llll-son" "den"
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Then we had fun just playing the rest of the morning
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Over nap time I explored the world of felt food on pinterest and whipped together some banana's for him
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Later that night after he went to bed I whipped up six strawberries (which are his favorite at the moment)
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Before he went to bed the day wouldn't be complete without bath time with his new toy from Grandma Judy
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Since Wednesday I also made some donuts
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and today I'm finishing up four orange slices
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And since it was Wednesday it was our nightly belly bump picture. At 20 weeks I am about the size I was with Isaac at 35 weeks. Growin' girls!
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Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!!!! 

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Sick of Surprises

Well it's happened again... except this time it took us by COMPLETE surprise. Unlike the twins confirmation where we had a suspicion going into it. This time, not so much.

I had an ultrasound at my 16 week check up with a new OB. It was just the portable ultrasound so I knew it might not be completely accurate. At this ultrasound I discovered a boy and what we were pretty sure was a girl, but not completely... hence the uncertainty.

Well we had our comprehensive ultrasound today. The 'big' one down in Maternal Fetal Medicine. Kyle was with and this was intended to be the big gender reveal, but since we got a peek earlier we were just hoping for confirmation... well we got confirmation that Baby B was a girl.... and news that so was Baby A!! Yes TWO GIRLS!!!! I will admit I cried and am still grieving the loss in idea of a boy and a girl. That Isaac won't have a little brother to play ball with... but I know I'll adjust to this new known fact just as I have that there are two babies in there. But I can't help but shake my fists. What is next? What lies ahead? Because so far, NOTHING is going as planned. Ironic how yesterday we landed on THE most perfect boy name (first & middle)... while talking about how hard the girl name will be. Now we are stuck with FOUR girl names to pick, wowzers!

So the story, turns out at my OB appointment we were seeing the umbilical cord which was hanging down in the space of a penis... this became clear today because it almost looked like a penis again, but with closer looks and an actually ultrasound tech (not an OB who doesn't do it everyday) the discovery of girl parts was clear.

Oh and our Christmas cards were wrong as well. Here is what they should have read.
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And here are some pictures of our beautiful babies.
View of both babies... they are pretty big and smooshed in there so kinda hard to see.
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Baby Girl A
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Baby Girl B
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Thursday, December 12, 2013

Brazil

As most of you know I (Kyle) had to take a business trip down to Sao Paulo, Brazil.  Sao Paulo (SP) is a fascinating city, from what little I saw of it.

After a nice long plane ride throughout the night I finally landed in  SP at about 8 am.  I then had to wait in the airport for about an hour and a half for my colleague to arrive, couldn't get on the same flight...long story, not important.  From there we took what amounted to a limo ride to the office which was about 10 miles away.  Luckily the car was very comfortable because it took over 2 hours to get there!  Plenty of time for a short nap for both of us and some "sight-seeing."

We arrived at the office at 12 and worked until about 7 (this is a common theme, worked about 12 hours a day).  That evening we took a cab back to the hotel.  Well we almost didn't, we had to call 3 cabs because the first 2 rejected us because we weren't going far enough; that was a first.  So we finally got a cab to the hotel, 2.5 miles and 30 mins in the cab.

The first two pictures are views from my hotel room.  Shortly after taking these I ordered room service and promptly went to sleep.  Long first day over.
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The next morning I got up to take a couple pictures outside of the hotel.  Was recommended not to walk far as I would might get mugged (this was a good part of the city so that was it was only might).  As you can see it was pretty hilly and jungley where I was which was nice, but not worth the really long cab ride.
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This is a little taste of the traffic.  What you don't see is that we are going no more than 5-10 mph and motorcycles are zooming in between all of the cars.  Fact: more than 1 motorcyclist dies everyday is SP because 1) they drive like complete idiots and 2) people in cars want to kill them.  At this point of the ride I am coming upon a bridge over a river, I don't know what the river's name was but I dubbed it the Stinky River.  I did not look forward to going over the Stinky River twice a day, slowly.
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Here are a couple of pictures from the office i was at.  This was really my view the whole time, just buildings this size as far as you can see.
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Interesting note, the bottom of the red building is a cafeteria that we ate at once.  Next to that is a coffee house (the coffee is unbelievable), next to that a pizzeria, then a hamburger place.  One thing i have to say is that the food was very very good, nothing was sub-par.  This night we went to a Brazilian Steakhouse where I truly gorged myself to the point of real pain.  After dinner we took a nice long cab ride back to the hotel where i got more much needed sleep.

The next day we were in the office well before anyone else at 7 and i put in a nice day until 7:30 where I caught a car (pretty much a limo) to the airport.  It was a nice two and a half hour trip back which I got the see the Flag Monument (google it, was pretty impressive) and a few other parts of the city.  I also took this time to take another pretty long nap.  I got to the airport at 10:15ish just in time to catch my 11:00 flight and head back home.
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