Nashville

We were in Nashville, TN all last week visiting Papap, Grandma and Uncle P.J. and attending some meetings for the FJC Company. Geoff was in FL the week prior so the boys and I flew to TN ourselves and met him there. Here are the boys as soon as we arrived at the first airport...very excited about the trip. Here we go! I learned quickly that I can't let them sit next to each other on the plane. A few minutes in and they got in a little punching fight. Fun. It was a long trip and I was very thankful for the TVs on the 4-hour plane ride to Houston. But we made it and my stomach did OK. I wasn't feeling the best on the drive to my parent's house from the airport but survived. We headed off to the zoo the next morning...


The weather was just too nice to stay inside.
< J and Papap having a discussion about hot dogs over lunch.

Fun feeding the lorakeets:


Funny hand dryer station at the zoo:

I couldn't get a great pic of W and Papap at the merry-go-round bc W kept choosing the animals on the inside of the ride.

J and Geoff:
Enjoying the awesome playground in the zoo.


Geoff and I went on a date night to PF Changs that night for dinner. I was craving their lettuce wraps and their food. I didn't get my standard Singapore Street noodles and then I craved them the rest of the trip. We should have gone back! The next day mom and I did some shopping damage. They have such great shopping there but the sales tax is painful! Almost 10%. Especially painful when we have no sales tax where we live.
The next day we headed about an hour away to Murfreesboro, TN to the Discovery Zone. The boys, Papap and I went a couple of summers ago and they have great activies for the boys.



We were there about an hour or so when the managers had to move everyone in the building to a room due to storm sirens going off. We stayed in a room for about 45 minutes before we could return to the museum. Papap called and said there were 75 mph winds back at the house. They have crazy storms there.
Before heading home...Geoff and J built a complex train:

And W and I stayed with making dominoes (don't you love W's ventriloquist-doll face here?)


My parents lost a very large tree from the storm...as it fell it took out a few more:


W sawing:

And earning his keep:

Building a fire pile:

Then Papap, Geoff, Uncle PJ and I attended meetings Wed and Thurs while Grandma stayed home with the boys. On Wednesday night we had an amazing dinner at Maggianos for everyone in FJC as a kick-off dinner for the company. I look silly bc one of the boys is at my feet and was reaching for my neck when the pic was taken.

Here is J just after leaving the restaurant...minutes before...

passing out for the night.

I think Geoff is the sleep-whisperer. The boys didn't nap on any of the three flights on the way to TN. On the first trip home (Geoff flew back with us)...W was next to me (wide awake) and J was next to Geoff (fast asleep). Fast forward to the next plane...the boys both sat next to Geoff and W finally took a nap.


The boys have gotten such good use of their penguin backpacks/roll suitcases we bought a couple of years ago. I tried to get a pic while we were walking but they were all blurry. They get lots of attention and comments on those penguins. J was a different person on our flight to Nashville. He talked to everyone we met and smiled and said hi and bye and "We are going to Tennessee to visit Grandma and Papap" to everyone we met. Normally they are pretty shy around strangers so this surprised me.


In fact, while waiting to fly home, an airport cop on a bike came by and talked to us. The boys told him about our trip and then W said "the next time you come back we want to ride your bike."


It was a nice trip. I was so close to an entire week being sick-free. Until I threw up as our plane was making its final decent into the airport. W said "the airplane is making you sick?"

10-week belly or....11 1/2-week?

When I was pregnant with the boys...I was so excited about the pregnancy and busy with our new house in Florida that I didn't really get a pre-pregnancy belly pic. I think the first pic I have is from week 12 and I had already grown a little bit! I am not much better this time around...here is a 10-week belly picture:

Yes, I have a badge of honor with stretch mark scars and my belly button looks completely different from before but it is all worth it for those little fellas. And hard not to get when your belly stretches this far out at 36 weeks:

Yes, you can see the red little stretchy of the belly very clear here. And I still had six days to go of painful-expanding-skin-stretching. But don't let the first picture fool you. That was a good morning. I am showing so much faster this time around. The doc told me that my uterus expanded so much from the twins that it doesn't return all the way...so just a little growth will cause my belly to pop right out. I had my first appointment on Monday...and the doc seems to think I am 11 days further along then my projected due date. I was 10 weeks 6 days at the appointment and he said the baby is measuring 12 weeks and 3 days. I didn't know they would adjust my due date based on that one ultrasound but he did. And with a required c-section here since we don't have the medical requirements for a VBAC they project delivery a week before that! The baby looked great and was moving a lot in the ultrasound. But it is definitely sobering to have to discuss the genetic counseling information at length. I was with the doctor for two full hours! Just praying for a healthy baby and uneventful pregnancy.

"Little Pig Little Pig...Let me In!"

"Not by the hairs on my henny chinny chin!" At least that is what the boys used to say. They say "chinny chin chin" now. They love building a fort while Geoff pretends he is the big bad wolf trying to knock it down. I played the other day and was the third pig. The third pig in charge of the nerf gun to shoot the wolf -you know...that was part of the story wasn't it?

Anyway, it was quite fun...I am amazed how fast and fearless the boys are when they are diving back into the fort running from the wolf. And how many times they hit their heads on the table. W actually had two large lumps on his crown from banging into the table. And at the end of the game we let the real wolf in!

Time to Swim!

The boys are doing a crash-course in swim lessons this week. Just 30 minutes a day. Their first day was yesterday and Geoff had the day off so he came with us. The first thing the instructor wanted them to do was "bob" and she proceeded to just dunk herself underwater for four or five times. Riigghht. I can't even do that! Shhh. So apparently the tiniest girl in their group loves going underwater and had no problems doing the "bob". Then the instructor gets to J and W and they look at her like she is CRaZy. I just looked at Geoff and we laughed - you would never know we spent hundreds of dollars on lessons for them while we lived in Florida! But I don't regret it at all...their lessons were a few times a week at an amazing complex in Destin. While Geoff was deployed that was our main activity of the week! The boys would get in their suits, we would drive the 30 minutes to Destin - and making a Starbucks stop for my grande coffee frappuchino light-and then proceed to the lessons. And I could sit in the hot sun on a balcony and enjoy my frappuchino and watch the boys learn to swim for a full hour. It was my little retreat during the day.

The boys had fun. W looks pretty happy in the pic above, considering he argued with us all day about going into the pool. He said he was just going to sit on the bench and watch.

It is time for our next lesson. Until next post.

Time to Climb

We have been pretty lazy lately. OK, I have been pretty much useless to be honest. And since we have been stuck in a pocket of crummy, rainy, no-sticking snowy, windy, cold weather lately, we haven't been able to get outside. And our boys + inside for days = destruction. If they get any energy built up and we are asking for trouble. Geoff was in TX for a couple of days but returned right before a 3-day

So we went to the climbing gym. I haven't been there since the boys started to use the ropes and harness to climb. It was pretty darn cute seeing them all geared up. I am surprised they have equipment to fit them. They started out without the gear- just climbing up to reach a toy Geoff would hide for them:

Time to gear up!

Just a reminder of where they were going:

Time to go up!

J stopped enough to look down and say "you look small W."

Almost there!

Made it!

And the cute little hopping back down:

I made J pose for me:

W going up--he didn't want to go to the top that day but still did great and climbed pretty high:

Touching down:

In between climbs, the boys stopped for some reading.

J did another climb to the top on a different wall:

It's hard to keep a secret....

...when I am vomiting in the Walmart frozen food aisle. When I am carrying a bowl with me wherever I go (which I was very thankful for while I was in Walmart this morning). When I am wearing Sea Bands on my wrists 24 hours a day. When I am eating Doritos at 9:30 a.m. chased down by a fudge bar. Followed by Starburst. When I don't want to leave my house very often. When I can smell everything in a 5-mile radius.

So let's just make the announcement! We are excited to announce we are expecting baby #3 this fall! I am only 9 weeks but it is hard to wait until the end of the first trimester to announce when I started feeling nauseous all day at five weeks. And then started to get sick a few days later. I think I know why the "morning" sickness is so bad this time. I was in Hood River this past weekend and felt 80% better. I only felt nauseous a couple of times and I just figured maybe the Unisom/Vitamin B6 I had been taking finally got into my system. Well, I drove the five hours home...and the moment I walked into our house...I threw up in the kitchen garbage. And have been full-up nauseous ever since. I have to eat every hour (although I don't feel like it) just to keep the food down. But I have had some serious dry-heaving sessions - where the food has already digested but my stomach is not happy for some reason. Last night, I had just finished eating some pasta...and unfortunately, it came all back up in a big way while I was at the kitchen sink. Poor W was trying to ask me something but I couldn't obviously answer him. So he said "what is that?" "Is that applesauce?" And he just stood there wrinkling his nose. Other than the kitchen sink incident, the boys are so excited about the baby. It is really cute. They want to know "when is the baby going to arrive? How is the doctor going to get the baby out of your belly?" "How do babies get down the stairs?"

Our first apppoinment is still not for a couple of weeks so I guess I will post more when we know more! We were blessed to have an unofficial ultrasound from a friend who spotted just one heartbeat and one baby. So that much we do know. If I hadn't had that ultrasound, I would be highly suspicious of triplets or something!