Happy Thanksgiving!!

Rachel and I are cooking a Thanksgiving dinner for the 3 of us. Neither of us have much experience cooking anything on the menu though. My Mom's only let me cook the pie before. Last year, I would have ruined it for sure, but I've had a whole year and a half to practice my cooking skills and my Mom sent us her recipes. I'll let you know how it goes... wish us luck!!

We started it!

So Brandon told me the other night that yet another couple in our young married group from church is pregnant. There are 6 couples in it and 4 of us are pregnant. On top of that, a few other of our good friends from church are also pregnant and we know even more couples that are trying. And Brandon and I started it all (or so we like to think)!

We're by far the youngest couple who's pregnant, we have been working for the least amount of time, we live in the worst neighborhood, we rent our home, we have no family anywhere within driving distance, and we're having twins. We joke that they all must have looked at us and thought "If those two poor, young kids can do it, so can we!"

Pregnancy Update

I had another doctor appointment and sonogram this morning. During the sonogram we discovered that both babies are unfortunately in the breech position now. Never say never, but there's very little chance of either of them flipping. So a c-section is nearly certain now. My doctor and I scheduled one for December 30th, assuming that they agree to stay in there that long of course! It's crazy to think that our babies may potentially have a birthday already!

Other than that disappointing news, everything else is great. Baby A is weighing in at 4 pounds, 6 ounces and Baby B currently weighs 4 pounds, 11 ounces. So I have a little over 9 pounds of babies in me already! I'm already gigantic and can't really imagine getting any bigger, but somehow I will. She couldn't tell us exactly how long they were because their legs were way down in my pelvis but they're both growing at a healthy rate and have long arms and legs. They're either average or above average in all the size categories. These boys should weigh between 6 and 7 pounds each once they're finally born. AHHHH!! When I think of it that way, I'm actually relieved to have a c-section!

Here's a picture of what they look like right now (except flip it in your mind since they're both breech). Hmmm, I just read that fewer than 5% of babies prefer the breech position - what the heck is wrong with my kids???

Twilight...

Although I obviously wasn't blown away by Twilight, I still thoroughly enjoyed it and can't wait to see it again. I think I may have set my expectations a little too high considering that it was an adaptation from a book and these can never meet all your expectations. I actually had a hard time focusing on the movie because about 20 or 30 people in our showing laughed through the entire thing. Maybe pregnancy makes me more irritable, I don't know, but I was so frustrated and angry at the rude laughers that I almost screamed and walked out. Not really, but I wish I could have. Seriously, every time one of the vampires was on screen, they laughed. Every time Edward looked at Bella, they laughed. During every awkward scene (which were written into the book!), they laughed. During the running and meadow scenes, they laughed. I honestly don't see what was so funny. Clearly these morons hadn't read the books or else they wouldn't have found it so funny. They nearly ruined my Twilight experience. I should have gone to the midnight showing with all the die-hards, I bet nobody was laughing then. The laughers were clearly people who had never read the books and were probably dragged to the movie by their fanatic friends. Next time, leave your rude, cynical friends at home!

Anyways, aside from the constant laughter, I enjoyed it. I actually thought they cast Bella and Edward perfectly. Not only do they look exactly like the characters I had envisioned in my head, but I thought they acted their parts well. Their relationship is supposed to be awkward at first- he's a vampire for goodness sake! My main complaint was that it wasn't long enough to thoroughly develop the characters and plot as much as I would have liked to have seen. Considering that the movie had no stars and a small budget as far as Hollywood goes, I think they did a pretty darn good job. Now that it's proven to be such a hit and worth the investment, I only hope that the next movies are longer and better funded. They have the potential to be truly fantastic and I hope that they live up to that in the next installment!

Cloth vs. Disposable

I'm having a bit of a dilemma, I can't decide whether I want to use cloth or disposable diapers. A few months ago, I started looking into cloth diapers. Brandon really wanted to use cloth because a family from church uses them and the mom washes them herself and they save a fortune. He's totally up for anything free :-)

However, I quickly crushed his dreams of saving hundreds on cloth diapers by refusing to wash the cloth diapers myself. For one thing, I think it's disgusting. But my main reasons are that we live in an apartment and have to share a laundry room with 5 other families and pay to wash laundry anyways. The laundry room is also across the hall from us, so I'd have to physically leave the apartment and the twins in order to wash them. I don't think this is too safe or practical so I told him I couldn't wash the diapers myself. And he wasn't quite as excited about washing our cloth diapers when I told him he'd have to do a load of poopy diapers every single night after work.

However, I am still considering cloth diapers if we used a diaper service. I found one called Modern Diaper Service in Virginia. The deliver to our area and seem to have great customer service. I think it would only cost us about $20-30 in start-up costs (for the diaper covers and other supplies). Then it would cost $24 a week after that. I did the math and it averaged out to nearly exactly the same cost as using disposable diapers. I have heard some benefits for using them, such as less risk of diaper rash and easier potty-training, however these seem to be pretty questionable. I haven't read or heard anywhere that these benefits are undisputed.

So I guess it comes down to the fact that my main opposition to disposable diapers is the thought that I'd be putting thousands of chemical-filled diapers each year into a landfill and that they could take hundreds of years to actually break down. However, a diaper service obviously uses tons of energy and probably lots of chemicals to wash all these diapers as well. I'd really like to give it a try, but I can't see any clear benefit to using cloth diapers. I've never met or heard of any twin mom who has used cloth diapers. The convenience factor would make it alot easier to just use disposable diapers. But still, I'm torn and I don't know which is best.

Does anybody have any advice on this? Do you know anybody who's used cloth diapers (recently, Mom, not 20 years ago)? Do you know any pros and cons I haven't thought of? I'd definitely trust a personal experience over an article I happened across online. If anybody has any light to shed on this for me, I'd be really appreciative!

I can't wait any longer

I just loaded up my Netflix qeue with all my favorite Christmas movies! And I am officially breaking out the Christmas music today. Only a few more days and then I can decorate!!

This is my favorite time of year!! Since I can't travel and we'll be spending Christmas all alone this year, I have to make it extra special so I don't get depressed. Brandon doesn't know what he's in for... I'm going to go Christmas crazy!

Only 6 more hours...

until Twilight!!


This morning on the way to work:

Me - "How excited are you for Twilight tonight?"

Brandon - "Very. I'm pumped. This is my pumped face."

Flashes me a fake smile.


Oh well, at least he agreed to come with me right?

Surprise Baby Shower #3!

My wonderful co-workers threw me another baby shower yesterday! They surprised me in the conference room with lots of cookies and cakes and balloons. And my sweet co-worker Jackie even invited Brandon! We got some wonderful gifts including maternity and baby professional photo sessions with a local photographer, a high chair, and Nordstrom's gift certificates (which I have a feeling will end up going towards my post-maternity wardrobe, not the twins already extensive wardrobe).

The Senator and his wife even got us the cutest little Ralph Lauren onesies and snowsuits. Senator Smith is known for his love of designer suits and ties. Ralph Lauren himself even decorated our front office many years ago. Now, our boys can look just like miniature versions of Senator Smith- they'll be the best dressed babies in all of DC!

Things to be excited about

1. Rachel's coming for Thanksgiving!
2. I get to see Twilight tomorrow!
3. I'll hit 32 weeks tomorrow which is a good pregnancy milestone. Even if something goes wrong and the twins are born this early, their chances of surviving and having normal, healthy lives go up dramatically at 32 weeks.
4. I'll hit 32 weeks, which means that there's only 5 weeks left of being pregnant! YESSSS!!
5. After tomorrow, I only have to work for 12 more days!!
6. Even though it sucks that My Boss lost re-election, there is a pretty awesome silver lining for me personally. I will continue to get paid until the beginning of March! How many people lose their jobs but still get paid maternity leave? This is obviously a HUGE blessing for Brandon and I right now as we weren't counting on me getting a paycheck after December.

Baby Shower #2

First of all, I'm sorry if you've called me this week and I haven't called you back yet. My life has gone like this: wake up, eat a bowl of cereal, work for 12 hours, eat another bowl of cereal, sleep for 12 hours. I promise to call soon though!

Secondly, my friends from church threw another baby shower for me last Saturday. It was alot of fun, the food was delicious, we got some wonderful gifts, and I got tons of good advice! Three other moms of twins came to the shower so we all got to ask them anything and everything we wanted to know about twins. I think we're all set now with the absolute essentials, people have been so generous with us!

There's only a few pictures; I deleted all the rest because I looked incredibly fat in all of them. My face has swelled up like a balloon recently. These are still pretty awful, but I'm practicing humility and posting them anyways.

A girl hand embroidered these elephants, aren't they adorable?

matchy-matchy

Brandon's been gone since Wednesday. This is the first time I've been left alone in our apartment since the terrifying incident I had when we first moved in. I know I shouldn't be scared, but I still had trouble sleeping. The slightest noises would wake me up and those darn cats make alot of noise playing at night. This morning I woke up at 4:30 and couldn't fall back asleep until 8 - so I called in sick today ;-)

Brandon's at a conference in Atlanta and he insists that he told me about it a while ago, but I'm pretty positive he didn't. Last weekend, he was giving me a backrub and he randomly says, "Hey, remember that I'm going to Georgia on Wednesday?" I rolled over (well, flopped over actually), "What? No you never mentioned that!" Brandon: "Yes I did." Me: "No you didn't."

It went on like that for a while. He seems to remember telling me, but I have no memory of it - and I have a much better memory than him. Anways, other than the sleepless nights, it hasn't been so bad though. I've eaten lots of sweets and watched girly movies and gotten to snuggle with my kitties. And the best part about him being gone is that he comes home today!! :-)

Our Apartment

Here's some pictures of our apartment. I am almost done decorating it (we had to fill 2 extra rooms when we moved here) and we actually cleaned it on Saturday, so I took some pictures. Literally everything you see is from either 1) Ikea 2) Target or 3) Craigslist. Here's Brandon on the couch, those curtains behind him are my great find from last month :-)

Our living room, Brandon's in his usual spot - in front of his Mac

Our dining room. The hutch is so shiny because I had begged Brandon to paint it dark brown last summer and he graciously did, but he decided not to sand it first. He literally had to put on about 8 coats and it's still pretty awful looking.. the paint peels off. I think I'll get rid of it next time we move.

The separate dining room with the brick wall was probably the main reason (for me at least) that we decided to move here. I love it! The last thing our house needs is dining room curtains. I've been looking for 3 months now but can't seem to find the perfect ones. I want them to be sage green- let me know if you see some on sale anywhere!

Our bathroom, the entire thing is covered in yellow tiles straight out of the 70's... walls, floors, everything. It's absolutely hideous but I think I did a pretty darn good job of distracting the eye from that fact.

And here's the kitchen. It's pretty ugly too with the plywood and plastic cabinets and vinyl floors but it's fairly large and has that cute brick wall again, so I like it :-)

I already posted pictures of the boys' room so the only room you haven't seen yet is our bedroom. But that was the one room we didn't clean last weekend though, so you 'll have to wait :-)

Veterans Day

Today is Veterans Day and I just wanted to write something that would remind all of you to be praying for our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. A little over a month ago, my brother-in-law Jon was deployed to Iraq for the second time. The first time was right before his engagement to my sister, this second time they've only been married for 4 months. I can't imagine what they're going through right now but I admire them greatly. They're both so young but already so seasoned in life's hard experiences. Renee and Jon, I pray that your marriage grows as a result of all the difficulties it will undergo during this deployment.

Also, I pray for Jon every day. He, along with many other brave young men and women, is risking his life and fighting for our country every single day. This requires enormous amounts of courage, sacrifice, maturity, and passion. I pray that you return safely, Jon, and that your relationship with Christ grows and deepens while you're in Iraq.

Let us all remember to be grateful to our soldiers who are fighting for us this very minute. They are certainly heroes and deserve to be appreciated for their service to their country. Thank you Jon. You already know you're Renee's hero, but you're mine too! We can't wait for you to come home in the spring!!

This is what Jon drives in Iraq, pretty "macho" as my Mom says

I just love this picture of Renee and Jon, it was taken a few hours before he was deployed.

This cheers me up!

We just bought our tickets to Twilight!! Whoop Whoop!!

Thanks Grandpa & Grandma O'Malley!

We received the most beautiful quilts for our babies last week! Brandon's grandparents handmade them for the boys! They're the perfect size and are so adorable. My sister still sleeps and travels with her baby blanket and she's 21, maybe our boys will do the same with these blankets? Thanks so much soon-to-be great grandpa and great grandma O'Malley!

Well, We Lost

Needless to say, our office is pretty depressing right about now. Everybody is sitting around re-analyzing the election and crying. The only time we stopped crying was when we all went to lunch yesterday and had some margaritas (not me of course).

The nice thing, though, is that we all kind of trickle in around noon and go home early too. Still sucks though...

President Obama

Here's my two cents on the presidential election last night, feel free to skip this post if you like:

While I voted for John McCain, I'm not devastated that he lost. I think that he really shot himself in the foot when he went so hard right over the past couple months. Plus he's a terrible communicator and didn't run a great campaign. Obama on the other hand is an amazing communicator and ran a practically flawless campaign. While I think John McCain would have made a better president, I also think Obama deserved to win after that hard-fought campaign.

I don't think he's a terrible person or that he'll run our country into the ground. I don't think he'll go back to his far-left liberal policies that he held in the Senate. I think/hope he'll actually make good on his promise to be a President of all Americans and work with both parties to find common ground. But, I definitely don't think he'll be able to go through with his plans for health care, education, tax credits, Medicare/Medicaid, and other federal programs, etc. without drastically raising taxes. I'm very interested to see how he reconciles his promised plans with the federal budget.I think he has alot to learn about and deal with and I'll definitely be praying for our new President.

Also, I thought John McCain gave a very classy, unifying concession speech last night. I wouldn't have expected anything else from him, though. He truly talks the talk and walks the walk.

I am very excited and grateful to God that I will bring my children into a world with a black American President. Living in DC, I've been extremely saddened to see how prevalent racism still is. Our nation's capitol is still shockingly and dishearteningly segregated. Living in a black suburb and working on the predominantly-white Capitol Hill, Brandon and I experience this segregation first hand everyday on our drive to work. It's fascinating and awful at the same time.

For the first time, all American citizens can justifiably feel like they have a stake in elections and can affect the outcome. The surge of first-time voter registration among minorities proves this. All American children can believe that they can go anywhere in life with hard work and perseverance. I'm proud that our country's taken a giant step forward in terms of racism and sexism and all other types of prejudice. Regardless of how we might feel about Obama's policies, we can all be thankful and proud of our first African-American President.

And finally, we should all be reminded that God alone is sovereign over our nation and it's leaders. Our hope is not founded in the American government or any President, it's founded in Jesus Christ. The government will not save us from anything and every human leader will ultimately fail us. The church of Christ will bring about much more tangible change than any President ever would. We as individuals can love our neighbors and help to provide for their needs far better than the American government can. I don't place my hope in Obama or McCain or anybody else. I place my hope in my Savior Jesus Christ and trust Him alone to guide our nation.

First Nursery Pics

Here are some pictures of our work-in-progress nursery. We have all of the furniture so far, a crib skirt & bumper for the first crib, curtains, and a lamp! We're not even going to set up the other crib until they're old enough to sleep separately. Brandon's Mom is currently recovering the rocking chair cushions in a brown linen fabric for us - Thanks Sari!! And, we just got our carseats! Aren't they adorable? I love paisley print! Thanks again Gary and Sari!!

All of the boys' clothes are pre-washed and put away in the dresser. But they have so many clothes that they won't all fit! I only put the 0-3 month clothes in there for now (and those barely fit), the other clothes are in plastic bins in the closet until they grow into them. Thanks everybody for being so generous!

One of the carseats

Our changing table and dresser

The dresser and bare rocking chair

Our crib bedding, it's just a plain sage green gingham pattern

Our crib and some cute fabric wall hangings I found last weekend, they match the curtains :-)

And yes, we realize that everything is white, however someday (hopefully soon) I hope to move to a place where we're allowed to paint the walls. Then I'll paint them some shade of brown and the white furniture will look awesome! For now, I don't mind all the white because I have a picture in my head of how cute it will be soon.

It's here! It's finally here!!

AHHH! I can't believe it's finally Election Day! My whole life feels like it's been building up to this day for the past year! I'm so nervous, I have butterflies in my stomach! Since I'm on the East Coast, I'll have to wait until 11 pm tonight to get the initial results for my Boss. That's 13 hours away, I don't know how I'm going to wait that long!

Brandon's voting right now, he's been waiting in line for almost 2 hours! We totally should have moved to Virginia instead of Maryland, how exciting would that be to live in a swing state?!?!? Well, regardless, we've both voted. (I thought I'd be out West, so I voted absentee).

I'll be making calls all day trying to get out the last minute vote. Then Brandon and I are going to our friends' house to watch as the returns come in. What an exciting day this will be! If you haven't already done so, get out there and VOTE!

And then go to Starbucks/Krispy Kreme/Ben & Jerry's and get your free treat! :-)

Childbirth Class

As the title suggests, yesterday Brandon and I went to a childbirth class offered by our doctor's office. The class was 6 hours long and jam-packed with information. It was taught by one of the labor and delivery nurses at our hospital and covered everything under the sun. We learned alot (probably alot more than we ever wanted to learn) but came away feeling much better prepared about what to expect and do when the time comes. We also got a tour of the delivery rooms and post-partum recovery rooms. They told us that since we have twins, we'll probably be delivering in the operating room for safety/space reasons, even if I'm lucky enough to have a vaginal birth. We didn't get to see that room, but oh well, we'll see it soon enough.

The only really awful part was when they showed rather graphic birth videos. I kept looking over and seeing poor Brandon looking into his lap and figdeting with his phone :-) A few were of vaginal births that pretty much terrified me and one was of a c-section which was also pretty bloody but didn't look nearly as traumatizing. Neither looked like a whole lot of fun. However, the nurse went over the risks and recovery times of vaginal vs. c-sections and there's no comparison. I really hope both babies end up head-down so I won't need a c-section.

I actually wish I could somehow skip the entire labor/delivery process altogether. I'm not a big fan of gross stuff, pain, or hard work so I have a feeling I'm going to really hate the birth process. I plan on getting an epidural either way but it still seems pretty uncomfortable and difficult. Basically, I'm terrified of actually having to give birth to these babies, but I'm also really sick of being pregnant already. I wish I could just fast-forward the next 7-8 weeks and skip right to the newborn babies. *Sigh* only in my dreams...

Halloween

Oh and yes, we're totally lame and didn't do anything for Halloween. We went to our friends' house for dinner and a movie (which I accidentally slept through). Yep, I'm already turning into a Mom... yikes!

Next year though- watch out! We're going to have the two cutest trick-or-treaters ever! I'm already thinking of costume ideas :-)

The 2006 Election

This week marks the 2-year anniversary of when Brandon and I rekindled our romance for good. We'd broken up in May, right after my birthday. His last words were "I'll call you soon." Well, 6 months went by with no call or email. I was just beginning to date somebody else, when Brandon e-mailed me out of the blue. He was coming to town for a couple weeks for the 2006 election and wanted to meet up for coffee and "closure." I was so mad at him that I almost refused but deep down I thought it would be a good idea so I could finally move on.

So we met in the lobby of his hotel (you'd better believe I looked my darn best that night!) and ended up talking for 4+ hours. A lot of confession and forgiveness took place for all the ways we'd been selfish and hurt each other in the past. We both fessed up to being Facebook stalkers of each other ;-)

At the end of it, he invited me to hang out with he and his friends the next night to go bowling. I guess I was a glutton for punishment, but I went along. Then he continued to ask me to "hang out" every single night for 2 weeks straight. He even invited me to his boss' election night party, where he ditched me for a while in a roomful of people I didn't know, but then came back just in time to see me handing my phone number to some random guy. Haha, I didn't give him my real number of course, but that couldn't have gone better if I had planned it myself!

After the election, he flew back to DC but continued to call and email me. I started to become really angry and frustrated since it seemed to me that he wanted the best of both worlds. It seemed that wanted to be single and in DC but to have a long distance "friendship" with me and keep me hanging around on the back burner in case he didn't find anybody better out there. We had already broken up half a dozen times in the past and I decided that this awful cycle had to end. So, he passed through town a few weeks later around Thanksgiving on his way back from China. We met for drinks and he brought me some sweet little presents. I held my ground though and, at the end of the night, told him that it had been nice to see him so much lately and have him back in my life but that our on-again-off-again relationship had to end. I basically ended up telling him "Marry me or else don't ever call me again."

Well, I left that night thinking that I would never hear from him again and that surely he must think I had lost my mind (maybe I did a little). Over a month passed without a peep from him, I continued to go on dates with that other guy and I continued to make plans to travel with my roommates after graduation. But then, a few days before Christmas, Brandon surprised me with a red rose, a huge bag of presents from he and his family, and an invitation to visit him in DC a couple months later. And the rest is history!

Anyways, I wrote out that whole story because I was just thinking yesterday how funny it is that God uses such ordinary things, like elections, to work in our lives. If it hadn't been an election year, I would have graduated and probably moved back to Seattle or California and never seen or heard from Brandon ever again. Funny how it was such a bad night for the GOP (although this year is sure to be worse) but it was such a great night for Brandon and I. Funny how perfect God's timing is. And funny how he works in our hearts to bring reconciliation, forgiveness, and revive love again. It was all so oddly coordinated that without God's guidance over the situation, nothing ever would have come with it. But God's plans are truly better than our own for our lives. Praise God for bringing Brandon and I together in marriage after such a long, painful journey to get there. And praise him for the lessons we learned along the way!

Here's a picture from that first night of bowling. Can you believe how young we both look!?!?!?