24 Weeks

I had another ultrasound yesterday to check how the babies are growing. They are doing great. They are right on target and heads, bellies, legs and arms are all the sizes they should be. I got cleared to wait another 4 weeks for the next ultrasound. At that point I'll be 28 weeks along and that's generally when one twin starts to outstrip the other in size. Then I'll probably be going in every 2-3 weeks to monitor them. Baby A is 1lb 7 oz and Baby B is 1lb 5oz. I have as much baby in me now as I did when Ciaran was born! This is kind of a meaningless size difference and doesn't count as one baby getting larger than the other. Right now they're hanging out bunk bed style which explains why my right ribs have been taking a beating from top bunker Baby B. It also reveals why at 23 weeks I measured the size of someone 31 weeks pregnant. They are stretching up, up, up which happens to be the way they measure things instead of chilling next to each other and stretching around. Oh, and they are both still boys.

Baby A was a little shy and kept turning away from the camera so we only managed one picture of him.

Baby B was showing off and cutely taking little drinks of fluid opening and closing his mouth so he got a lot of picture time.

We tried to get a picture of them together but due to their positioning it's really just a picture of circles since we're looking at the tops of their heads.

Smile!

Just to mess with you guys this time, here is Baby Boy B first and Baby Boy A 2nd. As you can see from the top right corner, these were actually taken on January 20th, which unbelievably is 4 weeks ago now. Dawnell was 20 weeks along at this appointment and BBB measured at 2o weeks 2 days, narrowly beating out BBA's 20 weeks, 1 day. Both babies looked normal and healthy. Since this appointment Dawnell had an appointment with her doctors and both heartbeats sounded great, so onwards and upwards.

We walked into the bedroom the other day to check on the boys to see that Boodle had practically disrobed himself. Always a hilarious phase.

Also a hilarious phase? The cool Mr. Potato Head Lips phase
Which just doesn't grow old!

And in what we consider to be some great news, Ciaran is finally starting to walk pretty regularly. Here he is wobbling after me. We've got another great video of Beckett singing, but it's 106 mb, so I've got to figure out how to edit a video by chopping part of it up.

And the answer is....

Defying mathematical odds we somehow managed to get ourselves two more boys. As soon as they said, "Baby A is a boy." I knew that they were both going to be. I thought that A was a girl and B was a boy. That is precisely what Beckett thought even though I never told him my theory. He was very upset. When we told him he said, "No! I want to change. I want one boy and one girl." Every time we tell someone else he gets mad and tell us that he wants a boy AND a girl. Sorry dude. You and Daddy both are pretty broken up.

Now we get the fun question of are they identical or fraternal. Given their womb set up the doctor told us there's about a 25% chance that they're identical.

They are both growing well and measuring appropriately for their age of 20 weeks and 1 day as of the test day. They measured one day apart, one baby was a whopping 20 weeks and TWO days. However, at this point that is a pretty meaningless distinction since an unconscious muscle twitch while doing the ultrasound measurements will give you a days difference of growth. Evidently they stay about the same size until around 28 weeks and then generally one twin starts getting larger. (Unless you're some freaky symmetrical growth twins. You know who you are.) We are periodically seeing the perinatologist that followed Ciaran's growth since he knows the whole story. He was very pleased with the size and set up of the babies and all their test results and said he didn't need to see me again for a month. Great! I may start going every two weeks once we hit that 28 week mark, but the doctor is happy, as are we, with how everyone is growing and progressing.

What kind of babies will we get?

We're going to find out soon (provided they cooperate), the genders of the twins. Please vote in our poll. I know my guess and Beckett has his, but I don't want to tell you lest we prejudice your vote.

Sledding

It seems that thanks to the wonders of Facebook no one else will comment on our Black Friday post so we might as well move on. We had a big blizzard come through last Sunday which left us with many inches of snow. This year instead of attempting to slide down the hill at the end of our street on the lid to our outdoor storage box, we ponied up the $5.99 at Target for a saucer.

Best. $5.99. We. Ever. Spent.

(You know, as an amount unto itself. Not as like part of say paying to feed our children or paying for tuition or a medical bill or something.)

Both of our children turned out to be sledding freaks. I should have known Ciaran would love it since he is a slide fanatic and sledding is basically just a faster, longer, colder slide. So now the world can have proof that our poor parenting skills didn't end with feeding Beckett a pop rock. We also allowed our 18 month old to hurl down a "mountain" (made out of a molehill).

Here's a video of Beckett and Daddy sledding. You can hear Ciaran screaming in the background. That is because he was enraged whenever he had to stop sledding and let Beckett have a turn.

And here is Ciaran sledding. You can see, as he speeds by, the joy on his face.

And here the kids are playing in the snow a day or two after it fell. This picture reminds me of the kid from A Christmas Story.

You know, Ralphie's unimportant brother. Not that Ciaran is the unimportant brother, just that he was so bundled like that child that the snow angel was about all he could manage.

Evidently there is not much else as fun as kicking snow. Except perhaps sledding.

Black Friday Christmas Gifts

Okay, granted, we haven't been the most active bloggers lately, but I was distressed to see that we haven't had a post reach double figure comments in a while. So let's see if we can change that.

Dawnell's favorite holiday isn't Christmas, or her birthday, or the Fourth of July. Rather, given her love of a good sale, sometimes it seems as though Dawnell's favorite holiday is the day after Thanksgiving, a.k.a. Black Friday. And so it was that we packed up Beckett and Ciaran to go out on Black Friday to see what kinds of deals we could find...

Check out the awesome "buy one get one free" deal we got!

Say hello to Baby A. We knew we were getting this one on Black Friday.

But we were unaware that they were having a sale. Buy Baby A, get Baby B for free!

And here they are gift wrapped together. Estimated date to unwrap these gifts? June 8, 2011.

2nd dude, 1st haircut

Ciaran got his first haircut! After 18 months of crazy fine wombhair he finally is going to start growing some locks of love.

Here he is getting prepared... He doesn't quite know why he has been forced to wear a cape.

Baby mullet eradicated!

Oh no! Not the baby mullet!

Baby wombhair afro!

Beckett also got a haircut, and here's my awesome idea to take pictures of their cuteness right next to vertical blinds. Spectacular lighting results!

The Belated Pumpkins

With Dawnell and the kids in Utah for a couple of weeks, I'm looking back at our cute pics for the past couple of months. And lucky for all of you I'll share.

Dawnell and the kids went pumpkin picking. This gives us the chance to organically place them around pumpkins once again for photo opportunities. Ah fall. Considering it is freezing today I already miss you.

Ciaran looking into the distance...

Okay, this picture is just ridiculous, but I put it here to point out that it's the best of the five from D's attempts to get one of Beckett and Ciaran sitting together. Beckett's scrunched-up "cheese" face and Ciaran looking away. The folks at Kiddie Kandids have tougher jobs than you'd think...

As usual, Beckett was accompanied by Anna. And I'll be darned if this isn't the cutest picture I've ever seen...

We went to the Hudson Valley "Blaze"

http://www.hudsonvalley.org/content/view/195/198/

As the website says, it is a jack o'lantern event with over 4,000 hand-carved illuminated pumpkins.

We all had an enjoyable time, but I think I enjoyed the Norwalk Aquarium's pumpkin event quite a bit more. A bit more whimsy, and the Hudson Valley event had us quite a ways away from most of the pumpkins. For us the events are about the same distance too, so we'll probably try the Norwalk one again before we try this one again. It was fun, but not as fun as the other one.

Halloween 2010

Somehow we don't have any pictures of Ciaran from Halloween festivities. He was an adorable froggie in a costume that Dawnell hand made. Luckily for all of you Dawnell chronicles her projects and she had taken some adorable pics of Ciaran after she completed the froggie costume.




Beckett decided that he wanted to be a doctor for Halloween, through no prompting by us. My understanding is that one of his friends has a doctor play set, so Beckett probably thought he could get some cool toys if he dressed up like a doctor. Alas, we have connections who have real equipment (nurse grandparents) so he got the real thing.

Here's Beckett the pediatrician checking out his Ciaran patient. Notice the look on Ciaran's face. I think he'd much rather see a real expert.






Last year Beckett and his best friend Anna dressed up Hansel and Gretel. You can go check out our blog entries for late October and early November of last year for that cuteness. This year Anna was Little Bo Peep, so no costume coordination. Still super cute together. And I think Anna thought Beckett was still her sheep.









Lots of potential posts in the cue, with adorable pumpkin-picking adventures, to our trip to the carved pumpkin festival, to Dawnell's knitting adventure...

Orchard

Beckett and Ciaran went apple picking with their friends. They also ended up sitting in a pumpkin patch. Looks like it was a lot of fun. Here are some pics:

Beckett and a halfway hidden Ciaran with the usual crew, Anna, Hannah, and Sydney


Here's a couple of Beckett Appleseed



Beckster and Ciaran sitting in the pumpkin patch:

Very cute. Maybe I'll try photoshopping in some open eyes.