Thanksgiving 2013

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a very busy day yesterday split between 3 Thanksgivings and Matt working.  This was the first year that we have EVER spent Thanksgiving with Matts family (usually they go to Louisiana and we are here since Matt has to work) so it was extra special.

We started the day off just me and Carter Man and went to breakfast at Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Robbys.  We had a delicious spread of cinnamon rolls and breakfast casserole, with a side of lots of sugar from all the boys.  :)  I managed to only take one picture of Graeme Bone while we were there. 

After a filling breakfast we headed home to get dressed and play before we headed out again.  Matt got home from work around 11am so I headed over to my moms to help cook while the boys stayed home to nap.

Daddy was definitely missed, but we still managed to celebrate and stay in good spirits yesterday.  Daddy always prayed over the meal for us, and it never failed they he always said the most random, hilarious, and/or inappropriate comment while praying.  That part definitely was not the same.  We only had seven adults there, but we had enough food to feed closer to 20, especially stuffing.  I filled my pregnant belly as full as I could and enjoyed the company.

Matt left to go back to work and Carter and I had some time to play.  We actually were also able to run outside for five minutes and see my childhood friend, Pat, and his son, Mason.  I've never met Mason so it was good to see him in person.  Mason and Carter are only 4 days apart!

From there we met back up with Matty at Coach Joseph's house.  Since Matt's family is usually in Louisiana for Thanksgiving we usually spend our Thanksgiving evenings with the Josephs.  This year we just stopped by quickly so we could see everyone before jumping back in the car and heading to Matt's parents house.  Carter had a blast playing outside with their dog, Tara, and we had a short but sweet visit with Uncle Jeff and the Joseph family.

Last we made it to Matt's parents house around 6:00pm.  Everything was cooked and everyone was already there, so we were definitely late to the party.  If my mom had enough food for 20 then Nana had enough food for 50.  There was fried turkey, ham, sandhill crane, ribs, casseroles galore, and sides for days.  Plus desserts! By this point my belly could not possibly hold another baby or piece of food, so I kindly opted out of dinner.  Also by this point Carter Man had ENOUGH and was in rare form, so we only stayed long enough for Matt to eat.  

My thanks this year are very simple: I'm thankful for Matt, Carter, these baby girls, and our families.  I'm thankful for the time we had together with Daddy. And I'm thankful for the very, very blessed lives we live.  

20 Weeks

November 26, 2013

Pregnancy Highlights:

How far along: 20 weeks

Size of babies: bananas

Genders: GIRLS!! And I think we have names!    

Weight gain: 14 pounds
Belly growth: 8.5 inches 

Movement: yes, and I am starting to be able to distinguish between kicks and punches, Baby A and Baby B

Sleep: not great

Symptoms: just general uncomfortableness

Cravings: nothing specific, just thirsty quite often and nothing sounds good to eat
Belly button: in one minute and out the next
What I miss: ease of movement

Best moment this week: seeing baby girls yesterday and sharing our names with Dr P who LOVED them

Best husband moment/quote: "You seriously can't do a sit up? Lay down...right now...prove it."  Let's just say I should have put money on that bet before I proved him wrong.
Notes: it's crazy to me how fast everything is happening this time around.  At most I only have 16 weeks to go....I need to get started on finalizing names, starting nursery decor, etc.

Comparison picture to 20 weeks with Carter:

And, of course, my sweet assistant:

Day in College Station

Matt's best friend for the past 15 years has been Jeff, or now, "Uncle Jeff."  They played football together in high school, roomed together in college, Jeff lived with us for awhile, and now both coach football.  While Matt has been at Katy his entire career Jeff has bounced around and is now coaching at our alma mater, Texas A&M.  This is his first year moving from high school football to college football and he is absolutely loving it.

In college, coaches move around more than they do in high school (and across the country, not just across the state) so we knew we had to attend a game at A&M this season if we wanted to be sure to see Jeff coach.  Add in the impending arrival of the girls, and we will probably never go to another A&M game for at least 5 years, haha.

We haven't been to an A&M game since we graduated in 2006, so we put a few on the calendar this year.  The first game we got tickets to we had to back out of because of my hematoma.  The second game we could go to was against Auburn and our Katy game got rescheduled from Friday night to Saturday, so we had to back out again.  Finally I MADE him leave work last Saturday so we could attend the very last home game of the year, which ended up being against Mississippi State.  It also happened to be the very last game at Kyle Field before they start reconstruction, and likely Johnny Manziel's last college game at home.  I'm so glad we got to go, even though I felt awful the entire day.

We went with Mrs. Joseph and Julie (I miss our road trips we used to take!) and parked in Jeff's staff parking lot.  We ended up parking right next to the head coaches wife, Mrs. Sumlin, and she invited us to the coach's family tailgate going on in the practice facility.  I wish we had something like this to do at Katy because all of the families were there and brought something to eat, and all of the kids were just running around the football field.  We met a bunch of the other coaches families and had a great lunch.

Our seats were on the 6th row so we had a great view of everything.  President Bush was there and Governor Perry did the fly-over before the game.  We sat near a lot of high school recruits so I got to talk to them about high school football playoffs and college; hopefully I convinced a lot of them to attend A&M! The game was great and we ended up winning!!

The best part of the trip was seeing Jeff so happy and seeing Matt and Jeff together.  We sat back at Jeff's house after the game with his roommate and just "talked ball," one of Matt's favorite things to do.

Thanks to Jeff for the tickets and to Nana and PawPaw for watching Carter for us.  We had a great "date" away to our favorite place! Who knows when we will be able to take that trip again!!    

19 Weeks

November 19, 2013

Pregnancy Highlights:

How far along: 19 weeks

Size of babies: mangoes

Genders: GIRLS!!   

Maternity clothes: all the way

Weight gain: 13 pounds
Belly growth: 7.5 inches 

Movement: all the time, Matt and Jeff have both felt them from the outside

Sleep: not great.  Trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. 

Symptoms: just general uncomfortableness

Cravings: orange juice and Quizno's
Belly button: almost out!
What I miss: I've been very anxious lately about things working out okay, so I guess I miss having peace of mind

Best moment this week: Carter has been kissing and hugging my belly every chance he gets

Best husband moment/quote: "I'll rub your back if you will rub mine."  Who's pregnant here?!?
Notes: my injection site is itchy and sore

Comparison picture to 19 weeks with Carter:

And my best big boy:

Regular season wrap-up

So now that we are one week into the playoffs I guess I should wrap-up the regular season.  :)

Katy 41 - Klein 3

Katy 49 - Alief Taylor 0

Katy 37 - The Woodlands 13

Katy 42 - Mayde Creek 0

Katy 28 - Morton Ranch 3

Katy 44 - Taylor 0

Katy 17 - Seven Lakes 12

Katy 49 - Strake Jesuit 7

Katy 40 - Cinco Ranch 7

Katy 35 - Memorial 0

We ended the season 10-0! I have one happy coach on my hands! Now if we could just win the next 6 games (state championship) then nothing could top that! Our bracket looks good, but December 21st is circled on our calendar and we are certainly hoping to be in Dallas that weekend.  

Once new thing this season is that Matt has spent some time coaching on the sideline.  He usually coaches from the press box (his preference) because he likes to "see" whats happening and focus on adjustments.  But this season Coach Joseph has called him down to the sideline a few times so he could call the defense from there.  It's not Matt's favorite thing to do, but it gives him more experience and it's so fun to watch him coach from my seat in the stands!  Usually I'm turning around after every play to see if I can gauge his reaction, but now I can easily read his body language.  To be honest, I have to hold my breath sometimes when there is a bad call from a ref because he is not the best at biting his tongue.  Sometimes I wish I had a lasso so I could pull him back from arguing with the refs! Thankfully, he usually lets Coach J do all the arguing and I don't have to worry too much.  I have just been bringing my cell phone to games this year (can't keep up with a toddler and a camera) so I don't have any good pictures of him on the sideline yet.  

10 down...6 to go! 

Our Little Pumpkins

I'm terribly late getting this post up, but Matty was so nice and brought home a cold to both me and Carter so I've been hibernating as much as possible.  He's so sweet, that husband ;)

So we usually go over to Robby & Stephanie's for Halloween but decided to have everyone over at our house this year.  Basically just our families and a few friends.  A week before the Halloween party we scheduled our gender ultrasound for the day before Halloween...perfect timing for a gender reveal! Everyone had been asking me if we would do another gender reveal, how we would reveal since there was two, etc so this ended up being perfect since both of our families would be together.  Matt ended up being at work, but we will just leave that detail out of the story. 

Once we had the ultrasound scheduled we started racking our brains for how we would share the news with everyone.  I have to be honest, I was stumped for awhile just because there were two to reveal for.  I didn't want it to be confusing and didn't want to spend a lot of money.  I also didn't want to use balloons again since we used that for Carter.  The Friday Matt and I took Carter to the pumpkin patch it hit me...PUMPKINS!! It would be cute for our little pumpkins in my belly, and fit the season of the party.  Perfect!

We bought 4 pumpkins and carved "It's" "A" and two circles, one for each baby.  Then we bought pink and blue Christmas lights (thank you, Amazon Prime, for free two-day shipping) to stuff in the pumpkins.  Once everyone was at the party we turned on the right color...

...and they were BOTH PINK!!! Matt was shocked, I was shocked, and everyone at the party was shocked! Two little girls!! Two little sisters! Bows and ruffles and lace, oh my!!

I love this picture.  Pure elation from our loved ones, Brooks covering her ears, and (you can't see it) Carter crying in PawPaw's arms

Everyone was so excited and surprised....not many people thought we would even have one girl, much less TWO! Matt and I actually had been thinking it was two boys and had some boy names picked out.  But we were totally wrong! 

Matt couldn't go to the ultrasound appointment with me on Wednesday, so I just had to text him the news once it was over since he was in class.  The ultrasound tech was the same lady we had with Carter's ultrasound, and I taught her son at KJH.  She took forever looking at each baby, measuring feet and looking at faces, and finally said "I'm pretty sure they are both girls, but I'm just making sure" and I just lost it.  "I have two daughters" was all that kept going through my mind.  She poked around for awhile longer while I composed myself and at the end said "I can't say for 100% at 16 weeks with twins that they are both girls, but I'm 99% sure and I've never been wrong."  Haha! Good enough for me!  Matt, on the other hand wasn't convinced and is still holding onto hope that one is a boy, lol! (He really wanted two more boys)

Clearly he's shocked, haha!

We still have not gotten over the shock of having two girls (or not being able to reuse all those baby boy clothes) but are SO THANKFUL that they both look good and we were able to share with both of our families together.  There still is nothing like sharing big new like this with your loved ones! They were all so happy and excited and I just know Daddy is smiling in heaven thinking of his two little granddaughters.  

PS- I had another ultrasound on Monday at my 18-week appointment and she said they are both 100% girls! There you go, Matty! 

18 Weeks

November 12, 2013

Pregnancy Highlights:

How far along: 18 weeks

Size of babies: sweet potatoes

Genders: GIRLS!!   

Maternity clothes: all the way

Weight gain: 13 pounds
Belly growth:  6 inches!! 

Movement: Yes! The ultrasound tech told me yesterday that I can feel Baby A more than Baby B because A is closer to the surface and B is hiding underneath A.  Both are butt down, head up. 

Sleep: not great.  Trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. 

Symptoms: sporadic sickness, skin is still breaking out, severe moodiness and leg cramps at night

Cravings: nothing I can think of.  Nothing sounds good or tastes good right now so I'm having a really hard time eating anything.
Belly button: almost out!
What I miss: bending over easily, bathing Carter comfortably, basically anything where I'm bending over my belly.  It's amazing how early I'm feeling so big and uncomfortable.

Best moment this week: confirmation that our girls are 100% both girls yesterday

Best husband moment/quote: "I will believe this is two girls when they are born and I can see it with my own eyes."
Notes: exhausted and sick...going to the doctor this afternoon 

Comparison picture to 18 weeks with Carter:

And my little photographer: