Sunny baby shower weekend

Hey all,
I hope everyone (at least those of you who are somewhat local) was able to get out and enjoy the amazing weather we had this weekend. I am not sure what the rest of the country was like, but the Philly area was in the 70s, sunny, and lovely. Even I was able to spend some time Saturday afternoon in a beach chair on our back patio enjoying some fresh air.It was a very busy weekend for me. My friends Bridget and Dave came down from Boston for the weekend. They were my roommates from Boston and Kevin and I always love spending time with them. I am lucky that Kevin seems to enjoy them as much as I do and we all had a lot of good laughs together. Of course, I immediately put them to work with projects that needed to get done that required a second pair of strong arms (thanks Dave!) as well as getting our house ready for a baby shower for me on Sunday.

Also in town (but stationed in Delran with Dad Davies) were my aunts Barbara and Ellie, my cousin Sarah, Sarah's kids Andrew and Sam, as well as my bro and sister in law Ben and Marianne. All were in town to throw the baby shower for me at my house. The original plan was to have it in February and at my dad's, but due to my bed rest, we changed the date and location. It was a great time and so wonderful to see members of both sides of my family, some of my oldest and dearest friends, and Kevin's mom and sister-in-law Sarah all at my house. Plus I put on a dress and jewelry for the occasion and felt like a normal person for a change. :-) Thanks to everyone for all their work and for coming to celebrate our babies. I need to send a special thanks to my brother Ben who didn't make the shower (ladies only), but made carrot cake whoopie pies special for it and me. I didn't know my brother had such baking abilities, but they were quite yummy and I will refrain from telling you all how many I've had.

Here are a few highlights from the weekend and shower:

Addy enjoying the open window and warm air on Friday.The Davies (Ramsdell/Bowden/Grugan/Jensen/Bratton) Ladies!Here I am showing off my bump and pointing out where Baby A and Baby B are hanging out to my Delran friends. Kevin getting a preview of what is to come and some practice with my friend Melissa's daughter Rachel and our niece Abby. Here I am with my feet up at the end of the shower. Phew, you would think I did more than just come down the stairs and socialize.

BR day 53
29wk3d

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy St. Paddy's Day. I hope there are a lot of green shirts being worn, green beer being drank, and meals of corned beef, cabbage, irish potatoes, and soda bread being consumed. We currently have corned beef in the crock pot to have tonight for our annual dinner. This will be our first time making it with the crock pot so I will let you know how it goes. Kevin did all the prep work this morning and will do the final preparations before we eat tonight, I simply put the meat in the pot and hit go. YAY!

We are slowly making progress on our house preparations for the babies. I put my dad to work this weekend to paint a few of our upstairs window trims in advance of the installation of plantation shutters that arrived yesterday. Thanks Dad! If you have been to my house, you probably noticed all of the lovely window treatments in our upstairs that I never bothered to change upon moving in 1.5 years ago. Well, I can happily say they are finally gone and the shutters I've wanted for ages are here. I love them.
While painting the windows, my dad tested out a VOC free paint from Lowes (Olympic premium) so that I did not have to breathe in any paint fumes. Since he gave it a thumbs up, Kevin took our selected babies room color swatch of Lime Granita to Lowes and picked up paint for the walls. (Thanks to all who helped with the voting for the color selection!) Kevin has the week before Easter off from school so the current plan is to get the babies room painted and somewhat set up while he is off from school. His pre-bed rest plan was to spend part of this week off down in Florida on his brother Jim's annual Phillies spring training extravaganza. All the babies and I can say is -- "Sorry Dad and Uncle Jim!"

Finally, I wanted to send out a word of congratulations to my friends who have recently had little babies join the world. My high school friend Dana had baby Colton last week and our friend Melissa delivered baby Nathan yesterday. (You will all remember Melissa from the picture posted a few weeks ago!) Everyone is doing great and I am quite jealous that their babies have arrived --- not that I want mine to make their appearance anytime soon, of course, but if these next few weeks could fly by, that wouldn't be so bad.

BR day 48
28wk5d

ultrasound and weekend update

Hey All,
Sorry this is delayed in posting. I would like to say it was because yesterday was a really busy day for me, but to be honest, I spent the entire day finishing the book The Help which I enjoyed so much that I couldn't put it down until the end. Thanks Court for the recommendation! Before that, I had just read a book from my Aunt Barbara called Mudbound which I also recommend to anyone who looking for something to read. The two books are a nice pair as each is set in the 19650s and deal with southern race relations.

Friday, I hit the 28 week milestone and had an ultrasound. Both babies are continuing to grow as they should - Baby A was clocked in at 2 lbs 11 oz and Baby B at 2 lbs 4 oz. Both are within the normal size for 28 week fetuses. My cervix is continuing to shorten at each scan, but remains closed for now. The doctor did not recommend changing the amount of activity I am allowed to do, but Kevin and I both agree that I need to stay horizontal for as much of the day as possible and to decrease my trips up/down the stairs when I can. Even though these past six weeks have flown by, I am feeling a little apprehensive and overwhelmed by the idea of making it another 6-8 weeks. I would love for the twins to avoid the NICU and be able to come home from the hospital with me. On my bed rest log where I keep track of daily water and food intake, I have countdowns going for 31, 34, and 37 weeks. Baby steps . . .

Saturday, some of my lab mates from Penn came over for a small "surprise" shower bringing with them some fun gifts and tasty treats. It was fun to see everyone and catch up -- I miss seeing them all at work daily (well sorta . . . ). The Philly area was hit with a ridiculous rain and wind storm on Saturday timed exactly for the shower so I was impressed everyone made it to Havertown. Thanks guys!

On a final note, I am also reading a book called Ready or Not Here We Come which is meant to be a guide to the first year of raising twins with a light humorous outlook. While funny at times, it has me rather frightened and overwhelmed. Ugh. Not sure going into this "prepared" is such a good idea.

XOXO to you all!

BR day 46
28wks3d

some photos from the weekend

Unfortunately, since we didn't really do much for our girls weekend, I don't have any fun action shots. But I did want to post a few additional photos from the weekend. The first is a thank you shout out to Hillary who brought me my favorite popcorn from her layover in Chicago. If you haven't tried the combo cheddar cheese/caramel popcorn from Nuts on Clark (or the more famous but in my opinion not as good Garretts popcorn), I highly highly recommend! You can now buy it at both Midway and O'Hare so you don't even need to visit the actual city, just its airports.
The next photo is of a scanned card that the girls gave me along with some baby gifts. I loved it -especially the personalization on the mountain highlighting my journey on bed rest. Look how far I've already come! And finally, a new photo of Emma. Yes, there she is inside my beloved crystal bowl which I keep on my dining room table. Apparently she thought it was a good place for a nap. Not sure I agree, but we all thought it was hilarious to see her in there. Even though I do not post as many photos of my other cat Addy -- I swear I love them equally (it has been good practice for mothering twins). Addy just doesn't seem to end up in photo worthy positions as frequently and usually ends up looking annoyed whenever I flash a camera in front of her. :-)
BR day 41
27wks5d

Fun weekend with the ladies

This weekend my six best college friends came for a visit from all over the country. We had a great lazy weekend with most of our time spent chilling on the couch catching up and reminiscing. The girls ended up getting quite the taste of the spoiling I've gotten since going on bed rest as Kevin was a mega host preparing breakfast both mornings and an appetizer feast for Saturday night's dinner. Saturday's dinner was completed with a visit from my father to provide additional entertainment and even more appetizers. Overall it was the perfect lazy weekend. I was thrilled to get the spend the weekend with all of them to celebrate the upcoming arrival of our twins.

Hillary didn't leave until this afternoon so my weekend fun continued through Monday. We watched the Academy Awards last night after all filling out ballots with our predictions. Kevin surprised both Hill and me kicking our butts by having the most correct award picks. Oh well, there is always next year! As the perfect end to a great weekend, Hill and I went out to breakfast this morning and then went to get mani/pedis as a special treat. YAY!

Overall, I am feeling great. I spent quite a bit of the weekend hanging out downstairs on the couch which was a nice change from all the time in my bedroom. However I tried to take it easy and let everyone wait on me. Even though I went to bed earlier than the rest of the ladies and didn't get to partake in the multiple bottles of red wine/champagne consumed, I still don't feel like I missed out on too much. :-)

BR day 39
27wks3d

Girls weekend here we come!

This will be a short post as I am on my way to do my glucose challenge test (checks for gestational diabetes), but wanted to send out an update since I've had nothing to report all week. Six of my Colby gals are coming for the weekend! It is the first time we have all been together since my wedding 2.5 years ago so it should be fantastic. I have seen everyone individually or in smaller groups since then, just not all of us at once. I am honored that they've all decided to come despite my bed rest limitations. It should be a pretty lazy weekend of catching up, movies and relaxing - since I am not allowed to do much else! Kevin is going out tonight for a very well deserved boys night in the city. But he and my father plan to add a little masculinity to our fun tomorrow so that they can catch up with everyone as well.

Today I am 27 weeks - 5 weeks of being on bed rest. So far so good. My doctor's appointment this week showed that my cervix is staying closed and I am doing fine so I guess I will just keep doing what I've been doing and see how long we can keep these babies growing in me.

Happy weekend everyone.

BR day 36
27 wks

Busy busy weekend

As has been my habit lately, I have been a little lax with my blog posts. Usually my excuse is that I have nothing new to report as my life relaxing is kinda boring. But this weekend was pretty busy for me and I didn't have time to sit back and reflect for all of you.

Kevin had another snow day on Friday, but luckily for us, the storm was less than originally predicted for the Philadelphia area and we only got a few inches. It worked out perfectly as he was able to get me to my ultrasound appointment on Friday morning with no problems (and out to breakfast after as well!).

The appointment went well. My cervix is still nicely closed and a good length. The babies are doing fine and are currently in a sort of yin yang position. They are still small enough to flip around quite a bit so no one is worried yet about the actual position they are in. Unfortunately, they opted not to do the measurements in order to estimates their weights so we don't have any updates on that, but I hope they will do it at our next appointment in two weeks. Overall the doctor was really pleased and didn't seem to think that my increased activity around my house was causing any detriment.

Saturday, we had a fun visit from our friends Nick and Melissa and their son Jake (17 months). Jake kindly pointed out to us all the places that will need to be baby-proofed before our twins become mobile. Melissa, who is due with their 2nd child in about a month, kindly pointed out to me how far my belly still needs to grow. After making the comparison between our respective bellies, I am a little worried about how large I will be at 36 weeks with our two babies inside me (instead of just one like Mel - who looks great by the way, just very preggers). But since it is my plan to keep these kiddos inside for as long as possible, I am up for the challenge - bring it on, belly!.

Sunday, Kevin's brother Jim and family stopped by for a early afternoon visit which was wonderful and then my dad, brother Ben, and Aunt Barbara came over for dinner. My father impressed us all with his preparation of shrimp and rice (an old recipe of his grandmother who grew up in Panama) which he brought from home. Kevin and I were thrilled to have a home cooked dinner brought to us and even more thrilled to get to spend time with some of our family members. Thanks!

Needless to say, I spent a lot of Saturday and Sunday downstairs hanging out with our guests. I did my best to not move around too much (not as easy as it may seem) and tried to keep my feet elevated. However, I am pretty worn out and my lower back is throbbing so I plan to spend as much of my day today as possible lying down. I need to get in a lot of rest this week as I have another big weekend coming up - all of my dearest college friends are all flying (or driving) in for the weekend to see me. I cannot wait as we always have so much fun together and the opportunities for all of us to be together (esp. when one of us is not wearing a poofy white dress and rather busy) are so rare. YAY!!!

BR day 32
26wks3days