A Little Jumbled, But A Start

Disclaimer: This is a VERY LONG post that contains a lot of my own personal values and beliefs, some of which I am still currently hashing out. Feel free to comment, but please don't get angry with me for expressing them and leave me nasty comments. You may not agree, and that's ok. Please forgive the fact that these thoughts may come out a little jumbled...it's all stuff that has been rattling around in my head for the past couple of weeks and I'm simply trying to get it all into logical, coherent ideas.

I've been thinking a lot about camp in the last week or so. I think I'm getting myself mentally and spiritually ready for my time there (July 5-11)...I'm not sure why, but this year's camp feels like there's a whole lot more riding on it than usual. (Or you can just chalk it up to more pregnancy hormones) A big part of what I've been thinking about is my testimony and my own personal values and beliefs. Planned or not, somehow the leaders' testimonies come out during the nightly cabin time, whether it be all at once or gradually throughout the week. This thought is somehow made all the more potent by the fact that the main speaker for this session is the same man who first introduced me to the idea of a relationship with Jesus...which led to me becoming a Christian. It's like my time in Young Life has come full circle.

Speaking as someone who started in Young Life as a camper, the week you spend at camp can easily become one of the most life-changing weeks of your life. I wish I could adequately describe what happens there, but I could write all day and still not scratch the surface of what camp is. In a nut shell, it's walking out of the pressures of day to day teenage life into a 5 star resort surrounded and protected by the love of God. It's a place that specifically caters to teenagers, in terms of letting them become kids again. These days, kids are asked to grow up way too soon...becoming parents to their younger siblings because their parents are too drunk or high on drugs, having to call 911 because their dad is beating the crap out of their mom in front of them, having sex at age 13 or 14, coming to school drunk or high almost every day...if you think that these things don't happen on a regular basis, even in Baker, you're sadly mistaken. Not with every kid, but definitely with more kids than you would think.

These are the stories that come out during our nightly cabin time; the time after club where we all sit on the floor, talk about the questions from the talk, and often stray into deeper subjects. Subjects that the girls are dying to share with an adult who will listen and understand, who can't ground them for their past mistakes, and who will be honest about having made the same mistakes themselves. I can't count the number of times I cried last year when I heard about the things my girls have gone through. I admit to making some major mistakes and doing things I'm not proud of back in high school, but some of these stories overreach the things I was even aware of back then. Maybe I was naive...or maybe high school has just become a whole different beast in the past 6 years.

Perhaps it's because I have more of an inside view of what is happening to our teenagers (both as a Young Life leader and as a law enforcement dispatcher), but I have very little patience for missionaries who come to our church to guilt us into giving money to struggling churches in far-off countries. It seems like our churches today focus more on helping those who are far removed from us...why can't they see that while they reach out across the distance, their very future is being torn down around them? That their children, while their focus is elsewhere, are finding their "god" in things like drugs and sex. And let me clarify...by "their children", I don't necessarily mean Christian's flesh and blood children, although that isn't completely uncommon either. I mean those kids who don't have the parents to give them guidance. Maybe if, rather than focusing on people we'll never meet, we focus on loving the kids who will become our future, we'll see a change in our entire world. Focus on your own backyard, people...they're dying for that love.

I recently finished reading a book that talked about the values, or lack there of, that we're passing on. It was a fictional book, but it hit close to home on a lot of ways. One of the most notable ideas that stuck with me is the idea that when we, as a society, decided that the old values no longer applied and got rid of them, we didn't replace them with any new values to guide people with. As a result, anything goes. Want to experiment with a few drugs? Go ahead! Want to have sex with as many partners as you want? Go ahead! Want to have an abortion to get rid of the baby that resulted from one of those many partners (yes I went there)? Go ahead! Never mind that these things tear you apart, body mind and soul.

I think of myself as a fairly liberal person. I even prided myself on being known as the liberal Christian among my college friends. But maybe the fact that I'm going to become a mother soon is making me rethink the ideas that I swallowed hook line and sinker while I was in college. For example, I have many friends who are pro-choice. Yet no matter how liberal I thought myself to be, this was one idea I could never buy into. And now even more than before. I've heard the argument that it's just a blob of tissue, that having it removed is no more scarring that having an insulting appendix removed or a root canal performed. And yet how many people have you heard of needing Post Traumatic Syndrome Disorder counseling for a root canal? Or marriages ending? Or the mother (and sometimes father) ending their lives?

I admit that while in college, I became one of the people who railed against "outdated values". So what I'm writing here could possibly be thought of as a little hypocritical. But the more I think about it, the more I think that maybe chucking those values is exactly what led us to where we are now. To the diseases, to the drugs, to the broken families. And perhaps the lack of taught values are directly leading to the broken lives I see in the teenagers I take to camp.

I just pray that I will know the right things to say. That I will know the right comfort to give. That my own changing and developing beliefs and values won't leak out to just further confuse the girls I will be spending this next week with. I hope I can just get of of God's way and let Him work through me to love these girls the way they deserve to be loved.

Bump Tracker & Busy Weekend

I have been so bad about posting these photos. Not at all as good as my friend Arly, who posts a new photos every Thursday. If only I could remember to do that. But here we go...18 weeks 3 days.

On Thursday we drove to Portland for the weekend to spend time with Johnny and Laura, Nathan's best friend and his fiance, as well as Nathan's mom. Nathan grinned and bore it while I did some more maternity clothes shopping at Old Navy...mostly for shorts and capri pants because it is going to get hot here and it was RIDICULOUSLY HOT in Portland. I mean, 104 degrees! Really?!?! 104 DEGREES?!?! And of course it was only 84 degrees in Baker that day.

On Friday, after sleeping in a little bit, we took Nathan's mom out for lunch at Appleby's and ended up just sitting and talking for a good half an hour after we finished eating. It was a lot of fun. After lunch, we hit up Old Navy (preggo clothes for me) and Ross (shorts for Nathan). Once the shopping was finished, we met up with Johnny and Laura at his apartment. We went out for dinner and then Laura and I left the boys to their own devises while we went shopping...yay girl time! I managed to find a really cute maternity swimming suit at Target, which will come in majorly handy for taking kids to Young Life camp starting next weekend!

On Saturday we went out for breakfast and then headed to the Beaverton Saturday Market, where Laura's family has a booth to sell their farm's strawberries...BEST STRAWBERRIES EVER!!! No, I'm not kidding. After buying a 1/2 flat, Nathan dropped me off at his mom's house, where I immediately fell asleep while Nathan hit up the homebrew store in Hillsboro. Since this was the day that it was 104 degrees out, we beat the heat by going to see Get Smart at the theatre...SO FUNNY! Totally worth seeing! And it was all clean humor. Gotta love Steve Carrell, the master of dry humor.

That night we had dinner at Johnny's apartment and then the four of us went into Portland to see Nathan's favorite band in concert. It was in a small venue where it was all standing room...and hot...and there were three bands total. Thankfully, the Supersuckers were first. Laura and I weren't too impressed with the second band, which wasn't helped by the fact that I had been standing for almost two hours straight, my feet were hurting, my hips were killing me, I was sweating like a pig, and I was getting dizzy. So we left the concert (Johnny and Laura insisted) to go back to Johnny's apartment where we watched the Bucket List. It was a pretty good movie...kind of hard to watch. I didn't realize it dealt with cancer, and Jack Nicholson's portrayal of having cancer was spot on so it reminded me of Marla. But it was a well written and well acted movie.

Before heading home today, we stopped off at the hospital where Nathan's mom works as a nurse in the newborn nursery. It was so much fun to see where she works and to see all the babies! We showed up in the middle of the parenting class she gives to parents who just had their babies within the last four days or less. She is such a fount of knowledge, one that we will definitely be tapping once the kiddos get here! One of the nurses she works with has 6 year old triplets! So we got to pick her brain for a while also and got some great advice. Triplets! Can you imagine?!

And then we drove home. It was great to have two full days in Portland, much more relaxed than normal, but we're glad to be home! It's always a relief to come over that hill into Baker Valley, see our mountains, and know we're really home. I'm such a nervous, jumpy mess while I'm in Portland, mostly because of the traffic. I've discovered the highly protective side of my pregnant self, the side that makes me want to lash out at anyone who poses any sort of a threat to my babies. It surprised me to feel that strong of a reaction...any time someone came close to sideswiping us (stupid city drivers, it happened several times) I would almost burst out in tears. I can only imagine how much worse this is going to be when these babies are outside of the protection of my belly! It makes me thank God that we live in a place where I don't have to deal with that every day!

YAY! ONLY 3 DAYS AND 15 HOURS UNTIL OUR ULTRASOUND!

Puffy Ankle Update

So I broke down and called my doctor's office today to ask if I should be worried about how consistantly large my ankles have been for the past four days or so. The nurse got the specifics on what my ankles and feet looked like and then said she'd call back after checking with Dr. Smithson. A couple of hours later, she called back and said I should be fine as long as I keep my feet up as often as possible.

.............yeah, cause THAT is going to be easy during our trip to Portland this weekend or during my week at Young Life camp starting on July 5th. They obviously don't know me very well. It's going to be hard enough on me not being able to do all of the activities that I LOVE at camp (1/4 mile long zip line, ropes course, at-night obstacle course, go carts, bike riding, etc). Ah well, I'll do my best. I promise to sit as often as humanly possible, and whenever the opportunity presents itself, will even put my feet up.

Puffy Ankles

I'm 18 weeks today. Only 7 days until the ultrasound!

Ok, I knew puffy ankles were part and parcel of being pregnant. But really, I guess I didn't expect it to show up so early or to be so danged...uncomfortable! I've noticed that it only gets really bad when I eat salty foods, so I'm trying to stay away from salt as much as possible. But it's amazing how hard that is! I've also started putting my feet up on a box that I have installed under my desk at work, complete with a small pillow on top of it. I'm hoping that maybe a combo of cutting back on salt, drinking a ton of water (which I do anyway), and keeping my feet up for most of the day will help bring my ankles down to a more normal size.

And before any of you start shrieking about preeclampsia, I had my blood pressure checked and it's actually slightly lower than normal. And yes, I'm going to keep having it checked. But even before getting pregnant I would sometimes get puffy ankles when I sat for too long and had too much salt. So please, leave the panicking to me. ;)

On a different note, Nathan and I are jumping in the car tonight to head to Portland for the weekend. Nathan's favorite band, the Supersuckers, are doing a concert on Saturday night and I happened to have the weekend off. Our plans include running errands, taking Nathan's mom out to an early birthday lunch, spending time with our friends Laura and Johnny, going to the concert, and much more. It's going to be a busy weekend, but I'm looking forward to it! Plus Laura and I are going to take some girl time to go shopping...yay for girl time! It's definitely time to get out of town, get away from the home improvement projects, and actually be social. I'm starting to feel like a hermit.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Rockin' It

Wow, what a weekend! First of all, I have to say that Nathan and his dad are TROOPERS! I can't believe how much they got done on the bathroom in just two days. It honestly blows my mind. And they kept acting like I was going to be upset that more wasn't getting done. Trust me, I know that unexpected road blocks come up that can completely throw you for a loop. For example...we bought porcelain tile instead of ceramic. Who knew that porcelain would be so incredibly hard to cut through?!?! Granted, it will last for stinkin' ever, but it definitely slowed down the progress. Nathan's dad actually ended up having to drive to Ontario on Sunday to get a wet tile saw from Home Depot, otherwise there were going to be so many broken tiles that we wouldn't have had enough.

Before getting started on the tile, however, the boys did quite a bit of prep work. They had to rebuild a corner of the wall between the bathtub and the toilet, which we had had to cut off in order to remove the old tub and install the new one. They also took out the old built-in small medicine cabinet and drywalled over that. After seeing how big our new vanity was, we decided that we needed to put it against a different wall, which meant reworking the plumbing for both water lines and the sewer drain. Nathan's dad handled that and it turned out great! Big thanks to those who rescued us when we ran out of solder for the copper pipes on a Sunday night. Boo to not having any hardware stores open in the entire town!

While Ger worked on the plumbing stuff for the sink, Nathan kept on the tile, getting it completely installed! The only things left to do on that tub are to put up the grout and then caulk between the tile and the tub. YAY! Even without grout, the tile already looks phenomenal.

The new tile...the mud around the outside edge of the tile will be sanded down and painted over.

Here's what the accent tile looks like up close. Love it!

I just love how the tile looks. It's leaps and bounds above the laminate crap that was in there before! I can't wait to see what it looks like with the grout! We finally called it a weekend last night at around 12:30, after getting the vanity installed and figuring out that the faucet we had on the sink was leaking from a place where it couldn't be fixed. So Nathan ended up buying a new faucet this morning and I spent the morning removing the old fixture and drain and installing the new one. That's right, yours truly installs sink faucets and drains. I'd also like to mention that nothing leaks and everything works properly! YAY! Sorry, just had to toot my horn a little bit since I was working all weekend and didn't really get to help with much.

The new vanity, complete with working fixtures and drains.

What a huge relief. Installing the tile and the bathtub were most definitely going to be the biggest obstacles in remodeling the bathroom, and we're almost completely done with it. Not only that, but the stuff that is left with the tub is all pretty easy, compared to what we've already gone through! Just know that for everything I've talked about in this blog, there's about three times as much stuff that Nathan and his dad did that I either don't know about or that I didn't mention, simply in the interest of keeping this post relatively short.

Items left to complete in the bathroom: grout the tile, caulk the tub, install mirrored medicine cabinet, install storage cabinet above toilet, get new flooring installed, paint, install trim. Yeah, it sounds like a lot, but again, compared to what we've already done, we're at the easy part!!!

OB Appointment

Today was our 4 month OB appointment. It always surprises me how short the appointments are. Walk in, pay your $20 copay, pee in a cup, get your blood pressure taken, measure the tummy, hear the heartbeats, ask a couple of questions, walk out.

I really like Dr. Smithson, he's a funny guy and seems to know what he's doing, but sometimes I feel like he's always in a huge hurry to get out of the room at the end of our already very short appointment. Today I was asking him a couple of last minute questions while he was literally standing in the open doorway. I dunno, maybe that's normal, but it doesn't sit very well with me. Should I call him on it, or just deal with and realize that I'm going to be seeing a perinatologist in Boise soon who specializes in multiples and that he will probably spend more time answering my questions?

One of the really cool things that happened in the appointment had to do with the nurse. It turned out that she was the same gal who checked us into the ER when I had spotting at 9 or 10 weeks and was such a wreck because I thought I might have been losing the baby. She said that she and the other nurse (a good friend of mine...I burst into tears as soon as I saw her because I knew she'd take care of me) were almost in tears because they were so upset that we might be losing our baby. And then when they heard about it being healthy twins a couple of days later, they were almost beside themselves with excitement. It was just really touching to know that they were pulling for us like that.

As for the appointment itself...well, my tummy measures at the same size as a woman who is having a singleton baby and is at 28 weeks. Ha ha. That's 11 weeks ahead of where I am. Crazy. After measuring the tummy, we got to hear the heartbeats. Or at least attempt to hear the heartbeats. Smithson found Baby B's (the upper baby) heartbeat right away, but then the little stinker proceeded to play hide and seek with him. Every time he pinned down the heartbeat, the baby would move away from the doppler. It was pretty funny. Baby A held still a little bit better and we were able to hear that heartbeat really clearly for quite a while. Smithson found Baby B up above my belly button and to the right, while Baby A was down below my belly button and to the left.

Baby A's heartbeat was at 145 bpm while Baby B's was at about 160 bpm. Smithson joked that that means that Baby A is a boy and Baby B is a girl. Evidently with twins, it's pretty common that the baby with the consistently lower heartbeat is a boy and the higher heartbeat belongs to a girl. Should be interesting to see if he's right!

Speaking of finding out what they are...our ultrasound appointment is on July 3rd at 1:00 pm, two weeks from tomorrow!!!! YAY! So the countdown ticker on our blog is correct! It's a relief to know the actual date and time. And that Smithson didn't insist on waiting until after I get back from camp. I'll be 19 weeks on the day we have our ultrasound, so we should be able to see what they are easily as long as the kiddos cooperate. I'm just worried that Baby B will feel like trying to play hide and seek again! ;) For some reason I really feel like Baby A is a boy, while I am pretty unsure about what Baby B might be.

The next two weeks are going to be almost unbearable! Good thing we have a lot going on to keep our minds off of it, right? HA!

Bump Tracker

Alright, here we are folks. 16 weeks 4 days. Yes, there are DEFINITELY twins in there! Crazy! Gotta love being 5 foot...with a sway back...let there be PREGGO BELLY!



And now I'm going to bear it all. That's right, I'm putting my bare belly on our blog. For the first time...ever. Please be kind.


Unleash the white whale! And it's only going to get bigger from here! And now, my finger nails, compliments of Rite Aid Prenatal Pills. I have never been able to get my fingers this long or strong. And I haven't done anything to these nails besides file the ends once in a while. I'm going to miss these once the kiddos come along. Is it bad to keep taking prenatal pills after you have the kids? ;)

No Really, He Is

I am continually astounded by how handy my hubby is and how good he is about solving problems around the house. Not that I don't believe him to be a handy guy, I guess maybe it's just because he's had so many opportunities to showcase that handiness in the past couple of weeks. The latest one involved our shower head. Somehow, during the process of re-plumbing our shower, the water pressure to the shower doubled. This is a problem when we don't have the biggest water heater. We put the flow restricter back into the shower head, but it did no good. Needless to say, taking a hot shower AND shaving my legs was not going to be in the picture...and I like me a hot shower.

But Nathan called me today to inform me that he had found the answer to our water pressure problems...Ace Hardware (our favorite store) had a little valve that you put just above the shower head. On the valve is a knob that, as you turn it, either decreases or increases the water pressure. It even has the ability to completely shut off the water! Huzzah! Now I can scald myself throughout my entire leg-shaving extravaganza! Trust me, when you're pregnant, have aching hips/back, and a killer headache, nothing feels better than a long shower with super hot water. Mmmm.

On a different yet related note, I got Nathan the new Brad Paisley cd as one of his Father's Day gifts. And whooboy is it a man-centric cd. Not that I mind. There's one song in particular (I'm Still A Guy) that just seems to really tickle Nathan's funny bone and it has become a sort of anthem for him. But you know what...listening to that song makes me thankful for the man I've got. I'll forgive him his man-centricies. Because I sure as heck would have a hard time handling being married to a man who can't tell the difference between a skill saw and a jig saw. It just wouldn't be right for my husband to know less about tools than I do. Check out the lyrics if you want a good chuckle and don't think that manly men are obsolete. ;)

The Tub Is IN!!!!

That's right, our brand new bathtub is installed and working properly!!! Fix it up with a black plastic surround, and the Labunski house hold is able to take showers again! You have NO idea how happy this makes me. Because let's face it, two days without a shower and working in 90 degree heat today simply do not mix. Big thanks to Will and Jason for coming to help Nathan haul in the 300+ pound tub! There's no way we could have done that without them! Especially since I am not able to lift heavy stuff.

Unfortunately, as with any home improvement project, everything this weekend took longer than we guesstimated. After getting the tub in, me running some errands (yes, even I can shop for plumbing supplies), and Nathan running the old tub and vanity to the dump, we were both so exhausted and starving, we decided to call it a day. So no new working vanity. But that's ok. After looking at how the vanity looked in the same position as the old vanity (parallel to the bathtub) we realized that it was a LOT deeper than our old vanity and simply wasn't going to fit very well.

So instead, we're going to put the vanity perpendicular to the tub, under the window instead of under the mirror. Nathan got a really big mirrored medicine cabinet that is the same width as the entire mirror wall. It's going to be great. Having the vanity like that opens up the bathroom so much, and I don't think not having the vanity under the mirror is going to be a problem at all. Unfortunately, that means Nathan's going to have to re-plumb the sink plumbing, but it's so worth it. Thing is, we're thinking that maybe we will need to get the new flooring in sooner than later, before we hook up the sink, because of the kind of vanity it is. Boo.

The thing I'm SUPER excited about is the organizers I got for the vanity drawers. Before, our drawers were DISASTER ZONES! But I went to Dollar Tree and got the perfect organizers and figured out how to arrange them so that they fit perfectly. And now, PICTURES!

The new bathtub...gotta love the beautiful black plastic surround. ;) But hey, the tub is white instead of blue. The old tub matched the blue on the wall. That paint is going away soon too.

The new vanity...the small window is directly above it.

Drawer organizers! YAY being organized!

The wall where the new medicine cabinet is going to go. The old vanity use to be where that strip of old yellow glue is...which is going to have to be sanded off. FUN!

The good news...Nathan's dad is coming from Portland next weekend to help Nathan install all the tiles for the new tub surround. After that, all that is holding us back from fully installing the vanity and getting the painting done is installing the new flooring in there. Here's to being home owners and doing remodel work!

Kudos To My Handy Hubby!

The past few days have been devoted to remodeling our bathroom. Nathan has been a trooper, especially today. This morning he got up early, tore out our old vanity (vintage blue with matching face marble formica, eew), ripped out our heavy vintage blue bathtub, and proceeded to completely re-plumb our shower plumbing. All of this meant that we had a completely inoperable bathroom in a one bathroom house. Every time I ran an errand, I also used the store's bathroom.

The plumbing itself took longer than we expected and around 6 pm, Nathan started getting really frustrated. We have a good friend, Will, who is pretty stinkin' handy and runs a heating/air conditioning company here in Baker. He has a great lift that they use to lift water heaters and such up stairs, and he offered to bring that over today to lift our 300+ pound new bath tub into the house. Since the plumbing needed to be all done before putting in the tub, Nathan called Will and asked if we could postpone the tub moving until tomorrow. When Nathan explained the difficulty he was having with soldering the pipes, Will offered to come over and give Nathan some times.

After Will came over and hung out for a while, Nathan and I decided it was time for dinner at Barley's, since neither of us felt like cooking. But Nathan was determined to get the plumbing finished tonight, so we came home and he immediately got back on the job. Less than two hours later, and the plumbing was finished...and completely LEAK FREE! ON THE FIRST TRY! YAY! We can now have the water to the bathroom on, which means we have a working toilet!!!!!! And after putting the tub in tomorrow, we will have a working shower too! Granted, we will still have the black plastic surround, but that is a-ok with me!

The great part...doing the plumbing himself saved us the $1000 or so that a plumber would have charged us! So yeah, I married myself a handy man and I am SO proud of him for being amazing!

16 Weeks

Today I am 16 weeks along. Seeing as a lot of twins are born around the 32-34 week mark, it's possible I'm already halfway through my pregnancy. Crazy. It doesn't seem like that long, but if you think about it, I'm 4 months along. Only 6 days until our next OB appointment. And only 21 days (give or take a day or two) until our gender ultrasound!!!

Here's what our kiddos look like right now, according to BabyCenter.com:

I have yet to feel any definite movement, but it could happen at any time. I think right now I feel like I'm kind of in limbo with feeling pregnant. Yeah, my tummy's getting bigger and I'm feeling some of the aches and pains of my body changing, but other than that I really don't feel pregnant. No nausea, the fatigue has really tapered off, and no flutters in the tummy. Sometimes it's hard to believe I have two human beings growing inside of me. Really hard. Surreal even. But I'm sure that will change soon!

Bi-Polar Mother Nature

One thing I forgot to mention in my post last night...it snowed yesterday afternoon. A lot. We had accumulation on the ground. HUGE flakes. And when they weren't huge, there were a ton of them coming down. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it JUNE?! As in, less than 10 days until the first day of summer?

And then this morning was clear and kind of warm...as in, above freezing. The new snow on the mountains was absolutely beautiful with the sun rising on it. But still...it's JUNE! This is more like the springs/summers I grew up with here in Baker. You know, the ones where we regularly had snow on the 4th of July. But then the next day it will be 90-100 degrees.

In other news, we got our equity loan checks yesterday!!! So now we are in the process of paying off both car loans and the rest of our credit card. After that, we will still have quite a bit of money left over for remodeling the house and then still some left to cover our butts in case I have to be out of work for bedrest or after the kiddos are born for longer than I have paid leave hours available for. So now the remodeling can start in ernest...yay? Ha ha ha. It's going to be interesting, but oh man is our house going to look good when it's done! That's what I keep telling myself.

The Room That Never Ends!!!

Dear heavens, I didn't think our bedroom would be such a huge job when I started painting it. Thank goodness my friend Dana came over to help me with a large part of it on Sunday. We started at around 1:30 or 2:00 and got the light tan paint on the two walls with the windows as well as the small part of the wall around our door. We managed to get a second coat of the light tan on one and half of the window walls before Dana went home...it took a lot longer than expected, probably because we had to take a bunch of stuff out of the room and some of the cabinet doors off of the closet before starting.

After Dana left, I finished up the second coat of light tan and slapped two coats of white paint on the window sills. Between coats, I also painted the cabinet doors from the closet a dark brown to match the new dark brown curtains. About that time, I called it a night and collapsed.

Yesterday, I got up and started with putting the hinges back on the cabinet doors and then started putting the dark brown paint on the louver closet doors. They look kinda like the picture below, only there are four of them on the front of the closet.

I hand painted each one of those slats...twice. Otherwise the wood still showed through the first coat. It took about four hours just to do those slats. Craziness. But I tell you what, they sure look good! The only other thing I had energy for that day was to put two coats of the dark brown paint on the front of the closet drawers. While I was finishing that up, Nathan came home from work and started tearing out our shower surround. He's planning on replacing the bathtub this weekend, and that requires him to get rid of the current surround, which needed to go anyway! So right now our shower surround consists of a black piece of thick plastic. But it works! And now Nathan knows what he's face with when it comes to putting tile up for our new shower surround.

Today I taped off the new brown paint on the louver doors so that I could paint the part around the slats without getting white primer on them. That took about an hour, just because I had to get the tape placed exactly for nice clean lines...I'm OCD like that. Once that was done, I got a coat of primer on the entire closet, which consists of really ugly brown wood. I also primed the room door and door frame. To follow the theme of this post...that took a lot longer than expected. I did manage to get two coats of the light tan paint on the main closet, as well as on the outside frames of the louver doors. By the time I got all of that done, I barely had enough time to jump in the shower and throw on some clothes and a hat before our monthly beer meeting...which I haven't been to since before we found out about being pregnant.

Now all that is left is to get two coats of white paint on the closet trim, the bedroom door, and the door frame. Oh, and the dark blue on the accent wall which is at the head of our bed. I'm hoping that will only take one coat of paint, but I'm guessing that's not the case. After that last bit of painting is done, the only things that will be left to do in this room will be to put up some new trim and install new carpet. That won't happen for a while, but it already looks so much better!

I absolutely love how it looks already, and I still have one wall of the mauve-pink color left to get rid of! The dark brown and light tan combo just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I'm hoping the dark blue accent wall will fit in just as well...I guess we'll see. But I'm kind of relieved to have to go back to work tomorrow. After 2 1/2 days of non-stop painting, sitting at work for 12 hours will feel like a vacation! I promise, I'll put up pictures as soon as I'm done with the paint...I'm too OCD to put up pictures before it's done! Ok, it's bed time now!

Bed Bath & Beyond Blitz

Today was an awesome day! We got quite a bit of anniversary gift money and decided that new paint in our bedroom warranted the purchasing of new bedding and curtains. So off we went to Boise and hit up Bed Bath & Beyond. I have a real love/hate relationship with that store. I love their products and their selection, however I hate that everything costs so much (even though it's cheaper than most other places) and that they invariably are out of the one thing you really need. But today we got lucky!

After looking around for a comforter that would match our light tan/dark green paint that we were planning to put in our room, we realized that they were going to be very difficult to match. Since the room isn't painted yet, we were allowed some wiggle room. I had the dark blue paint chip that was going to go into our bathroom in my purse, just in case we had money left over for a new shower curtain. We then found a duvet that we both really liked that had, lighter (matching) blue, dark brown, and light tan stripes. Our current comforter is in good shape, just really boring. So we grabbed the duvet, got a light tan sheet set (flat sheet, fitted sheet and two pillow cases), two dark brown pillow cases, and a dark brown bed skirt.

After searching the curtain section for a while, we finally found some dark brown curtains on sale. Unfortunately, only one panel was available in the 62 inch length we really wanted. We bought that panel plus three 83 inch panels, which I would then hem at home. All of this, plus one wall clock for our living room, only cost $19 over the money that we got for our anniversary. We win!

Of course, hemming the curtains would require a sewing machine...which works. My mom had given me her old sewing machine when she got a new one for Christmas. But then she came over to my house, used it to sew together a baby quilt, and broke it. Silly girl. When I called the ONLY repair shop in the area, they said it was going to be about $78 to service it, plus the extra cost of any parts that may be needed and labor to put it in. Yeesh. So instead, we bought a new, simple Singer. And it works like a dream! I got all three curtain panels hemmed in less than an hour...and most of that time was taken up with me learning how to use the new sewing machine.

So now the new curtains are up, the bed skirt is in place, the new sheets and pillow cases are on the bed, and the duvet is laying on the bed inside out waiting for the comforter to get done drying in the dryer. I will take pictures tomorrow of the finished product. And who knows, maybe Nathan and I will even get a wild hair and get the room painted tomorrow after church!

Oh, and big props to Nathan who finished up the detail paint work in the hallway. Two rooms of painting down, three to go! Sweet!

Wow...it's almost 10 pm. This is the latest I've stayed up in a long time. Guess all those naps in the car today did me some good. Then again, the big yawns are coming on. Better to shift around the comforter so it dries more thoroughly and I can get my pregnant butt to bed! Night!

CRIB!

YAY! Our cribs were delivered today. As I type this, they are sitting on our front porch...good thing we live in Baker where (most likely) no one is going to walk off with them. I can't even tell you how stinkin' excited I am! I just called Nathan, who was in the midst attempting to navigate the grocery store check out line while digging for his cell phone, and he said we can set one up tonight. EEEEEE! (That's the excited squeal that I only allow myself to do mentally since I'm way too mature to do it outloud. Ha.) Seriously, who gets this excited over a crib? Yeesh. But here's the one we chose and I simply can't wait to see what it looks like set up!

EEEEEEE! (Again) If my bladder weren't so full and didn't have two kiddos sitting on it, I'd probably be jumping up and down right now. As it is, I'm off to the bathroom before I head home to fill my face and wrestle with crib parts!

PS. The twins are now each 4 inches long from the top of their head to their butts. Wow. Go grab a ruler and check that out. FOUR INCHES. That may not seem like a big deal to you, but these four inch long kiddos are inside of me. Crazy.

New Cell Numbers!

Ok, we finally got it done, so our old cell numbers officially no longer work! Here are the new ones:

Lindy: 541-519-7174
Nathan: 541-519-7175

Pretty easy. So make sure to change these numbers in your phones!

Another Bump Tracker!

Ok Arly, here ya go! Thanks for motivating me to get off my butt and do this, I've been meaning to for days! This is me at 14 weeks 6 days.


I think Nathan gets more and more excited about becoming a dad every day. And that translates into him not believing me when I tell him that he won't be able to feel, let alone hear, the kiddos until they are much further along. Yesterday I thought I may have felt the first little flutter of movement in my tummy, but I'm not completely sure because I was walking across the Sheriff's office at the time. But that, of course, made Nathan want to feel them move.

Last night, he spent about five minutes with his ear pressed up to my tummy, trying to hear the kiddos. Of course, it took five minutes for him to realize that he wasn't going to hear anything except my tummy gurgling, simply because I kept laughing and "breaking his concentration".

I have to feel for the guy though. Yes, he helped create these kiddos but now his involvement is kind of minimal. I'm the one carrying the babies, I'll be able to feel them several weeks before he will, it will be very obvious that they are with me. I asked Nathan it that was hard for him, and he said that it was in a way. So I told him I'd make sure to describe everything happening to and in my body with as much detail as possible. Ha ha ha. But I know he's going to make an absolutely phenomenal dad and I think I'm almost more excited about seeing him hold his kids for the first time than I am to hold them myself!

In other news, yesterday was Nathan and my 2 year anniversary. Wow. Two years. That just blows me away. It's been a hard two years, we've been forced to deal with a lot of things that newlyweds don't usually have to deal with, and now we have twins on the way! It's not going to be easy, but I don't think life will ever be easy. But at the same time, life will be very very good. We have been incredibly blessed, and I feel so lucky to have my amazing family and a wonderful husband. I've heard that the first two years are always the hardest when it comes to marriage, so we'll see where things go from there!

Love you baby! And kiddos!

Whew!

What a weekend!

On Tuesday, I got a call from my dad saying that he and mom were going to be flying into Portland on Friday to surprise my grandma for her 80th birthday. Their plan is to stay in Oregon until the 10th, fly back to Mexico to finish up stuff on the boat, and then come back on July 14th. As soon as I heard that they were going to surprise my grandma, the wheels in my head started turning.

Nathan and I had originally planned to go to Boise for Saturday night to celebrate our 2nd anniversary, which is tomorrow. Instead, we changed our plans and decided to drive to Portland on Friday afternoon. We left Baker at noon and got to Portland in time to have some dinner with Nathan's dad before meeting my parents at the airport. Keep in mind that my parents have NO clue we were picking them up instead of their friends. I had called these friends and told them what we wanted to do. They played along and emailed us Mom and Dad's itinerary. The look on my parents' faces were absolutely priceless when they came around the corner and saw us just standing there. After that, we checked into our hotel in Sandy and then went up to my grandparent's house and surprised them, because they had no clue ANY of us were coming. Too much fun.

On Saturday, Nathan and I slept in, went out to breakfast, and then bought Nathan a bunch of new clothes (since he hasn't gotten new clothes in a LONG time). After that, my mom picked me up and we had a great time in Gresham buying maternity clothes. When we got back, Nathan and I went out to dinner in Welches (SO GOOD) and were planning on going to see Prince Caspian, but the next available showing wasn't until 9:40 pm...trust me, pregnant lady here wasn't going to be staying awake through a movie until midnight or later. So instead we bought travel Scrabble and played a rip snorting game until I was literally falling asleep where I sat. Aren't we so exciting? But it was very relaxing, which is what we wanted.

On Sunday we got up to my grandparent's house early enough to have breakfast with my parents and then just hung around until my body simply started to shut down. I finally have to admit it, I am no longer able to do whirlwind weekend trips and come out smiling on the other end. I had the worst headache and my stomach didn't feel so great, and I ended up sleeping pretty much the entire way home from Portland. But the trip was so worth it!

I realized this morning, though, that I think part of my problem may have been that the kids hit a growth spurt over the weekend. My tummy is noticeably bigger and that would explain the complete exhaustion. Other than that, there's really no update to give on the twins. I still haven't felt them moving, but I'm only 14 weeks along. So other than my tummy getting bigger, there's not much to report.

On Thursday, one of our officers who just had her daughter in March came into dispatch and mentioned that she has a coupon for a place in Boise called Fetal Foto. They do 2D, 3D, and 4D ultrasounds and will do gender ultrasounds as early as 17 weeks because their ultrasound machines are so much better than the normal ones most hospitals have. I'll be 17 weeks along in only 2 1/2 weeks, so I'm trying to decide if we want to cheat and find out what the twins are early, or just wait the full 4 1/2 weeks until I'm 19 weeks along and the hospital here will do it. If you want to see what Fetal Foto does, here's their website:

http://www.fetalfotosusa.com/

I guess it will depend on how much the coupon is for and which package we decided to get. But I just may go crazy before I get to 19 weeks! I mean, it's double the suspense, and I never did handle suspense well!