Stop and smell the roses

It was a rather big day today.  The girls survived their first day of day care!  We found a really nice lady who runs a day care out of her home and we'll be taking the girls there a handful of days a month.  I guess the girls did really well for their first day.  They actually took a nap...which I honestly thought would never happen.  Granted, the nap was only about 45 minutes long, but that's a whole lot better than I had feared!  They didn't eat terribly well.  However, they tend to eat one really good meal a day, usually lunch or supper.  Today it happened to be supper.  So I don't think it really had anything to do with being at day care. 

They weren't even really sad when I left.  Adalyn immediately went into the other room to play with the new toys.  Alivia was a bit more hesitant.  She clung tightly to me when we first arrived.  But by the time I left (about 20 minutes later) she was pretty content on exploring her new surroundings.  They're obviously not going full time, but it's just enough of a change to give them a little something new...new toys, new surroundings, new activities to engage in, new kids, etc.  So I think this is going to be a good thing.

Oh yes, and the expressions on their faces when I came to get them?  Priceless.  They melted my heart.

We've been striking out

So not only did we have the incident a couple weeks back where we took the girls to the YMCA to swim just minutes after some other tiny tot had an accident in the kiddie pool.  But yesterday, the weather man led us completely astray.  Local weather and weather in the Twin Cities both said 80-85 and sunny.  Not a cloud in the sky for the entire day.  Well apparently 80 and sunny really means 62 and pouring rain.

We made the hour and a half trip to Como Zoo so the girls could experience some new animals.  Thank goodness we planned ahead and brought their jeans and jackets "just in case" it wouldn't warm up by the time we got there (it was 60 when we left).  By the time we got there, it was still chilly, so we changed the girls out of their summer clothes and put them back in their spring/fall clothes.  Just 45 minutes or so after we arrived, the clouds moved in and the skies opened up.  Grrr.  So we promptly made the hour and a half trek back home.

However, we had some good luck today.  The temps actually hit 85 and there wasn't any rain (as was predicted...go figure).  So we took the girls to the local zoo.  They enjoyed seeing the sandhill cranes, cougars and black bears.

Staring at one of the big black bears.

Addi riding the bear.

And Livi too!!

Baby Update

We had our big ultrasound on Wednesday. And the baby looks great. Oh, and the baby is still a surprise!! Half way through the ultrasound, Nate was actually on the fence about whether he wanted to know or not. But in the end, we stuck to our guns. If we do decide to know before the birth, all I'll have to do is email Paula and ask her. We once again had our favorite ultrasound tech. And she made it very well known that she knows what we're having. So if curiosity really does get the best of us (which I don't think it will), she'll tell us. Oh yes, and Paula loves us so much that she secretly scanned the photos and about 15 video clips from the ultrasound onto a disc for us!

As I thought, this baby is one very active little baby. When the ultrasound started, Baby J was head down with the head facing my left hip. Shortly thereafter, the baby moved to breech. Then back to head down with the head facing my right hip. Then breech again. And by the end, settled on being head down. Whew.

Anyway, the baby is measuring a bit ahead of schedule at 14oz. The femur length was a full week and a half ahead of where it should be. So we're going to have another long-legged little child...very similar to Miss Adalyn. The baby's heartrate was at 149bpm. He kept his arms crossed in the shape of an "X" over his face for a majority of the ultrasound. He stuck his tongue out at us a couple of times. He kept spreading his big toe out away from the rest of his toes...very similar to what Miss Alivia does. And we found out that the baby is a very flexible one as the picture will show.

Baby's profile (the bubbly thing above the belly is the umbilical cord)

Baby's face with the arm above the head and a fist that seems to be floating in mid-air.

The right foot with the big toe spread away from the rest!

The long-toed left foot.

Baby's arms making an "X"

And last but not least...

The baby curled up in a ball.  The knee is almost touching the nose!!

After the ultrasound I had an appointment with Dr L.  My blood pressure was good...102/64.  I'm back to measuring close to on track instead of measuring several weeks ahead like I was last time.  I'm up about 6-7 pounds so far.  I'll be going back for another appointment in 3 weeks. 

Oh yes, and something a bit funny.  The other day I was getting something out of the bedroom and Adalyn followed me in there.  Of all the things she could've found in the room, she decided to carry the Baby Name book out into the living room.  So apparently she wants to name the baby!  Which is probably a good thing, because Nate and I are absolutely clueless.

Fun, fun, fun

We took the girls to the mall and to the park yesterday.  Our original intention was to just let the girls burn off some energy at the mall, but there were some big kids in the play area who were pushing kids down the slide and just being plain mean.  So we left to take the girls to the park instead.  I don't think they minded....

They enjoyed their ride in the hot dog truck.

Adalyn was learning how to drive it.

Whereas Alivia preferred to steer Big Bird's plane.

Addi kept saying "weee!!"

Between smiles, Livi kept saying "Whoa!"

Swinging with mommy...

And swinging with daddy.

First time barefoot in the sand.

Someone always ruins it

Why is it that whenever you have something fun planned, it seems as though someone always has to ruin it?  We took the girls to the YMCA today to go swimming.  Well wouldn't ya know it, about 5-10 minutes before we got there, some other small child had an accident in the kiddie pool.  So they had to shut it down so it could be cleaned out.  What a bummer!

We decided to give the big pool a try.  But man was that thing COLD!  The girls lasted for about 20 minutes and then they started shivering pretty badly.  So we decided to call it quits.  It simply wasn't worth it because they weren't having as much fun as they otherwise would've been.  We actually stopped at the front desk on our way out to explain to them that the only reason we came was so that the girls could swim...and well, that didn't exactly happen.  So they gave us a family guest pass to come back again.  Next time we'll call ahead and make sure no wee ones had any accidents!

I was hoping to get some pictures of the girls swimming, but because our trip was so short, it didn't happen.  But speaking of pictures, we had the girls' 18 month pictures retaken and it was a huge success!  I'm so happy with the way they turned out.  Now we just have to decide which poses we want to order.  That's always the hard part.

Post-Pictures Pictures

Eating some apples and watching some Sesame Street.

We're not exactly happy with the girls' 18 month pictures.  This is the 5th set of pictures we've had taken at this place and this is the first time we've come away disappointed.  I guess I was expecting something bright, cheery, spring-like, etc.  But every single one of the pictures is dark and has a bad shadow darkening the right sides of the girls' bodies.  In some of them, it's actually kind of hard to tell that they even have ears or eyes on that side of their head!  Yeah, it's that bad.  I think that one of the lights must've burned out or something.  But I would think that's something the photographer would notice.  I could be wrong.  It's not like we're going to the place that charges you $500 just for the sitting fee.

Anyway, we're going to be having retakes done.  There were some really cute poses and expressions that I really do like, but I just can't get past the bad shadowing that appears.  I simply can't convince myself to spend money buying a bunch of pictures I'm not happy with.  So hopefully within the next couple of days we'll get in for another photo shoot.  I'm crossing my fingers that this set turns out much better than the first set!  Like I said, we've had pictures taken four other times at this place (3, 6, 9 and 12 months) and we've never been disappointed before.  So I hope it was just a fluke.