21 weeks!

Time for a baby update!  :)  We went to the doctor on Friday for my 21 week check, and so far, so good.  Although there is definitely entanglement {a nice way of saying a big knot} in their cords, both babies are growing perfectly and looking great, and the blood flow in both cords is good.  Whew!  It's certainly a day-by-day journey, and we feel very blessed to have made it this far.  

Here's a view of the babies from the outside at 21 weeks:

And from the inside!

{Baby A on the left side and Baby B on the right}

Also this weekend, Matt took me out for an early birthday celebration.  We went to dinner and then out to see A Christmas Carol at the Dallas Theater Center, which has become my birthday tradition over the past few years.  It was fabulous, and after the play we picked up some hot chocolate and drove around to look at Christmas lights.  Unfortunately, that's about when we got the call that Will had come down with his first stomach bug.  :(  So the rest of the night was NOT FUN, and we're still praying that we can all avoid catching the bug!  The good news is that Will has made a full recovery, and is back to his happy self today.

such fun!

How fun is this?  We had family pictures taken a few weeks ago with the Hawkins side of the family, and our photographer made us two AWESOME videos to share.  I LOVE them!  I was going to wait until we sent out Christmas cards to post these, since our pictures are all in here....but I hate waiting.  And this is one thing that I don't HAVE to wait for...so enjoy!!

This one is a little digital Christmas card from Will:

And this one is just a fun video of lots of our family pictures, plus some videos she sneakily took while we were shooting.  :)

These just make me smile!

life lately

So unfortunately we had a run in with the Grinch this week.  That's right.  The GRINCH.  We set up our {extra big} Christmas tree last weekend.  Here it is...minus the bow on top, because I hadn't made it yet:

And then on Monday, Will and I got home from a morning out to find this:

Uh...Oh...  Maybe this is partly my fault. I was the one who reeeeeally wanted the bigger tree when we found it for such a great price.  So we went ahead and used our tree stand from last year, which maybe was meant for about a 6 foot tree instead of 8.  Anyway, about 5 minutes after I took this picture and about 5 minutes before I was going to come address the leaning issue, it came CRASHING down.  :(  Ornaments shattered, water spilled, huge tree on the floor.  But with a new tree stand and a few new ornaments, the Christmas spirit won out after all.  Although we got THISCLOSE to throwing the whole tree out on the curb, it's back up!

{sorry...cameraphone took a prettier picture of the lights than the camera, but it's sorta blurry}

And after a few lovely days with a straight tree....today it's leaning a bit again, but we anchored it to the window {don't ask} and we'll address it this weekend.  We WILL keep this sucker up until Christmas!

Other fun stuff going on around here....Will did some painting this afternoon:

And then he totally cracked me up by putting Ernie under his shirt and telling me, "Ernie belly!"  Maybe because we've been talking about the babies in my belly?!  So funny!  I snapped a few pics on my phone:

And finally, we got a fun surprise in the mail!!  Nana got Will a subscription to National Geographic for Kids, and the first two magazines arrived today!  Will had a great time looking at all the pictures of animals and nature.  Thanks, Nana!!

Will LOVES Santa

See?

Oh, you don't believe it?  Well, take a look at the other pics in our gallery...

We visited Santa at the Galleria this morning.  Unlike last year, when Will was simply skeptical of Santa, this year {as expected} he was not a fan.  We went right after a sweet couple with a 2 week old, who slept the whole time.  They thought Will was cute {based on his pre-Santa disposition} and stuck around to see what to expect in a couple of years....and they may or may not be returning to see Santa in the future.  My favorite part was that Will cheerfully waved and said "Bye Santa!" when we left, and then jabbered about Santa the whole way home, as if they were besties.

give thanks!

Happy Thanksgiving!  We have had a wonderful holiday weekend, although I was too busy eating, relaxing, playing with Will, and decorating for Christmas to take many pictures.  Here are a few pics from Thanksgiving Day.

Mom setting the table for our delicious dinner

Pretty ladies!

After we stuffed ourselves, we took Will to the playground - he LOVED it, of course!

And because Will was napping during our first meal, he got to enjoy his Thanksgiving feast later that evening.   He was a bit skeptical of all the new foods, but the turkey became MUCH more interesting when his request for ketchup was granted. {ok, ok, he might have dipped his carrots and sweet potatoes in it too...}

Since Thursday, we've eaten lots of leftovers, gone to the playground a few more times, Matt went on an impromptu fishing trip, and I decorated the house for Christmas - such a great weekend!

And just for fun, here's a twin babies belly picture at 18 weeks...right before our dinner date last night!  {sort of an odd angle...Matt was sitting down when he took this!}

LOVE this guy {21 months}

Will and I had an impromptu photo shoot outside this morning.  I realized that I haven't been taking as many pictures lately, plus he just turned 21 months old on the 11th, so I thought some documentation was in order.  Most of these were taken within about a 30 second span of each other when I had captured his attention AND gotten him to laugh at the same time.  Aside from moments like these, it's impossible to get this guy to stand still for pictures these days!  ;)

And here is Will caught in the act - doing a couple of his favorite things.

Picking leaves...

And throwing rocks, balls, etc. into the pond!  {aka terrorizing the fish}

A few of my favorite things about Will at 21 months:

• I LOVE hearing him talk.  He tells me all kinds of things lately, from what he wants to what he does NOT want.  I love hearing what goes on in his mind.  He is a total parrot and will repeat anything you say.  And he doesn't forget, like, ever...so we must remember to watch what we say!  My favorite saying of the week:  yesterday we were playing with a puzzle, and I started saying "Way to go, Will!" when he would get the pieces in the right spots.  And ever since, he walks around saying "WaaTiGoWeeeeeeeuuuulll!!"  So cute.  And sadly, he has not forgotten "GO RANGERS!" since the World Series.  So any time he sees the Rangers logo or we see any sort of sports reference, he yells out, "GO Rangers!"  I just can't bring myself to break the news to him...
• He still loves being outside more than anything.  And even better than outside??  The PAYgound {playground}!!  He loves it so much that when I take him, he will often look up at me while he's playing and just yell "paygound!!!" - as if he can't even believe we're actually there.  
• He has gotten really into saying his prayers lately, and if we ever forget before a meal, he will usually remind us at some point during the meal by saying "God. Great. Food. Amen!!"  :)
• He remembers his friends now, and sometimes he'll see a toddler somewhere and yell out "Haaaapuh!" {Harper}  or "Ben!!" - even if it's not that person that he sees.  
• Mother's Day Out has become something fun, hooray!  After the first month was VERY rocky at dropoff and pickup, he now loves it!  When I drop him off, he happily walks in and says "bye mama!"  And he's all smiles at pick up too, which is so much more pleasant!  I feel so much better about my 5 hours a week of toddler-free time now that I know he is having a blast while I'm gone.
• I love to hear him chatter over the monitor as he's falling asleep.  He usually names off family members, counts, or says his ABCs when he's talking to himself.  So cute.

I could go on forever, but I'll stop there for now.  I love every second I get to spend with this sweet little boy, and I can't wait to see what he does next!

hawkins...party of five?

First, the great news:

Will is {hopefully} gonna be a BIG BROTHER!

{15 weeks-ish}

And some more exciting news....he's going to be the big brother of TWO babies!

{this is an old picture and I'm not sure why he's naked...
but I felt like it was appropriate here}

And some MORE exciting news.....

??

They're identical twin....GIRLS!

And now the sort of scary/crazy news.  {what? you thought it couldn't get crazier?}


The reason I said that Will is "hopefully" going to be a big brother is that this is unfortunately a super high risk pregnancy.  {which is why you haven't seen a big facebook announcement and why I waited awhile to post about everything}  I've actually learned a LOT about twins in the past couple of months.  And it turns out that identical twins are usually {99% of the time} formed when the embryo splits between 3-8 days after conception, meaning that each twin has its own amniotic sac.  But in very rare and totally random cases, it splits AFTER 8 days, which is after the amniotic sac has already formed...so both babies are in the same sac together.  And that's what our sweet babies did, which is also why we know they are identical!  So we have what are called monochorionic/monoamniotic, or "momo" twins.  Unfortunately, because there is nothing separating them, this puts them at a scary risk of getting tangled in each others cords and possibly then compressing the cords, which could cut off their blood and nutrient supply.  Sadly, this could happen at any time in the pregnancy, and until they are developed enough to safely deliver if they go into distress, there's nothing the doctors or anyone can do.  We pretty much just have to wait and pray that they will be OK in there.   It's really tough because there is literally nothing that we can do to control the situation - it's completely in God's hands.   And it's been unbelievably hard, but I'm beginning to feel better about letting go of my inner control freak and turning this over to Him.

Soooo...I am seeing a perinatologist {high risk pregnancy specialist} every 2 weeks, at which time we check to see if they are still ok.  And if we make it to somewhere around 26 weeks, then they are considered viable outside the womb {hooray!!!}, meaning that if something happens at THAT point, we would deliver them immediately.  {if something happens before that point, there's just nothing we can do, which is the scary part.}  So the plan is pretty much to pray A LOT, and if {when!!} we make it to the 26ish week mark with healthy babies, then I would move into the hospital and be on hospital bedrest and monitoring, hopefully until 32 weeks, which is as far as the doctor will let me carry them. Apparently after that point, the risk of cord compression is just too high, so 32 weeks is our final goal, and would be SO awesome.  {crazy, because that's still TWO months early!}  But if something happens with their cords between 26-32 weeks, they would be delivered immediately...so when people ask my "due date," there is really no easy answer!  

So as you can imagine, with double baby hormones, this journey has been a bit of  roller coaster.  We are trying sooo hard to stay positive and focus on enjoying this crazy pregnancy as much as we can.  It hasn't been, and isn't going to be easy, but if we are lucky enough that God decides to give us these babies, it will be SOOO worth every minute!  I am 16 weeks now, and we got to see the doctor again on Friday.  Both babies looked great and are measuring slightly ahead of schedule.  And although this can change in a heartbeat, when we were watching them, it appeared that there wasn't much, if any, cord entanglement on Friday.  That's all we can hope for, and we will just continue to pray that these little girls can stay out of each others' way as much as possible and grow big and strong!!  I'll be sharing updates on the blog as we go.  Thanks so much for all of your prayers and support!  

And to end with something happy...here's baby B on Friday, at 16 weeks:

{we didn't get a great shot of both babies on one screen...sorry baby A!!}