House updates

A couple weekends ago we decided to finally get rid of the old lady's floral wallpaper (I know, it was probably nice back in the day or decade she grew up, but not so much for us!). My friend Dana came to help us and Uncle Bri/Aunt Amber took Kaden for the afternoon -- both things made the task much more manageable! We also replaced the 1970s baseboard with the more modern white stuff. I decided this was a good time to take pictures to show some of our renovations (kitchen, steps, front room, living room). We will be leaving our room, our bathroom, and Kaden's room alone. The babies' room will get painted in a couple weeks and we'll eventually work on replacing the carpet/flooring.

Before-living room (this first one is when she lived here):




(still old wall paper/baseboard, but our stuff now)


After:






Before (kitchen - water's running/cupboards open b/c it's during the inspection):






After:







Before (front room):








After:



Before (steps to her unfinished basement):



After:




We're slowly making the place ours!! :)

Some random of Kaden

Kaden is able to crawl in the babies' cribs pretty easily (scary, huh!). The other day I found that he had climbed in and was playing with one of their toys and laughing so hard. He's also starting to realize that the toys I pull out for them look quite familiar to him. Today he saw a musical duck in one of the cribs and took it out and put it in his bed and told me, in the most sad voice, "That's my duck. I weally, weally missed it last night." He probably hasn't touched the duck in over a year :)




Kaden's getting really good at finding the letters to his name on the computer and typing his name. It's so cute and amazing to watch and makes him seem so grown up! The other day I looked over at his computer to see what he was doing and found this:



I was taking pictures of how my belly looks when each baby pushes against his side, and Kaden was sure I should be photographing him. He climbed onto my legs and gave me the biggest smile!



From a snow day the other day:







And then we came inside and he instantly requested hot chocolate with marshmallows.




A couple weekends ago we went up to Ames to go to Mike & Rachel's wedding. Kaden did awesome throwing petals, being quiet during the ceremony, and dancing until 10:30 pm. We didn't take too many pictures because I was usually busy with Kaden and knew that there were many others getting pictures. But, here are a couple cute ones-- the groomsmen wore bright orange hunting vests during the reception. Matt's was a little large and was able to fit Kaden inside of it!





Not enjoying the long drive home...




Things are going well here. I have another doctor's appointment/ultrasound tomorrow to check on the babies. They are probably around 3lbs each now, and will hopefully stay put another 6-7 weeks. We are all staying busy and enjoying Matt being on a less-stressful rotation this month!

28.6 week ultrasound

My clinic doesn't do 3D ultrasounds, but Matt's on his ultrasound rotation and one of the sonographers offered to do one. Here are some pictures from it - Baby A was way more cooperative than B and got to show off more, but B gets all the space, so maybe they call it even! B also was kind enough to stick his rear in A's face the entire time - I'm sure A enjoys that :).

B:



These are all of A:









They are both doing well -- at just over 26 wks they each weighed 1lb, 15 oz, and now one weighs 2lbs 10 oz and the other 2lbs 12oz, so they each gained almost a pound in 2.5 weeks.

Wall: 1, Kaden: 0

Tonight Kaden and Matt were playing in the front room. Kaden ran off and tripped and fell right into the corner of the wall. Matt yelled for me, and I walked into the room and found blood gushing/running down Kaden's face and all over his head. Kinda makes a mom's heart stop. After applying some pressure, calming Kaden, and putting ice on it, we realized it was still bleeding. Our next decision was either the ER or Matt stitching/Dermabonding it. Matt really didn't want to spend 2 hours in the ER doing something he could do, so we cleaned it up, and he used Dermabond to seal it together. Kaden sat nicely on my lap watching TV. I was quite happy we didn't have to stitch it, because I knew giving him numbing injections was not going to be fun. He had some Motrin and got to pick what he wanted to for dinner -- ice cream with sprinkles, cherries, whip cream, and vanilla milk. He's now much happier and playing. I kept him up late to keep my eye on him - after the trauma he was pretty tired and had me worried. He's excited that he gets to sleep in Mommy's bed tonight, which will allow me to keep my eye on him throughout the night. Here's some pictures. The discoloration on his shirt is leftover blood, along with the blood on my face. It was amazing how much it bled!

It's a......

BOY and BOY!!! So much for thinking pink, huh!!

Baby A



Baby B (I labeled b/c it's not as clear)



Profile of Baby A



Profile of Baby B

Trick or Treating, Zoo, and more

We went to the zoo last weekend. Matt ended his 30-hour shift on Sunday, so Kaden and I picked him up from the hospital and headed to the zoo together. The weather was great and it was so nice to do something like that as a family! The weather was cool enough that almost all the animals were out doing things, so that was also a nice change!







Touching elephant poop





Kaden LOVES LOVES the goats! He loves brushing them, talking to them, crawling around like them, sitting next to them, etc. They just might be his favorite animal!



















(notice the growing belly here)



Matt & Kaden in the back of the train. Kaden even got to say "All Aboard!" into the intercom...it was really cute!





Map reader



Go away, paparazzi!!



2 weekends ago Kaden and I went to hang out at Uncle Bri & Aunt Amber's house while Matt was at work. The weather was so perfectly wonderful. I had dressed Kaden in a long-sleeved shirt and it got too hot. Luckily they had an extra (bit large) tie-dyed shirt he wore. They filled a pumpkin with leaves and made marshmallows. Kaden was determined to do it himself, so Uncle Bri gave him all control and just let him fully burn the first two!







Ice cream lover! Kaden eats a bit slow, so when his ice cream was totally melted, I gave him a straw. He thought it was quite fun.





I can't remember if I've posted this one -- this is how I found Kaden one day when I went downstairs after making lunch for the kids!



Fun game



Because St. Louis apparently gets 97.2 inches of rain in the month of October, we quickly ran out of things to do inside. The kids and I both rely on that outside time, so it was a l.o.n.g month! We started making a tent in the living room for fun.



The Magic House -- the children's museum in town -- had a Halloween night a couple weekends ago. Kaden got to wear his costume and play. It was lots of fun, but his costume got a bit warm (I had assumed it would) so he played in the tiger pants and white onsie most of the time!







Excited to have just gotten candy from Emily Elizabeth (from Clifford)



18 week belly. I've been feeling pretty good. Luckily the morning (well, in my case night) sickness has gone away. I started getting some Braxton Hicks contrations toward the end of last week and through this weekend, so I've tried sitting/laying down and resting when that happens. Daycare gets a bit harder everyday. My doctor is letting me work until 26/28 weeks, and I thought he was crazy when he told me I'd have to stop so early. Now I understand why! Our appointment is this Tuesday and we're excited to see the babies and to see how they've grown. In the 2nd picture you can see how my belly is a bit tilted, the babies must be hanging out on the same side!





This last weekend we spent Saturday afternoon raking leaves. And more leaves. And a few more leaves. We filled 15 large paper leaf bags from just our front yard! I'm pretty sure our house gets hit harder than any other house on the block! We tried many methods -- raking and picking up, using the mower/bagger, using the leaf sucker/mulcher, etc. Kaden had fun outside helping us!



















Trick or Treating -- Kaden had tons of fun. Luckily Halloween night was on the night finishing Matt's 30-hr shift, so he was around to go with us. We went through our neighborhood and then went to Bri & Amber's house for dinner and to hang out. We initially thought we'd trick-or-treat in their neighborhood, but it was late and I think Kaden was having too much fun playing and didn't want to leave! He isn't too sure about scary things (Uncle Bri & Aunt Amber had Halloweeny noises playing on their porch and Kaden couldn't get in the door fast enough to get away!) but liked getting the candy! He would exclaim "Mommy, I got MORE candy". He ate a few pieces as we walked. When we'd leave a house, he get back in his stroller and say "more candy, please". He is learning that please word helps him get his way! Two funny stories from the night:

House 1 : a woman handed Kaden a piece of candy from her candy tray and he said "no, not that one, THAT one" and pointed to a Twizzler! I guess the kid knows what he wants!

House 2: a man gave Kaden a fun-size candy bar in each hand. I said to Kaden "what do you say?" (ie: thank you) and he put both candies in one hand, reached up to the guy, and said "one more, please"!! HAHA!

The odd part--every single person thought Kaden was a girl? We're really not sure why... it must be his eye lashes?!

Here's our adorable (yet manly) tiger: