Megan and Emily

Although we're a little behind posting on our blog (the girls will be three weeks old tomorrow), we proudly announce the births of Megan Carol and Emily Janeen. (Their middle names are their grandmas' names.)

Megan (on the right) was 5 lbs. 2 oz. and 20 inches long and Emily was 5 lbs. 10 oz. and 19 inches long.



Here's a lovely picture of me soon after the girls were born. It was a pretty easy delivery. They started me on pitocin at 8:30 a.m. and I was ready for the operating room (just in case I needed an emergency c-section) by 3:00 p.m. Megan was born head first at 3:58 p.m. after 3 or 4 pushes. They tried to turn Emily who was breech, but she wouldn't turn, so the doctor pulled her out feet first at 4:04 p.m. Everything went well and the girls were healthy. What a blessing!



Here are the girls getting ready to come home.

Emily



Megan



The girls at home. It is easy to tell the girls apart. Emily has a red "stork bite" between her eyes and Megan's face is a little skinnier. They both have dark hair, but Megan's is quite long in the back.



The girls hang out together during the day.



Here they are with big brother Tyler. He has had quite an adjustment with moving and having two new sisters, but he's getting used to this new life a little at a time.



Their first sponge baths at home.




One night I heard Emily fussing. I went to check on her and found her trying to suck on Megan's fingers that were placed just right.



It's been so cool this month that the girls are usually dressed in sleepers, but we did get to go to a family reunion on a nice sunny day so the girls got to wear some of their cute summer clothes.



Going to church.



We sure do love these two little girls and feel SO blessed to have them in our family.

Distracted

The other night Darrell and I were upstairs discussing something on the computer, and SOMEONE downstairs was taking advantage of our absence.



I had to move the plant out of the front room so we could stack boxes in there. Well, it was a little TOO tempting for a 2-year old. The plant, Big Bob, has since exited our house and is resting in peace somewhere. (I'm not exactly sure where--I just know that Darrell took it somewhere and we have a big empty pot now. I refused to take Big Bog with us when we move because its leaves seriously takes up 4-5 feet in diameter. And to think when I bought it several years it was only a few inches tall.)

I guess this means if you can't see it, you didn't do it!

Silly me...

I thought couches were for sitting on.

It's Been Another 4 Weeks

Here we are at Week 34! Only 3-4 more weeks to go! The twins weighed in at 4 lbs. 1 oz. and 4 lbs. 2 oz. 9 days ago. That's 8 lbs. of baby. Tyler was 8 lbs. 6 oz. I'm starting to feel huge, and it will only get worse from here on out!



I only took one picture of my pregnancy with Tyler. Here I am at 37 weeks.

A Good Sign, But...

This is a very good sign:



After having the house on the market for 2 1/2 months (and 33 showings later) we have our house under contract. Which is great. Except that the buyers are going through a USDA loan, which is subject to federal investigation and approval to get the loan.

So, we have a few things that we need to fix so the buyers can qualify. The biggest problem is the settling of the earth around the house and underneath the driveway.

Because the soil settled under the driveway, it made one side of a slab of cement sink, which made the other side raise into the air--causing a tripping hazard. We have had estimates on getting the slab fixed (from $500-$800), but our realtor said to just get a cheap bag of cement and fan out the problem. So, that is what we did. It looks pretty shoddy, but if it appeases the inspector then we're OK with that. If not, we move on to the more expensive option of fixing the whole slab.




We also need to fix the slope of the land around 2 sides of our house so that the water runs away from the foundation. Thankfully we have a big hill of dirt out in the field behind our house. Tyler loved helping Darrell get wheelbarrow loads of dirt.







I cut down all of the tulips and daffodils in the flower garden. Hopefully the bulbs will still come up next spring.



We hope to save these perennials.





We still need to bring in a little more dirt, but hopefully the federal inspector will be happy with the finished result. (We bought sprinkler box extensions, but our realtor said to save our money and just cover the boxes up. Alrighty....)



It was such a pleasant day that we had a "picnic" on the back stairs



and enjoyed our backyard that we've put so much work into.



Tyler thought he'd help remove rocks from the garden and throw them towards the field.





If all goes well, we should be moved out within 3 weeks!

The Birthday Boy!

We went to Carl's Jr. Saturday night to celebrate Tyler's birthday. He loves hamburgers, and of course, his sippy cup full of milk.



Tyler was pretty much oblivious that yesterday was his birthday, but he did enjoy the cake and the presents.

I think it's a good thing we're done with birthdays for the year. I had yet another mishap with a birthday cake.

I wanted to make a cute doggy cut-up cake for Tyler, but this is what happened when I tried to get the cake out of the pan:



But it turned out in Tyler's favor because he got to snack on the crumbs.





I turned the crumbly cake into a modified trifle made with cake and vanilla pudding. Thank goodness for me that Tyler didn't really understand that his doggy cake turned into a flop. (I'm going to have to perfect the cake decorating before his next birthday.)



Tyler DID enjoy his gifts. He got a train and track from my parents.



We gave him a baby stroller and high chair set so he can have his very own stuff when the babies come.



And of course he loved his 2 new Baby Einstein DVDs.



A couple weeks ago Tyler and Darrell were able to go to California to visit Darrell's parents. This lucky boy had a fabulous early birthday party there too.









Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa, for terrific birthday celebration in California!

Big helper

As we get ready to move, I've been packing up our food storage. Tyler decided to help and moved cans of food to other random shelves.





(A little disclaimer about the liquor boxes in the background. It turns out these boxes are EXCELLENT for packing. They're small and sturdy and hold cans of food perfectly. So, we've made several trips to the State Liquor store lately--for the boxes, not the booze.)