28 Weeks!

Well it's actually a little past the 28 week mark but I thought I could still post these pictures (they were taken at the right time just not posted on time.)

People always tell me that it looks like I have a basketball under my shirt. So we made these ones just for the visual reference. (Sorry the last ones a bit blurry.)

28 weeks marks the beginning of the third trimester. So now we are in the "final stretch"-- yes there is a pun there. It is definitley going to be some stretching. I can't even imagine at this point how my body/skin is going to stretch enough for these babies to grow anymore. At our ultrasound on Wednesday they figured that Philip weighs 2 lbs. 13 oz. and Kylie weighs 2 lbs. 4 oz. We want them to be at least 5 pounds when they are born so they have to double in size. How they will fit I don't know but somehow it will work. It will be amazing to see how it all works out. My sister had me measure, and already my belly measures the length of 11 squares of toilet paper (don't ask-- it was my sister's idea to use the toilet paper.) When she had her twins at 36 weeks she was 12 squares of toilet paper. So I guess I have one more square to go.

The twins are very active and doing well. Although, as you can see from their weights, Kylie is much smaller then Philip. So they are monitoring her closely. For now they blame it on the fact that she is a girl and she takes after her mother. So we will hope that is the case.

I am doing pretty well too. As I have said before, I am tired all the time but managing. I can't walk around or stand for very long so I hardly leave the house. Derek is getting very good at doing the grocery shopping. He takes my list and coupons and is very good at sticking to the list and using the coupons. I guess I have trained him well. :)

The other day I actually made it to a store for a little shopping and a lady asked me if I was having a Chirstmas baby. When I told her no we were hoping for the end of January her eyes got very big. So I quickly told her it was twins and that's why I was so big. She sighed relief and then congratulated me on the twins. Hmm. . . I guess people don't think I look small anymore. :)

Baby Shower

For all those around and near my home town who may want to attend this event here is the info: (My sister made me post it in case anyone got missed. Please feel free to attend even if you didn't get an official invitation-- consider this one your "official" one.) I hope you can read it, it didn't scan so well. If you need more info then email me and I will get it to you.

Veteran's Day

The Veteran

It is the VETERAN, not the preacher,
who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the VETERAN, not the reporter,
who has given us freedom of press.

It is the VETERAN, not the poet,
who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the VETERAN, not the campus organizer,
that has given us freedom to assemble.

It is the VETERAN, not the lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the VETERAN, not the politician,
who has given us the right to vote.

Anonymous


With today being Veteran's Day we wanted to take a moment and remember some of the special Veterans that have touched our family's life.

Derek: Army, The Global War on Terror-- Iraq & Afghanistan

Martin Davidson (Jodi's Father): Air Force, The Vietman War

Kendall Davidson (Jodi's Grandfather): Army, World War II-- European Front


Mahlon England (Jodi's Grandfather): Marines, World War II-- Pacific Front & The Korean War


Oren Loveland (Derek's Grandfather): Navy, World War II


Henry Talbot (Derek's Great-Grandfather): Army, World War I


And although they are not pictured we would also like to remember all our family members, friends, neighbors, fellow ward members, and home teachers who are Veterans as well. How blessed we have been to rub shoulders with such wonderful people. Thank you to all those who so willing serve our country to preserve the rights and freedoms that our forefathers fought for so long ago.

This summer my Veteran grandfather passed away and we were lucky enough to be able to attend the funeral. Derek was able to wear his dress uniform (thanks to all those who helped in getting it to us). He also got the special priviledge of presenting my grandmother with the flag from the casket. It was special for the whole family and I know my grandfather was proud. I never got time to post the pictures I had so here they are now.

We recently had the opportunity to go out sight-seeing a little bit and got to see one corner of the National Mall. Here are some pictures from that adventure.

Support our Troops!!

Go Army!!

Our Halloween

We had a fun Halloween at our house this year. It's so much more fun when Derek is home to enjoy it with us. :) When I asked the kids what they wanted to be this year they looked at me like I was dumb and Brian said, "Dinosuars!" Kind of like, Duh! Mom, we are dinosaurs everyear don't ya know! I guess I have trained them well since thats what they have been for the last two years. I explained to them that I thought they had grown enough that they wouldn't fit into their costumes anymore. Andrew could wear Brian's and Timothy could wear Andrew's but there wasn't one for Brian. Then Andrew looked at me very matter-of-factly and said, "Just, make another one!" Although I did make the first two I didn't think I would be able to make another one this year. So we had to find Brian something else. He fell in love with an Indiana Jones costume at the store so thus he was Indiana Jones and Andrew and Timothy were of course dinosaurs. Andrew later told us that he was Brian's side-kick. Who knew Indiana Jones had a blue dinosaur side kick? Apparently he does. They are both closely followed by a little green dinosaur shadow. I must have done fairly well when I made those dinosaur costumes. This is the third year they have been used and with the multiple functions each year they have been worn 8 times. That's pretty good for one costume.

The costumes:

Timothy

Andrew

Brian

Trunk-or-Treating:

Our ward had a Halloween party with Trunk-or-Treating.

Carving Pumpkins:

We had our annual Pumpkin Carving Family Home Eveing the Monday before Halloween. This is a big deal to us. Carving pumpkins was Derek and I's first date and we have carved pumkins every year we have been together since then. The boys had a great time. They weren't detered by the gooey "pumpkin guts" at all. They had planned for days of what the faces on their pumpkins would look like and were proud of how they turned out.

Trick-or-Treating:
We must live in a nice neighborhood-- the boys got full size candy bars at two houses and two houses were giving out refreshments to the parents. After a few houses we had to tell Brian to just let people put whatever candy they had in Andrew's bucket. He kept stopping everyone and tellng them that his brother couldn't have peanuts or milk. He is such a good brother to look out for Andrew like that but it was getting the people all confused and Andrew was ending up without any candy. I assured him we would just take care of it when we got home.
The weather was beautiful. I was worried about it being chilly so we wore jackets and we got too warm. I do love non-Idaho trick-or-treating. :)

24 Weeks!

24 weeks and counting! That means we have now made it to 6 months!! Of course we don’t want the babies to come for a couple more months but it is somewhat comforting to know that if they were born now they have an 85% chance of survival.

I am beginning to grow out of some of my maternity clothes. The main pair of jeans that I wore through Timothy's pregnancy is now too small. Soon enough I won't have any pants that I can wear. Guess it's time to go shopping! :)

The babies and I are doing well. I feel like a woman who is 9 months pregnant i.e. my body aches, I have little to no energy, I can barely walk up the stairs, my sciatic nerve is killing me, etc. But, overall, I am doing well. Some days I wonder though, how I will make it through 2-3 more months of this. But, then I think of two little babies screaming in unison and I tell myself I can make it a lot longer.

Everyone keeps asking us about names for these little ones. Here are some we have come up with:

Being Star Wars fans (mostly all the boys) of course we had to consider:

LUKE & LEIA.

It’s football season so we had to take that in to consideration too with:

TIKI & RHONDA
PEYTON & ELLIE

and of course: RAIDER & ALLIE
(You have to be a football fan to get any of those)

With all the political stuff going on and the possibility of the babies being born on inauguration day we also had to consider:

JOHN & SARAH

Actually, on a more serious note, it wasn’t too hard to pick the names. We have had a girl name picked out ever since we were first married and have never gotten to use it yet so that one wasn’t hard. When it came to a boy’s name we had discussed the possibility of having more boys someday before we were ever expecting and wondering what we would name another one. So we had already come up with that one too. So when they told us it was one of each, we just put the names together. Derek didn’t want names that rhymed anyway but I thought it might be nice to have names that at least went together. Ah well! Anyways-- the names are:

PHILIP CHAUNCEY
and
KYLIE JO

Derek’s middle name is Kyle so that’s where that comes from and the Jo obviously comes from my first name. So by putting our names together that’s what you get. I had to laugh when I realized that after having all these boys it’s the girl that gets named after her father.
All of our boys have middle names that are family names and we wanted to continue that tradition. Chauncey is a family name on the Loveland side—there are a few of them, one of them being a member of the first group to enter the Salt Lake Valley with Brigham Young. We have always liked the name and just never used it yet. We realized one day that each one of our boys has a name from the New Testament (Brian THOMAS, ANDREW, and TIMOTHY). So we had to decide if we would continue that unintended trend, or not. So as a Sunday evening activity one night we sat down and listed the 12 Apostles and then began crossing off the names we didn’t like, or that had already been used. At the end we were left with only a few names and both of us happened to say something to the effect of, “Well I like Philip. We could use that one.” Then we laughed when we realized we had “wasted” all that time for no apparent reason. But later as we thought about it we both knew that we would someday have a Philip, we just didn’t know when. I guess we do now.

When we told the boys the names they caught right on to them and wouldn’t even consider any other options. (Although Andrew is really partial to the name Raider—he is who picked that one. Ha! Ha!). I actually got to look at the baby clothes at Wal-Mart the other day and was showing the boys the little baby clothes and we talked about how cute things would look on Baby Kylie or Baby Philip. A week or so later the boys and I ran to Wal-Mart to grab something. The boys were not happy about going, so after we had what we needed I asked the boys if I could look at the baby clothes. They were so nice and gave me permission. Actually, they gave me 4 minutes to look. Silly kids! Anyways, as soon as we got to the clothes Timothy pointed to the first pink thing he saw and said, “Kylie!” It was very cute. It is fun to look at all the pink stuff and it is very cute but I still find myself drawn to all the blue stuff instead. I guess it’s just habit. One that I will break soon enough I’m sure! :)

(For those of you who recognized the accompanying song as the theme song from the TV series "24," you might enjoy listening to the song at this link: http://savethesoldiers.com/audio/24/24.mp3 Derek, who is a big 24 fan, got quite the laugh from it.)