Catch up--after the holidays!

Happy New Year!!!

Okay, now its time to play catch-up after the holidays.

New Year's Eve:

We celebrated New Year's Eve with a little family party. We made homemade pizza, played games, watched a movie and rang in the new year. It was lots of fun and hey, it gave us an excuse to stay up late. :)

I didn't get any pictures of the pizza making but here are some of one of our games and drinking in the new year.

We had lots of fun playing our new game of Mouse Trap:

It wouldn't be New Year's without the Sparkling Apple Cider (no I didn't let Derek drink the whole bottle himself):

Happy New Year!!:

New Year's Kisses:

Videos of Andrew's New Year's Dance-- he danced his pants right off! And all three boys dancing in the New Year:

Christmas Morning:

This is the first year we've stayed at our own house rather than going home to see family for Christmas. We missed seeing everyone but it was nice to be home too. It's always hard to figure out how to transport Christmas on the airplane. Anyway, we enjoyed a nice quiet Christmas together as a family-- it was so nice to have Derek with us this year. The boys all had a great time opening presents and Santa was good to them-- even Timothy, the trouble maker. Apparently, Santa didn't check his list twice. :)

Enjoy the slide show, but just to warn you-- it's very long! Just remember, it's all for the grandparents. :)

Christmas Eve:

Since we were doing Christmas by ourselves this year we wanted to do something to make it special. Thanks to an awesome coupon I got in the mail, we found just what to do-- we went to the Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament. It was so fun! We all had a blast! We were worried about how to work things due to Andrew's food allergies. So I called them to ask if I could get an ingredients list to see if possibly there was anything he could eat. Usually people act like I'm crazy when I ask for such things, but they were quite nice about it and had no problems reading me the ingredient labels to all of their food. Much to my surprise he could eat all their food but the garlic bread. Wow-- that never happens! So that was the sale point right there. We wanted to go and Andrew could eat their food so off we went.

The dinner is set to be like in medieval times, so we had no utensils to use. The boys were so excited to actually be allowed to eat with their fingers. Andrew thoroughly enjoyed his dinner eating as much of it as he could. Brian on the other hand, although he was initially excited about eating with his hands, quickly remembered that he didn't like to get his fingers dirty and found that the show was too interesting to take his eyes off long enough to eat. So to get him to eat I had to pick his chicken apart for him and hold it while he ate it out of my hands all the while never taking his eyes off the show.

We were somewhat worried as to how Timothy would do-- he is so active, we only hoped he would not be disruptive. He actually did quite well. The show was interesting enough to keep his attention too. Besides they were fighting with swords and other weapons, he was probably busy taking mental notes for the tournaments he is planning to hold in his own backyard. :)

Christmas Lights at the D.C. Temple:

At Christmas time, the Washington D.C. LDS Temple has The Festival of Lights. They decorate the grounds with Christmas lights and have a live Nativity as well as live musical performances every night. It was like going to Temple Square in Salt Lake City only a much smaller area. But the lights were just as nice. They said that there were over 450,000 of them. It really was beautiful.

The temple "popping" out of nowhere on the Beltway (I know it's not that great of a picture but we were driving and it was night):

The temple grounds:

The boys (Timothy wouldn't turn around, I guess he was too busy looking at the lights):

The whole family (Derek had to get one of his military coats out for me to wear as mine doesn't fit anymore. Even his barely fits and he has to zip it up for me. So now I just get in line with the kids when we all put our coats on):

The National Christmas Tree:

Being in the area we had to go see The National Christmas Tree at the White House. It was very pretty. They also had smaller trees set up for each of the states and territories. So we had fun going around and finding the trees for every state we have lived in. The boys especially enjoyed watching all the model trains (there were about a dozen of them) that were set up around the bottom of The National Tree. But most of all, they enjoyed just running around being wild on the grass of the National Mall while I rested so I could make the long trek back to our car. Walking and standing for long periods of time is not so easy these days.

The National Tree with the White House in the background:

Model Trains around the tree:

More model trains:

The National Tree with the Washington Monument behind it:

The Idaho Christmas Tree (Each tree had homemade decorations and each decoration was put into a large plastic see-through ball to keep it safe from the weather. These decorations were made by some children's group in Boise):

The boys in front of the Idaho Tree:

Santa Claus:

The boys were able to finally see Santa Claus at our church Christmas party which was only 4 days before Christmas. We were very surprised at what they asked for and had to come home and do some quick re-planning with Santa. Thank goodness for the internet. :)

32 Weeks:

I know, it's not 32 weeks anymore, but we did take a picture and intended to post it but Christmas kind of got us side tracked.

The babies are doing well and continue to grow. Philip is growing very well and is in the 70th percentile on his estimated weight of 3# 15 oz. as of 17 December. He gained a whole pound since our last ultrasound 3 weeks earlier. Kylie, on the other hand, is growing much slower and is only in the 11th percentile with her estimated weight of only 2# 14 oz. She only gained 10 oz. They begin to worry when a baby hits the 10th percentile. There is a 24% difference in their weights. They begin to worry when it hits 25%. So we are just above all the "worry zones." They are still monitoring them closely though. I go in twice a week to get a non-stress test to make sure the babies are doing okay. They also treated me with a steroid medication to help the babies lungs mature faster so if they need to be born sooner than later they will do better. We have another ultrasound on the 9th of January. If Kylie hasn't grown much, or slips below all the "worry zones" then they will schedule a C-section much sooner than later. So for now we will just wait and see what happens and we pray that Kylie continues to grow as she needs too.

Speaking of C-sections, whenever the babies are born we know it will be by C-section. It has been confirmed that I have Complete Placenta Previa. Kylie's placenta is completely covering my cervix. So in lay-man terms: the only opening for the babies to get out is locked close and there is no key to open it-- except a scalpel. :) At least Derek doesn't have to worry now about how we are going to make it to the hospital on time. It usually takes anywhere from 1 to 1 & 1/2 hours for us to get there depending on the traffic. Our last two children were born quicker than that. Derek was not excited about the thought of delivering twins on the side of a very busy interstate.

Here are some updated ultrasound pictures of the babies. Sorry they are so small. We just got a new computer and I am still trying to learn how to use all the new programs. Arrgghh!!!! So for now this is all I could get, but at least it's something.

Philip-- a side profile, he is facing to the left (too bad you can't see it better, he looks just like his brothers):

Kylie-- a side profile, she is facing to the right (she likes to hide her face and we usually don't get to see it. But this time she did show at least part of it):