The Stingeries: February 2015

Friday, February 20, 2015

Madi: 20 Months

20 months on February 20th!!

Oh Miss Madi! You are still a bundle of joy (most of the time). You make Mommy and Daddy laugh when you say "Mo peas" for "More please" (usually when tickling!). You love being tickled and we happily oblige until you've had enough and say "nei Daddy" or "nei Mommy".

You have started talking sooo much this month and are constantly saying 4-5 word sentences. You have gotten very good at telling us what you want. A couple of days ago you were playing with a jar of money. Yesterday you found another coin and said "money put in jar"! It's amazing! And you speak very clearly too. :-)

We've also gotten a lot more Norwegian... usually we don't understand you, but you say things so clearly and repetitively that we know you are speaking Norwegian. Your teachers have told us you are very good at talking and can point out and say all of the kiddos names in your class. Some of the Norwegian words we've gotten are "ferdig" (pronounced "fardi", which means "done"), "mine" (pronounced "meena" which means "mine"), and "titt-tei" (pronounced "teet tie", which is the equivalent of peek-a-boo).

You have also gotten a lot more timeouts this month... fortunately this method seems to be working well and you now understand what timeout means and the threat of one when you don't listen. It breaks our hearts to close your bedroom door with your screaming, but you are starting to listen better.

Today when Mommy was getting ready for work you lifted up my boxers and said "belly baby". I kindly explained to you that it was my thigh and showed you where you could lift my shirt to see my belly. You will point to my tummy and say "babies" and we've also gotten you to say "two sisters", "twins", and "baby sisters". It's precious! I also noticed that I said I was getting big the other day and tonight when I was rubbing my stomach you said "big belly". Thanks for that. Guess I need to be more careful what I say about myself!! ;-)

You helped us tell everyone that you are getting baby sisters in this adorable video post.

A new favorite game is to hug the cats. CeCe and Zoey don't really appreciate it and usually one of us has to hold them, but we have started letting you give them a treat afterwards and so I think they tolerate it. ;-) You get sad and upset when you run toward them saying "CeCe hug" and they start to run away from you. You love them so much and one day they will realize that you are the key to unlimited treats and love and affection.

You have progressed from climbing and sitting on things to climbing and jumping on things. This has resulted in us having to keep a closer eye on you, restrict your climbing on certain things if we aren't in the room with you, and a couple decent spills including a nice bruise on your chin. Quite the little daredevil you are becoming there missy!

Thank you for being such a precious baby girl! You are so smart it just continues to amaze us every day!!

Love,
Daddy and Mommy

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Twin Tuesday: Gender Reveal!

Curious to know the gender of the Stingerie twins?! We were too!

If you recall, our doctor couldn't tell us definitively at our 16 week appointment. We could have been patient and waited until our next appointment, but the suspense was killing us (okay, mostly me, Jason probably could have waited!).

So we scheduled another ultrasound for last Friday...and they were able to get a better view of our babies' gender...

So without further ado... Jason, Madi, and I would like to announce to you the gender of our twin babies. :-)

And since you can never have too many baby ultrasound pictures, here are the ones from the appointment. Baby B is harder to get pictures of (and the surprise gender) because of the position almost under Baby A. (See foot in the face picture, hehe.)

Baby A

Baby B

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Weekly Wrap-up: Valentine's 2015

It was a beautiful, sunny week and weekend in Stavanger and we took advantage by being outside as much as we could! We had a lot of fun on our Valentine's weekend and hope you did too. Here are the highlights of what we did -

1. Lazy Saturday morning opening Valentine's cards and playing with stickers in our heart pajamas. 2. Visiting downtown Stavanger with friends for a playdate and lunch. My favorite valentines! :-)
3. Helping Daddy make delicious smoothies for an afternoon snack.
4. Taking a walk with Kitty and Hans in Madi's pram. She did a great job steering too!

5. Madi made valentines for Daddy and all of her grandparents and enjoyed painting.
6. Even though they don't really celebrate Valentine's Day here in Norway we still thought it would be fun to make class and teacher valentines. And what's cuter and more appropriate than the fox?! Nothing. :-)
7. Madi helping Mommy make brownies and licking the spoon clean.
8. Yummy brownies!
9. Our precious little Valentine before church on Sunday. After church we headed back outside with the soccer ball and had fun kicking it around with Madi!

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Twin Tuesday: 16 Weeks + Ulttrasound Pics

How far along: 16 weeks, 3 days (click here to see 16 weeks with Madi!)

Twins' Development: The babies' circulatory systems are now working and their hearts are pumping 25 quarts of blood a day! Their scalp pattern is developing, but no hair yet and they have started to grow toenails. (Source: Baby Center Twins)

Sleep: I have definitely been feeling a bit more energy, but I am still exhausted by the end of the day. Bedtime is typically around 9-9:30 pm. And still having to wake up to use the bathroom 1-2 times a night.

Movement: Still just a couple flutters here and there when I am lying on my back just before bed. Nothing real distinct yet and definitely nothing on the outside yet.

Unglamorous body changes: No stretch marks, but I am a bit more paranoid this time around and got some creams/lotions to apply just in case. Too bad I am terrible at remembering to actually use them.. :-/

Maternity Clothes? Wearing maternity work pants and am down to one pair of regular jeans so the maternity jeans are starting to make an appearance. Maternity tops are still way too big on me though and I've been able to get away with some of my regular looser tops.

Showing: Yes! I have a bump. :-) It's still not huge, but given my slow progress with Madi I am not super surprised. I'm also reminding myself that as long as the babies are measuring fine, then I need to stop worrying about it. I cried way too much first pregnancy because of people telling me I wasn't showing. Jason reminds me that I will be huge soon so enjoy this stage now (thanks hon! ;-) ).

Food cravings: I'm able to start tolerating sweets again in moderation (why can't I have that when I'm not pregnant?!). I've been craving orange juice lately and salty foods still. I found frozen edamame and with light sodium soy sauce has been a wonderful snack!

What I miss: Coffee.

Anything making you queasy: Unfortunately still coffee. :-/

Strange experiences: The idea of twins is still a bit surreal to me. It's like my brain cannot process how this pregnancy feels so much like the first one, but is completely different in that there are two of them. What I am seeing physically (on ultrasound) is struggling to reconcile with how I feel physically (the same as my first pregnancy)

Best moment this month: Starting to shop for the babies! We still don't know gender, but we have stroller and cribs picked out and have started making plans for the trip to Houston.

Also, getting to see them again on the ultrasound today and see that they are still doing well and moving around. I haven't felt them much yet and for some reason have more of a general anxiety than the previous pregnancy. I think it's just the idea of a "high risk" pregnancy and two babies, which is so different from before.

Looking forward to: Well I was looking forward to today at 10:00 am when we were hoping to find out gender! Alas, we have the doctor's guess, but she said she wouldn't bet on it just yet. We're holding off announcing until after our next ultrasound at the end of this month if we can find out more definitively then. :-)

16 Week Appt: Today we had my 16 week appointment. Both babies are still measuring wonderfully! Twin A (the one on my right side) was measuring a bit larger in the head than Twin B, but the doctor thinks that was the position of the babies. She said the numbers were still within the normal range for a singleton baby.

Both were moving around lots during the ultrasound and we didn't get very good pictures of Twin B (wouldn't show the face!). Currently they are sitting opposite ways - one head up and one head down. So basically they are kicking each other in the face already which you can see in the last picture. ;-)

The doctor was amazed at how well I am doing overall and said that my additional tiredness was normal for a twin pregnancy. Besides that everything is looking great and we are so thankful to have two healthy and active little ones!