21 Weeks and Counting Down (from Doubly Blessed)

Our growing babies:

Our Skinny Minny

Blaze is growing like a weed. He had his 18 month appointment a couple of weeks ago. Dr. Gentile said he is such a calm child as the whole time he examined Blaze he just stood there and said, 'Hi!' He weighed in at a whopping 22.10 lbs (just a light weight at 10% range) and 33 inches tall (75% range). He remains tall and skinny as ever. He still fits into some 6-9 months shorts at 19 months old so we have lots of clothes to grow into. The other day I put a pair of 12 mth shorts on and saw they were a little big on the waist, but went with it anyway. Well not 10 minutes later I looked down to see Blaze in his diaper with his shorts in hand still zippered and buttoned up. I couldn't help but laugh. Needless to say, all the 12 mth. shorts are now in the back of the closet again. He is our skinny little monkey.

His vocabulary seems to expand by the day. He is intimating many of the words we say and words said on some of his favorite cartoons. Even learning Chinese from Ni Hao Kai-Lan. He says, 'Ya-Ya' and 'Ho-Ho.' Also 'Diego' which he sings when he sees the cartoon on TV. Every letter or number he sees is 'B.' He has learned the word, moon and looks for it at night in the sky. He is also putting words together, like 'Hi Daddy.'

 

He continues to learn new signs too and is using them daily to communicate. He now knows, hat, car, apple, more, eat, finished, cold, hot, bird, shoes, dog, airplane, please, sorry, and thank you. He even waves 'bye' to the TV when his shows are over and then looks at us and does the 'all done' sign.

 Signing 'All done / finished'

He has also learned the saying, 'Uh Oh!' and uses it appropriately when he drops something from his high chair or makes a mess. Take tonight for instance, he stood up in the bath started to pee and looked down to see what was happening after a minute or so of processing he proceeded to look up at Grandma and me and say, "UH OH!" Now I would say that is the appropriate use of that saying. :)

Fun with Grandma's perm rods

He loves to say 'Wow!' and also used it the other day when I was driving and complaining about the terrible Arizona drivers. All of the sudden from the back seat I hear "Wow," and all I could think was, 'Thank goodness, that's all I said.'

Daddy taught him, 'Dude' He will say,'Up' when he wants to be picked up. He loves to say, "Baby" Which will be very appropriate in the coming months. We love singing and dancing together and when we sing, Old MacDonald's Farm, Blaze never fails to do his part of the chorus. He gets the 'e-i e-i ohh's' at the perfect times. He shimmy's his little hips and shoulders and spins round and round to his favorite tunes.  He has also started putting our shoes on and walking around the house. He keeps us laughing, that's for sure.

More recently Gerry bought him a set of sponge squares with pictures with words on them for the bath tub. I started to show him them and say the word, the next night he was able to pick out 10 of them when asked, 'show Mommy the...car, moon, cow, book, sock,etc.' I was astonished how quickly he learned.

He loves making faces. His newest and most comical one, is when he tilts his chin down and looks up at you from the top of his eyes. Its better if I just show you:

We have officially started 'TIME OUT.' Well, I have that is...he is still an angel for his father. Take today for example, we went to the grocery store and I knew half way through we were getting close to nap time, so I was trying to speed it up, now the first part around the store he said, "Hi" to everyone who passed with a big smile on his face. Then out of nowhere, (and this was a first) when I was telling him not to keep throwing his sippy cup on the floor as it wasn't going to speed up the process for us, he proceeded to open his mouth (so I could see every single tooth) and let out 2 screams, then started to cry. I was in such shock, I kinda just stood there and stared like the rest of the customers. Thankfully, it only lasted all of 30 seconds and we were on our way. But please tell me...how on earth do you do 'Time Out' when the meltdown is in the middle of the frozen foods section?

 

 Don't let that innocent face fool you. 

The newest big project at home is renovating the 3 car garage (which usually is used for storage) into a 2 car garage with an indoor play room. Gerry and Dad have done an amazing job thus far without any help. I haven't even minded living with a big hole cut in my front hall for a few days while we were waiting for Gerry's next 4 days off so they could install the french doors. It is going to be a great room for the kids when its done.

Playroom in progress

We also decided that since the nursery (aka Blaze's room) is done in a gender neutral theme (Fisher Price Rain Forest) it would be much easier to just convert one of the spare bedrooms (sorry Papa and Grandma you lost your room) into his room. I decided a Fireman theme should be easy enough and I knew Gerry wasn't going to object. Well, what started out as a little red and white paint and a few fire trucks, has now became an entire fire station and all. And it turns out Fireman theme is not so easy after all. Nothing can ever be that easy for us, I should have known. Well, we only got a few months left so we definitely need to get cracking on that project. I suppose I will wait to remind Gerry of that AFTER he finishes his testing this month for Captain at work!?

Blaze loves to play and run outside, so hopefully when Gerry is done with our playroom renovations we can finally find that perfect outdoor play set we have been searching for since Christmas. The backyard pool is up and running so we will have some fun this summer as a family. The tough part is going to be trying to keep little fish Blaze out of the pool, as he never gets enough of the water.

 

At swim class

We have been taking as much time as possible to spend with Papa and Grandma as they leave again for the summer in a few days and when they return next time they will have 3 Grand kids to spoil. He loves them so much and runs to them both with open arms as soon as he sees them. Today was all about Papa, he wanted to sit with Papa, play with Papa and spend ALL his time in Papa's arms. It truly melts my heart to see them together. Poor Grandma got the cold shoulder, which is very unusual as Blaze is definitely a 'ladies man' and even more so a Grandma's boy.

We are busy starting preparations for our next trip to Mumbai, which we figure will be sometime the end of July (yes that is ONLY 4 months). We are so very anxious to see the Docs again and the entire SI team. We can't wait to show Blaze off to everyone. We hope to be able to meet up with KT and her family as well. I can't believe that we are going to be starting all of this all over again. Yes, I do think if we weren't already crazy we will be in the coming months. Wish us luck!

Belly Pictures...long overdue! (from Doubly Blessed)

I have been very slack on updating our blog.  Time is passing by so quickly and the twins will be here before we know it.  Here are our long overdue belly shots of our surrogate:

7 weeks- not yet showing.

14 weeks- just a little belly.

17 weeks- Whoa there's our babies.

Our beautiful babies! (from Doubly Blessed)

We are already in our 20th week.  More then half way there considering most twins are considered full term at around 36 weeks.  We had our 4D (3D on our end as we had no sound or movement only still images) anomaly scan in our 18th week.  Our surrogate is doing great and continues to have an uneventful pregnancy thus far. So without further adieu, here are our beautiful babes:

Twin 1 left   Twin 2 right

Twin 1 left   Twin 2 right

Twin 1 left (legs)   Twin 2 right

Twin 2 left   Twin 1 right

Twin 1 left  Twin 2 right

Twin 2

Twin 1 is measuring at 17.5 weeks and Twin 2 is 18.2 weeks.  Twin 2's measurements are all a little bigger except for Twin 1's femur, and foot.  Both have a fetal heart rate of 133 bpm.  Gerry is convinced we have 2 boys, however he says he is certain Twin 2 is a boy.  Grandma R. says she thinks she sees 2 boys as well.  Me...well I have NO idea since all the essential body parts are cut off on purpose. So I am guessing its one of each, just to be different.  Either way as long as they both continue on this healthy and uneventful path to a normal delivery I am happy for 2 beautiful babies.