Just the two of them:

Carson and Pops.

What little boy doesn't love a grandpa with a cool job??

Carson loves the benefits of being the Athletic Director's grandson, because let's be honest, this child is obsessed with football.

PS - sorry about the horrible pictures. My *nice* Cannon camera died on me! Boo on it!

Part Deux

So after we told our family and close friends, we thought it would be a good idea to not tell anyone else. This way we would wait until later in the pregnancy and then make the bigger announcement. Life went pretty much back to normal.

Then, one Monday morning I got up at my usual 5:15 AM to go running (I was determined to stay in shape during this pregnancy. Ha! Just saying that now makes me laugh!). I got out of bed and began to prepare to go running. No more than 5 minutes after my feet hit the floor I knew something was wrong. The room was spinning and I was sure I was going to throw up. I changed back into my pj's and got back in bed. Chris wakes up during the commotion and says Hey babe, you'll fell better after you run, I promise. You see, I do much better with my workout routines when I have a little encouragement/motivation from my man. I asked him to not let me get back in bed on mornings I didn't feel like going. Good for me that he keeps his promises. Bad for me that I ignored him and went back to bed anyway.

A few hours later he wakes me up and tells me he's headed to work. Again, I am feeling super nauseous but tell him to go ahead. I get out of bed and make it to the bathroom just in time to loose my dinner from the night before. Good, I think. Now it's over, I can get on with my day.

Fast forward 2 hours.

I call Chris at work. Chris, you must come home. I have been awake for 3 hours and have thrown up 9 times!! He cancels his morning appointments (which I later find out was a huge deal!) and comes home. He stops on his way and picks me up a prescription of Zofran. Silly husband, this is not morning sickness! This is food poisoning! I've been pregnant before and it wasn't like this. No, this was definitely food poisoning. The "food poisoning" doesn't get any better and I am in bed for 2 days.

Finally, that Wednesday, was going to be my first OB appointment. Chris was coming with me and I was glad to have the company. We see the doctor first and I tell her how sick I have been. She sympathized with me and gave me the typical take your Zofran, drink water, eat, sleep, blah, blah, blah. We talked a little more about possible complications with the pregnancy and the surgery I will need to have (like I did with Carson). Then she mentioned that we were going to have an ultrasound today. Yea! Chris and I were excited.

Back out to the waiting room. They call our name for the ultrasound.

I get comfy on the table and she flips the monitor on. How sweet! Our precious {one} baby! We watch the {one} baby move, hear the {one} baby heartbeat and even get a picture of the {one} baby. We were thrilled! She says everything looks good and that she was just going to measure a few more things before we left. Great! Chris and I chit chat, looking at the picture of our precious little {one} baby. A minute or two goes by.

The, she says Hmmm.

Chris stands up. What do you mean Hmm? Is everything okay?

Yeah, hold on, she says.

Yep! There it is. You see that?

Chris sternly says No! See what?

That right there. The other heartbeat.

Chris yells (I'm not kidding) It's twins!!!

By this time the ultrasound tech had found a screen shot of our TWO babies! Seriously, I just stared at the monitor. Chris has huge tears in his eyes. I stare back at the monitor. I look back at Chris.

Hunny, can you get my Zofran for me? I'm serious y'all! That was the first thing I said!!!

Chris is beyond excited. I am beyond sick. And then I am beyond excited with him. We're having twins!!!

A few minutes later she tells us the news that they are identical and in the same placenta. Either two boys or two girls. Oh my word! She calls my doctor in. He words were Oh my oh my! We were all shocked!

We now exit the ultrasound room with the picture of our TWO babies. I'm pretty sure my feet didn't even touch the ground. I was in such shock!

We get in the car and try to call my mom. She doesn't answer, of course. I call her again. No answer. Bad time to have your phone turned off, mom! So we call Chris's mom. We tell her. She screams and cannot believe it (you see, she has said ever since the day we married that we were going to have twins. Seriously, she called it years ago!). Her and my father-in-law work at church together, so she walked over to his office. We told him too. Again, shock.

Finally, I get ahold of my mom! We tell her the news. Screams. Screams. Screams. Then she accuses Chris of playing a joke on her and tells him it's not funny. She doesn't believe us. For real. We get back to my house where my dad was keeping Carson. We apologize for being gone so long and then show him the ultrasound picture. Shock. He calls mom. He confirms that he is looking at the picture and that Chris is indeed telling the truth. Shock.

This was a day I will never ever forget. I remember going to bed that night and thinking everything was going to be so easy with this next baby. We can use all the stuff from Carson (since I was so smart {wink wink} and bought gender neutral stuff). This time around would be much easier and much cheaper! HA! All that changed on that Wednesday afternoon.

But you know what? We wouldn't have it any other way. We feel so blessed and honored to be trusted with these two precious lives. I know that we have a long road ahead of us (there are many risks with identical twin pregnancies) but we are trusting that God has a plan for these children. They are His to begin with. I love that He knew all along that he was going to give us twins. I choose to believe now that he has nothing but the best planned for them!

Thank you friends for sharing in our joy with us. Please join us in praying for these sweet babies. I will have surgery {cerclage} on Wednesday, November 18th in the wee hours of the morning. I will rest that weekend and pray that there are no more complications.

Here's to a crazy, fun, and wild upcoming year!

The Nitty Gritty

Since I got so many questions concerning the fun details of our new little twins, I thought I would put some of the memories down on paper (or cyberspace, whatever). Beware, this is lengthy:

Chris and I started thinking many months ago about having another (one) baby. We didn't want Carson to be too far in age from a sibling so we thought the time might be right, considering this was in God's plan too. We began to pray about it and trusted that God had a plan.

A couple months later I got way too curious and bought a pregnancy test. I brought it home and told myself I was ridiculous and that I wasn't pregnant. I was right, I wasn't pregnant. No big deal, I trusted in God's plan. Fast forward a few more months, still not pregnant. Again, I bought a test and laughed at myself while taking it. I was sure I wasn't pregnant (you see, these tests are addictive! Or maybe I was a little curious, you decide). Either way, this time the test was positive!

Thankfully, Chris was home and I ran to the living room to tell him the news. Keep in mind he had no idea I was even taking a test! Boy was he shocked! He actually paused the DVR and asked me if I was being serious! We laughed about the news, only because we didn't know how else to respond. Of course, I immediately wanted to call my mom. She was going to freak out! But no, Chris said we had to wait to obligatory 12 weeks - WHAT?! Maybe he didn't understand, I needed to tell someone!!

So he gave in and let me call my sweet friend Sarah (sorry mom!). Sarah was a safe option because she's stuck in California and couldn't tell anyone else. She was only a few weeks pregnant too and it was so much fun to tell her our news!

I got off the phone with Sarah and went back in to talk to Chris. I gave my most convincing argument as to why we needed to tell my parents that night! He didn't agree with any of my antics, but he gave in anyway. Carson was down for a nap so I quickly ran to Hobby Lobby to buy supplies to make Carson a Big Brother shirt. I called my mom on the way and asked what they were doing for dinner. No plans. Perfect. We wanted to come by and say hi. She totally fell for it.

I quickly put together Carson's new big brother shirt (see previous post) and we headed to my parents house. When we pulled in the drive way they both ran out of the house to see Carson (they always have a contest to see who can get him out of his car seat first, crazy grandparents). We all go inside. Carson plays with his toys, we talk about our days, we even sit down to eat dinner. NO ONE has said a word about his shirt and I am about to bust! Mom makes Carson his plate and puts him in the high chair. Still no word. Uggh! Fine! I look at Chris and say, "well, I guess I should take off his shirt, I don' want him to get it dirty". Chris agrees and I take off Carson's shirt. We're all sitting at the table. Bummer.

Then, with no warning, my mother jumps out of her seat, knocks her chair over and begins running laps around the kitchen. My dad's mouth drops, and Carson is sitting in his chair with no shirt on. My dad is utterly confused and Chris and I are dying laughing. Finally, mom runs back to the table, dad still has no idea what is going on. Mom screams, they're having a baby!!! So much fun! My mom tends to err on the side of dramatic, so this was not out of character for her. And my dad is usually clueless, again, his reaction was not out of character.

The next night we decided to tell Chris's parents the good news too. I have to say that they are much more perceptive than my parents! Plus, we meet them in a public place, so screaming was not an option :). We showed up, Carson in his shirt. They greeted us at the table and my MIL grabbed Carson. She held him for a minute, looked at his shirt and asked Carson, are you a big brother? Chris answered, actually he is! Both my MIL and FIL's mouths dropped! The just stared at us. HA! We all laughed and then talked about how fun it will be to have another (one) little baby. Little did we know....

More about our first ultrasound appointment in the next installment (my fingers are tired!)....

Fun News!!!

We have some fun news to share:

And guess what?

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We are pregnant with TWINS!!!!!!

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And they are IDENTICAL!!!!!

We are so very excited and completely in awe of God's precious gift to our family!! We would so greatly appreciate your prayers during this time! Yay for have 3 kids under the age of 2! Bring on the caffeine!

Chop Chop!

So we finally bit the bullet (after 19 months) and decided to cut our baby boy's hair. Let's face it, he was beginning to look a little too feminine!

The before shot:

Seriously! Look at those curls!

Not too happy about this haircut business.

I kept telling friends how long his hair was when it was wet! When it's dry it just curls right up, but when it's wet, it's terribly long!

Yea! Finally cut! I wasn't too thrilled with the Rico Suave styling she gave him, but hey, what can you do?

And since he did such a terrible *ahem* GREAT job, we rewarded him with America's Armpit. Chuck E Cheese's. Uggh.

Yea for Halloween!

We had such a fabulous Halloween this year! Friends of ours invited us to their block party and Carson had a blast! but first we had to don our cowboy gear:

I bought him a hat to wear, but he would have none of it! His vest and boots were my brother's as a kid!

He found tons of toys to play with at the party!

Our sweet friends the Youngs.

He was not afraid at all to trick or treat!

Hope your Halloween was fantastic too!

Gym Time!

Oh Little Gym, how we love you! You are so much fun in the morning and you produce great naps in the afternoon!

Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama

Chris and I just got back from 5 glorious days in Bermuda. This place is unbelievable!! Chris qualified for the trip through his company so they paid for everything! This made the trip even better!!!

The airport in Bermuda. Notice the Bermuda shorts??

Waiting for dinner the first night.

The food was AMAZING here! I am pretty sure each of us gained plenty of weight while there!

Out on the beach.

Lunch by the pool.

Date night at a fancy restaurant!

The view from our room. Not too shabby!

We took a catamaran out for a snorkel!

The view from our hotel!

Horseshoe Bay, public beach next to our hotel. The Travel Channel's #2 beach in the world!!!

Strawberries delivered to our room and an invitation to a fancy dinner that night!

Another gift delivered to our room!

Our "Beach Party BBQ" that got moved inside. They did a great job of still making it festive though!

One day we rented scooters and drove the entire island. We would drive a while, then stop and get out at a beach. We'd jump in the water, cool off, then hop back on the scooters. This was the PERFECT DAY!

A quick stop for lunch on the road...

Another little spot we found:

John Smith Beach. We actually loved this one better than all the others! The water was as clear as pool water!

We found the place to tour the Crystal and Fantasy Caves while we were on the scooters. The stalactites and stalagmites were okay, but probably not worth the $18 price tag!

Back on the road again. The island is only 22 miles long so we drove from one end to the other. This is the view near the airport.

The town of St. George is home to the oldest Anglican church in the Western Hemisphere!

The Royal Navy Dockyards. This place was beautiful but this was the only picture I took! It was the end of our scooter adventure and we were running late for dinner reservations. Wish I would have taken a few more minutes to capture more photos!

All in all, we had a FABULOUS trip!! We would HIGHLY recommend the island, but beware! It is VERY expensive! We could have never afforded the trip if the company wouldn't have fit the bill *grin*. We missed our baby boy so so much, but knew he was in good hands with his Gigi and Pa!

Gone Country

This past weekend we headed to the booming metropolis of Gonzales, TX. Yeah, you can be jealous now.

My grandparents have lived in Gonzales ever since I can remember. My grandpa (known as Snake around town) owned a mechanic shop for years and years. He now drives a tow truck and the man pretty much thinks he owns the town. There's not a person in the small town that doesn't know him. This is why it is so important for us to come to the town's annual Come and Take It Parade. As a little girl I looked forward to this weekend every year because it meant that I got to don a big puffy dress and ride on top of the float. Yes, I was actually excited about this! My grandpa would drive the float and my dad and his brothers would ride on a trailer and play country music. I tell ya, it was the highlight of my Octobers growing up.

Since then, times have changed!! Years have passed and we haven't been able to attend the Come and Take It. This year we made it a priority though. And as luck would have it...it rained the ENTIRE time! We were totally bummed. I had visions of re-enacting my earlier days as the parade queen, rising on top of the float for all of Gonzales to see. Ok, maybe not. We really weren't that sad that the parade was rained out. Instead the boys put the trailer in my grandpa's mechanic shop and played music 'til their fingers bled!

Stayton and Carson enjoying the music.

Dad and his little brother, Charlie.

Papaw, Stayton and Carson.

Anthony and Kara. NeNaw in the background.

They can't believe they married into this!!!

Kara making her country singing debut!

All the while Carson plays in the garage and gets completely filthy!!

Sweet friends!

Last weekend I had the chance to get together with two of my college roommates from A&M. Can I just say that there is nothing better than sitting around talking about all the lame things we did that we thought were so cool! Now that all 3 of us are married with kids of our own we certainly enjoyed getting out sans kiddos and reminiscing!

On Friday night the 3 of us went to dinner alone! Then, Saturday morning we had a play date at Kim's house. Sadly, these are the only 3 pictures I took the entire weekend! Kellie is a fablous photographer and did take pictures of the whole gang. Kellie, you can send those to me any time :)!

College was such a great experience, and seeing these sweet friends is the perfect reminder of that!

Carson playing at Kim's.

Kellie's precious daughter!