24 Weeks!

We had our 24 week appointment on Tuesday, and everything went great... we got our first growth ultrasound where they check to see if the twins are growing appropriately, and so far so good!

Baby A is still head down and on the left, and Baby B is also now head down on the right. Good job babies! Please stay head down!!! We got the cutest picture of their two heads together, both of them looking up at us. See if you can pick out the baby's eyes and noses. There is even a little hand between the two heads.



I *think* we have chosen names. I reserve the right to change them of course, but as of now Baby A will be named Anna, and Baby B will be named Lucy. :) So from now on I will refer to them as Anna and Lucy! Its exciting to actually give them names!!

Here is a picture of Anna (baby A)


And here is a picture of Lucy (baby B)


And here is a picture of me at 24 weeks!


I feel much bigger than this picture looks. I may have to get Matt to start taking my picture since I think that I'm minimizing my bump somehow with this angle. Today my black maternity pants got too tight, and my khakis are too tight around my belly. I'll just have to stop going to work so I can just wear jeans and sweats all of the time. :)

Triple Stroller!

We have been reorganizing our house to get ready for the twins' arrival. Until this weekend we had just been piling all of our baby stuff into our sun-room, including the triple stroller that my parents so generously gave us!! It is an amazing stroller because it is the size and weight of a double stroller, but comes with a toddler seat that you attach to the front. This way I only have to lift 40lbs instead of 60lbs when putting the stroller into our van (and it will actually fit in the van) and I can fit through doorways! :) We decided to set the stroller up so I could put in my new hot pink head-hugger infant seat pads for the twins, and we also gave Ellen a chance to try out her new toddler seat. And she LOVED it. In fact she refused to get down for at least an hour, and sat up there talking to herself, playing with toys she requested, even crayoning for a while. Matt and I weren't even in the same room with her for a while and she was super happy just talking to herself in her seat. Here is a picture of her loving her seat:


And the stroller:


Part of the reorganizing this past weekend included me giving up HALF of my closet to Matt. The HORRORS! I guess I should have some empathy for Matt who is being kicked out of his room where he has kept his clothes and books for the past two years since we will be putting the twins there. And now we are squished into the same closet. It will be fine, I bought an extra shoe rack at target and somehow everything fit. I'll just have to be better about packing up my out of season clothes when I'm not using them. Thankfully we have a HUGE attic that is currently full of bins of clothes. (baby and mine!)

I made a nice gluten free dinner tonight: Lemony chicken with Zuccini white bean salad. It was actually delicious. The chicken I cooked in a marinade of lemon juice, olive oil, and oregano. And the salad was just chopped up raw zuchini, a can of cannelini beans, and shredded parmesan cheese with a dressing of more lemon juice and olive oil. Super healthy and easy! And hopefully not too many calories since after dinner I proceeded to eat a ton of peanut butter m&ms and some ice cream. :)

A few of Ellen's latest sentences / phrases:

"The boys turned the water off, the fountains. Ellen cried. Emma cried too. Just a little bit, not too much."
(this is describing our last trip to the pool where there was thunder and the lifeguards (the boys) turned the fountains off. Both Ellen and her friend Emma were quite upset, but they only cried a little bit.) :)

"Put Nolan in the car, he is going to Grammie's house. Maybe"
(she likes to put her little people in cars and send them to Grammie's house, she has named several of them, Emma, Nolan, and Neighbor Jane. Today I think she named one Ellen, we'll see if it sticks.)

"Maybe NOT!!"
(said in a crying voice, she says this when she is upset and does not want to do something. Its a welcome change from NO! But it is hard not to laugh when she says it so seriously)

"Puff goes poopy in the litter box"
(said to our cat Puff)
"Penny poops a lot"
(talking about my parents' dog Penny)
"Amara poops in the grass"
(our dog Amara)
"Ellen made a poopy, change diaper!"
(I'm hoping all of this talk about poop will eventually lead to potty training, but we are not there yet!)

And here is a picture of me at 23 weeks, I think I popped out from the last picture I posted!

5 Minutes is up!

Ellen (at 22 months) often has trouble with transitions, like when we have to leave the park to go home, or when its time to stop playing and have a bath. It seems to help if I warn her that something is going to change ahead of time, by telling her that she has 5 minutes left of a certain activity, and then we are going to ....
So several times per day she hears she has 5 minutes left from me! :) Yesterday I overheard her as she was playing with her new Little People Dollhouse, she said to a few little people: "5 minutes are up! Time to go inside now!" and then a few moments later: "Time for bed!" I couldn't stop cracking up.

Here is the new and awesome dollhouse I scored on craigslist. (thanks to Mom and Dad for picking it up!!)


This past weekend we were at my parents house in Swarthmore to see family one last time before we hunker down and get ready to have twins. I realize that I'm MONTHS away from this, but I just don't feel like doing lots of travel while pregnant with twins. Part of me is scared something will go wrong, and I know eventually I'll just be too uncomfortable to sit in a car for 4 hours. We picked up TONS of baby stuff that my parents had collected for us from craigslist, including a triple stroller!! We also went to IKEA and bought two matching cribs and a changing table for the twins room! I can't wait to start setting everything up. Here is a picture of our van after we packed it with all of the stuff we got from my parents and Ikea. It is COMPLETELY full - the only seats it has in it are the drivers seat, passenger seat, and Ellen's seat. The rest is full of stuff! (and our poor dog squished next to the cribs and Ellen's toys)



After being gone all weekend and working a full day on Monday, I haven't been able to make any fresh 20 meals this week, but we did have 3 eggplants that I needed to use up from our farm-share, so tonight I made Eggplant Parmesan. It was amazing and so easy. Another better homes and gardens recipe!

First I peeled and cut up the eggplants. Then I dipped them in egg mixed with water, and next in flour. (I used regular flour, but gluten free would also equally work here!) I put them in an ungreased casserole pan, covered them with shredded parmesan cheese, ragu tomato sauce, and more mozarella cheese! There was lots of cheese in this dish! It baked for ~15-20 minutes in a 400 degree oven, and turned out delicious. Even Ellen ate two servings which is rare for her to really like the meals that I make!! :)



And lastly here is me at 21 weeks pregnant! Can you believe there are two babies in there? I'm not sure that I can yet, though I'm getting to know each of them as they are kicking more and more every day! :)

TWIN GIRLS!

We had our 20 week ultrasound today and found out we are having two GIRLS!!



The ultrasound went really well, both girls are healthy and have all of their parts!! They moved and kicked around a lot during the ultrasound which was fun to see. I'm feeling lots of kicks now, mostly from baby B who is on the right side of my stomach.

To explain the A vs. B... Baby A is the baby that is furthest down, and she is head down and on the left side. Baby B is slightly higher up, she is head up, and on the right side. So now when I feel kicks I know which baby is kicking me, its awesome.

Thanks for all of the prayers and well wishes, we couldn't be happier. :)

Maine and Baby Kicks!

Its been forever since I've posted, we've been keeping busy and all is well. :)
We had a wonderful week long trip to Maine to visit Matt's family's camp that they call "Naguibagua." His family names everything, apparently this name has a Native American meaning which I've now forgotten, but Matt says was probably made up anyway. Its a great name though and we got Ellen to start saying it which was awesome. The sad part of our week was on Saturday, we attended a memorial service for Matt's Uncle Arch who died this spring. It was a really sweet, sad service. He had fought a long battle with bone marrow cancer and amazingly had several bone marrow transplants. He was a big strong extremely smart man and he will be missed!! The positive to the funeral being in Maine was that it brought Matt's entire family together, and most of his cousins stayed at camp Naguibagua with us the whole week which was a blast.

There were 6 girls under the age of 6 at camp (including Ellen) and wow was that awesome / crazy. Ellen was inducted into a club by her oldest cousin Jane (6) called the Dragonoses club. I'm not sure how much of this she understood, but she loved saying Dragonoses and then growling and making funny noises. I'm guessing she understood more than I'm giving her credit for! (According to Jane a Dragonoses is a dragon like creature that snorts, growls, and breathes fire)

Ellen loved the time with her cousins and each morning when she woke up the first thing she'd say was: "Cousins? Downstairs!" Most of the time her cousins were still sleeping since Ellen got up every morning at 5:30....not that I blame her - the sunrise was super early in Maine and our room faced east with nothing but windows. So, by 5:30AM, it was essentially as bright as noon in our room. So of course she woke up early! She also went to bed early and took good naps. Thank goodness.

We made an awesome eight layer casserole to share for dinner - gluten free!!
It is essentially a lasagna but without the lasagna noodles. It is a recipe from Better Homes and Gardens which is actually not a gluten free recipe, but I easily converted it by using gluten free rice curly noodles. Here is the recipe:
http://www.bhg.com/recipe/beef/eight-layer-casserole/
(from the better homes and gardens website so I'm not stealing it)

It was an amazing casserole - I think what makes it amazing is that the cheese layer consists of cream cheese and sour cream. YUM. As an added plus the spinach layer gives you some good veggies too - and Ellen actually ate it!

Here is a picture of the final casserole:



**BTW, I am no longer eating gluten free, it just got to be too much with being pregnant and hungry all the time. I still like to cook gluten free and will continue to share my successful dishes, though this blog is probably going to mostly transition to a baby blog :)**

Lastly, the babies have started kicking!!!! This makes me so happy. I have felt them a few times today, especially when I've been sitting still. In fact I've been feeling them kick as I write this post. What a wonderful, reassuring feeling that they are doing OK! And, in 10 days we will find out if we are having girls or boys or one of each! I am excited!!

And here is a picture of Ellen combing her monster's hair (Philly Phanatic)


And I haven't gotten any pictures off my camera from Maine yet, but when I do I'll do a camera dump and share.

Boys? Girls? Take a Guess!

We had our 16 week drs visit and ultrasound today! Everything went great, the twins are doing well. I wish I could have seen them move around a bit more, but the ultrasound literally lasted 1 minute to check the heartbeats (both strong) and the ultrasound machine is pretty old and doesn't show very much. Its pretty blurry!

Here are the pictures I got from today, they are not the best, but there is one of each baby, not that I can tell them apart!


Can anyone tell if they are boys or girls?? :):)
We won't actually find out until week 20 in another month, but I'd love to hear all guesses. :)


I also had to do my 16 week glucose test today... YUCK. The drink wasn't so bad, it was just like drinking an orange snow cone without the ice. And it didn't make me feel horrible, so hopefully that's a good sign that I passed. I also have to do another one at 28 weeks I think. For those of you who don't know what a glucose test is, it is a test for gestational diabetes. You drink this disgusting sugary drink, wait an hour, and then they take your blood. Hopefully I pass, because if I fail apparently I have to do a 3-hour test, where you drink the gross drink and then get your blood taken every hour. No thank you!


It was a long day of babysitting and dr visits, but when we got home Matt and I made chicken sausage with summer squash succotash! It was delicious. We also made corn on the cob and Ellen ate almost a whole ear of corn - it was her first time eating corn on the cob and she LOVED it! It probably helped that I smeared butter all over the corn first, but what other way is there to eat it?


And lastly, as Ellen keeps telling everyone - we shaved our cat. Our poor cat Puff is quite fat, and has a lot of hair. This makes for a very hot summer for her, and a very frustrating summer for me vacuuming up all of her stupid hair. So, we decided for the first time to just shave it all off. And while she looks like a ridiculous fat rat, I think she's more comfortable, and I am so much happier to not have her hair everywhere!!! I think we will all be happier this way. For example, before the shaving I would not have let her, and she would not have wanted I don't think, to curl up next to me while I type, but post shave all she wants to do is cuddle! Maybe she is cold.... oh well she'll survive, its summer!

Here's a picture of Puff with her new summer haircut. It's not pretty to look at, sorry! :)

The Secret Gluten-Free Ingredient

I was really craving oatmeal raisin cookies the other night, and so I decided to make them! I was feeling kind of lazy, and just wanted to effortlessly "whip them up", so I used and easy recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (which I love) and just substituted gluten free all purpose flour for regular all purpose flour. And while I wish that I was someone who could just whip up perfect baked good whenever I felt like it... I'm afraid this is not the case. ;)

The cookies turned out delicious, but a little strange. They did not rise AT ALL, and so turned into flat cookies with all of these holes in them. Matt was helping me bake and when I mentioned that I had added baking soda and powder which is supposed to make cookies rise, he explained that baking soda and powder simply create gas, and that gluten or something like gluten is needed to actually rise. Turns out gluten free flour will not rise without some extra help! This is when Matt mentioned that I hadn't included any xanthan gum. There wasn't any required in the Better Homes and Gardens recipe (obviously since its not GF) so I hadn't added any. We had about 4-5 cookies worth of batter left when we made this realization, and so decided to do an experiment!!

We added about 1/8 tsp of xanthan gum to the remaining batter, made the cookies - and it was AMAZING. The difference in the cookies was extreme. The cookies without xanthan gum were flat and crumbly. The cookies with xanthan gum had actually risen, were a little cake-y (not too cake-y) and even tasted better!! Unfortunately since we made this discovery quite late in the game we ended up with about 24 flat cookies and 4 good cookies. Oh well, next time I make any sort of baked goods without gluten - I'll add xanthan gum!!

Here is a pictorial description of the experiment:

Cookies without xanthan gum:


Cookies with xanthan gum:


Cookies side by side: bottom cookie has no xanthan gum, notice the hole and how flat it is. The top cookie has xanthan gum - notice how its actually risen and looks more like a cookie!


I know you are asking yourself - what does xanthan gum do?!?!? From wikipedia:
"Xanthan gum is also used in gluten-free baking. Since the gluten found in wheat must be omitted, xanthan gum is used to give the dough or batter a "stickiness" that would otherwise be achieved with the gluten."

I'm guessing the stickiness is where the rise from the baking powder and soda happens.

Only slightly disturbing... literally the next paragraph in the wikipedia article says this:
"In the oil industry, xanthan gum is used in large quantities, usually to thicken drilling mud."

Um... what? I thought it was a food product.... also, if its used in large quantities in the oil industry, they probably paid a lot less per pound or ounce than I did for my tiny bag that I bought for $11! Oh well. Clearly it works and that is what matters. Hopefully its made of food.


And here is me at 13 weeks! :) Belly is starting to get bigger! Go twin-ies go! :)


The only recent picture I have of Ellen is of her wearing sunglasses in her diaper. She had just pooped all over all of her clothes (sorry gross) and so she was "neeked" as she likes to say! She WOULD NOT look at the camera or stay still for more than 2 seconds. The only reason she is standing still in this picture is she was obsessed with getting this light / key-chain to turn on and off. What a silly girl! We love her. :)