How I Feed Three

Food is an all consuming part of my life right now for three reasons

1. I'm hungry all the time.
2. I want these babies to grow as much as the doctors do!
3. Every time I open the refrigerator, I have one of two reactions: excitement over something that appeals to me or despair because nothing looks yummy.

Since food is very much consuming me (or am I consuming it?), I thought you may enjoy seeing just what I eat in one day to support the three of us.

7:40am: I'm starving at this point from the 8 hour fast and far too lazy to make breakfast. So I started my day with an "Almond Joy Shake" This is an extremely high calorie mix of coconut milk, almond butter, half and half, and a pint of chocolate ice cream (don't worry that pint is supposed to make at least 3 servings. I usually get 6 out of it). I'm downing lots of fat, protein, and calcium and a whopping 400+ calories. Yummy.

9:40am: Unfortunately liquid food runs through me pretty fast, so I'm already digging through the fridge again. This is the last of my frozen hash browns (OH NO!) and a slice of bacon. I added ketchup before serving, since ketchup is the whole reason the potato was created :D

12:30pm: Homemade minestrone with overgrown alphabet pasta and Parmesan. This photograph does not look so appetizing since I was trying to show just how overgrown the alphabet pasta is.

2:40: Mom and sister arrived bringing with them a 12-pack of Chick-fil-a nuggets. An unusual but appreciated treat :D


7:00pm until 8:45: Pheasant, Boar, and Buffalo Sausage pieces. Spinach and Bacon Dip with Corn Tortilla Chips. A lovely wild game dinner sampler including duck, steak, and lamb with garlic mashed potatoes and in season veggies. (I forgot my camera for dinner, I'm so sorry!)

Okay so snack and dinner were not very typical for a day (since mom and sis were in town and treated us to dinner), but you get the idea:

It's A WHOLE LOT OF FOOD!

Should I be Insulted If...

... my baby girl is already calling people "losers"?

No Motivation

After finishing that quilt top last Monday, I have had no motivation to do anything! I made a couple of little butterflies out of the four 2.5" squares left from my charm pack and I moved my sewing machine to the built-in desk downstairs.

Yesterday, the doctor informed me that I'm more or less supposed to be sitting around letting the babies consume the food rather than me burning the calories to move myself. So that sparked a wee bit of motivation to do a few little projects. Here's what I've got so far:

Owl Wall Hanging progress. I added some lazy daisies for a little more girliness. :D All I need to do is make binding, but I think I'm going to wait until I'm also binding the quilts.

There's a lot going on in this picture because I was far too lazy to take separate pictures. Here's what you're looking at:

• 6-12 month sized lavender Baby Bolero made from some knit scraps from my mother-in-law.
• Self-drafted newborn skirt from the remaining lavender knit scraps.
• Pink Baby Pants in a modified from a very old McCalls Pattern made from some rib knit from my MIL.
• More newborn hats using the remaining pink rib knit.
  

I also started pressing the backing fabric and assembling the quilt sandwich for Baby A's quilt.

It's been a busy, but sedentary day :D Thanks, doctors, for the needed motivation!

Multiples Birth Class

Derek and I are taking a Multiples Birthing Class out at Greenville Hospital. It's really fun to hang out with other expectant parents of twins while learning about caring for our babies.

A few nights ago at almost 5 am, I awoke to Olive cat retching (so I threw her out the front door to avoid having to clean the carpet again, aren't I nice?) and had a wonderful idea in the 45 minutes it took me to fall back asleep. The scads of red corduroy could be put to a fun use: presents for my fellow expectant parents!

Military inspired hats for the boys in the group. This is from Amy Butlers Little Stitches for Little Ones.

A pleated modification of Made by Rae's Itty Bitty Dress for the girls.

The sad part is: I didn't even make a dent in the amount of red corduroy on that shelf. There's still about 3 more yards...

Quilt and Baby Update

I can't express how relieved I am to have visited the Maternal Fetal Specialist. Finally, I've had information poured into my type A brain and feel like I actually know what's going on with the babies. WOOHOO! So here's a bullet list of some of the more important information we received today.

• Baby A had rotated from footling breech to frank breech before the ultrasound. In the middle of the ultrasound she returned to footling breech. I love that stubborn little girl :D
• If Baby A has club foot it's relatively mild.
• The babies BOTH weigh approximately 2 lb 3 oz
• My cervix was declared a "triplet cervix". It's holding out at 4.8cm at 28.5 weeks
• Baby A is a little small in the torso despite weighing approximately the same as Baby B, so the Maternal Fetal Specialist will be seeing me for weekly ultrasounds to monitor blood flow from the placenta to Baby A. Every two weeks they'll measure her growth.
• I'm still allowed to function normally because of the "triplet cervix".
• The babies both really enjoy holding onto their feet above their heads.
• Baby A is my shy stubborn one.
• Baby B is my camera hogging diva. She even put her feet in front of Baby A's head to block a decent head shot.
• Both girls are practice breathing already!
• Baby A has plenty of room to flip...if she chooses to do so.
• I didn't even get close to passing out today from lying on the ultrasound table for over an hour. This one is quite comfy :D
• Derek cracked me up writing on a Etch-a-Sketch while waiting for the doctor.

It was a good visit AND we got 3D ultrasound photos! I love how they are fascinated with their feet though it proved difficult to get face shots with all those feet. By the way, Baby B's feet are the ones blocking Baby A's shot. She did not want her sister to have the limelight!


I finished the quilt top today which I did not expect at all! It's so much fun!


Whew! What a day! I'll leave you with the 28 week belly shot in the dress I sewed last week from stash fabric.

The Dawn of a Big Day

The dawn of this big day found me up before 7. It's getting harder and harder to sleep solidly with this huge baby furnace attached to me! Not to mention this morning the baby furnace had burned all its fuel and was hungry. Oh well, I'll sneak in a nap at some point :D

Our perinatologist appointment is at 1:30 today, but I'm going to spend the morning making this Pinwheel Baby Quilt for one of the twins.


I'm using a charm pack of the pink, green, and brown prints from Moda's Sultry line designed by Basic Grey. Here are the prints in the charm pack.

The really cool thing is that I have matching scrap booking paper to make the Owl Canvases. I'm super excited about these projects. I just hope I'm awake enough not to slice off my finger with the rotary cutter :-p

I'll be back later with a twin update.

An Empowering Breakfast

I woke up this morning and discovered my husband sneaking around the kitchen. Derek promptly told me to "Go away." About 10 minutes later this plate appeared before me.

Now that, my friends, was an empowering breakfast!

We ran errands to Costco, spent a 50% coupon for fabric for one of my baby's quilts, spent a 40% off coupon on batting and I came home and finished the kitchen mat.

It was my first attempt at free motion quilting. Not bad from the front... fortunately, the back will be resting on floor and not for display. I've got a ways to go before I'll be good at free motion quilting :D

Today was THAT Day

I'm sitting here munching on raw almonds, cheese, and spicy salmon salad on crackers wondering how to write this post.

I have for the past two months had an irrational fear of going to the OB office. "Is this appointment where the high risk bad news gonna start rolling in?" I would wonder every time I pulled into the parking garage. I've read a lot about what could happen and feel pretty educated to receive bad news, but truthfully I've had an extremely easy pregnancy. The kind of pregnancy that has made nearly every mother of singletons I know jealous. I haven't once worshipped the porcelain god, I'm gaining weight at a rate that the doctors like (and the weight has stayed mostly in the tummy!), my cervical length was an astounding 4.3 cm at 24 weeks, my blood pressure looks great, I've eaten enough cow and broccoli to keep anemia away, and I actually have the energy to move about and do things (although at a slower pace). In fact, the only things I've had to complain about are the 3 weeks of the first trimester that I slept away, the amount of food that I have to eat everyday just to keep from feeling starved (bring on the pie eating contests... I promise I'll win!), and how sensitive my belly button is (OUCH!).

Today was that day; the one I've been fearing. When the doctor delivers bad news to your already hormonally challenged body, it's all you can do to keep from becoming a quivering, tearful, anxious mess. But let me try to keep it real and first list the blessings.

1. My movement has still not been restricted. I will still be known as Buoy in the newly opened swimming pool!
2. My weight gain is still right on target.
3. The girls were so active (and evasive) that the ultrasound tech had to chase them around my womb!
4. The vagal response I had from laying flat on my back while the tech chased the aforementioned rambunctious twins around, did not result in fainting because of quick intervention (rolling onto my left side and off my vena cava).
5. My high blood pressure as first recorded, was due to this vagal episode (okay I'm a nerd and am fascinated by this whole thing) and went away after more rest on my left side.
6. Baby A still looks like daddy and is stubborn like me (and still breech)
7. Baby B is still giving death stares to the ultrasound tech (poor Karen!) for touching her and will not allow a profile picture to be taken (and still cephalic!).
8. I am still hungry enough to clean out the fridge (given the opportunity and lack of aversion to anything in there).
9. None of us are in a hospital!
   

The "bad news" doesn't seem so daunting with that list finished first.

1. Baby A might have club foot. The Shriner's hospital is here in Greenville and has a doctor trained to treat club foot with the Ponseti method. Treatment using the Ponseti method consists of 5-8 foot stretching and castings, a clip of the Achilles tendon, 3-4 months solid in barred together shoes, and then barred together shoes during nap/sleep periods until age 4-5. After that period Baby A would be just as normal as other kids. Kristi Yamaguchi was a club foot patient. So really I'm not at all stressed about this. A hassle (if she does indeed have it), but not a hassle that's unmanageable.
2. Baby A is measuring in the 2nd percentile for gestational age. This means that of 100 babies her age, statistically only 1 would be smaller than she is. Of course the gestational age comparison is with singletons so one would expect her to be a little small as a twin, but that is more than low enough for them to send me to a perinatologist (doctor who specializes in high risk pregnancies).
3. Baby B is 10-15% larger than Baby A. I find this weird considering my girls do not share a placenta (as far as they've been able to tell). But I guess it really means that A's placenta isn't working as well as B's. Or that A is burning off all the nutrients from constantly body slamming B :-p
   

All and all the news isn't that bad. The girls are still relatively healthy and are currently performing their circus routines in my tummy. It does mean that I'll probably get ultrasound pictures even more frequently this trimester and may even get a fancy 3D ultrasound. W

Pray that we'll be able to avoid anxiety on two fronts: financial and unnecessary worry about the girls. Pray also that we'll surrender these little ones to His care and know that His grace is sufficient.

Stash Busting Projects.

I've gotten a little crazy about using all that stash fabric over the course of the last week. I think this is my substitute for the nesting instinct. Nesting is hard on a budget before your baby shower has occured ;) Anyway, here are some projects using stash fabric.

Flannel baby wipes with the formidable purple cow print flannel. The piece made 36 double sided zigzagged together 7x7ish wipes. I can't complain :D
Olive thinks the changing table is her new throne. I wonder what she'll think when confronted with it's real purpose..

A camera case (self drafted) using my mother-in-law's striped Moda print. This is my first time using a Moda cotton and it truly is a higher quality experience.

Two Kimono PJ tops from Amy Butler's Little Stitches for Little Ones. I finished off some of the cotton knit scraps from my maternity clothing for these. They are not perfect and I definitely didn't follow the pattern completely, but I figure they'll be great PJs or running around the house tops next summer ;)

Lap Shoulder dresses for the girls. I used a purchased Gerber lap shoulder onesie to make a pattern for the top portion of the dress. The top portions are made from two worn out tanks of mine and the bottom portions from scraps of cotton from the stash.

A Malissa cocktail dress variation made from the Malissa pattern at BurdaStyle and Gertie's Tutorial. I swapped some lace I had for this fabric (and some cotton blend shirting) awhile back with no idea what I would make. This Malissa variation sounds great to me at the moment since I can wear the waistband above the bump and it is wide enough for babies. Plus it's so pretty and would be great for a nice date both now and after the babies are here :D Although I must say the design certainly accents the watermelon A LOT more than most of my other clothing.

(I'll add a photo when I get it taken. It's been a busy few weeks with no time for Derek to take pictures of my baby bump!)

The sweet owl embroidery on gorgeous scrap handkerchief linen is almost finished! I just need to find my other embroidery floss box for a suitable color for the words and cut binding and backing and buy some more batting (the camera bag used up all my batting scraps from the last baby quilt I made). I was thinking of adding some lazy daisies around the vine in pinks to make it a little girlier since the original was done on a pink fabric and mine was not. Honestly, I hated cross stitch... but I love doing embroidery that's not counted like this! At least my floss is finding a use :D

A pieced top for a kitchen mat to go underneath the sink. I'm forever splashing water under the sink in the kitchen and one day I'm going to break my neck slipping on the water. Maybe this mat will help. I need to get some batting and find out! This is my first time making a pinwheel block and it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be.

I might get to sew some of that red corduroy into a couple jumpers and some pants this week, but I'm not going to count on it. I have an OB appointment, two ropes course facilitating days, two nights of Multiples birthing class, and our neighborhood pool is finally open. From henceforth the twins and I shall be known as Buoy ;) I am so excited!

Heirloom Veggies

When my sister and I were younger, my dad brought home the most amazing watermelon ever! Perfect in every way, this watermelon was sweet, juicy, and perfectly ripe. The three of us gobbled this watermelon up, but Mom wouldn't touch it. This perfect watermelon had "abnormal" yellow-flesh.
I never forgot that watermelon and so when I was married and planning my own garden, I looked for yellow-fleshed watermelon seeds. A whole colorful world of heirloom seeds was opened to me in one google search. Tomatoes in red, yellow, pink, purple, white, and even striped ones! Watermelons with red, orange, yellow, and white flesh. Eggplants came in orange. And there were millions of vegetable varieties only available to those who would grow them at home. My garden has been "abnormal" ever since and there is little hope that it will ever be again!

Here's a little sampler of what's maturing in my tiny plot this year:

Purple Queen Green Beans (these turn green when cooked!)

California Wonder Pepper

Lilac Pepper

Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter Tomato

And a volunteer sunflower that makes me smile (even if most of my tomatoes are rivaling it's four foot height!)

A Pretty Table

Last night I was struck by the pastel beauty of the dinner table. So I took a picture :D

We had carrots, green peppers, and tomatoes dipped in ranch, and pizza rolls dipped in pizza sauce.

Derek brought home bananas for dessert which morphed into this.... yummy.

Did I mention that these babies have turned me into a total ice cream fanatic? Usually poor Derek has to beg me to buy ice cream and grovel to get me to make it. We've made it every week for a month now...