"Gobble gobble! I'm a yummy turkey!"

That's what Katie said when she was pretending to be a turkey, and I told her that we cook turkeys and eat them for Thanksgiving. She seemed to think that was funny. I then proceeded to pretend to eat her, much to her delight.

Well, did you all survive? I think we did. I took a bunch of pictures of our vacation days, but I think I'll talk first and picture later.

Well, first, we got to go to the rededication of the Boise Temple (yay!). The night before, there was a big youth cultural celebration with the prophet, which was so full of youth that the grown-ups had to watch the broadcast from their respective stake centers. It was pretty awesome, though. My siblings had a ton of fun.

Then, for Family Home Evening on Monday, we put up Christmas!!! I know what you're thinking. Thanksgiving hadn't happened yet. But you know what? I think Christmas should be a year-long holiday. So we've been listening to Christmas music for, like, a month or two, and we put up our tree as soon as it was cold enough. Besides, every time we walk into the family room from the kitchen or the upstairs, Katie has to run to the tree, put her hands on her cheeks and exclaim, "Christmas tree! It's beautiful! I love the Christmas tree!"

Mike only got Thursday and Friday off, so vacation didn't include the whole week like it did for my siblings. Well, actually, we did get to go hang out with Mike on his lunch break on Tuesday, and I finally met his boss and some more people from his work. They were all just rather glad to finally meet Katie, I think.

Thursday was quite a day. In keeping with tradition, the big feast was held out on my grandparents' farm with everybody (which is a lot). However, we went over rather early because my dear father and brothers borrowed their friend's dirt bikes for the weekend and wanted Mike to come ride in the hills with them. Sigh.

Yes, I have kind of a problem with motorcycles. But Mike sure had the time of his life. He came back all red  from the cold and grinning his cheeks off, only sporting one black and purple toe. Oh, and also a broken piece of fence. Sorry, Gram.

The only thing that really went wrong was that right in the middle of food preparation, with, like, forty hands going at once in the kitchen, the stuff under Gram's sink started leaking like crazy. We had to keep emptying buckets and my dad had to go all the way back to his house to find a part to fix it because (thankfully for the employees) the hardware stores are all closed on Thanksgiving.

Then we ate a whole lot of food. Like, a whole lot. And there was a lot of lethargy following. But while our stomachs digested, my dad and his personal band went to the music room and started rockin' out some Christmas tunes, and, of course, Katie had to participate. She just couldn't help herself. It was pretty cute.

After we thought (mistakenly) that our stomachs were down to normal size again, we opened up the pies. Oh, boy. I should have waited longer and then gone slower. I only could eat a little bit, and I'm pretty sure pie should be the national food.

Such was our Thanksgiving. I'm pretty sure it was a successful day, don't you think?

Friday we went to the Festival of Trees downtown, and it was . . . eh. I was kind of excited for the live music they always have going, but it was just some old ladies singing off-key. I think we just missed the awesome carolers in their 19th-century outfits, and just as we were leaving some little tiny ballerinas came out in fluffy pink tutus and we almost stayed for them (if I hadn't been so sore, we would have). We saw some pretty clever trees and wreaths though, including an Avengers-themed tree and several Mickey Mouse ones that Katie loved.

In other news: Saturday night, Mike's stomach thing struck again. Luckily, he had his Phenergan from last time and was able to sleep slightly more and keep water down so we didn't have to take him to the emergency room for more fluid. But he definitely couldn't go to church. Monday he was well enough again to go back to work, but seriously? I'm starting to think it might be some kind of allergic reaction, because he says he didn't actually feel better in the ER until he got Benadryl, and that was the third time it had happened like that. (The first time was the night before his interview in Chicago, and there was definitely some divine intervention involved the next morning getting him to his interview.)

Now he just has to not eat anything weird or different before his interview in Des Moines on Friday. (Ought we really to give Iowa a try? We're pretty contrary . . .) (Sorry, I couldn't help it.) But we did find out that Des Moines is listed as one of the top places to live in the country. Cool, huh? It might be nice for raising some crazy children.

Now for some pictures. Yes, a significant amount of them are blurrier than I would like. My excuse? It was dark so I had to try and make them brighter, but no one in my family is capable of holding still. At least you'll get the idea.

Uncle Sam teaching Katie the proper way to deal with a leaf pile.

I call this "American Tutus."

I can't believe that I'm putting this picture up (although it makes my belly look smaller than it is), but Katie's actually smiling . . .

The boys getting ready to go tear it up on their bikes (Mike is the one on the bike.) 

Writing thankful lists with Grandma (Katie didn't eat much at dinner because she spent all day with her cheeks full of bread and cucumbers from the veggie tray.)

Hastily fixing the sink

She seemed to think it funny that her pants refused to stay on.

She insisted that Abuelo needed someone to play with him as a duet, while also singing louder than all the brass instruments (the video was too long or I'd have put it on here)

This wreath was designed by the main OR department at St. Alphonsus. I just couldn't help it.

"I'm a snowman!"

"Cheese!"

This is the only one I could get of her in the tutu with her magic wand where she wasn't spinning around in circles too fast for a picture. Please ignore her messy closet and the basket of dirty laundry.

How was that? Am I forgiven for not posting for a couple weeks? I did make this whole resolution last time that I was going to keep up and write once a week, and you can see how well that turned out. Well, I'll have to get on in a couple weeks after our big 20 week ultrasound and put up more pictures of the boys anyway, so you're guaranteed at least every other week.

Merry Christmas!

Hope you made your guesses!

It seems our family dynamic is about to change dramatically. I guess having twins does that to you.

What's that you say? You already knew we were having twins? Well, sorry. But it's kind of a big deal. I'm going to be talking about that a lot.

I'm just joshing ya. Remember that one time how Mike currently lives in a house full of women (Katie and I being the quite loud, house-filling women)? Well, it seems that come next spring we women might be slightly outnumbered.

Yup. TWIN BOYS.

Here they are.

Thing 1:

Thing 2:

What did you think, I was going to display their man parts? Nobody wants that on the internet!

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around this.

While we let that sink in, want to hear about our trip to the emergency room this week? We still don't know why it happened.

Sunday night after dinner, Mike started feeling queasy. (This was not a surprise. Boy has the stomach of a newborn child.) So we went about business as usual. Went to bed at a relatively decent hour, and I, amazingly, fell asleep quite rapidly.

Well, somewhere in the middle of the night, I realized that Mike was not in bed with me. I waited for him to come back, but he didn't. My brain fell behind and I went back to sleep. Sometime after 5, I woke up enough to be conscious and determine what was going on. Mike had slept for maybe two hours in the night (not consecutively) and had spent most of it downstairs throwing up where he wouldn't wake up the girls. I checked on him, tried to see if he could nibble saltines or if Fresca helped (the bubbles usually help my tummy). He told me to go back to bed, so I made sure our phones were in our respective locations. Sometime after 6, he told me something was not right and he wanted to go to the emergency room.

See, he had been throwing up all night, and who hasn't had a night like that? But things were only getting worse, and he couldn't even keep down sips of water. He actually was shaking quite violently. So I put on clothes and brushed my teeth and called my mom to come get Katie. (Katie would probably not make things more fun in the emergency room.) We only had to wait a couple minutes for Grandma (who I suspect was already awake getting ready to boot some kids out the door to school) and headed off.

Want to know something funny? This wasn't anything like the last time I took Mike to the emergency room. (Remember that delightful appendectomy last summer?) Then he had been throwing up and having real pain and I had been all freaked out because we'd never had anything like this and holy cow what am I supposed to do with my nursing baby? But this time? It's cool, man. It's cool.

No, I'm serious! Ask Mike, I was even telling jokes and being all friendly with the insurance lady and the nurses and stuff. I was so chill and not stressed about things, I felt like my dad. Weird, huh?

Well, they tried some Zofran on Mike (the magical drug that they give cancer patients and pregnant ladies for nausea), but that did absolutely nothing. In fact, he only started getting worse. So after a while of observation that was quite miserable and some rather frustrating waiting, they switched to Phenergan (which is the step usually before Zofran, which I tried when pregnant with Katie, and which had absolutely no effect on me). Happily, that began to work, but it also knocked mister sick boy out almost completely. Which meant that for the next period of observation and waiting, I was quite bored. (That's the only reason I was frustrated during this trip. No book.)

After they figured out that the Phenergan was (kind of) working, and after pumping three bags of fluid into Mr Dehydration's system, they gave us some prescriptions and a diagnosis of dehydration and hypovolemia (not enough blood volume) and sent us home, where Mike got a blessing and where he crashed until after dinner time. Good times, wot?

So, he didn't come with me to my doctor appointment this morning, because he's still home trying to make sure he can eat and not puke before going back to work. But he was no less excited about the boys. Trust me.

Hope you're all warming up for turkey day! Have fun!

The Sticky-Note Post

Remember that sticky note I mentioned last time? Well here it is. (It was real, by the way. Like, an actual sticky note. It's pink.) There are so many things going on with us right now and so many cute things Katie has done (mostly silly Katie things), I'm not really sure where to start. But I'm definitely going to be checking things off the list to make sure I got them all. (And also this is going to be one seriously long post. You might want to get some popcorn or hummus or something.)

Oh! Before I begin my sticky note, I should tell you: this next Tuesday is my 16 weeks appointment, and because we get an ultrasound at every appointment, there is a possibility (not a guarantee) that we could know what the babies are at this one! So if anybody wants to take a guess, you should do it now, and we'll see who wins. (Oh, and if you guess that they're the same, like two boys or two girls, then we'll have a competition on who thinks they're identical and who thinks they're fraternal. Because technically, they could be either.) But that one, we wouldn't know who won until the little ninjas are born, because there's no way to know until then. (Unless it's a boy and a girl. Then it would be totally obvious. Duh.)

Me at 15 Weeks=Yuck

 Okay, big news first: Mike was accepted to medical school! He had his first interview at the DO school at Midwestern University and two weeks later, they offered him a spot! (YAY!!!!) He has two more interviews lined up, so we're not for sure going there, but at least we have a plan. Be sure to congratulate soon-to-be Dr. Mike next time you see him. He's pretty awesome.

In other big news, the temple open house is still going on. We went that first week when Mike's sister was here (Hi, Amy & Co.!) and Katie has not stopped talking about it ever since. Every morning, her first announcement is "Go to a temple with Daddy today." She's not asking. Unfortunately, we haven't had a lot of time to go again just yet. Don't worry, we're planning on it.

But even when we don't go, Katie is definitely temple-focused. Any building with spires or that is white is a temple. In fact, there was a castle in one of her princess coloring books, and she got really excited and said, "look! A temple!" That's right. Castles look like temples. Not the other way around. Also, every time it's Katie's turn to say the prayer, it goes something like this as I whisper in her ear:

Me: We thank thee for our family
Katie: Thank thee for a temple
Me: And our family
Katie: And a temple
Me: (Sigh) Thank thee for Daddy
Katie: Thank thee for a temple!

I've tried saying "We thank thee for the temple" first to see if she'd move on, but no. She just is thankful for the temple.

My favorite temple moment so far happened last week when Katie wanted to sing the temple song ("I love to see the temple" from the Children's Songbook). Now, she's not like other nursery kids. She actually knows all the words and usually sings in tune with me. It's pretty impressive. And this one has become one of her favorites. However, I discovered that she doesn't actually know what all the words mean. (Surprise!)

So we sang through the song, and as many of you know, the song ends with saying that preparing to go to the temple is "my sacred duty." Katie immediately got about an inch from my face (this is how I know it's important) and said, "What's duty?" So I explained, simply, that duty meant doing good things, the things we were supposed to do. Katie thought for a second, then said, "like baptized?" After my initial shock, I said, "Yes, exactly, like getting baptized." This seemed to clear up the matter, and she moved on to "Wheels on the Bus."

Speaking of singing, remind me for next time to attempt to capture the "I am a Child of God" rap. Or, if we're lucky, the ABCs. I need some video. And you guys will probably just about die.

But as I don't have any videos of such singing yet, we must press on.

Katie and Daddy having a Benny Goodman jam session

One of the punkin's defining characteristics lately is definitely (attempted) independence. Yes, she is almost two years old. How did you know? And the most common way that this is exhibited is through all of her getting dressed times. See, Katie is quite a fan of her footie pajamas. She is very depressed about the recent retirement of the 18-month sized twinkle star jammies, but she revels in her cupcake jammies and her snowman jammies. They are her pride and joy.

But mostly the zippers. She LOVES zippers. And if Mommy or Daddy tries to zip up or down for her, there is drama. Oh man, is there drama. So jammies are Katie's territory. But recently, so is all of her other clothing. If I try to choose her outfit in the morning, there is a significant amount of screaming and clawing and I end up just giving up and letting her sit naked on the floor until she calms down. So we have now gotten into a pattern of "If you let Mommy change your diaper, you can pick your clothes by yourself." Which means I change her and retreat to my rocking chair, then watch as she spends a significant amount of time running around in her underwear before finally choosing her purple pony sweatshirt and some blue and green stripey pants. Or something equally as heinous. And I must employ all of my skillful persuasion tactics to get her into something I would let her wear in public. Sometimes, though, I just can't get to her.

Why does she even own these pants?

But the best part? Watching her try to get herself dressed. After a few tries, she'll usually come over and let me orient the articles of clothing before she pulls them on. But the other day, she put on a little pair of brown, fleece-lined pants that we discovered had a little itty-bitty zipper fly and snap. They were also elastic, so Katie had no problem putting them on, until she noticed the zipper and snap. And OFF they went. She asked me to undo the snap, and she undid the zipper, and then she could put the pants on. And then zip them. And then ask me to do the snap up again. Seriously, kid?

As you can probably guess, a significant amount of Katie's genes came from rather obsessive-compulsive family members. And they're definitely not mine. I don't know where she got them. (*cough cough Auntie Sarah cough*) And there are more hilarious examples of her OCD. Let me illustrate.

One of my mom's favorite things to tease all of her OCD kids about is that we (mostly I) eat my skittle/M&Ms/jelly beans in rainbow order. That means ROYGBIV. Red ones first. And I will not eat an orange one until I have finished the red ones. Well, Katie hasn't quite got the order down, but she's working on it. Every day, if she eats her lunch all gone, she gets to pick a candy from her Halloween bucket. Her favorites so far are the little things of M&Ms. And she will not eat a green one until the blue ones are gone. I haven't watched her through the whole thing, but I think it goes red, yellow, blue, green, brown. I think.

Another example! We have three cushions on our sofa. I didn't realize it, but I guess I had got into the habit of always sitting on the one on the left (so I could lean on a pillow on the arm rest, of course). Well, Katie has got it into her head that the left one is Mommy's couch, the middle one is Katie's couch, and the right one is Daddy's couch. Heaven help the one who crosses the cushion boundaries.

But I think one of the funniest ones has to do when we're hanging out with my parents. I have, on several occasions, been talking to one of my parents, and, thinking that Katie was in the other room completely oblivious to our conversation, called them "mom" or "dad." On such occasions, Katie has come running over to me, passionately announcing that "That's not Mommy, that's Grandma! This is Mommy!" (Gesturing vigorously at me.) The same thing happens with my dear father, should I forget myself and call him "dad." The last time it happened, we patiently tried to explain that "Katie, this is my daddy." Kind of like how we explained that Uncle Jared was Spencer's daddy. But no. "That's not daddy, that's Abuelo!"

In a similar vein, I made the mistake the other day of referring to myself as "mama" when talking to Katie. I was quickly corrected. "Not mama, Mom-MY!"

She has also become quite "helpful" of late. Mostly when it comes to cooking. I'm not allowed to cook or make anything without her, even her peanut butter sandwiches. She was quite offended last night when I wasn't going to let her help make the french toast. But the cutest thing ever was a couple weeks ago when Mike decided to make banana chocolate-chip muffins on a Sunday afternoon, and Katie decided to help. Of course she couldn't help Daddy unless they were both wearing aprons. (Note to self: next project is to make aprons that fit shorty cakes.)

And then there are all the things that she does that are just goofy. For example, last week her favorite animal was a frog. This means that all the time, she was a frog, hopping about and ribbiting. Her first announcements of the morning were "Frogs need breakfast! Frogs eat bananas and toast." Good to know, kid. She even got upset when I was trying to get her ready for the day because "I need to be a frog!"

One of my favorites came from Dr. Seuss. Ever read his ABCs? I is for itchy, itchy Ichabod! So the other day, Katie's sitting in her car seat as we're driving somewhere, and she starts furiously scratching her stomach. "I have a Ichabod!" Mike and I totally busted up.

One of her favorite games is to play pretend, but only if she can stay one step ahead of Mommy. For example, "I'm a horse!" (enter her blowing raspberries like a horse) "Oh yeah? You're a horse?" "I'm not a horse, I'm a bunny! Hop, hop!" "A bunny?" "I'm not a bunny, I'm a puppy! Arf!" "Oh, you're a puppy now?" "I'm not a puppy, I'm a Katie!" It usually lasts much longer than that, or she'll just correct us once. "I'm not a super hero, I'm a Katie! No, I'm a super Katie!" It's pretty great.

But my favorite, definitely, has been since we went to see Sarah and Parker's marching band show from this year. Most of Katie's toys since have become some sort of wind instrument, and she periodically starts waiving her arms around when there's music. I'll say, "Are you conducting the band like Auntie Sarah?" And she says, "Yes. I'm a marching band!" The best was when we were at the farm a few weeks ago. Katie found some sort of toy hammer and something that could be a drum, and spent most of the weekend marching around the house, banging on her drum, and singing "toot de toot!" Whenever she'd get close to one of the grown-ups, she'd say, "I'm a marching band!" This kid has a good future, does she not?

Just catchin' some sun.

Well, that's everything on my sticky note. Sorry the post was so long. Hopefully you enjoyed it anyway. And I might attempt to keep my posts slightly shorter in the future. It would help if I remembered to write more than once every other month, huh? Well, we'll see. Happy November!

I love candy! I need more trick-or-treating!

I know what you're thinking. You're saying, "Britt, Halloween was on Wednesday. Seriously, what took you so long?" And I'll say, um, well . . . I don't have a good retort. But at least I'm telling you, right? And it's the whole story. Complete with (limited) illustration.

Overall, I believe it was quite successful. We began the day with my mom coming over to finish our costumes. (Not Katie's. She had hers ready and was practicing wearing it for about a week and a half before.) Mine was quite awesome.

Remember that whole thing about how I've having twins? Well, there is an enormous wealth of awesome things to do with Halloween when you're pregnant, but this is my one chance to wear something awesome that has to do with growing two babies. So, enter a bunch of felt and some tacky glue.

Yeah, I'm pretty cool. But my mom's costume was even cooler. We stuffed some nylons, stuck some velcro on her sweater, and dug through a spare magazine for makeup ads full of eyes and lips. And voila!

Meanwhile, Katie made a nest in Grandma's box full of batting. I wish we'd gotten a picture of that. She was tucked in with most of her stuffed animals and several novels I only acquired because of my English classes. But she also got Shelley's Frankenstein. That's Halloween-y, right?

Then we had to stick her in her chair for lunch, and she couldn't understand why she couldn't go to Grandma's house to go trick-or-treating right then. We had to promise that she could when Daddy got home from work. And then Grandma bribed her with jelly beans. Typical.

("These are tomatoes, Mommy. More beans, please?")

My mom had to leave to go take care of somebody's class Halloween party (yes, I do have a brother in 1st grade. I'm awesome like that) so Katie and I finished off the jelly beans by ourselves. It was difficult, but we managed. As soon as lunch was over, Katie insisted  that it was time to go trick-or-treating and proceeded to put on her costume, which she wore for the rest of the day. And still I did not take a picture.

MEANWHILE, AT A NOT-SO-DISTANT DOCTOR'S OFFICE . . .

Mike and I had spent the night before frantically trying to figure out what he should dress up as, because he was the only one who didn't have a costume planned out. And (surprise!) we couldn't think of anything. I think we could have if we'd kept trying, but he kind of chickened out. Well, when he got to work the next morning, other people had dressed up, and there was a costume contest. Rather than admit that he hadn't dressed up, he told his coworkers that he was a supermodel. Typical.

The best part though? He won. There was a tie, but he won the costume contest as a supermodel. This is ridiculous. Thanks, coworkers. Really appreciate it.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE HOME FRONT . . .

So nap time came, and I really couldn't sleep. (Seriously? Sleeping becomes medically necessary for me now and I lose my ability to do it? Seriously?) The Katie totally crashed though. Like, for a long time. I managed to sleep for, like, maybe half an hour, and then woke up to put some finishing touches on Katie's costume and to put on some dramatic Halloween makeup (or maybe any makeup at all.) Mike got home and Katie woke up and we all got dressed and Katie decided she wanted some dramatic Halloween makeup too. To her shock and amazement, I said yes just for Halloween, and put a minimal amount of glitter on her cheeks (leftover from my glittery teenage girl days) and drew a purple star on her cheek (to match the purple ribbon on her hat.) She was pretty adorable.

I had had a stroke of genius while Mike was at work (and he was NOT going to go trick-or-treating as a "supermodel"), so he was a sock monkey. It turned out pretty well for how last-minute it was, I think.

So we set off for Grandma's house (her neighborhood is much more lucrative than mine in the candy department) and I still did not take any pictures. Are you seeing a pattern in my intelligence level yet?

Immediately upon our arrival, Katie was swarmed by adoring fans . . . er, aunts and uncles. And they made her giggle, so I snapped a couple pictures with my phone (because I had realized my enormous mistake by this point.)

From here on out, the pictures are provided by my parents and their camera. They're dark and blurry because of all the Halloween-iness, and because I was a dunce and forgot my fancy camera that can deal with dark and blurry situations. But I am SO glad that somebody had the presence of mind to have a camera out. So there is evidence.

So Daddy and Abuelo took Katie and her uncles out trick-or-treating, and because I love to watch other people fawn over my adorable baby, I tagged along. Man, was it worth it. All the people who usually give you one or two (if you're lucky) were like, "Oh my gosh! She's so cute! Here, sweetheart, take as much as you want!" So she did. Mike actually had to pull her away from a few doors because the sweet old ladies weren't going to stop her from taking the entire bucket of candy.

My favorite story of the night? She had just trick-or-treated at someone's house, and was coming down their front steps holding my dad's hand, and her pumpkin bucket swung over her shoulder so she was holding it behind her, and she actually began to fall over backwards from the weight. The bucket of candy was heavier than the girl could carry. You know you've really scored when you can't even carry your bucket.

So the next time we saw my mom (she was roving in an actual vehicle for our transportation convenience) my dad emptied most of Katie's bucket into a bag so that she would still be able to carry it. She did not see him do this. She did not see the extra bag of candy. But when we got out of the car at a different part of the neighborhood and Abuelo gave her back her bucket, she noticed. She looked in the bucket, saw only a few pieces of candy, and got super mad. "Abuelo! Give it back!" Yeah, he was in a lot of trouble. Luckily, we managed to distract her by taking her to another house for more candy.

Well, we went at it for a while, saw a lot of other people we knew, got a huge 'ole bucket of loot, and stopped to go home when Mommy and Daddy were tired. Seriously, Katie could have gone all night. Come on, Mom. There's candy involved. We really have to stop?

So we went back to Grandma and Abuelo's house and evaluated the results of our evening. Katie did pretty well. But then she noticed that there was candy that could actually be eaten, and I don't think she let her mouth get empty of jelly beans for the rest of the night.

Well, after she did about 300 laps of Grandma's house, we decided it was time to attempt to go home for bed (mostly because Mommy was weeping from exhaustion and back pain.) We managed to get the witchy-poo and her candy out to the car and back home to bed, and oh man. That sugar crash sure did her in.

The next morning she didn't wake me up until 9:30 (Wonder of wonders! Miracle of miracles!) and then we had a super lazy day where I didn't wear makeup (um, surprise . . .) and we just kind of rested and played. And also Katie couldn't understand why I would think that she had to eat lunch before she could dig into her Halloween candy.

That night she got really mad when we said we weren't going back to Grandma's house to go trick-or-treating with Abuelo again. Come on, Mommy! I need more trick-or-treating!

Stay tuned for next week when I'm going to write another whole post about all the random funny things the Katie has taken to doing. I have a whole sticky-note list of them to remind myself. They're quite fantastic. But this post has already been way too long. So you're just going to have to wait.