People Say the Darndest Things.....

In the past couple of weeks I have heard so many comments about how pregnant I look. I'm usually not offended, and at the same time I can't imagine saying the same types of things to a complete stranger. Here are a few, just for fun.

I walked into one of my favorite children's consignment stores, and before a "hello" was even exchanged, the woman behind the desk cheerfully stated, "Well, don't you look ripe."

We recently cashed in some gift cards at Cold Stone Creamery. As you may know, the small, medium, and large sizes are called 'Like It,' 'Love It,' and 'Gotta Have It.' Being savvy consumers with gift cards, we each (Erik, my mom, and I) went with 'Gotta Have It.' Leah had the 'Kiddi' size. Except for Erik, our plan was to eat some and then take the rest home. As my enormous Mud Pie Mojo was being mixed together and scooped into a large cup, the lady behind me in line sarcastically stated, "It looks like you've been here one too many times." Thanks, lady. This was probably the comment I appreciated the least.

Finaly, here is my favorite:

After dropping Leah off at day care one morning, I treated myself to a bagel at Mr. Bagel. There were three customers in the store: me, a lady on her way out, and an older gentleman at the self-serve coffee counter. When my bagel was ready I approached the register to pay, and the cashier commented, "You are eating for two!" I couldn't help myself, and I responded with, "Actually, I'm eating for three." All who overheard were surprised, and the older gentleman getting coffee politely said, "Wow, do you have any other children?" "Yes, I have a two-and-a-half year old - I'll certainly have my hands full." To which he replied, "You should really enjoy that bagel!"

All About Babies

We haven't blogged much about this pregnancy. By nature, twins pregnancies are considered high risk. While there have been little ups and downs here and there, we feel very fortunate that, in general, all has gone very well. Today I am 36 weeks and 5 days along, and thrilled to have made it this far! Thirty-seven weeks is considered "full term" for twins, so we'll probably reach that milestone on Saturday! (For those of you interested, full term is determined by the viability of the placenta or placentas. With singleton pregnancies, the placenta tends to break down around 40 weeks, and when this occurs you go in to labor. For twins and higher order multiples, this time frame is shorter.) Ok, here are a few pictures of me and the boys.

35 weeks along (April 11, 2009)

During last week's ultrasound, the technician captured some amazing 4D ultrasound images (these are essentially a series of 3D images captured rapidly and animated). They are looking kind of squished in there! Who do you think they look like?

Baby 1 above
and
Baby 2 below

Finally, here's evidence that I really do like numbers and analyzing data... particularly when it is so relevant! Today I had my 14th ultrasound - yes... 14 of them! Believe it or not, the novelty does wear off after a while. Anyway, every other week the babies weights were estimated. We've tracked the data in Excel, and here's a snapshot of what we have so far. Baby 1 has pretty much been right around the 50th percentile and Baby 2 takes after his big sister, and has been consistently off the charts!

With all the information and data we've gathered, we're more anxious than ever to meet these little guys!

Spring has sprung!

Spring has been incredibly busy in the Kramer household. We wrapped up our first session of Music Together classes. Leah absolutely adored them - she loved going to class every Saturday morning and she became even more obsessed with music, instruments, signing songs, dancing, etc. Truly, she spends about 85% of her waking hours singing away! She always sings in the car, and in the morning we are gently awakened by a 15 to 20 minute compilation of whatever happens to come to her mind. She has her favorite songs from music class and a variety of others, too - everything from all verses and hand motions of Wheels on the Bus to Zippididoodah!

We've also been doing our best to prepare for the impending arrival of the twins. Many people have asked whether or not Leah understands what will soon happen. We all understand, in theory, what it will be like to have little twin brothers at home, but I'm confident none of us are truly prepared. I will post more about the twins progress soon. One of the biggest differences, though, is the timing. We were thrilled to hit 32 weeks on March 21st (a big developmental milestone), and since then, it has felt like they could, potentially, come at any time. Fortunately, they are staying put, but it is unsettling to go week by week (ultrasound by ultrasound). Recently, we asked Leah what we should name her brothers. Without missing a beat, she said, "Brother John." This, of course, makes perfect sense when one of your favorite songs is Frere Jacques! We then asked her about her other brother. After a brief pause, she decided that his name should be Corduroy. So, for all of you wondering, John and Corduroy it is!

We've been fortunate to see Aunt Sara, Kristin, Em and Josh a couple of times this spring. We visited them at a hotel pool, and Leah could not get enough of the water! She resisted coming out of the water, shivering, on four different occasions, and then insisted upon going back in again. She's going to love the lake even more this summer!

We visited one of my colleagues, Betsy, on a Sunday afternoon in April. She generously offered for us to borrow the crib that all three of her children used. Her children are now all in grad school, and she's hanging on to it for grandchildren, but felt it was safe for us to store it for the next three years or so! Betsy and her husband Len live on five acres of land with a pond (still frozen over), bees, chickens, and a huge garden space. Leah got to meet the chickens up close and helped collect some of their eggs - great practice for Easter! She also had a ball running around in the garden mud with the chickens.

We drove to Boston to celebrate Easter with Aunt Sara, Kris, Em, Josh, and Nila. However, before our trip we had to prep Leah with our own little Easter egg hunt at home. The Easter bunny came during her nap, and she quickly picked up on the process. Prior to her nap, we asked her what she thought the Easter Bunny might bring her. After thinking for a moment, she decided that it made the most amount of sense for the Easter Bunny to bring carrots! So, we did fill some of her eggs with carrots! And, Erik and I are thrilled to start this new tradition!

For some reason, we didn't take any pictures on Easter Sunday itself - I think Erik may have some on his phone. As always, we enjoyed seeing our cousins and Leah really realized how much she likes candy and chocolate! So much for carrots!

Here are a few cute shots of Leah. She's really into the concept of two. She's been able to count up to 20 for a while now, but the concept behind each amount is different. So, every morning I ask her if she wants one or two ponies (pony tails / pig tails), and recently she insists upon "two ponies with two clips, please." Pretty darn adorable, if you ask me!

Finally, Leah recently transitioned to a "big girl bed." She's done remarkably well - she hasn't fallen out yet (we don't have a guard), and we're pleased to report that her bed time routine is so ingrained that she hasn't decided to get out of bed for any reason. She is SO good - her only request is to have the light on so she can "read" in bed, and she's even amenable to us turning this off after 5 minutes or so. How did we get so lucky? We can only hope the twins don't have payback in mind....

Night, night!

Maine Maple Sunday 2009

We visited Cooper's Farm in Windham with Owen and his dad on Maine Maple Sunday (March 22nd). It was a gorgeous day and we all enjoyed great company, tasty treats, all the animals, and the mud and ice!

Here, Leah is fascinated with the steam produced by the syrup boiling process. Did you know that it takes approximately 40 gallons of raw sap to make one gallon of maple syrup? No wonder the stuff is so expensive!

Owen and Leah both had seconds on ice cream. However, when I asked Leah which she liked better, eating ice cream or walking in the mud puddles, she exclaimed, "Mud Puddles!!!"

We walked up the dirt / mud road to see the cows, tractors, peacocks, and ostriches. Once she got the hang of it, at each puddle Leah paused and said with a grin, "Leah see how deep this puddle is." She entertained many other visitors in the process.

Along the way, there was a frozen stream that attracted lots of kids. I stayed on sure ground, but Owen, Leah, and the dads couldn't get enough of the slipping and sliding.

To see more of our winter pictures on Picasa Web, click here.

Fun in February and March

We continued to enjoy more and more snow in February and March. Leah and Payson (and actually all the moms and dads, too) had a blast sledding in Payson's back yard. We should really have a picture of Sarah and me (and three babies in utero) laughing hysterically as we sledded from their front yard, around the house, and into the back yard!

I love this shot of Leah pushing Payson in her swing. A very diplomatic little girl, as it soon became apparent that Leah wanted a turn herself!

Birdie came to visit for February break. Unfortunately, her trip was a challenging one - she endured a nerve-wrackingly windy landing in Newark, experienced a lot of pain in one of her knees, and then was delayed again on her way back to Florida. Nonetheless, we always love having her visit. Leah was very compassionate and gave her knee lots of kisses to get better. (It eventually did once she had some fluid drained back in Florida.)

Reading with Birdie and Baby.

Daddy came home with a wonderful surprise one evening - at work he had been given a couple of pounds of fresh Maine shrimp! Leah loved inspecting the "little lobsters." And, she loved eating them, too. In fact, she insisted upon peeling them herself!

Finally, by mid to late March, we broke out the swing for the season. Leah was thrilled! She loves to swing and she's also turning into a great climber at playgrounds! It's so much fun to watch her gain more and more confidence - maybe there is hope for me to get back into rock climbing someday!

The Rest of January...

Here I go again... trying to catch up on our blog. I know it would be much easier to do it incrementally, but I haven't been successful with that approach lately. We had another incredible Maine winter - lots and lots of snow! We got outside to sled and ski as much as possible, and we also enjoyed about five snow days!

In late January, we made our annual trek down to camp in the winter. Due to some construction happening down at the lake, the top half of the road was actually plowed. We lucked out, because the second half of the trek was a real trudge.

Leah had lots of fun sledding down, as did Erik skiing! For the trip up, Erik skied with Leah in a pack, which we figured was fair as I was already carrying the other two!

All looked great at camp, and visiting on such a chilly day had us imagining how much fun it will be to return during much warmer summer days with the whole gang!

Here is Leah helping to make Powerful Pancakes to start off one of our snow days together. She absolutely loves to help out in the kitchen, whether it is setting the table, cooking, or washing dishes (really playing at the sink...)!

Finally, here is a photo of my growing belly. The photo was taken on January 21st and I was 23.5 weeks along.

A Musical Birthday Bash

Leah had lots of fun with so many of her buddies at her Musical Birthday Bash!

Ring Around the Rosie and a parade (with drums, maracas, a triangle, etc.) through the living room, hallway, kitchen and dining room were our attempts at "organized events." It was pretty funny with 2 year olds!

Along with a variety of other snacks, we celebrated with chocolate cupcakes and carrot cupcakes. Yummy!

We also covered the dining room floor with paper for coloring. It served as a catch-all for crumbs, too! Payson and Leah were pretty goofy together - jumping all around and copying each other. I love Leah's adoring look in this photo.

Oh Boy, Oh Boy!!!

As many of you know, our little family is growing at quite a rate. On November 6, 2008 we learned that we are expecting not one, but TWO babies in April or May!!! Just before we left for the holidays, on December 18, 2008, we learned that Leah and I are going to be totally outnumbered - two boys are on the way! For whatever reason, they call them Baby 1 and Baby 2 (instead of A and B) these days. Anyway, here are some stats:

Baby 1 - on my left side, currently head down, and first out (if I can avoid a C-section)
13 ounces as of 1/2/09

Baby 2 - on my right side, currently breech (but still with lots of room to move around)
1 pound and 1 ounce as of 1/2/09

Here are some profile images of the little guys.

Baby 1 (above)
Baby 2 (below)

Happy 2nd Birthday, Sweet Leah!

We can hardly believe that Leah is already 2 years old! Look how much she's grown!

Leah on her actual birth day.

Leah on her 1st birthday!

And, a series of pictures of Leah on her 2nd birthday in Seattle.

Blowing out the two candles on her snowman birthday cake.

Leah's big cousin Maria decorating her cake. Nice work, Maria!

To celebrate Leah's birthday, we visited the Pacific Science Center with her west coast cousins! The Science Center had lots of really cool exhibits, but we focused on the Butterfly House area.

Monica, Anja, and Leah sitting on a giant caterpillar!

Playing in and around a huge inflatable caterpillar.

Watching some butterflies with Jack.

To see many more pictures of our Seattle adventures, click here.

Christmas in Seattle

Despite our trip being delayed, we had a lovely visit with Erik's side of the family in Seattle over Christmas. Here are just a few images.

Kramer family Christmas dinner (celebrated on the 27th)

Leah with her Great Nana

All the girl cousins in matching PJ's

Leah, on the eve of her 2nd birthday, getting a kick out of her mom's reaction to balloons in her face!

There are too many images of our trip to post - if you'd like to see more, click here.

Pre-Christmas Miscellanea

Our first snow of the year - just a dusting, but exciting none-the-less!

Leah's very first haircut - just a trim of about an inch in the back (we're trying to grow it out to all one length, but Leah's fondness of "clips" and "ponies" varies by the minute!)

Since we traveled to Seattle this year for Christmas, we celebrated a small family Christmas the weekend before we left. Sadly, the week prior, both Leah and Erik were home sick with a virus. Leah was hit really hard - she was out of day care for a week and a half with a fever and then numerous, hideous sores both inside and outside her mouth. Through some sort of miracle, my mom was able to find a reasonably priced flight up from Florida - I honestly don't know what we would have done without her help. The extra bonus was that we got to celebrate our early Christmas with her!

Our little tree.

Leah enjoying some of her new gifts (a stroller for baby and a harmonica)

Last year's visit with Santa was tearful, but Leah actually sat on Santa's lap. This year, Leah talked and talked like a very brave girl - "Leah sittin' Santa's lap" and "Leah say ho, ho, ho Santa." Even while waiting, she gave no indication of her real plans. However, when the moment arrived, she held on to me with a death grip, and wouldn't even turn around to sit in my lap next to Santa for a photo. So, this is our year 2 photo. I have a feeling it will be a few years before she's brave enough to 'walk the talk.'

Here's a picture of our house on the morning we were suppose to leave for Seattle! We flew out three days later. To give PWM some credit, they were landing and taking off as usual on this particular day - it was a variety of other New England airports that caused our delays, combined with booked holiday flights.