And of course...the twins

Twin "b" is the top picture and twin "a" is the bottom picture. They're turned a bit away so u cant get a good look at their faces but you can see their little arms and legs.

The shock of the twins has slowly worn off and regardless of the state of things, i'm starting to get really excited. I just need to make it past the stage i'm in. At almost 11 weeks, I am puking my guts out basically every day, which doesnt help considering its tax season, so i'm not just working at the shop and doing my seamstressing, but working in the office too. I know i was sick with Justin & Jaret, but nothing compared to this. Twice the hormones, twice the sicky and unfortunately NOTHING helps, not even my zappy band. I past the climax of hormones supposedly, so hopefully i'll finally be getting better from here.

Regardless of the puking and loss of weight linked to that, i am already growing like a blimp, its insane! I've already got a bit of a belly and i don't doubt that in a few weeks i will surpass my sister who is 6 weeks further along than me. Jason keeps talking about how he wants to paint my belly...riiiiight. The kids are really excited and have been such a help. As you can guess, they both hope there is one of each for them to play with. I don't doubt there probably is as it feels like my body is fighting itself with symptoms i've had both when pregnant with boy and girl. I was in the dr on monday and i'll admit its fun being able to get an ultrasound each time. They both have grown so much and are doing really well and wiggling around. So far so good. Lets just pray it stays that way!

Other matters of business

January has been quite a start to 2009 so far. After the shock of finding out about the twins, Jason was laid off from his work on the 16th to the shock of many. Whats ironic is that their layoffs are linked to the election, not the economy. They rely on government contracts (steel for the fence border, and armor for our military vehicles etc) so when obama was elected, all government contracts relating to that were cancelled. As much as people hate war, thats what brought us through tough times in the past, war is good business and brings us work. People forget that. OSM has laid off over half their employees within 2 months and those that are still there are now making less than Jason will be making on unemployment due to so many paycuts, so its probably a blessing for us in disguise.

Its interesting how one year ago my life was finally settling down, we were taking a breath and moving full steam ahead. Now we are living life day to day, praying for some miracle to keep a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, and food in our bellies. Jason is still in the running for the big job he applied for in october so we pray that works out. After hundreds and hundreds of applicants originally applied and various cuts along the way, about 400 made it to the test in december, and now its down to just over 100 people for 30 jobs. All we can do now is wait and pray. Life will move on, we will continue to survive. The state of the world aint pretty, but we are fighters.

Speaking of cats

Loki is still trying to figure out she is getting too big for the top of the couch

It has long been a debate in my house as to the sanity of our animals. Do crazy animals naturally gravitate towards us, or do they become crazy after living with us? We have a 7 year old 130 lb newfoundland that hops around thinking she's part bunny rabbit, a rabbit that beats up one of our cats and has a "coke" problem, chickens that think they're geese, and the cats....well...the cats are a story in and of themselves:

Cat #1: Sydney, our woodhcuck. Sydney was a rescue cat like pretty much all our other animals. Jason swore he hated cats, but let Justin bring her home anyway. We were warned when we got her that she was a bit odd for a calico. She's the most normal of the cats, as she likes to hunt outside and definitely has very catlike moments. She has a penchant for belly rubs and concrete ("love the concrete, oh love the concrete!") and is known for falling off cars and other high things she tries to love. It was recently pointed out to us that it is not normal for a cat to follow you all the way to school, wait patiently for you to come out, and follow you back home. Apparently that's a trait of dogs, not cats. We love our sydney woodchuck.

Cat #2: Loki, our alien. Loki was found at about 2-3 weeks old chasing cranes at Jason's work. He brought the tiny 2 lb emaciated kitten home and she never left. Loki is now our biggest cat weighing in over 15 lbs, unfortunately she doesnt realize that and is terrified of everything. She never learned how to properly meow, so depending on her mood, she sounds like either a high pitched telephone "briiing" or a toyota prius "meepmeep." She has a terrible addiction to airsoft bbs (her only true love in life), eats whip cream out of the can, and becomes a musical instrument when holding her properly with all the funny high pitched noises she makes. She is fully an indoor cat, but every so often she makes a break for the great outdoors, gets about 2 feet from the door, then stops petrified and waits for someone to bring her back into the safety of the house.

Cat #3: Trooper, our dog. Jason brought trooper home as a kitten as well, this time from the adoption place we got sydney. He's the runt of the bunch, yet has the lowest and loudest meow, and dumb as a doornail. He has jumped into the oven while turned on, stuck his face into the flame of our stove, among other brilliant stunts. He also tries to hang out outside, but with the IQ rating of celery, we don't trust him outside and quickly grab a laser pointer or fishing pole to reel him back in the house. He also has about a 10 second memory, so he cant seem to retain new knowledge and constantly gets beaten up by the rabbit. He's definitely our "special ed" cat.

So we continue to ask ourselves, have we turned our animals psycho or do the psycho gravitate towards us? I think its a little bit of both, but i'm not complaining. After all, not everyone can say their cat sounds like a toyota prius!

The cats are outta the bag

So I made it through December. It was a very tough and emotional month, but I made it. I'll admit to my benefit though, my focus ended up getting shifted a bit. As life would have it, a week before Jaret's due date I found out i was prego yet again, this time due August 25 (a little over a week after the 1 year anniversary of Jaret's death). Jason kept harassing me with the "fact" that we were obviously having twins (a boy AND a girl), which i laughed off since in the history of my family, twins have never happened. We decided to keep completely silent on the whole baby matter until i was a lot farther along....and then i had my first appt that changed everything...

I had an early ultrasound done this week just to make sure everything was ok and put everyone's mind at ease considering what happened this summer. After going into the ultrasound room half an hour late, i lay on the table and wait to see the first pictures of our little one. I look up at the screen as she puts the wand on my belly and jason blurts out "THERE'S TWO PEANUTS! I TOLD YOU SO!" The tech laughs and congratulates us on our upcoming twins. I think i went a whiter shade of pale at that point. After all, look back 300 years of my family and there are NO twins! NONE! These lil ones we can tell are fraternal because they they have their own very distinct lil sacs etc according to the tech. My dr informed me that they don't like to go past week 38, so the twins will be born by august 10 it looks like.

Well, that explains the fact that I'm more sick than i've ever been and my pants are getting too tight too soon. Needless to say keepin that one a secret wasn't going to happen. I think the members of my family either thought i was joking or wanted to die when i told them. This is gonna be fun! I'm gonna be a whale! lol