Our newest baby pictures! We went into the Doctor's office today very scared b/c of some things that happened yesterday, but the babies looked great. They were measuring just right and the best news was that the Doctor said there was a membrane separating the babies, which would mean no worry over cord entanglement! We weren't too surprised since we've been praying for that specific thing. I'm 12 weeks now. Isn't it amazing how well formed they already are?

A Trip to the Zoo

Our church organized a trip to the zoo for preschoolers & a parent, and we had a really good time. The one animal that Kaleigh kept talking about wanting to see was the lion, but I think her favorite thing was feeding the fish. I have to say, she still wasn't super impressed with the animals and was more interested in eating the cheerios I smuggled in, but I know she had fun because she keeps talking about going back.

Quick Update...
I went to the Dr. yesterday and he didn't do much, but he was able to hear both heartbeats, so that was good. I'm just almost to 9 weeks and he wasn't sure about being able to hear them, but we did. I had gotten used to getting an ultrasound every time I go that it was a little weird not to, but I'll just have to wait. I'm not even going back for 4 more weeks (hopefully). Now I just have a couple of issues that I'm dealing with that will hopefully not be a problem, and my sickness which seems a little bit worse this week than what it was last week. I am really hoping that it will start to get better soon and maybe go away in the next 3- 5 weeks. They did get on to me at the dr. b/c I had last 1/2 pound since my last visit instead of gaining, but I've heard of much worse. I'm doing my best anyway.

And, Kaleigh is 2 1/2 today! She hasn't changed a whole lot since she turned 2, but here are a few new things:
1. She is potty trained. Yay! She actually has been for a while now, and even stays dry during her nap. She still wears a diaper at night. We just haven't worked on that yet.
2. She still talks all the time, just with an ever expanding vocabulary. Also, she picks up on everything and will repeat it later. A few things she's said "that makes me nervous", "I'm not feeling so good right now" and "oh my goodness".
3. She's finally learning a few of her colors. She knows yellow, white, and pink so far. I know this is not exactly impressive, but we do what we can.
4. Just seeing more and more of her personality, it is very obvious that she is a people person. She isn't necessarily going to be the most outgoing child, but after spending just a little time with someone, she will talk about them and get excited to see pictures of them and almost always remember people's names, as good or better than I can.

Well, I don't know how to title this blog or even where to start, so I will just relay things in the past months as they happened to us...
First, many of you know that Nathan and I have been wanting to get pregnant for a while now, and about 4 weeks ago I found out that it had happened. We were excited, of course and took 3 tests just to verify. Then, a couple weeks into it, I started feeling a little bit sick. It started on a Wednesday or Thursday and I noticed as each day went by that it got a little bit worse every day. By the next Tuesday I had called the Dr. and they prescribed some meds for me, which were not working. 4 different medicines and 3 days later I was vomiting, severely nauseous, not sleeping, and not eating. My mother-in-law had been kind to take Kaleigh off my hands most of that time b/c I don't think I could have taken care of her.
As those things go, I would feel a little bit better during the day but then it would hit hard at night. At 10:30 on Friday I told Nathan that I really needed to go in the ER, and he took me, but when I got there I felt better and went home. Mistake. Just the ride home was enough to get me feeling sick again and by 3:00 a.m. we headed back that way. They hooked me up to an IV, gave me some medicine, and many hours later I was finally able to sleep and feel a little better. They took me for an ultrasound and we got a BIG shock - TWINS!! That probably explains the excessive sickness.
We were admitted to a hospital room and I stayed until Sunday night and was able to eat a little before I left.
On Monday I called my Doctor who I had not seen yet, and they had me come in that day. They did an ultrasound and found that both the babies looked great but there is a complication. Instead of each baby being in its own amniotic sack, they are in one together. Later in the pregnancy as they move around, they could have cord entanglement, which is very dangerous. It was hard news to hear, but I do believe that God is in control and He chose to give us these babies and He will decide the outcome of this pregnancy.

Then, another issue had us back in the Dr's office on Wednesday, but everything seems to be okay now. I am feeling much better than I was - still nauseous but managing it. Friday my family came to town and we were finally able to tell them about the twins in person.
Sunday at church we sang a song and it just hit me so hard with the truth of it. Whether the uncertainty of this pregnancy is the trial God has for us, or if there is big heartache ahead, nothing is too much for God. Here is the song. It is called "He will carry you"

There is no problem too big God cannot solve it
There is no mountain too tall He cannot move it
There is not storm too dark God cannot calm it
There is no sorrow too deep He cannot soothe it.

If He carried the weight of the world upon His shoulders
I know, my brother that He will carry you
If He carried the weight of the world upon His shoulders
I know, my sister that He will carry you

It also made me think of our friend Jon who has been in the hospital and dealing with migranes for a while now. Its hard to see him going through the ordeal he has. So my friends, in the days to come if my outlook is not so good, remind me of this. I go to the Dr. Monday and I will keep updating frequently as we find out anything new.

Easter!

Since I'm sitting at home not feeling well, I decided it would be a good time to catch up on our blog a little bit. We went to see my parents over Easter weekend and had a good time. The weather was nice and Kaleigh had an interesting Easter Egg hunt in my parents' lovely front yard :) Friday before Easter, Nathan was off and we spent the day redoing a flower bed in the backyard. I'll post pics of that later. Here are some Easter pics:









Kaleigh got a Dora umbrella in her Easter basket. I knew she would like it b/c we went to visit my grandmother in December and she Loved playing with her umbrellas and talks about them all the time. When we asked her where the umbrella came from, she said "Grandmother's house!" Anyway, I knew she would like it but had no idea how much. She carries it around with her constantly and looks for rain every day so she can carry it outside with her.












She was pretty good at finding the eggs this year.

What we did this weekend:

Got married! Lots and lots of times. Our church had its Easter presentation, "The Kingdom", and Nathan and I contributed our little part of getting married. During the "wedding" Jesus turns the water into wine. Overall, it is an amazing production and extremely meaningful. The songs are beautiful and the set is something to see. We put in about 4 hours each night from Thursday to Sunday, but others put in much, much more time.

Also on Saturday, we decided to do a little spruce up of our front flower beds. Unfortunately, we forgot to take a before picture, but here is the after. We got a new weed border and the red mulch, and pulled lots of weeds, and planted one more little plant.

Snow Day! (or Morning, anyway)


Just when I'd given up on the possibility... Nathan woke me yesterday morning and told me that it had snowed and I didn't even believe him! Too many years of living with my brother...
Kaleigh had fun playing in it and eating it, and I brought some inside to make snow cream.



My mother-in-law, Patti, was inspired to write this poem.

March came in like a lamb,
It lasted 3 days.
The lion roared through
Blowin' snow for kid's plays.

On Sunday it's 60,
On Tuesday there's snow;
Arkansas weather is crazy,
That's one thing we know!

One day it's a coat,
The next, none at all.
Is it springtime or winter,
Summer or fall?

Our weather's a paradox.
Our seasons will lie.
Not Knowing what greets you
Upon openin' your eye.
-Patti Statton

We are so glad that the weather is getting better and Kaleigh can play outside again! On Saturday Nathan and I worked all day in the yard removing these leaves, and Kaleigh entertained herself for hours outside. We will be planting some gardens soon, and doing our 2nd attempt at growing grass in the backyard, and hopefully have some sort of play area for Kaleigh by the end of summer. We'll keep you updated on our progress. Now, I must go read about perennials that will look pretty year round and thrive in the shade with little upkeep.

MyHeritage: Celebrity Morph - Genealogy search - Family pedigree

I've been having so much fun with this web site that I found through Begina's blog. This was an awful picture of me from when I was pregnant, but funny how much (I thought) that I look like this picture of Sofia Coppola. What do you think, have I found my celebrity twin?

Here are some recent pictures. It was so pretty outside today that Kaleigh and I just had to have a picnic. Or as she would say "picnict". She was sooo happy to be outside! I'm looking forward to spring, and hoping it will last a while and not just go straight into a long hot summer.












Here is her new awesome mohawk hairdo. This is actually what happens when she pulls her ponytail holder out.











Happy Late Valentine's Day! It's so hard to get Kaleigh to cooperate for pictures these days, so these were the best we could do at the time. She's still our little sweetheart.

Kaleigh Statton next American Idol!!!

Kaleigh and Maddie

Kaleigh tells me all the time that Maddie is "best friend to me". When Maddie comes over, they are joined at the hip. These pictures were all them, this is how they watch TV! Too funny.

YouTube Favorites

I have just recently discovered the wonders of youtube and all the fun things that can be found there. By chance I happened upon this video of Charice Pempengco. She is from the Phillipines, and apparently is quite the sensation over there but I don't think it will be long before we start hearing about her here. She's only 14 or 15 and I think she's better than anyone on American Idol. Nathan didn't think it was actually her singing, but recently Ellen found out about her and had her on the show so I think she must be for real. Here is the clip:



Another funny video that my sister showed me. This is just so cute.

Deep Thoughts with Kaleigh...
I have to take a break from Christmas to share some of the funny things Kaleigh has said and done lately. Here goes...

K is excited about graduating to her "big girl panties" as we call them. She's also excited for other people, like the other day when she saw Nathan getting dressed for work and said "Look, Daddy gots big girl panties too!"

The other morning she came to lay down in bed beside me for a few minutes, snuggled up close to me, looked over and said "I'm just hanging out".

Coming home from church the other night:
K: Where are we going mommy?
Me (after having told her at least 3 times that we were going home): Where do you think we're going?
K: A party?
Me: O really? What kind of party?
K: A pink party.
(Funny b/c everything now is described as either pink or big)

Kaleigh saw a picture of a wedding on someone else's blog:
K: Look mommy, married! Gettin married!
Me: yeah
K: Sing a married song?
Me: What's a married song?
K: Joy to the World

And, another slightly embarrassing encounter that happened today. We were in Wal-Mart and looking at the vitamins. There was another lady standing there but I wasn't paying much attention to her until we walked past and noticed Kaleigh staring. Then I glanced over and saw that she had a patch on her eye. I was thinking to myself that I should probably hurry before K's staring turned into something else but I wasn't quick enough. In a not quiet voice she says "Look mommy, she got a pirate. Look mommy she got a pirate" and continues saying this over and over again while I'm running off as fast as possible and trying to discreetly cover K's mouth at the same time...

Christmas Day at the Stattons

Kaleigh's Big Bump

I have to take a little break from Christmas stuff to put these pictures of Kaleigh up. The other night we came home from a friend's house and Kaleigh was running through the living room and fell straight into a chair that has a piece of wood running along the bottom of it. She hit it just right and got a nice little goose egg. She cried pretty hard for a minute but then was brave and calmed down. We held ice on it for as long as we could. Here are some pics.

These first two are from right after it happened.










This is from a day and a half later












This was two days after it happened. Starting to turn green.












This was from today. You can't really see the bruise but I liked how she was dressed up in her chef attire.

Some Christmas Highlights

I know, it's been way too long since my last post. I was just a little overwhelmed about Christmas and everything we did, but I will do it in stages. Here is a slideshow from Christmas Eve, starting at my parents house and ending back at our house. Kaleigh started out tentative with opening presents but by the end of the night, she was an old pro. She just starting ripping open anything and everything she could get her hands on, and then went digging under the tree for more. She likes her Dora bike that Santa brought her, but next time she gets something like that, Santa really needs to assemble it beforehand! She was a little impatient about getting to ride on it. I got some nice things, including a straightener from my sister and lots of clothes from Nathan that he picked out. Also some Dvd sets and a book of cake ideas.

First Ever Kaleigh Video!
I love when other people put videos on their blogs and have been wanting to do one for a while. Kaleigh would never "perform" for the video camera until one day she said "take a picture, mommy" and this is the result. Notice how Southern she is...

Visiting Santa

Kaleigh went to see Santa on Thursday night and sat on his lap for the first time ever. She was slightly frightened but never actually cried. We asked her to think of something to tell Santa that she wanted for Christmas so when she was sitting in his lap she said "bicycle". Then when we got up to leave, she asked "where's Kaleigh's bicycle?". I'm pretty sure she only endured the whole experience with hopes of getting that bicycle at the end!

Recent Conversations with my 2 year old:

Nathan is always telling me to write these things down, so this is my way of recording funny things that Kaleigh says and does during the day. It is so much fun talking to her now and I'm sure it will only get funnier as she gets older.

This first conversation took place after we read this sweet Christmas story called "You are my Miracle"

Kaleigh: I'm a miracle too, mommy.

Me: Yes, you are. You are mommy and daddy's miracle.

K: And mommy's a miracle too

Me: Yes (Awww, So sweet)

K: And daddy's a miracle too.

Me: Yes he is.

K: And Dora and Boots are a miracle too.

Me: (feeling slightly deflated) Well, Dora and Boots aren't really real and someone (not God) created them and so they aren't actually...

Whatever, yeah Dora and Boots too.

Here's the 2nd conversation taking place at the table getting ready to eat lunch:

Me: What are you thankful for Kaleigh?

K: Want mommy's drink

Me: But what are you thankful for?

K: Uh

Me: Are you thankful for food?

K: Yeah

Me: And our house, and friends?

K: Yeah and Randy.

Me: You're thankful for Randy? (he was at our house for poker Tuesday)

K: And Amber, and Andy and Liz

Me: Okay, that's nice

K: and Cat

Me: Mimi's cat?

K: Yeah and dog

Me: What dog?

K: And Daddy

Me: Well, that's nice, I'm sure Daddy will be glad to know that he was on the list even if he did come after the cat and some mystery dog.

My New Christmas Card Holder

I've been looking for an affordable Christmas card holder for at least two years and they are so hard to find. On a whim I went into Pier One not expecting them to have anything and they had this one that I like so much, and it was only $10! It is almost exactly like one that pottery barn sells for $60+.

My Christmas card holder

Pottery Barn holder on sale at ebay for $55 minimum (including shipping).

My favorites of 2007

Oprah recently aired the episode of her favorite things of 2007, and I got to thinking about a few of mine. Most of my favorites you can't necessarily go out and buy at the store, and some aren't really new this year, but they are just things I really, really like or use a lot. This list does not include people. So in no particular order, here is the list...

1. My compact digital camera
2. Garage Sales
3. Ceramic straightener
4. Blogs
5. Book of Daniel (from the Bible)
6. Ski Trip with Friends
7. Sushi (Monster Roll & Arkansas Roll at Kobe)
8. Heroes, the TV show
9. Harry Potter Book 7
10. Kaleigh Talking
11. My new Christmas card holder from Pier one
12. Hannah Montana - fun to have on while I play online computer games
13. Online Computer games
14. LSU football
15. DSL
16. DVR
17. Portable Dvd player

Sweet Daughterly Concern...

Just a quick funny Kaleigh story - Me and Kaleigh were shopping yesterday in a busy store and I felt a sneeze coming on. I stopped and sneezed and was expecting the normally polite Kaleigh to say "Bless you, Mommy". Instead she looked at me really intently and asked loudly "Got a Booger?, Got a Booger, Mommy?". I just had to laugh! Nobody said anything but I think I noticed a few smirks around me.

Just a funny picture to go with a funny story.