thanksgiving weekend.

we had a great thanksgiving!  

brenner's family drove in and we held thanksgiving here at our house.  

it was so great to not have to travel anywhere!!!

brenner deep-fried our turkey (you non-texans may not know that texans deep-fry anything, including our holiday favorites) and i must say it was tasty. 

here is a picture of the bird straight from the fryer. 

cole and i had made placecards for everyone.  it took a long time but we had fun doing it!

anything involving stickers is fun!

we ate a lot, watched a lot of football and squeezed in a family photo (not everyone was in the photo, just brenner's immediate family for his mom's christmas card)

let me just say that white is not flattering to a pregnant girl.  it adds 10 pounds.  to my additional 26.  not pretty.  and my hair was weird. but overall it turned out pretty well. 

here is a zoomed in shot of my baby.

precious.

  

(see that large mark on his forehead?  it is an imprint from his uncle's boot.  and cole fell on the boot, his uncle did not kick him in the head)

brenner also hung the lights on the house, put up the tree and put all the lights on the tree.  

we decorated the tree as a family, which is one of my favorite holiday traditions.  

bring on christmastime!!!

thankful.

i am thankful for so many things in my life.  

the love of my savior.

my husband. 

my house.

my dogs. 

food on the table. 

family. 

friends. 

healthy, growing babies.  

and of course, this little dude. 

birthday and blessings.

sunday was brenner's birthday. it was a busy day and we had to go to houston for a doctor's appointment for the twins that was scheduled the next morning.  

brenner loves seafood so we went to a great restaurant in houston that night for his birthday and one of his good friends from college was able to meet us which was a lot of fun.  

the specialist's office was .2 miles from the houston zoo so after the appointment we took cole to the zoo for a couple of hours.
we had fun, can you tell?

 the best part of the zoo was the two baby elephants.  so cute!!!!!

 when we got home that night, i wanted to make brenner something different and special for his birthday and i found just the recipe.  i had seen it on a blog a follow months ago and then rediscovered it on pinterest.  

cookies n' cream oreo fudge browines. oh yeah, you read that correctly.

here is the link. 

they will probably change your life like they did mine.  it is a good thing i am pregnant and supposed to consume an extra 800 calories a day is all i have to say. 

anyways, on to the doctors appointment.  

things went great.  the girls are continuing to fabulous.  they are growing steadily and are within 11% of each other (which is totally normal).  they are maintaining good blood flow in the heart, brain, and umbilical cords.  they have strong heartbeats.  and they never stop moving!  there continues to be a discrepancy between their fluid levels, it has not worsened and the fluid for twin b (the smaller twin) has even increased slightly.  the doctor feels that things are going to stay where they are since we have been stable now for a month and that we are not going to need surgery and probably won't need any sort of intervention for the rest of the pregnancy.  when we asked him what he thought our chances were of making it closer to full term now that we have been stable for several weeks, he says in his experience, 92% of patients like us will make it all the way to full term for twins (35-36 weeks)!!!  we are thrilled to receive such great news!  

while we know that there is still a chance for them to come early, and for more complications, as there will always be for twins, we are praising God for this blessing. 

the power of prayer has been incredible and cannot be denied.  we know that God works in different ways in each situation and that healing does not happen for everyone.  but we also know that God does answer every prayer perfectly and he is choosing to intervene for our girls.  we are giving Him ALL the credit for this!  

please continue to pray for them, as we hope to have a minimum of 10 more weeks of 'baking' time!

a few facts and pictures.

i thought that i would tell you a little bit about my two year old.  

and here are a few photos i took when i attempted to take his two year photos.  

(photo session was a disaster, i may or may not try to get some better ones)

weight: 28 pounds

height: 34 inches

favorite toys: trains, trucks, cars, airplanes, helicopters, boats, basically any form of transportation

favorite activity: playing with his favorite toys!  but he also loves stickers, drawing, basketball, football, baseball, going for walks, playgrounds, and bubbles and of course driving!

favorite show: sesame street 

favorite foods: strawberries, blueberries, oranges, granola bars, pretzels 

favorite books: wheels on the bus, trucks, thomas the train

homecoming.

this weekend was baylor's homecoming.

it was a lot of fun and filled with cool weather, good friends, and lots of yummy treats!

our friends the Urichs stayed with us and the boys had a lot of fun playing together.  

saturday started off with the homecoming parade (the largest in the nation!)

we all bundled up and headed to campus.  this was the first time for both the boys to see the parade and they did amazing.  both of them were completely taken with all the floats, people, and all the trucks!

 bruiser the bear rollin' on the segway

 brenner and the boys (as sean and i are in the back deep in conversation)

 always a favorite...the double sided car.  this has been in the parade since i was in undergrad.

tyann and carter looking cute!

brenner and my dad's business, the overlook, was in the parade too 

the best float!

 they even had a real mario inside the gameboy!

cole giving carter kisses. 

we went home, ate some ninfa's mexican food (a must on homecoming weekend) and took naps. 

cole is rockin' the bed head as usual.

then it was on to a little tailgating and the game. 

our first touchdown.  cole followed the crowd and yelled touchdown with his arms in the air (while also holding his snack!) 

 i love this little face!

sic em' bears!

birthday celebration.

cole's birthday celebration was low key this year.

we had some family over for dinner and made it a causal affair.  i really am glad that i did not try to throw a party, it would have been too much with everything going on.  but we had fun today celebrating with cole.  i am a firm believer that you should be able to do pretty much whatever you want on your birthday.  within reason, of course.  and so that is kind of what we let cole do.  he got to pick whatever he wanted to eat and play/do whatever he wanted to.  therefore, our day was filled with strawberries, oranges, cupcakes, cheese puffs, french fries, elmo, trains, and driving.  these are some of cole's favorite things.  

he was able to blow out his candles by himself!

 enjoying his 2nd cupcake of the day.

 yum!

brenner's cousins bought cole a new basketball goal!

 aunt jenna and uncle adam got him elmo!

about 4 months ago i found cole a batman/superman cape.  he doesn't know who they are yet but he loved wearing it! 

 not as crazy about the eyemask

 waiting for the basketball hoop to be assembled.

 cole wanted to play with all of his new toys at once so he wore his cape while dunking elmo!

 uh-oh.

he still has some more presents in store, as we didn't open all of them at once.  

i also think a birthday celebration is spread out over the course of a week.  

the husband thinks this is a great idea for cole so he doesn't go into system overload with all the toys at once.  i have not sold him on the fact that mine also needs to continue for a whole week.  

i am working on it. 

11.1.11

today is my baby's 2nd birthday. 

i cannot believe that it was 2 years ago that i was in the hospital having this little munchkin.  

i cannot believe what a blessing these 2 years have been. 

here are a few of the many, many, MANY photos we have of this child. these are some of my favorites.

(be prepared for cuteness overload)

 this little guy truly is the best gift i have been given!