Fayne and Wayne

One of Landon and my biggest fears with identical twins is that we will not be able to tell them apart. We have all kinds of grand plans to make sure that we do not confuse them, ranging from finger nail polish to monograms to assigning each baby a color. We'll see what we end up doing, but in the mean time, please laugh at this true story of a man that Landon used to work with...

On Landon's first day of one of his previous jobs, he was being introduced to all of his coworkers. One man introduced himself as Fayne, but another coworker immediately blurted out that "his name is Fayne now, but it hasn't always been." Ummm. That led Fayne to explain that he was an identical twin, and that his brother's name is Wayne. When Wayne was going through the process of becoming a highway patrolman, they encountered an issue...his fingerprint didn't match his name. Instead, his fingerprint actually matched that of Fayne. Apparently, they were switched sometime in infancy and no one figured it out!!! After the family laughed about it, the dad confessed that he thinks he might have been the guilty party. He said that one time he was bathing the boys alone and the ID bracelets that the boys usually wore were floating in the bathtub...both of the ID bracelets. He had idea which boy was which, so he tried his best to figure it out and then put the ID bracelets back on the boys...and never told anyone what happened. Fayne and Wayne have now legally changed their names. HA!!!

Benton Update: 9 Months

Another monthly update...they seem to come so quickly! This past month Benton has turned into quite the mover and talker. He is the sweetest little guy!

Some facts from Benton's ninth month of life:

-Wearing 12 month and 12-18 month clothes.

-Mainly wearing cloth diapers with no snaps. In disposables, he is wearing a size 4 diaper.

-Eating 3 meals and 1 snack per day. He has a 5-6 ounce bottle/sippy cup with each meal, for a total of 3 bottles/sippy cups per day. His meals consist of table food and a pureed fruit or veggie (and then his bottle). His snack consists of a pureed fruit and cheerios.

-Best little sleeper ever! He sleeps from 7pm to 7-7:30am. He went on a little kick where he was waking up at 6:30am, but he has now gone back to his normal 7-7:30am wake up time. He is taking 2 naps per day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon (about 2 hours each).

-Eat/play/sleep is great still!

Random things we don't want to forget:

-We started a new game this month. Landon and I call it copycat, and basically Ben repeats what we do...shake our heads, clap, slap the arm of the chair, stick out our tongue, etc. He's always so proud of himself (and we are proud of him, of course).

-Ben has started rolling with a purpose. He finds something he wants and then rolls to get it. So cute! He is also getting really good at rolling into our laps. :)

-His silly 2 top teeth are taking forever to come all the way through. He pretty much needs continuous Tylenol and Ibuprofen, as his gums have been swollen and tender for weeks and we can tell that they are really bothering him. The right top tooth is poking through, but the left just keeps stretching him gums out more and more. Come on teeth!

-Ben is discovering gravity. He loves throwing things in general, but he especially loves throwing things off of high places (ie, high chair) and watching them fall.

-We try to take walks on nice days, and we have noticed that he gets REALLY excited when he hears a dog bark. REALLY excited! He kicks his legs around and starts making barking-like sounds.

-His favorite thing to say is still "dada." :)

-No crawling yet. He can get up on all fours and rock, but he makes no attempt to move forward.

-He loves every food that we offer him, except peas. We are now able to sit down for dinner together and actually enjoy a meal as a family. For the most part, anything that I cook is okay for Ben to eat (plus a pureed fruit or veggie).

Do you notice a change in these pictures?! He won't sit still! In every picture we took he is either eating the paper, trying to jump out of the chair, or throwing the monkey. The next 3 pictures should be interesting!!

We have his 9 month appointment next week, and we'll post his stats after!

Diaper Deal

While we predominately cloth diaper, we also need disposable diapers for church, convenience, etc. Most of you know that I love couponing, though I really only do it for select things...and I'm pretty good and getting those things for next to nothing.

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Example 1:

Purchase made from Amazon.com

Luvs Ultra Leakguard Stretch Diapers, Size 4, 180 count- Amazon Price: $34.54- My Total: $0.36

Here's how I did it...
1) Sign up for their free Amazon Mom program and get 15% off.
2) Choose the Subscribe and Save option to get an additional 15% off. You can cancel this later.
3) Use 20% Off Diapers coupon from magazine (YJ Code).
4) Use 20% Off Diapers coupon from magazine (YT Code).
5) Use $10 Off Coupon from magazine.
6) Shipping is FREE (2-Day) with Amazon Mom.

There you have it...my total of $0.36!

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Somehow I have signed up for the all the magazines that the coupons come from for free (Parents, Parenting, BabyTalk, American Baby), so there is no expense there.

I have another set of coupons and am going to go ahead and buy the Luvs Size 5 diapers. Luckily for us, Ben can use ANY diaper and doesn't really leak (literally, we could use Walmart diapers). We'll probably use less than half of them for Ben, and will save the rest for the twins!

Baby Blog: February 14, 2011

I think it is about time for another twin update! Today, we are 13 weeks and entering the second trimester!!! Yes!

Let's just say that I have been sick. VERY SICK! My OB had mentioned that many women pregnant with multiples were double/triple/quadruple sick, and that I shouldn't be surprised if I was double sick. Honestly, I didn't believe her. Boy was I wrong!!! I have struggled to eat anything and have spent part of each day throwing up or trying really hard not to (even with continuous Zofran). Sometimes (luckily first thing in the morning or in the middle of the night), the throwing up has been so bad that I almost feel too weak to make it back to bed. :( Luckily, Landon has been there for 95% of these really bad times AND it seems to be ending. WOOOHOOOOO!

On Thursday, February 10th, I woke up with sharp pains right above my belly button. Weird. My uterus has been SO sore the whole pregnancy, but it is still lower than my belly button so I was a little confused. We decided to go ahead and call our OB's office to see what they recommended, and they said to head over to the hospital for an ultrasound. The babies looked great, and baby B was bouncing on baby A like it was a trampoline. :) We have no idea what the pains are (gallbladder?...I'm still having them), but as long as the babies are okay, I'm okay!

On Saturday, February 12th (at 7:40am!!!), we had an appointment with Dr. Mirabile, our perinatologist. Their ultrasound equipment was AMAZING and we could see the babies so well. They confirmed what we already knew...the babies are identical. They also confirmed that there is a membrane between the two babies. This is great news, as a monoamniotic identical twin pregnancy is EXTREMELY high risk. He said everything looked perfect at the moment, and he gave us part of his plan for our care. We will continue to see our OB, but we will also see him regularly for ultrasounds of the babies. They will be watching for twin to twin transfusion syndrome. He explained that if they see signs of this before 26 weeks, we will need to head down to Dallas or Houston to have a laser procedure done, and if they see signs of it after 26 weeks, they will do an amnio-reduction to remove fluid from the twin stealing all the blood. (I'm giving a VERY general and basic description here, hopefully everyone can understand...it can be confusing). Things I can do to prevent this...not much. He did recommend that I take an extra 1000mg of folic acid along with my prenatal, and he also said that I need to drink a Boost a day. Gag, but I will do it. :)

I think that is about it! We feel like we have been in hiding for a couple of months now, but I have been too sick to get out other than for very important things. Now that I am starting to feel better, we are very much looking forward to doing some normal things (church, dinner with friends, grocery shopping...ha).

Thank you for all of your support!!! Please continue to pray for our sweet twins!

Snow Days!

We have been enjoying our snow days from the recent blizzard. Landon was off work on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I only had to work on Monday, so we have had lots of family time!!! We took Ben out in the snow and we think he liked it. I might have put too many layers on him, but it was COLD!