Little Thief

I've been enjoying my first couple days at home with Aspen. I think he's getting a little spoiled having almost no time to himself. Eric and I decided to run some errands last night, and we came home to a suprise. Eric used his investigative skills to discover who stole the donuts.


The evidence...

The Crime Scene...

The suspect...

You'll also notice he had a FULL food and water bowl when the crime occurred.


I had to scold Aspen to let him know that eating 2 donuts for such a small dog was not a wise decision. We are getting some good practice on this whole parenting thing :)

Goodbye St. Louis!

I'm sitting in the St. Louis Airport for hopefully the last time in a long time! This is my final flight back to Philadelphia as my project is ending. There are lots of holiday travelers all around, and excitement is in the air! I had a busy week packing up my apartment and saying goodbye to my teammates. This was truly bittersweet as it's officially the last project I will be a part of before the babies arrive. After this major life change, I can only imagine that my experiences will be vastly different than they have been in the past. This chapter of my life is coming to a close, and while the 6 1/2 years of travel was not always easy, I wouldn't trade the experiences for anything. I have learned so much and opened my mind to many different people from varying backgrounds. I have made some truly wonderful memories in my travels along with some life-long friends, and I will always cherish them. The people I have worked with have never ceased to amaze me with their integrity, dedication to the work we do, and overall fun loving outlooks on life. They are the reason I have endured some of the client ridiculousness that I have :)

I have been assigned to a development project with my company until June, and I'll be involved in some very cool cutting edge stuff. The best part is there will be limited to no travel involved, so Eric and Aspen will get to enjoy myself and the twinkies for many weeks to come. I'll be happy to have someone there to run to Wawa when I need olives or milk (or any other fun cravings that are coming my way)!

We are very excited for this Christmas as it will be our last to just focus on each other and our families. While next year will be very different for us, we are ready for the change and will be overjoyed to see our children's excitement for many years to come. We will be spending Christmas with the Schmidt's including Grandma Bunny. Aspen especially loves Grandma Bunny and sometimes chooses to sit with her over myself, Grandma Schmidt and even Aunt Lyndsay. He will also be spoiled with gifts, perhaps for the last year :) Then we head off after the new year to Hilton Head to be with the Purcell side. What an exciting couple weeks we have coming up! We can't wait to see our favorite Nephew, Jack!!

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope you are blessed as you spend time with friends and family.

Twinkies Update (and other stuff)

Since I'm new to this blogging world, it's hard for me to think of interesting and fun things to update on. I figured since I just had another doctor's appointment, I could update on how the Twinkies are doing. I've gained about 12 pounds already, and my belly is really starting to show! Even my bellybutton is starting to disappear, which I thought would take a lot longer, but I guess that's the reality of two babies in one belly :) My blood pressure still looks really good, and we heard both heartbeats! What an amazing sound that makes it even more real than seeing them on an ultrasound. They sounded strong, and it was music to our ears! I have to go see the maternal fetal medicine specialists soon to have another ultrasound, and hopefully learn the genders! We plan on having them write it down in an envelope, then doing something fun to find it out together! We are having a really hard time thinking of cute names that go together, so hopefully we'll have some inspiration once we know if it's boys, girls or a combo. So far we are just so excited that they are doing well and growing normally. Below is a picture of how my belly looks now. We really can't wait to meet the Twinkies!!




Eric is doing very well. He has finally gotten the promotion that he was promised over a year ago! He was supposed to begin training Monday, but it got moved back to after the new year (hopefully for the last time!). It will be a huge adjustment as he will be working third shift which is 10:00 PM-6:00 AM or somewhere around those hours. Luckily I should be home for the first few weeks (as long as I don't get assigned to my next project), so I can help Aspen adjust :) It will be interesting to see how that will work out once our babies arrive! I guess I'll be on night duty with the feedings and diapers...

I am finishing up my last couple weeks in St. Louis now. It's been a great time, and I've really enjoyed the city and the client. My team has been awesome, and I will miss everyone on my team! We will be doing a full day celebration on Thursday complete with 80s costumes and surprise fun destinations... hopefully all that are pregnancy friendly!! The upcoming assignment is still very unknown, and I'm hoping for a couple weeks at home after the holidays.

We will be staying around here for Christmas and New Years, then we head to Hilton Head with the Purcells the first week of January. It is an annual trip where we get to see Drew, Keri, Jack, Joel, Mom and Dad, and even the crazy Handy's for a couple days. We always enjoy all the golf, shopping and hot tubs at night, although I'll probably have to sit out of most of the activities this year, but it will be awesome to just be with the fam. We always have an amazing time together, and it always makes me wonder why families can't all live close. If only jobs, houses etc. etc. didn't always get in the way!

And here's a pic of Santa's newest reindeer, just for fun! He doesn't like the bells on the collar, but he puts up with the outfits I love so well! He will be happy when I have some babies to dress up instead!!

Thanksgiving 2009

We headed to Medina and Cleveland this year to celebrate Thanksgiving with my side of the family. We always look forward to the full house with lots of food and lots of family. This year my entire family was going, and we were going to stay with Drew and Keri for part of the time, and at the Handy's as well.

The drive there and back was great with no traffic and limited pit stops :) We were able to celebrate Thanksgiving twice as we had most of the family there on Thursday, then 6 more additions to celebrate on Friday. All the food was delicious, and it was a wonderful time with the family. Since everyone was together, we were able to take some family pictures!

The Findlay/Hoenig Family

The Fawcett's/Kemp's (baby Sevrin)

The Handy's/Poknis' Family

Sarah Handy and her beautiful girls


Purcell's/Schmidt Family

Eric likes to stay with the Handy's on Thursday night so he can venture out on Friday morning to shop Black Friday. They left at 2:30 AM and headed to Best Buy where they got some great deals on a TV, camcorder and blue ray player. He came home after his adventure and got a couple more quick hours of sleep. I got to head out and shop later that day with my mom and sister-in-law, Keri for my first maternity clothes. They suprised me at checkout by paying for all the new clothes, which I was thankful for (but secretly not happy at all!)

After another full day of eating, we headed back up to Cleveland to celebrate my favorite nephew, Jack's 3rd birthday. Drew and Keri had decorated that morning after Jack left with his grandparents so when he walked in the door, everything was decorated and ready. He was shy at first, but warmed up once he blew out the candles and started opening gifts! What a wonderful little boy!!

Welcome to our Blog!!

This blog was set-up to keep our friends and family informed of what is going on in our lives. We recently found out that we are having twins, and wanted to share all the details of the past 3 amazing months! It all started after about a year of trying to get pregnant. Since I travel for work, we had to really plan the timing so we would be in the same city during the right days :) So, labor day 2009 seemed like the perfect option since we were already planning to take a few days off to spend with the Purcell's in Cleveland.

I arrived on Wednesday evening from St. Louis and Mom and Dad picked me up at the Cleveland airport. The next day we were planning on heading to Cedar Point. Eric didn't come because he's not a big roller coaster fan. We met up with Aunt Tracie and Uncle Chuck and rode every single ride multiple times. It was so fun (and I think it helped knock multiple eggs loose). We then spent the weekend with Drew, Keri, Jack, Joel, Mom and dad. It was a wonderful weekend with the whole family!



Three weeks later I headed to Portland Oregon for my annual company conference. It just happened that I needed a blood test on day 21, and I was in Portland for this particular blood test. The doctor called me during one of my meetings on Thursday morning and informed me that my Progesterone level was 65. I was informed that anything above 10 is a good sign that ovulation occurred, and anything above 40 is a good indicator of pregnancy! I immediately called Eric at work, and we were both very cautiously excited as this is not the "true" indicator of pregnancy.

I flew home on a red eye that Saturday and Eric met me at home after a late night in Atlantic City with his friend Jay. We were very excited, and decided to take a nap, then a pregnancy test! I let Eric go in and "read" the test, and he came out disappointed saying it was "negative". Once I looked at the test though, and saw the faint line, I disagreed with his assessment! You be the judge!



We went online and saw that any faint line could mean pregnancy! We immediately went to dunkin donuts to celebrate and he told the guy behind the counter that I was pregnant! We decided since it was still a few days before you can really tell, that we would keep it very quiet (except for the donut guy, of course!)

I took about 6 more tests over the next week with all of them being consistently darker lines to indicate pregnancy! We were very excited and Eric made some shirts for us to wear to show our friends and family.

When I arrived that Thursday home from St. Louis, we headed straight to our friend's the Mangin's. Monica and Eric have been very supportive friends praying for us over the past year as we continued our journey to get pregnant. To trick them, I called Monica and told her that the test was negative and I was so disappointed, but little did she know that we were at the door with our shirts on! They were so happy for us, and they gave us some great advice as we continued on through the first trimester!




The next people to tell were Eric's Parents. We decided to have them come up to our condo, then head to dinner. Before we left, Eric acted like he was playing with the camera, and told them we wanted a pic of them with me! He took the first pic, then for the second, he said "SAY LINDSEY'S PREGNANT"... you can see the reactions below!






The next stop was Northern Kentucky to tell my parents. Earlier in the week, Eric did a lot of research and found a way to use my miles to fly to Cincinnati to surprise them. Joel was very helpful in planning how to surprise them as he was moving into his new house that weekend. He was able to get them at the right place at the right time, which was tricky since our flight was delayed in Chicago. Once we finally got there, we were so excited to walk up to the door with our shirt's on! Dad saw the shirts right away, and it took mom a couple minutes to digest exactly why we were there!!!

We had our first OBGYN appt a couple weeks later. Everything was going very well. She asked the usual questions, then did her examination. She said that I felt "big" for 6 weeks, and wanted me to get an ultrasound. I told her that I was flying out later that day, and would probably need to have it done in a week or 2. She didn't like that idea, and wanted me to go immediately to get the ultrasound. Luckily they were able to fit us in, and this was the moment we learned it was twins!



We immediately called both our parents to share the wonderful news! We were both in shock at first, but felt very blessed with the news! Over the next several weeks we shared the good news with more friends and family with the new "twins" shirt below and everyone was very excited to hear about the new additions. Thanks Monica for helping me with this craft as I am not very good at this kind of stuff!





At 13 weeks we had another appointment, and they did another ultrasound. My mother-in-law Peggy got to come along and see since Eric couldn't get off of work since it was the day before Thanksgiving. The pictures they gave us were amazing. We got the hear both heartbeats, and they both looked very healthy! They were moving around the entire ultrasound, and we got 17 pics to show Eric since he couldn't be there in person!






Thanks for joining us on this journey, we are so excited to share it with each and every one of you!!