Happy New Year!

You know how New Year's Eve always has tons of anticipation and you feel like you should do something really awesome and then it always turns out to be super lame? Well, if I had known on New Year's Eve that it would be my last night of a full night of sleep I would have spent the entire day in bed, asleep.  I basically did spend the entire day on my back as I had been on modified bed rest for almost a month but I would have cherished my last bit of uninterrupted sleep had I known what was coming the next morning.

I woke up New Year's Day ready to spend the day watching football and hanging out with Jeremy but as I got out of bed and went to the bathroom my plans for the day were quickly changed as I realized that I had large amounts of fluid flowing out of me for no apparent reason.  Even I was pretty sure my water had broken even though I was hoping that somehow I was just confused.  After a quick call to my sister to have another person confirm what was happening, and a call to the on-call Dr. Jeremy and I headed to the hospital arriving around 10:00, and by 12:43 we were parents, and by 12:44 we were a family of four.

We hadn't decided on names for the boys because we thought we had a bit more time, and Jer kept saying he would decide on the way to the hospital. . . he did not, we were too busy freaking out!  The boys were born at 35 weeks and both were immediately taken to the NICU.  Baby A who eventually became Hayden Mitchell Hart had a hard time maintaining his body temperature and had some blood sugar issues.  Baby B who is now Hunter Rodney Hart struggled a bit more.  They think Hayden is the one who was ready to come and ruptured the membranes or something like that so even though he was smaller he was more ready to be born.  Hunter was more just ripped on out and wasn't quite ready and his lungs were sticking and he was working really hard to breathe.

I had to stay in the recovery room for awhile so Jer went back and forth between the babies and I, it was a very stressful day for him.  Finally they wheeled my bed right into the NICU so that I could sort of meet the boys.  I was able to hold Hayden and that is when we decided on his name but I wasn't able to hold Hunter because he was under the bubble so he remained nameless because I wanted to at least hold him first.

I had to go to my room for the rest of the day and wasn't able to go back to the NICU until the next day.  It was definitely not the way I imagined this day to be.  Finally the next day they let me get out of bed and go down to the NICU and I was able to hold Hunter.

I blame myself for the boys coming five weeks early because all day on the 31st I was talking about how they should come so we could get a tax break or they should be the first babies of the year so that we could get the free stuff.  They did neither.  It's always my big mouth that gets me in trouble.  We are just so glad that they were healthy and just needed some more time to grow.

Ever wonder what it's like?

Ever wonder what it would be like to have twins? This is kind of how it is for me right now. Lots and lots of appointments. This is my little sticky note of appointments made yesterday through January.

The Belly Cast

Recently, I’ve been searching the online world trying to put together a list of what exactly we need for these babies coming our way.  It is a bit overwhelming.  Most the time I don’t even know where to start.  I feel like most of the stuff out there is probably not all that necessary and would just get in the way in our small house.  I was browsing Amazon and luckily I stumbled upon this gem.  I honestly didn’t know this existed but my world has now changed and I am better because of it (if you are one of those all natural, pregnancy is beautiful, love your body people, do NOT keep reading, you WILL be offended).

The Basic Pregnancy Belly Cast Kit.  With a measly $20 this bad boy can be yours and the memories you will save will be endless.  How is this even a thing?  And don’t worry, other Amazon shoppers have posted pictures to give a better idea of how great this product is.

 And direct from the customer reviews:

“My doula applied the balm and the strips while I sat in a chair.”
I’m not super familiar with the role of a doula but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you aren’t paying her/him enough.

“My wife and I had a great time doing this. Very simple and easy to use. An awesome bonding experience. I definitely recommend this as an activity and it makes an awesome keepsake.”
One word for you: hobby. And a few more words – get one.

“I had my 75 year old grandmother help me do mine and looks fantastic.”
Elder abuse is a crime that we do not talk about nearly enough in this country.

“i had some leftover that i still use 4 months later :)”
What exactly are you still using it for?

“There are people who do this for pregnant ladies and I wish I had just done that.”
Those people are called pedophiles.

“We painted ours blue for our baby boy and had hospital visitors sign it. Now it's a souvenir of the birth of our little one!”
Where exactly did the visitors sign? I think the souvenir you bring home from the hospital is supposed to be the baby.

“My husband and I have fun with these kits and it creates great keepsakes for the kid.”
Yes, I can see how any teenage boy would love to bring his buddies over to his house and show them this. “And this is how big my mom’s boobs are”.

“I really treasure my cast though and it was worth the pain to have it hanging on the wall!”
Is it worth the pain caused to everyone else having to look at it hanging on the wall?

“What a great product to use to capture the memory of a special moment in time you will never have again. :) I used ribbon and confetti from our wedding to decorate and added a 3d ultrasound picture of his face to it and it turned out awesome!”
Sounds awesome (sense sarcasm)!

“Pictures just don’t do your pregnant body justice! This is an excellent way to have a three dimensional, tactile remembrance of your belly.”
Isn’t “pictures just don’t do your body justice”, and “the camera adds ten pounds” cliché terms people use to justify why they look terrible in a picture? Clearly a three dimensional mold will put that to rest!

Sometimes you throw up, and sometimes you pee your pants

Sometimes you just have to throw up uncontrollably as you walk from your building to your car leaving work for the day.  And sometimes, just sometimes, because of the violent upheaval taking place you also might pee your pants. 

Yep, we're having twins.  It is crazy and I have been sick basically non-stop which is not a lot of fun.  Obviously the highest point of my sickness was the above mentioned little story.  It was a series of unfortunate events really.  Or just poor decisions on my part.

I had brought a lunch plus all of my snacks to work that day but couldn't get the main lunch down.  So I went to the cafe and bought a lunch.  Which I also couldn't get down.  So I thought, maybe I'll be alright with just these snacks.  I was wrong.

As I was walking down the three flights of stairs I noticed I was starting to feel quite ill and I thought to myself, just focus on chewing your gum that will help.  I also noticed that apparently many people leave at this time because quite the line of people was forming behind me.  As I got to the first floor I thought to myself, should I go in the bathroom just in case I'm going to be sick?  No, I said, just get to the car.  For some reason that thought, of get to the car overpowered every other sense of reason in my body. 

As I exited the building I was immediately hit with the wave of heat that is KC in the summer.  It was terrible.  Again I noticed the large amount of people surrounding me and I really wished they would go away because now I was really feeling ill.  But to the car I pushed.  I made it past a few cars on my what seemed like mile long journey to my car and knew I would indeed be throwing up very soon.  So logically I turned around headed back inside and to the bathroom right?  Nope, I just opened my lunch sack that had my uneaten lunch and kept right on walking.  And then I started puking.  Of course I was keenly aware of the people around me so I started bobbing and weaving between cars trying to avoid being seen, all the while heaving non-stop.  But I kept on walking.  Never once did I think, hey just duck behind this car, get your puke on and then be on your way.  The entire time I just kept thinking I should avoid people and keep walking. 

Unfortunately my body can only multitask so much.  The puking, dodging in and out of cars and walking was the max I could handle; unfortunately again I had to pee.  So as I continued to walk and puke with each lurch of my stomach out came a little pee.  And by the time I made it to the car, I had completely peed my pants. 

So yeah, when you ask me how pregnancy has been. . . I've been better. 

We are in Trouble

Introducing Deneremy and Jernae Hart



I don't know how to get the picture to work but basically if you turn your head sideways there is one baby sitting on top of the other baby.  I know, I hate when people show me ultrasounds and expect me to care because it honestly looks like nothing to me but I felt like I needed something to go with the announcement.  Besides the clearly awesome names.

Love/Hate

Things I love Today:
1. Mortorcycle Hand Wave.  I don't know if you ever pay attention to this or not, but whenever a motorcyclist passes another motorocycle they always do this little one or two finger hand wave.  It's not like a giddy arm flopping in the air wave.  It's just a cool, hey I'm a biker and you're a biker and we're cool little flick of the fingers.  I love it.  I don't know why it makes me so happy to see it but it does.  But if you even think for a second that they would give the same respect to a scooter you are seriously mistaken.  That would be offensive. 

2.  The Return of the Boy Bands.  Oh yes, it's true.  They are back.  Does anything warm your heart more than this picture?

Seriosusly.  The world needs more of this. My world in particular.

3. This Guy.

Because sometimes, you just need to dress like the Geico Caveman and that should be okay.

4. Getting Oversized Overgreen Free T-shirts at Work.

Because I care about the environment.  Okay, I don't really think about it that much but I love getting free stuff so this made the list.

5. Movie Theatre Recliners.  Kansas knows how to do movies.  the AMC theatres here have recliners.  They are great and make going to a movie that much more enjoyable.

6. My Halloween Costume. Yes, I know this was like forever ago.  But I saw this horribly taken picture today and it made me really happy.  I was the Kia Hampster and I was awesome. 

Things that I hate:
1. The NO Trails on Nall People.  I don't even know them but I'm sure if I did I wouldn't care for them.  They have put up these signs everywhere protesting a potential bike/walking trail on the main street by our house.  Need I say more?  These people are lame.

2. People who run/skip/bounce up the stairs on the way in to work every morning.  I don't have a picture of these people but you can imagine the type.  I hate them.  Who runs/skips/bounces up stairs on the way to WORK?  And first thing in the morning?  I can't really imagine a situation I would be bounding up any stairs unless it was some kind of race involving me getting a heaping pile of cash at the end.  I want to tell them that I could very well take the elevator every morning but I begrudgingly trudge up the stairs to convince myself I'm getting exercise and they are ruining it for me.  When these types of people are behind me I like to walk right up the middle of the stairwell as slow as humanly possible.  Eat that suckers!!!

And finally, I'm not sure if this is a love or a hate item.  One day on my bike ride into work I was slowly trudging up this hill.  The hill is not terribly steep it is just long and drawn out.  I believe I was huffing and puffing quite loudly.  All of a sudden out of nowhere this guy comes cruising by me on his bike and as he effortlessly passes me he turns and says "never give up".  Never.  Give.  Up.  I wanted desperately to explain that I had a heavy back pack on and was just feeling kind of lazy because I had been riding a lot, or some other assortment of excuses for why I was riding so slowly but I was so out of breath all I could really do was awkwardly pant in his general direction. 

Doin' Work

For the last three weeks Jeremy and I have been putting in many hours trying to get our yard into a semi presentable form. The place was a disaster area. For real. The back fence was completely overgrown with this crazy fence plant that everyone has here that is ugly and overwhelming. There were vines taking over the tree and side of the house. There were years and years and years worth of sticks and garbage throughout the yard. We thought it would be a fun little project to undertake, emphasis on the fun and the little. We were wrong about both.

I believe in my original post about the house when we moved in I showed pictures of the nasty back yard. It would be an okay yard for the most part except that it slants downward and then flattens off at the end towards the back fence for about a 4 foot wide strip of area that is completely covered in vines, aforementioned fence death plant, sticks and who knows what all else. It is just gross. And there are stumps of huge trees everywhere just hanging out being eye sores.

So anyway...we went to work trying to clean up the area so that we didn't want to vomit every time we looked out the window. And did we ever work. I knew it wasn't going to be easy but this was insane. The best approach was to just take the hatchet and start swinging away. We needed machetes to hack through the stuff. It was back breaking. Literally, it broke my back and I've been going to physical therapy. Okay that was I lie I hurt my back before we ever started this. But now that we are almost finished hacking away back there I think we have done a lot of good work. And by we, I mean 99% Jeremy and 1% me.

We have cleared out about 20 of those large yard bags to this point and I would guess by the time we are done with the front and sides it will be more like 30.

These are some of the larger sticks we have yet to chop up and dispose of.

This little area is about three feet by three feet.

And this is all of the garbage that came from this little spot. There were endless amounts of roots and rocks and nasty bug things I'd never seen before.

And finally, is there anything more attractive than a man after a few hours of manual labor in the baking sun? I have to admit, there is something about a guy sweating his guts out doing work in the backyard trying to make your house look better.