Home for the Holidays!

So it's been a while since we updated and we have a lot to share. To start with, we are still pregnant. Just about 36 weeks along and only have until December 14th when we go to the hospital to get induced and finally meet our little girls.

Since we're incredibly pregnant, we weren't able to travel for Thanksgiving and ended up having the greatest time just staying home. We are excited to be able to celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas this year all at home and no stress of travelling at all.

The fall was beautiful this year. We enjoyed driving around and seeing the colors on the trees. Our own yard even had a couple trees that turned bright red (before they turned brown and fell and left Dan with an entire front and back yard worth of raking).

Dan and I got some maternity photos taken. Other than it being a little cold out, it was a great experience. Here are some of the ones that we liked. We have more that we will be posting or sending out later.

We stayed home for Halloween. Dan and I had a fun time carving pumpkins, and then our friends Mark and Stacy came over to watch football while we passed out candy to the trick-or-treaters. I think one of our favorites was a little boy dressed up like a hobo.

November seemed to come and go so quickly! We had a little scare with Baby A and thought that she was under stress and that we'd have to deliver before Thanksgiving... but further tests showed that she was doing just fine, so that was great news! My best friend Christine flew out here from California and threw us a baby shower. There were about 10 people that came and it was a good time (and a very good excuse to make a ton of junk food and veg out all day). Dan's parents came up from North Carolina and spent the weekend too.

My friend Amy who helped out a ton with the shower

Boscoe didn't quite know what to do with all the commotion

Christine threw a great shower. (I'd like to say this picture makes my belly look bigger than it actually is, but I'm afraid I'd be kidding myself). :(

Christine stayed around for Thanksgiving and helped me cook up a big dinner. It was fun. That was the first time that I had done a turkey on my own (without the help of a mom) and it turned out really well. Everything else we cooked up was amazing as well. We started off planning to do the bare minimum since there were only 3 of us but ended up doing the whole sha-bang since our taste buds just couldn't pass up some of the dishes. We even ended the evening with some pumpkin pie and chocolate cream pie.

That night we also announced to our families that we had decided on names for the girls.

Abigail Marie Hayden and Bridget Suzanne Hayden.

Yay! Now we can't wait to meet them!

Now we're celebrating the Christmas season. Dan decorated the outside of the house and got us a Christmas tree two days after Thanksgiving (it's nice to know that he knows how much of a Christmas crazy I am). :) Our house is now decorated and we're listening to Christmas music about as much as Dan can handle.

As a surprise, Dan took me to the ICE! display showing at the nearby Gaylord Hotel. It's the How the Grinch Stole Christmas (a movie favorite of both of ours, so we had a great time). It is a massive tent kept at 9 degrees and filled with colored ice sculptures from the movie. There was even a huge ice slide that kids could ride down. They give you giant blue parkas to wear, but after about 20 mins in the display, you're cold. It was a great time!

This last one was an entire manger scene carved from ice. Very impressive and a great close to the entire display

Both of our parents are coming up after the girls are born and then my parents will stay around for the 3 weeks that they get off of school. We're excited to have them here to celebrate Christmas (oh yeah...and help out with the girls too!). :)

At the rate we've been updating the blog, I'm sure the next one will be a great announcement about a couple of little Hayden girls. :) We can't wait to share with you all.

Our New Ride

So, two weeks ago Dan and I traded our Jeep Grand Cherokee in for a Chrysler Town and Country minivan. Yikes! What did we do?!? Ha.

We decided a while back that we needed a bigger car. With two kiddos and two dogs (and all the stuff that goes along with each), we needed something with more space than the Jeep. We found a used van with all the features we wanted and for a very decent price. So... for now... we're a minivan family. It does have really cool features like automatic doors (sliding doors and tailgate) that open/close with a button, a second row of seats that swivel around, a third row that completely folds down into the floor, and an option of tipping the third row of seats back so that you have seats for tailgating. We miss the jeep, but once the kiddos come join our family, the van is going to come in very handy.

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Capitol Dogs

Dan had a 3-day weekend for Columbus Day, so that Monday we decided to take the dogs into the city to enjoy a walk. We parked down by the Lincoln Memorial along the Potomac and walked from the Lincoln to the WWII Memorial and then back to the car. All in all it was about 2 miles, and we all had a great time.

Coda probably had the best time ever. If you've ever been in D.C., you know that you can't walk more than 30 feet without coming across a squirrel. Coda was in heaven! Dan had her on the leash, but he would take off running with her each time she saw a squirrel. Our walk along the reflecting pool was quite eventful. I think she chased a squirrel up every third tree...and each time she acted surprised that she too couldn't climb the tree (although she did get about 1 ft up one of the trees). The people walking around us thought it was the greatest thing too... one person even commented that she was one of the dogs from the movie "Up" (SQUIRREL!!)

Boscoe and I trailed along behind Dan and Coda. He had a great time too... you could tell because his muddy tongue was dragging on the ground by the time we got back to the van.

We had a really great time and can't wait to enjoy making Coda and Boscoe "Capitol Dogs" again.

26 Weeks!

We went in for another round of ultrasounds on Monday and learned that both girls are doing very well. Baby A is up to 1 lb 14 ounces, and Baby B is 1 lb 13 ounces. This is great for two reasons: the babies are close in size meaning they are both getting the nutrients they need, and those sizes are good for a singleton baby which means it's great for twins. All measurements still look healthy.

Baby B has always been in a better position to get good photos of. Here is a profile picture of her.

Here is a 3D picture of Baby A. It's hard to see, but part of her face can be seen in the middle of all that static mess. We think she looks grumpy cuz her sister is sitting on her head.

This is a 3D of Baby B. We like this one because it looks like she has a little smile. Hopefully you can make out the face in the middle of the static.

25 Weeks!

I'm 25 weeks pregnant! Yikes! That means that the girls will be born in the next 12 weeks (the doctors will induce if I haven't had them by week 37). I'm huge and getting huger. :P

GIRLS!!!

So a few weeks ago we found out that our two babies are both girls. The doctors still believe that they are fraternal, but now that we know they are both girls, they can't be 100% sure they're not identical until the girls are born. It was a total shock to both of us that both babies are girls.... but what part of this whole process hasn't been a total shock?! Ha. We're getting excited. We started registering for girly stuff this last weekend and we'll let you know when we're done. We're at an 80% solution on the names of these two sweethearts and we'll let you know as soon as we're sure. :)

Here are some pictures from our most recent ultrasound at 22 weeks. Sorry we only have one picture of Baby A, but she was being camera shy. Meanwhile, Baby B had no problem smiling for the camera. (Both photos are profiles of their heads)

Baby A

Baby B

This is a 3D shot of Baby B's face... it's tucked up in there around all the static mess

They took a ton of pictures but these were the best since all the others were of more specific areas like the brain, kidneys, heart, etc. Both kiddos are doing great... all measurements were healthy. The doctor estimated Baby A to be about 1 lb 1 ounce and Baby B to be 15 ounces.

We have another ultrasound this coming Monday, so we'll let you know how everything is going and hopefully be much quicker to post pictures on the blog.

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Vermont Vacation

Since we weren't able to take our trip to Ireland like we had planned (since it's a little risky to be travelling internationally at this point in the pregnancy), we went up to Stowe, Vermont for a week of nothing... and it was great.

From D.C. we flew to Springfield, Mass. and drove up to Amherst (location of UMASS where Dan went to school). We tooled around downtown Amherst that day and had a great time in the beautiful weather. We stayed in an old B&B right across from Emily Dickinson's house, which was a fun touch to the trip. The next day we wandered around the UMASS campus for the first day of school. Dan caught a freshman sneaking a glance at a campus map while we were on the campus bus. Ha. Yay for the first day of college!

Downtown Amherst

UMASS

We then started our trip up to Stowe, but not until we stopped off at the Yankee Candle factory store. We smelled a lot of candles, but didn't buy anything. The two candles that we remember the most were the worst smelling ones ("Witches' Brew": smells like dirt; "Be Thankful": just be thankful nothing else smells like that!)

While we were up in Stowe we stayed at a pretty nice lodge called Topnotch Lodge. It was a very comfortable stay. Our intent of going up there was to do absolutely nothing and just to relax, and I think we accomplished that pretty well. :)

The original Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream factory was right near Stowe, so we went there one day to sample some ice cream and take a tour. From there we stopped at the Cabot Creamery to sample cheese (yumm!) and then at the Hollow Mill Cider factory to sample some cider and cider donuts (hot & fresh!).

Ben & Jerry's factory

Holly and a fake baby cow at the Ben & Jerry's factory

While up there we also went to the Trapp Family Lodge. This is the lodge that the Von Trapp family from the movie Sound of Music built when they moved from Austria to Vermont (it's real... if you don't believe me, you're not the only one... Dan thought I made the whole thing up when I told him about it. He's a believer now.) We had dinner there one night which was very fun. Dan had some Austrian cold vegetable soup... it reminded us a lot of salsa. Ha.

Dan at the Trapp Family Lodge

All 3 Hayden girls at the Trapp Family Lodge

The front of the Trapp Family Lodge

We also took a gondola up to the top of Mt. Mansfield, which is the highest point in Vermont (a whoppin' 4393 ft.... ha... Mike & Kallie, aren't you impressed!). It was a beautiful view, and even though it wasn't foliage season yet, you could tell that a lot of the trees had started to change or were on the verge of it.

Looking up the gondola path

Views from the top

The happy couple! :)

Holly with a real baby cow at the corn maze (we didn't go through the corn maze)

A walk down by the river

We ate a lot of great food. I think the white cheddar cheese was the most pleasant surprise, and the syrup was great as well. After 6 days of lots of relaxing we drove/flew back to D.C. It was a great trip, and we can't wait to take another vacation sometime... but next time it will be all 4 of us!

19 weeks!

So I am now 19 weeks into this double pregnancy. As far as I know, things are still going well. I'm starting to feel little fluttery movements and I'm gaining weight, so I suppose those are all good signs of progress. I have gained a total of 18 pounds so far.... probably another 30 pounds when all is said and done (yikes!).

I've had a great time being in California. I've been able to spend a lot of time with family (even my grandma who recently moved to town from Mexico within the last couple of months). This last weekend my very good friend Stephanie got married. The funnest part was that she was hooked up with James (her husband now) by James' sister....at Dan and I's engagement party back in January of last year. Yay! Our wedding was contagious! :)

I'm flying back to D.C. this weekend (with Coda!) and moving into our new rental house next week. I'll have just less than 2 weeks to get things ready for Dan to come back home (can I get an "amen"?!?!). (Haha. Who would have ever thought I'd write "can I get an 'amen'" on my blog??) Lots of big changes in the future, but we'll do our best to keep you posted. God bless!

Surprise Visit

Okay, so maybe it wasn't such a surprise since we planned it but if you asked us 8 years ago, we would both have been surprised that we would someday meet up with each in Kandahar, Afghanistan! As is the norm, my job took me to Kandahar Airfield and as you can see from the pictures, Mike and I were able to meet up and spend some time with each other which was a good boost to my morale which hasn't exactly been very high lately.

So that's the only update I have for now. Enjoy.