Surprise!

On the St. Patrick's Day weekend this year we were staying at the Deerfoot Inn, so we could show our house without having to bundle up two infants and a dog at a moments notice. I began to have a sense of super smell and was quite tired, taking afternoon naps with my babies. On March 18th I was headed out of town with the babies (for a week of more house showings), and I decided to take a test before I left. Surprise to me that the IC test (which was way expired) seemed to possibly have a second line. I took a FRER test just to be clear, which most definitely had a second line! I went about my week but took a few more tests.

For those who may be wondering, yes and no. A pregnancy was planned, but we'd imagined more along the lines of 2014 or 2015. But this surprise is pretty awesome. At the end of the week when we got back home I asked Phil to help unload the truck for us, and immediately got out our new house plans. When he came downstairs the babies were holding our tests and this is what he found.
I saw my wonderful family doctor (whom will be missed as she moved back to Australia end of April) a few days later and she requested a dating ultrasound for us. In the meantime I ended up going to the ER at 6 weeks because I suddenly lost half of my vision in both eyes. It came back within the hour but it was quite scary. They did an MRI and gave me fluids through an IV. Ouch. Turns out I'm healthy and it might've been a pregnancy hormone migraine.

April 18th we went to Pureform for an ultrasound and were told we were 8w3d along. Here's a picture of our littlest Smeltz with a HR of 169. (Just to compare, at 8w2d Hayden's HR was 167 & Claire's was 172)

8w3d, April 18

We had waited last time, until the first trimester was complete. This time my belly got bigger faster, I was exhausted and I also figured I was going to need help from family to pack up our house and whatnot in May, so we decided to tell our family earlier and hope for the best. We mailed out these birthday invitations late April.
We got a call from the Low Risk Maternity clinic at the end of April and had our initial intake appointment with a nurse on May 3rd. There, the nurses asked me a gazillion questions for an hour. Then May 10th we met with one of the rotating doctors from the office. (There are about ten different ones and you get who ever is on call the day of delivery. Similar to our previous OBs office.)

We called and told my Grandma the good news. She was so very excited to be a Great-Grandma when Claire & Hayden were born. She carries their photos everywhere and tells everyone she's a Great-Grandma. I've no doubt she's just as excited now.

Our next ultrasound was on May 13th (the day after Mother's Day) for our NT scan. Little baby looked great, measuring at 12w1d and still had a HR of 169.

12w1d, May 13

May 17th I went to the ER because of a scare. Once the doctors checked us out they found the baby to be flipping around and healthy, with a HR of 153. I had a low BP (98/65) so got another IV. (Oh joy..) Really I was just relieved to know everything was okay. I'd now like to stay out of hospitals until November.
We are planning to go to the new South Campus Hospital, which opens its brand spanking new maternity ward in the fall. With any luck it'll be opening on time, and come November that's where we will be.
I'm sure it's going to be crazy having three kids under the age of two, but a lot of fun.

15 Beautiful Months

Our twin babies are now fifteen months old. They're crazy little fun people that make every single day special and full of love.

Both of them will now climb up into my lap to cuddle or just to sit with me. They also come to me and give hugs. It's so very sweet and makes my day. They love to point things out to us and are very curious & observant. They are doing their best to communicate and I try to "listen" by watching them to figure out what they want/need.

We seem to be teething our molars now which has been going on for a few weeks and is not so pleasant but my babies are taking it well and are rarely grumpy about it. They put their tiny hands into their mouths and are chewing on everything and anything that can reach their back gums. I hope that the teeth come in soon to spare them some distress. My poor little cubs. We've been using some Tylenol, Advil or Oragel here and there but for the most part rest & popsicles have been the best medicine.
In other news, we sold our house at the end of March! It's our first house, which we had built in 2005 and we have had a lot of wonderful memories here. We got married while living here and brought our babies home from the hospital in this house. We also, over the years, built our own fences, our own garage, landscaped the yards and finished our own basement. It will be very bittersweet to move away. I expect I may just cry when we're leaving for the very last time. We are here until May 30 and I plan to spend as much time at home as we can between now and then.

After which, we will be in between houses for a bit, until our builder finishes our new house. We are now speculating sometime mid to end of July. We have the option to stay with family, in our trailer or to possibly travel a bit. (I think our move may actually be harder on our pets, whom its looking like we will have to kennel for a couple of months.) I think we'll play it by ear and hope to not get homesick. It will be so nice to be moved into our new house and have everyone and everything settled again. I'm looking forward to August this year!

Almost fourteen months!

Well it hasn't quite been 14 months yet (the 11th is on Monday) but I rarely get a chance to sit down and write, and I'm taking this opportunity.

Our babies are getting really big now and are both running everywhere. They're now saying "dis" & "dat" as we'll as their previous vocabulary. It's so fun to watch them play games with each other and we often have quiet play time where they choose a toy and run around with it. Our new favourite thing is a soccer ball which both babies kick and throw around the house. Hayden can also catch now if you toss a small ball or a ball of socks to him. They still amaze me every day.
Our new house is coming along and I had the chance to go inside for the first time this week. We are still quite a long way off with a projected completion date of "end of June".
I've been spending my days working on purging, organizing, cleaning, painting and staging our current house. It is starting to look really good and we now have an inventory of all our things. It felt good to get rid of a bunch of stuff we no longer needed, or knew we had, too. I will miss this house. Our first house. We built it while we were quite young, got married and had babies while living here. It's been good to us and I can only hope the next owner will treat it with love.
With all of this work we've been doing we've been getting the babies to help or hang out while we do a chore. I think it can't be super exciting for them but they always seem to get into something fun. Like the paint or the packing tape or pushing Rubbermaid bins around. I guess when you're one, everything is fun!

One + 1 month

It has been 13 months since we welcomed our babies into the world. I know I say this often but the time has passed in the blink of an eye.

My babies are both walking now (Hayden in November at 10 months and Claire in January at 12 months) and they are getting so big. Everyday they amaze me with new things they've learned and new tricks to getting into random things. Everything is so very interesting to them and I love watching them figuring out how the world works.

I'm still deciding if I should continue to post each month and I think I may write posts but I may stop taking their photos on their quilts and with their owl. It's gotten to be so hard to get them to sit together (or just sit still at all) never mind having them both sit next to the stuffie owl for a picture. I will still share other photos of my babies.


Here is a photo of one of our valentines day projects. We made five different ones like this and I plan to frame them.

We also went out for a nice valentines day walk with mommy, grandma & River, our dog.





And we played with our balloons. We love balloons! And discovered them on our first birthday.


And then we ate some edible arrangements fruits and chocolate. Yum!







We are talking more now and can say a few words like "mom", "dad", "dog", "cat" and "wow". Mostly it still sounds like babbles but we are working on it!

We are also packing up our house and going to lots of appointments to pick out things for our new house. We think we may move in July. It will be bittersweet to move. We love it here in our first house and will miss it but are also excited to have a brand new house.



As of yesterday, it has the second floor fully framed and the roof trusses up. This photo was taken last week. It is moving along quickly and will be a nice place for our little family. <3

One Year of Love

A whole year has passed since we were in the hospital meeting the most precious people I'll ever have laid eyes on.

January 11th was our babies' first birthday! We celebrated (in bear cub style) by throwing them a party on the 12th, with 12 of their little friends(+ parents of course). We had a beautiful bear cake, plus two small smash cakes. I also cut cheese into bear shapes and we had teddy grahams, gummi bears and bear paws as well. All of the plates, cups and napkins were pink and blue with little bears on them.











Our babies had such a wonderful time playing with their friends, opening presents and smashing their cakes.



Hayden has been walking since November and Claire took her first couple of tentative steps just tonight. They're both chattering up a storm and Claire has been trying to repeat words like "dog, cat & love you". I think they will be talking soon. It has certainly been a big year for our family, and we're looking forward to the next one!
Lots of love from the Smeltz Family. <3