Christmas, Finally

Wow! It's taken me a long time to post about Christmas. So this past Christmas we stayed here in Utah. My mom and step-dad decided to come up, which made it feel a little bit more like home. My sister lives about a half hour from us, so we decided to spend the night at her house on Christmas Eve. The kids put on a Nativity scene, which turned out really cute. I don't think Hannah got what was going on, but she played a cute little lamb (and Scott got to play the donkey- hee haw). Unfortunately our camera ran out of batteries as soon as we got to my sister's house, so these pictures are all from my mom's camera.




Christmas day was wonderful. As I mentioned, I didn't throw up once, and we were able to open up presents, eat breakfast, and eat a lasagna dinner with sausage and meatballs without any "incidents." We also told our families that I was pregnant, which is always exciting. I made my mom and dad calendars of all of their grand kids that said "Sprague Baby # 2" on the month of August. This was before I knew that we were having twins, who will probably be born in July. We also wrote Christmas cards to Scott's parents to let them know that we were expecting.

Hannah got two adorable tutus from her grandma Julia and decided that she wanted to wear them both.

She also got a makeup kit in her stocking. Bad idea. It got everywhere when she tried to put it on.

Here's Hannah enjoying her eggnog french toast for breakfast.

That Saturday we went sledding. My other sister from Arizona came up to Utah the day after Christmas, so it was fun to have a lot of my family here.

Hannah did really well on the sleds. She's such a little dare devil!

And finally, here are a couple of videos of Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Again, these will probably be boring to anyone except grandparents, but I hope you enjoy them anyway.

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P.S. I have gotten my piece of pizza since my last post, thank you very much, and it was delicious;-)

My Reality

Eventually I will get around to posting about Christmas, but for now, I've got babies on my mind. This post might seem like a lot of complaining, but just know that it is meant to be more humorous than anything and is also meant for me to look back one day and say, "Man, I'm glad I'm not in that stage anymore." I'm not going to sugar coat anything, because this is my current reality, so please bare with me.

Today's topic: pregnancy

Some women love being pregnant. I am not one of those women. Pregnancy and I do not go well together. We're like pickles and ice cream, orange juice and brushing your teeth, peanut butter and mustard. I just named off a bunch of food, all of which I currently can't have because I am too sick. These past few days have been BRUTAL for me. I think I threw up something like 16 times today. I couldn't keep a darn thing down my gullet. It's sad how much I miss food. I would love to take a bite of a delicious pizza, a juicy steak, fried shrimp, donuts, ice cream, a yummy salad, whatever.... Instead, I get to eat crackers most of the day, and then I get to throw them up. If you've never experienced morning sickness like this, just pretend like you've got the stomach flu for 3 months straight. That's basically how it feels. Some days are better than others. In fact, Christmas week was awesome. I didn't even throw up once on Christmas day. It was a Christmas miracle! For some reason, this week has been exceptionally bad. I'm hoping it's at it's peak, and maybe after this week the sickness will go down a bit. I need it to go down because I am almost completely useless right now. The house is a disaster, I can't make dinner for my family because the smell often makes me sick, and I feel like I've been a terrible mother and wife. Don't even get me started on changing Hannah's stinky diapers. If Scott is home I make him do it.

I keep telling myself that it will pass eventually......only 6 more weeks of this (fingers crossed). The only good thing that comes out of this morning sickness is that I know my babies are developing. Morning sickness is often a good sign that the placenta is growing, and I would actually be worried that something was wrong if I didn't have morning sickness. I must admit, though, I would much rather be one of those women who doesn't get it at all.

So eventually the morning sickness goes away. The second trimester is definitely the best of them all. This is the trimester that the morning sickness goes away, you get to find out the sex of the baby (or in my case, babies), and you usually get to feel the first kick. It's fun to feel the baby kick for awhile, but after a month or two of getting kicked in the ribs, pelvis, or belly button, you tend to get sick of it. Hannah used to always kick when I was trying to sleep and it got really annoying. Again, though, if she hadn't kicked for longer than a couple of hours, I would get worried.

The last trimester is a tie with the first trimester for being the worst trimester for me. Those last two months are hard. Another reason that pregnancy doesn't go with my body has to do with the fact that I gain a lot of weight. According to my doctor, a woman should only gain between 25 and 30 pounds. I gained 40 with Hannah. In fact, in my 6th month alone of pregnancy I had gained 20 pounds. The doctor told me that I needed to lay off the sweets. He told me it was okay to eat canned peaches but that I shouldn't drink the syrup that the peaches are in. Who in the world would be so deprived of sugar that they would have to drink that thick, nasty syrup that canned peaches lie in? I must admit that I was a bit offended at first when he said that to me, but I knew that I wasn't pigging out on sweets, so I brushed it off. It's actually pretty funny now. Anyway, with this pregnancy, I plan on gaining at least 50, if not more. So imagine me looking like this, but 10-20 pounds bigger and two more chins. Also with the third trimester comes lots of heartburn, painful ligaments stretching, having to sleep on your side when lying on your back is your favorite position, not being able to bend over, and waddling like a duck.

Then, there is the labor and delivery. This is another reason pregnancy and I do not go well together. I can't have children naturally. If I were born a hundred or so years ago, I probably would have died giving birth to Hannah. I am SO lucky to have been born in this day so that I can deliver all of my little pumpkins via C-section. Don't be fooled by the size of these hips; they can't bare children because the pelvis is too narrow.

And finally, there is the lovely week after the birth. The actual C-section was very pleasant and easy. You just lay there while the doctor is taking the baby out of you. After the C-section was a different story for me. I think that I'm pretty good with pain, but I can distinctly remember two times when I cried because my incision was burning me. Both times were merely because I was trying to lift my leg over the tub to get in the shower. You don't realize how much you use those lower muscles until they've been cut. Every time you laugh, cough, sneeze, lift your legs, stand up or sit down, try to climb into bed, etc, you are using those muscles. I think what made it worse for me was the fact that I was SO swollen with water after Hannah was born that it was causing a lot of pressure on my incision. I've said this before, but I weighed more after Hannah was born because of the swelling than right before she was born. Look at this picture:


Talk about "cankles." This wasn't even the worst of it. I remember my mom laughing at me as I was walking down the hall because I looked like I should have been rolled down the hall by a couple of umpa lumpas, like this:


Luckily after a week, the swelling went down and I felt really good. Hopefully this time will be better.

After all of this complaining of what I get to go through over the next 6 months, just know that I know that I am lucky to be able to have children. Also, I know that some women have it even worse than I do (those who have to be on bed rest their whole pregnancy or those who have to wear an IV because they are so dehydrated). I would do this over and over again to get another little chubby pumpkin like this:


This time I get two chubby pumpkins, which means a 2 for 1 with this pregnancy. That's great news. Who knows, this might be the last time that I get pregnant (although I think there might be one more spirit out there for us after these two are born), so I had better enjoy every minute of it.

My Thoughts On Twins

First off, I just wanted to say thank you for all of your comments and/or phone calls. They really helped to make Scott and I excited in this confusing time;) I will try my best to answer all of your questions. I've been reading a lot on the internet about twins, and a few websites that I've read said the most common question that the parents of twins will get asked is if it runs in the family. Yes, it does run in my family on the Irish side. I guess almost every generation has a set of fraternal twins back into the 1800s. I don't personally have twins in my immediate family or even in my extended family (my cousins/aunts/uncles). But, my grandma has cousins that are twins, my mom has cousins that are twins, and my mom's cousin has twins. So, my guess is that my twins are fraternal and somewhere I picked up that gene from my mom, but we won't know for sure until they have run some tests on them. Yes, they have their own sacks and placentas.

We will not be moving back to California after the babies are born. Scott will still have 8 months left in school, and then we will move where ever the job takes us. It would certainly be nice to have all of those extra hands to help, though. Oh, and no, we will not be going to the family reunion in August.

And finally, Angela, I would LOVE it if you took some pictures of them.

Alright, hopefully that answered all of your questions. Now, onto my thoughts and feelings about having twins. I always wanted to have twins when I was little. I used to pretend that my barbies were twins or that they had twin babies. In fact, I had two sets of quintuplet dolls that I used to play with a lot. I was down with any type of multiples. I also wished that I had been a twin. Then, when I started to grow up and become a little wiser, I realized that I didn't want to be a twin. How hard it would be to have to share EVERYTHING (I'm a selfish person) with someone else and always be compared with someone else. I've heard of people saying things like "He's the cuter twin" or "She's the smarter twin." Not only are twins often compared to each other, but they don't seem to have their own identities. They are always labeled as "The Sprague Twins" or whatever the last name may be and they always have to do everything together. They have to share the same birthday, clothes, friends, presents, etc., and I remember thinking how awful that would be.

After I got married, I decided that I didn't want to have twins because of that comparison/sharing thing, and also because it would be hard to raise two babies at once.

Well, now my mind has COMPLETELY changed. Scott and I are SO excited to welcome two babies into our home.

Let me tell you how it all began........ I found out a few weeks ago that I was pregnant, and I was really excited. We didn't tell our families until Christmas because we were afraid of having another miscarriage. All last week I kept joking about the fact that I could be having twins because my belly seemed awfully big for only being 8 weeks along (see Exhibit A). Of course I didn't really think that I was having twins, but it was always on my mind. Then on Monday I went in for my 8 week checkup, and the doctor felt my uterus and said that it felt pretty big. I knew I wasn't just imagining it. He scheduled an ultrasound for the next day to make sure we knew the exact due date. Monday night I couldn't sleep because I kept thinking what would happen if we were having twins. Then on Tuesday, the ultrasound technician did her magic and immediately said, "Well, I have some big news for you." I knew instantly that we were having twins. I started to cry and Scott just looked confused/worried the whole time. As the days have gone by and as we are finally starting to realize that we will have two more kids here in a short few months, we have grown incredibly excited. And as worried as I am about them having to share an identity, I've also heard of some amazing stories of how twins LOVE being twins. They always have a friend that they can count on, someone who knows them better than anyone else.

Sure, it will be hard. I probably won't get any sleep for months and months and will constantly be annoyed and impatient with people. I have no idea how I'm going to breastfeed two kids at once or how we're going to fit 5 people in this apartment and in our car. I feel sad for Hannah because she won't get as much attention anymore. But darn it, we are going to try to be the best darn parents that we can be. I will do my best to give all of them attention and treat the twins like they are individuals rather than two halves of a whole person (Sure, if they're the same sex, I might dress them alike occasionally, but not everyday).

I keep praying that they will be healthy and grow stronger everyday. I am still terrified of having another miscarriage. How sad I would be to lose one or both of these babies. Right now, I just feel so blessed that Heavenly Father has given us this opportunity to almost double our family size. It will be a long and hard ride, but I think we are going to grow tremendously from it.

Exhibit A

Speechless

WoW! I have some news! Some BIG news!!!! I was going to write a cute little blog about the fact that I am pregnant. That's really not even big news compared to what I learned today. We had an ultrasound today to see the real due date of the baby because I had a miscarriage right before I got pregnant.

Well, I AM HAVING TWINS!!!!! OH. MY. GOSH. TWINS.


I am FREAKING OUT here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The due date is August 8th, but I'll probably have them a few weeks early. I'm only 8 weeks along, so hopefully it doesn't nip me in the butt that I am posting this on my blog so early, but I just had to share the news. Plus, I just can't hide the fact that I'm pregnant anymore. My belly is already gargantuan and I am SICK SICK SICK. Details will come in next post.

A Post That Turns Out About Hannah....

Well, let's see. These past two weeks have been somewhat eventful for us. We've been sick in this house, which is definitely not fun. Hannah has had a nasty cold for the past week and a half, which means less sleep for all of us. I'm trying my best to take away her binky too, which she only uses to help her fall asleep for naps, but have been failing miserably because she won't take a nap without one. Stubborn little girl! I NEED that precious 1 to 1 1/2 hours to myself. So that leaves me in a pickle.....do I take away the binky and give up my free time, or do I continue to give her the binky, despite the fact that she's too old to have it, for my own selfish reasons?

Besides this constant battle that has been going on in my head for the past couple of weeks, here are a few other things that have been going on:

Activities:

Ward Christmas party- We had a yummy Christmas feast and talent show with our ward a couple of weeks ago. Santa didn't show up, however, because our Bishop's cabin started on fire that same day, and unfortunately, he's probably the only one in our ward who could pull off Santa. Sad day for him and his family, though.

Work Christmas party- This year, good old Staples threw a pot luck as a Christmas party at the store because funds were too tight to take all of the employees out to eat. The food was good, though, and they had a white elephant gift exchange, which ended up being pretty fun.

Christmas Primary program- At church on Sunday, Hannah got to participate in her first Christmas primary program. She's not really in primary yet, just nursery, but our ward is different because we are all young students. There are about 7 kids, all ranging from 16 months to 2 1/2 years in the "primary." The parents of the children all had to go up with their kids, considering the children are still so young and have no idea what they are doing. They sang "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam," and I found myself getting emotional watching Hannah sing and lift up her prop sun every time the word "sunbeam" was sung. It was so cute to see my little girl growing up and yet so sad. I just can't believe where the time has gone. It seems like just yesterday I was holding her as a newborn in my arms, and now she's practically in primary.
What the "h?" (H stands for heck, by the way;)

Hannah flirts- Another indicator that my daughter is growing up. We met with our bishop on Sunday and Hannah was flirting her way into his jar of candy. It was seriously the funniest thing I've ever seen. She was batting her long eyelashes, cocking her head to the side, giving a cute half smile, and sticking her hand out for him to touch it. She charmed her way into getting four pieces of candy out of him.


A few other indicators that my daughter is trying to be a big girl:



Yes, that's Hannah shaving her legs. I caught her in the bathroom, hiding in a corner, trying to shave her legs. Thank goodness the cap was still on the razor this time, but I did catch her once really shaving her face. Luckily there wasn't any blood.

Despite the fact that my daughter has been really good at throwing tantrums lately, getting into trouble, being extremely stubborn, etc., I've really had the chance to just step back and look at her this Christmas season and see what an incredible little girl she is. She makes up for all of her stinkerness by the cute things that she does, such as playing pretend with her baby, calling her dad a "scraggle muffin," putting her arms around me and giving me a kiss without being asked, and using certain phrases such as "I'm just...."

"Hannah, stop touching Dad's Xbox."
"I'm just pushing the buttons."

"Hannah, I need to change your diaper. Come here."
"I'm just hiding in the corner."

Anyway, I love this little girl more than words can describe.

Somehow this post turned out to be about Hannah, but she's really just a sweet little girl and I am thankful for her.

Christmas At The Sprague's

Almost every year since we've been married, we've been able to go to California around Christmas time. Because we went to California for Thanksgiving this year, we will not be able to make it there for Christmas. I've decided this year that because Hannah is getting old enough to recognize what Christmas is, it's time to start some of our own traditions. We put up our decorations on Monday and I was actually quite proud of the way the tree turned out. We usually just have random ornaments that were given to us by our parents and no cute color scheme. Last year I bought some red and gold decorations after Christmas, so I got them for a good deal. The tree actually has a small theme going on this year. Sure, I added the important ornaments from our parents (Some are hidden in the back. Do you have those ugly ornaments from when you were born like we do?), but a lot of them are new!

One tradition that I enjoy is that every year we decorate the tree together. This year we did it while watching Frosty The Snowman. When we are done with school and have a house to fill with decorations, we will get a real tree every year that I hope to be able to chop down with my family. There is nothing like the smell of a real Christmas tree; believe me, I've tried the Christmas tree scented candle.....not even close.

Cost of two strings of lights: $10
The feeling of seeing Christmas lights in a bush on the outside of your apartment, even if it is only two strings and looks absolutely pathetic: priceless

some day:


As part of the Christmas tradition, we also like to make goodies for other people. These cookies were the grossest sugar cookies I've ever tasted, so we didn't give them out, but we'll try again next week with a different recipe.

A tradition that I've started this year was something that my mom did for us as kids. She used to make bear Christmas ornaments every year for each of us. I used to get very excited to see what my bear would look like. She wrote our names on the bottom of it, which made me feel special. I still have all of my bears and hang them on our tree every year. This year I made one for Hannah, one for me, and one for Scott. I plan to do this every year for each of our kids. Hannah loved helping me make the bears and hang them on the tree, and I really enjoyed making them.

Other traditions that I enjoyed as a kid were reading the nativity story on Christmas Eve, lasagna with sausage and meatballs on Christmas day (we're Italian), and not seeing ANY of my gifts until Christmas morning (It leaves a fun suspense to do it that way). I plan on keeping those traditions with my kids as well. Feel free to take any of my traditions if they interest you. I would love to hear some of your favorite traditions (or you can just leave a comment even if you don't have any traditions).

Wedding, Thanksgiving, and Other Loads Of Stuff

Yikes! I feel like it's been forever since my last post. We've been pretty busy lately. Last week we were able to make a quick trip to California for Thanksgiving and Scott's brother's wedding. Actually, we just got back about an hour ago and all I have to say is that Hannah was an *ANGEL* in the car today. The trip could not have gone more perfectly. Oh, and Scott drove the entire way, even though I offered to drive, because he knows that I'm not a big fan of driving. I like him. He's nice to me.

Anyway, we arrived in California last Tuesday afternoon. There are a few things that are a must every time we go to California:

1. Stop at the gas station in Boomtown, NV. For some reason we always stop at that gas station. I don't get it, but it's a must.
2. Eat trashy food until we're about to explode (unless my mom is cooking-she's pretty good about getting us some veggies). Not trashy as in gross, trashy as in extremely unhealthy, but extremely delicious. Fruits and vegetables are not often on the menu unless they are served with butter, cheese, mayo, or on an...
3. In-n-Out burger. In-n-Out is not currently in Utah County, so it is definitely a must when we go to California.
4. Get sick. Yes, for some reason we get sick every time we go to California. This time it was just a soar throat and runny nose/sneezing, but it never fails that we catch some sort of virus.
5. And finally, drive back and forth to all of our parents, grandparents, and extended families houses until we (and especially Hannah) are exhausted. I love it, though. I'm so glad that we get to see everyone when we go there.

As I mentioned earlier, we went there mostly for Scott's brother, David's, wedding. He got married the day after Thanksgiving. Scott was the best man and Hannah was a flower girl. David and Kim looked so great together. We are really happy for them! Here are a few pictures from the wedding.

We're married!

Kim walking with her dad above

Kim's grandma walked with the flower girls and the ring bearer

Scott with the maid of honor

My smokin' hot mother-in-law with the groom

Hannah in her pretty dress

Hannah and Scott

Hannah and the other flower girl were chasing each other on the dance floor at the reception. It was pretty cute.

On Thanksgiving day we had a huge feast with all of Scott's extended family. The food was delicious and it was a lot of fun. There was even a bounce house for the kids to play in. Here are Hannah and Scott in the bounce house and Hannah with her second cousin, Londyn.


And a few other things that we were able to do this week that I failed to get pictures of were going out with my BFF from high school, Stacy and her family, to breakfast and going to a Christmas parade with my dad and step-mom.

Fun week.

Good times.

Until next time my friends.

What to do with a 2 year old on a rainy day-

It's that time of the year. The cold air is peaking its eyes around the corner and with a two year old who constantly wants to go outside to play, I feel like my creative side needs to come out. That's a problem, because I'm not very creative. Here are a few things that I've done with Hannah since the rain and 40 degree weather has hit Utah.

We made puppets out of paper bags.

We baked cookies (I let her pour most of the ingredients and roll the cookies into balls), built a tiny fort, and had a tea party.

I let her try on my clothes and shoes.

We've played hide and seek. She's very good at hiding. Sometimes I can't find her until she says something. I've found her behind her crib, in my closet, under the table, and under blankets.

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And my personal favorite, watching Hannah play with a Wii. Thanks again, Wes, for letting us borrow it!!

I've seen magazines with various crafts that a parent can make with their children, but most of them are too complicated for a two year old to do. Of course there are always finger painting and coloring, which she enjoys, but they get boring after awhile. She needs a little brother or sister to play with! Other children to play with fulfill a part of childhood that I can't provide for Hannah. Luckily she has a few friends, but I think that it's going to be a very long winter without the swings and slides. If you have any fun indoor ideas, please let me know.

"Twick o Tweat"

Arrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!! Hannah was a pirate for Halloween last night. We went out to my sister's house to go trick-or-treating. I'm sad that I didn't get many pictures of her kids and her hubby. Jarin, my bro-in-law, was dressed as a toilet, which I thought was hilarious. He put candy in his toilet bowl and gave it to kids as we were walking around the streets. It was a very clever idea. I didn't get a picture of him, but I did catch him on video. You'll see him on the right hand side of the video. Hannah's pirate hat fell off a few times, which was kind of annoying, but other than that the night went well. She got lots of candy! Afterward, we went over to my sister's house and ate mummy hot dogs, which I failed to get a picture of, and orange drinks with ghost cool whip on top. What a creative sister I have!!! Anyway, here's the short video and a couple of pictures:

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Scott and I had patches and hats, but I lost my hat and he lost his patch. So, we didn't really look like pirates at all.....just a girl with an eye patch and a guy with a black hat.

Hannah and Si Si, the snow princess, are shown in the above picture.

Above is Hannah showing all of her delcious candy off to the camera with her incredibly cheesy/fake smile.