keep rubbing my muscles, I'm eating for 3

Brad is a good husband. He gave me prenatal massages for Christmas and I just got my first one today. Best. Gift. Ever.
I had high expectations and it totally lived up to it. There were special shaped cushions all over the table like a puzzle with big dips for lumpy places on your body- I got to lay on my stomach for the first time in months. It was so amazing. Everything about it was awesome, if you were all prego like me I'd expect you to be pretty jealous.

I decided to take a pic today of how funny my tight t-shirts are now.

Before I had to hold back all the loose shirt for a pic, just to make sure you knew I had a girlish figure. :)

A ranting side note: when I first went in to the massage place I noticed she had pics all over the walls of her water birth. Yummy... She proceeded to give a little shpeel about natural home births. I've already learned my lesson not to be over zealous about sharing my strong opinions on the topic, so I just smiled politely and thought to myself "you have no idea how pointless it is to talk to me about this lady"...Now massage my sad muscles, please. :)
Its gotten easier to not go off on my opinions on such topics since I no longer have crazy/hippy/liberal ideas being dished to me daily from U of U professors. (Who would have thought nursing school had so much to do with global warming, dogs, and gay rights?) And if you have a nurse midwife for a professor you also get to learn about how women don't need epidurals or those fancy-shmancy "hospitals".
Since this is my personal blog and those who don't like it don't read it- I don't fear offending the kind souls who do read it (or worry about having my name submitted in the world of gossip and rumors). So I will tell you this- I believe that modern medicine and technology is a blessing that can and should be used to benefit and promote a healthy life. I know it's all trendy, but pretending like you're a pioneer without all of these benefits is so silly to me. The miracle of birth is still there whether you're in pain or not, at home or in a hospital, or even if you end up needing a c-section. The miracle is a new life coming into the world, that's the important, beautiful part. I never got sick of seeing that in L&D, it is seriously incredible. Do you have any idea how different survival rates are for newborns because of what can be done for you in a hospital when something goes wrong? You could never be monitored and ready quickly for an emergency c-section if needed at home like you would be in a hospital. I don't get why you'd take your chances when dealing w/ a baby's life... but that's just me.

the strangest dreams...

Ever since I have been pregnant I have intense, vivid dreams that are crazy and seem very realistic.  For the entire first trimester most of my dreams involved babies falling out of me in one way or another.  That was disturbing, I guess that fear eventually left.  I have since then had a few really disturbing dreams that made me cry just thinking of them afterwards.  Sometimes I just have super random dreams that really make me question where they could have originated without drugs...

Last night I dreamt that our babies were just home from the hospital in their crib.  I looked at them and they were the most gigantic babies I'd ever seen, probably 5x the size of a normal baby.  They both had pierced ears, bright red lipstick, and looked just like miss piggy.  I realized I had to pretend I thought they were pretty.  We were trying to figure out which baby came out first and which one was named which.   All I could do was stare at how weird they both looked and think, "I can't believe these are our babies."
I really shouldn't be surprised since I have already given birth to a wide variety of species and talking babies in my dreams. These pregnancy hormones are seriously like being on crack at night, I can't wait to get off them and go back to my normal dreams...

sisters, sisters

\

A lovely belly line up of me, my sister Melinda, and sister-in-law Meg.  All expecting within weeks of each other!  It's too fun.  So that's 4 new babies coming next month in the Lewis household.  The Hagens will add 3 to their # this year with me and my sister-in-law Emily.  Plus there are 2 more bonus babies coming in a few months on the Lewis side if you count pseudo-sister Maja's twins. And if you've been on facebook recently you may notice every other news feed is about someone having a baby.

So, if you've been considering having a baby, now is the time- everyone is doing it.

We just went to the doctor again today- our girls continue to grow healthy and strong- 50th percentile in size, no signs of preterm labor at all. This is great news, but its also looking like we may have to go hang out at "jump on it" for Valentines to get things moving along. :)

2011 comes in w/ a BANG

Dear 2011,
I forgive you, but you better make it up to me...
Not the happiest New Years- I was crazy sick all day, which I learned is a bad combo when you're 7 months pregnant. Without the nasty details- I was in the bathroom every few minutes for one reason or another. I couldn't keep a sip of water, sprite, or gatorade in me, which led to some severe dehydration, which led to contractions. I was in so much pain and started feeling almost too weak to walk to the bathroom- after several hours I decided I probably needed some fluids.  We went to the L&D unit and I got a couple thousand mls of D5 1/2NS pumped into me, as well as some much appreciated anti-nausea meds. My ketonuria was so bad that the nurse thought it was hematuria at first, can't say I blame her- that was some weird looking pee. I wish I could have just been given fluids and been on my way, but of course I had to go through the whole hoopla and we were there for over 4 hrs- I can't really complain though because I felt like a different person afterwards- like I was just normal sick, which felt way better than super dehydrated w/ frequent contractions on top of everything else...
I never thought yesterday would end, I'm soo happy its today now.

ring out the old, ring in the new

2010 was pretty great, it was my first time spending a whole year's events w/ a husband and this year we'll get to share most of the year with our twins. I can't wait!
A few 2010 highlights:
We had our 1st Valentines (we're hoping to get 2 little girls for our Valentines this year- big upgrade!)

We escaped the cold to AZ:

We made a pretty sweet rap video to try and get on the amazing race, they didn't even consider us...that's okay- it wouldn't have worked pregnant.

Brad turned 30 and I turned 25:

We worked on our house, A LOT. (for the past 7 months I've been able to call it "nesting")

I survived my first March Madness, which is not a small accomplishment in the Hagen household.

We enjoyed spring and Easter, I attempted to control our crazy yard...

I participated in a cooking competition and overcame some inhibitions making cooking videos.

I also poisened my family  (1 and only time, I swear.)

I graduated from nursing school (hallelujah):

We got our one and only pet, Solo:

Then we went to Alaska where we killed and ate many of his distant relatives:

We also visited Carmel and San Francisco a couple times.

I practiced looking like a mommy:

I baked and cooked, and cooked and baked. All year long, and I loved it.

I explored my obsession with chocolate more deeply.

We got pregnant with twins.

We saw Paul McCartney perfom live.

I hiked Timpanogos, pregnant. (15 miles- 5,000 ft. elevation)

We celebrated our first Anniversary.

We visited the Outer Banks.

I grew a belly.

We went to Disneyland.

We enjoyed Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas w/ all the festivities.

Thanks for the memories 2010, I'm so excited for this year!

party people

I has so much fun last night seeing some old friends from highschool, I seriously think I haven't seen some of these girls since graduation...

It's so fun to catch up and find out whats going on in people's lives (and refreshing to not do it through social media...). We really don't get to have people over very often, so it was fun to show some people our house after all the projects we've done (and are in the process of doing).
Brad's turning into a photographer- here's some candid shots he took:

Don't you wish you knew what they were talking about?

He can't get a candid one of me, I'm noticing I always make this "party face" where I open my mouth wide open, it looks like I'm happily being attacked by a bear...

We had fun, the end.

all i want for christmas is...

a fancy camera so I can take adorable pictures of our kids!

So brad spoiled me and got me this for Christmas.
But, it's not all I got- I was so spoiled this Christmas- in a way that it was thrilling opening awesome surprise gifts, but also made me feel like I needed to give 1/2 of it away to orphans to put the universe back in balance (except orphans probably don't need a new ipod, prenatal massage, or lens for a DSLR camera...) We agreed that beyond the camera I would only get a couple little stocking stuffers, but Brad found so many cute surprises for me- it was seriously like being a kid on Christmas. Thank you babe, and Santa, and family for such generous gifts. I'm sure we'll be all about the kids for all future Christmases so I'll keep my loot- just this one time... :) Plethora of gifts aside, it was really just a great Christmas, one full of fun memories that I won't forget. Here's a sampling of post Christmas mess:

But I meant to be talking about the camera...
I've only ever used a point and click, and I've been very loyal to Canon, but after doing my research, I felt like everyone was telling me to get a Nikon: our amazing wedding photographer Scott Jarvie, the infamous pioneer woman, and informative reviews like this. Although I'd never actually taken a picture with a DSLR camera I felt confident in going with Nikon. Even an older model Nikon seemed to outclass the latest Canon and finding a slightly older model made the whole thing much more affordable as well. I surely hope I can figure out all this fancy camera stuff. As long as I can I think I'm going to love it!
The desire has been there for a while, but really ignited when I randomly saw these cute pictures on project nursery: I thought, I want cute pictures of my babies too. Brad thought they were weird, but I think they're sweet. (and not tacky and not just your average newborn shots)

(don't worry, I won't experiment with hanging my babies from trees..)

Then my friend Brooke posted about these pictures on her blog, and I could immediately tell it was the same photographer (she has great style). I was so excited, I knew who took the pictures now and they were in Utah so I could theoretically get cute pictures of my own babies just like them!
Until i saw the price. If I'm going to pay $500 (yes, 1/2 of a thousand dollars!-no prints included) on one little photo shoot of newborn babies, I may as well buy a nice camera with that money and learn how to take cute pictures myself for years to come. So that's exactly what I'm doing. Teach a man to fish, my friends.
So I was going through the manual for a while trying to figure out how to take pictures, formatting memory cards, all this new stuff, but it still wouldn't take a picture. Brad finally figured out we didn't have the lens attached quite right, the camera suddenly perked up and was ready to shoot. Brad pulled it up to his face as I said "nooooo....I want to take the first picture!" But it was too late, so these are the very first pictures taken:

ESPN and ungroomed feet. Yup, sounds about right. So Brad took a pic of me pouting, he hates when I make this face.

my first picture:

Thanks for the awesome Christmas gift Brad, I love you! xoxo