Whoa, baby!

Well, this will probably come as a surprise to no one (word spreads fast), but we might as well announce it anyway.  I'm not sure why I've waited so long to put it on the blog, but I could come up with a few reasons/excuses.  In October, the Andros family will be adding an addition to their house and expanding it by 4 feet..... Yes, two babies are on their way to our home!  Twins!  Who would have thought?  We are very excited and cannot wait to welcome into our family 2 more beautiful babies.  We don't know if they are boys are girls yet, but we do know that they are fraternal twins, which gives us the possibility of any combination- 2 girls, 2 boys, or one of each.  Chloe hopes at least one is a sister for her, but we have talked about the possibility of 2 more brothers. 

I am almost 15 weeks and we told Chloe the big news a few weeks ago.  We got it on tape and she handled the news very well, but got very silly at times.  Mitch, of course, has no idea what is going on and after we received the big news, we knew we HAD to get him walking ASAP.  He has fulfilled his end of the bargain and is now ready to be a big brother!

As for me, I have been very sick and what they say is true- if you get sick with pregnancies, it is definitely twice as bad with twins (and twice as tired, too).  I have never felt so ill in my life.  For me, it's been like having the flu all day, every day.  Things are starting to get a bit better now that the first trimester has passed and I can finally keep a little food down.  I never thought in all my life that the thought of ice cream would make me nauseous (it still makes me sad to say that).  But I have hope that I can feel much better soon and be able to eat like a normal person once again.  Pregnant with twins is the most effective diet I have ever been on (I lost 8 pounds in just a week or two) but I would much rather have to work those pounds off at a gym than feel this rotten.

But sickness aside, we are very excited.  But along with that excitement, we have had to hear the responses and comments from many people. Although I'm sure they mean well (I try to repeat that after someone blurts out a thoughtless comment), I have come up with a list of comments that I will never say to someone expecting twins.  And to give credit to all those well meaning, all be it rude people, I may have said similar things in the past, which I now resolve never to do again after being on the receiving end of the comments.

1. "Wow, twins..... (with eyes wide open in horror).  You guys are going to be SO busy, wow."

2. Twins??  Oh my!  How many kids do you guys want to HAVE?"

3.  Whoa.  I am SO glad it is you and not me......"

4. "Wow, your house is going to be CRAZY....."

5.  "Twins, oh man.  I'm  so glad I'm done having children."

6.  "Wow, you've got QUITE the road ahead of you....."

And then the various comments that imply that we don't quite understand that twins means two babies and that we better rethink this (as if it's something we could change even if we wanted to).  But to all the well meaning naysayers (none of you personally that I know who read my blog), we see this as a blessing and not in any way a curse, a trial or a test.  They are babies, not bombs!  If there is anything more precious than the expected arrival of one baby, it would probably have to be two and we couldn't be more thrilled.  We have 2 families in our ward who have twins (both older, ages 10 and 11) who have been a great source of wisdom for us.  They have given great advice and have said so many kind words to us.  They have truthfully told us that yes, it is busy and can be hard and we have taken that in and can say that we know that it will be hard, but we can honestly say we don't know just how hard yet, but that we are up for the challenge and ready for some fun!

Swine Flu

I'm sure most of you have heard about the recent swine flu breakout.  I heard about it today and didn't think a whole lot about it, until I heard it originated and is spreading across Mexico.  After I heard that, I started getting nervous because we just booked a vacation to Mexico last week for the end of May!  

Too much irony this past week for us- Mitch walking the same week he starts physical therapy, and now after we book our first kid-less vacation since our honeymoon, there is an influenza outbreak in the same location we book our trip.  What are the odds?

My mother, being an infection control nurse, kindly sent me an email regarding the current swine flue situation and although as of today there is no need for panic (yet), the U.S. Travel Agency has issued a suggestion that "nonessential travel to Mexico be avoided."  Well, as much as I'd like to say our trip was ESSENTIAL (vacation every now and then is essential, right?), in all reality it's not.  Now what do we do?

Well, I've been on the phone all day trying to figure out my options.  This morning, our travel agency (Costco.com) said that our trip protection insurance would not cover the "suggestion" from the U.S. Travel Agency and that if we canceled, we'd have fees of $600 (about a third of the total trip, wow!)  And the airline we booked the flights through is willing to move the trip date or let us fly to some other destination with no changing or cancelation fees, but only up until May 8th (we don't leave until May 22nd).

Long story short, I decided to call Costo.com back randomly for a small question and was told by the agent, "We just got a new policy from our manager- if you cancel today, you can cancel for no fees except your trip protection fee ($54)."  I never thought I would be excited to cancel a vacation to Mexico, but we jumped on it.  With the uncertainty of this flu outbreak, it wasn't worth it to us (financially or health wise) to wait around and see if it was going to clear up before we left.  The dates we are vacationing are set in stone for us (with Ben's work schedule and other things) and it was too risky to wait around until a few days before and either have to cancel our trip and pay hefty fees AND not have time to reschedule another vacation, or still have the advisory in tact and go to Mexico with the chance of being exposed to a flu we are not immunized against. 

It may come down to the fact that this scare/outbreak clears up in a few days or weeks, but now we don't have to worry about it.  So now..... back to the drawing board for vacation destinations!  We are still planning on somewhere warm, either state side or otherwise.  Wish us luck, but curses on Swine Flu!  

The Best Birthday Present!

This week for my birthday, Mitchell decided it was FINALLY time to start walking.  This was a great birthday gift, as he is 18  months old and been in the process of walking now for 6 months. It's also quite ironic (and frustrating and amusing all at the same time) that he started walking this week, as we just started physical therapy on Monday.  No, our one therapy session did not do the trick (the therapist is good, but not that good)!  Something just clicked for him and he decided this was the week to start walking for good.  Now we have to decide when to quit physical therapy and if we should take the expense out of Mitchell's college fund.....

At any rate, we are very excited that he is walking and we can't get enough of watching him do it.  After all the struggle we've been through with him to walk, it's like watching a small miracle.  It got to the point where we couldn't imagine him ever walking all of the time.  He is very happy about it himself and loves just walking all around the house.  I have posted proof of our walking man for those who have requested to see it.  (Mitch is not very happy in these clips, but proof is proof).

Happy Easter!

We had a fun Easter weekend as a family.  The kids were gone the entire week at Nana and Papa's house while Ben was out of town and I got an entire week by myself at home!  (Best gift ever.  I have the best in-laws!)  The kids came home on Saturday and so did Ben, so we wasted no time doing Easter things together- coloring eggs, making sugar cookies, easter egg hunts, etc.

The Easter Bunny brought the kids each their own movie and, of course, candy.

Mitch shoved candy into his mouth as fast as he possibly could and was stuffed to the brim at all times, until we had to hide the candy.

Chloe in her new Easter dress.  She was so excited to wear it and we love picking out a new dress together each year.

Mitch in his new Easter outfit.  He wouldn't stand up for me, but he looked very handsome in it for church and for his first day of NURSERY!  Hooray!  What a happy day it was for all of us to have him in nursery.

Happy Easter!

Update!

It's definitely time for an update on the Andros Family.  We have had quite an eventful winter and beginning of Spring (if you can call it Spring yet).  Here's our happenings, in no particular order (it's too hard to get all of the pictures in chronological order with so many!)

In February, my sister Amanda came to visit with her little boy Carter.  Chloe was the second mom to cousin Carter (acting like she's never had a little brother before) and loved to feed him his meals!

The boys had a good time playing together, even if Mitchell's favorite game was "push over Carter and watch him fall."  Mitchell practiced his walking skills by taking cousin for a ride in the shopping cart.  It was hilarious.

Then they switched and Carter "pushed" Mitch.

At the end of February, our dog Daisy had 14 chocolate lab pups (can you imagine?)  Unfortunately, one was still born, and 2 were sickly and died, but we were left with 11 very healthy, very cute puppies.  Here they are just a few days old- little brown rats.

Chloe is the best little "mother" to the pups.  This is our 3rd litter and she gets more helpful and sweet with each litter.

Mitch was just 6 months old last litter and didn't have any idea what was going on, but gets now that we have puppies.  He really wasn't sure about them in the beginning, though, especially when they were this tiny.

Ben's newest hobby is dutch oven cooking!  We got some dutch ovens for Christmas and he has been trying his hand at all sorts of recipes.  Cinnamon rolls have been his latest obsession, and after many not-so-great attempts, he finally got it perfect!  We are hoping our dutch ovens come in handy as part of our food storage supply so that we have something to cook with in times of need.  If bad times come, the Andros family will have dessert!

The proud chef!

In March, Chloe went back to the ophthalmologist for a check up to see how her glasses are helping her lazy eye.  The doctor was very impressed at how well they have worked and we got the best news possible- we don't have to patch!!  The doctor was actually surprised- he said he was almost certain that the glasses might help, but not be enough and that we would have to patch her good eye to strengthen the weak eye.  That would have been miserable for all of us.  We were very excited.  Now she will continue to wear the glasses for a few more years, possibly, until everything is corrected.  I give Chloe the most credit- she wears those glasses faithfully EVERYDAY and is such a trooper about them.

Just getting Mitch used to eye doctor equipment- we're pretty sure he'll be the one in the chair very shortly!

Our little man, who is almost 18 months, is still not walking.  Not only that, but he's not talking either.  To speed up his progress in both areas, we have decided to get him evaluated to see if he qualifies for speech and physical therapy.  Everyone has said that he will be talking and walking in no time, which was a nice idea, but rather than wait months and months to see if that happens (after already waiting months and months with little or no progress in both areas), we want to help him so that in a year or two, he's not drastically behind and really struggling.  We have nothing to lose by getting help and we are very excited to see what the therapists say after next week's evaluations!

Although not walking, he sure is a little monkey and climbs EVERYWHERE!  His favorite place is to climb onto the dishwasher and unload it for me (clean and dirty dishes) and he has also been spotted on the counter in the bathroom and on top of the kitchen table.  A child who can climb as well as he can SHOULD BE WALKING!

When the weather is nice (which has been rare lately), we love to go out and play with the pups.

Now that the pups are bigger and walking around, Mitchell finds them much  more interesting.

He is learning to be very sweet and gentle with them.  It's very cute.

We have had lots of fun having both sets of grandparents visit in March.  The kids love fresh meat to play with them (mom and dad get boring really fast). 

The kids love Aunt Catherine!

Playing with the pups.

Chloe loves to cuddle the pups like a little baby, on their back.  Puppies normally don't like to be on their backs, but Chloe has the magic touch.

We are definitely tired of SNOW!  I really don't think Chloe minds it though, and when Nana and Papa were here, they played in the snow all morning.

And made a huge snowman!

Mitch's new obsession (and I mean obsession) is holding hands with someone pretty much at all times, especially if he is sitting with you or holding still.  Here in his high chair, he sucks his thumb with one hand and makes Grandma hold his other hand.  He whines in the car for someone to reach back and hold his hand and in every other place and time you can think of.  Very cute and very sweet. 

Kisses for the puppy!

In February, Chloe's preschool class went to the local Fire Station.  The kids loved it.  They even got to get inside the fire truck.

Sporting their cute fire hats.

Whew!  That's all!  A very fun winter, despite the rotten weather.  We are anxious for more of the nice weather we've had lately so the kids can start playing outside more.  The pups are 6 weeks old this week and will go to their new homes in just 2 weeks.  Happy Spring!