BIG NEWS: Say what?!?

So, I now know that there is a reason my belly is so huge (see the last post). This past Monday 9/8/14 I went in for my 18 week anatomy scan and thought I would see one happy baby swimming around but no. I got a HUGE surprise! Danny was running a little late  and the tech asked if she could go a head and take pictures for the doc. Sure, why not. She did one scan over the belly - paused - another scan over the belly then turned off the machine and said we should wait for Danny. I started freaking out asking why. She just kept saying we should wait. No, no, no, no I needed to know right then. I was thinking something was wrong. Then she said it was good news and a light went off in my head, eyes bulged out of my head and all I said was "please tell me there isn't more than two". Nope, but she said it was twins. TWINS - let's let that process. 18 weeks and I am just now finding out TWINS. Identical twins. Two babies - two. Ok, enough freaking out. I start crying, laughing, smiling, and freaking out all at the same time. Then Danny walks in, sees my crying and the tech says "your wife has something to tell you". He starts freaking out thinking something is wrong and I just say "we are gonna have to buy a lot more stuff and hold up two fingers and the tech turns on the screen and says twins. His jaw immediately drops, hand goes up to his mouth and says "are you kidding me". Yeah, no. Twins. We are having twins. TWINS!

Moving on from there we come out all the nurses are buzzing saying we have never missed twins. Yeah - you missed mine! We sufficiently freaked out all day long. I didn't sleep a wink that night all I could do was thinking of everything. We texted out families saying we couldn't hold out on finding out the gender (we were going to wait when we thought we were having one baby - now we will find out but we just don't know yet) and we wanted to have a reveal dinner. My fam was set for Friday and Danny's was set for Sat. Well, my sister called immediately and said she couldn't wait so I met my family that Monday night and told them. Keeping a secret like this until Saturday was painful but we managed. Both reactions are below on video.
Mitchell Family finding out we are having twins! 9/8/14 from Lauren Struzick on Vimeo.
Struzick Family finding out we are having twins! 9/13/14 from Lauren Struzick on Vimeo.
At my 18 week appt I was measuring 27 weeks and the doctor said oh yeah I would have been able to tell something was up. Yeah......Thank goodness both babies are super healthy and both 8oz and one in the 50% and the other 42%. From here on out I start seeing a maternal fetal medicine doc every two weeks and see my regular OB every month for now. I have always loved working at the hospital but now I realized that I know entirely too much that can go wrong so I just have to calm myself down and know that I will be taken care of and God is in control.

So, in case you haven't heard.....

OK, so here is the deal. I have been meaning to blog from week 12 but of course this has not happened. So, surprise! I am prego if you didn't know yet. I am 17 weeks currently and am due February 9th. Danny and I super thrilled. Molly is excited as well thinking that we all have babies in our belly including daddy and herself. I am excited to see what happens when she can start feeling the baby. That should be interesting. It is so crazy the difference in life comparing now and when I was at this stage with Molly. I thought I was so busy but having a toddler brings a whole new meaning to the word busy. I am sure when there is two it gets even more crazier. While I can't wait to mean this little one I am really excited to see the whole sibling connection. I actually can't wait for that.

Here is my belly pic that I took tonight. Not the best but it will do.

How far along? 17 weeks 2 days
how are you measuring? Don't know, but will find out on Monday - when we have our anatomy scan/gender appt. BUT this time we are not finding out the gender!
size of baby? According to thebump.com our baby is 5.1 inches long and 5.9 oz, the size of an onion 
heartbeat? 162 bpm (at our 14 weeks appointment) 
total weight gain/loss? + 5 lbs as of 14 weeks 
maternity clothes? Pshhhh yes! I needed maternity clothes starting at 8 weeks. It is crazy the difference with baby numero 2.
stretch marks? just my leftovers - no new ones.....yet
sleep? I wake up to go to the bathroom twice a night and I remember how much I am not a side sleeper.
best moment this week? wearing a maternity swimsuit and rockin it or I just didn't care what people thought especially when chasing a curious toddler.
movement? I feel like I felt something around week 15 but then not again.
food cravings? nothing really. Oh wait. for a while there I needed pickles and I mean NEEDED them, even dreamt about them.
gender predictions? No clue. 
what i miss? Sleeping through a whole night and I would really love it if I could have a glass of red wine.
what I'm looking forward to? Going to my next doc appointment where we get to see the little one.
how are you feeling? Feelin good.

Just so we can compare with this itty bitty belly below. This was me with Molly at 17 weeks. What a crazy difference!

M 2.5 years old - say what?!?

I'm baaacccckkkk. So much has happened, finally moved out of my sister's house, moved in to a mostly complete house and another big suprise which will be its own post. On to the title of this post - yes, I am almost a month late but I can say this blog was drafted on July 13 - her 2.5 birthday. So here goes.

Oh my goodness. Can anyone else believe that Molly is 2.5 years old this month?!? Time goes by so quickly but I love the stage she is in right now. She is so fun, can have a conversation and is starting to get an imagination. Just the other day she was telling me that there was a tiger that was following us in the car and we needed to roar really loud to scare him away. Said tiger comes around quite often, sometimes we pet him in our laps and other times we scare him away. It is humorous.

She doesn’t so much like going on bridges. For whatever reason it scares her or something. She likes to go under them and next to  them but not on them which is near impossible to do when you live in Houston. And for whatever reason she still won’t say “b”ridge. It is still fridge.

She loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She can sing the whole song and is interactive (talking back to Mickey when he asks a question) through the whole show. This is the only cartoon she will watch. I tried to get her to watch Frozen but 5 minutes in she asked where Mickey was.

She is overall a great eater. Loves to eat yogurt. She could eat that 24/7. She was introduced to chocolate milk somewhere and won’t stop asking for it since.

We recently busted out with swimming and homegirl loves it! I need to get her in swimming lessons….on the to do list.

Singing, she is singing all the time. She constantly sings the bumblebee song, Jesus loves me and Jesus loves the little children.

She loves working puzzles, playing with her baby and stringing beads to make necklaces….this will keep her busy for 30 minutes!

Potty training. I think  she is there. Jelly beans are the bribing factor in this, which is a big deal – BIG DEAL. So she constantly tries and always wants to wear panties. So we are gonna try it out this week, panties all day and we will see how it goes. (Side note: now that we are almost 1 month past our 2.5 birthday I can say that we are potty trained and that will be a whole post to itself.)

So shoes are not her thing. She never wants to wear them. As soon as we get in the car they come off. As soon as we get inside anything she takes them off….including restaurants, grocery stores. This girl does not like shoes. But we recently got some jellys and she is all about them so we do wear those.

She is so sweet right now. Always giving hugs and telling me she loves me. She wants to kiss anyone and everyone’s booboo and right after she does it she asks “It feels better?” And in that toddler voice…..hits me straight in the heart every time.

She is a momma’s girl. Always wants me to pick her up, put her to bed, and do everything else. It gets a little exhausting but I think this phase will pass and I will miss it so much so I am soaking it all up. Although the excitement when Danny gets home from work sometimes rivals any excitement I get for the day.

Molly the Comedian

So, she tells jokes now. I didn't know 2 year olds could tell jokes but they can. Here are the jokes that Molly told us the other day so randomly. She must have learned them at school but it cracked us up!

M: Hey mommy, what's crackin?
Me: What? Not understanding it was a joke
M: An egg

And here is the other.

M: Hey mommy, what's cluckin?
Me: I don't know, what's cluckin?
M: A chicken

Little jokester. Just to finish it off, tonight after book and prayers we were giving our kisses and Danny starts walking out and Molly yells "good night old man". I literally died. It was hilarious.

Easter 2014

Yes, I realize that Easter was a month ago and this has been drafted for the whole month I just needed to add pictures. Mostly I update my life on Instagram now but eventually I will get back to the blog world on a regular basis. Anyway, Easter weekend was great. It started Saturday with Danny's family at the ranch. All the aunts, uncles and cousins come out so it is a  big, fun family get together. We did the annual egg hunt for the kiddos which was fun because Molly got it but was not the biggest fan of sharing and not eating all the candy right away.

Getting ready for the hunt.

A fam pic

Sittin with Mawmaw

This girl and the 4 wheeler....obsessed.

See....loves it.

Sunday morning we woke up, checked out the Easter basket and rushed to early church. After that we came home and enjoyed a big family lunch with my side. I was kind enough to volunteer Jenna's house since we still live with them. ;)

The loot - the Easter bunny went a little nuts.

Fam pic again

It was a great weekend!

10 Things

So life has been busy as I am sure it has been busy for everyone. Here are 10 quick tidbits of life right now.

• Molly has a cast of characters that she sleeps with every night and they go with us everywhere. Here is the main lineup (some other animals make it in occasionally). Lovey, first and foremost Molly needs lovey with her. My mom gave her this before she was even born and she has been attached to it since she has been on God's green earth. Then we have the following: bunny, which my sister gave her when she turned one, Polka dot, my Aunt gave it to her for Christmas and this is the only animal that she named and she won't part with it, baby, she got a baby when we went to Hawaii that she loved and well, that one took a dip in the potty so she got another one and finally doggie, this was a random purchase at Michael's and she got attached. Oh and she always has to sleep with her pillow that she got at Vacation Bible School.

L to R: pillow, lovey, bunny, baby, doggie, polka dot

• We are still living with my sister.....we are going on 3 months.......sorry Jenna. I have actually thoroughly enjoyed it because her and her hubs help clean, cook and take care of M. Moving back to a house where it is just me and Danny will be a slight adjustment. 

• I turned 30 this past Sunday. Thirty! I just don't know if I am ready to be in my 30's. I mean I feel like college was not that long ago and I am not that different of a person. It is just weird, this getting older thing, gray hairs and all. But I will just go with the best is yet to come.

• Molly is still constantly cracking me up and amazing me with her speech. She is hilarious.
• She has mastered the delay in bedtime. She realizes that once bath starts bed time is soon to follow and she wants to play and isn't ready for baths and then after she is not ready for a book and wants to read 3 vs. 1 and wants to say prayers a million times.
• She is gonna be a great big sister. NOT that I am prego right now but she loves taking care of people. We went to Corpus this past weekend with Danny's family for a wedding and she loved mothering her one year old cousin William.  

• Danny recently bought a harmonica and, well, Molly and Danny both think they are pros. It is a lot of noise. Although I will say Danny has learned a couple songs which is better than just noise.
• Molly wanted to take a shower tonight and we let her try it out. She was in heaven. Loved every second. She would go in and out of the water over and over again and do a little dance.
• We say two blessings every night before dinner. She learned a song at school and then we say out regular blessing. Her song is sung to the tune of "where is thumbkin" and it goes like this. "God our Father, God our Father, Once again, Once again, Thank you for our blessings, Thank you for our blessings, Amen, Amen.
• Our kitchen cabinets and granite are in and I love them :) 

• Oh and one more for good measure. I painted M's toe nails the other day and she thought it was the coolest thing. She just kept staring at her toes and laughing then for days after so would get everyone to look at her toes and would wake up every morning talking about them.

Cowgirl Molly

Girlfriend loved the rodeo. So much so that we went twice. The first time we went as a little fam and then the other time we went it was the three ladies (my sister, M and myself). We saw all the animals. Her fav. was the little piglets that were laying on the mommy. And....is it sad that I me and Molly matched?!? I kinda of loved it. We both had jeans, white top and red boots on. :) It's the little things.

Riding the shuttle to the rodeo and so excited!

Not wanting to pose

Waiting for the pig races to start.

The piggies!

The fam.

The second time we went we headed to the carnival. No surprise that she loved it and wanted to ride all the rides over and over again. Funny thing is that she only wanted to ride the orange colored rides......and for a while there I was worried she was color blind. The one time she rode the pink one she let me know in the loudest way possible that she did NOT want that one. She wanted the orange one. So not only does she like orange she has mastered the loud effect.

It's orange!

Another orange ride.

Round and round on the carousel  

Don't worry Jenna and I found the best fried food out there - fried pickle hot dog. Yummm