A Christmas Traditions Meme

I saw this on Postcards from the Mothership and felt inspired to participate!

1. Christmas Eve or Christmas morning?

Christmas morning. Although I liked the idea of one gift on Christmas Eve and the idea of Christmas PJs so much that we now do one gift - of PJs, on Christmas eve :)

2. Donner or Donder?

Donner.

3. Turkey or ham?

Turkey with my family, and you just never know what we'll have with my husband's family :) It's always yummy though.

4. Gifts opened all at once, or one at a time?

I am firmly a one at a time girl. Whenever I am in a situation where everyone is opening at one I can't figure out where to look, what's been opened, who should be doing what and it's always very confusing to me. But I'm trying to get used to it ;)

5. Christmas tree: live or artificial?

We always had an artificial tree growing up and I was fine with that. I had a few years with real trees because roommates insisted, but I'm happily back to an artificial tree now. And now that we have one we REALLY like, I know that every year the tree will look fabulous and not having to worry about finding the right sized one, or one that is full enough, or, one that falls down in the night.

6. Cards: boxed cards, family photo cards, or e-cards?

I already ranted about cards once this year. I only send out cards if I have a photo to send. Otherwise, I just don't really get the point...

7. Christmas lights: incandescent or LED?

We just have the lights that came with the tree and I don't think they're LED. If/when we eventually get lights for outside, we'll get LED.

8. Re-gift or not?

I would, but I don't find I generally have the need.

9. Gift wrap or gift bags?

I find wrapping paper such a waste but I agree with many who say kids enjoy the ripping. So for now we're doing a bit of both, and I made some cloth Xmas bags that should last for years. I also stopped buying wrapping paper (I used to go crazy after christmas but have stopped) so I'm hoping that once I run out I'll have switched over to primarily the bags...

10. Best Christmas song?

I don't know... but I love Christmas music

11. Best Christmas movie?

Sound of music probably doesn't count eh? I can't really think of Christmas movies I love, but I feel like I often watched Sound of Music on tv on Christmas day.

12. Favourite family tradition?

I'm loving growing more and more traditions. We're doing yearly photos with Santa, and Xmas pjs so far. I'm hoping we'll have many more!

Okay, your turn. Do play along!!

Christmas cards

I feel like this is really bitchy of me to feel, but,

If you aren't going to bother signing more than "love so and so" to a generic Xmas card - why do you bother sending them? It doesn't make me feel thought of or loved by you. It makes me think that you went through your address book and thought "ya, I guess they ought to get one".

I don't think that's really the sentiment. "Sure, we like them." Either write me a personal little note to at least show me you know who you were sending the card to or don't bother.

There are, however, exceptions. If you are sending me a photo of you, your family, or your kids, I am fine with a simple "love us". I like to have photos. I put them on my fridge until they're a bit too old and then I put them in a scrapbook and keep them forever. Another thing I like are Xmas newsletters.... send me a generic newsletter telling me what happened in the last year. Don't have time to do that? I TOTALLY understand. Do like me and hope the people you like and love know you like and love them and don't need me to waste paper, stamps and time sending them meaningless cards that will doubtless end up cluttering their mantle until it goes in the recycling bin.

Signed a grinchy feeling me.

Hi bungabooboo!

Kiernan LOVES making up words. It seems like half the time he comes up and says "I want to boodleemanga mommy" or "let's watch domadaba". He thinks it's hilarious! Especially if you respond with made up words too. Sometimes we read books with entirely made up words leaving him in hysterics.

His other favourite thing to do lately is to walk up to you and call you a name that isn't yours.

Kiernan "Hi Daddy!"
Me: "Hi Kiernan"
Kiernan "No. Hi Daddy!"
Me: "ok. Hi Joel"
Kiernan kills himself laughing and repeats. Sometimes calling me Grammie or Grandpapa instead.

This weekend it evolved.
Kiernan: "Hi Daddy!"
Me "Hi Joel"
Kiernan: "Ya! Kiernan is at Vicky's house" *kills himself laughing*
And I have to say, I pretty much killed myself laughing too :)

Santa - year 3

I was so sad because every time I walked by the Santa display (and I work at the mall so I do a fair amount) I never ever saw our favourite Santa. How thrilled was I when I finally took K for his photo when he was there! And Kiernan smiled! None of this looking crazy freaked out ;)

What a gorgeous kid we have!

(I took a photo of the photo again this year ;)

You know what I've been kind of obsessively worrying about? Next year, do I get one photo with each child? Do we do a group photo? Is it unfair for Kiernan to have gotten all these photos on his own and not have the twins get that too? Is 4 separate photos excessive? I think it is, but does that mean I shouldn't do it? So many decisions to make before next year! :)

How can I have 20+ weeks to go?

I'm 15 weeks pregnant with these twins, and unlike the other blog I've found following a twin pregnancy, I'm going to be a complainer.

- My ligaments are already killing me. It's a struggle to turn over in bed and so I'm sure it wont' be long until I'll have to get out of bed to turn over like I did with k.

- The heartburn, reflux, etc is already so back some nights that I lie in bed burping for half an hour straight and last night I built a mountain of pillows on the bed to recline upon since lying down flat was too painful.

- My hips are digging in to my mattress so today I went out and bought a memory foam topper for the bed. Hopefully that will help.

It's only going to go downhill from here people. What I want to know is, WHY is being pregnant so difficult? If this is was we were built to do, shouldn't it be easier? Do animals have this much discomfort? Imagine animals who spend their lives breeding? What a horrible life!!

These babies will be worth it. But May/June is a long ways away. sigh.

The stuff you learn about twins

When I found out I was having twins a few weeks ago I knew little about twins. I knew there were fraternal twins and I knew there were identical twins. I knew that fraternal twins could run in a family - but that it has to come through the mother and I knew that identical twins are a always just flukes. Other than that - I didn't know a thing. Oh, I knew that identical twin pregnancies could be riskier than fraternal ones.

Since then I have learned quite a lot and I've decided to share my new knowledge with you all (lucky you! ;)

*Fraternal twins happen when two eggs get fertilized. They are as different from each other as two babies would have been from two separate pregnancies.

* Identical twins happen when a fertilized eggs splits into two growing organisms. Depending on when the split happens four things can happen:
- earliest split - both babies end up with their own complete environment from amniotic sac, placentas, chorions, everything. This pregnancy would look pretty much the same as a fraternal twins pregnancy
- medium split (most common) - both babies have their own sacs, but they end up with some shared stuff (ie placenta, chorion)
- later split (and the least common) - both babies end up in one amniotic sac. This is very dangerous because they can ended up twisting themselves (and their umbilical cords) all up and it can cause a lot of problems.
- latest split - Siamese twins. They split so late they didn't completely split.

So what does this mean? It means that the only way to know for sure what kind of twins you have are if you have twins that share a placenta, chorion or amniotic sac (automatically identical) or if, later on, you find out that the babies aren't of the same gender (automatically fraternal). It is possible that you could go your entire pregnancy and not know if the twins are identical or fraternal if they are the same gender. And when they are born, if they look really similar, you might even have to have dna testing to determine which kind they are (there are, after all, some very similar looking non-identical twins out there. For example the Olsen twins!)

At my latest doctor's appointment the ultrasound report the doctor had had an analysis on it from a specialist other than the technician who shared the twin news with us. It said that the twins are likely fraternal. There was no more information than that. Given what I've learned (and my research is not scientific here - it's pretty much wikipedia ;) I THINK that means that the twins have their own everything (which is very good!) and that *most* identical twins end up sharing something. Therefore, it is most likely that mine are fraternal but it's not written in stone. I am, amazingly, not really obsessing on it (I thought I would to be honest) and am instead ready to wait and find out. I am very curious on the gender of these babies though, mostly because I want to see if the remainder of my whole "prediction" comes through and that they end up both being girls. My next ultrasound is January 5 so we have a ways to go yet. Hopefully they'll both cooperate and show us the goods ;)

Oh. And I also found out this week that my mother's cousin had fraternal twins. So I guess it does run in the family... ;)

Our little monkey

This Fall we enrolled Kiernan in a gymnastics program since his favourite things to do are to climb and jump and tumble, etc. He really enjoyed it!

This past Sunday was parents' day - which was kind of chaotic and only entertaining in little bits, but it was still fun to watch. As you can see, practicing a dance once or twice with a bunch of two year olds and their dads doesn't make for the best looking dance you've ever seen ;)