Today started out very optimistic. I had a nice long to do list to get things ready to celebrate Cody's birthday tonight (instead of tomorrow due to prior engagements that we had no control over and we are responsible adults). I was going to clean the entire house, put up streamers, make a cake, pizza and breadsticks for dinner. The whole nine yards. 

Well staying up until one am just to finish a puzzle may not have been the best idea. 

It sure was a pretty one though! 

So back to the to do list for birthday stuff: the cake. Cody requested his normal pumpkin ice cream (it is even better than a pumpkin pie blizzard from DQ!) and an angel food cake. The thing about me is that I really like food and sweets but I also am bad at following directions. More importantly reading all of them before I start and angel food cake is a pretty complex. At least Cody was very optimistic about my cake making skills and said if the cake didn't turn out at least the batter tastes good. Do not eat the batter! It is disgusting and bitter tasting. And very foamy! Fingers crossed it turns out, it currently in the oven. 

Coolest way ever to cool a cake!!! 

As for the rest of the list, like cleaning the house, it's on hold. Actually it's on the I really don't care right now because I'm tired and want a nap but I've got a cake baking so at least I'm doing something - list. 

We don't go all out for birthdays, usually just a small present. This year codys surprise gift got spoiled by my sweet little Ellie. She asked Cody if we could watch the Aladdin movie that was going to be his birthday present... Four days before his birthday. The funny part is that he and Ellie have a planned Christmas gift for me that I have been trying to pry out of her for a good week now with zero progress. At least she can keep some secrets... 

Like I said- we are really exciting. Blueberry bagels for birthday breakfast, classy! 

Saturday we braved the cold and took family pictures down by the river. Kate did not want to cooperate, Ellie only listened because I had a bag of scooby snacks in my pocket as a bribe. At one point our photographer told the girls to tickle me and I got my neck clawed worse than a cats scratching post. 

Ellenor has a framed picture of Cody holding her for the very first time at the hospital on her nightstand. I told her we were going to have pictures taken and for the few days leading up to them she kept talking about the new picture of her and her dad that she was going to have for her room. She kept asking Kate if she wanted a picture of her and dad in her room. Needless to say we are all very excited to see them! It's hard sometimes to remember to take pictures often. It's easy to push them off until you lose five pounds or until you have another kid but I'm excited to have our family documented with my girls at the stages they are in. 

After we put the girls to bed on Saturday Cody and I sat and watched a movie while eating the girls's halloween candy. He casually threw a milk duds box in my direction and it nailed me square in the forehead. Thinking that it was hilarious, he did it again! And guess where it hit me? Yup, the corner of the dumb box hit me right in between my eyes again. Don't worry, I got him back yesterday and pegged him right on his forehead. 

The month of November has me constantly attempting to make a list of everything I am grateful for. I keep getting interrupted... Today on my run I started making another mental list but this time it was what I was thankful for instead of focusing on freezing my sweet little buns off. 

(If you don't run without music very often, or at all, your mind does wonderful things. It goes a mile a minute, brings clarity, and you learn that if anyone could read your thoughts while running they would think you are certifiably crazy!) 

Here is the mental list of thank yous I compiled:
*Thank you walmart. I will definitely get my $11 worth of use from this pink windbreaker from all three times I run in this cold weather. 

*Thank you south Idaho weather. In between fall and winter and winter and spring you have your own two seasons, they are called wind. And you make sure it doesn't go unnoticed. 

*Thank you day light savings, I never thought it would be possible to consider going to bed without dinner. Almost...

*Thank you day light savings again, for allowing me to trick my kids into thinking that its normal to get your pajamas on by six pm because it is dark outside.  

*Thank you jacket for having thumb holes. Why doesn't every jacket have this feature?!

Thank you shadow for always being my running buddy. You never let me down!

*Thank you first home we lived in for four months after we got married. You taught me that any basement is not nearly as creepy as you were. I can at least walk past our basement door without having to sprint past it. 

*Thank you dear friend who is amazing with makeup! You taught me your ways today, which I will never be able to do as well all by myself. I'm almost sad that I ran today because now I have to take a shower and will have to wash my makeup off tonight. 

*Thank you nike running app for bringing out my competitive side. And my sister for sending me taunting texts that get me out the door. I'M WINNING SUCKER!!!!! (Its rarely happens, she's pretty amazing)

*Thank you running for making me have a large appetite. And Cody for starting to make dinner before I get home tonight.

*Thank you to my cooking frenzied self last week for making a lot of freezer meals for the nights that I don't want to cook.

*Thank you Cody for not allowing us to eat lasagna for an entire week because I am not in the mood to actually make dinner this week.  

*Thank you to the morons who cruise and throw their trash in the empty canal. It keeps me entertained to see how dumb people can be, seriously an entire pile of cans- food cans. It allows me to create wild scenarios about why in the world you do what you do. 

*Thank you canal for keeping me always looking for new things. Now that there is no water I'm always on the lookout for decaying corpses. Creepy I know. But a few years ago there was a dog that had been there for a while, the next year (after it was filled with water and then emptied again) it had moved a lot farther down. Last year there was a dead skunk, I am still keeping an eye out for it. 

*Thank you warm headband for keeping my ears warm. And for squeezing the crud out of my ears, they naturally stick out at the top and hurt after a while. I must have elf blood in my genes. Gosh, I wish I had hair like Legolas.

*Speaking of hair- Thank you hair for being so great, we've had a fun run the last year and a half but you are not growing fast enough for me. So your getting chopped tomorrow. Super excited. Or as Ellie says, "Super duper duper duper doopity duper excited!"

One last note- attempting to run and take a none blurry photo is extremely, extremely difficult. Props to anyone who can do it!

Ever since I mentioned that Ellenor gets to pick out a costume to dress up for Halloween she said she wanted to be a puppy dog. I got stuff to make a costume but I wasn't too thrilled about it. Kate said she wanted to be cinderella and we somehow managed to talk Ellie into being a princess. 

She was Merida from the Disney movie Brave. Its ironic because every time we have rented it from the library she says its too scary and asks to watch something else. 

We attended a fun Halloween party with friends where the girls decorated cookies, made spider hats, and a lot of other fun Halloween games. 

For Cody and I, I bought cowboy hats from Walmart. Turns out they were children size and definitely did not fit. Whoops! 

On Halloween we stopped by Cody's parents house to trick or treat before we headed to the church for dinner and games. Kate liked the prizes and candy so much from the games that she didn't want to play anymore. They learned how fun candy walks can be and loved running in circles even though they couldn't hear the music. 

Ellie had her first primary program yesterday. It was awesome. Before she went up she whispered a mean and loud whisper that she wasn't going (had me and the lady in front of us in stitches!). Not even a minute later she had a little boy in her class by the hand dragging him up to the stage. 

I asked her where she got to sit.  whoever decided to put 3 & 4 year olds behind a table filled with drawers and the top covered with trays must not have a 3 year old. Ellie excitedly told me that there was a lot of drawers and thing for her to play with and open up there. 

Kate kept yelling "where's ellie?!" When she'd find her, she would excitedly scream "there's Ellie! Hi Ellie!!!" 

Ellie waved at us but best of all was her face she made. In the middle of a song standing at the front she put her fingers on both sides of her mouth and pulled them outwards and stuck out her tongue. 

On the way home from joy school Ellie informed me that for her birthday she wants a vine. I asked what she would do with one she told my slyly "you know mom." After telling her I did not know she said, "well to swing from of course!" 

I made rolls yesterday and her response after taking a bite "these are actually good." Shows how my bread usually turns out! 

You know you live near a few dairys when... Every time something smells different, mostly bad, Kate says it smells like cow poop. Yesterday it was chicken in the crock pot that smelled like cow poop, big cow poop. It's usually followed by the cutest little giggle. Sometimes by a "No MoM!!! It smells Cow poop!!!" Sassy two year old yells are pretty cute! 

This past month...

Just checking in to say hello, we are still alive. And doing well. Well, as well as we can at the moment. Some days are really great- very productive and happy. Others are not nearly as productive and filled with sadness and worry. Worrying that we will never again get to hold a brand new baby that is ours. I watched as Cody held a friends baby the other day and couldn’t help but think how natural it was, how comfortable he was holding a baby. Before Ellie he would barely hold his niece or nephews.

I had one of those freak out days this week. Thoughts running through my head that never seem to stop. What if we decide to get pregnant again and lose another baby. What if we can’t even get pregnant. What if, what if, what if. All negative and hopeless thoughts. Cody came home and knew that something was bothering me, he knows me all too well (thank heavens). As I cried into his shirt all my fears and worries he kept saying “Trust the Lord and his timing. Just have faith. Just have hope. Things will work out. Its ok.” And that ladies and gentlemen is why our marriage works. Because on days when I am crazy and on an emotional high (its not as fun as it sounds) he is there to level me out. When he is stressed and drowning up to his ears with work, I’m there to help him. It’s a win-win!

Besides the occasional melt down (its totally normal I’ve been told) we have been staying busy. We love fall.

One thing that I am grateful for lately is books. I hated reading when I was younger, I would just skim the assigned reading to find the answers and never really read the book. I try to read often and jump around with different kinds of books. I love children and young adult books that I should have read as a kid and never did. I just finished Ella Enchanted and LOVED it, so much better than the movie. Movies almost ruin how good the books really are. I bounce around between thought provoking books to mysteries to young adult and youth. I love fluff books- make you feel good, quick easy reads, you smile the entire way through. But I’ve also found reading very humbling, others struggle with different things and seeing them overcome adversity brings hope. I just started reading the Narnia series yesterday. There is a book before the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe!!! See, movies ruin things. Also small town libraries stink- they have small selections and you have to wait a while after you request a book.

Another thing that helped me survive the first week after losing our babies was Netflix and TV shows. That probably sounds terrible but its true. And this is my story I’m writing. After I’d put the girls down for a nap there would be silence. An awful, dull silence that screamed for you to come into its depths and never speak again. OK maybe it wasn’t that creepy but I didn’t want to just sit around for two hours and think about everything that happened, I’d done enough crying. So I watched a lot of TV shows and did every puzzle we own. And bought a few more 1000 piece puzzles that were on sale. If I get enough to call it a collection does it still count as an obsession? I like puzzles and got to the point where one Sunday Cody took a nap and when he woke up I was already done with a 500 piece puzzle and halfway through another. I also discovered a new love- HGTV. We don’t have cable and all these new shows about beautiful houses, like Fixer Upper, were a heaven sent. I didn’t want to watch a show that had a lady pregnant for an entire season and our usual show of Bones or NCIS where someone dies every single episode. They just weren’t cutting it.

I finally feel like I am getting back to a normal me. Being sick for 3 ½ months during a rough pregnancy and then recovering physically for another two weeks definitely got me wanting to move. I started running again and love it.
Also food. This past week I’ve been able to get back into the routine of making real meals but I am definitely feeling it in my waist. Today, out of guilt for leaving Cody to fend for himself (and make the girls food) for the past 4 months, I decided to make some freezer meals. As much as I love cooking, it gets exhausting and would be nice to just pull something out of the freezer and pop it in the oven. My one piece of advice for anyone doing freezer meals is plan. Plan and follow a recipe. I don’t follow recipes and just decided to double what I usually do for enchiladas thinking it would give me four 8x8 pans. Wrong. I now have six. And five pans of lasagna.

We’ve tried to stay busy and do the normal fall activities with the girls this fall. We headed to the mountains with friends for a nature walk and have had a lot of morning cuddles.

We went to the straw maze one night. Its our friends who run it and their dog can jump on top of the straw bales. Well Ellie being the dog loving kid that she is lead us for a good 20 minutes in the maze trying to get us back to the entrance where the dog was. They also sell the best caramel apples there- they have a layer of white chocolate on the outside! I decided to eat Cody’s for breakfast one morning but karma came back to get me. As I was trying to get the slices out of the apple corer I totally sliced my thumb open. That’s what I get for being selfish, not sharing, and eating someone else’s treat.

If you want to read the exciting part of finding out we were having twins only read the first half. If you want to read the rest of the story then continue on.

Its has been just over a week since we lost our two little babes but I still wanted to document our time with them because through it I am able to see just how much we are loved.

We started trying to add another child to our family in June and I had been counting down the days that I could test to see if we had been successful. On Kate’s second birthday, July 9^th, I tested positive. We were going to have another baby! We were elated!!!

I felt good for about a week and a half after finding out and then it was all downhill after that. I had terrible morning sickness and constant migraines. I took Kate to her the doctors for a checkup at the beginning of August and her doctor asked if they watched more than two hours of television a day and in my mind I was laughing hysterically because that was pretty much all we had done for the past month.

Everything was intensified and much worse than my pregnancies with the girls. But we were getting a baby out of it so it was ok. We didn’t want to tell any family until we at least heard the heartbeat. I made my appointment for around 10 ½ weeks along and was looking forward to feeling better.

But I never made it to that appointment. It was scheduled for Thursday morning and on Wednesday morning I started bleeding, heavily. I called Cody crying and then the doctor’s office. My doctor was doing a procedure at the hospital but they scheduled me to come in in an hour and a half and to lay down until then.

Cody met us at the hospital and sat in the car with the girls while I went in. The nurse was a new lady that I had never met before and just kept giving me sympathetic looks and telling me that when the doctor got there he could tell me what was going on. He finally came in and said “Let’s not waste any time.” He grabbed the Doppler and couldn’t find a heartbeat so he went to get a handheld ultrasound. I held my breath until I heard the heartbeat and let out a sigh of relief. He didn’t show any emotion as he looked. I asked if the baby was measuring about where we thought and he said that the baby was hunched forward and that wasn’t normal.

Holy crap! What is wrong with my baby!!!! He told me that there was something behind the 

baby, he showed me with the ultrasound that there was the baby and when he moved it to the side that there was something there as well. He said there could be two babies. I was in shock. I immediately texted Cody and crossed my fingers that my phone didn’t die before I got more information. He scheduled me for an ultrasound an hour later and had my blood drawn. As I was waiting for the lab lady to come in he walked by the door waving two fingers. I still didn’t believe him and thought he really was just messing with me.

We grabbed a quick lunch while we waited and talked about how crazy it would be if I was pregnant with twins. Cody didn’t believe it and I was in shock. Cody again waited in the car while I went into the hospital to have a formal ultrasound done. The tech immediately pointed out that there were two heads. There’s a sign that says you’re not allowed to take pictures of the screen but the tech let me send a quick one to Cody to let him know that there really were two.

I practically ran back out to the car to show Cody pictures and to celebrate! The kids were in the back watching a movie and Cody kept asking if I was serious. Ellie was very curious as to why we were so exciting and why mom was crying. We were over the moon. We were going to have two babies!!! TWINS!! Most likely identical and if that was the case the same gender.

I told my sister immediately and we ended up telling Cody’s parents that weekend. We slowly told all our siblings and had to wait until my parents got back from their mission to tell them in person. We were all so excited and had already been making a list of what we’d need and how much everything was realistically going to cost. Cody was even going to work at nights during harvest to help with the finances. We had it all figured out. 

We'd discussed every aspect of adding two more kids to our bunch. How we would handle church and grocery shopping, sleeping arrangements, tandem nursing. Everything was planned out in our minds except know the real plan.
I was still feeling pretty terrible but we were having twins and it made sense as to why my symptoms seemed to be intensified. I told a handful of friends around 13 weeks and pretty soon everyone around us knew. I decided to post it on Facebook and Instagram that Sunday because I would have rather heard people say they saw my post than someone had told them.

Unfortunately there were other plans in the works. My parents were coming to visit on Wednesday and would arrive shortly after my next doctors appointment. I was up all night on Tuesday excited to potentially have another ultrasound and I couldn’t get there fast enough. I settle into the office and the nurse uses the Doppler to find the heartbeats. And finds nothing.

I texted Cody and he was just as nervous as I was. I’d keep him posted but I’m sure the nurse was just looking at the wrong spot. I thought it was a long wait before the doctor came in and asked how I was doing. I told him I was nervous that she couldn’t find the heartbeats and again he didn’t waste anytime. After the Doppler didn’t turn up anything he again grabbed the ultrasound equipment. The first time he instantly found a heartbeat but this time there wasn’t anything. He ordered another formal ultrasound because his was just a triage one, not nearly as effective as the ones in radiology. I texted Cody, he’d been in meetings all morning in Twin and he said he’d be right over.

I felt bad for crying so much in their office but the nurse was great and gave me a lot of tissues while I waited for news of when they could squeeze me into radiology. Thankfully I was able to head straight over with the instructions to come immediately back to my doctors office after. As I am bawling in radiology the receptionist led me to a changing room so I didn’t have to feel so embarrassed. Cody arrived and we both cried and waited together.

This time our ultrasound was the exact opposite of what it had been only a month before. The previous one the tech and I had laughed and chatted about how many kids we had, she had one daughter. This time it was full of her apologizing and telling me that she will hurry as fast as she can so we can get back to talk to our doctor. Cody just hung his head and I wont ever be able to forget the look of complete despair on his face. He’s a planner and doesn’t get excited about babies until it’s just about time for them to arrive. That wasn’t the case with these two.

We headed back to the doctors and waited for the results to be brought to my doctor. We waited 45 long minutes knowing that they were gone but not what was next. My doctor is amazing and talked to us for a long time and talked about what our options were. I could go home and wait for my body to pass them naturally, could be given medication to start labor and deliver them, or I could opt for a D&C where they go in and clean all the remaining tissue out. I opted for a D&C and was able to be scheduled for later that afternoon. I didn't want to have to labor and not have a baby to take home and I didn't want to see their tiny lifeless bodies.

We went home and were able to spend a few hours snuggling and holding our two beautiful daughters before my parents arrived. They were able to watch the girls while Cody came with me to the hospital. He is the most amazing husband, he's my rock and I couldn't have done any of this without him.

I felt bad for our poor nurses, my body was so tired of crying that I couldn’t help but make jokes and tried to forget the real reason we were there. When they told me to say goodbye to Cody I cried knowing that this was the last time that we would be pregnant with our twins even though they weren’t still alive.

The staff was so great, so sensitive to what we were going through and king. And again, I felt bad for them having to deal with us. The anesthesiologist told me which nurse would be in the OR and which would be in recovery with me. I told him that’s good to know so if its not a specific nurse I was heading towards organ donation. I feel bad for them and I wasn’t even drugged up yet.

I was scared having to move beds in the OR, it was freezing in there and I really didn’t want to see all the instruments that they were going to use. I didn’t want to see how they were going to take these two precious babies from me and was glad that seconds after moving beds  I was out.

I woke up in recovery coughing and they moved something from my mouth. I couldn’t help but cry. My doctor came to check on me and ask how I was doing. I told him that I had had the most terrible dream. My cruel dream was Ellie and Kate holding two sweet twins. Their siblings. But that would never happen now. He reassured me that it might be as dark as I was thinking, that it might not be in this lifetime that they were holding them.

I had a nasty fat lip, apparently I had bitten it at some point and asked the nurse in recovery if it was bleeding. Its been over a week and my lip is finally back to its normal size. We spent two hours in recovery and were finally able to return home.

The next couple of days were spent recovering and I thought I was very lucky because my cramping wasn’t very bad and I wasn't in much physical pain. I must have just been in hostess mode with my parents here because as soon as they left on Saturday I felt awful. Recovery has been interesting and not what I expected.

But what is even more interesting is grief and the emotional aspect. I can’t help but feel the Lord’s hand in everything that has happened. We were able to celebrate these two special lives with our family and friends. And at first it was hard for me to understand other peoples grief, it is our loss, but they also loved these two children. The timing couldn’t have been better with my parents coming and having friends in our lives who have experienced the same things we are going through.Cody had been driving back from meetings when  I had texted him to come and didn't have any more. I didn't have the scare of losing the babies alone at home.

At first I was bitter that we had shared our news with everyone but after going to church on Sunday I know exactly why we had. I don’t know how many women that I admire and look up to come up to me and tell me that they know exactly what I am going through. I’ve had so many friends and family share with me their testimonies and the knowledge that they have that their Savior loves them.

 I found a quote that I love by Steven Eastmond in a talk called “The Healing Power of Grief.” It says, “Through the Atonement and Resurrection of His Son, Heavenly Father has provided a way for us not only to overcome death but also to be comforted and healed. Through the Atonement, “the sting of death” can be replaced by the peace that the Spirit brings.” If our souls are to be made whole again we must be dependent on the miracles of Christ’s Atonement. It wasn’t just for our sins but for our grief, sorrow, and pain. Our Savior suffered so that he could know exactly how we feel, what we are going through so that through the Holy Spirit we can be comforted. I know that through this trial I am not alone and I never have been.

We are sad that we will never get to raise a set of miraculous twins on this earth. But we are so blessed to have known them and loved them for even a short time of 14 weeks and will continue to always love them. They can never be replaced physically or in our hearts.

We've had a new life experience over the past few months. We've been through a rough pregnancy, celebrated telling family and friends that we were having not one but two babies! And we've also gone through losing those two sweet little ones. 

These are the pictures we took to announce that we were expecting again, little did we know at the time there was two. I love these pictures, they represent our girls so well and show their personalities. Also how excited they were for a baby. 

Over the next little bit I will document everything but for now enjoy these pictures of these amazing little girls who will make the most wonderful big sisters some day. (My favorite is Kate's dress stuck above her bum!)