names

awhile ago, when everyone was guessing names, I hinted that one name had some significance. I think Darren was the only one who guessed Kaylee as his first choice girl's name and he felt the significance was because of the character Kaylee on the show Firefly that Blake and I (and several of our friends) used to watch. As some of you know, Blake wanted to name Kaylee "River" and River was also a character on that show, so I think Darren thought I compromised with blake and chose a different character from the same show. But the reason we actually chose the name Kaylee was for family reasons. I didn't want to give our kid a first name that was a family name, so that's why Elizabeth is her middle name (Elizabeth is my middle name, my mom's middle name, Blake's grandma's first name, and the name of my best friend from elementary school... thus the name that I decided long ago would be my daughter's middle name). But, that seemed a little Dana-family lopsided so we were looking for another name that would be a little more Pelton-esc. So that's where Kaylee came in - both Annemarie and Heidi's middle names are Lee. so Kaylee is named partially after them and spelled that way because of it. Ethan Tyler is well... just Ethan Tyler. We had a much harder time finding boy names that we liked at all, so when we finally found a combo that we liked we just went for it. gtg - one of my tutees is coming over to visit the babies - isn't that cute? but now you know the background behind the names!

two weeks old

wrote this on Tuesday and left it to upload the video, but then I never came back and told it to post! whoops!

I thought it would be fun to take the same video one week later. so here they are, 12and 13 days old (the video was taken yesterday). :) also crazy: today Kaylee is 2 weeks old, and this is their official "due date" - as in, if we hadn't induced and they were still inside, they would be 40 weeks today. crazy. they had their two week appt yesterday and they are both doing well. Ethan is now 7 lbs 2.5 oz and Kaylee is 6 lbs 4.5 oz. While they're still small for being 2 weeks old, the doc was very impressed w/ how much weight they had gained and that they were above their birth weight already. life is quite busy, but we're having fun!

a video!

here is a short little video I took last week when they were 5 and 6 days old. Ethan is on the left, Kaylee on the right.

happy week-iversary to Ethan!

sleep vs blogging... sleep wins.
here's a pic of ethan and daddy though... (1 day old)

happy week-iversary to Kaylee!

I wrote this yesterday, but then our wireless internet stopped working during the picture upload, so I'm just getting back to it now.
Long time no blog - sorry about that. Life is good, but filled with the same cycle over and over again... feed babies, change babies, put babies down, everyone sleeps, repeat. during the night the babies like to be fed about every 2-2.5 hours, and the feed/change babies part takes an hour, so we only get about 1 hour sleep segments. in the mornings they've been sleeping up to 4 hrs so blake has gone for a run and here I am - laptop in bed, babies mostly asleep in cosleeper next to our bed.

there are so many things to blog about I'm not sure where to start. So here's one pic for now and a promise to blog more later. at the moment there are prescriptions to call in, appts to make, etc that are calling my name. (and if i'm super lucky - perhaps a nap might slip in there too!)

In a galaxy far far away

We got the call at 11am, and here we go. We view this as the kid's first life lesson: how to procrastinate just the right amount to just barely meet a deadline (11:59 pm on 8/9/10).

Ethan and Kaylee

still here - at home

we're still here, at home, waiting for the hospital to call and say there's room. we called them and they said they hope to get us in sometime during the day shift today. sigh.

here we un-go

I was putting on my shoes and blake decided to call the hospital and tell them we were coming. apparently a lot of people feel like giving birth about now and they're busy, so they're going to call us... sometime... later... and tell us when we can come in. maybe around 5:00 or 6:00 am. So... that's that. for now.

here we go

it should be noted that, in our last game of Ticket to Ride as non-parents, I beat Blake. and uh, now I guess we'll go to the hospital.

Meet the Godparents

Meet Evan

Godfather to our son

Okay, so this guy you already know. My bro, the Ev-dogg.

Featured w/ him here is Alyssa (in case you haven't met her) on last summer's Caulley+ Family Trip to Hawaii. Yesterday marks one year until these silly love birds get married, so I thought i'd include an Alyssa pic to celebrate that.

The second pic is of Evan acting... well, like Evan, at a surprise bday party I threw for Blake (I think in 2007). There was a pinata, and Ev apparently enjoyed some of the toys that fell out.

Meet Danielle
Godmother to our daughter

I first met Danielle through Brianne. Brianne and I went to junior high together, and Brianne and Danielle went to college together (they both have their masters in architecture).

After she graduated, Danielle moved up here to WA, and turns out, we like her a lot.

This first picture is of Danielle and I in Belize (Brianne also joined us on that trip). We were spelunking (ie swimming and climbing through a system of caves - with a guide - to eventually find some nice human bones at the end - yikes!).

The second picture is of me, Brianne, Danielle, and Jackie on our 4-day kayaking trip around San Juan Island last summer (Evan, Darren, and Blake also joined us on that trip). Danielle loves loves loves games, she makes really good cookies and other delicious-ness, and she leads a small group of junior high girls at our church.

Meet Caleb
Godfather to our daughter

Caleb was blake's best man at our wedding. Caleb was friends with both blake and I in high school, and set us up when we both went to Santa Clara.

First pic is of Caleb and another friend Shon on a go-cart (picture taken by me, from Blake and my go-cart) on the beaches of Ocean Shores on 7/7/07. Several of our friends (including us) were participating in a triathlon or running event in Ocean Shores that weekend, so we rented a house together and spent a few days vacationing together.

The second picture is, I think, from the first year Blake and Caleb were roommates post college. Caleb had learned to fence in college and was always looking for someone to fence with - sometimes that someone was blake!

Meet Adrianne

Godmother to our son

Adrianne and I have been friends since 7th grade when we were on the same soccer team. It should also be noted that when our junior high put on the musical version of Cinderella, Adrianne played the fairy godmother. The first pic is from blake and my wedding, obviously - those of you who were there might remember that Adrianne played the piano for us. Second picture... I don't know! I'm guessing it's from a summer during college, but the photo doesn't have a date on it and I really don't know! Perhaps Christmas Break Freshman year. In that photo are Tierney, Brianne, Lindsay, Jackie, Adrianne, and me!

no babies yet!

this is a morning "no, I haven't gone into labor yet" post. :)

blake and I are off to go listen to a couple talks at the leadership summit soon, so I must be quick, but since my inbox is often filled with "are you still there?" type questions, I thought i'd post. so here are a few mildly interesting things:

1) I have not had strong cravings during this pregnancy. however, if I have had a craving, it has been these last few days. all I want is milk. milk milk milk. I am currently eating cream of wheat which is like 97% milk, and I wish I had a glass of milk with it. heidi (blake's mom) brought over some chocolate cake (from molly's homemade life book for those of you who are into molly) and I don't mind having a bite of chocolate cake with a whole glass of milk. delicious.

2) stovetop cooking w/ a giant belly is hard (ie making my cream of wheat). I have to stand and stir sideways, so as not to burn my belly.

3) telling you the scrabble scores for the first names has become torturous! it is SO hard not to tell people if they're right or wrong. this could be solved by telling you I suppose, but I will remain strong!

well, blake's back from his run now, which means it's time to head out the door really soon. see you later alligators. :)

first names!

okay, here are your clues for first names!
the girl (aka Beth)'s first name has a scrabble score of 13.
the boy (aka Tyler)'s first name has a scrabble score of 8.
the tricky part: one of the first names has alternate spellings - the one we chose is a common one and has significance to us (I'll let you just wonder what that means!)

I'd love to hear your guesses, but I won't confirm right or wrong. If you guess correctly I'll let you hold a baby - how about that for a prize? If you guess incorrectly or don't guess I'm likely to also let you hold a baby! :)

happy guessing.

names (again)

Okay, so (small drumroll)... the boy's middle name is:

1+4+1+1+1 = 8

and, as you all remembered, the girl's middle name is:

1+1+1+10+1+3+1+1+4 = 23

(we found some fun stickers and stuck their middle names above their cribs. first names are not up yet, so don't break into our house to try to see them! I didn't photoshop or crop them out, they're just not there yet! I also did not correct the colors, sorry they're so ugly looking. our walls are really green not gross-colored.)

One thing that was very amusing to me was how many people guessed Robert for a middle name. It was definitely the #1 guessed name. We never considered Robert, so I just found that amusing.

since y'all seemed to have a lot of fun with this, tomorrow I'll give you the scrabble totals for the first names! I'm not going to confirm right or wrong on the first names, you'll have to wait until they're here - but you can start formulating your guesses tomorrow if you'd like!

37 weeks - last doctor's visit

well, today we've done it. made it to 37 weeks which is considered full term for twins. It is crazy to look back and say how relatively easy this pregnancy has been. because we did a lot of baby-class hopping, I get emails from 3 classes worth of other twin moms. when people have their babies then they email their birth stories to the whole class. nobody in the overlake class has had their babies yet, but I get emails from the UW classes about once a weekish. the point is, we have been so lucky. I just got an email the other day about a mom whose health went downhill fast - one day she was happy and feeling good, two days later she had an emergency c-section and delivered her twins at about 30 weeks - they were less than 3 lbs each. another lady delivered at 35 weeks and her babies were plenty big (5/6 lbs I think) but they are at different hospitals because one was having so many issues it needed to be in a higher level NICU. (the poor baby's lungs kept collapsing and they thought he might not make it, but he's currently stable). anyways, the point is, we've made it to 37 weeks and I'm feeling okay. and that, I think, is something to be really thankful for. so I am.

the big news from today's appt is that I'm 2.5 cm dilated. so my body is considering this whole labor business. the doc says she won't push an epidural on me until pretty late (ie they need one in place in case something goes funky btwn baby A and baby B's births) but, I'm also allowed to have one as early as I want, although they recommend getting to 3 cm first, otherwise an epidural tends to slow down labor. so already being at 2.5 is nice! I hope that means I can make it well past 3 cm before asking for an epidural, but we'll just see how it goes. I think the most major thing to pray for is that baby B stays head down after Baby A comes out. there's not a lot to do about it now, but about 10% of baby Bs that are head down flop over and become transverse (sideways) once baby A is out. Since my baby B is larger, he needs to stay head down so the head can press on my cervix and get me to dilate even more. if he tries to stick an arm/leg/cord/anything-else out first, that could mean a c-section, which would be super lousy after delivering baby A vaginally. they won't want to do a breech extraction for baby B because his head could get stuck and that would be very bad. so... that's the plan! this will all happen very soon!

names

well, you're all doing well remembering that the girl's middle name is Elizabeth. I'll give you one more day on the boy's middle name because i've heard some of you are still working on it! but i'll just say that cousin Ryan joins the ranks of those who have guessed correctly alongside Dave and Danielle. :)

I have more random thoughts to share w/ y'all like how crazy it is that I'm going to be induced one week from today - these babies will be here SO soon! but, at the moment, it's time for a nap. :)