Cole & Grady, etc.

We have finally decided on names for the boys, and as you can guess from the title of the blog, the names are Cole & Grady. Or, Grady & Cole. We'll have to take a long look at the two when they are born to decide who is Cole and who is Grady. For now, we're thinking Baby A is Grady Bothma and Baby B is Cole Forrest.

More exciting news I have not mentioned yet-Keith's sister Angela and her husband Ken are also expecting their first baby! Her due date is April 9, so our boys will have a cousin close in age to play with (or terrorize). All is going well for their pregnancy and they only have 6 days left before they have their next ultrasound. They are also hoping to find out the sex of the baby next week. My guess: a girl.

Update: 5 days till Angela's ultrasound!

We've reached the half-way mark. Technically.

Today we have reached 20 weeks into the pregnancy. Whoot Whoot! For a singleton pregnancy that would mean we're be halfway, but since Karen's got two of our buns in her oven, we are probably a little past half-way. According to the wise folks at BabyCenter.com, the majority of twins (65% for you numbers people) are born by the 37th week. For us that means we need to be ready mid-February or maybe a little earlier. Karen's birthday happens to be February 17, and I think it would be really neat if they were born on her birthday. Yes, I realize the last thing she would want to do on her birthday is give birth to twins, but still-it would be cool. And yeeeesss, I know we can't control when they come, but I saw "The Secret" on Oprah, so I'm using up a lot of energy thinking about Feb 17. You know Oprah doesn't mess around with nonsense.

I know you're waiting for it, so I won't keep you in suspense for much longer: bananas! That's right, they are about 10 inches from head to heel, the size of bananas! Chiquita!

Goings-on at the Endsley house.

I neglected to mention Karen's impressive ability to keep her household running while growing two cute baby boys for us. Except for the dome-like belly she's developing, you would hardly know she's pregnant. If it were me, I am pretty sure I would be on the couch each evening with a silver bell trying to get Keith to wait on me hand and foot (I tried, he wasn't falling for it) and complaning to anyone who would listen. Not Karen though, she's getting Greg to school each morning, Sara to pre-school twice a week and keeps little Rhett (and husband Scott) in line. On top of all this, they're planning to start building their house right after the boys are born, so she's preparing to move as well! She's either highly motivated and productive, or plain crazy.


She sent a few words to let us know how she and the rest of the Endsley's are doing:

Moving on to week 20, something about the "halfway mark" makes me feel like it has flown by. Wonder if Keith and Trudi are feeling the time crunch yet? (Note from Trudi & Keith: YES. Panic has set in a bit, and we are in the process of cleaning out the room that will become the nursery) I am feeling surprisingly comfortable at this point, considering there are two boys bouncing around in my belly. The boys have grown the most the past 3 weeks and I've noticed a big chance in belly size. They like to move around when all is quiet in our house, and that only happens after 8pm, when my kids are in bed. I try and keep them from being smushed too much by Rhett-he thinks I am his huge pillow! Other than that no complaints, all the real fun stuff like heartburn and swollen feet are yet to come, but it doesn't last long. As far as our kids, they are doing well. We in the thick of the daily grind of going to school and I think both Sara and Greg are enjoying school. I think Rhett is very grateful for Tuesdays and Thursdays, when both Greg and Sara are gone. The next big thing on family's agenda, is getting our house builing started, and that's about it.
Talk to you next time. Aunt Karen.

Here are two pics-one is Sara (4) and Rhett (2), the other is big brother Greg(6). Greg is very excited that both babies are boys, but Sara was not quite as excited. Her exact words were "why?"-clearly she was hoping that additional little girls would be added to the family. We're sure she'll come around!

Two blue zucchinis

Thursday's ultrasound showed two healthy babies, and both are boys! We are thrilled that they are healthy and that Karen is doing well. We do have names picked, but we are keeping them a secret until the babies are born. (sorry, no hints) Below are a few pictures of our day. This first one is of Karen and Keith waiting for the ultrasound technician to come get us. Proud Papa's smile only got bigger over the course of the following two hours. Doesn't Karen look great?

Next up is a picture of Baby B. The babies are no longer in bunk bed position, but are at a 45 degree angle across Karen's belly. B is on the top left. B was giving the ultrasound technician some trouble, because he would not still still long enough to let her get the required three measurements of each body part they were checking. I'm sure the ultrasound technician really appreciates us taking Karen to breakfast before the appointment ;-) Here is a profile shot of B:

Here is his brother, Baby A. Baby A is on the bottom right portion of Karen's belly. I love this shot because you can see the spine. If you are like me and ultrasound pictures are a complete mystery, the A's head is on the right, and he is facing downwards.

Today marks 19 weeks! I was going to post a picture of two zucchini's since that is what our food item of the week is, but I don't think any pictures could be cuter than the ones I posted above.

Countdown to Ultrasound

Update on Wednesday, 10/17: Tomorrow's the big day. Nana Estelle is heading to Knoxville with us tonight, she will watch nephew Rhett while we take his mom to get her belly poked at with the ultrasound wand.

Update on Tuesday, 10/16: Now only 2 days!! Whoohooo!

I had a clever picture with the number "3" I was going to upload, but Blogspot is having some issues, so the best I can do is this: 3 days until our ultrasound! Keith and I have not been to any of the previous ultrasounds (pesky jobs keep getting in the way), so this will be our first live peeks at the kids. I think the last time I was this excited it was Christmas and I was 8 years old, and I knew I was getting some sort of Barbie -but was it the Career Barbie or the Peaches N Cream Barbie? Either would be great, but I was dying to know which was under the shiny wrapping paper. Same goes for the babies' sexes, any combination of healthy babies will be wonderful, but we still want to know.

And if you are wondering, I got the Peaches N Cream Barbie.

Our little sweet potatoes!

It's 18 weeks today! The babies are now large sweet potatoes, or about 5.5 inches. We are looking forward to seeing Aunt Karen and the babies next week for the ultrasound. A few more days! 5, not counting today.

Vacation, on the Rocks

Before I dazzle you all with a recap of our vacation, here is the update on the babies: Last I heard, they were helping Aunt Karen chase down niece Sara at the Dinoworld in Disney's Animal Kingdom Park. Yep, that's right, not even born yet and they already get to go to Disney World. Aunt Karen and Uncle Scott are spoiling the children already! I'm sure they will have big grins on their faces ('cause they can make facial expressions now, you know) when we see them during the ultrasound next Thursday. Countdown to ultrasound: 9 more days! Whoot whoot! Now, our trip. In a word, it was awesome. We did exactly what we wanted to: hike, spend time together and relax. Most of our time was spent in National Parks, except for Thursday afternoon when we got some learnin' done at the Mormon Temple Square and enjoyed some libations at Embassy Suite's happy hour ('cause the two go hand-in-hand, right?). The next day we got up early and headed down to Moab, but we made a stop at Timpanogos Cave, just a little south of SLC. To get to the cave, you have to hike a mile and a half straight up the side of a mountain. I'm not kidding, it was steep. We were rewarded at the top with our own private tour of the cave with Park Ranger Nick. Nick was very nice and was VERY into rocks, and made the stalactites, stalagmites, helictites (you're curious as to what those are, aren't you?) and mineral composition of different colored rocks very interesting. After the tour we hiked back down the mountain and hit the road to Moab.

Three hours later and 4 types of weather (rain, hail, sunshine, followed by a squall) later, we arrived in Moab. First up, Arches National Park. I had visited the park before with a family I hold very dear, and I was eager to share with Keith my memories. We hiked to a few arches, but called it a day when the wind became unbearable. That night our accommodation was a Kabin (yes, with a "k"), at the Moab KOA. I love staying at the KOA! It's like camping without having to sleep on the ground. Great fun. Next day we explored Canyonlands National Park. Just as the name implies, the park has several canyons and also has the Green River running through it. The Green river, ironically, is not green, but is rather a reddish brown. We did a few short hikes and were rewarded with breathtaking vistas. By far my favorite part of the trip was our last day, when we went to Bryce Canyon National Park. I'll admit, during the 5 hour drive there (I thought it was only 3 hours, oops, my mistake) I questioned the decision to include Bryce Canyon in this trip, but it was more than worth the drive. When we got there, we picked the only hike that went down into the canyon, which was the Navaho and Peekaboo Loops combined. The hike was great-challenging at times because of the frequent uphills, but the views of the inside of the canyon were spectacular. Our pictures don't quite do the vistas justice, but we tried. At one point we were surrounded by glowing orangy-red rocks, and 5 minutes later we stood in front of white and red striated sand dunes. It's amazing the diversity of landscape in such a small area. 2.5 hours later we emerged tired, but victiorious (I was very tired towards the end, and decided to make a race out of the last extreme uphill. We passed several loud, LOUD French tourists on the way up the last uphill. HA! I win! They had no clue I was racing them and it might have been a more fair race if I gave them an indication, but whatever, I win! I also beat Keith, despite the fact that I was the one wearing the 35 lb backpack. And no, he didn't know we were racing either. I win! hehe). We headed out of Bryce Canyon feeling very proud of ourselves. That pretty much wraps it up, we headed back the next morning. I should pass on one valuable piece of advice: When in Tropic, Utah -the largest congregation of buildings that can pass for a town near Bryce Canyon- and it's 7:50pm, go ahead and buy any food you think you may need for dinner that night- even if you're not really sure you are hungry. ' Cause if you don't, every store or gas station within reasonable driving distance will shut down at 8PM, and you'll be forced to eat the spicy trail-mix your husband bought at the camping store earlier for dinner. WHY he chose spicy when neither of you likes spicy, I can't...anyways... Just a suggestion.

For you slackers who will not be visiting us at home in the next few months, and therefore will not get to view all 250 pictures we took during the trip, here are a of pics. Enjoy! share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AZMWjlwzcOGWp I might be adding a few more pictures later this week, so check back in a few days for even more pictures of rocks. Trudi

Utah or bust.

Tomorrow Keith and I leave for our last pre-baby getaway. I thought the best way to celebrate Keith's birthday would be a place where we could be outdoors AND we could sample lots of microbrewed beer, (if you know Keith, you know those are not necessarily in order of priority) so off to Utah we go! We'll mostly be hiking and exploring the national parks in the south end of the state, so stay tuned for photos next week. One of Keith's birthday presents is a polarized lens for the camera and yes, that means if you visit us in the next few weeks you'll have to sit still for a slideshow of 100 pictures of the same rock formation.

Oh, what else was I going to mention....Oh right. Babies! Their auntie took them in for an appointment, and all is going well. She and the doctor could only hear their heartbeats for a few seconds because the babies were very active and their movements made it impossible to hear anything. From what the doctor could tell the babies are still in bunk-beds, with B on top of A. Karen is now feeling little movements almost each day. We are looking forward to seeing how big her belly has gotten since our last visit! Only 15 days until the ultrasound!
This Friday will mark the end of the 17th week, and the babies will each be as big as a large onion!