The Good News Continues

We sold the Prelude on Saturday and for about $300-500 more than we would have settled for. He bought it for his 16 or 17 year old daughter. I figured that might be the market for our car...it's a perfect high school teenager car.

So, we'll be car shopping this week. It's tough when it's a work week, and not just because time is limited but because traffic really sucks to get anywhere on a weekday as all of us Atlantans are familiar with. :-( Wish us luck on our hunt. We'll be an SUV family finally. Yeah!

Dr appt with the regular doctor on Wednesday...it's a specific appt just to give me the Rhogam shot because my blood type and Mike's blood type don't get along. I hate shots!!!

MIKE WAS OFFERED A JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HOLY COW!!!

He just called me and told me that a company he interviewed with yesterday wanted to offer him a job. And of all the interview prospects he's had since college, this was the one that was most like something that he'd actually want to pursue as a career, so this isn't just a job...it's "the" job!!!!

He was told yesterday during the interview process that they do an 8-week training program that begins on June 11th. (That's our anniversary...maybe this was meant to be.) And I think they were hiring more than one or two candidates, so it would kind of be like public accounting where he's got a "start class" although much smaller than a public accounting start class.

Now, if anyone's been paying attention, June 11th is dangerously close to when I'm likely to deliver the twins. In fact, I had a dr appt on Wed with my regular doctor and told him that I was thinking June 19th or 20th for a c-section...yep, I'm a planner. He agreed that those would be very reasonable dates to give birth to two healthy girls. So...now what! He's certainly not going to be able to take any one or two week vacation when they're born. At this point, I guess I'm just hoping that they'll allow him to miss even one or two days of work to be with me in the hospital. We'll see.

For now, we're just excited that he got a job offer, which of course he'll take!!!!!!

THIRD TRIMESTER!!!!

I'm at 28 weeks (well, in just over an hour...it's not quite Saturday yet), which means I'm finally in the third trimester. Woo Hoo!!! I had an u/s appt earlier today too. The girls both weigh exactly the same thing, which the primary reason I go see the u/s doctor. It's cause for concern if they aren't growing at the same rate. They're exactly 2 1/2 pounds each. That's 5 lbs of baby in me as of now, and that will at least double over these remaining weeks. I'm hoping for another 8 1/2 weeks which would put me delivering between 36 and 37 weeks which is healthy. Let's hope Kaitlyn and Nicole agree. :-)

Oh, and Baby B has gone back to breech position. I've said in earlier posts that Baby A has a position more towards the birth canal (which apparently is the "desirable" position, so it's not likely that she's going to give it up). That leaves Baby B with all the rest of the room to flip as many times as she likes. She had been breech at the first two u/s appts and then flipped for the one prior to this and has now flipped back. Who knows what she'll do over the next month before my next appt???

Finally. Whew....

Well, it worked tonight. Whatever! Here they are....

It's worth mentioning that we found these letters in naked wood at Hobby Lobby and painted them ourselves using colors from our nursery. We went to a few of those boutique stores, and depending on the type of the letter, prices ranged from $8 - $24, yes TWENTY FOUR DOLLARS PER LETTER!!! And we're having 2!!! No way!!! Hobby Lobby had the naked wood for $2.50 per letter. The tulips in the pot were also naked wood (they may have been $0.75 each). And I bought a flower pot and then painted it white. Oh yes...I went Martha Stewart on this nursery. Who knew I could be so crafty! :-)

See the space for the mirror above the changing table. We've got to transform it white before we can put it back up. It looked too funny next to the lighter pink in the curtains.

The lamp was on clearance at Bed, Bath and Beyond. It was wood color with a plain white shade. Again, I painted the base and then picked out some pink ribbon and hot glued it to the shade to give it something extra. We sponged the white over the pink on the base. Now that I've had a few days to look at it, I don't think I like the sponging. I think I'll probably just paint over it and paint the base a solid white. What do any of you think? The glare is bad in this picture. I think there's another one later in the post where you can see it better.

K, here's some more Martha Stewart for you. I saw on an episode of Trading Spaces that wrapping paper or other neat household items can sometimes make the coolest art work. When Mike and I were at Hobby Lobby picking up letters, we stumbled into several scrapbooking aisles. They had TONS AND TONS of paper. I suppose people hole punch the paper and mount their pictures to these neat backgrounds. Anyway, we were lucky enough to find a pattern that says Baby Girl over and over again. I thought of the idea to frame that. But, what's fun about that...so, I continued brain storming and thought about using scrapbooking letters to make their names at the top. Then, you know how people sometimes get a picture of their newborn and have people sign around the mat of the frame. Well, I thought that with a white or silver paint pen, that these could be my "mats." So, when each girl is born, I'll put a picture in the middle and have people sign around them. I have close ups of these later in the post. Oh, and as for the frames. We couldn't find white 12x12 frames. We found black though...so, I got out my best friend...paint...again. :-) You see that there's a third picture. I'll mention that later.

This is the middle picture. It says, "Mommy and Daddy Love You." We're going to put a picture of us holding them when they're born in the middle. Ahhh....

Last nursery picture. Just another close up of something on the wall. And of course the flower pegs...you guessed it...naked wood at Hobby Lobby ($0.50 each) that we painted yellow. Oh, we're good!!!! (The Baby's Room sign is Babies R Us. Can't take any creative credit on that one.)

That's enough for tonight. I'll post photos of the baby showers another night.

A Bunch of Pictures

So, here are a few pictures from the shower I had with my SunTrust friends back in March, my 'outside of work' friends also in March, and the nursery. It's 99.9% done. We still have a mirror to hang over the changing table. We painted it pink with the same color used in the stripe at the top, but the changing table is so close to the curtains, and the curtains have a lot of the lighter pink color in them, so it looked funny. We took it down tonight and will re-paint it white and then hang it again later.

OK...so, I lied. The blog site isn't uploading any of my pictures. I've been sitting here for 10 minutes trying different pictures from different folders on my computer thinking it might be the picture. I give up for now. I'll try again tomorrow.

What a Week!!!

This week at work, we had a bunch of events for "those left behind." Each year, 10 winners are selected for a trip, all expenses paid without having to take vacation, and bring a companion. So, while they're all out having the time of their lives, those left behind actually get a few special things to do. Neat concept.

So, the week began with a catered BBQ lunch on Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday, we played the Price is Right for about an hour. On Thursday, the office threw me a surprise baby shower!!! (We'll get back to that one, which had nothing to do with those left behind.) Finally, on Friday, we had a tulip tour that you could sign up for. They bus us around to a few of our Atlanta properties to look at the fantastic landscaping that we're known for, and we eat lunch at one of the properties while we're out. Then, at 3pm on Friday, they wrapped up the festivities with an ice cream social with a raffle drawing. I actually ended up winning the raffle...$25 to Pier 1. Yeah! So, overall, WHAT A WEEK!!! Yes, we actually work here too though. Just not an extremely busy week which afforded us the time to do these things.

Anyway, now on to the shower. It was really neat!!! I had NO CLUE! They thought that I might have seen a few people heading down to the conference room, but I didn't. I walk around here in a zone when I have a question, so I didn't even notice. To get me down there, a co-worker came to get me to pull me into a meeting for about 5 minutes to ask me about certain processes related to my job. When I walked in, everyone yelled surprise. I was speechless and almost cried. :-) How very sweet of everyone. They even got my sister-in-law to come. And the babies got lots of nice stuff. Several people went in on a group gift, so Kaitlyn and Nicole both have Exersaucers now!!! WOW!!! I was floored, and it was really nice. Can't believe they did that. :-) Made my day!!!

I'll say it again...what a week!

How Sweet

I just got a call from our receptionist. I have ROSES!!! Huh? It's not my birthday. It's not our anniversary. It was nothing special today or even this week.

I went down and retrieved my six beautiful red roses surrounded by greenery. :-) The card said, "To my three favorite girls."

How sweet!

My Attempt at a Public Service Announcement

I don't know how many people read this blog, but hopefully some of you do and will see this and possbily be helped by it in the future. (I debated a mass email but thought this would be easier.)

We've been trying to sell the Prelude and have been communicating with a gentleman via email for about 2 weeks now. He said he'd put a check in the mail for full purchase price if we held the car for him while he went on a month long business trip to London. OK, so off the bat, this doesn't smell right. Full purchase price...sight unseen. Huh?

Anyway, we proceeded to chat with this guy in case it worked out. No harm done. After all, we weren't going to quit marketing the car like he asked us too. He had no deposit, no contract, no nothing. So, we're not out anything, and if this guy actually is for real and sends us a check and it clears the bank, well, then great.

Time had gone by with no communication and then finally this weekend he tells me that the check had already been sent and I should expect it no later than today. Sure enough, a check arrived today (I gave him my work address from the start too because I thought this might be sketchy...didn't want him having too much of my personal info) appearing as if it came from London, and it actually might have. The markings on the envelope look real and the stamp was a Queen of England stamp.

Anyway, I open the envelope and there's a cashiers check inside for double the amount of the car. Bells, whistles, sirens, load crashing noises...you name it...it went off in my head!!! I had a co-worker who used to work at a bank (I know I did too but I wasn't around money) look at it. She thinks it is a forgery, as do I. You can't see a water mark, and she pointed out that some of the imprinted writing isn't 100% level. It grades slightly up hill and she said a real cashiers check would be perfect.

So, the scam...when I tell him that I got the check and that it was overissued, he's going to ask me to wire him the difference or write him a check. He mentioned in his email (and I didn't read that part at first) that it was overissued and the extra amounts were for cargo and transportation fees, as the car was to be shipped to him. Then, when my good funds clear, the banks will finally figure out in another week or two from the issuing bank that the original cashiers check was a fraud.

Anyway, I'm probably going to take the check to a SunTrust branch and have them verify that it's a forgery. Then, I'm going to take it to the police station. I'd love to see if they can lift any finger prints or anything that will help them catch this guy.

Bottom line, a co-worker showed me an extremely similar scam on snopes.com. Basically, they warn you when dealing with buying/selling goods, NEVER accept sums of money for more than the amount you're asking with an expectation to refund the difference. And they also warn that people who aren't willing to deal with you in person may not be 100% truthful either.

Hope this helps someone else in the future. I wasn't born yesterday...too bad for this guy, huh? Cause I'm going to sick the po po on his ass!

Names & Pictures

If I start off the post with the pictures, people will kill me because they want to know the names. So, here goes...it's probably not a huge surprise since I've been talking about both of these names on the blog before.

KAITLYN (that's been a done deal for a while) and....

NICOLE (no "h")

Ta Da!!!!

I don't know that we've settled on middle names. I have some in my mind, and we'll probably go with those, but in the meantime, they at least have first names. In the pictures I'm about to post, we only have the letters for Kaitlyn up. No fear...we bought N-I-C-O-L-E this week and are in the process of painting those letters to get them up this weekend.

Enjoy. The letters are white with a pink trim that matches the pink stripe at the top of the wall.

And here is the girls new bathroom. Not plum anymore...whew. Give us time to put toys, etc in there and it will start to look more like a kids bathroom. However, it still needs to serve as our guest bath which is why it's not over the top kid stuff. I think the warm pink color is girly but still works for guests. :-)

The Tour

Overall, the tour was informational and helpful...everything you would expect. As I mentioned, we signed up for a different tour that includes the NICU, and they said that they keep the numbers down on that tour as parents on that tour are usually there for a specific reason and may have specific questions. One thing I learned is that at Northside, all babies born at 34 weeks and 6 days or earlier MUST go to the NICU, if even only for a few hours. The NICU team is required to check them out. The rule is just now changing. It used to be 33 weeks and 6 days, but they said their statistics show that 75% of their babies born between 34 and 35 weeks end up in the NICU anyway, so they just amended their rule to take a closer look at all babies less than 35 weeks. Of course, they can end up in NICU even above 35 weeks. You just never can tell.

Anyway, it was supposed to be only three couples, but one couple was a no show. We were there with another couple who is due July 16th. I'm due July 14th. So, we're very close. When they ask why we're on the tour, we say that we're having twins which might include a NICU stay which is why we wanted this tour. Pretty simple. Then we find out that the other couple was expecting twins and is now just down to a singleton. She said at her last u/s appt (only 2-3 weeks ago) that one baby no longer had a heartbeat. WHAT!!! So, at approximately 22 weeks, she lost a baby. Needless to say, that was very unsettling. She sees the same perinatal practice that I do too. That really has nothing to do with anything, but it just gave me cause for concern. I always know that you can lose a baby at any time during a pregnancy. There are never any guarantees, but to hear her say that....ah....not good. I had so many questions for her, none of which I dared to ask of course. She and her husband both seemed happy and OK, but I'm sure this has been a hard three weeks for them.

I just kept thinking about all the things that Mike and I have already bought two of and figure that if she's as far along as I am that she's probably had a similar experience. At this point, I can't imagine having to take 1/2 of everything back. I have nothing to relate to personally, but I know others do and it makes my heart ache.

Nothing Much

We're on a hunt for a glider. I had NO idea how expensive those things would be. I've spent my nursery money on other things and didn't allow very much left for a glider, so I think we're going to make do with something we already own. When Mike's grandmother passed away about two years ago, it was really nice that all of the grand kids got some of the furniture. We ended up with a rocking type chair that sits really low to the ground. The wood tone will work just fine with the nursery, but it definitely needs to be recovered. I figure that might still cost a bit, but probably less than a new glider and we wanted to have this rocker recovered anyway eventually, so it's a win/win. And since it sits pretty low to the ground, we can probably get away with no ottoman. And when we're done with it in the nursery, I'm putting a neutral yellow on it so that it can go back in the living room. :-)

Now, the real problem is where in the heck can it fit in the room??? Two cribs really takes away a lot of wall space. At this point, we've both come to the realization that aestetics will probably have to take a back seat to practicality. So, if it doesn't look so great, then oh well. We're working with the hand we were dealt.

On another note, this is my week with zero doctors appts. I only get one of these a month as of now, and that will probably go away at some point. Instead, we're still going to the hospital for a tour though. That's tomorrow evening. We signed up for the extended tour which includes information about the NICU in case our kids (probably being preemie) end up in there. I'll post on Wednesday and let everyone know what's new at the Baby Factory!