Random: 14 weeks, Chocolate, Bedtime stories

I spoke too soon in my last post. Spring had definitely not come and my pregnancy sickness was not over.
We have had the craziest spring storms and more snow in the last couple weeks then we had all winter. It came in huge amounts by blizzard but would be gone within 48 hours. It's been gorgeous the last several days but another storm comes tomorrow. grrrrr. But hopefully it won't be too bad. My sickness came back in the evenings in the form of pounding head aches but I'll take that for now over nausea. 14 weeks pregnant. I feel like I was sick forever but at the same time I can't believe I'm already that far along. So short and so long all at once.

One problem with never getting around to blogging is that when I finally do, there are so many small and random things I want to write about it's hard to put together a coherent, focused post. And so I'm not even going to try.

I went to my 12 ultrasound about a week and a half ago and  it was amazing. Up until now this little baby hasn't looked like much but this time it was a moving, kicking, bouncing baby and took my breath away. I loved it. That appointment made everything more real for me and all the days of feeling crumby so worth it.

The ultrasound tech was trying to convince me not to find out the gender at our 20 week appointment and I'm surprised that I'm actually considering it. Ben isn't for waiting and I don't think I'm made for it either but I do think it would be an awesome experience.

Something I have noticed that I know was also true of my last pregnancy, my chocolate addiction has majorly regressed. I'm usually the kind of person that shouldn't have chocolate chips on hand because I'll end up eating half the bag before any cookies are made. But now that's not the case. I'm just not that interested. In fact, while we were in Salt Lake my parents' new puppy got into my diaper bag and ate an entire chocolate bar a friend had given me a few weeks earlier. I had somehow completely forgotten the chocolate was in my bag which would have NEVER happened before. Poor Abby had to be taken to the emergency vet to have her stomach pumped. :( The same goes with ice cream which usually I'm crazy for. Ben made a late night slurpee run for me last night and reminded me how often we frequented the 7-11 when I was carrying my Rose and Eve. I'm definitely a lot hungrier than normal so I'm certainly making up for the chocolate calories I'm not consuming. I wonder though,  how much healthier and perhaps slimmer I could be when not pregnant  if my cravings for chocolate and ice cream were not naturally sky high. It's strange and kind of refreshing to not want it.

Evie and Rose have continued to do much better than expected with their big girl bed. Rosie has been a rock star and has never once gotten out of her bed after we tuck her in at night. Evie on the other hand has been a more challenging which we expected. She has gotten better about going to bed but often sneaks out in the middle of the night. She doesn't wake us up but quietly comes in and finds a place to hunker down. A few times I found her curled up in Clover's dog bed in our room or just on the floor in our doorway around 2 am but lately she ends up on the couch out in the hall. Pretty darling.

We were also having an issue with our bedtime routine dragging on forever. The girls were demanding a million stories and  song after song after song until you were about to lose your mind. We finally instituted a prize box where the girls get some sort of knick knack in the morning if they go to bed after two stories and three songs. It has worked like a charm and bedtime is much more pleasant. 

Another bed time story I want to remember happened a few months ago when the girls were still sharing the same room. They both woke up around 10 o'clock screaming and crying because the smoke alarm in their room was beeping because the battery was low. They thought it was a bird and were terrified. They kept saying: " Birdie! Tweet Tweet!!" and then continued to talk about it for weeks and weeks and how daddy had fixed it.  About a month after, Rosie woke up in the middle of the night crying and complaining about the bird in her room again. I was holding her in the dark and she kept saying there was a bird until we realized it was Evie in the other crib snoring sweetly and making a small whistling sound with her nose. :)

The girls have been talking up a storm and people comment to me all the time how much more vocal they are. Rosie has been helping to translate for Evie a little bit. Yesterday Evie was pointing out an owie on her foot and saying she needed  the "hanta bottle" and Ben kept saying "santa bottle? what's that?" and finally Rosie screamed "HOSPITAL!!".
One of my favorite things lately is whenever one girl is being particularly difficult and throwing a tantrum the other will make it a big point to be sweet and polite. They say "Thank you really much mommy" and "Mommy, look. I'm not crying. I'm happy."

Saturday we had a gorgeous day at the zoo. We saw the sea lion and elephant shows and every animal, ate a picnic lunch, and got ice cream before we headed home. We spent the evening planting flowers and hanging a bird feeder in the back yard. Within 48 hours the birds and squirrels have almost completely emptied it and Rose and Eve have spent lots of time at the window watching the feeding frenzy.
These girls get more and more fun with every passing day.