Talk about a whole new ballpark!!

So Jeremy and I had the amazing opportunity to attend game 5 of the World Series in Denver next Monday with my mom and Mark provided that we could cough up the dough for the tickets. Normally, we would have jumped at the opportunity given Jeremy's relentless love for the Red Sox. HOWEVER, this time was different...this time we had "other" things to consider. First of all, we had to consider the $230.00 per person ticket price. Second, we would have to arrange some sort of transportation requiring more $$. Third, we would have both had to take two days from work unpaid (thanks to our Euro trip earlier this year). All other things aside though, we had to consider that we could go to Denver or buy all of the furniture for the babies room! Does that not put some things in perspective?!?! It seems so surreal that we are at the point where we had to ask ourselves "World Series or baby furniture?" Our answer and decision are with joy and thankfulness though. The Lord has blessed us abundantly and I wouldn't trade our situation for a lifetime of World Series games.

Dion's today!

Yeah for Tuesday lunch! Chef salad, garlic bread and lunch with the girls. Dion's...yum!

Update

So we had our appointment on Thursday, unfortunatly I haven't felt much like updating you all because of a bad headache that I have had. Thankfully, I am feeling MUCH better now. Anyway, last Thursday was a very exciting day...we didn't have an ultrasound but we did get to hear the babies heartbeats at least. It was the first time we've actually gotten to hear them! It was kind of funny because it sounded very little like a beating heart and more like a distorted version of a dog barking. While the nurse was listening to the first (144 beats per minute) Jeremy asked if we would be able to hear both babies at the same time, she just laughed like we were joking! After we informed her we were not, she tried looking for the second but had a hard time because baby B just kept moving. Finally, success, and we heard the second baby's heart (138 beats per minute). It was a glorious sound~

At this appointment, the doctor also set us up for our big ultasound on November 15th. It's the one where they measure the heads, legs, organs and whatever else they do. We are very excited but a little nervouse that the ultrasound tech might spill the beans on the sexes of the babies! There's just so many body parts floating around in there, who knows what might pop up on the screen! I will be 19 weeks at that appointment. Yikes! Where is the time going!!

I am also very excited to report that I've been feeling movement! At first I just thought I was a weird muscle spasm or something but after feeling it for the last week I'm pretty convinced that it's the babies boxing for space :)

Doctor's Appointment today!

Today we have another doctor's appointment. I am so anxious and excited to see these little guys or gals again. It's been five weeks since our last appointment and the babies have grown significantly. They are approximately five inches, crown to rump, and are looking more like babies and less like bobble head dolls. I just can't believe that there are two little lives growing inside of me. It's weird, I thought I would feel differently once I found out I was pregnant. It just hasn't happened though. I feel exactly the same, just with a bigger belly. Everyone keeps telling me, "just wait until they start moving." I'm sure that will change a lot. To be honest, that is the part I am looking forward to the most. It's something unique that only a mother and a baby can share. I pray the time comes soon.

Hopefully, we will have some ultrasound pictures to put up this afternoon but for sure, my fifteen week photo will be up tonight. I will let you all know how the appointment goes too. Until then...

Congratulations Brent and Lorena!

So recently I learned that one of my best friends, Lorena, is going to have a baby! She is about 7 1/2 weeks along and absolutely ecstatic! Brent and Lorena live in Italy and are the friends that we had the awesome opportunity of visiting earlier this year. Anyway, we are very happy for them and unlike everybody else, hope they don't move back (at least not yet!) We need another reason to visit them~Ha! Somehow, I don't think Florence and Venice would be quite the same with three bambinos!

Preparation for parenthood...

Preparation for parenthood...

It's not just a matter of reading books and decorating the nursery. Here are 12 simple tests for expectant parents to take to prepare themselves for the real-life experience of being a mother or father.
1. Women: To prepare for maternity, put on a dressing gown and stick a pillowcase filled with beans down the front. Leave it there for 9 months. After 9 months, take out 10% of the beans. Men: To prepare for paternity, go to the local drug store, tip the contents of your wallet on the counter, and tell the pharmacist to help himself. Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the paper. Read it for the last time.

2. Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels, and how they have allowed their children to run wild. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior. Enjoy it -- it'll be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

3. To discover how the nights will feel, walk around the living room from 5 pm to 10 pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious noise) playing loudly. At 10 pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1 am. Put the alarm on for 3 am. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2 am and make a drink. Go to bed at 2:45 am. Get up again at 3 am when the alarm goes off. Sing songs in the dark until 4 am. Put the alarm on for 5 am. Get up. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

4. Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, first smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flower beds, then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

5. Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems: first buy an octopus and a bag made out of loose mesh. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this: all morning.

6. Take an egg carton, using a pair of scissors and a pot of paint, turn it into an alligator. Now take the tube from a roll of toilet paper. Using only Scotch tape and a piece of foil, turn it into an attractive Christmas candle. Last, take a milk carton, a ping pong ball, and an empty packet of Cocoa Pops and make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower. Congratulations! You have just qualified for a place on the play group committee.

7. Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a dime. Stick it in the cd player. Take a family-size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seats. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. Perfect.

8. Get ready to go out. Wait outside the bathroom for half an hour. Go out the front door. Come in again. Go out. Come back in. Go out again. Walk down the front path. Walk back up it. Walk down it again. Walk very slowly down the road for 5 minutes. Stop to inspect minutely every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way. Retrace your steps. Scream that you've had as much as you can stand until the neighbors come out and stare at you. Give up and go back into the house. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

9. Always repeat everything you say at least five times.

10. Go to your local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a preschool child -- a fully-grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goats eat or destroy. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

11. Hollow out a melon. Make a small hole in the side. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure a lot of it falls on the floor. You are now ready to feed a 12-month-old baby.

12. Learn the names of every character from Thomas the Train, Dora the Explorer, and Wonder Pets. When you find yourself singing "Wonder Pets, Wonder Pets, We're on our way" at work, you finally qualify as a parent.

This was recently sent to us by a friend of ours. I thought I would post it for all of you who already have kiddos. By the way, does anyone know where we can get a couple of goats?!?!

We're still here...

So I looked at the calendar today and couldn't believe it's already October 8th!!! Almost two two weeks since our last blog or update to the site! The time has truly flown by. Here's an update on what's been going on in the Sloan household that's kept us so busy.

• I recently celebrated my 25th birthday (September 25th). Yes folks, half a century, as I've been reminded over and over by my loved ones. It's okay though. 25 is a good solid age. It was a good week all in all. We ended up having dinner with my dad, Vicky, Court, Drew, David and his girlfriend, Laura, at the Melting Pot on my actual birthday. Aside from David's contempt for food that does not begin with Taco or end in Bell, it was a nice night. Jeremy and I went out later in the week for dinner just the two of us. I searched all over town for Mussels and linguine only to find that there is not one restaurant in town that serves what I was looking for besides Luigi's on fourth street. It looked a little...uh....questionable and so I opted out considering that this would not be the most convienient time for food poisioning. So we went to Bravo and I managed to talk our waiter into having the chef whip up my birthday meal. After he found out I was pregnant, he was willing to do whatever! He said his pregnant wife had him at Wal-Mart at 8:30 the night before searching for Hebrew National Hot Dogs. He totally understood.
• Jeremy's sister, Staci, and her fiance August tied the knot! (September 29th) It was a fun week cooking and decorating and gearing up for the big day. This was the fourth, and final, wedding that I was a bridesmaid in. Jeremy did the music for the ceremony. We are happy that all these lovely couples are wed, but man are we more happy that this season of family weddings has come to a close. Let's just hope that they space their babies out a bit more.
• We've decided to finally redo our laundry room. It was a nightmare of a space beforehand with these itty bitty shelves that were installed like 30 years ago. Totally non-usable unless your storing baby food jars of nuts and bolts (Dad~You would love it!). Anyway, everytime I try to dig out some kitchen item that is infrequently used, I swear I am going to get this project done so I can have a better way of organizing things. Well Jeremy finally took me up on it. We demoed, spackeled, textured, painted and BAM! It's a new room! Our new washer and dryer are stackable too so with a little help from our friend Brandon (the dryer was WAY over my ten pound limit) we have an appliance high rise! It's really coming along. Our last step is just figuring out our shelving units. Lowe's has four isles of all kinds of organizing magic that was just way too huge for this hungry lady to shop through after church yesterday. We'll probably try our luck tonight or tomorrow.
• We have also been spending our nights shopping for cribs and bedding. It's a tough decision. We are challenged between what we want versus what is practical and affordable considering there are two of everything to buy. It's funny how you can get wrapped up in the tiny details of how you want the room to look and the babies won't know a bit of difference!! Nevertheless, we are going to have to come to a conclusion real soon because our window of opportunity is slowing closing. :)

Life is great! We are so blessed and thankful to God who is the giver of all things good. I apologize for not being as good at keeping you all updated but please know that we haven't forgotten you. We love each of you and hope that you are well. Keep checking back as I have been told that the master of the pictures will be adding my last two belly shots tonight.