Shameless Plug

A temporary diversion from the normal posts here -- I just had to use this opportunity as a shameless plug for Frank Caliendo. His impression of Bill Walton is hysterical. In case you don't want to watch the full video, just forward to the 3:15 mark. Ok, need to get back on track and focus...

A holiday first

Although we've been in our house 7 years now, we have always been out of town visiting my folks during the Christmas holidays. So even though we had put up outside holiday lights and decorated the house with stockings, wreaths, etc., we never took the initiative to put up a Christmas tree inside the house. But now that we'll have our maiden voyage into Christmas in Pearland, we figured this was the year to initiate a new tradition.

Yesterday we put up all our "normal" holiday decorations, and for the first time we put up a Christmas tree in our home. (Ok, so it's a "synthetic" tree, but for us it's quite a big step!) We enjoyed ourselves putting the ornaments on. I'm pretty excited that the house will be extra-bright and festive for the bambinos, as we hope to bring them home around Christmas-time.

Our first tree!

Come on, you pansy!

It has been quite a pleasant Thanskgiving holiday weekend so far. On Thursday morning Denise had a lot of momentum to plant some pansies we had bought a few days ago, so we took care of that prior to our big Thanksgiving meal. It's pretty impressive that even at 33 weeks with twins, Denise still has the energy to pursue one of her favorite hobbies -- there's always time for trees, plants, and flowers! Truman supervised our gardening event, but seemed rather indifferent to the results.

We had Thanksgiving at Denise's folks place in Spring (just north of Houston). It was a cozy audience with Denise's folks, her uncle Kenny, Denise and I, and of course the bambinos. It was great to relax and have some time to just sit back and chat. We had a fantastic meal and plenty of leftovers to bring home. Denise's dad made his famous river bottom gravy which I applied liberally to pretty much everything on my plate. Attached are a few pictures.

Denise and mom (checking for kicks!)

Denise and Dad

They keep growing, and growing...

We had our 32 week ultrasound a few hours ago. Both the kiddos are doing great. We were given the good news that for both of them, their lungs have developed nicely and are pretty mature. We were even able to watch them breathe, observing their chests systematically expand and contract. Go bambinos!

Our son is getting BIG and has repeated his "grow 50% in 3 weeks" trick, passing the 5 lb. mark. Our daughter is a little more petite but also managing to grow at a quite healthy pace. Being an engineer, I was compelled to make a chart. At this growth rate, the kiddos may be ready to see the world prior to our currently scheduled December 20th date. Looks like there may be some real estate issues with being able to hold them in for that long. We'll have more visibility on that after our next doctor's visit this upcoming week. Stay tuned!

By the way, no ultrasound pictures this time. The bambinos are both positioned with their heads parallel and fairly far downward, so it looks like they're being shy for the cameras...

Going mobile...

I think we're reaching maximum density on the nursery. We got a mobile two weeks ago that has a remote control you can hang on the doorknob. It plays 5 different songs and projects all sorts of mesmerising images of stars, fish, etc. on the ceiling and walls. While intended for babies, it's remarkably Pink Floyd-esque (If you ever watched "Dazed and Confused", it's the type of thing Slater could watch for hours...). I wonder if Fisher-Price recognizes this potential source of revenue.

Warning: Contents may explode under pressure

The 31 week appointment went well last week, and current indications suggest there is a good chance we'll go to full term (December 20th). We have another ultrasound scheduled for Saturday Nov. 17th, and we're looking forward to seeing our bambinos and observing how they're growing and trekking about. Other than that, we're doing a bunch of preparatory odds and ends. I installed the car seats and we had them inspected, Denise prepared a bunch of "dream dinners" for the freezer (I highly recommend the lemon chicken with capers), and we got a camcorder (which may be of some utility if we actually take it out of the box.)

That's it for now...ultrasound pictures forthcoming within a week.