Allie in the South of Spain

Yesterday morning I celebrated my baby shower with a small brunch. My friend Cristina helped organize it and we had it in her association's club house. Baby showers are not common here in Spain, mostly people will give gifts after the baby arrives and the big celebration tends to be the baptism. I really appreciated all of my Spanish friends who embraced this tradition and I think they enjoyed themselves along with my American friends. The cake. It says welcome Vera and Laura We served brunch food (like bagels, muffins, small sandwiches, juice, coffee and of course cake). It is events like this that I am thankful for Costco. Not only can you buy in bulk but they have all kinds of foods that you can't find anywhere else (like bagels). We played two games as well. One was done in small groups. I gave each group a list of names of children from TV series. They had to name the series and they got an extra point if they could remember the surname of the family. I used series...

It's been a while since I last updated about how things are going with the twins so I wanted to take advantage today to share both that and our progress with their nursery. First of all, as of now I am in the 30th week of pregnancy. Word from my doctor is that these twins will most likely arrive (probably will be planned) between week 37 and 38, so really not that much longer to go. This is both exciting and terrifying.  We have been going to the doctor every two weeks to track how the girls are growing and we went yesterday for what will end up being one of our last appointments because things looked so good we won't be back for 5 weeks. Which puts us almost at the end...unless of course I go into labor or have some other kind of emergency before (which I am hoping won't happen). Yesterday Vera (who has always been a bit bigger) weighed in at 1.6 kilos which is about 3.5 lbs. Laura is more petite and weighs 1.3 kilos or about 3 lbs. They are both good sized babies for b...

The holiday season has just wrapped up here in Spain. It goes a bit longer than in the U.S. which tends to end at the New Year because here on the 6th of January the three Wisemen bring gifts to all the children. This is a bigger deal to most than Santa although our girls will be able to experience both since I love Santa! There is always a big parade on th 5th of January where the three Kings throw gifts and candy to kids but more on that later. Over our Christmas break we were pretty busy. First we started on the nursery, taking out the furniture that was already there to make room for two cribs and all that seems to come with expecting twins. Jose painted the room a mint green color but it's still quite a work in process (we are waiting for our curtains and the rest of the furniture). I also started washing all their clothes, blankets, sheets, etc. We went back to the doctor (we are going every two weeks at this point) and things looked good except I failed my one ho...

First off, we went back to the doctor this week and everything looks good with the girls. Vera is slightly larger than her sister but we were told that this is normal in fraternal twins since they are in reality not any more alike than any other siblings. Here are their latest ultrasound pictures: Here is probably the best picture we have gotten of Laura And here is Vera Jose and I have finally decided on the name for our second twin: Laura. I felt bad for a while since we had known from the beginning that if we were going to have a girl that we would name her Vera. It is a name that we both liked but it isn't a family name or one that has any special kind of meaning in reality. I just think it's beautiful and like that it is short and simple. When we found out we were going to have two girls we started to explore other names. For me it was important to chose names that would be easy for people to pronounce both in the U.S. and here in Spain. I didn't want to hav...

Here we are again with another Christmas card blog for everyone. These are actually some of my favorite to write. I just looked back at the last three years of card blogs and it's really nice to have a wrap-up of everything we did and enjoyed throughout the year (and I hope you enjoy them too). Plus the pictures are fun to compare as well. The last three years we have done the same pose in our apartment with Cooper and our tree. Next year with the twins here we might have to mix things up. Here you can read past card blogs and see how we have changed: Christmas 2012 Christmas 2013 Christmas 2014 Usually I do a top 10 countdown of wonderful things that we did or experienced over the year. I am going to follow that format again and here goes: 10. Having some very good friends, Erica and Ernie, visit us over our past Christmas vacation. We had an awesome time with them doing a lot of wine tasting and showing them the south of Spain. 9. After Erica and Ernie left we heade...

Yesterday was Thanksgiving in the U.S. and obviously like most everyone else we have a lot to be thankful for here in Spain. It might not be surprising that the foremost thing that comes to mind at this point when listing things that I appreciate are the two little babies that will hopefully be coming sometime in March. We are over half way through the pregnancy and things continue to progress well. Everyone involved is healthy though not always comfortable. Growing two little people is exhausting and though I have had relatively few complaints up until now in this pregnancy (no nausea for example) it seems like lots of little issues are cropping up now. Hello heartburn! Or needing to be very close to close to a bathroom thanks to the little girl sitting on my bladder. All in all though, I can't complain (though I am sure that is coming). Before I move on to another twinning update I would also like to point out that I am thankful for the doctors and nurses who helped us during ...

I figure it is about time for another baby update, so here it is. We are now about 5 months into the pregnancy and things are chugging along. I am still pretty tired a lot and haven't been gaining weight but I do have the start of a baby bump. It seems as if my weight is redistributing itself and each visit to the doctor confirms that both babies are growing exactly the way they should.  Baby A, the best ultrasound picture where you can actually see a baby shape We are not having identical twins but rather fraternal which means that they won't look the same. In fact, fraternal twins are basically like any other kind of sibling just that they are born at the same time. Since they are fraternal we are looking at any combination of sexes for the two babies. A few months ago when we went to the doctor for an anatomy ultrasound in which they checked all the organs and limbs, sizes and whatnot of the babies, neither baby cooperated with the doctor and both stayed in whatever...