One BIG Surprise

On Wedneday, December 19th I headed into a scheduled sonogram with my excited family to find out the gender of baby #3 and got the surprise of my life.  When she placed the wand on my stomach to begin the sonogram the technician said "Oh, you're having twins." I had seen the two perfectly round circles before she spoke and knew it before she said it.  Needless to say we were very shocked to learn the news!  We were all speechless in the room except for Addy who exclaimed "Two babies is too much!"  The technician felt awful that we learned about our twins in this nature but carried on with the procedure like a champ.  Next, I asked her if she could tell us the gender of each child.  After just a bit of exploring she declared each baby to be a boy, which sparked another statement from our dear Adalyn, "TWO BOYS?!!"  Needless to say she was a bit disappointed that there wasn't at least one girl in there. 

As anyone can imagine, we were in a state a shock from the news as my 8 week ultrasound had only showed one baby. I have the evidence to prove it!  One little guy must have been hiding behind the other.  After the ultrasound Derek's mom took the kids to the house while Derek went with me to run some errands.  As I was walking through Wal Mart, I couldn't even focus on my list because I was in such a daze.  I had to pinch myself several times to make sure it wasn't a dream.  In the meantime, the results of the sonogram were faxed to my doctor and she immediately called us into the office 45 minutes after the sonogram.  She answered our questions and was apologetic about the fact that she misdiagnosed the pregnancy at 8 weeks.  She said that I was her first twins misdiagnosis in her twelve years of practicing!!  She also explained some changes in the ways we will be handling the pregnancy from here on out and used the term "high-risk" pregnancy, which struck a chord in me. 

I didn't sleep so well that evening and for several days following.  It took us a good week to get over the shock of the twins.  We are very excited to be welcoming two little boys into our family and know that we will be very busy, but our hearts will be full.  Addy and Carter are excited about the them coming and Addy has warmed up to being the only princess in the family. For now, I will take my advice from a wise aunt and get my rest now:)

Holiday Vacation 2012

On the Thursday after Thanksgiving our family packed up our suitcases and boarded the plane to Orlando for a Holiday Vacation.  Earlier in the fall, Derek and I decided to take one last vacation before baby #3 arrived.  We knew that we wouldn't go anywhere with the new little one this summer and we had one week in December where our schedules were open, so we decided to go for it.  Our plan was to drive to the Gulf Coast for a few days to enjoy the beautiful beach and then head to Orlando for the end of the trip to experience Christmas at Disney.  I have ALWAYS wanted to see Disney at Christmas and we realized that this may be our last opportunity to do so because Addy will be in Kindergarten next year and I'm not a big fan of taking her out of school for vacation.  So I was super excited about being able to experience the holidays there. 

We flew into Sanford International on Thursday evening and loaded up our rental van for the two hour drive to the gulf coast near Tampa.  We actually stayed at the Treasure Island beach area and rented a two bedroom condo on the beach.  The kids had a blast playing on the beach during the day.  Before we left for vacation, I was convinced that the kids would spend most of their time playing in the sand and wouldn't brave the chilly water.  Well, Adalyn certainly proved me wrong.  We barely had our toes in the sand and Addy was soaked to the bone in her clothes wading in the ocean water.  We were blessed with beautiful weather and 80 degree temperatures.  While at the beach we got to see boat light parade on the harbor where boat owners decorated their boats with Christmas lights.  We also drove to St. Pete Beach to see a home owner's light display that has received awards as one of the best of the nation.  The kids loved it, but it was a bit on the cheesy side for me. 

Jingle followed us to Florida!!

Beach Babes

One crazy light display at St. Pete Beach

The Sea World/Disney portion of the trip was a surprise for the kids.  We told them on Saturday at the beach condo that we were heading there the next day.  We wrapped up Christmas Disney shirts, light sticks, and a few brochures to tell them that the next portion of the trip was actually their Christmas gift from Mom and Dad.  They were super excited to learn that we were going to Disney!

Sunday morning we packed up the mini van again and drove back to the Orlando area to go to Sea World.  The kids and I had never been to Sea World and we had a wonderful time.  They were having a Christmas Celebration as well and had many great Christmas shows.  The kids loved watching the Shamu show and got sit with their Dad in the splash zone.  Grandma Freihaut and I elected to sit in the upper deck; someone had to keep all of the electronics dry!  We also saw a wonderful show about the the birth of Jesus that used real animals on stage, including several camels.  It is a very popular show at Sea World, so we went to the later show to avoid having to stand in line for a seat.  There was a lot of wonderful singing and was really fun to watch.  Unfortunately, Addy zonked out towards the end of the show and missed the ending number where all  of the animals and actors appeared on stage together.  We finished our evening at Sea World by watching the fireworks at closing.

Posing with Shamu

Pretty penguins

Riding the Sea life carousel

On Monday we headed to Hollywood Studios.  We took in many of the kids' favorite shows and Addy and Derek rode the Tower of Terror, which is Addy's all time favorite ride.  I was bummed that I had to sit out of the thrill rides with my pregnant belly, but it was still fin watching Addy and Derek enjoy the rides.  Addy and Carter also got to meet Wreck It Ralph and Venelope, who started meeting at the park shortly before the movie was released.  We fast passed Toy Story Mania and rode it in the afternoon. Once again,  it was a favorite ride of our family.  Even Grandma loved it!  Later that evening, we watched Fantasmic and then headed to the part of the park where the Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights is located.  It is an amazing display of lights that seemingly covers every inch of every building in the city area.  I had been looking forward to seeing it and it was amazing!!  The kids were mesmerized by all of the glowing lights and I found myself taking pictures like a crazy woman (go figure!). 

Addy was very excited to meet these guys.  Carter wasn't as thrilled.

No trip to Disney is complete without eating one of these!

Everything was covered with lights!

Beautiful!

Family Pic

On Tuesday, we had a morning of rest because we were headed to the Magic Kingdom to attend Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party in the evening.  That day we headed to downtown Disney for a bit of shopping, sightseeing, and lunch and then headed back to the condo for an afternoon nap before gearing up for the night's festivities.  I was just as excited to be attending the party as the kids (OK, maybe even a little more excited).  The party was as awesome as I had hoped.  The Magic Kingdom closes to daily guests so that only guests with a ticket to the party may be in attendance.  They limit the number of tickets sold for the party, so the crowds are lighter than a normal day.  Throughout the park are stations serving unlimited cookies, apple slices, cocoa, and apple juice.  Derek took full advantage of the free cocoa by drinking six cups throughout the night.  We were able to ride many rides with little or no wait.   Addy had her first ride on Space Mountain and loved it!   At the end of the evening we had the Dumbo ride to ourselves and rode it several times.  It was so much fun watching the kids smiling from ear to ear while soaring through the air in their elephant with Christmas music playing.  We also got the rare opportunity of getting our picture taken with the seven dwarfs.  The dwarfs only come out for picture opportunities a few times a year and I had read that the wait could be an hour or more.  So, I was thrilled when we walked by the cue line after the parade and the wait was only 15 minutes!  We jumped in line and the kids had a blast interacting with the dwarfs.  Happy tickled Carter during the pictures and Addy sat on Dopey's lap.  Addy and Carter also got to meet Merida, who was on their short list of characters they wanted to meet this time.  The party lasted until midnight and we stayed for the entire time.  Addy and Carter are Disney troopers and didn't fall asleep until the monorail ride back to the parking lot.

Addy and Ariel

The kids loved the dance parties with the characters!

The Freihauts and the Seven Dwarfs

Special Hugs!

So excited to meet Merida

It even snowed on Main Street!!  Addy was a little disappointed to find out it was suds:)

Wednesday was our last park day and we headed back to the Magic Kingdom for a day of fun.  We focused on doing many of the kids' favorite rides and trying out a few new experiences.  We got to experience the new Belle attraction which was great.  People from the audience are chosen to perform the story of Beauty and the Beast with Belle.  Addy was selected to be silverware and got to have a part in the play.  Afterwards she got to have her picture taken with Belle.  Carter loved riding the Buzz Lightyear ride and we rode It's a Small World several times.  They kids also really loved the electric parade so much that we watched it twice.  We ended up closing the park for the fourth night in a row.    Although we didn't go as hard or pack as many things in on this trip, we still got to see and experience a ton of things!

Loving Dumbo!

Three dizzy Freihauts

Posing in front of the Grand Floridian Tree

This sight never gets old!

On Thursday we took our time packing and heading to the airport to head back to chilly Illinois.  We were sad to say goodbye to the beautiful Florida weather where we wore shorts most days.  It was a wonderful vacation.  I was very hesitant to pull the trigger and book things in the Fall, but Derek was the one to push me to plan it and I am so glad we did!  It was definitely a trip we will always remember!

 

 

Our Big Boy!!

Carter has reached some major milestones in the last months that I failed to mention on the blog.  So, I decided that it's better to give him props late than not at all.

At the beginning of August we moved him to his big boy room to sleep in his big boy bed.  He made the transition pretty smoothly and appears to love his own space with plenty of room for his toys.

At the end of October we deemed him officially potty trained after being accident free for two weeks.  We celebrated with a trip to Chuck E. Cheese, which was the big reward he had been working toward on his potty reward chart.    I must say that after hearing horror stories about how difficult boys were to potty train, I wasn't excited about the potty training process.  However, Carter proved the "nay-sayers" wrong and when he decided that he wanted to be done with diapers, he breezed through his chart and racked up his rewards in record time.  We are so proud of our little guys for all of his accomplishments and for all the new things he is learning everyday.  He is growing up so fast! 

Giving Thanks 2012

For Thanksgiving this year we headed to Indiana on Wednesday evening and stayed at my parent's house until Saturday morning.  The weather was beautiful on Thursday, so we took full advantage and spent a lot of time outside. Both Addy and Carter got several lawn tractor rides from Papaw and Addy had a blast climbing a tree in Mamaw and Papaw's front yard.  She even got her Dad to climb up in the tree with her, although coming down wasn't as easy for him as it was for her.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal and later celebrated with Ashley and Brian and their significant others. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later that evening Derek and I headed to Wal-Mart to brave the crowds and pick up a few of the deals.  We zipped through the store and picked up most of the things on our list and made it through the check out line in an acceptable amount of time.  As we were standing in line checking out the items in our cart, we realized that many items that we stood in line for were things we were buying on behalf of others.  So, we acted as personal shoppers for our families, which we were happy to do.  It's all about the"game" for me!  I am so thankful that I have a shopping partner in Derek.  He really is a good sport!

 

On Friday we headed to Santa Claus to drive through the Land of Lights and visit Santa at the Christmas store.  Carter was very eager to sit on Santa's lap and told him he would like a blue Mobigo and dinosaurs for Christmas.  Addy was a bit hesitant to talk to the big guy but eventually came around and let him know that she would like a Lego Friends house and a Teacher Barbie.

 

 

Early Saturday morning we headed to Evansville to meet Derek's family at the Ford Center to watch the Shrine Circus.  The kids had never been to the circus and loved taking in all of the sights and parts of the show.  It was a lot of fun watching them get excited about the animals and performers.  After the show, we headed to lunch with Grandma Freihaut and Derek's brother's family.  After lunch, they headed home and we spent the rest of the evening and some of Sunday morning with Grandma.  We ate breakfast at Denny's and then jumped on the road to head home.  It was a great Thanksgiving spent with family and we are so thankful to have such wonderful family and friends in our lives.  The Freihauts certainly have a lot to be thankful for in 2012!

 

 

 

 

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012 was a fun day in the Freihaut household.  Addy chose to use wear her Cinderella costume that we had bought for our Disney vacation in May and Carter fell in love with his Spider man costume at Target in early September, so decisions about costumes were pretty easy this year.  On the day of Halloween I was signed u to volunteer for Addy's Pre-K Halloween party, so Carter and I headed into her classroom for the festivities.  I was in charge of doing a craft, so we made jack-o-lantern windsocks.  The Pre-K students got to parade down the elementary halls in their costumes while all of the other students came out of their classrooms to watch and applaud.  Since Carter was with me and wearing his costume, he marched down the hallways with Addy and was prouder than a peacock to be in the parade.  Addy was also very proud to be the "big sister" and did her job very well!  It was very cute to watch!

 

That evening we had a quick dinner and headed out to our neighborhood trick-or-treating.  It was a bit chilly and windy that evening and the lots in our neighborhood are pretty far apart, so we decided to drive around the neighborhood.  We left a candy bowl on the front porch for visiting trick-or-treaters and were on our way.  The kids had been to several other trick-or-treating events prior to Halloween, so they ended up with a huge amount of candy, which eventually was taken to Derek's office.

 

Spidey and the Princess

 

 

Carter's first choice of candy from his loot.

Trick-or-treating at Derek's office
The kids love Erich!

Pre-K costume parade

Our Jack-O-Lantern

Painting pumpkins

Carter was very proud of his creation!

A Fall Visit from Grandma and Grandpa

The last weekend in October Grandma and Grandpa Schum came up for a visit.  Fall is one of our favorite seasons and it is always so much fun to have grandparents here visiting to take part in our fall fun.  Mom and Dad took a few extra days off work, so they got to stay longer than usual, which the kids were so happy about. We visited our local pumpkin farm, played outside, cooked a big meal on Saturday (I had a turkey in the freezer that needed to be baked) and did lots of playing.  It was a great weekend for everyone!

Riding the barrel train

Climbing on the hay

Straw jumping

Addy and Carter had a fun day with Grandma and Grandpa

Mamaw and Addy baked an apple pie

Addy was so proud of the final product

Trick-Or-Treat!

Playing pirates with the grandparents

Watch out grandma!!

A Celebration Trip

Derek and I decided that we wanted to tell the kids about the baby in a special way, so we decided to take a weekend trip to Indianapolis to tell them and celebrate the fact that we were going to be a family of five.  We had been wanting to take the kids to the Children's Museum for a while and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to head there for some fun.  We packed our things and headed there on Thursday, October 19th.  Addy and Carter were very excited to be going on a weekend getaway and new it was a special occasion, but still didn't know the big news. 

We headed to our hotel that evening and then went to the Museum early Friday morning.  The museum was a bit busier than we anticipated because Indianapolis schools were on Fall break.  Thank goodness we got there early.  We were able to get through most of the exhibits before the local crowd began to file in.  The museum had a traveling Hot Wheel exhibit that the kids enjoyed.  They also loved building and sailing their own boat, checking out the dinosaur exhibit, seeing the trains and watching the Sesame Street program in the planetarium.  After lots of playing we left the museum in the early afternoon and headed to downtown to check-in to our second hotel. 

Posing in front of the glass sculpture

Checking out one of the life sized Hot Wheels cars

Posing with Daddy

 

Catching a ride

 

 

We were able to get in a nice family nap before heading to Weber Grill for dinner and then to the Indiana Fever playoff game.  We told the kids about the baby at dinner and they were both very excited about the news.  Addy was grinning from ear to ear for the rest of the dinner and even though Carter wasn't quite sure what it all meant, he knew that he was supposed to be excited.  I was relieved that Addy was so excited about the baby.  I wasn't sure how she would react.  She has spontaneously said several times throughout the last year that we didn't need another baby in the house. 

After celebrating the big news over dessert, we headed to the Fever game.  They were playing in the WNBA finals and it was a lot of fun being around the playoff atmosphere.  The Fever ended up winning in a blow out and went on to capture the championship later that weekend.  The kids really enjoyed the game.  There was a lot of attention grabbing things going on throughout the game that managed to keep their attention.  At one point Addy asked where all the sick people were (she didn't quite get the idea of the "Fever"). 

The next morning we began our trip back to Illinois, but took a side trip to check out a couple of sites of the Covered Bridge Festival in Parke County.  We hadn't been there in five years and I have been itching to go back.  Besides yummy festival food, our purchases centered around the kiddos (go figure!).  We arrived home later that evening with two tired but very excited kiddos.  It was a great weekend and we had so much fun spending time with the kids and giving them some very exciting news!  We are so glad that they are excited too!

 

More museum photos....

We built the arch

Carter was very proud of his boat that he built.

Diving under the sea

Posing with Rex (the museum's mascot)