Nursery is Painted!

Chad and I have been very busy preparing for the babies. This week I passed the 12 week mark of my pregnancy, a milestone I have been looking forward to for some time!

It may seem a little early to be making any major plans, but our reasoning is that it is better to do it now in case I have to go on bedrest later, etc. God willing, in less than 6 months we will have 2 newborns to care for. When you think of it that way, it doesn't seem very far away at all!
Here are a few of the major changes we have undertaken:

* Broke down the old bed in the 1st floor guest bedroom and took it to the dump

* Moved the guest bed from the 3rd floor nursery to the 1st floor guest bedroom (Note: We couldn't have done this without the help of our awesome neighbor Dustin, who came over and helped Chad move the mattress, box springs, and headboard down three flights of stairs! Thank you Dustin and Carlea for being such great friends and neighbors!)

*Rearranged the living room to create a baby equipment/play space

* Ordered the nursery furniture

*Hired painters to paint the nursery

Without further ado, I have included a few pictures below:

This wall is where we plan to put the two cribs.

The hutch/changing table will go on this wall.

This is their closet.

We plan to put a glider/rocker in front of this window, but we haven't picked one out yet.

There is also a full bathroom in here, convenient for bath time!

I hope you all like how it turned out. I picked this color 2 years ago when we first moved in and only painted an "accent wall" this color. I liked it so much I decided to paint the whole nursery this color. Also it is gender-neutral and I think would be nice for boys, girls, or both!

I mentioned above that we also ordered the nursery furniture. Most of it is already in at the local JCPenney store, we just have to go pick it up. The only thing we are missing is the changing tower and that won't be in until November.

Below are pictures of the nursery furniture we ordered but you just have to picture it in WHITE because that is what we actually ordered:

We ordered two of these cribs in white.

This is the changing tower/hutch (also ordered in white)

Finally, here is a picture of the baby equipment/play area we have cleared out in our living room, it doesn't look like much but when you have a three story townhouse space is at a premium so it seems like a lot of space to us!

We are so excited about the babies and we love being able to plan and prepare for them!

11 Weeks, 1 Day OB Appointment Update

Today was my first appointment at the "regular" doctor's office. I was told that I would meet with a nurse practitioner and watch an "instructional video". I told Chad that there wasn't any need to come to this appointment since we wouldn't be having an ultrasound or doing anything directly related to the babies. Boy was I wrong!

I did watch an instructional video, it was very standard, "don't smoke and don't drink", etc. They also had me fill out a couple of questionaires and I had to have some labwork done.

Then they told me I would be having an ultrasound. I was not expecting that, and I was very sad that Chad was going to miss it, but I was also excited to see how the babies were doing. The very first thing we saw was "Baby A" at the bottom actively kicking at "Baby B" at the top. Sibling rivalry has already started!

"Baby A" was very active throughout the ultrasound, often moving its arms and legs and flipping around while we were trying to do measurements. Initially "Baby B" was much more sedate but eventually they were both moving around like crazy. Even the nurse practioner and the resident kept remarking on how much they were moving around. They are measuring perfect, both look great and their heartbeats are very strong. I am not sure whose heartbeat was whose but one baby was 168 bpm and the other was 142 bpm.

I also scheduled my next couple of appointments. My next appointment is on September 15th at 14 weeks. My anatomy scan appointment (where we find out the genders) is on October 11th---my birthday! I am so excited!

Overall a wonderful appointment, although I wish Chad could have been there too! I will leave you with a pretty good picture of "Baby A". Chad and I affectionately call him/her our "troublemaker" because this baby always seems to be the first to move, etc.

The Story of Us

Welcome to our family blog, The Ringley Family Circus! We'll be posting about our daily lives and we hope you enjoy. Thought we'd start out with a little background with the story of us.

Chad and Jessie met in Raleigh, NC in June 2006 through E-Harmony. Chad was Jessie's first match and that's all she needed ;)

Chad proposed in November 2006. Chad got a job with a wind energy company in Texas in June 2007 so we moved to Texas that summer. Jessie got a job with a financial trust company shortly after we moved and we came back for our wedding in Gibsonville, NC on September 2nd, 2007.

We rescued our wonderful dog Sadie from a shelter in November 2007 and she and our lovely cat Sabrina have been ruling the roost ever since!

We got our first house in July 2008.

We started trying to have kids in early fall last year, and after help from the Baylor Clinic, we got pregnant! And boy did we ever...It's double the fun and double the trouble! We're expecting our new additions in March 2011!

We've seen them go from dots...

to blobs...

to babies!

We're obviously very excited. Stay tuned as we chronicle our adventures preparing for our new additions!