The "twins" are all grown up!

It's hard to believe that it's been 18 plus years since our "twins" were born.

Back in 1990 me and my sister Kris both surprised our parents and family on Christmas morning with the news that we were both expecting babies. The funny thing about this is that neither of us knew that the other one was pregnant or going to announce it on that morning. I was living in New Hampshire at the time and Kris was in Utah.

On that morning, I opened my gift from Kris and it was a baby rattle announcing her pregnancy. I was laughing hysterically and so excited to call home where the whole family would be gathered for Christmas morning. I hadn't done anything gift-wise to make my announcement, I was simply going to announce over the phone of my pregnancy. I could hardly wait to get past the "Merry Christmas" stuff and just blurt it out, and when I did it was the best Christmas gift my parents could ever ask for. Everyone was literally dying at this point and excited beyond belief. Even funnier, Kris announced her due date of August 6th and I announced mine of August 5th.

My parents were so excited to announce the news to all the extended family they would be seeing throughout the day so they made cute signs to wear around their neck. The front sign read that they were expecting a grandbaby and then when they turned around there was another sign on their back announcing that they were expecting even another grandbaby. A pretty exciting Christmas Day for our family.

It was really fun being pregnant at the same time as my sister. It was my first pregnancy and my sisters third. I learned from her and followed everything she did throughout the pregnancy. It was fun having her doctor and mine both giving advice.

At our ultrasound appointments several months into our pregnancies, oddly enough, both our due dates got pushed back to more near the end of August and how funny that was to see that we were both doing things exactly the same. Now our due dates were something like the 21st and 24th I believe.

Kris found out her baby was going to be a little boy during her ultrasound but I chose not to find out the sex of mine because I wanted it to be a surprise. I wanted a little girl so bad but if it was a little boy it would be fun having two little guys together. I was still crossing my fingers for a girl though.

Nine months pass and we both approach our due dates, me on the East Coast and her in Utah. On Sunday, August 18th I went into labor pretty early in the morning and with the 2-hour time difference I didn't want to call home and wake everybody up. Plus having a worry wart for a Mom I didn't want to have her go through hours of stress and anxiety knowing I was in labor so far away where she couldn't do anything to help me. We had already pre-booked her airfare and had hoped it would fit into the time frame of me having the baby and enough time being given for her to be with me after the baby was born. I guess we were off a little bit but that was okay. The way it worked out, her flight came in the afternoon I came home from the hospital, so all was good.

Anyway, I guess the whole time I was in the hospital in labor, my sister was at my parents house for Sunday dinner and having contractions herself. Her other two pregnancies she would go into labor but not progress very quickly and she always had to get hooked up to the "pit" to increase contractions. When my baby girl was born I called home to announce she had arrived but I wanted to play around with them on the phone for a little bit. My mom told me Kris was in labor and wanted to know if I had been having any labor pains strong enough for me to go to the hospital. (I had been on bed rest since week 31 with premature labor so labor pains meant nothing to me unless they were strong and steady). I finally couldn't stand playing around with them any longer and told my mom to get everybody on the phone. At this point they figured out that I had the baby and got on the phones to hear if it was a boy or a girl. I was so excited to announce it was a GIRL because it would make it my parents first granddaughter to go with the other 3 grandsons.

After we all got off the phone, my sister decided to go to the hospital and get things moving. About 8 hours later, Jordan was born! Our babies were both here and healthy and strong! Jordan was born a few minutes past midnight so his birthday was on August 19th instead of Kylie's of August 18th. First thoughts of that were kind of sad because I wanted them both born on the same day but later on we decided it was good that they both had their own official birthdays. Later in life that would be fine, but growing up we always celebrated their birthdays together and they always shared a cake. We often dressed them in matching girl/boy clothes and would get their pictures taken professionally from time to time. We have a ton of pictures of them together growing up and they had so much fun together.

Growing up Kylie and Jordan were pretty much the same height and weight.....well, that is until teen years when Jordan grew like the typical boy. He now towers over Kylie and of course doesn't weigh the same either (that wouldn't be a good thing now to be the same weight and height :)) They even celebrated milestones pretty much at the same time (crawling, walking etc.) It was very comforting for me being a first time Mom to know that I had a great example to look up to and get advice from with my sister and her baby. It was so much fun those first years of their lives.

Of course, as they grew things would change and they wouldn't be our "twins" as much, but they have always remained close and have done a lot together over the years. We always knew that when they graduated high school we would have to get their pictures together to mark the end of our "twins" childhood. They graduated from differen't high schools last year and I'm late putting up this post because until yesterday, the senior pictures had disappeared somewhere.

Kylie and Jordan have grown up into beautiful young adults and we look forward to watching them continue to grow and succeed! We love you Kylie and Jordan!