Twins Day!

Growing up in Minnesota, my first 9 years of life, I was, of course, a Twins fan. Whether I liked it or not. Every year at Olsen Elementary, they would always have Twins Day! This meant you could either come to school dressed in Minnesota Twins gear ie TShirts, Jerseys, baseball caps, or you could come dressed as a twin with someone else! Well, of course my friends and I would dress like twins. That's way more fun to a bunch of 8 year old girls, right? :)

Nursery Post #1

We have spent a lot of time working on the nursery lately... It's coming together, considering at this point that genders are unknown and we still have plenty of time, it seems. But you've got to start somewhere, right?

First to change - the red walls. My advice for the day... don't ever paint any wall red unless you plan on moving before you want it changed again. Holy moly was that not fun. Granted, we chose a light color to cover it, but 4 coats of paint later, there are finally no traces of red paint! :)

The front room, (it still feels weird calling it "the nursery"?) has three walls of windows. For now, we are putting curtains on one window only, on the front wall, facing the street. I felt if there were window treatments on all walls, you'd walk into a room of fabric! right? So, here's the inspiration for the room, a Cloud 9 fabric called Leaves, color Sky. Isn't it lovely?



And here are the curtains. I made two panels. We've got some puckering, so please don't investigate closely when you're over! Also, these aren't the permanent tie-backs... just waste from the fabric. :) But I like them because they say "My Happy Nursery", the name of the collection.





Here is a dresser we picked up for a steal at one of our favorite antique stores. Also, here, you can see the red paint. eek.



And here is the dresser painted white. This will double as a changing table.



Below is the abacus. Lucas suggested we repaint it to match the fabric. Good idea. I love it in here. Plus, who am I to keep one or both of our babies from becoming accountants one day?



After a long Amazon saga that I don't want to get into and you don't want to hear about, we do not yet have our cribs, but below you can see what they look like when we did have one that had a big gash in it! They're lovely, too, and I can't wait for the real ones to arrive so we can forget about the whole ordeal!! :) :)



Thanks for taking a peek. I hope you approve and you think it's a good start. We like it, and certainly hope our babies do, too!

+ 2 Makes 4

This fall, we will be welcoming Twinfants into our family. :) Since the day 6 weeks ago that we saw those two sacks on the ultrasound monitor, we've been hit by a wave of emotions including but not limited to: shock, excitement, disbelief, fear, awe, love, panic, joy, disbelief, gratefulness, doubt, pride, and disbelief.



Most of these are experienced in any one day. It's overwhelming, really. But I won't blog about much of that. Or about how big I'm getting. No one wants to see that. I'm going to try to blog as much as possible about the really awesome things that come with the fact that our kids are twins. More to come on that later.

Common reactions to this sort of news are as follows: hands thrown in the air in disbelief, hands thrown over mouth in disbelief, "no way!", "Oh my gosh!", and of course, "Congratulations!" All of these are exciting and appropriate. Actually, spreading this news has been a joy - everybody loves babies. Babies bring people together. And twins are (obviously) TWO babies... what else could be more fun?? Triplets? ;) In this first post about our new news, I'll start with some of my FAVORITE reactions that I hope to always remember, as we have been sharing our news:

"That's a lot of Bang for your Pregnancy Buck!" -Sister, Sarah

"Now you'll have your own curling team!" -Several members of the curling club

"Our kids will be born with an automatic Best Friend" -Lucas

"Tell Lucas that Twice the Babies means Twice the crushed up Cheerios in his car!" -Friend, Erin

As we begin planning for the babies' arrival, getting caught up in which diapers to choose, where to register, and most recently, how many gliders can we possibly look at?, we are left filled with gratitude, as we know what a special gift this is, and how greatly blessed we are.

Our First Bonspiel!

Bonspiel: (bon-speel) –noun. a competition or meet in curling at which teams from several clubs or districts compete with one another.



We went to our first Bonspiel in Triumph, IL the first weekend of March: The 2011 Waltham Mixed Bonspiel! Our team from the St. Louis Curling Club tried our best and had a great time!! Three of our four teammates, (Jamie, Lucas and Steve) had only been curling since January! That's amazing. Our Skip, Nancy, is a seasoned curler and did a fabulous job coaching us along and losing gracefully. :) We played and lost three games in total. But it's okay, because we had a blast and made several friends in the process! We even curled against an Olypian!!



Here is our team! Go St. Louis!!



Lucas, Steve and Nancy in front of the ice! Luckily the Waltham Curling Club has a heated room with seats in view of the ice. Also available - lots of food and beverages.



Another pic of a game....



And here's Lucas on the ice. I should be getting ready to sweep, but instead I am taking pics of Lucas. :)

Up, Up and Away!

This past weekend, we celebrated the showering of good friend, Amy, and her soon-to-be-born son, Joseph Gregory. Hosted at Dr. Jazz Soda Fountain inWebster Groves, we thought what better a theme than to complement their 1904 St. Louis World's Fair Decor? Amy, a St. Louis girl herself, loved it!! Who wouldn't love delicious chocolate malts and beignets, after all?









These cones were Martha Stewart's idea, not ours, but they are fabulous. The shower "game" was a personalized crossword puzzle. Amy, a big crossword puzzle fan, definitely enjoyed it!



I love this little onsie with his name - he also got a faded baby-sized Cardinals hat that was the cutest thing in the world.



Congrats Amy and Jason!! Can't wait to meet Baby Joey!! ;)

Some Exciting Things!

There have been some very exciting things happening lately. Here they are:

Month of January: Lucas and I have been enjoying our Curling League.




Nov 4, 2010: Niece, Mary Elizabeth, was born to Jason and Sarah!




Dec 6, 2010: Jamie got a new car! A Volkswagon Tiguan!



December 21, 2010: Nephew, Jack Miller, was born to Jennifer and Matt!



December 29, 2010: Niece, Ava Noelle, was born to Sarah and Marc!




We are very blessed and grateful for these exciting moments!

Thanksgiving Vacation!

Thanksgiving 2o10 was spent in the Smokies! Our cabin at Cobbly Nob was pretty fantastic! Our Thanksgiving meal of turkey, stuffing, yams, green bean casserole and cranberries, was prepared by Lucas and Nolan while Connie and I went on an adventurous hike of approximately 7 miles. I say approximately because, as you can see in the map, half of our hike is missing. We hiked from the intersection of the 3 black lines to the green dot #32. But then we turned and headed back to the black line (road), and made a triangle-like path. Its like if that stream was the second leg of our journey, only we didn't follow a stream the whole way... or did we? I don't remember... this was the portion of the hike where I blacked out from the scary deer encounter.



Let me back up just a bit. On our way to Gatlinburg, we stopped in Nashville and toured The Hermitage, home of President Andrew Jackson. I really appreciated The Hermitage for it's costumed tour guides. That's always a nice touch. Below you can see Lucas in front of the tomb where Andrew and his wife, Rachel, are buried.



The next day, and our first full day in the cabin, was Thanksgiving, which I have already covered. Thanks again Nolan and Lucas for the great meal.

Friday was spent in Gatlinburg. We took the trolley, went to the Aquarium, and found a nice little wine bar in an old Dairy Queen.

On Saturday the four of us drove to Asheville to visit The Biltmore Estate. I loved the Biltmore Mansion, and I loved Asheville even more. We had lunch at The Red Stag Grill inside The Grand Bohemian Hotel. The things I loved about this hotel were the large central fireplace in the lobby, the grandiose atmosphere, the chain mail fabric hanging in the doorway to the restaurant, and the hexagonal granite tile floor in the restrooms. What's not to like? I asked Lucas if we could go back and stay there for our 10th wedding anniversary in 2016 and he said yes. !! So - see you in 6 years, sweet Grand Bohemian.



Here we are at the Grand Bohemian Hotel lobby.



And in front of the Biltmore...

The Biltmore was, of course, spectacular. It was all decked out for Christmas. It had 40 Christmas trees with room for more. There was a gingerbread house made to look like a tiny Biltmore. Yumm! It would be interesting to visit again when it's not decorated for Christmas and not so crowded.