Nine

My twin girls are nine! I can hardly believe it. The time has flown by, the years have run together in my mind, but I can still remember how they looked and sounded and felt when they were just newborn.

How their big sister loved them and called them both "B." How someone asked us how we told them apart and Eric said, "They look different," and I ended up on the floor, wetting my pants with laughter, my pelvic wall stretched to the brink.

How Ani cried loud and hard with her lower lip jutting out. How Bryni seemed to want to go back to the womb. My twin babies. My new BIG family!


This was their shared cake for their family birthday party. Don't worry - there are more cakes to come...

38

I had such a lovely 38th birthday. I awoke to clatter in the kitchen and wondered what was going on at first, then realized in a sleepy haze that, "Hey! It's my birthday."

They were making me breakfast. Sonja made eggs. Ani made orange juice. Bryni made toast. Daddy made coffee. And supervised.

On the breakfast table were red roses and a gift certificate for some fun at a salon. I see a mani-pedi in my future.

That evening, we had dinner out and enjoyed a very large chocolate cake. Yes, it came from Costco as do most things in our home. De-lish.

One of my best birthdays ever. For certain.

She's Ten

It's been a wonderful decade with this amazing girl in our lives.

My sweet Sonja: I knew your name when I first gazed at you. My special, special girl. You'll not know the depth of my love for you until you hold your newborn child in your arms for the first time. You are part of me. Half me and half him, yet wholly you, just you, perfectly you. I can never thank you enough for how you've changed me, how you've loved me or how you've shown me corners of my heart I didn't know existed.

Ten lovely years with you. Just the beginning.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Yup, it's my birthday today! Thirty-seven years old. The other night I couldn't sleep. I lay in bed thinking back over my many, many years. I can't remember much from when I was seven but I could remember back to seventeen and twenty-seven with relative clarity. Not bad for an old lady!

When I was seventeen, I was at the top of my high school game. I was one of only two junior girls in the top choir. I won second runner up in the junior miss pageant. And I was about to start dating a guy who was really bad for me. Ah, good times. But enough about that...

On the day I turned twenty-seven, Eric I and rode the Amtrak from Shelby to Whitefish where my mom picked us up. We then borrowed her car to drive to Missoula to pick up a 1989 Honda Accord we bought from our friends Jonna and Neil. The car still runs and is now 21 years old, legal drinking age. (It can't be good for your car to be of drinking age.) Anyway, I remember the train ride vividly and fondly. The month before I had found out I was pregnant for the first time. I was so thrilled. I remember reading the very first edition of the Martha Stewart Baby Magazine and losing myself in fantasies of holding my first baby for the first time. Again, good times! And the baby worked out much better than the bad-boy boyfriend!

Now I'm thirty-seven and life is really good. Sweet husband, healthy kids, cozy home, meaningful work, cuddly kitty, supportive family, lovely friends, time to be creative and time to take care of me.

I took a personal day off work today and spent the morning shopping and thrifting. I'm not a huge shopper per se, but I never seem to get enough time to look at what I want to look at as long as I want to look at it when I'm shopping with the family. I hear a lot of, "Momma look at this!" And, not wanting to damage their fragile pshychies I usually look. So today I went wherever my shopping/thrifting whim took me, and it led me to this:


A vintage bread box! I've been wanting a bread box for a long time and I'm so happy that I held out for just what I wanted. It's cool looking. It's huge. And it opens from the front so I can put stuff on top of it. Bonus!

So, happy thirty-seventh birthday to me! I plan to spend the evening surrounded by my sweet little family, savoring this golden, golden time.