Gimme 2!

Ben & Zach:

When your Daddy and I first found out we were having a baby, your Daddy would joke around and say to me, "Gimme 2!" We didn't know that there were two of you until we had our first peek at both of you on an ultrasound months later. We were very surprised! I still have my first photos of you both from that ultrasound. I still remember how it felt each time I looked at those pictures over 2 years ago because I still feel the same way looking at them today.

My favorite pictures of you from today.

Time has passed so quickly since then, and today we celebrated your 2nd birthday. Happy Birthday Ben & Zach! Thank you so much for being the awesome little guys that you are. You are both so unique in your own ways, and you bring so much joy into our lives! We couldn't love you more.

Today I made you pancakes for breakfast, grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, and meatloaf for dinner. Your birthday cake was a white cake with vanilla chocolate chip pudding in the middle, and was decorated with Curious George on the top.

In the morning we played with the Lego blocks Daddy and I gave you for a present, and later Grandpa and I took you both outside to play in the snow. It had snowed for nearly a week, so there was lots of snow! I pulled you together in a sled up and down the road, you both "shoveled snow" with snow shovels, and we walked down to the Nettie Hanson park, but the snow was too deep to play there.

After you both woke up from your nap, you were still tired, so I rocked you both and we all dozed together for a little longer. This was my favorite part of the day.

While I decorated your birthday cake, and Grandma cleaned up behind me, your Grandpa was sneaky and kept you both busy with your first taste of Cheetos. I guess you inherited your mother's weakness for them because the 3 of you nearly ate the entire bag!

Zach, before dinner you came to the store with me to pick out a movie to watch after dinner. Ben, you stayed at home with Daddy, but I'm not sure what you did....ask Daddy. We didn't find a movie, Zach, but you found a section of clearance toys and picked out a matchbox-type flatbed truck with a car on the back. We picked out a small bag of play tools for Ben.

After dinner you both opened presents and cards from your family and friends. You got books, clothes, safari animal finger puppets, crayons and coloring books, and some sweet greenback. You also got phone calls during the day, but neither of you were too interested in talking on the phone. You guys have a lot of people who love you!

After presents it was time for cake! Both of you started sticking crayons into the side of the cake before we sang the birthday song, and Joy thinks it's because the crayons were very candle-like and you thought your cake needed more of them. Both of you already know what fondant is all about and you love it! You were more interested in eating fondant off the side of the cake rather than the slice of cake on your plates.

Cake before....

......and after!

After all that sugar you were both running around, bouncing off walls, tackling each other, and screeching at the top of your lungs. I let you stay up a little later than usual, and we watched Peter Pan in between all the above mentioned craziness! You were so much fun to watch!

We love you Ben! We love you Zach! Happy birthday now and forever!

Mr. & Mrs. Bruhn

It's Friday morning in Florence Italy, by the time I wake up tomorrow morning my sister Carrie will be married. I'm choked up and teary and my stomach is just churning away. I may be getting a taste of what it felt like to her when she wasn't able to see me get married. I wish I had the words to express how excited I am for her at this moment. I want more than anything to simply hug her across all the miles in between us right now, and tell her I love her.

I was trying to find a suitable poem or quote for the occasion (since I often like to borrow better words than my own) and these words seemed to strike the right chord:

I dreamed of a wedding of elaborate elegance,

A church filled with family and friends.

I asked him what kind of a wedding he wished for,

He said one that would make me his wife.

-Author Unknown

At the end of the day, regardless of how big or small the event is, the most important thing is that there are two people willing to move forward together as a team until the end.

Carrie - I absolutely love you to pieces, and I couldn't be happier for you! I'm there in spirit with you, and I wish you a lifetime of happiness with Bobby.

Bobby - I love you for how well you love my sister and for the way you treat her. You're gold in my book, and I'm so happy to have you as a brother.

Joy

It's amazing how much can change in a year. I'm happy that I've been able to live with Joy over the past +year and see all the great things she's been able to accomplish. It seems like forever ago that I was her age. I remember my late 20's as being such a mix of frustration, excitement, and anticipation. It was then that I started to see things from a more mature perspective. and I was okay with letting go of some of my wild antics (yes, hard to believe I was ever wild).

Joy has had quite a year. I've seen her come from some frustrating lows to exciting highs. She has made so many positive changes for herself and I'm so proud of her! She's much stronger than she thinks and I've seen her get through some tough times a whole lot better than I think I ever could.

Last month a job opened up at Alaska Airlines here in Cordova, and Darius mentioned to Joy that she should apply. I think this was her 3rd attempt at applying for this job over past years, and it must have been the charm. After several interviews and some mad dashes at submitting a detailed account of her adult life (tricky stuff), she landed herself a new job with some sweet benefits! The icing on the cake was that she was able to come with us to Hawaii. Her job training was originally scheduled to take place the week we had planned to go, and by some miracle it got moved back a week.

Joy is over a week into her on-the-job training and doing great. She likes flagging in the planes and driving all the equipment vehicles. She's even had her first taste of loading heavy fish boxes. What a woman! She'll be sporting some big guns very soon.

Today we celebrated the day Joy entered this word 27 years ago. Happy Birthday Joy! Thanks for being just the way you are. I love you forever and wish you happy birthdays always. Cheers to burritos, owls, and another year in life!

"You have 'em; I'll entertain 'em."....

This was Theodor Suess Geisel's response to not having children of his own. Entertain the kiddies he has and probably always will! Ben & Zach love his books! Their favorite lately is Ten Apples Up on Top, written under Geisel's pen name Le Sieg.

We just happened to have leftover ham from Sunday, so I "treated" the boys to green eggs and ham this morning for breakfast in honor of Dr. Suess' birthday.

Um...yeah, I can't figure out why they didn't go for it! I actually ended up eating their breakfast (pretty tasty) and they had cereal instead.

We have a lot of books and reading to the boys is one of my favorite things to do. Out of their collection, the Dr. Seuss books are probably the most fun to read, albeit lengthy at times.

When I was younger I wanted to write children's books when I grew up. My mom has saved my early attempts at writing and it's quite entertaining to look through it all. Now that I'm mostly grown up I find that I'd still like to give writing a go. One of these days I'll get around to it...

In Like a Lion...

It's March! It's going to be a busy month with a lot of fun mixed in and I'm excited.

I was talking on the phone earlier with my friend Patti and I told her how I keep the boys occupied while I'm working in the kitchen. I open up a few cabinets that I normally won't let them into and give them (mostly) free reign of the cupboards' contents. They were playing together beautifully and stacking boxes of dry goods, and then eventually they started chucking everything down the stairs. I didn't realize until we headed downstairs later that there was an open box of pasta that was tossed.

They had fun making a bigger mess of things on the way down. I think it took less time for me to clean up the Cheez-It debacle than to pick up all the pasta.