Holiday recap, part one.

So, this past Sunday at church Erik blessed our two babies. I've never seen twins blessed before and it was pretty cute. The bishop announced that Dane would go first and then Alec, but when Erik went up he was carrying Alec and I had Dane, so up on the stand we swapped and that got a few laughs. Erik gave the boys beautiful blessings and I felt so proud of my little family. I was also glad that Mom, Dad, and Annie were in town for the blessings. Hey, when we walked into church, a lady from my ward stopped Annie and asked her, "How are you feeling?" She was like, "I'm fine. I'm the sister." Some people seem to think that we're nearly twins. To that Annie and I say, "I'm not listening to you, you're crazy." (another Nacho Libre quote, which to my surprise...is a movie that my dad liked...a lot! I was astounded.)

The Olsen crew.

You just never know which gifts will be hits and which ones will be just okay (like giving Erik socks, for example). This gift that he's opening is a DVD of the Foo Fighters in concert. We're big Foo Fighters fans. We've even gone to Canada to see them perform. So you might say we're obsessed, or you might say we're awesome. Either way, Erik liked his DVD.

A funny outtake when we were trying to get a picture for Christmas (or after-Christmas, rather) cards. We should have just made this one the official picture because this is officially how our little Reid is most of the time.

We tried to get some pictures of the three boys, but Reid was like, "okay, when can I get these babies off of me?" and the babies were like, "We're pretty sure that this guy doesn't know what he's doing and I would feel more comfortable if an adult was holding me right now. Besides, I just pooped my pants and I feel some spit-up coming on."

So that's some of the latest. Coming up: the marshmallow adventure, the cookie house creation, more Christmas pictures, and more pictures of babies snuggled next to each other. It's going to be good.

Experiencing technical difficulties.

For the past four months we have been reaping the benefits of a nearby, unsecured wireless internet network. We were going to set up internet when we got into the home we're renting, but since we could access it wireless-ly anyway, so we just didn't worry about it. Annie said that it was stealing, and I'll have to do some soul searching about that. I replied, "hey, if they don't bother to secure it and my computer is able to access it, then it's fair game." But then I figured, how different is that from saying, "hey, if they don't want to lock up their bike, then it's fair game."? Like I said, still thinking about this one. What do you think?

I guess it's a moot point anyway, because the other day the wireless network we've been using just disappeared. So, now we have to decide if we're going to set up internet at our rental house for the last month or so that we're there before we move to the new house. (I'm writing this from a computer station on base.)

Thus explaining the lack of posts. Too bad, too. Because these babies are crazy cute. Hopefully we'll get it all resolved soon and we'll be back to our regular programming.

Life with baby angels.

So that big pile of sleepers is the amount of clothes it takes just to get through the night. The boys seem to spit up all over their outfits after every meal. They are very vigorous eaters, which is good, but it's got to go somewhere when their stomach informs them that there's not enough room. So it goes all over their outfits. But, it's hard to get too frustrated when your little angels are this sweet. I mean, could you just die?

This was a few days ago, their faces are already filling out a bit more. They love to be swaddled and laid right next to each other. So sweet.

So during the night I'm feeding, changing clothes, and changing diapers...with a small amount of sleep thrown in the mix. But during the day, I just sit and stare at my little angel babies. Reid loves giving them kisses on the head (the only place he's allowed to touch them at this point) and it just melts me. He's adjusting remarkably well. The babies just make him giggle, like their tiny hands and faces just crack him up. Thank goodness for that. So, besides laundry and not enough sleep, I would say that things are going perfectly. I'm very nervous, however, about how it will all shake out when my parents and sister leave at the end of the week. Very nervous. Any one want to come hang out with us and three sweet little boys? We'd love to have you.

Dane Patrick and Alec Brent join the gang

Erik is writing tonight, and a miracle has occurred. Dane and Alec (formerly known as Rod and Todd) were born yesterday, December 12, at 1331, and 1332 PST. They were born in Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, CA. Dane was pulled out first and weighed a good 6 lbs 1 oz. Alec came in second weighing 5 lbs 6 oz. They are both healthy and doing well. Some of our lead up doctor appointments lead us to believe that Alec may have some heart problems, but so far so good. They want to do one more echocardiogram before we leave to take a look at his heart. Right now they think he's fine and chances are he'll stay that way. They certainly are little dudes, and look pretty similar. But seriously, how different do 1-day-old babies look? I'll keep my eye on them. They seem pretty happy and are catching on to eating and sleeping, their two main jobs for the foreseeable future.

Emily is recovering really well. She had a spinal tap type of anesthesia and loved it. I told her to bring some home. (just kidding.) She got out of bed this afternoon and may do some walking tomorrow. She looks great.

Emily is in the hospital with the babies, and her mom Sally came and swapped spots with me. I came home with Reid tonight and Sally will spend the night there, and I will sleep here. Notice I didn't say Sally will sleep there, most likely she won't sleep much.

So we are really happy, things are going great. We have been very blessed this Christmas season. Our family is alive and well, we have food and shelter, and access to great doctors for delivering new kids. Merry Christmas! Our stockings are full! -Erik

Pic 1= the Olsens

Pic 2= Dane on the left and Alec on the right. How can I tell? That's for me to know...

Pic 3 & 4= Alec, then Dane, birth plus 5 minutes.

Pic 5= Alec was very peaceful right away.

2nd attempt.

Last night I wrote an especially unfascinating post about my love of electric blue eyeliner. It was so bad that at some point in the evening, when I couldn't sleep because Rod and Todd were tap dancing on my innards, I got up and deleted the whole thing. Seriously, it was a new level of "Emily talking about nonsense"-ness. I'll save you the rambling and sum up what I wrote last night. Once these babies are born, I'm afraid I'm going to start looking like this guy (image from this major rad blog). But imagine him in Erik's ginormous BYU sweatshirt...yep, that will be me. (Except hopefully no beard/mustache - but the hairloss will, I'm afraid, occur. I lost SO much hair after having Reid. I hope it's not twice as bad with twice the babies, or else I would have to cut my hair like this dude. Not good.)

Nevertheless, I think I'm going to order this (from Sephora) for Erik to put in my stocking. I love a crazy cool eyeliner. I thought that I might be the only one (well, maybe me and some "women of the night" - see Lynn's comment from last post. I'm afraid she just might be right).

But then yesterday I saw this on instyle.com (a favorite place to go waste some time and look at pretty clothes and fun makeup). See? Eva Mendes thinks it's cool, too. So, hopefully I'll get to a point in the upcoming months where I look more towards the Eva end of the spectrum. Although I have a feeling it will take quite a few months at least.

So that's it, that's my best 2nd attempt. Riveting, huh?

In case you were wondering...It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Well hot dang. It was fun to read everyone's comments and fun to feel like we were all having a little movie party even though we live in many different places. Here are my boys, picking out the winner.

Reid picked a name out of the bowl.

Then here's Erik telling him he needs to open it up and Reid is blurry because I'm a horrible photographer and because he's trying to shake Erik off from helping him open up the name.

When he finally opened it...we saw the winner was...the Earle family! Yay! Amy, I hope they aren't hard as rocks by the time they reach Alaska. Email me with your address and with Marilee's. I think your entry counts for two winners.

Here's the goal, but no promises as to how they'll turn out. I'll let you all know if they are, in fact, TDF. I'm going to start talking like the girl on "Sleepless in Seattle."

On the baby front, things are going pretty well. I'm 37 weeks plus a couple days, and I think these boys are too comfortable in there. My mom got here on Thursday, so I'm feeling a lot more calm. I feel ready now. Thank goodness for my mom. Last week when we saw the perinatologist, the bigger boy measured at 6 lbs. and the smaller boy at 5 and a 1/2 lbs. So, they are regular sized babies, not just good-for-twins sized babies. Erik and I both contribute big baby genes, so it was inevitable. I hit 38 weeks on Saturday, and they won't let me go past that (or so they tell me)...so we are officially in the final stretch. Stay tuned to the blog for updates, and for my thoughts on makeup. I think I'll talk about that one tomorrow. It's fun to talk about. Is 27 too old for bright blue eyeliner?

SO lame (and a game!)

Okay, so it's been like two weeks since the last post. The lame reason being that this is my hundredth post, and I got this bright (and very Emily-ish ridiculous) idea to write about 100 things that I love, things that make me happy, and things that are blessings in my life. While it's very easy to think of 100 things to write about, I most definitely do not have the focus necessary to type out that many things. Most definitely. So for the past two weeks I've been puttering around, trying to add things to the list when I can find time (or remember to do it), and it's still a sad, sad post. So, I'm posting this instead. So lame.
Anyways, (think of Nacho Libre) this is my 100th post on my little blog and I am pretty excited about it. I don't have very much of the stick-to-it-ness in me (as my school record would attest to) and so I'm a bit proud of myself that I've gotten this far.

Want to celebrate with me?

My plan is to send someone some peppermint marshmallows and some delicious Ghiradelli hot chocolate. Homemade peppermint marshmallows at that. I'm actually not sure if that's going to be a good prize or not, since I haven't ever made them before. But at least the hot chocolate will be good.

So leave a comment about your favorite Christmas movie (and why) and on Monday the 8th I'll draw a winner. Believe me, your chances will be good. I think only 3 people read this blog.
I hope this sounds fun to you, it sounds pretty good to me. Movies, hot chocolate, and me getting to 100 posts before I turned 100. Maybe not so lame after all.