My siblings, Russ and I drove down to Richfield, UT to spend Mother's Day with my grandparents. My grandma is an amazing example of a mom. She has been through a lot in the last 15 years, including breast cancer, a stroke and many other health issues that are accompanied with these conditions. Last summer she had another scare and has been in a long-term care facility since then... up until this weekend, of course. It was wonderful being there to see her back in the home where she raised her family of seven. It was even more wonderful seeing a little bit of her personality come back. It's been hard to communicate with her over the last few years, but when I told her about the twins the joy and happiness on her face warmed my heart. It was the grandma I remembered, and seeing her was so, so sweet.

I hope every woman out there -- whether you are a "mother" or not -- had a happy mother's day. It's a beautiful holiday to celebrate all of the women in the world. I am especially so grateful for my own mom who has has taught me everything I need to know. I sure love my family. The end.

The Struggle

WOW! That's about all I can say as a follow-up to my last post. We are so completely humbled and awed by all of the nice things y'all had to say, via this blog post, phone calls, texts, emails, and believe it or not, instagram comments. Ha. Gotta love the digital world we live in. I really felt the love and support, and it means so much.

I know our big announcement was a shocker for a lot of people, but for some it was a long-time coming. Those who have been more involved in our lives for the last few years have asked that I keep everyone in the loop with this pregnancy, and I really will strive to do so. Many of you know that we tried for a long time for this miracle of pregnancy. It's a funny thing, huh? Some people accidentally get pregnant, and then others struggle for years and pay lots of money. :) But I saw this quote and it really hit home:

Isn't that the truth? After doing many months of fertility drugs, 3 IUI's and 2 IVF transfers (and all of the fun that is involved in those processes... haha... joke), we finally had good news and found out we were pregnant. What a happy day for us. And then to find out two weeks later that we were having twins?!? The shock was tangible (and still sometimes is), but we were just so, so, so happy.

The last few years have had many moments of tears, frustration and sadly, bitterness. But after fighting my own demons and feeling peace with everything, I knew it would all be OK. Maybe not when I wanted it to, but eventually. This last weekend as we were driving home from my grandparents house in southern Utah I was talking with my sister (who has also experienced many if not more of the same things I have). When I was in the midst of this crappy trial and perhaps not in the best place, I would look at some peoples' lives and think "boy, isn't that a charmed life?" It was hard to not feel angry and that life "just is not fair." Life really isn't fair, but that's not the point. Our story of these twins now includes a beautiful struggle that brought us to where we are today. It's interesting, and perhaps unexpected, because lately I have been feeling so incredibly grateful for this trial. We have really tried to make the most of our situation. I have loved these last 4 years of being "just us." Yes, it was hard, but I wouldn't change a thing. We have experienced and done so much, and now I get to be a mom.

Hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it?

Thank you, again, for all of the prayers and happy thoughts that were sent our way over the last few years. It may be cliche, but we really couldn't have gotten through it all without the overwhelming amount of support. Now let's get these babies here already!! :)

Attention, Attention!

My nephew Grayson has an announcement to make, and as you can tell he's pretty excited about it!!

Get it? My nephew is getting two cousins.

...in other words, we're having twins in mid-October and we are over the moon about it!!

I am about 14 weeks along and am feeling really good. I've been super, SUPER tired but I can tell some of my energy is finally coming back. I experienced a lot of nausea (as is to be expected), but besides that I have been pretty lucky. I've heard a lot of women with twins get even more sick, so I feel blessed. Well, let's be honest, we really just feel blessed all around. Now we just need to be patient for another 5 months until we get to meet our babies! Ahh!

A Quick Trip to California

This last weekend we were able to take a quick getaway to Southern California. I had made it pretty clear that I was in serious need of a vacation. So, Russ got the (not so subtle) hint and surprised me with this trip for my birthday! It was perfect. My sister, her husband and the cutest chubby 9 month old baby also joined us. We had no schedule and literally did whatever we wanted the whole weekend. We stayed in Newport Beach, but visited Laguna Beach, Long Beach, Huntington Beach and Santa Monica. Everything is so beautiful down there! We spent time on the beach, shopping, being tourists and of course eating, eating and more eating. Perfection. And now here is a quick montage of pictures.