thanksgiving was "perfect"

So I just tweeted about how Thanksgiving was perfect. It really kind of was, but it made me laugh reading those words because I probably wouldn't have said that in the chaos of yesterday morning! I woke up at 4:30 and couldn't get back to sleep, so I decided to help my mom get the turkey in at 6 since I had nothing else to do. So we prepared the turkey in the dark. That was kinda fun. My sister came over a few hours later and we began pie prep, among them this beautiful looking pumpkin pie with pureed roasted hazelnuts. I roasted the nuts the night before and made the dough and baked it perfectly in our neighbor's oven who was out of town. While carrying it back to the house I thought "it is so hot and perfectly cooked, it needs to cool down now"...so I thought I'd brush the bottom of it in the snow on the bushes before putting it in the garage. All at once the glass pie container cracked down the middle fell between my mitted hands and crashed to the ground, shattering into a million pieces and spreading less than appetizing looking remains all over my parents walkway. I still probably would have cried in normal conditions, but being pregnant, I just started sobbing. I came inside and my dad cleaned it up for me after being reassured I hadn't fallen on ice. I went back to my mom and sobbed some more. I'd acctually made extra pie crust, but we had just baked them into cookies. My mom, dad, and me all scrambled to put together another pie crust, hazelnut paste, filling, and get going on all the other food. It looked decent for how fast we made it, and it ended up being pretty delicious so I'm glad I made #2.  I actually had never made dressing before so I'd complied parts of different recipes and added things that sounded good to me so I could try it this year. I was so rushed I just threw things I'd bought together and hoped it worked. It turned out great too, so all in all it was a thanksgiving miracle!
Brad woke up just a little before we were ready to eat and was kinda like "haha...so you broke a pie, then made it again. big deal. thats funny." He wouldn't have laughed in the heat of it all though, my glares then probably could have killed. The meal was fantastic and once I sat down to enjoy all the food I really appreciated it and loved it. Turkey was tender. Gravy was well seasoned. Mashed potatoes were creamy. Dressing was savory goodness. Yams were perfectly sweet and lovely. Cranberry chutney elevated the flavor of the turkey. Rolls were fluffy clouds of heaven. Pies topped it off. We had fun with our family and it was all yummy!
I've enjoyed hearing about what other people are thankful for this year, and especially this year my heart really feels full of gratitute. I may get a little phsyco in the chaos of things at times, but I am always reminded quickly that I am blessed and life is good.

free christmas cards

So I noticed on one of my friend’s blogs that shutterfly is doing a promo for people who blog to get 50 free Christmas card prints. It may have pushed me over the edge to send out a few Christmas cards this year. It’s tempting to just wait until next year when we can send something out that has 2 little people who are way cuter than us on it, but I just can’t pass up a good deal, especially ones including the word “free”.


I used shutterfly to create our guest book for our wedding and photo books of our wedding after. I’ve always been a manual scrapbooker, but shutterfly is so easy and professional looking so I loved it. They have so many options for Christmas cards, but I’m thinking about this one. There are a lot of cute ones though!

If you’re interested, check out their Christmas cards with photos, without, or make a wall calender for a Christmas gift!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm 25 weeks now and I pretty much say this every week, but I've really exploded lately. humongo exploded.
this was 2 weeks ago:

and now this week:

So much to be thankful for this year!

*an amazing husband who is always looking out for me
*two little girls that are growing inside of me
*supportive family
*the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives
*our cute house that is WARM and starting to come together, almost ready for little babes
(*I guess I'll highlight our new mirror and fireplace, I'm thrilled to have a mantle to decorate!)
*getting to make yummy holiday food

So count your blessings and cook, cook, cook!
Happy Thanksgiving!

minor aches and pains

I try not to be an overly paranoid pregnant lady, but sometimes it's hard not to be. This is my first time doing this, new things are happening to my body that have never happened before (times two) and it doesn't help that I recently finished nursing school. (giving me just enough info to get me worried, without enough experience to reassure my fears with facts on my individual case...)
So maybe I have run into my Dr's office to have them check on my babies after my rambunctious niece head butted me in the uterus when running to hug me. It freaked me out, and I didn't care that everyone in the office was certainly laughing at me after I left. I felt a little idiotic by the third time explaining the scenario (first to the secretary, then the nurse, then the doctor "now describe to trauma to me? what was that, a 3 year old girl head butting you? Hmm...she seriously thought a 3 year old running into her damaged her babies? ha. And yes, I did.)
The pregnancy discomforts are amplifying daily. Here's a couple of examples of recent concerns I've gone to my Dr. with:
*"Um, my left ribs have been numb for the past 3 weeks. " That doesn't seem good right?
SELF DIAGNOSIS: inflamed gallbladder? ....some kind of nerve damage??
DR. DIAGNOSIS: sounds like stretching ligaments, get used to it during pregnancy.

*I occasionally feel sharp, tingly pulling in the middle of my stomach at random times.
SELF DIAGNOSIS: maybe one of the placentas is pulling away from the uterus.
DR. DIAGNOSIS: sounds like stretching ligaments, get used to it during pregnancy.

*Okay, but what about a really sharp, intense pain on my lower right side that happens at night sometimes...this ones got to be serious, right? I better check, just in case...
SELF DIAGNOSIS: appendicitis.
DR. DIAGNOSIS: sounds like stretching ligaments, get used to it during pregnancy.

Apparently if you're pregnant and not bleeding, you can blame pain on your poor, overstretched ligaments, doing their best to support your enormous uterus. Hang in there guys, we've still got a long way to go. I know you used to just have to hold onto a little lemon-sized muscle, that little lemon grew into a watermelon, in fact it will be more like 2 watermelons...good luck w/ the stretching, dear ligaments. I can handle your stretching pain as long as you do your job.
It's amazing our bodies can do this whole thing! I've tried to explain to Brad that I can have a stomach ache in my ribs, here's why:

autumn

Our wedding photographer, Scott Jarvie is pretty awesome and does an annual charitable shoot (for free!) for past clients. It wasn't really perfect timing for us (I was showing enough to not look normal and it was about a week before I popped out obviously), but free is always perfect, so we went with it:

we didn't mean to do this, but it was kinda cool that timp was in the background of some of these, since we hiked to the peak while pregnant with the twins- they've already been to the top!

then Jarvie asked us to lay in some hay, and since we pretty much just trust him and do what he says:

but then he had me lay in the hay (or wheat or whatever...) by myself. That felt weirder. Turns out when you lay in hay and the camera gets the right angle it looks like you're trying to be a sexy mama, even if you're just laying there kinda dazed and awkward. (I have a bunch of these shots, I don't think there's much for me to do w/ them...)

and back to standing on two feet, we do much better here:

and just in case you couldn't tell, some hand placement so you know I'm pregnant:

Cutie Pie

I just had to show off this adorable apple pie I made for my young women last night. They only know that I bake good cookies so I was put in charge of a couple pies for our gratitude dinner, if only they knew I do more than desserts... oh well, it was a big hit once I convinced people we could cut into it.

in costume

So Halloween was a while ago, but I've been busy getting a couple baby quilts ready to take on a little trip with me...but I still wanted to share our awesome costumes on la blog.
Anyone who knows me knows I love an excuse to dress up- whether it be for something fancy or looking ridiculous- as long as its out of the ordinary I'm always entertained. I guess its one more outlet for my artistic side to enjoy.
Last year halloween snuck up on us, so I was the token witch (this dress is amazing btw- my mom made it forever ago, we wore it as a long witch dress when we were little and now my sisters and nieces have all had their fair share roaming in it!) Brad wasn't all into coming up w/ a costume (which doesn't make sense historically) so I just made him be Harry Potter:

 This year I wanted to make sure to incorporate being pregnant so this was our costume:

Get it? We're Quinn and Finn from Glee:

Except we're way more chaste, because we're married.

Brad loved this costume because I just gave him a puffy vest to wear and told him to try and make his hair look extra teenagery.

and I'm not the only one pregnant this year in my family- my sister Melinda and my sister-in-law Meg are both having babies around the same time as me! (and pseudo-sister Maja is having twins too) Many Lewis babes coming next year.

Melinda was a real cheerleader, can you tell? (I really need to start stretching again...)

 In the meantime, enjoy these images of adorable, pregnant cheerleader sisters:

We hung out at my moms eating chili and doughnuts, then went trick-or-treating w/ the nieces and nephews.

Hope you all had as much fun on Halloween as we did! (next year will be even better because I have two little me's to dress up as well- I can't wait!!!)