Let's start from the beginning....

My husband, bottom right. 

Me, with  my attitude...5ish.

How do you decide what your family is going to look like?  Did you always know you wanted 2 kids, or maybe only one?

I was raised by a single, devoted hardworking mother.  Once I realized I was going to be an only child, I knew I wanted a big, loud family.  In my mind, I wanted 4 children so that when we went to theme parks, they would always have someone to sit with.  Luckily, at the same time, God was preparing my future husband for the same desire to have a big, loud family!  Although, for him, it was second nature.  He had three siblings, two brothers and a sister. 

The first time I remember seeing him was back in 1996.  We were both 15 and he had just moved to town.  Their family came to our church and my mom and I happened to sit next them.  After church, we talked and I invited he and his brother to youth group that evening.  My first impression of my beloved was that he was awfully tall (my boyfriend at the time was quite the opposite), he had a sprinkling of freckles on his fair skin like me, and he seemed quiet...which intrigued me.  His first rememberance of me is not at all the same.  I won't speak for him, but apparently, we had met before.  We went to same school (it was a big school, okay?) and he ate lunch with my not-so-tall boyfriend.  After several months of me choosing the wrong boyfriends...he snagged me during a game of pool during a ski retreat with our high school youth group.   We were partners and he sank the 8 ball causing us to loose the game.  He was so funny, and handsome. He smelled wonderful and I liked the way his jeans fit.  I was hooked.  That was January of 1998. 

Our first dance, Valentine's 1997 
 Indiana Roof Ballroom
Ballroom

He "asked me out" on January 23rd and we went to our first Valentine's dance that next month. 
And as they say...the rest is history.  We had our smiles and trials, but in the end, we both knew that we wanted to be together.  He was my lobster.  We were married on November 1st, 2003 in the same church where we (according to me) met. 







While we were dating forever, we would fantasize about what it would be like to be married and how many kids we were going to have.  I was determined we were going to have 4 kids all very close to one another.  So after our third child arrived within 4 years, it was a no-brainer to finish of what we had started and try for the last and final baby.  We were blessed and it happened quickly.  Between our second and third children, I had a miscarriage so after that heart breaking time, we decided we wouldn't share any more of our pregnancies until after the first ultrasound.  This pregnancy didn't feel much different from the other three...similar amounts of morning sickness, food aversions, etc.  However, one difference was my level of exhaustion.  I remember on several occasions, I would lay my head on the table at dinner time and nearly fall asleep while the house would be chaos around me.  I chalked it up to being pregnant and taking care of three small children, while working as a nurse 3 days per week.  Little did we know, we had two precious girls growing inside me. 



On the next post....I will share how we reacted to seeing two beating hearts on the ultrasound and what a twin pregnancy was really like....stretch marks, daily mental breakdown, the unknowns.  Should be a blast!