It’s TWINS!

I’m thrilled to announce my brand new niece and nephew were born this morning! Welcome to Earth, Charlotte Catherine and Cameron Gordon Robert Martin.

The little ones were both weighed in at 4.6 lbs each and made it to 35 weeks of pregnancy! (Full term for twins is 37 weeks, but they rarely go that long.)

Here’s Charlotte:

And Cameron:

And my sister, Jenn – a total rock star at having babies – who looks beautiful and amazing after expelling two people from her body. (I don’t know how she did it! I looked like a zombie.)

One of my favourite things is that Cameron has blonde hair and Charlotte has red hair – they are like little tiny versions of their big brother and sister. Everyone wins!

Congratulations to the Martin family!

Grandma’s 80th Birthday Party

This year, my Grandma is turning 80! My parents were generous enough to offer their beautiful home as a venue for all my family to get together for a giant party to celebrate her. Nick, Henry, and I were so happy to be able to come too!

We arrived Wednesday evening and despite a rocky start with sleep, Henry had THE BEST TIME.

He loved being outdoors, seeing too many trees to even try to touch them all, the river, boat rides, and having so much room to crawl.

And of course he loved spending so much time with family.

We spent 4 days at the cottage and 1 day in Oshawa with my sister. Unfortunately, we had no time to get to Toronto to see friends, but I was so happy to have a visit from my friend Sara! (Also pictured: my cousin’s cute and friendly son, Kieran.)

Sara and I have been friends for over 10 years, but she moved to Scotland about 6 years ago and got married last year. She was in town visiting her parents with her husband, David, and friend, Hana. It was so great to catch up and enjoy her new Canadian-Scottish accent ;)

Later that evening, we had a campfire, complete with Grandpa selfies.

The next day, Henry had his first ride on my parents’ pontoon boat. I didn’t think I’d be able to put his robot costume-sized infant life jacket on him without a fight, but he didn’t care – SO MANY TREES!!!! For the rest of the day, all he wanted was to go down by the river and look at everything. He is already more outdoorsy than his parents.

Soon, more babies arrived! New parents Jeremy and Gioia brought an adorable 3 month old Dante.

Henry continued to love life, chowing down on PC baby food (added sugar! woooo!) and yelling to join the dinner conversation.

We had dinner at the longest table, sitting about 32 people. We enjoyed heartfelt tributes to my Grandma by my mom, aunt, and uncle. Tears were shed!

Then the cupcakes came out. Of course, the great-grandchildren that knew how to blow out candles lent a helping hand.

It was a really great weekend, filled with family. Unfortunately, we were missing the Martin family – my sister is too pregnant to travel that far away from her hospital. Twins come quickly!

So on Sunday morning, we packed up and said our goodbyes so we could say hello to Jenn and her family. And one great big HELLO to that BELLY!

I don’t know how she is doing it, but she looks absolutely fantastic and is still up and moving!

Henry is just about old enough to actually play with his cousins. It’s a pretty heartwarming sight. Of course, he is still a baby so at one point Jillian declared “I’m bored of Henry now.” I’m both looking forward to and dreading that honesty once Henry can talk. haha.

What a great trip. I wish it was longer, but we were very happy to get home yesterday. Happy birthday to my Grandma and lots of love to my whole family!

Doublenaut + Design*Sponge

My favourite Toronto twins Matt and Andrew McCracken have been featured on Design*Sponge!

Chances are if you’re reading my blog, you already know the McCrackens, but if you don’t, the brothers run a design company called Doublenaut. They specialize in posters, but also create wonderful websites, t-shirts, and more. The company operates out of their apartment that the two share, which explains why it’s so carefully and simply organized.

Check out more photos of their all-purpose space here.

Altitude Sickness

Nick and I visited Denver and Fort Collins, Colorado last weekend. It was my first time there (his ninth) and although I was excited to see the mountains and scenery, my prairie girl body didn’t appreciate being plopped into the “mile-high city”. I ended up with altitude sickness (something I didn’t even know existed until a week ago), but thanks to Kate’s Denver-living brother’s advice, I got rid of that ‘trying to piggyback a dinosaur up a hill’ heavy feeling in a couple hours with a Gatorade/Pedialyte/ibuprofen cocktail.

Friday night, we saw Social Distortion and Frank Turner in Denver. We drove straight to Fort Collins after stopping off at the Denver Diner for a late dinner/early breakfast.

The primary purpose of our visit to Colorado was to meet Nick’s best friend Rod’s 14 month old identical twin daughters, Aspen and Madison. We were only there for two days, but we definitely got some serious baby time in. The girls adored Nick. It was really interesting to see how Rod and Sara Anne handle these two little ones on a day to day basis (the trick seems to be an extremely strict schedule). The girls are extremely adorable and well-behaved and even dress in funny matching baby outfits all the time.

We also got some time in to explore the foothills. They are so beautiful!

I think living in New York makes me appreciate places like this even more.