When I found out I was pregnant with twins (at almost 30 weeks...) I immediately went into my typical "over-research" mode.  I read all the books (and this book was by far the most useful to me) and devoured every online resource I could find.

But what I wanted more than anything was to find aaaall the blogs from moms of twins so I could see exactly how day-to-day life actually works when you have all. the. babies.  And I especially wanted to find Catholic moms of twins, but I couldn't find what I wanted: a list of all the blogs!

So in the past year or so, I've found quite a few Catholic mom bloggers who feature their twins (and non-Catholic mom bloggers too!), so here's a partial list - I know I'm forgetting some bloggers, so please leave a comment if you have more for me to add!  And if you'd rather your blog not be included in this list, just shoot me an email (rosiehill425 at gmail dot com) and I'll remove the link :)

Bean In Love - Sheena's a DIY blogger with girl-girl twins and a new baby boy (she's in the 3-under-2 club!)

Amongst Lovely Things - Sarah blogs about homeschooling her older kids and life with a toddler and identical boy twins (also a member of the 3-under-2 club!)

Seeking the Lamp - Four beautiful adopted children and then surprise!  Spontaneous fraternal twins!

Rosemary's Fancy - Lovely knitting, three adorable boys, and ANOTHER member of the 3-under-2 club!

Narrative Heiress - Ashley writes such lovely reflections on life with her three boys (including identical boy twins)

...and twins make four! - Sarah's adorable toddler girl twins are so fun to watch grow!

The Zoo in the Pew  - Not gonna lie, when I found this blog my sister and I counted kids and she immediately said, "She wins."  A 5-year-old, 3-year-old, 2-year-old, and baby twins - that's a whole lot of grace right there!

Yellow Pencil Stub - Aaaaadorable adopted boy-girl twins - I wish she blogged more often!

It's Twinsanity - TWO sets of twins!  And two older boys.  AND a baby!  Not updated regularly, but if you need a boost to know that you CAN do this twin thing, this is it!

Musings on the Simple Life - Adele and I went to high school together, and I was SO excited when she found out she was pregnant with twins!  She has three older kids as well, and beautiful photography on her blog!

Surviving Our Blessings - I love the title of Abbey's blog - isn't that what life with twins feels like so often?  She blogs a lot about homeschooling her 5-year-old and life with her 2-year-old girl twins.  And she's expecting another baby soon!

The Peace of Christ - Hafsa is a convert and blogs honestly about life with her boy-girl twins and two younger kids.

Dual Voltage - Taara is basically living my life only in Brazil!  Older boy and girl, and girl-girl twins!

Lissla Lissar's blog - Twins, Canadian-style!

Catholic Mom Apologia - Her twins are older (6) and she has three other kids - I'm always so glad to know that life will calm down a little once the twins are bigger!

What do you think - got any other gems to share?  I know I can't get enough of twin blogs!

And I know that Grace has a birth story link-up, but I'd love to get a bunch of twin birth stories in once place, so look for a twin birth story link-up next week!

What I Wore Sunday: Schoolgirl Plaid and My First Alteration!

Can I just say that I love plaid?  So I was really excited when I found out it was a "trend" this year.  I mean, when does plaid actually go out of style?  Never, in my opinion!

So I'd been on the search for a plaid skirt for months.  The problem is finding a way to wear a plaid skirt without looking like a Catholic schoolgirl, a serious challenge for me, considering I look a tad younger than my 27 (nearly 28!) years.

I found this skirt on ThredUp (there are still two available!) and even though it was a little large, I ordered it because the price was right and I thought maybe, just maybe, I'd try my hand at an alteration?  I like that it's not pleated and it's not a schoolgirl-ish plaid, so it seems a little more grown-up.


P.S. I have a special ThredUp referral link until the 28th of February - instead of the usual $10 coupon, they're giving you $15 to sign up through my link!  I especially love it for clothes for the kids, since there are tons of items for less than $5.

Soooo anyway, Emily inspired me to fix my sewing issues (seriously, I've been doing some REALLY dumb things because I'm clueless), and I used her latest Sewing Lessons post and took the skirt in about an inch at one side, super-quick and not the best job *but* I realized that it's likely that I'll want it back to the larger size for a bit next time I'm post-partum, so I didn't try very hard to make it perfect and I left the extra fabric inside so that I can rip out the seam when I want it larger!  There are darts at the back that are a little off-center now because it's a side-zipping skirt, and maybe I'd try to figure that out if I were taking it in for good, but for now I'll just pull a sweater over it and call it done.

Couldn't crop out this adorable photobomber!

Skirt:  Gymboree (yeah, grown-up sized...) via ThredUp

Sweater:  Express (ooooold)

Boots:  Same old, same old

Tights:  H&M

This kid was not the best during Mass, but I did LOVE his reaction to Father's homily about zombies - at some point he defined "Zombie" and John Paul turned to me, ecstatic, and said, "Yeah!!!  Yeah, Father!!!"

And now we're making toothpick and marshmallow constructions - John Paul is fascinated and hasn't eaten a single marshmallow (and he's OBSESSED with sweets) because he's working so hard to build!  I'm thinking it's time to find Andrew's old tinker toys...  Cecilia?  Well, she made a lot of "lollipops" for dessert tonight.

I do believe almost every little girl on the internet owns this jumper/shirt combo...  I've seen it on so many different kids!

Linking up with Fine Linen & Purple for What I Wore Sunday - check out more stylish ladies over there!

Links I Love

Who doesn't love a good conversion story?  This is one of the best, and she's Elizabeth's godmother!  I remember seeing on facebook that she and her husband had moved so that he could attend Protestant seminary, and then suddenly they were being received into the Catholic Church?  Here's Beth's story

Big Ugly Buts - Love my sister's latest post - is God calling you to do something but you just don't know how/aren't ready/are all full of buts?

Some surprising statistics about moms of (fraternal, spontaneously occurring) twins - apparently we live longer, have longer reproductive lifespans, and more!

Maia's birth story is one of my all-time favorites in the history of birth stories - I loved it the first time I read it and I love it again!  Go read it - seriously, it's epic!

I thought this was a good brief reminder that we're on the same team here:  NFP Subculture: Don't Punish the Obedient - because how often do we see someone comment on a blog post saying something like, "Blah blah blah, their reasons weren't grave enough for postponing pregnancy" or "Blah blah blah, you complain about having a tough time with your kids but at least you're not infertile like me" or "I don't know why NFP doesn't work for you, because I practice it and my kids are all perfectly planned and spaced - you must be doing something wrong!"

Interestingly enough, I've talked to two priests (and I'm sure there are more) who say they don't recommend that couples preparing for marriage learn NFP, because they see no reason for couples that are open to life to be hindered by all the charting.  I understand why some people wouldn't want to learn any method, because they are open to as many children as they are blessed with, but I tried to state as nicely as possible that NFP is for achieving and postponing pregnancy, and that I think it's important for couples to learn some method of NFP if only to be able to recognize fertile/infertile signs so they're not going into things blind!

AND I can't tell you how often I've wished that we still charted, because that temperature elevation that indicates pregnancy?  It lets you know way earlier than any pregnancy test, and I hate waiting!

Okay this has been sitting in my drafts box for long enough - go forth and read!  What else are you doing on a Saturday night, after all?

7 Quick Takes - Snow Day!

--1--

I could be all hipster and wish you a happy feast of Sts. Cyril and Methodius...

And to tell you the truth, I don't particularly care about Valentine's Day (or have a particular devotion to St. Valentine), but I do love the candy sales afterwards.  And this year it's not during Lent.

But I have to share with you this one John Paul quote from a couple of years ago - do you read those Maisy books where she has a friend named Cyril the squirrel?  Aaaanyway, we were reading a lift-the-flap book when he was about 2, and he lifted one flap and said, "Hewwo, Cyril!" and lifted the next flap (which was Tallulah) and said, "Hewwo, Methodius!"

Aaaand that's when we knew that he was just a liiiiiittle bit of a Catholic nerd...

--2--

This:

(Edit:  "Roses are red, Violets are blue, I was beaten with clubs, beheaded, buried under the cover of darkness, disinterred by my followers, and you commemorate my martyrdom by sending each other chocolates." Turns out the wildly popular meme (not of my own making) is the wrong St. Valentine and I was asked to remove it - see comment below.)

You just can't beat a valentine like that.

--3--

How to keep kids occupied while you cook:

Put the 3-year-old in charge of drying and sorting silverware ("Mom, all da little forks are missing!" "That's because you put them with the big forks...")

And get the 4-year-old to celebrate Mass - always buys at least 20 minutes (I don't know what that vacant stare is...)!

--4--

We actually had a pretty big snow yesterday - looked like maybe 10 inches at our house?  I convinced John Paul that it meant he could do "Snow Olympics" outside, and he had a blast climbing the mountains of snow Andrew made from shoveling and tramping around in the yard, clearing snow off the swing set:

Poor Cecilia was in over her head at first because it was too deep for her!  But it was pretty dense snow, so once a bunch of piles were made, she went out to "help" Andrew shovel, and spent a long time climbing snow mountains.  She and John Paul told me they were climbing Mount Sinai...

--5--

They're REALLY into Egypt and Moses lately because we just watched Prince of Egypt.  Not totally accurate, I know, but it got them SO interested in the story and Cecilia in particular talks about it aaaaaaall the time.  Mostly about the babies dying...  Little bit awkward?  Yeah...

--6--

Mary Claire figured out how to pull the chairs away from the playroom table so that she can use them to climb up on the table.  Elizabeth follows close behind.  Awesome.  Not.

--7--

We made Snow Cream for the last snow storm.  I'm not real eager to make it again - it was good buuuut I saw snow margaritas on facebook, so obviously I had to make those this time around!

See?  Definitely more satisfying than snow cream!

Happy Friday!  Check out more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary!

Theme Thursday: Heart

Now THIS one I actually had some material for in advance!  Cecilia's birthday party was heart-themed, so here's her cake and our garland (which doubles as a prayer garland for the whole month of February):

When decorating with a real piping tool, don't forget that there's crushed peppermint in the icing, because then you'll end up having to go the ziploc bag route...

We're almost halfway through!

And since we've got a snow day today, we've been crafting all morning:

John Paul's Valentine card for Elizabeth's Godfather (I don't know why, but he and Cecilia decided they wanted to make Valentines for that family and nobody else...)

Cecilia also wanted to make a heart wreath, but pretty much lost interest after gluing the hearts you see here...

I drew a bunch of hearts on watercolor paper last week and John Paul, Cecilia and I all had a lot of fun painting them (really I love watercolors!), then I cut them out to use for just such an occasion!

And we've gradually been transferring our prayer intentions from our garland to heart doilies (dollar store ftw!) and decorating the playroom windows with them.

Really I care not even a little bit about decorating for Valentine's Day, and I get that it's not a "real" holiday, but hearts are pretty!  And a reeeeeally easy way to create a craft theme for an entire month, since for some reason the big kids have gotten it into their heads that they should be doing a craft every. single. day.

Linking up with Cari & the Theme Thursday crew!