After four years in business, we have decided to close our downtown shop La Bella Vita. When we first opened, I was seven months pregnant with Lina, and we were well aware that having a business that was dependent on me (it is not my husband who loves to work with flowers after all) could get complicated.

We made a few resolutions at the beginning to guide our decision making. The main thing was that we wanted our shop to overflow from our home, and not take away from it. We wanted to make sure that I was not down arranging beautiful housewares while our own home or children were neglected.

Well, the good news is, that hasn’t happened! On the other hand (as our kind, cheerful, and downright heroic employees could attest), we are no longer able to keep juggling our very joyful responsibilities. In God’s good humor, he sent twins to our family this November. While we are seriously enjoying our newly doubled brood, we simply are not able to keep up with everything else we had going.

To break it down for you, we may have to bring in outside help to get my teeth brushed every day! The shop presents itself quite clearly as the place to pare down, and pare down we are going to do! Read More

The Christmas scene at our house was really something this year. My husband’s sweet family came into town on the 21st, and they were here partying at the hotel, and meeting the twins through their baptism on the 23rd. We had a great time eating together, pool partying together (not me – don’t worry!), and doing the first ever sibling grab bag gift exchange with the fifteen minute, fifteen dollar rule.  Three of my husband’s siblings (the ones without kids) pitched in together to get one big gift for each family. Before I tell, I should show you Yes, that’s right. What you see in our windows from left to right: our Christmas tree, our retro bulb wreath hanging above the cooler full of pop and in front of a table full of groceries, and, in our third window, the static sparks flying off the heads of children in our new indoor bouncy castle. The result of so much partying? Well, for one thing a lot of our gifts are still in a garbage bag in our bedroom.

Hi all! Thanks so much for your many well wishes! I thought I would attach a few pictures from our first day with our new little friends. Lina and Daphne greeted their new siblings with enthusiasm, and Nana had to start practicing her two baby hold. Anyways, here they are, and ain’t they sweet? We might just up and pop with love.  

Here are a few pictures of the Advent Calender, as I promised. I used those little miniature things you can buy in craft stores (I think they are for making cards), and that was actually a fun way of coming up with ideas. I did not try to get my Christmas to-do list onto an Advent calender. A lot of our days are things like “pizza night” or “paint your nails.” I also have a lot more cards than days, so there is still selection, even at the end of the stretch.

When we got it out this year, my three-year-old kept pulling a chair over to it and asking questions about it, and then requested an Advent calender bedtime story – so I think at least in thrill factor it has been a success!

Oh- one last thing – I buy candy and occasional Advent presents to also be included, even for Daddy. I actually think in future years we may end up with an envelope for each kid, because I always see more things that I want to add, and since they are so easy to do (try “drink egg-nog” or “have an orange eating party”) it is not overwhelming at all.

Blessings on you all – I hope your Advent prep goes well!

So, today marks the thirty-fifth week in this pregnancy of mine, and it seems like an appropriate time to write a little post about the whole endeavor. A lot of women have asked me if being pregnant with twins is very different from carrying one baby, or just what it is like in general. The truth is that it is a lot like being pregnant with one, just more. It is as though you read one manuscript about pregnancy, and then the same thing was re-submitted to you in all caps with reckless use of exclamation points. The content is familiar, but somehow the tone has escalated.

My stretch marks, which once looked like a tasteful flame decal on an El Camino, have now out-done the most over-embellished jacked-up monster truck around. We just aren’t proceeding in moderation any more. When the babies move, I can start feeling downright motion sick. And I should mention that the babies love to move. It usually seems like they wake each other up. One will start moving, that little stretchy feeling, and after a little bit, the other will suddenly kick violently. I think it must be funny to have someone poke you in the eye while you are still in the womb. But speaking of poking, when I wake up in the mornings, the babies seem to be just firing up a Jane Fonda workout video, and I have to sit up in bed, prop pillows behind my back, and devote my attention to pushing very busy feet out of my ribs. Read More

So here it is – the post you have all been waiting for, the post you can’t wait to read – the post about my sugar jar!

As long as I can remember, my Mom has kept her sugar in a gallon-sized glass jar with a yellow lid. It is a cute shape, but much more functional than flourishy. She has mostly kept it in cupboards, or on the bottom slider in her pantry (which is where it is right now), but that jar has just been part of the kitchen life at Mom’s for so long, that it has actually gotten itself all tied up in a lot of fun memories.

I know that I learned to bake with that jar on the counter – I still remember the feeling of trying to shake some sugar out into a measuring cup and having one of those huge sugar landslides come out on the counter, caused by some invisible sugar clod, and I am sure that I used it when I made my incredible orange zest angel-food cake. I don’t know how old I was then, but I had been perusing some cookbook (habits can start pretty young), and landed on what I thought would be a very dreamy cake. As I recall, we did not have all the ingredients, and I asked Mom to get me some of the needed items.

Remarkably, she invested in that scheme of mine – she has always been kind that way. I am not sure why I was let alone in the kitchen for this, but it is clear in retrospect that I was over-confident. I simply grabbed a mixing bowl, beat it all together, and popped it in the oven. In the time that lapsed before the buzzer buzzed, I looked in the oven and Read More