The Art of Monkey: A crazy few weeks...

A lot has happened in the last 3 weeks.

MOURNING:
My family lost my Aunt Christi (my mom's oldest sister) to cancer 2 weeks ago after a year of fighting it. Her last few days were spent at home, surrounded by family. My family wrote a beautiful memorial for her (click here).

I already miss her so much. We visited the family last weekend (a week after her passing) and I am simply amazed at how my family has bonded stronger than ever. They have all shown amazing strength and supportiveness during her last days and the time after. We spent some time last weekend reminiscing, celebrating, and crying, and I felt a strong sense of love and healing throughout. To my amazing family - I LOVE YOU ALL!!

These were from last October, but I just love these pics:

MARRIAGE (almost):
We also spent some time last weekend with my brother and his fiancee, Laura! She had her bridal shower garden party, complete with decoupage, tea sandwiches, white gloves, and crazy hats! I was initially a little nervous about being "girly" enough for such an event, lol, but we had a lot of fun! Here's pic of the sisters (Laura, Temi, me) looking coy in their amazing backyard:

And being Amazons:

MARINE MAMMALS:
GG took us on a whale watching trip this weekend, too - we were a little concerned about how the twins would do on a 7 hour boat ride, but for the most part it went fine. Roman had a couple of meltdowns - he apparently has some anxiety about boats (we've never been out on one with the kids before) and he was overtired when we got there. They (miraculously) napped over 2.5 hours on the couch:

We did get to see a lot of whales, including a few babies with their mamas! Giovanna has amazing eyes - she saw a seal before the rest of us, and even pointed it out saying "LOOK! SEAL!!" I can't believe she knew what it was - all she could see was the head for a split second!

MOVE YOUR BODY!
This was at Grandpa's house a couple weeks ago. "You've got to move your body!" Click HERE for the video.

MOMMY'S TUMMY:
The twins have a pretty good idea that there is a baby in Mommy's tummy. They even know his name is Gaius. Not sure if they understand that in a few short months, they will have a new baby brother, though, lol! We had another doc appt this wee, complete with ultrasound. The perinatologist measured my cervix (on the ultrasound screen) to make sure it wasn't shortening (shortened cervix is a sign of preterm labor) and he said it's long and perfect! YAY! He chalked up the twins' premature birth to the fact that there were two of them in there. He's not worried about this one at all! :) Here he is at 23 weeks, 1 day:

Check out those lips!