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In a transparent attempt to post something on the blog when we've got nothing to post, here's a lovely photo I found of Art and Jess a long time ago!

They're laughing very hard as they try and reach over their big bellies to hug. Emily is pregnant (due in November) and showing quite a bit. And of course Jessica is already a fairly absurd size. So seeing them hug is funny. "It's only going to get more ridiculous," said Jess as she was bending laughing and hugging her sister. Now they just went into the kitchen to see if they could 'rest' their bellies on the counter.

This is quite a funny little exchange on Jessica facebook account I wanted to share: ---------------------------- Jessica Parker Garvin Just W-D 40'd my back door after almost 2 yrs of enduring it squealing. Now, without the squeaky announcement I feel like I'm magically entering through some kind of teleport. William Damkoehler ‎"WD-40'd"! We witnessed the birth of a new verb! Congratulations, Jessica! Jessica Parker Garvin You know me. I just can't stop birthing things.

Yesterday I had a routine ultrasound to check up on the twins and be sure they are growing at even rates and well. My midwife said, "You had a beautiful ultrasound! You couldn't have asked for a better twin ultrasound." Both babies are estimated at around 2 lbs and change with "beautiful" hearts, good movement and all their necessary parts. One of them, Twin A, is curled up in my right side with her head down while the other, Twin B, is stretched "transverse" bent at the waist with her body and head across the top of my uterus and legs and feet hanging down over the left side. B took a lovely 3D picture: Twin B A was less cooperative for the 3D pics, but the technician got this very nice profile: Twin A And here is a picture better displaying their position. Those are Twin B's feet in A's face. She kicked her many times while the tech did her measurements. B! Do I have to separate you two?!?!

For those noticing Lewis is helmetless and Art is in the FRONT seat, don't worry too much. It was only for a block to our house...

Our children are trying to drive each other crazy.  I honestly can not leave them alone except under the most special of circumstances.  Unless they are involved in some mutually designed project like rolling things down a 2x4 or painting with water-doused chalk Lewis will be screaming, causing Art to scream and cry, or run away from his brother cackling about his achievements.  It's been exhausting and terrible!   So I am reading "Siblings without Rivalry", apparently a 'classic' in parenting literature and highly recommended by the author of my most recent read, "The Explosive Child".  Oh, and I've also reread "Contact" by Carl Sagan for fun.  But I digress... So we're dealing with a host of sibling torture about what's "mine", who's first... mostly invoked by Art with a taunting little smile but not always.  Lewis knows how to get Art, too.  He can scream at the top of his lungs which will usually make Art crumble...

Today we found this really big dragon fly sitting on a tomatoe in our garden. We all, Art, Lewis, Maura (our friend) and me got to touch it and it stayed there for a long time. Then it flew away.

Jessica made the meal to end all meals tonight. Oh man, so tasty. Three dishes with two woks. That's right, she DOUBLE WOKKED! The recipes were from a new book her AMAZING husband got as a present (I had heard it talked up the mpr cooking show). Our kitchen was turned into a sizzling and chaotic mess of weird dried mushrooms and bubbling red peppers, but the result was really quite delicious. The kids ate very well, as did their grandma Bubbe who joined us. Jessica may update later with info about the recipes. Says Jess, "I LOVE cooking ethnic feast! It really is a great cookbook. Every recipe has been like a fine Chinese restaurant. I wish it had even more recipes!"

And a bonier free range egret (at Powderhorn Park):

This weekend Josh and Ashley invited us to grill hot dogs and swim at the park near their house. So we did!

This weekend I sang with the U of Mn Summer choir. We did Carmina Burana , one of those pieces that just about everyone has heard in movies or commercials but doesn't know what it is. Anyway, it was a blast! And Art really wanted to come. Luckily the piece is only 55 minutes long and it was the only thing on the program. So he and I listened to the CD several times together, and danced, so he would know what to expect. The music sounds really grand and important, but actually a lot of the movements are about basic human desires like food (there's a movement sung from a swan's point of view as he roasts on a spit), sex (lots of songs about sex) and drinking (the longest movement is all about getting completely inebriated). Anyhow, according to Ben Art was really into it, leaning over several times to cue him in like, "Papa... mmm mmm mm... this one is about... mm mmmm mmm. girls trying to look pretty" and things like that. About 40 minutes along or so Art s...

I shot this today of a totally odd and fun event called a Flugtag. Basically a homeade planes crashing into the Mississippi River over and over from 30 feet. Except one actually flew! http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9/1870915446?isVid=1 (watch in full screen for maximum fun...)

Art and Nanna, Feb 2006: Art and Pops Aug 2006:

Today we visited Bubbe at the hospital where she works. She's working in a new area after some union rigmarole and her new job isn't as fun for her as it was before. In part cause the ladies she works with are CRABBY OLD TOADS . I put that in red since I know Bubbe checks the blog from work and I hope one of the toads reads that over her shoulder. HI TOAD! I was hoping to meet one today and tell them how lucky they are to be working every day with one of my favorite people in the whole world.

We've updated our blog posts with ways to share. At the end of each post there are a series of small icons. Click on the 'gmail' icon to e-mail. There are also icon's for Facebook, Blogger, Twitter or Google Buzz. Also, at the bottom of our blog you can sign up as a follower, meaning you'll be sent an e-mail when we post. Thank you for your attention!

I'd also like to apologize to my mother and mother-in-law for leaving the photo of the limp mushroom on the top of the blog for TWO days. They check the blog religiously and I'm sure let out an audible sighs of disappointment when seeing (for the 10th time) a photo of a phallic huge limp mushroom and no Arthur or Lewis...

Over the past couple days I've been working on the reconstruction a swingset we bought off craigslist. Art of course 'helped' quite a bit. He always had to sit up high and see exactly what I was working on. I replaced a number of rotten boards and stuff, and now it's being played on lots. I'm sure we'll be posting photos at some point.

We were chatting with our neighbor Neil who lives a couple houses down across the ally. "Want to see a mushroom?" he said. Art loves a good mushroom so we checked it out and here she is (rather, here he is) in all his limp glory. Neil is a hilarious and sort of understated fellow. He mentioned how he wish he had gotten his camera out with an intervelometer and made a time lapse video. That would've been very funny. I asked Art what he though it looked like and he said a rocket and I agreed.

Art and Lew make these drawings on the computer and Jessica e-mailed them to me when I was out of town recently. Complete with little notes she transcribed.

This is a photo from about five years ago when Jessica and I were in Arkansas for my brothers wedding. Found it rummaging through old photos.

Jessica just reported a fun little coversation with Lewis. She asked him where his food went and he said, "uhbelly, Mama." "What's in MY belly, Lewis?" "Uhbaby, Mama," Lew said smiling. "That's right. And when the baby comes out, you can hold one!" At that point he scrunched up his shoulders with delight. Then, thinking, "Art hold a baby, Mama?" "Yes, you BOTH can hold a baby. There's one for you, and one for Art!" Jessica laughed when telling me this, saying how tickled she was at realizing there was enough baby to go around.

Jessica's uncle Dick Parker wrote this rich little blurb for the paper about his grandfather Everard 'Ev' Green and his talents as a baseball and trombone player among other things. So much history and living Dick knows about and it's wonderful to learn. I have a feeling this sort of detail about our family's past may be even more important to Arthur and Lewis (and our coming girls) once they get older. Thanks for sharing, Dick!

For the summer Art's friend Si and his brother Anthony come over on Wednesday's (Art and Lew go to their house on Friday's). Anyway, yesterday after lunch they excitedly headed up to Art's room for "nap". Which dissolved quickly into fort building other non-napping activities.

We spent nature day yesterday at the MN zoo admiring some of the new animals in the tropics area exhibiting some wonderful behaviors. And Jessica took these lovely photos from their new butterfly exhibit:

I'm on a nearly-four month napping streak. I have not missed a nap in all that time. Every day. There have been some near-misses, but I've always managed to get one in. It's all part of my grow-healthy-twin-babies plan. Eat a lot of high-protein, nutritious food and rest. It's hard work. Anyway, today was an extra lovely nap experience because my kids were awake as I slept. Here's how it played out: After lunch it looked like we all could use a rest, especially me, so we trudged upstairs for a nap. As happens quite often lately, Art popped out of bed ten minutes after getting in saying he didn't want to take a nap. I told him he could play upstairs but I would keep sleeping. Eventually Lewis joined him. I stayed about 13% conscious, just enough to hear them running water and talking about crocodiles and sharks with the bath toys. Later Art came in and said they were going to go downstairs. I wrestled with the idea of getting out of bed but decided ...

I'm out of town and just got this important note from Jessica. --Sent from my handheld device.-- ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Jessica Parker" < parker.garvin@gmail.com > Date: Jul 12, 2010 10:15 PM Subject: ate massive quantities of watermelon To: "Ben Garvin" < bengarvin@gmail.com > Kids have been up two - or was it three - times already to pee. Lewis's pee is totally clear.  Pure watermelon water.

So Lewis said, "oh no, Mama!" Then I redirected him with, "Let's go get some cheese popcorn instead." Ben answered, in a high voice, "yeah! I don't have to bend over my big preggo self and pick up that god damn graham cracker!"

We rode our bikes to Bubbe's house for a visit yesterday and heard some ominous sounding scratching coming from her attic. It sounded big and strong, maybe a raccoon. Or at least a plump squirrel. Art was scared and insisted on hiding under Bubbe's covers (Lew promptly followed). Bubbe laughed so hard. It was a pretty ridiculous scene.

email from Jess late Saturday night: Just so you know, Lew's sheets are wet again but this time it's because I put a little table next to his bedside with your water bottle on it, so he could get his own water when he wanted it. When I went up to check on him the water bottle was in bed with him, on its side, contents emptied. So I laid a towel under him and got him a new cover but I tell 'ya, I can't make that bed again! It's exhausting! Oh, and both kids went to bed with tiny flashlights and both flashlights were in their clutches, "on" but completely dead. Art wanted to look at the last page in Wonderbear and his snake book and Lewis just wanted a flashlight, too. I think Art is still clutching his dead flashlight now because he got up to pee an hour ago and grabbed it when I was putting his covers back on.

Josh, a Latin teacher with the summer free, has been doing a massive amount of work to his kitchen in South Minneapolis. Art and Lew and I stopped by to check it out.

We finally cut our super long branch in the backyard. For the past couple years I've delighted myself by pruning the thing and watching it grow more and more absurdly long with a tiny little tuft at the end. We joked it was our shade tree, since it was really the only branch in our backyard providing afternoon shade, even if it was a square foot patch. But lately it was sagging really low, unable to support the weight of it's crazy length. So we chopped it off. So sad!

This is quite a fun little viral video of a fellow enjoying a double rainbow at Yosemite. I think it's hilarious and wonderful that he's so moved. For some background on the guy here's a story . And then below I posted another version of his video, AUTOTUNED! [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1&w=640&h=385] [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX0D4oZwCsA&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1&w=640&h=385]

On the way to South Carolina we stopped in Wabash, Indiana, my mom's hometown and the where my 88-year-old grandmother still lives. Here are a couple photos (and a video) taken by my mother's friend Melody when they walked down to see the trains roll by, and then two photos of grandma when I stopped for sleepover by my lonesome on the way back home (we went to breakfast and the grocery store). From FollowArt Album 2 [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slFioJzPeTA&hl=en_US&fs=1&w=425&h=344] From Follow Art 4