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Art put his costume together. A recycled favorite, the purple monster costume, with added flair. A blue tutu, nice vest and a tie. He called it the 'workest' monster. I'm guessing cause he looked pretty dressed up, perhaps on his way to work? We'll post more photos from Halloween soon.

(Jess adds: This was built during Art's "nap" one day. I think he was working on it for a good hour while Lewis slept five feet away in the bottom bunk and I was asleep in the next room. Then Art came in to wake me and say he had made something really cool that I needed to see. And indeed, it was really cool.

We don't do it often (ever?) but we stopped by McDonald's the other day in a "we need to feed these kids and let them play" emergency on the way home from the library (any fast food play area is known as a 'french fry climbing place' to our kids).

I observe that Bailey cries more often and more hard-core than Netta. But neither of them cry very much. Mostly they just grunt.

Because I can, I'm going to periodically post some of the photos I take for the newspaper on our family blog. I know at least my mom will dig it, and I see it as a way to share with friends and family and even Art and Lew a little of what I do for work. They see the blog, and now they'll see my photos (we can't get the paper delivered where we are). Jessica likes this idea, too, and that is reason enough! So, here are some photos from girls HS tennis today. Edina vs. Mounds View. http://photo.twincities.com/ssp/m/embed.js SlideShowPro({ attributes: { id: "album-3240", width: 800, height: 600 }, mobile: { auto: false }, params: { bgcolor: "#000000", allowfullscreen: true }, flashvars: { xmlFilePath: "http://photo.twincities.com/ssp/images.php?album=3240", displayMode: "Manual" } });

Last night was my first night back at work for two weeks. I photographed a high school football game and, during halftime, was gifted with this lovely streaker!

My mother is in town, here are some photos she took. and

It has been hard on me to keep two infants fed.  Nursing them does take many hours a day on my butt, babes to boob.  I do get a little depressed here and there sitting in my foam prison (twin nursing pillow) while life with the rest of my family goes forth without me.  But anyway... Ben wanted to really praise me for the great work I'm doing breastfeeding these babies and here is how he did it. "I mean, these babies are getting well fed and all from you! They are pooping MASSIVE poops and peeing all the time!" Aw. He really knows how to sweet talk a lady.

Art really was able to sum up why our simple walk through the Thomas Sadler Roberts Bird Sanctuary, where we have gone for Nature Day countless times, was the Best Ever nature day.  In his own words; "It was the best nature day in the whole world. I walked around the corner and then I saw just a big shadow walking across the ground. And then I said 'DEER!'  And it was a deer. It sitted right where we were, right Mama? Maybe that's the path that deers like to go. We saw the deer, and then we saw a lot of the other deers. We got to see it's WHOLE family. Then we got closer to them through the bushes and then they all runned away. And then we couldn't find them." We walked slowly within 20 feet of the deer for what might have been an hour and both Ben and I felt it was pretty magical.  I almost felt as if I was following a unicorn, it was so special.  This brownish-grey deer just plodded along and we watched it eat leaves and traipse through the muddy ...

Si came over for dinner tonight. This is a video of them running. and running. and running. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF7-WBWb5g0] And dinner time.

Today we had a lovely nature day outing to the bird sanctuary at Lyndale Park Garden . We'll post a lot more photos later tonight.

Olive (I know! Great name right? Say it with Garvin and you'll know why it is an outtake...)

Art ran full speed into the couch in an effort to show Nanna how fast he can run. And it was really fast. Unfortunately he also banged his finger into the window sill and it's since swollen up and turned a little black and blue. But hooray! It's not broken. Just need a couple weeks of tender love and care.

On Thursday I stopped by to take some photos of a very special visit from Mother Earth at Art's preschool. She read a book and gave each kid a little bulb that will turn into a flower in the spring. I could really see the wonder in their little eyes imagining mother earth actually showing up at their preschool. http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

Our wonderful neighbors down the way, Dina and Jeff, finally met our girls today. We practically had to pry Netta out of Dina's arms, she was really enjoying holding a toasty twin.

Evva and her family came over today to play. First things first, she held a baby for more than 20 minutes.

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My mom arrived from Arkansas to a house of full kids. Arthur and Lewis adore her. After Art went to bed tonight he got out of bed and asked that I come up stairs. "Papa, I can't sleep. Someone really fun is in our house and I can't sleep. Nanna...." He'll have two full weeks with her, which will be as wonderful for him as it is a for Jessica and I to have the help around the house. Thanks for coming, Mama!

I'm realizing how having twins girls makes me more aware of fairness. I don't want to favor a baby for this reason or that. So I'm already feeling a little guilty for having TWO posts featuring Bailey. I will remedy this soon! Ben

lewis can now ride a tricycle! --sent from my handheld device--

Bailey at left. Netta. Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.3

I asked jess if Art had a name for this thing and she said no, it was just a really cool thing:

First clinic visit with the babes was a comedy of errors. But it wasn't funny anymore when I realized the appointment had take over TWO HOURS! First was the incompetent woman who made the appointment over the phone and needed the names spelled three times before confirming everything was all set. Set for confusion! Because when I arrived to check in the next day they had Matta B and Villy A Garvin. What!?! So that took a while to get resolved. Then the weight and length took a lot of double checking and rechecking and correcting in the computer. Then the doc came in, now with the right names. He said that Netta had already reached her birth weight, by day six. Well, that sounded really wrong. Then I inquired some more. Whoever had assigned the babies' names to their medical records had Bailey as the A, first out baby and Netta as the B baby. So then I had to stay and get that resolved so their records would be correct. What a disaster!

Art was afraid a monster might be in his room tonight.  This is a first for him.  After I exposed the empty, monsterless space behind the door and inside the closet he felt better.  Then I asked him what the monsters might look like.  It very quickly dissolved into a funny image for him. "Sometimes they have one eye.  Sometimes they have eyes all over their bodies.  What if they had a really long tongue, you could play jump rope with?!  What if they had a tongue so long, it was like a road and you could drive on it all the way into their mouth!"

I love this picture of Ben that our friend Jeff Guntzel, Si's dad, took two years ago. It's of Ben shooting the RNC convention, protected from tear gas by a mask. We only met Jeff last year. He took this picture when he was freelancing for a local news rag and recently realized, while sorting through photos for something else, that he had a pic of his new friend Ben! Pretty cool. I like it a lot. It shows Ben in his element, alert and ready to be arrested... [vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/1691669 w=601&h=338] [vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/1691408 w=601&h=338]

Art. Art's best friend Si.

Now she needs one that reads, "Make Netta and Baily, not War"

Babies nursed and down, I have time to assist with artichokes at dinner.

Tonight Arthur went to his friend Henry and Ben's house for dinner (prepared by their dad Graham, their mom was working). It has been a highly anticipated night out for Art since we made the plans a few days ago. Graham is a fun dad who speaks perfect boy-language. For example, in inviting Art he asked if he'd like to come over and eat spaghetti and poopballs. This was a totally hilarious joke and brought up often each day until Art headed over for dinner tonight. When Art got back tonight he immediately told us that he ate spaghetti and poop. Meatballs in the shape of poop! Graham had rolled the sausage out into nice long rolls. So funny! And surprisingly, Art said he peed in his pants, something he hasn't done in ages. But upon further retelling of his evening, it was made clear he peed cause of extreme laughter (as far as I know, only I and my brother Josh have been able to achieve this). According to Art, Graham had asked his younger 3-year-old son Ben to shake his...

Here's a little video of Arthur and Lewis on Friday afternoon, Netta and Bailey's birthday. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l61oGzr0zyQ?rel=0&hd=1]

A milk getter outer.