No babies yet

These girls are staying nice and cozy... but I sure am ready to meet them!

Our nursery is stocked, hospital bag packed, car seats installed, all baby clothes washed... and I am feeling like I could explode any minute! I look like I'm smuggling a beach ball!

My doctor gave me permission to move around a bit more these days. At this point, the babies are good to go. Maybe a little more motion will move things along.

So this weekend, I left the house a few times for reasons other than my weekly doctor's appointment. It felt so nice to get out of the house. I even got a manicure/pedicure with my sister and mom!

My parents were up in Chicago for Sandi's bridal shower and Brett and Kyle's bachelor party.

Sandi's bridal shower was Saturday afternoon. I didn't go, but Erin sent me a few pictures (and brought me home a cupcake)! The theme for their wedding is the movies, so these were the cupcakes that Sandi's sister-in-law made. They have marshmallows on the top to look like popcorn. So cute!

Party weekend!

This past weekend, we went back to Rochester for a weekend of parties.

We got into town on Friday night and decided to let Matt try out the famous Darcy's horseshoe. Horseshoes are made up of a piece of Texas toast, your choice of meat, french fries piled on top, all covered in a cheese sauce. It's definitely not healthy, but it tastes good!

He loved the horseshoe!

Since we were at a bar, I asked if they had any non-alcoholic beer options...

This is what they had... never seen this before!

On Saturday, we celebrated my parents and their friends 40th wedding anniversary. There was a party with plenty of yummy food, lots of drinks, cupcakes AND cake, and dancing! We had a great turnout and surprisingly not as many leftovers as we expected. Matt was in charge of the bar, so he had an excuse to be hanging out near the alcohol all night. : )

My mom and Barb's wedding dresses

Half lemon/half white = so good!

Cupcake stand

Red velvet and chocolate cupcakes

Mom, Erin and Dad line dancing

Mom and Dad sporting similar fabric to my mom's bridesmaids dresses - gotta love the 70's!

On Sunday, we had a double wedding shower brunch for my brother and Sandi and for my cousin Brian and his fiance' Sarah. My dad's side of the family all came over for the festivities. My aunt Lucy had them play the Newlywed Game. Brett and Sandi won in the end with a bonus question - who would you cast in a movie to play yourself and your fiance'. They got it half right - Brett = Nicolas Cage.

After the shower, we changed gears and had a college graduation party cookout for my cousin Chris. This was my mom's side of the family. So, out went one family, in came the other. Of course, this is what happens when you have more than one party on the same day...

Wedding shower table cloth, graduation cake

It was a busy weekend, but so much fun to catch up with family and celebrate! Congrats to my Mom and Dad on 40 years! Congrats to Brett and Sandi and Brian and Sarah on their engagements and upcoming weddings! Congrats to Chris on graduating college!

Kelly's wedding shower

I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures from my trip home a few weeks back for Kelly's wedding shower. My cousin Kelly married her husband Ruben last April, but they are celebrating their marriage this year once Ruben is home from the military.

Here's Kelly in the apron... we played a game where you try to remember all the gadgets on the apron after she walks out of the room

Erin and June

Lots of yummy cupcakes and a wedding dress cake

Yep, we played the toliet paper wedding dress game and I got to be our team's model

Me and Gramma

A reunion and a shower

This past weekend, we all headed from Chicago to Quincy, IL for the annual Duesterhaus Family Reunion and to throw Erin and Ross a wedding shower.

Traffic was particularly awful on Friday afternoon. Ross and Erin barely made it to Springfield in time to get their marriage license!

On Saturday, we went to my Dad's cousin's house for the family reunion. It was a HOT day! It was nice to catch up with the fam, but I forgot to take any pictures. Well, that's not true... there was a turkey that came from the neighbor's farm (it crossed a busy road, actually) to visit with us. This thing was ugly and HUGE!



On Saturday night, we threw Ross and Erin a family wedding shower at the hotel we were staying at. It was a fun time!

Congrats to Erin and Ross!


Everyone chatted... while the kids played on their DS's

Mom and Grandma


We catered in Italian beef, au-gratin potatoes and veggies - Yum!


We played a couple of games. The first one everyone had to match movie quotes with the movie they were said in. The catch was the guys had quotes from chick-flicks and the girls had quotes from action movies. No surprise, Erin won on the ladies side. And Matt won on the guys side - the boy loves his chick-flicks!

Everyone patiently waiting to get started!


Then, Ross and Erin played a game where they sat back-to-back and answered questions to see how well they agreed about certain things in the relationship. They each had two stars, one with Ross and one with Erin written on it. Each question, they were asked "Who is...?" and they would raise the star they thought the answer should be. It was funny to see how many they matched on. : )

Ross looks pretty adamant that the answer is 'Ross'


This may have been after Erin said she was the better driver!


Then we made them practice cutting the cake for the wedding

Everyone chipped in to get them the luggage set they registered for


Cute pic with Grandma

After the shower...

We played a couple of games of euchre in the hotel room.... girls vs. boys. Erin and I won once and Ross and Matt won once. We weren't really awake enough to play the tie-breaker that night.

Silliness...

Ladies and gentlemen, my husband


As usual, here's Erin


Ummm, we might be related


Ross is taking this very seriously


As a midnight snack, we microwaved some popcorn (it was the prize earlier for guessing the most movie/movie quotes correct). I bet Matt that Erin would not eat more than four pieces of popcorn. He kept trying to get her to eat just five pieces... I won! : )

The infamous five pieces of popcorn

Showered!

On Saturday, Erin, Ross and I headed to Cedar Rapids, Iowa for a bridal shower the Wilken family was throwing Erin. The drive was pretty crappy - so.much.rain! Luckily, we made it there in time for the shower.

Beautiful flowers!


Erin got a lot of nice gifts!


So many good desserts!


The shower was a lot of fun. We played a few games - one where you had to guess the kitchen utensil through a sealed paper bag, much harder than I thought it would be!

After the shower, we met up with the best man and his wife to go bowling. I bowled much better than my poor effort from last week. : )

We drove back Sunday and stopped off at the outlet mall in Naperville. Huge sale at the Coach store... of course, I had to get a new purse! It was so crowded, there was a line to get into the store; it was one-in one-out. Crazy!