When we finally made it to our first appointment on December 15 we got the best news of our lives: TWINS. And not just twins but healthy twins. We told the doctor that we were planning on telling our immediate families on Christmas and asked her if she thought that was too soon. She said that at Christmas I would be at 11.5 weeks and that the chances of me losing the babies was less than 5%. Our 12 week “in the clear” ultrasound was scheduled for December 29 but Luke and I decided there was no way we could pass up the chance of telling our family members in person all together. Besides the news of twins is the best free Christmas present I can think of and we need a little more cheap in our lives now that we also need to learn to budget (what’s that?).

We scoured Pinterest for cute, cheap and quick ideas of sharing the news and also wanted to get the dogs involved. The dogs, still in denial about their impending demotions to actual dogs, were not cooperative in our attempts so we decided on a simple Christmas card from Walgreens. Luke put one picture of each of the twins and one picture of the twins together from the ultrasound and wrote, “Merry Christmas from Luke, Erin, Jak, Zeus and the Twins.” The plan was that as we saw our families during Christmas we would casually hand out the Christmas cards and mention that we didn’t get them in the mail on time. They would open the cards all at the same time and bam! we would get the response we were hoping for. Then, after our 12 week appointment on the 29th we were going to drop the rest of the cards into the mail and send to everyone we didn’t get to see in person – just to play it safe. Simple, good plan – right? Well, when you mix Christmas cheer, booze and family and friends you haven’t seen in a long time nothing goes to plan.

My mom was the first person we decided to tell. We were going to tell all of my family at the same time on Christmas day at my grandparents but I just couldn’t resist telling her when we went to Tucson the Sunday before Christmas to hang out at my brother’s house for the day (he moved back!). Per usual, she was hogging Harrison and I told her I needed to speak to her in private before everyone else arrived. She started trotting down the hallway but I insisted she give Harrison over to Kiel. She was not happy about this. I could barely wait until we got into Harrison’s room before I uttered, “I’m pregnant!” That was not what my mom was expecting to hear. Her knees gave out and she had to hold onto Harrison’s crib to balance herself. Thank god she had handed Harrison over! She was speechless and crying before I even had the chance to say “with twins!” Then she was really speechless. I can’t get over the way she was looking at me – like I had just pulled the best / worst prank of all time on her. I reassured her that I wan’t lying and we just both stood there crying. I made and simultaneously ruined her day when I told her she could tell no one, not even dad, until after our 12 week appointment. I told her were telling immediate family on Christmas but no one until after the appointment. I get the gift of not keeping secrets well from my mom so she was bewildered especially since she couldn’t talk to my dad about it for 3 whole days! She promised she wouldn’t tell and less than an hour later all of my family and friends were over and she had the worst day of her life not being able to share the news. Best gift Ever!

Luke’s sister, Bri, and her family were scheduled to arrive Monday afternoon. The plan was to tell them, his parents and his brother’s family Monday night at dinner. This time I actually had prepared the cards to hand out so I felt ready. We stopped by his parents Monday morning and his mom told us she wouldn’t be there for dinner because she was volunteering at church until 7. I pulled Luke aside and told him we should tell his parents now since there was a chance his mom wouldn’t be there that night. He agreed and walked into the kitchen starting the conversation with “We need to talk to you guys about something important…” With the way they stopped and looked at us, I have no idea what they were expecting to follow? Maybe us asking for a loan or telling them we were buying another house or camping trailer that we didn’t need? But then Luke said (in his serious voice), “Erin’s pregnant.” Again, speechless bewilderment, hugs, kisses, thank the lords, and pure excitement. Things settled down a little and I chimed in “yeah! but with twins!!” That really threw them for a loop. I have never seen Rich Leonard at a loss for words. He was so excited and kept smiling and covering his mouth and smiling, he was like a little kid who got a 22 for Christmas. It was the best. We told them our plan to tell everyone that night and they were really excited Rich called us 6 times on our way home to run ideas on the schedule for the big reveal but we reassured him we had it covered.

We were late to dinner that night because we had taken my college friends that were in town for Christmas, Larissa and Brett, hiking on camelback mountain. While hiking, I just couldn’t resist telling Larissa. I don’t see my college friends often and even less often that I see them in my own backyard. When I told Larissa her response was “Oh good, I just thought you had been drinking a lot of beer!” I had specifically worn my “loose” workout top that day because I wan’t sure I was going to tell them. I explained this to Larissa and she suggested I get a bigger top if I was planning on hiding my belly any longer. Thank god for good friends and their honesty.

By the time we got to Rich and Lana’s house for dinner I was starving. I knew we were having pot roast that night and I was literally day dreaming about potatoes the entire time we were hiking and all the way down to Chandler. I devoured 6 potatoes without even looking up from my plate. When I did look up to grab potato 7,  Logan (Luke’s younger brother) was horrified. He said something to the extent of “I don’t think I have ever seen you eat so many carbs!” After dinner, Luke and I were waiting around for everyone to be seated in the same place so we could have our big announcement, but with 4 kids under the age of four roaming around avoiding bed time gathering everyone wasn’t quite as easy as I had thought. I panicked and got really nervous. I could tell Rich was nervous too because he started doing the dishes. He never does the dishes. To calm my nerves, I joined him in the kitchen and he started “whispering” about when and how we were going to tell everyone. However, Rich’s “whisper” is more like a low growl since he has to “whisper” loud enough to hear himself. I had to shush him. Thank god Lana came home because everyone went into the living room. Luke grabbed the cards from my purse and started handing them out. Brett, my brother in law, had snuck off to bed and Rich was insisting that Bri wake him up. Bri looked at her dad like he was crazy so we let Brett sleep. FINALLY, everyone opened their cards. They could tell right away that it was ultrasounds and that we were pregnant but nobody read the entire card. Everyone was giving us hugs and were under the impression that we were just pregnant. Luke then added that it was twins and everyone stopped crying and went into a stunned silence. It was great, absolutely perfect. We calculated that by the end of summer Rich and Lana would have 7 grand kids ages 4 and under. Quite the productive family we have on the Leonard side.

Later that night, Jenna (Luke’s cousin) and Barbie (Luke’s aunt / Jenna’s mom) were flying into town. Jenna would be staying with us and I knew that I had a small window of time to tell Jenna before Bri got a hold of her! Rich and Lana picked them up from the airport and brought them to our house. It was special to us to tell Jenna and Barbie because Jenna is like a sister to Luke and his family and Barbie is one half of the set of twins Luke’s grandmother had. So it was fitting she was the first sister to find out. This was their reaction:

If it’s going to take me three posts to cover all of “sharing the news” I feel like I am never going to get caught up….