the last/first page

As soon as we made our official pregnancy announcement, I started this blog.  Since then, it has served many purposes.  It keeps our friends and family up to date on the twins.  It provides an outlet for me to "communicate" with adults.  It allows me to post as many adorable pictures as I want without completely annoying all of my facebook friends.  But none of those are the real reason I document our set of shafers.  From the very beginning, this blog has been my love letter to Barnes and Frances.  My way to tell them, over and over, how precious and loved they are.

Now that the birthday party pictures are up, the first year is officially documented.  So the blog (thus far) will be making its way into a book.  It's a limited edition...just two copies to be printed.  And at some point, many many years from now, those two copies will make their way to their intended owners--Barnes & Frances.  Maybe they will think it's the silliest thing ever.  But maybe, hopefully, they will read the words that were written when they were itty bitty ones, and they will get a better understanding of our family.  Hopefully they will read the early entries, the ones before they arrived, and know how fervently they were wanted.  Then they will read the entries from their birth, and they will see the joy that couldn't be contained on a page.  They will read entries from the best days...days filled with learning and new adventures and amazement...and they will get a glimpse into what we were like in the days before their memories began.  They will read entries from the hard days, the ones that seemed slower than the rest, and they will know that no matter how crazy life was, no matter how challenging two infants could be, we always loved them.  That Andrew and I always tried our best.  That while I'm sure we've done so much wrong, we really really tried.  We tried to always do what was best for them. 

So this is the last page of our book...or at least, our first book.  The last page of the great adventure that culminated in two amazing one year olds, but the first page of so many more adventures to come.