Congrats Julee!

Today several Verve Divas and other special friends are getting together for a very special Baby Blog Hop to wish the head Diva herself, Julee, as well as Mr. Verve, Mark, the very best as they prepare to become parents to twin boys in the very near future! Be sure to start your hopping at Julee's Blog and wish her well on her special journey into parenthood! You can find the entire Blog Hop list at the bottom of this post.

I pulled out two of my very favorite Verve baby-themed stamp sets to create a fun twin card for Julee:


I absolutely LOVE that adorable Emery image. I paper pieced him twice using slightly different, but coordinating blue-ish papers from October Afternoon. I added the "Look Out World" sentiment from the To The Moon set, which seemed appropriate for twin boys! LOL. I used lots of papers from old October Afternoon paper pads and the sketch is modified from a SFYTT from about a year ago. I added some stitching and some embossed polka dots to the main circle panel and was done!

Julee, I can't tell you how excited I am for you and Mark. You are going to make such amazing parents and I can't wait to watch your family grow. Wishing you all so much love. As for advice...let's see...breastfeeding hurts WAY worse than you think it will. That doesn't last forever, but those crazy lactation consultants who tell you that if you do it right, it doesn't hurt, are full of it. IT HURTS at first. BAD. I didn't feel adequately warned about that and would have appreciated the honest truth. I have one word for you regarding that if you're planning on nursing...CABBAGE. Mark, as soon as you get home from the hospital, go straight to the grocery store and buy a couple heads of cabbage and put them in the fridge. When those boobs are majorly swollen and hurt like hell, pull off a cold cabbage leaf and just put it on there. You'll pretty much spend the first week without a shirt or bra on anyway. First of all, the leaf (or 3) molds on there surprisingly well. And it feels really good, instant relief. For real. Some nurse told me about this cabbage thing and somehow I managed to hear it through my tears of frustration. I wish I remembered who that nurse was because she might have saved my marriage or Joel's life or possibly both (those hormones are F.U.N.). So yeah. I sat around with cold cabbage leaves on my boobs for a few weeks. It was great. But it really and truly did help. I later read something about there being some enzyme or something in the cabbage that helps with pain and inflammation? Something like that. But do it. It's not as satisfying as throwing things at breast-less Mark when he tries to offer well-meaning but useless "tips" and "suggestions" (believe me), but it's a close 2nd. ;-)

Now, head on over to Andrea's blog to see what kind of fabulousness she's created!

But just in case, here's the entire hop list for ya. Be sure to stop by all of the participants' blogs for lots of baby inspiration!

Julee Tillman

Teresa Kline

Laurie Schmidlin

Jen Tapler

Andrea Ewen

Debbie Carriere

Charmaine Ikach

Sankari Wegman

Shannan Teubner

Lori Craig

Maureen Plut

Toni Storie

Wanda Cullen

Amber Hight

Marisa Ritzen

Janelle Stollfus

Tosh Leyendekker

Jackie Pedro

Betty Wright

Jen del Muro

Lynda Benden

Stephanie Kraft

Mary Fish

Sarah Bigelow

Alma de la Rosa

Carole Burrage

Susan Lilies

Amy Sheffer

Taylor Van Bruggen

Clarire Brennan