I’m sitting here at my computer one week after an aged Boeing 747 touched down in the lush landscape of St. Louis, MO. My boyfriend and I were both on that plane and relished in the sound of the aircraft’s wheels colliding with the Midwest earth.

It was a fast and furious trip, made up of four flights (one being a near miss thanks to a robotics convention slowing up security), quick catch up conversations, and scrambled decor assembly.

You see, I had returned to St. Louis (CA based boyfriend in tow) to celebrate the birth of my best friend’s twin boys. Living on the other side of the country, I missed watching her little belly grow and hearing her muse about the babies to come. I missed her facial expressions. I even missed her showers.

Distance is a terrible thing at times.

This trip was not only a celebration of new life, but a make good in my eyes for having missed out on a dear friend’s perhaps most monumental of life’s moments: creating another human being, or in this case two human beings.

The whirlwind weekend entailed my most favorite people on the planet clamoring into my friend Laura’s mother’s bright home on the outskirts of west St. Louis. The moment we walked through the door there were hugs and tears and for lack of better words, all the feels.

These were the girls I had grown up with. They had seen me pimply faced, braces laced, and very, very awkward. They had seen me in plays and musicals and on football sidelines, pom poms in hand. I had seen them in basketball games and in student government elections and on Sunday mornings in church pews.

And now I was seeing them again, except with husbands instead of basketballs and babies instead of backpacks. 

So much history and with it, nostalgia. We humans love nostalgia.

Like a cherished candle scent mixed with the aroma of Friday night cookie dough (because I was never invited to parties so we baked cookies on Friday nights in high school) and sweat (from excruciating track practices endured in the Spring), I inhaled that deep nostalgia.

After a few moments of catching up (we could have used hours) we set to our task of transforming Mary Hoffner’s west St. Louis home into a Neverland themed Sip and See.

The twin’s nursery is Neverland themed so of course our celebration had to coincide!

What in the heck is a Sip and See?

It’s basically all the rage for families with newborns. Forget the stuffy shower while you’re gorged and uncomfortable. A Sip and See allows the parents to show off their little one/s after birth and on mom and dad’s own time. People can come and go as they please to view the baby AND there is alcohol.

Adorable babies and cocktails? Oh my gosh, why haven’t we heard about this before. Forget toting a glass of wine and viewing fine art, we’ve got babies.

So yes, I cooed at baby August and baby Shepherd with Bloody Mary (and later margarita) in hand. And it was amazing.

Note, I did set my cocktail down to feed August his bottle at one point. And that was the most amazing thing ever.

It’s a funny thing when the people you practiced kissing on mirrored closet doors with start popping out mini versions of themselves. It makes you happy, it makes you sad, but mostly it makes you remember.

You remember that life is fast and fleeting. The milestones and memories roll on by and if you’re not careful you may miss them. Take time to stop and smell the roses, but also take time to fly thousands of miles across the county to smell newborn babies’ heads. Because there is nothing in the world like it. And because that opportunity won’t always be there.

These babies – there is nothing more precious than seeing their mothers hold them, the ones you grew up with and the ones you will continue to grow with, despite the distance.

Photography by Cory Libka