well, i don't want to brag...

so it's no secret to anyone who knows me that one of my favorite places in the world is paper source. really, what could be better? all the paper you'd ever need/want, quirky gifts, beautiful ribbon, customized invitations, and the list goes on... i've always wanted to work there, i think almost everyone who works there knows me by name, and i probably make it in there at least once a week. well, every year, they have a holiday card contest and if you use their products, you're eligible. i entered last year, but didn't win. this year, i was hesitant to enter, just because even though i used their paper, it wasn't very crafty. it was, however, inspired by one of their cards i'd seen in their holiday catalog. i loved how it turned out this year, so i didn't really mind that i hadn't gotten an e-mail saying i'd won a $50 gift card... but yesterday, as i was scrolling through their blog's latest post, which was the winners of the contest, there was my card!!! it's the very last picture and it's not even the whole card, but it's there!! i still don't mind that i haven't gotten an e-mail, but i am going to venture down to the store today... we'll see if i come home with an extra $50. :)

update: i didn't win, however, the girls at my local store sent it to their headquarters because they liked it so much... no $50, but who cares?!

the green bookshelves

i'm so excited to finally be able to do this post!!  a very, very long time ago, we were perusing the pottery barn catalog (we play a game to see if we can name what the other one will like - after five years of marriage, we're pretty good at it), and we both fell in love with these bookshelves.  as you all know, pb is just a tad out of any reasonable person's price range, so we decided to tear that page out and save it for a project we bryan could one day complete.  along came our five-year anniversary, for which the custom gift is wood.  we don't always necessarily stick with the customary idea, but it's fun to try and be creative.  i loved our first year, which was paper- needless to say, he did very well. :) i tucked this magazine page away in my studio and pretended we'd lost it in the move.  for some reason, he got really set on doing these shelves NOW, but i played dumb and was able to (with the help of my dad, who pronounces 2x4 : twobuhfour - one word, no y) design these shelves in secret.  i went to lowe's and stored the wood in our neighbor's garage.  i know, it's going to be so good... except he found the plans.  my sweet husband, who seldom cleans without me knowing, and is almost never in my studio cleaning, walks into the kitchen... "did you draw this???" i almost cried i was so mad.  not at him, just at the fact that my surprise was ruined.  so i eventually got over it, and i can say that, a couple of months later, in between taking care of babies (who are one year old, i don't want to talk about it, but stay tuned for their birthday party post), work, and giving me breaks when i need them, he's finished the bookshelves.  how stupid is it that i don't have a finished picture?  i will, i promise.  they are amazing, and i know you can't even tell they're not the $400 ones from pottery barn.  they're going in the basement, which we're calling the babies playroom.  lucky babes. lucky me, to have a husband who can do these things!!  a few pictures to share...

working in the garage... brr

what i based my plans off of... who needs pottery barn?

a little pat on my back, if you don't mind... :)

ok, i got off my lazy behind and snapped some pics... obviously, already in use!! on a slightly different note, just found this number 2 at anthropologie- perfect for the twin's playroom!  i would spend all my personal money at this place if i could...

it's christmas eve and i'm starting to get a little anxious about the next couple of days.  i think normal moms probably look at this time (their babies' first birthday) in their baby's life and have mixed emotions, but of course, these moms didn't go into premature labor the day after christmas and have their 32 week twins approximately 4 weeks early.  once i got over the initial shock of them being here already, i was overwhelmed with guilt.  why do we feel guilty?  what is it?!  why can't we just let it go?!?!?  i have no idea.  i look at my two baby boys, who will turn one in 2 days, and there are no signs of prematurity.  they only spent two and a half weeks in the NICU, just needing time to learn how to eat.  in the beginning, they were on the low side of the adjusted growth curve, but now average non-adjusted.  they do all the normal things one year olds should be doing, and of course as their parents, we think they're little geniuses!!  and as many times as i've had moments of guilt over the past year with bryan or my mom or whomever, and i've been told : it's not your fault, you had 8 pounds 11 ounces of baby in there, stop blaming yourself, they're perfect, you had no control over it : i cannot help it.  so as with my infertility, i'm trying to adopt the mindset of letting go, of accepting the fact that it's no use living in the past, and that we're just going to have to deal with the fact that they were born on probably one of the worst days of the year (maybe besides leap day?) to have a birthday.  even though people who share that birthday can't wait to tell me how much it's sucked.  thanks a lot.

so here i go: oooommmm...
letting. it. go.

i heart flo rida, apparently...

for those of you who read my previous post, titled "i heart gap commercials", please forgive me.  wrong commercial, didn't double check.  

for the record, i do not love flo rida. at all.

the rest of our holiday card

on eco-white 5x5 square folded cards from paper source

wrapped in a square red envelope also from paper source

addressed in silver pen

exploring...

mom, how to do i get on top of this thing???

the true definition of a cankle:

ankle:   /ang-kel/   : noun : the joint connecting the foot with the leg.

calf:  /kaf/  : noun : the fleshy part at the back of a person's leg below the knee.

cankle:  /cang-kel/ : noun : the instance in which the two above listed parts

do not exist separate from the other, see below example

man, i love these legs.

i heart gap commercials

it's official.

bryan is done.  finito. for the next ten years, he doesn't have to think about another test.  let me back up a few years.  13 to be exact-ish...  he started college knowing he wanted to be a doctor, because of his anatomy teacher in high school, mr. lamb.  someone he respected so much, he was a guest at our wedding. he's even in our official album we got from the photographer because they goofed on which one we wanted in there.. oops.  bryan went to k-state for his undergrad, and ended up with more money at the end than at the beginning.  who does that? seriously.  he also studied for his m-cat in a comfy chair in loose park in the sun.  not in some classroom learning strategies, in a park!  let's hope these little babes get half his brains, they'll be fine... :) unfortunately, k-state didn't have medical school, or he would have gone there and wouldn't have ever had to admit to anyone that he became a jayhawk for four years of his life.  shh, don't tell.  k-state, however, does animals better than they do humans, so he came to the big city for med school.  at first, he thought he wanted to do orthopedic surgery... then he realized orthopods don't have lives.  i'm especially grateful for this revelation.  switched his focus to emergency medicine.  for those of you who've met bryan, this could not have been a better fit.  he's the most laid-back person i have and will ever meet, so go with the flow it sometimes drives me nuts.  but definitely a good yin to my yang...  in the course of med school, he took two of four board exams.  on march 17, 2003, we learned he'd matched at UCSF fresno.  one of the top emergency medicine programs in the country.  and i've heard would be the top if it weren't in fresno.  it was the best training you can get to be a good ER doc.  four years, one more written board exam.  a job in kansas city with a really great group fell into his lap (almost literally), we moved home and he started that in august of 2008.  fast forward to october 2009.  he slid in to a recently-cancelled spot (the last one - how does he do these things?) in a review course in vegas, read up on as much as he could retain, had me take him through several case studies, and took the oral board exam later in the month.   and yesterday, we got the envelope.

"congratulations dr. stork.... you are officially finished until
december 4, 2019."

what a feeling!!  i couldn't be more proud, although i never doubted he'd pass with flying colors... so so proud of you, babe.  congratulations.

our holiday card

i didn't get too crafty with our card this year (although it's still pretty sweet),
but this is the picture we'll be using...

out of the 7000 we took :)

we're gonna need a bigger boat...

or another letter... but what will we do when we have another baby??? maybe we'll have to sacrifice our letters for the children. the stocking hangers are empty at the moment because i'm working on hand-making some new stockings for all of us... sewing to be exact. i don't really sew. but i've asked for a sewing machine for christmas (which i know i'm getting because i saw santa my mom buy it) and jane has turned me onto the purl bee, which is where i got the pattern for what looks like pretty simple stockings. crossing my fingers it's not a lie...

christmastime with poppy

every year from the day after thanksgiving to christmas eve, my dad plays the piano at halls, a fancy schmancy department store on the plaza. you can find him at the bottom of the main escalators, playing and sometimes singing while shoppers pass by with their goodies... and don't worry, you don't have to wait for him to stop playing if you'd like to talk- he can do both at the same time. i know, so cool. it's the perfect time of day for us to visit, so i decided to take the babes down to hear him play. it's the first really cold day of the winter, and i just bought their coats. naturally, i want them to last all winter. needless to say, they're a tad big. :)

jingle bells...

so much to look at

mom, seriously, will you at least take this off while we're inside???!?

my studio!

if you can call it that. yes, you can. it's a work in progress, but when we moved in a little over a year ago, it was a guest bedroom. it was nice, our old bed became the guest bed, while we moved on to bigger (for my laarrge belly) and better things : a king-size bed! how did we ever sleep in a queen-sized bed comfortably?? i know, it can be done, and it was for almost 4 years, but it is definitely luxurious to be in a king.. i digress. a few months ago, i realized this room had only been used a couple of times. meanwhile, our "office" housed our computer desk, my work table, bookshelves, paper cutter, printer, etcera, etcera, etcera... the logical choice was made, and bam!, four or five months later, it is my studio. yay!! my workspace, my place where i can be by myself. as of right now, i'm not in there a lot, partly because i'm used to using other areas of the house for my projects- i'm a very visual person who needs to have everything spread out in front of her to be able to function... organized chaos, maybe? also because there's kind of been a lull in business for the past few weeks. and i need a good work chair. just a few reasons... i'm very lucky to be able to have a whole room! just for me, and i'm very proud of it. i'm in love with the color on the wall, and i wish you could see what it actually is. it's a yummy golden yellow with a hint of mustard... that makes perfect sense, right? bryan put up some cork squares on one wall, there's a collage of the babies as newborns on one, and the other is waiting on something. maybe a big overgrown plant. nah... built-in bookshelves that are sa-weet are on the other, and this is where most of my supplies are. i'm hoping to fill the corkboard with inspiration, pictures, cut-outs from magazines, and tons of quotes. i'm a tad obsessed with quotes. so here it is. sorry for the blurriness of the pictures, i wanted to try to take them without the flash so the color was as accurate as it could be...

a comfy chair i found at a used furniture store

(no bed bugs)

the desk/shelf bryan made for our fifth anniversary

(wood is the traditional present- he's so good)

ridin' in style..

in my attempt to revive this blog, i've been downloaded pictures like mad trying to organize all the crazy ideas running around in my head... and i will admit, i forgot about a few. i will tell you that i did not want to post these (well, the one of my husband is fine, but don't even get me started on the one of me). but i had to. i had to show you these super cute bjorn covers jane sewed for us. they definitely razz up these carriers, no?

who am i kidding, no one's looking at me, right?

liam, enjoying being super-stylish...

finn, trying to be cool about how cute he looks

i'm back!

wow, it's really hard to live up to all this pressure... just kidding, there's no pressure. maybe only from myself... you know how it goes, life gets busy, a few days go by and no new blog posts, a few more days go by, and you keep telling yourself 'the last thing you posted was about halloween, you better get on the stick!', and pretty soon, it's almost a month later and you've become one of those bloggers. the ones who really want to post about a lot of things, but just can't make time for it. the ones who drool over many many blogs every day, but can't ever seem to think anything she has to say will be worth reading... well, that's the end of that. i am going to make an effort to not write this for anyone but me. it doesn't just have to be about the babies (who, in my defense, do take up a LOT of time) :), it's going to be about me, my family, my non-existent business, our life. i hope you'll forgive me for my hiatus, all of you 3 people who check on a regular basis. :) as of right now, i am back. wish me luck, as i think i'm about to enter one of the busiest times of my life: the holiday season. with almost one-year old twins. oy.

nigiri anyone?

i've never been a big halloween person. i do not like scary movies, don't like being scared, and i really think that too many people use it as an excuse to be skanky. well, i think i'm comin' around... obviously, we participated this year- and had a blast! of course, there's not much to do with 10-month olds who can't seem to understand why this darn pillow is velcro'ed to their backs! but we took a trip up to the hospital to see bryan's co-workers and then down to our little outdoor shopping center for some "trick-or-treating". made me so excited for the years to come, when they know what's going on...

my sister found this idea in parents magazine and as someone who wanted to go all out with hand-making costumes, also someone who doesn't really know how to sew, this was a perfect alternative. so easy, and so so yummy. wish i had gotten more pictures, particularly of liam, but he's a pretty active fishy.

salmon with a side of wasabi

yummy nigiri :)

fatty tuna with ginger

(who you callin' fatty?)

10 months

our little guys are ten months old... in two! months, they will be one year old. maybe if i say it every day until then, i will actually comprehend the idea that they have already been here for one year! how long we waited for them, and how quickly time has flown since then... in the last month, we have made much advancement in the area of food. we've graduated from the beaba and started eating big-kid food! scrambled eggs, potato soup, yogurt (that one isn't really that big of a deal), and even tofu! i've been told "not to pass on my dislike of certain foods to my children", so i'm trying with that one... finn's still having a hard time with textures, but he's getting better. liam pretty much opens his mouth for everything, and just waits until it's in to figure out if he doesn't like it or not... it usually stays in, thank goodness. we've also introduced sippy cups, which we're still getting the hang of. liam is cruising everything, and is not ever interested in sitting, is always exploring or climbing. finn started army-crawling a couple of weeks ago, and loves that he can finally move like his brother- and his drool hasn't slowed down, so it's nice that he spreads that all around... :) they love laughing at each other, and i think their secret language has already begun. adorable.

liam

finn

oh fresno, how i do not love thee...

but how i love the people living there...

all of you have heard me growl about fresno- of all the places in california to live, this would not be one i would choose. often referred to as the "armpit" of the golden state, i really didn't ever warm up to the city. however, i had no problem finding friends that i will probably have for my whole life. there were many reasons we were supposed to go to fresno- it was one of those life lessons you learn after the fact, after you've groused and moaned and complained like a 4 year-old about it... it's where bryan needed to be to get probably some of the best training an emergency room doc can get in the country, and it's where i needed to be to get the support i needed through my roller coaster ride with infertility. i had 3 very good friends in fresno who helped in more ways than i will ever be able to remember. one of those friends has moved on to cleaner air and more space, but two are still in fresno. and last week, one of them had a baby! little samantha claire james was born on friday, october 16th, and i surprised melanie by showing up!!! the stars aligned with bryan's schedule, and with a little help from his family and mine, he was able to take care of the boys for an extended weekend, so i could have a little trip out to visit. i was so happy to see her, meet little sam, and catch up with my girls. tiff and dan were gracious enough to let me sleep on their couch (thanks again!!), and i got some much-needed triplet time in.. and soph, of course! although i didn't take nearly enough pictures, here are a few... i miss all of you already!!!

little samantha claire

princess sophie, with her new earrings

(did i mention she turned 2! and tiff had a party?) so fun :)

my little lily

why did i not get more pictures of this little bundle?

my favorite triplets, ready for a big soccer game

lily ~ kate ~ luke

i still have cold feet.

back in march of 2008, i entered the blog world. i blogged about infertility. i had a journal through high school, college, and nursing school, but it kind of stopped when i got married. i don't know why, maybe it was a time thing, maybe i didn't have anything to say. when trying to have a baby became so overwhelming that all of my emotions were running wild and wonky, i decided to give blogging a try. i didn't make it available for anyone else to read except for my husband and best friend, just because i wasn't ready to be so out there. i found that typing was so much faster than writing, and that i could get all that i wanted to say out before i got tired of waiting for my hand to catch up with my brain. it was extremely therapeutic, and i still think it was a huge instrument in being able to let it be, which then enabled me to leave it up to someone else. shoulda done that in the first place! so...

what does this all have to do with cold feet?

well, i have polycystic ovarian syndrome. the reason for the delay of the babies. if you want to hear all about it, you can read my other blog. i have cold feet. which, according to my acupuncturist, means i have low kidney energy (chi, prounounced chee) which is all tied in with my ovaries and uterus. well, once i got pregnant, i said that i was all done with all the problems of infertility, that i wasn't going to go through all of that again. i was basing this on knowing that my dad's mom had had trouble getting pregnant with him, but then none with her following two sons. she probably had PCOS. it just wasn't the hip and trendy diagnosis it is today, it actually wasn't even around... so i was going to be one of those people that tried forever to get pregnant, but then once i got pregnant, my body would get knocked into normalcy and someday, waaayyy down the line, i would be surprised to find myself pregnant. i'm hoping that my body is just taking its own sweet time because, i realized the other day, i still have cold feet.

here's to hoping my ovaries work anyway...

a conversation interrupted...

the first of many, i'm sure : )

happy 9 months to my little animals

is it me or did i just post their happy 8 months? i guess you hear all the time that they grow so fast, but i am experiencing it first hand. and i also think that because their first few months at home druuuggg on and i thought they would never become anything but newborns who never let us get more than 2 hours of sleep at a time, now the time flies by even faster. they're sitting up (finn) and crawling all over the place (liam), eating things even i don't (salmon), and becoming little people. just to clarify, the salmon is part of a recipe that also contains cheddar cheese, orange juice, and a sweet potato. oh, and butter and milk. so it really isn't that bad... they're not really so much into the finger food, they'd rather me just put the cheerios in their mouths. they love to bang on the table and bounce in their bouncer. and just recently, liam has started showing interest in climbing the stairs... watch out world. they make each other laugh, climb all over the other, and think it's funny when their eyes are gouged out by brother. they love going on runs with their daddy, which i really appreciate because it gives me time to blog, have an uninterrupted phone convo about grey's anatomy, actually blow-dry my hair, or just be. these babies really are such a joy.

finn

liam

totally sacked out after a long run

such a big boy

i don't even know how this happens...

peace out!

typical liam- curious about everything

our first fat lip (and i'm sure, not our last)

my baby boys

happy fish face friday!

and yes, we do realize this bib makes him look a tad

like a circus dog...

baby noah

these were the birth announcements i made for one of my best friends and her new little one, noah. kari wasn't too specific about what she wanted, she just knew she wanted it to say somewhere "the best things come in small packages". so with the help of my friends at paper source, i used the square petal envelopes in bluebell, mounted his darling little serious face on white cardstock, and used a white sticker with the quote to seal it all together. hand-addressed and stamped them - signed, sealed, delivered! bear with me on the amateur photos, i'm still learning... : )