the pumpkin patch

note: this mother (despite many of her friends telling her she should totally be matching her twin boys) does not endorse complete head-to-toe matching of twins, children, parents and children (this is just creepy), etc.  however, when two said boys make such a mess at lunch that this mother must change them before heading to the pumpkin patch, and she grabs whatever is nearest, and it happens to be the same outfit, she just has to deal with it.  who cares what they're wearing, anyway?? serious cuteness.

we headed to the louisburg cider mill and didn't want to pay for the actual pumpkin patch, so we played with all of the diseased reject pumpkins by the store.  this is where we wanted to be anyway -- as close to where they make the donuts as possible.  holy moly, those are gooooood.  bryan had to work, so molly and zach came to help me wrangle the boys.  (see cute picture #2)  

 mowwy and YA! (molly and zach)

yes, his face looks a little... odd.  i may have gone overboard with the blemish tool.

just trying to fix the allergy-related bags under his eyes :(

we are officially 22 months (a few days shy in these pictures) now...  number 2 birthday right around the corner!!

is there anything more beautiful?

hi.  i'm lily. and i love butter.  (hi, lily)

one of my best friends came to stay for a few days this week, and she brought along her little bear, noah.  he's about 6 months younger than the guys, so naturally, the bulk of our conversation is about all the little men in our lives.  (every once in awhile -- not often -- i long for the days of my two loud roommates getting ready for work at 5:30 in the morning while this night shift girl tried so hard to tell them nicely to shut the hell up!!)  i digress.  food is a huge part of our lives, and we got into a "discussion" about butter vs. margarine.  obviously, you can probably guess how it played out, so there's no need to explain further.  as i was downloading pictures from a pumpkin patch (they'll come once the camera and computer remember how to get along), i re-discovered these pictures of some cookies i made about a week ago.  i'm no foodie blogger, although i love tastespotting, but sometimes the situation arises and i can't help myself.  this time, it was butter.  i had to melt it, and i liked the way all the neat little cubes ended up in the bowl.  (i know, i have a problem)  if you care enough to leave a comment, i can remember the recipe and maybe even share it - these were chewy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies - 

with real butter.

photo op

an impromptu visit to omaha last weekend took us to the zoo...  my bf and her bf were in town for a wedding and we got to see them for not long enough.  the zoo was the perfect place to meet - for the boys and her brother, who really needs to be a zoologist or marine biologist or something that puts him in the zoo every single day.  he was better than the zoo guides.  so cute.

we saw so many different animals, but i think these two might have been my favorite.  i'm a sucker for the babies- this siberian tiger cub was only 3 months old and he (or she?) climbed up to give us all the perfect photo op- we couldn't tear ourselves away... until the boys made us.  seriously, how adorable is this?

1:42:28

if i had approximately an hour and half of free time, to do whatever i wanted, i would:

- make a yellow butter cake with chocolate frosting
- watch 500 days of summer (seriously, loved this movie)
- attempt to read a book that will be good for my brain, but end up turning on senseless TV instead
- drive very slowly to get a pedicure
- go to a zumba class (something everyone should try)
- practice turning my handwriting into calligraphy
- think of ideas for christmas cards
- think of ideas for the boys' birthday party (these go hand in hand, unfortunately)
- attempt to read that book again, but end up falling asleep

if i had one hour, forty-two minutes, and twenty-eight seconds, to do whatever i wanted, i would not:

- run a half-marathon after only deciding a couple months ago that i would do it

- smile while doing it!

apparently, bryan would. nice work, babe.

oh, liam...

if there is something to get into, my guys will find it.  a few weeks ago, finn made his way into the bathroom of the gym's childcare and fell into the toilet, luckily bum first.  (not a laughing matter, a lock has since been put on the door)  today, i go to pick them up and this is what i find.

our gym got a lot of water damage (we weren't the only ones) and have been working on the main area for about a month.  it happens to be right next to the childcare, so i guess a floor drain that had carpet over it backed up.  naturally, liam finds it and starts playing.  i guess it was my fault for not having a clean change of clothes in the diaper bag, and i paid for it by getting strange looks from passersby on our way out: what, one kid gets pants and the other one doesn't? wow, what a mom!  

i'm just glad it wasn't 30 degrees outside.

chunky monkey

i'm always referring to babies as little ones...  well, i can't quite seem to be able to put that label on this guy.  when i was working as a nurse, i used to say that fat babies were the best! they seriously are, and although fletcher weighed almost a pound more than my two combined!, there is no doubt he's as adorable as the rest of them.  welcome to the world, fletcher!

someone get some mascara on that girl!

so sorry to have left you hanging in suspense about my hair... although it's still a tad wet-ish (because i don't actually have to DO IT!!!), this is basically what it looks like.  there are a few unruly hairs who do their own thing around my temples, but i've come to embrace them and not try to blow dry them out or flat-iron them.  as if that would actually work.  i think i'm a short-haired person at heart, and like my mom said, it was only a matter of time until i had it again.  i am completely in love with it, and hope that i don't get tired of it too quickly.

this is the best i could do for before: christmas 2009

(loving the look on finn's face, by the way)

i'm blaming the mustard walls of my office on the fact that i'm sooo washed out.

really, i'm just that washed out...

i think i can, i think i can...

so it turns out i didn't really need to be giving myself any sort of pep talk or psyching myself out to make these, they were kind of a piece of cake.  just a little bit, i wish i would have found a pattern that didn't really end up looking like pajama pants.  but they needed to be easy enough that i didn't give up halfway through and end up buying $40 or $50 pants (x2) when all i spent on these was a mere $10!  i think that might have been a run-on...  

i used a pattern from oliver + s (which, add it to the list, is another reason i need to have a girl someday), and i was freaked out because the top that comes with these pants is really involved.  turns out the pants are not. at all.  i did these in a couple of hours, so i'm sure an expert could bang them out over breakfast.  my apologies for the crappy photo, and i will eventually have some on the models.  in the sand.  with no shoes on... i can hardly wait!

sneak peek

super chic invitations i'm working on...  can i call them chic if i designed them?

rugrat.

a new piece of art

so excited to have purchased our first "commissioned" piece of art.  we fell in love with it at the prairie village art fair a few months ago, and saved up to have them do a custom piece for the space above our fireplace.  she delivered (and helped install) it a couple of weeks ago and we love it.  it's handmade paper that's molded over river rocks, then sprayed with handmade dyes.  although it's so cheesy, it's the perfect combination of bryan and me.  paper + nature = awwwww. (vomit)
                                         

hair dilemma

i'm getting my hair cut tomorrow.  this usually isn't such a big deal to normal people, but i don't think i've ever gone two consecutive times and gotten the same cut.  ever.  unless i'm growing it out, which you'll find out shortly i'm no good at.  i think because i have a color that i've been told countless times is exactly what someone's been trying to get out of a bottle for 20 years, i've never colored it, so i get antsy for change in the cut.  for the first time in my life since high school, my hair is the longest it's been.  and it's really not that long.  chock it up to having no time and needing to be able to get it out of my face easily.  i've had short hair (i mean so short i had a derogatory nickname that rhymed with spike- awful), and it was SO easy, which is why i'm tempted to go there again.  not to the name-calling, but the less than five minutes hair-do.  but there's this wedding.  in a little less than a month.  and i always felt like i couldn't rock the short hair while trying to dress up... probably completely irrational, but how i felt, nonetheless.  however, i'm not in the wedding, so it's not like i need an up-do.  help!  i have a few pictures to take tomorrow - weigh in, will you?

this, but maybe not so messy...

oh and yes, i always have this look on my face. 

 kind of the same, but shorter

might end up looking kind of funky if i don't have the right texture

like mother, like son... i guess

you know those stories parents tell, the ones that always have you rolling your eyes, denying it ever happened?  well, i don't deny this happened, because i know myself, but i still roll my eyes.  to start, i should say i have never claimed to be the outdoorsy type, i don't mind camping as long as there's a shower every day (i know), i had a near death experience in the grand canyon, i could go on and on.  it's part all of that / part lazy, i'll admit.  

when i was 5 or so, we had just moved from new york to the farm in kansas, and we had lots of land to explore.  62 acres, to be exact.  so one day, we were on a looooooong walk, and i got tired.  we were still pretty far from the house,  so i asked dad if he'd carry me.  i was 5, and i guess he didn't feel like it.  or maybe he did for awhile, but then got tired of it.  well, i wasn't going to walk anymore, and that was final.  i sat down in the middle of the meadow and said unless someone carries me home, i'm not moving.  i was shocked when everyone just kept on going!  and anyone who knows my parents aren't surprised at the fact that they didn't wait for me to get over myself.  i don't know exactly how the story ends, but i'm pretty sure it went something like - i waited until i was entirely sure they were not coming back for me, then sulked my way up to the house.  

although this didn't go exactly like that, i saw a bit of similarity in this picture i took of liam on our walk yesterday in the park. 

if you click on the picture to make it big,

you can really see the look on his face. so disgusted...