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...