Might as well put the third one on here, too. Also very cool.

Here's another cool one, I didn't cry, but it's pretty cool.

Warning, this will make you cry.

what's goin' on in the hiz-ouse.

Some of these pictures are a month or two old, but come on...like you care. Cute is cute, even if it's outdated by a month or so.

Here's Reid after breakfast one morning and he got out a little clementine cutie, one at a time, and counted them. It was really sweet.

Dane at breakfast making spit bubbles.
Erik with our boys, seriously, could they all be any sweeter? No, I don't think it's possible. It's easy to see where the boys get their good looks from. I hope that someday one of our kids will hit the jackpot and get Erik's blue eyes.

At this point Alec still had one goopy eye, but they are both clear now. He's had issues with both of his eyes and blocked tear duct drainage systems, or something like that. He was going to have to have a small operation where they put him under anesthetic and just kind of pop out the blockage, but luckily both tear ducts opened on their own.
This is what it looks like after bathtime. Pure crazy. Limbs flying around and naked babies trying to get free and then running around while we're trying to lotion them up and get diapers and pajamas on them. It's like the most stressful 5 minutes ever.
Reid's joy in life: making new combinations of Mr. Potato Head. He does it all the time and comes up to me with a new creation, and he's always so excited and proud. It's adorable.
Most mornings the boys all get to play outside and just goof around for a while. Sometimes it's a little chilly, so they have to wear coats and hats, but it's getting warmer.
Some indoor play. Here's Dane after one of their favorite scores, finding Dad's motorcycle vest.
Big smile from Alec.
Another appearance from Mr. Duck. He's still so into Mr. Duck.
The huz had a birthday two weeks ago and turned 34. I say, 34 never looked so good. He got some more camping equipment for the many campouts he has planned with the scouts, some handsome new dress slacks, new cologne (that one may be more for me...) and lots of slobbery kisses. From the boys, of course.

Here's Erik with his cake, a Martha masterpiece.
Reid can't wait for some cake! I used this cake recipe and this frosting. It was intense, but very good. Next time Erik requests a chocolate cake, I think I'll try a different cake but stick with the same frosting. The frosting was dense, glossy, and heavenly. Of course it was, the two ingredients are cream and chocolate chips. 4 cups of cream! Crazy.

There were three layers and it was seriously huge. Ever since I was a kid and watched Pollyanna, I've always wanted to make a huge layer cake. It fulfilled a deep-rooted childhood Disney fantasy. Speaking of, Reid needs to see Pollyanna. He's seen the Parent Trap and Summer Magic, so he NEEDS to see Pollyanna.
Here are the boys enjoying a movie together. They love sitting here, each with a blanket, staring right into the TV. They last for about 8 minutes that way and then run around the room playing while the movie just kind of happens in the background.
Remember my spending hiatus? It's going pretty well, except for maybe my new obsession with Liberty Tana Lawn fabrics. Well, the obsession is not new, but the flood gate finally burst and I've been snatching up some fabrics on ebay. This is one collection of 6" charm squares that I didn't win, but wished I paid more attention to it and had won it. Look at that triangle pennant print in the bottom left! Perfection!
I did, however, pick up a little more than a yard of this gorgeous print, "Betsy" in green. This is probably my favorite, and will maybe end up as a dress someday. For my someday baby girl. I just hope she doesn't puke as much as Alec and Dane did/do, because puke doesn't belong on Liberty Tana Lawn. True business.
Lastly, have you seen this couch at Anthropologie? Like I would ever spend that on a couch, but come on, it's so beautiful! I can't even stand it. And imagine how lovely in a living room with our black piano and with my someday/dream house white glossy floors...

Then again, Alec puked all over our couch in the living room last night, and baby puke on a couch this lovely would cause me to cry for a full fifteen minutes...

So, I'll just keep this in my dream house file in my brain grapes.

sea monsters and candy hot air balloons.

A few weeks ago we took a mini family vacation to Monterey. One of the memorable experiences was Alec and Dane screaming in their pack 'n plays for about 2 hours both nights. It was excruciating. At home we pretty much plop them into their beds and say sayanora until 5:45 when the wake up. Not so much in a hotel in Monterey, apparently.

But another memorable experience, in a good way, was visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was fantastic, and while Reid didn't seem to be taking much in at the time, he's still talking about it. Like 4 weeks later.

One of my favorite parts was the Kelp Forest. It was really hypnotic to watch all this kelp float and sway while weird sea creatures swam around.

But my very favorite part, was the exhibit "Secret Lives of Seahorses." Seahorses are pretty cool little guys, and they had baby ones that were seriously the size of a parentheses.

But then, there was this cah-RAZY thing called a Leafy Sea Dragon, and it is the wackiest thing that I've ever seen in my entire life. I still can't believe that this is real. Sometimes nature is just too weird to be made up, you know? I don't even think Jim Henson could have dreamt up something this weird.

Reid enjoyed all the sea animals so much that when I started talking to him about plans for a birthday party, he informed me that he wants a shark party.

I'm like, "a shark party?"

I asked Erik what we could do for a shark party, and he suggested that we print out pictures of sharks and put them around on the walls. First of all, that's exactly the kind of "decorations" that a dude would suggest. Second of all, uh...nice. I don't think that's quite the mood I want to set for my three year old's birthday party. Sharks.

I'm trying to gently steer him towards a balloon theme. Pretty much just lots and lots and lots of balloons. All kinds of balloons.

Mostly because I want to make these from Bakerella. Come on, people! They're made to look like a huge bunch of balloons like on UP!
And for invitations I could use the Stampin Up! stamp set with the little candy cups to make something cute like this.

And if Erik really wants to, I'll let him print out pictures of balloons and tape them up on the walls.

one more time for emphasis.

Okay, so Reid and I (and the babies wanted some too, of course) shared the cookie before, but now they are all down for naps and I enjoyed one all on my own.

(what a rare pleasure...no little birds squawking at my knees for pieces of my food)

I think I need to express my undying love for this new cookie recipe, in case the last post wasn't convincing enough. It probably wasn't, because I had only experienced a quarter of a cookie's worth. But now, I am an expert, and I can say after 1.25 cookies that these are the BEST chocolate chip cookies. Ever.

A hint of butterscotchiness, chewy and barely gooey throughout, and completely satisfying.

Worth your time, people.

good to the last bite.

The other day I saw this on one of my all-time favorite blogs. We're fans of chocolate chip cookies around here, but I almost always make the good ol' standard Toll House Recipe. I was interested in how America's Test Kitchen would improve what seems to be a pretty tried and true recipe.

Boy Howdy, did they improve it!

It really is a superior, chewier, fuller-flavored cookie. It's also more work. Natch. But very worth it, I say.

Reid says so, too.

Here he is enjoying his last bite while we play outside.

go here for the recipe:
America's Test Kitchen

This is for William.

I love me some Barefoot Contessa. I'm pretty much a believer of the saying, "never trust a skinny cook." I think Ina (THE Contessa) is just heavenly.

Not like that Giada chick. Ugh, she's annoying. "Gee-AHHD-tha" (My aunt Glenna does a mean impression, well...not mean like in unkind, but mean like in it's awesome. Maybe a little mean (the unkind one), but I don't mind because Giada drives me nuts.)

Anywho, Ina is the bomb dot com. (Annie, what is that from? You better know that one.) I love that she's pretentious. She's the perfect amount of pretentious. But, say for argument's sake that you don't like that about her, well then hear this...

She:

-worked her way from a low-level government aide to a White House Nuclear Policy Analyst

-got her pilot's license in her mid-20's

-earned an MBA from George Washington University

-"flipped" homes as a hobby and then used the money to purchase her specialty foods store, Barefoot Contessa

-has written about a billion cookbooks

-has been with husband Jeffrey (was the dean of the Yale School of Management) since they met when she was 15!

-has a rad cooking show

so she's basically awesome and deserves to be pretentious, I say.

Click on this link to see some favorite Ina quirks, you'll love it.

the spending hiatus.

Not to be all doom and gloom and stuff, but I truly feel like we are on the brink of financial meltdown in this country. It seriously scares me. For some frightening enlightening, check out this movie I.O.U.S.A. (if you have netflix you can watch it instantly online). It's terrifying and captivating.

What scares me is that we used to be a nation of producers, and we are now a nation of consumers. Someday, I fear, our rainy day will come and we have a string of generations that not only don't have savings, but they have serious debt. What will our Great Depression look like in a nation of citizens that don't know how do acquire something without money? What happens when money isn't worth anything?

This is the bigger reason for me to want to buy land in Washington. I have this deep, burning concern/desire/inspiration to learn how to be more self-sufficient. I want to be able to take care of myself and my family. I want to buy land, in a place where things grow, and learn how to work the land. I realize that it sounds so "Far and Away", but that's exactly what I want. I want land. Land of my own.

I want the security that comes from having water from my well, food from my garden, milk from my cows, eggs from my chickens, etc. I want to know that if this monstrous government (and growing bigger by the day) fails me in a huge way, that I can take care of my family. That's what is concerning to me, that during the Great Depression, people knew how to get by with less. With next to nothing, actually. Our generation doesn't know how to do that. That's scary.

Erik and I have never been huge consumers, but there's definitely room for improvement. But more than reducing consumption, I want to shape how our family views things, how we see our needs and wants, and how to "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."

Hence the spending hiatus. I like a blog called Simple Lovely, and she's done what she calls a spending hiatus a few times (click here to read all her posts about that) and I've always been interested in the idea. More than the outcome, I've been interested in her purpose and what she wanted to achieve.

Joslyn outlined her goals, and the one that really struck me was,

"We’ll spend even more time ingraining in our girls the value of things, how lucky we are and how quickly life can change…how to adapt."

That's exactly the goal. To really understand how lucky (blessed, really) we are and to learn to not take it for granted.

Stay tuned for how this spending hiatus plays out, what tempts me to buy it, and what I don't really miss.

this is the life.

I don't know how she does it, but somehow Kelly McCaleb knows exactly what my daydreams look like. Her tumblr is the most amazing collection of photos that all convey this feeling of warm, homey goodness. This is exactly the life I want to build for my family. A simple, uncluttered home and a simple, uncluttered life.

A life full of grass, sweaters, white walls with bits of color, fresh air, imperfect hair, comfy clothes and comfy couches and family togetherness.

So in case you're wondering what my dreams look like, this is it.

photos from +++++++++

If the soda thing doesn't work out...

then I'm going to open a frozen yogurt place EXACTLY like this one. I've never been there, of course, because it's in Berlin. But isn't it perfect? Clean, modern, streamlined.

I think this should be an and instead of an or. I'll open a frozen yogurt place AND have the soda business.

Now I'm thinking.

Check it out.

found on Black Eiffel

my plan for the future.

I put a link to this in a post a while back, but I think it's awesome enough to make a bigger deal of it, so I just embedded it. Heck yes I did. I embedded it, I'm all blogger awesome like that.

I don't remember how, but I came across this video and I'm a bit obsessed with it. I think this guy has found the American Dream. A small business doing just what you want, and it's fun!

For years now I've had the dream of when Erik retires from his current job in 12 years or so, that we'll own a family business. When I saw this, it clicked...

we're going to bottle our own soda, and it's going to be awesome.

It's going to be so rad. I want to make organic fruit soda. The only way I know how to describe it is like this. You know how real lemonade looks like actual lemons made it? And how Country Time Lemonade looks like a robot made it? I want a fruit soda where you can see that there is actual fruit in there. Not like chunks, but real fruit, just like real lemonade. Do you see what I mean? When this guy shows the "Hot Lips" soda, I think that's pretty close to what I'd want to do, except awesomer. This is my long term business goal, I mentioned a short term business goal that I'll discuss in a separate post someday.

Check out the video and then read about the rest of the dream.

Okay, so here's the dream fleshed out.

As of now, I think I'd like our family to settle in the Pacific Northwest. I've always had a romantic notion of the area, plus I'm kind of stalking my friend Jill who lives there. I want to settle somewhere where we can have a small family farm, some chickens and maybe a cow and pig or two. I want to live where things grow. Jill lives in a lovely part of Washington, and it's kind of become the location of my daydreamy plans for the future. A rural part of Washington, where I can have a bit of land, and make things grow. Sounds like heaven.

So, when we build the bottling plant and as our soda company takes off, we're going to need some help. Don't worry, I have that all figured out:

The O'Neils - Jeremy, you'll be the completely overqualified CFO. You can take care of all things financial/legal/private jets. Hey, someday we may need a company jet, you never know.

The Crandells - Jonathan, you'll be the Facilities Manager. Our bottling plant will be your baby and I know you'll take amazing care of her.

The Olsens - Zach, you'll be in charge of the sales team and everything computery. Marketing, company website...you'll put us on the map! Nick, you'll be our shipping and logistics genius. We'll have tons of orders, and you'll get them to the right place. Errol, you'll be our insurance guy, you'll keep us protected. And we're so lucky to have Brent, our ace in the hole. Brent will bring with him his decades of experience in food science and production.

The Hornbys - What's up Mark! I don't even know you, but you'll be our produce source guy. You'll make sure that we're getting the best fruit the pacific northwest has to offer, and ideally...we could just buy the fruit from your farm!

How does that sound? If you're in, then just wait 15 years or so and you're hired!

I've had this whole scheme floating around in my head for a few months, and it's gotten a little out of hand. I now imagine all of us living on a big piece of land, with our homes all nearby, and maybe a common gathering place and a common farm that we all work on. Then, I realized that it kind of sounded like the movie "The Village." Not good. Is the word "commune" ever not creepy? I like the idea of a group of people with common ideals all combining their efforts for a common good, but throughout history I can't really think of too many time when that didn't spell out creepy/swinger/Village-y/babies crawling in the dirt naked National Geographic style/disaster. Do you know what I mean?

Can I just say that I want us to establish a non-creepy commune?

Deal.

First things first.

I have a new bright idea. All in the hope that this silly blog can recover from its lack of awesomeness. First of all, the post the other day about fresh & easy and stuff, I started it as a draft back in January, but just posted it a few days ago. But it posts it as the date I started it, and I don't know how to fix that. So, sorry for that confusion.

Also, I did promise weekly posts, or something like that. But then Erik left for Texas for a month, and that good intention died a quick and painless death. He gets home tomorrow night and I can't tell you how nice it well be for us to be a complete family again.

Here's the bright idea:

shorter, more frequent posts!

It's genius!

I don't know why, but when I blog I usually try to tell you as many things as possible and show as many pictures as possible before I run out of steam. So dumb.

So, I'll finally get this blog whipped into shape and make it more fun to read and definitely more fun for me to write.

But, since I realize that you care more about pictures of my cute boys than you do about my thoughts about fabric lines...

Here goes...

this is what a typical morning looks like for us. In the family room/playroom we have a lot of items that aren't really toys, but the boys love playing with them, so they stay in the playroom. My swim cap is one of them. They all think it's so funny and I love it. And, as you can see, both babies are walking (more like running) machines. That's Dane with the cap on.

This is the classic morning scene. Babies stripped of clothes because they've smeared banana on themselves and puked down their shirts. The vacuum (barely visible in the bottom right corner) out to vacuum up the many stray Cheerios, Reid still sitting at the table (that's him in the top right corner) because he takes like an hour and a half to eat (seriously), and on the floor by Reid's chair is Patches, the zhu zhu pet that Uncle Brian and Aunt Stamatia sent the boys. At any given moment, one of them is playing with him.

On a different day, Reid was playing with the swim cap. I had music on (because dancing is Reid's joy in life) and Reid came out to dance looking like this. I love how his pajama pants are just barely hanging on.
Here's a quilt I finished (with some serious help from my mom) lately. This is honestly the one and only craft ANYTHING that I have accomplished since the babies joined our family. I'm happy that it's completed and already sent off to its adorable owner.
Oh, and the boys love playing in their chipmunk Halloween costumes.
Here is our recent front landscaping. When Erik's parents were here for Christmas, Erik and his dad built the retaining wall and planted that gorgeous palm and all of the other plants. They've filled out quite a bit in the last month (since we had like 2 weeks of straight rain) and I love how things look. In a month or so, we're going to plan some bougainvillea at the edge of the wall, on either side of the little bay window. The guy at the nursery told us to wait until March when the frost is over, and I'm so excited for some more color and viney loveliness growing up the house.
Here are a bunch of pictures of the boys playing. They seriously play ALL...DAY...LONG. It's so fun to see them having fun together and growing together as friends.
Check out Alec's face in this one. Click on it to make it bigger so you can get the full effect.
Reid loves playing this card game with Erik. Dana gave this to Erik for Christmas, and Reid just giggles the whole time as we play.
This is silly, but one morning when I was at the kitchen window washing dishes, I looked out and saw this pretty sunrise reflected off the van and I just loved it. The silhouette of the palm tree and the colors of the sunset just look so California to me.
Here's another favorite non-toy toy.Reid is "helping" Erik install a sprinkler system.
Our cuties enjoying a bath. The babies used to HATE baths. They would scream the whole time and we would just go as fast as possible, and then as soon as we pulled them out they would stop screaming. As soon as they turned one they all of a sudden loved baths. It was honestly the day of their birthday. They had pizza and cupcakes and were super messy, so we plopped them all into the tub expecting to have to go bananas fast like usual, but for some reason, that day, the babies were giggling and playing and splashing and having a great time. Now, it's impossible to give just one of our boys a bath because the other two won't stand for it. They love baths together.
And there's our picture roundup. Okay, so this post was really long, but for the most part I'm going to try more frequent, shorter posts. We'll see how that goes. Remember when I tried the confessions thing like my (pretend) friend Sarah Champion? Yeah, that didn't last very long.