Yet again, I’m stealing a post idea from nbjenni. Thanks, lady!

I get a lot of visitors to this blog, and y’all know a lot about me, but do I know you? So this is easy…answer these questions in the comments.

1. Who are you?
2. How did you find my blog?
3. What do you like most on my blog?
4. What would you like me to blog more (or less) about?
5. A totally random fact about yourself!

Do you remember, back in May, when I asked for thoughts and prayers for my friend A’s husband, who was very very very ill? Like, didn’t think he was going to live, ill?

I’m so very very happy to share this story. I’m sitting here at my desk with happy tears rolling down my face.

An excerpt from the story…

Murphy, who’s led the team in the Ritz kitchen for the past six years, had contracted a very rare bacterial infection.  The infection led to toxic shock syndrome, which took control of his organs and destroyed the tissue in his body. Matt was, to put it bluntly, on death’s door, because of a simple fall.

“It was crazy.  I thought I had been abducted by UFOs at the first part of it because I couldn’t remember anything. I just totally blacked out,” he said.

“I thought I was going to get a Band-Aid for my knee or an injection to stop the swelling.  It was mind-boggling.”

Murphy spent two months in intensive care and had 16 surgeries, including skin grafts on his legs and arms.   He lost 40 pounds. Just a few weeks ago, it was all he could do to sit up in bed for a couple of hours.  Now he’s walking stairs.

Go read the rest of the story and don’t blame me if you end up crying into your keyboard. You’ve been warned. (Oh yeah, and watching it will make it 10x worse, so maybe if you’re around other people, just read.)

And here’s a random picture of all ten of the babies born between Dec 4-6, 2007, with their three daddies. (Because you know I hate a post without pictures.) I just realized this picture was almost exactly one year ago! August 17, 2008.

This is fun….

1. A huge house. One story. With at least five bedrooms. No, make that six. One for each boy, one for us, and a few guest rooms. A big old playroom. A nice, gourmet kitchen with a living room right off of it. A windowless room for George, of course. And a big, huge garage with tons of storage space.

That’s not too much to ask, is it? Hmmm….

Unfortunately, the only one in our neighborhood that fits the bill (kinda) and is in our price range looks like this:

Hmm. I had something more like this in mind…

(It’s okay that it’s two-story…it has an elevator.)

Anyone have a spare $6 million I can borrow? I’ll pay you back, promise.

2. A slew of housekeepers, of course. That 14,000 sq ft house won’t be easy to keep clean!

3. A private jet so I can visit friends, and send it to bring them to me, too.

4. Okay, this post is getting out of hand. Let’s be a little more realistic, shall we? How about one of these:

(I mean, if I’m going to wish for a suitcase, it may as well be a $550 one, right?)

5.  How about three of these outfits for the boys? Dude. So cute. My little college professors.

I know, I don’t often dress them alike, but if I had three of these outfits, I would. And considering each set is $185, down to the little herringbone cap, I think I’d have to. To get the maximum impact. (Wow, I just realized that it’d be $555 to get three sets. Same as the fancy suitcase. I think I’ll stick to the $30 suitcases and the $10 outfits for the boys, eh?)

Now, go forth and post on your own blog! (Click on the Wish List Wednesday graphic to get more details…)

Just a little thing that I don’t want to forget…

Yesterday afternoon, I was walking to the back of the boys’ school where they were playing. Oliver spotted me and started running down the hallway, arms outstretched, yelling “Mamaaaaa!!!!” delightedly.

Suddenly he stopped, turned around, ran back to where everyone else was, and said, “bye bye!” and waved. Then he ran right back to me and practically dove into my arms.

Melt.

Well, that was a fun weekend!

Saturday, I took the boys to my friend Stephanie’s house, where we played with her triplets. Her triplets were born two days after mine, so it was fun to get them together like that. We don’t do it nearly often enough!

Here’s a cute picture of all six kids…mesmerized by Yo Gabba Gabba, of course. (Steph’s kids had never seen it before. My boys are like YGG pushers…getting other kids hooked on it…”c’mon, one episode won’t hurt…you can walk away any time…”)

After we left Stephanie’s house in a flurry of Froot Loops, we headed across the lake to spend the night at Ren’s house. She was kid-less for the weekend, so clearly she deserves a sainthood for actually wanting to spend time with my kids.

We made a yummy salad for lunch….put the boys to bed…vegged in front of the TV…perfect. The next day, we decided to head to the outlet mall to get the boys (and her girls) some fall clothes. I got a bunch of long-sleeved t-shirts and some pants. Cute stuff.

So that’s about it, really. A generally relaxing, fun weekend. With shopping. Yeah!

In other news, my mom requested a t-shirt for bragging about her grandkids, so I designed her this. Then, since that one’s a bit specific, I designed a few more for grandparents of triplets and twins.

Kristie is pretty much one of my oldest friends around. I mean, um, she’s not the oldest, just one of the friends I’ve had the longest. We go way back – all the way to middle school. Ohhh, the stories I could tell! (Ohhh, the stories she could tell! So let’s not go there, mmmkay?)

Kristie has this high-powered job for some software company. She’s all busy and important and stuff, but she’s never lost her creative side. She’s always dabbling in something artsy. Photography, cooking, painting the walls of our college apartment eggplant purple…ooh wait, I said I wouldn’t go there, didn’t I?

Anyway, she’s now channeling that creative stuff into an etsy store and this absolutely brilliant product. Genius. I wish I’d thought of it! I’m definitely going to get one. If I were v self-important, I’d think she designed this after living with me and seeing the tangled mess that my jewelry would become (but I doubt she could even see the tangled mess of my jewelry, since it was probably hidden under other crap.)

Look at this awesome jewelry organizer. Isn’t it genius?

She showed me a prototype last time she was in town, and it’s really quite smart. The fabric is loosely woven enough to stick your earrings in. The hooks at the bottom hold your necklaces and rings. The whole thing rolls right up. Love it! And the fabrics are beautiful and fun. Go check out her Etsy shop.

I’m so proud of her and excited to see the jewelry organizer finally hitting Etsy. Yay Kristie!

PS My birthday is January 9. In case anyone was wondering.

So another picture post it is!

(Note: I am not a good photographer like some of these mamas. So please keep your standards low for the actual quality of the photos, and we can all be happy.)

Let’s start with Linus, shall we?

Concentrating v hard on getting the lid back on the drum

With Daddy at a neighborhood block party thing

With Daddy in the playroom

Crossing his arms (imitating Daddy)

And now Oliver!
He was standing close to me at the block party, so I got lots of pictures of him.

Helping Miles buckle himself into his wagon. No kidding, they’re obsessed with buckles right now. Highchair buckles, wagon buckles, carseat buckles, monkey buckles (you’ll see when we get to Miles.) At least right now they can only buckle, not un-buckle.

Unmistakably Oliver:

Oliver crossing his arms, imitating Daddy:

And now for my Milesy!
Doing the arm-cross:

Miles and the monkey on his back. Har har. But seriously, he looooves this monkey! The fact that it has buckles is a bonus. Or maybe he loves the buckles, and the fact that it’s a monkey is the bonus. Not sure.

Miles was “reading” this little board book, and there’s a picture of a toothbrush. And he’s pointing to his teeth. Genius, or what?!?!?

Miles with Linus:

Miles getting the zombie treatment from Daddy

The end!

I’m a bit sore from my aerobics class last night (okay, really it was a step class with some weights, but I like how “aerobics class” sounds. So 80s, and like I was wearing a shiny royal blue leotard, white tights and leg warmers. And high top Reeboks. But don’t worry, really I was wearing a black tank top and black pants. All baggy.) so I think this will mostly be a picture post. Because who doesn’t like to see pictures of my boys? (Don’t tell me if it’s you. I don’t want to know.)

Oliver looking v sweet and innocent yesterday. Or puzzled. Something.

Linus looking very mad. I think this may have had something to do with Yo Gabba Gabba being turned off.

Miles giggling uncontrollably at the “fishie fishie fishie”s. (That’s a mobile that hangs above where the changing table used to be, and when they were tiny, we’d dangle them in the middle of the fishies and they’d giggle and giggle. Turns out they still like it.)

Oliver looking cute in his crib.

My stripey boys.

Just cute.

I know these pictures are pretty crappy, quality-wise. I really need to pull out my DSLR more. Oh well.

Okay, perhaps I am jumping the gun a little, but I prefer to think of it as prepared. Yesterday I booked the boys’ second birthday party. Yes, four months early. For a few reasons.

1. I was thinking about it.

2. I absolutely refuse to have their birthday party at home again. Too much work. I spent a lot of time (and some money) and energy on their first birthday party, and I have hardly any decent pictures from it. I have no pictures of outside (so much for the helium balloons and the flag pennants that were strung up – I didn’t even get to see them, much less take pictures of them!) and no pictures of me and the boys. And no good pictures of the boys. It was just…too much. So I vowed that for their next birthday, it would be somewhere else. Somewhere we could just go, have fun, then leave.

Not that I am going to do nothing. Of course I’m still going to have fun with it! I already got the decoration kits (they were on clearance) so I know the theme already. It’s cute, I promise. And the invitations were in the kit, which is kind of too bad because designing the invites is my favorite part. I’ll just design fun thank you notes instead. And cupcakes. And t-shirts. And favors.

Anyway. I don’t want to give away too many details just yet (because I know a ton of 1 year olds read this blog and I want them to be surprised) but I think it’s going to be fun.

I just hope I don’t forget in the meantime. Hmm.

Just because I hate posts without pictures, here’s an outtake from the 20 month photoshoot. I love Miles’s Flashdance pose.

You crazy twin parents. I made one for you too. You win, with your easy, decadent “two kid at a time” life.

(I kid, of course.)

(Mostly.)

(Unless you have more kids, then I’m definitely kidding.)