the family photos that I usually don't see

I remember last year, when the babes were around 6 months old, I made a facebook post lamenting that I've got tons and tons of photos of just the twins, and the twins with their dad, but very little of the twins with me, their mom. Hashtag photographer mom problems. I was being cheeky at the time, but every now and then, it kinda bums me out. My husband DOES take photos of me with the kids, but not very often, and usually not unless I ask him to. However, over the past year, I've been (not so subtly) encouraging him to take more photos of me with my babes, especially during candid moments where I may not even notice he's taking a photo.

Good news: he's actually been doing it! But he's not the sort of person to share a billion family photos on facebook, so, short of bogarting his phone, I don't usually see the photos he ends up taking.

So today, I sent him this text.

God bless this man. I texted him while he was at work, so I was fully prepared to not get a reply for a couple hours, but he replied and sent a bunch of photos within five minutes! So I wanted to share some of them. I'm also including a few that he took of the just the babes, because he takes some pretty funny shots sometimes (I also just wanna reminisce over how tiny they used to be!)

The day they were born! Hazel on the left, Vince on the right. Look how itty bitty they were! It still blows my mind that these nuggets were inside me for eight months. Just renting out my uterus like an extended stay AirBnB. I'm pretty sure I was off recovering from my having my abdomen sliced open while Vince took this photo. I remember telling him, "Go be with the babies. Take lots of photos."

Hazel does NOT look super stoked to be living out of her warm, weightless AirBnB. I don't blame her. We were both kind of traumatized that day. I was so relieved to not be pregnant anymore, but at the same time, my brain was going, "Holy shit holy shit holy shit they're here and it's getting real now!" I couldn't stop staring at her face though. Every feature was so damn tiny.

I totally remember this photo being taken. It was the day we brought Vince home after nine days in the NICU, and I'll be totally honest: I was pretty terrified. Up until then, we just had Hazel at home, so while things were still scary and new, it felt manageable with just one baby. Coming home with two babies though: HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS.

Only like five days old, and my husband managed to capture Hazel's first accidental "F U" to the world. I can't wait to show this to her when she's a sullen angsty teenager and be all "You're not fazing me, I was prepared for this from the minute I brought you home."

Family photo! Okay, so technically, my dad took this photo, but I still wanted to include this one. How in the world does my husband look so awake and refreshed even though we were both doing night feedings?? Oh yeah, cause he wasn't the one recovering from abdominal surgery, having to wear mesh underwear for a still-bleeding vagina, and trying to pump liquid gold out of one's breasts. But I still love this photo, bags-under-my-eyes and all. And again: look how tiny they were!

I don't remember this at all, but I'm getting a kick out of Vince's skinny legs with big 'ole feet. And that was Hazel's favorite spot for many many months, just right there on my chest. I'm also noticing right now my cute little Spanish plates and bowls on the bar cart in the background, and how I miss having them there, since I had to move them once the loinfruits became mobile. I feel like 70% of parenting is regularly asking yourself "Okay, what things in my house can now hurt and/or kill my kids?"

Aww, Vince still lookin tiny in his Bjorn chair. By the way, I love those bouncy chairs so much. The babes are still using them now at 20 months. Every morning and night, I plop them in their chairs for their milk feedings, and they're happy as can be. Also, lurking cat is lurking in the background. This is still, 20 months in, her preferred distance to the kids.

Ah, this was the day I got my husband to help me take my "34 weeks out" photo to compare to my "34 weeks in" photo (You can see the side-by-side here!) Trying to successfully hold two wriggly seven month old babies so that they're both facing the camera at the same time is super hard, you guys. And they're heavy, which is why I think I'm taking a breather in this photo. Plus side of having twins: my arms have never been stronger!

Just a stroller walk around the neighborhood. Before we got our fancy Britax double stroller, we used two separate hand-me-down single strollers from friends to take our babes for walks. Giving the twins a taste of that single-stroller life before we forced them to sit side by side. Also giving me a taste of that singleton baby life; "I only have to push one baby around? This is NICE!"

I don't remember what was happening here, but Vince probably told me I should try to hold both babies for a photo, since I rarely hold both babies at once unless I'm trying to cross a moat of lava by myself with both babies sans stroller.

I just really like Hazel's pose and expression here. I have nothing funny or meaningful to add.

My first reaction to seeing this was, "No, I can't share this, I look awful!" But then I remember every time I would look at a photo of my mom from when she was younger and I was a baby/small child, and if I showed it to her, she would usually remark that she didn't look good in that photo, and I'd always reply, "No, you look beautiful!" Because she does look beautiful to me, and still does. And I hope in the future, my kids will look at these photos of their bare-faced, tired but happy mother, and not have to convince me I looked pretty alright.

Reason #495 my husband loves bath time: he gets to play avant-garde hair stylist with the babes. I'm not even mad.

I was either about to go to my barre class, or I had just gotten back. They can always tell when I'm about to leave the house, and they either get super clingy, or just start whining. It's probably because I suddenly appear wearing different clothes and my hair's down (it's forever up in a ponytail or bun at home), or maybe they have some weird toddler sixth sense. It's probably both.

This was just taken on Mother's Day! We were at Balboa Park with some friends and their kids, and my husband wanted to get one of just me with Hazel and Vince. I had to basically chase them up the hill to get them, and, as they've proven since they both started walking, they were both going in two completely different directions. I love this photo. Whenever I see current photos of my kids, I still always think, "Are they really that big?!" Cause they don't seem that big when I'm playing with them/feeding them/putting them in their cribs day in and day out. In a way, they still feel like little babies to me. So these photos are a nice jolt of reality.

Sorry/not sorry for the overload of baby photos. But I've been wanting to do a post like this for a while. It's nice to share some images on my blog that weren't taken by me in perfect lighting, and weren't carefully edited and cropped and so forth. Because these types of photos are just as important and valuable too. At least to me.

things I've enjoyed recently

1// Last weekend, a friend invited me an essential oils blends DIY, where we made some goodies to take home, like a calming face mist, roller for sore muscles, and detox bath salts. I've been curious about essential oils for a while, so this was a fun and informative introduction to it.

2// I'm in the middle of reading Jancee Dunn's How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids, and so far, it's equal parts helpful and humorous. I love that she includes lots of of actual published data and advice from real marital counselors, but she's kind of my new hero for trying out the techniques she's learning on her own marriage. For the most part, the relationship between my husband and I is pretty solid, even post-twins, but there's definitely areas where we could improve. So this book is pretty eye-opening for me right now. (Bonus: even if you don't have kids, this book is filled with gems of relationship advice and holy-shit-that-is-so-us moments. If you live with your significant other and tend to fight a lot, you should read this!)

3// Catfight was soo good!

4// Suck it, People-Who-Think-Cats-Are-Assholes.

5// HBO's Big Little Lies was a slow burn for me, but so worth it.

6// This made me laugh!

7// My marriage recently turned 14 years old! Yay us! We went out for a much-deserved date night, and right before heading out, I asked my dear friend, who was babysitting the twins, if she would take this photo of us. I love that if you look closely, you can spot both loinfruits pressed up against the screen door, making Very Loud Noises because they wanted to be outside with us too. I'm so lucky to have these three people in my life :)

personal & family goals for 2017

There's nothing like just getting over a nasty stomach flu to make you feel refreshed and ready to take on the new year, so I wanted to write down these thoughts and goals while they're still fresh in my head. When I wrote down my goals and intentions last year, I ended up doing nearly everything on my list (yay!), so I hope I can keep it going this year as well.

1// Live more minimally. That can mean a lot of different things, but for me, it means to buy less, use less, and the things I DO buy, buy with more intention. I've already kind of started the process in the past few months. Now that California has banned plastic bags from stores, I've started bringing my own re-usable shopping bags, and it feels good not to come home with 34343 plastic bags. Honestly, I should've started doing this ages ago. I'm also trying to be conscious of how much/what kind of toys I buy for my twins. They really don't need hordes of blinking, battery-powered toys to be happy, and there's lots of items already around the house that they can easily entertain themselves with. I also want to regularly go through their clothes and toys and purge the things they've outgrown.

2// Take better care of my skin. In general, I've been pretty lucky in the genes department when it comes to my skin (thanks Mom and Dad!). But as I'm getting older, I want to be more conscious of what products I'm putting on my skin, and take more proactive steps on keeping it healthier. A few months ago when my mother-in-law was visiting, she treated me to a belated birthday outing, and we went to a local spa where I got a facial and chemical peel for the first time. It was WONDERFUL, and I truly noticed a difference in the smoothness and glowy-ness of my face over the next month. My esthetician from that day also gave a few free samples of some products from Le Mieux, which I started using regularly. But I also know what I eat and drink has a huge impact on the health of my skin, so I want to work on that this year. More water, less caffeine (ughh, that's gonna be a hard one). More fruits and veggies when I crave snacks, less processed stuff.

3//  Mix up my workouts a bit. I've been going to barre classes for close to a year now, and while I love it, and have no plans on stopping, I really want to try some other classes in between, preferably dance-related. I've recently learned about Culture Shock Dance Center here in San Diego, and they have so many great classes that I'd love to try, from burlesque to hip hop.

4// Spend better quality time and communicate better with my husband. Sure, we manage to get out for a date night every now and then, but when we're both at home, especially on the weekends, we tend to snap at each other out of tiredness and stress. Which bums us both out, and makes us feel like shitty partners. We're usually quick to apologize to each other, but when it happens several times a week, something's gotta change. I know I personally need to work on holding my tongue when he's trying to explain something (I tend to interrupt him a lot), and just be more patient with him and cut him more slack.

5// Keep shooting. Film, digital, my twins, my friends, new places, familiar places. I realized the other day that I hardly used my film cameras at all last year, and I need to remedy that. I barely touched my Instax camera last year too, which is ridiculous, since it's so small and lightweight. And as always, I'd love to keep making more personal art for myself.

*Both photos are from a recent outing to Native Poppy

personal work // 36

Today, I am 36.

While my mother was visiting last month, we had a really great conversation about aging and what it feels like getting older. We laughed, but also lamented on how tragic it feels that our bodies seem to age quicker than our minds. That the sharpness and vitality of our brains doesn't match up to the never-ending gray hairs, the age spots that have creeped over our skin, and our slowly diminishing energy.

We revealed to each other the "true age" we feel inside, despite the number of years we've been on this earth. My magic number is 28. My mind feels 28, and my body generally feels 28 until I look really closely.

I know I'm still relatively young. I hope I'm still saying that when I'm 70 years old, and my mind feels 55.

the babes are one!

Things just got really real: I don't have babies anymore. My twins are one year old, and it's been the hardest/best/eye-opening/longest/shortest year ever. It feels strange to call them toddlers, but I guess that's what they are now? They're both walking about 60% of the time, eating just about everything I offer them, and just all around happy, babbly babies. I feel so damn lucky, I could burst.

As usual when I plan parties, I got super excited with decoration ideas, but I figure you have to go big for the first birthday, right? Yes, they're too little to remember this, but that's what photos are for! So they can one day look back and see how much Pinterest influenced their mom's party ideas, ha. (I have a love/hate thing with Pinterest, but I'll save that for another day.)

Not pictured: the Korean-style tacos we served up later during the party. (beef bulgogi and spicy pork belly. yum!) My mom made the kimbap rolls and japchae noodles that are on the table. I also wanted to serve Soju-inspired cocktails, so I set it up where the guests could make their own Soju-mojitos or Korean Mules. In my book, alcohol at a kids' party is fully acceptable when you're celebrating the fact that you survived the first 12 months with twins :)

If you know me at all, you know that I love a good photo booth set up. My friends and family definitely put it to good use!

We surprised the babes with a ball pit during the party! They were a bit unsure of it at first, but soon warmed up. Plus I need an adult-sized version immediately, please.

Tiny and not-so-tiny guests :)

My Korean heritage is important to me, so I wanted to incorporate the first birthday tradition of the doljabi. It's a fun game that's supposed to help predict the child's future. Various items are laid out, and whichever item the baby chooses represents their future profession. I handed out raffle tickets so our friends could guess what Hazel and Vincent would choose.

But first, we had to get the twins dressed in traditional Korean hanboks, and according to this photo, it takes approximately four people to dress a wriggly child into a multi-layered garment. Hazel wore the same hanbok that I wore on my first birthday, and it's giving me the feels all over again as I type this.

We had four items laid out: a medallion (government/politics), a brush (artist), bow and arrow (warrior/athlete), and scroll books (writer/scholar). Hazel made a beeline for the artist brush, which of course made my heart so happy!

When it was Vincent's turn, he went straight for the scroll books. The cutest future writer ever.

Oh man, the babes' birthday cake time was hilarious, but a bit overwhelming for them. The sparkler candles freaked Vincent out a bit, so he was crying and eating at the same time (we've all been there.) Hazel didn't seem impressed with the whole frosting business, not to mention they were both kind of tired by this point in the day. A birthday well spent.

Happy first birthday to my favorite little nuggets!

Party decoration sources:
Gold 'one' balloon, confetti, streamers, and small balloons // Oh Happy Day
Polka dot backdrop, cups, plates, straws, and napkins // Target
Tassel garland, cake topper, confetti balloons, and 'yay' balloon // OhShinyPaperCo  
Vincen't hanbok and Doljabi items rental // EventAccessoriesbyMJ 
High chair pom-poms // DIY from a friend
Confetti cake // Twiggs Bakery

the shape of a mother

This is my post partum body.

For the past eight months, I've been struggling with this new version of myself. Some days, I feel rad and proud of what my body achieved: growing two tiny humans from scratch, and housing them safely for 35 weeks and two days. They were born healthy, and couldn't be more perfect. But then those other days. Days where I look in the mirror, and I don't recognize this soft, pliant belly. This stretched-out navel. Days where I touch my C-section scar and cringe, even though it was the only way to get my babies out safely. Days where I realized I'm still wearing my maternity jeans because they're the only ones that still fit me. Days where I feel and look like I've aged five years instead of 8 months, because holy cherries on a stick, these babes can run me ragged.

I'm still adjusting to motherhood, still finding my way. I expect this journey will continue for the rest of my life. I'm trying to find some kind of balance. I'm trying not to step on the scale so much, trying to forget what my pre-pregnant weight was. Why do I care so much about a number? I'm trying to eat moderately healthy, and that's hard too, when there's two babies who demand my attention for most of the day. But most of all, I'm trying to be kinder to myself, and do good things for my body and mind. I started taking barre classes three months ago, and it's been the biggest source of my confidence lately. There's just something about sweating it out while doing power squats and pliés in a room with other women (many of them mothers too) that makes me feel strong and beautiful. 

Even the act of taking these photos for this post was empowering. I hadn't done any kind of photography just for me in such a long time, and it felt strange but good to roll down my seamless backdrop and go through the motions of doing a simple self-portrait again. I've missed it. But the most surprising thing of all was when I looked at the photos I'd taken after uploading them to my computer. Instead of seeing a battered, stretch-marked body, the one I've been so negative about these past months, all I could see was a beautiful mother. A mother who is doing the best she can. A mother whose kids love to climb all over that soft, stretched-out belly. A mother who loves her kids so hard. A mother who is learning to love her body again.

shooting with film // palm springs, home, and tiny newborns

More 35mm film goodness that I shot last year, and finally got developed. All of these were shot with my dad's Canon A-1 that he graciously gave me a few years ago, which makes these photos even more precious to me.

The husband and I stayed at the Alcazar in Palm Springs last summer for a little "babymoon." I remember wanting to go before my twin bump got too large to really enjoy myself/walk around, and man, I was right on the cusp. We pretty much just hung out in the pool the whole time (which felt sooo good on my hugely pregnant body), and we even got some sweet professional massages by a company that will come straight to your room. This hotel was also a nice change of pace from the Ace Hotel that we stayed in during our last Palm Springs trip. Smaller, quieter, and we basically had the pool to ourselves. Not to mention our favorite breakfast spot, Cheeky's, was RIGHT NEXT DOOR. Yes please!

I CAN'T BELIEVE MY BABIES USED TO BE THIS SMALL. These photos feel like two blinks ago. Oh man. Back when all they did was sleep and eat all day. Easy street. Of course, at the time, it didn't feel easy at all. Sleep deprivation and post partum blues will do that to a new mother. But look at those tiny little faces. And Hazel's smile. I will cherish these photos forever.

I call that last one "Portrait of a Father of Newborn Twins." I wasn't the only one who was exhausted for four straight months. My husband is a rock star. Dadding like every dad should. He'll do it all - diaper changes, feedings, soothing, cleaning. And he'll STILL shoo me out the door so I can have some kid-free me time. He's a saint, and way too good for me.

Just random snaps from around my home. I was attempting to do some sort of one-photo-a-day project at the time, because it was the new year, and the babes were three months old, and I foolishly thought, "I can totally remember to do this every day!" Ha. Ha ha. But still. It was nice to get a few simple shots like these.