can you hear me now?

Soooo- after a little experience reminding me why sometimes you don't want everyone knowing all the intimate details of your life- I decided to try private blogging. So I clicked "private" thereby making it incredibly private- like only I can read the blog. Brad pointed out it was a silly use of the internet so please provide me with your email if you'd like because I will likely go private again, but this time I will invite you with me when I do. :)
My reasoning:
Blogging, facebooking, tweeting and the likes have been pretty important to me post-babies. Those first few months I quarantined us at home and my online "social" interactions helped keep me sane. However, as of late I've really had a desire to veer back to real life and get a little distance from the bloggosphere. It can be a little hard because honestly I don't have friends who I'm hanging out with all the time, but I've literally *made* my own friends and they are taking up almost all of my time these days! I can't blog while I'm feeding babies anymore, instead I'm trying to save a sister from chocking etc while I feed the other. They both want my attention all the time (or need my attention as they are about to get into something potentially dangerous), and they pretty much never nap at the same time.
Along with my trend back to real life I'm hoping to get tangible baby books underway and focus more on them than the blog. I love tangible things and I'm realizing they will be more special to the girls. I forgot how much I enjoy scrapbooking! Even if I've only finished the outside of the books so far...
I love being a mom. Lyla and June are my favorite people in the world. I like sharing that with others, but like I said, people who don't really know me don't need to know the intimate details of my life. I also don't want to make my blog so impersonal and have to leave out the details I want to remember. So, my little blog will likely be going private soon, if I have your email and you'd like to keep tabs on the thrilling parties in the life of a twin mama, feel free to do so. :)

ring out the old, ring in the new

2010 was pretty great, it was my first time spending a whole year's events w/ a husband and this year we'll get to share most of the year with our twins. I can't wait!
A few 2010 highlights:
We had our 1st Valentines (we're hoping to get 2 little girls for our Valentines this year- big upgrade!)

We escaped the cold to AZ:

We made a pretty sweet rap video to try and get on the amazing race, they didn't even consider us...that's okay- it wouldn't have worked pregnant.

Brad turned 30 and I turned 25:

We worked on our house, A LOT. (for the past 7 months I've been able to call it "nesting")

I survived my first March Madness, which is not a small accomplishment in the Hagen household.

We enjoyed spring and Easter, I attempted to control our crazy yard...

I participated in a cooking competition and overcame some inhibitions making cooking videos.

I also poisened my family  (1 and only time, I swear.)

I graduated from nursing school (hallelujah):

We got our one and only pet, Solo:

Then we went to Alaska where we killed and ate many of his distant relatives:

We also visited Carmel and San Francisco a couple times.

I practiced looking like a mommy:

I baked and cooked, and cooked and baked. All year long, and I loved it.

I explored my obsession with chocolate more deeply.

We got pregnant with twins.

We saw Paul McCartney perfom live.

I hiked Timpanogos, pregnant. (15 miles- 5,000 ft. elevation)

We celebrated our first Anniversary.

We visited the Outer Banks.

I grew a belly.

We went to Disneyland.

We enjoyed Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas w/ all the festivities.

Thanks for the memories 2010, I'm so excited for this year!

a button, a button!

I've gotten smarter since I started a blog...seriously. Computer smarter. I knew nothing about the blogging world a year ago and have slowly taught myself little things. At first, just how to post/why to post/how to see other's posts. Then trying to change headers and mess with that crazy html stuff. I still don't get a lot of it, but I'm learning.
When my friend Heather suggested I make a button to spread the word I began my google research. It got me thinking...do I want to spread the word? How foodie do I really want to make this blog that I created more with the intention of being my newly-wed online journal? I hate it when I think too much, who cares? Of course I hope that occasionally something I post will be beneficial to someone out there, but I just have fun posting about what I'm up to and what I'm passionate about... that pretty much always involves food.
I really wish I'd started posting about food a lot earlier. I didn't even share anything from the holidays. the holidays! I was a complete maniac in my kitchen over the holidays, it was the best, but it was all secret. Now there's no secrets, I'm openly in love with food & cooking. I'm that girl who easily spent all the wedding Bed Bath and Beyond credit on random kitchen gadgets in a matter of days. I would rather window shop at Orson Gygi and Williams & Sonoma than the mall. Any day.
Anyways, I ended up finding this awesome tutorial about how to make a blog button, without it I seriously would never have figured it out. I tried a different tutorial before this and it all went terribly wrong. I decorated this image using paint, that should give you an idea of my computer smarts.
I'm so proud I want to share, and if you happen to feel the desire to adorn your page with my nifty little button...well, then I might just have to make you something chocolate (or healthy if you're on a diet..)and remind you of how cool you are.




<a href="http://katiehagen.blogspot.com/ " target="_blank"><img src="http://i746.photobucket.com/albums/xx103/katielew/blog-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Adventures in Cooking"></a>

Time to Eat Beef, Time to Blog

I have this whole week off for fall break, but sadly my husband doesn’t, which leaves time for lengthy experimental recipes (like bouf a la bouguinonne), learning to use power tools around the house, and learning to blog. I haven’t quite figured out this whole blog thing, I get facebook much better. I’m going to do some more sum up journal kind of entries to warm me up. Maybe that’s how this will work for me, just write for myself and if someone else happens to read it, that's fine too. Maybe I’ll figure out how to get more interesting later on.

Welcome to the World of Blogging

I’m not sure what brought it on, but I started feeling the urge to blog a couple of weeks ago. I’m pretty sure it was a combination of getting married and seeing the movie “Julie & Julia.” So I now have a blog, thanks to the help of Alicia Skousen, SN. Given the fact that I am a newlywed, I’ll do my best to suppress any overly twitter pated thoughts and avoid nauseating anyone who may happen to read this!
I actually always imagined I’d hold out until I had kids, but being married has already been quite the adventure, and I think I’ll like having somewhere to write about it. I feel like I’ve had a lot of exciting changes in my life lately: got a husband (that’s the big one!), became a first-time homeowner, I’ve even upgraded my kitchen with an attractive kitchenaid mixer. I decided it’s time to upgrade to a blog. It’s just what married people do, perhaps it’s an early form of nesting. Who am I to resist nature?