THESE DAYS

It's been a while since I've felt like I have time to exercise creativity in the 'traditional' areas that I used to be able to, like with music or painting ...I would love to be able to play piano (need to get one first), or paint, or just be able to write more, but creativity calls from other places these days.  Right now, most of my creative energy goes to hanging out with my girls, which is a whole new world of creativity that I get to explore, and I'll also include house projects, because it does feel creative, even while it is exhausting. This blog is also a small channel for creativity...by capturing our moments on camera, organizing it and jotting down little things. 

A tiny crew! A few friends came over on a Saturday morning to help us paint. That meant the kids got to play and their enthusiasm and bliss made me wish for that life, and also appreciate that Sloane gets along so well with the kids of my friends.

Along with the mudroom, kitchen and dining room, friends helped paint the garage, which is being turned into a gym.  It is on its way!

We also finally started tiling our kitchen (remember Christine, when you thought the kitchen would be finished the first week we moved in? Hahahahahahhaa........). It feels like this process is taking forever since we only have little pockets of time to work on it, but the other day Ken and I worked on it together and got a lot done and it's exciting to see it come together.

I'm working on making my open shelving dreams come true. Some people hate open shelving, some people love it - I've lived with this for a few weeks and I can already tell I am of the latter group. It's so convenient and I love being able to see what we have to work with. (And no, the knife block is not going to stay there, we still have some rearranging to do).

The birthday season has begun! Or at least the season for birthday parties has...we went to two birthday parties last weekend and this one the weekend before that. This is such an epic photo because we somehow got the whole lot of them to be in it, the crying babies, and also Sloane with her girlfriends - I had a flash forward to Sloane with her friends in 10 years, while looking at this photo.

I posted this little story on Instagram the other day. It still makes me laugh. 

Just the day before on Sunday it was cold, but then on Monday it got into the 80s and so we did it up - swimsuits and dinner on the porch.

Watermelons! And meditation?

I felt victorious as I watched this one happily chomp through a watermelon. Now we all are watermelon monsters!

Last Thursday, I got to meet little Etta Mae and my heart burst and then melted. She is so sweet and I'm so proud of my friend Laura. Welcome to mothering two little girls ! 

And lastly, the view from my bed. Yes, that is a bag of popcorn wedged into one of the shelves. These days, I daydream less about jetting off to a far off place and more of spending an entire day in bed. One of these days....