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....

A MONDAY POOLDAY

The forecast for Monday called for thunderstorms, but it was also going to be in the mid-80s, bringing us back some of the warmth after a chilly weekend (every year! the whiplash of spring weather surprises me). 

It definitely was not pool weather, but by Monday afternoon it felt hot and humid and we felt giddy about the idea of vanquishing the Monday blues, so we declared pool time!...which was quickly defeated by a freezing cold pool and raindrops, but no matter. We got to tip our toes in the pool (and Sloane dipped in all the way!), eat dinner in our swimsuits on the sunroom and finish it all off with watermelon on the deck. It felt blissful. So there, Monday.

At one point I turned to Ken and said, "these are the days, Ken!" And it really did feel like we were living in our best days. Here in the midst of our house project chase and stress, busy schedules and worries, we get to take these breaths and bask in the simplicity and togetherness.

It has become ironic that Sloane has this frog floatie in the pool, because it turns it, we have real frogs (toads?) living all around the pool and there are a lot of them. They are aggressively loud, multiplying by the day and it's another thing on the long list of things that we have to address regarding the pool. We had real hesitations about having a pool in the backyard (this was almost a deal breaker for me) because of safety concerns and upkeep concerns and it's proving to be a lot of work, just like we had expected. I still feel a little wary about it and this frog situation is not helping, but we are trying to make it worth the trouble.

I love this sunroom (it was my favorite part of the house when we first looked at it) and I am really looking forward to eating out here all the time during the warmer months.

  

Summer babies, all three of us! 

"SLOW DOWN" BY NICOLE NORDEMAN

This song makes me tear up. Every. Single. Time.

SLOANE THESE DAYS

Sloane! She is fantastic, magic. She can also have her moments of being a little too silly or overwhelmed by her emotions, but they are brief flashes, as she is establishing herself and testing boundaries, and she always ends up in my arms. 

The other week we were folding laundry together in the playroom, and we took a break to munch on apples. I watched her eating her apple and had a freeze frame moment. All of a sudden, she looked incredibly grown up. Her face, her expressions, her ability to fold laundry all by herself...all wondrous. I grabbed my camera and took some photos.

She is smart, intuitive, sensitive and has a gentle heart. She is cautious, but willing to try almost anything once she has had time to observe. She is kind, generous, and so funny. She loves music, musicals and will learn a song by listening to it over and over. She takes care of her sister as if she is much older than her three years, remembers conversations we've had weeks and months ago, and says "Thank you, mom" for things I do for her. I don't even mind the longer commute these days because I get to have long and elaborate conversations with her.

We had been listening to Disney songs starting a few months ago. Ken got really excited one day about the prospect of watching The Lion King with her and although we agreed to wait just a bit longer before letting her watch it (also, that scene where Mufasa dies!) Ken was inspired to create a playlist with all of his favorite Disney songs.

One day, she sang out, out of nowhere, "You won't get a sniff without me!"

She hasn't seen Little Mermaid yet, either, but she has heard a few of the songs and knows the story from what we have told her about it. One day, I heard her making up songs to herself in the backseat, and realized they were about the Little Mermaid.

"Under the sea, under the sea. I wish I had legs, next to a tree.." Sloane belted this out with all of her might. And then said, "Mom, this is Ariel's song."

Which was followed by another Ariel song: "I miss my papa...flounder is a fish and he can't walk, but Sebastian can walk."

And then Flounder's song, "From under the sky, Ariel is a mermaid and she misses her papa."

We've also been listening to the Broadway version of Peter Pan a lot and overhearing her sing those songs to herself in her room is the best thing ever. 

After I took a few photos, she asked if she could take a couple of photos with the big camera. Here are her two captures below; we both thought they were pretty good!

I love this girl so much and I feel lucky every single day that I get to be her mom.

WHAT I'M READING V. 15

I am having one of those weeks where it feels like I can't quite catch up to where I need to be, even though I am pedaling and running with all my might. Even in the madness, books on audio allow me to 'read' and when I get to do that - during my commutes, at work, or while I do chores - it feels like a little retreat. Although to be honest, this week's preferred mode of retreat would be sleep, just sleep.

This time around it's all fiction!

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout 

This book took me by surprise. It's a quiet book, sparse and economical in words, but the words and stories she chooses to share give an elaborate emotional story thick and complicated; it's beautiful. It's also a story about a relationship between a mother and daughter, and I had a rock in my throat the entire time I read.

The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout 

After I finished 'My Name is Lucy Barton', I immediately looked up what else Strout wrote because I wanted more and found this one to be available at my library through Overdrive. I'm a few chapters in now and I'm not immediately captivated as I was by the other book but I'm going to stick with it.

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

This book was stunning. Groff obviously loves words and languages and she let me know it with every single sentence. There is a plot twist at the very end that put me off a little, but other than that I was terribly impressed. I want to reread just to study the way she uses the English language.

Gutenberg's Apprentice by Alex Christie 

I'm only a little ways into this one and I'm excited to dive into it. I love a good historical fiction and this one seems especially enticing; it is about the invention of the printing press and creation of the Gutenberg bible and I'm eager to learn the backstory. 

What are you reading ?

THESE DAYS: LAST WEEKEND

Last Saturday, Ken and I worked swiftly through the house, getting little things done here and there that needed to be checked off the list. Almost a month later after our move, we still hadn't quite settled in. The girls were unpacked and settled, but Ken and I were still living amongst boxes in our bedroom. The kitchen was still a mess and the family room covered in paint chips and trash from the tiling projects in the mudroom. But with the tiling project complete and the paint in the family room almost done, we tidied up, rearranged, put down rugs and unpacked more boxes... and suddenly, things seemed lighter. We could feel our bodies relaxing a bit; it felt more like home. 

My sister came to town last weekend and helped us finish up projects and watch the girls. I always miss my family terribly, but it was especially nice to see one of them during this time of chaos.

I woke up to this sight of these three playing together - I felt my heart warming and my roots moving further into the earth. 

Reunited and it feels so good. 

We went to go eat breakfast at my favorite place to go for pancakes: Moore's Cafe. The pancakes were good, but the light in there that morning was perfect. 

Is there such a thing as too many kisses? I may have reached that threshold. 

We stopped by Target together first thing in the morning before she had to leave, and it was unexpectedly a great way to be together. There was no one else there because it had just opened, and we four girls (me, my sister, Sloane and Logan) moved through the aisles, taking our time, talking. 

Our friend, Eugene, also came to visit and helped us around the house. Fair warning, if you come visit us, you're probably going to be doing some house projects. These two were so adorable together. 

We also got some visitors we rarely get to see - Ken's cousin's two daughters, who are so smart and fun and funny. Sloane had a blast playing with them. And Eugene had a blast being surrounded by girls. 

The weather this past weekend was perfect. We couldn't keep these smiles off our faces. 

See?

BABY SHOWER FOR ASHLEY

I just wanted to stop here to say, brunch in the outdoors this past weekend on a perfect spring day with lovely tablescape, amazing food and darling friends felt ultra luxurious. Especially when we've been waiting for weather like this to get here and then wham! It is upon us in all its glory and we happily succumb, filling our bellies with fresh salad, fruit, quiche, crepes and cakes, celebrating a new life about to be born. 

HOUSE PROGRESS REPORT: A WALL COMES DOWN

One of the first things we knew wanted to do in this house was to knock down the wall between the kitchen and dining room. We knew it would open the space, allow more light, and I wanted to be able to see and talk to the kids at the dining table while cooking or prepping. 

It was an exciting prospect to do such a major change, even though it meant everything in the kitchen and dining room would be covered in dust and debris. And now I know, the process is not just taking the wall down, which takes an entire day. We also had to take the chair rail off, replace the baseboards, repair any damage to the neighboring walls, rework electrical wiring and put a threshold in to bridge the gap between the two different floors. Nothing is ever easy with house projects. 

This is what it looked like while it was coming down. Apparently, taking the wall apart piece by piece is the right way to do it - the HGTV shows with people hammering through the walls is mostly for dramatics.

No more wall! This is before the wall and floor was patched up (see the wire dangling from the ceiling?), but it already felt like a huge change. The dining room felt much more open and bright, and now I can see the girls while I'm in the kitchen.

We are moving along at what feels like a snail's pace, but onward we go.

LOGAN AT 9 MONTHS

I feel euphoric about having a 9 month old. That euphoria overrides the exhaustion; this little lady is strong willed, hungry, and a light sleeper, which means I'm back to dream feeding and then sometimes nursing a couple more times throughout the night. I'm just going with it though, since Sloane sleeps through it all and I seem to be able to function during the day... at least for now. Besides, I can't help but be grateful for any extra bit of cuddling time I get with her.  I'm looking forward to not pumping anymore, but I'm going to miss nursing. 

These days, she claps, she waves, she babbles, she explores, she insists she wants more, she rocks her body to music, she gets up in the middle of the floor without any help and then balances there looking up at us with pride, she laughs with Sloane, she loves holding and eating raw fruit on her own, and she is recently a huge fan of zucchini. She has this way of looking right at me and then smiling this utterly charming smile that has me completely smitten.

Whenever I see her, I can feel my body shifting in anticipation - my arms tingle, my rib cage rises and the spot in the middle of my chest gets wobbly. She fills up my arms, all baby pudge and softness, and I can feel myself grinning with the joy of being near this wriggling, curious baby. When it's bed time, and I'm swaying her to a song, she nestles her head into my neck and I have a hard time thinking of a better feeling.