slowing down...

sleepy sid

this was taken on the last day of school... after school was let out. my daughter called me upstairs and asked me to take this picture of her. do you think she is trying to tell me something? this is how she wants her summer to look perhaps? let me just say... that is ok by me. i am so ready for the lazy days of summer. even though it means having my children full time and perhaps not as much time to rest for mama, i am ready. oh how i have missed my kids this year. i know the transition back to this home centered world will be a little rocky at first... the adjustment to a new kind of routine, and then a very large adjustment to a new person in the family! before that happens i will try to hold onto and treasure these last fews weeks with my two children before they become three. i will watch them sleep, and play. i will see what they are eating and doing and thinking. i will read to them for long stretches on the couch under the fan. we will eat outside and swim at the pool. we will take trips to the ice cream store and eat popcicles we make ourselves. we will watch movies and go to the drive-in. we will just enjoy the time to be together and know how lucky we are to have this.. when most children are in camp or daycare all summer. i feel blessed to have this time with my little ones while i can still call them little.


dancing in the rain with a friend
a growing reminder of the need to slow down

mothering...



this week i have spent several days visiting my children's school for portfolio share. it has been an interesting and emotional week. i feel there are many changes in the air... school ending and a new baby coming soon being a huge part of it of course. it is also a time of decision making. what direction do we want our family to head in? we have had a lovely experience at school this year, but also many challenges. we have met so many wonderful people in the community, which i'm so grateful for. now comes the time to decide of it is right for us though. we haven't made any final decisions but i can say i have come to realize how much i have missed my children this year. i feel like my time with them is so limited and hurried, and i've never had to experience that before. i never thought i would consider homeschooling as a long term commitment but as i weight the positives and negatives it is starting to look more appealing. there are never any easy answers, and sometimes it is amazing how the answers to the same questions change over time and how the questions themselves begin to change too.

after my daughter's portfolio share on wednesday i had some time to kill before pick up. i didn't feel like making the walk home and then back again so i decided to stop at the zoo. i have never been there by myself! it was nice. i mostly sat and watched the gorillas being fed. they have had quite a few babies born here. the mama i am most familiar with has cared for twins and has another baby who is two. she is very protective, never letting the baby out of her sight or even her grasp. she will calmly eat an orange while holding onto him with the other hand. he spends most of his time on her back. the zoo keeper told us she was the same with the twins, which was more difficult to do. she often held one by each hand until they were around three years old when they the first finally broke free of her grip and went off to explore. at this point she knew they were ready.

the newest mama is the one pictured above. she has a one year old daughter who is the tiniest little thing. watching her, i was surprised how much freedom her mother gives her. she runs around on her own to explore already... climbing into a hammock, sitting next to the silver back as if it was no big deal, riding on the backs of other gorillas and climbing a high rope without assistance or fear. her mother was often close by but seemed unfazed by these explorations, only gathering her up when she was ready to move on. the contrast between the two mothers surprised me. being familiar with the first mother, i guess i had assumed that is how all gorillas must mother. i was wrong. they each have their own personality and technique, often influenced by the way they were mothered. each mother seemed calm and comfortable and both babies seemed the same as well. neither way seemed better... just different. i am realizing how many ways there are to mother your children... even each individual child can have different needs. i have always known this of course but i guess i have also over-thought the importance of these choices. they can seem hugely influential and overwhelming. i am beginning to see that it is perhaps better to approach it on a more intuitive level though... to let go of over-thinking everything. there can be no perfect right way of mothering. maybe there is only doing what feels right in the moment and hoping that your children and you are getting what you need. i certainly haven't figured it out but it always feels good when you find yourself in these moments of changing your perceptions. i'll let you know how things go.

from the market...


truthfully, it was very hard to get myself out of bed on sunday, mother's day. it was pouring rain and chilly outside. i was thinking our first market experience would be a bust. luckily i did get up and despite a very wet day and not the usual crowd, we ended up having a great time! i love my neighborhood. everyone is so friendly and supportive. we had so many great compliments and actually sold quite a lot! it was funny how many dad's came rushing in with little ones in raincoats to pick up a last minute gift for mom:) our set up up had to be modified because of the rain (hello, ugly but necessary rain flaps) but it was a good test run and we figured out what we would like to do in the future. i'm definitely looking forward to more!


aprons on the line

subliminal messaging courtesy of my nine year old son!

this was a cool project i did... chalk board paint banner!

the whole gang, including the big belly (my son will be taller than me any minute now)

katy and i... we managed to not spend all of our profits in delicious pastries though we were set up right next to the little tart bakeshop!

potholders, aprons, and lavender sachets were the most popular mother's day gifts... hope they are enjoyed!

prairie seed at the farmer's market...



part of the reason i have been so absent lately is i have been hard at work in my other shop... prairie seed. my sister, katy, and i have been making lot's of aprons, napkins, dish towels, market bags and more to sell at our local farmer's market. i love our farmer's market. we go every week as a family and spend the whole morning. we always see so many people we know, and the kids love to play in  the grass with friends while we shop for the best local produce. i was excited when we got the okay to sell there a few times a month as well. our first time will be this sunday, mother's day! it should be a lot of fun and hopefully we will sell a few things too... and i won't be tempted to spend it all on the yummy baked goods they have there! i'll let you know how it goes.


anniversary in savannah...



today is my tenth wedding anniversary... which also marks 16 years together. i can't believe it has been so long. i was 19 years old when i first met my husband and became friends. a little while later we started dating and fell in love. at that age i could have never imagined i was meeting the man i would spend my life with. i look back on all the things we have done together over that time, and in many ways we grew up together... in many ways we still are. we are also now watching our children grow up which is such a  magical thing. marriage is hard work. something i didn't really know about at 19 or maybe even 10 years ago. when you are with the right person it is worth it though... every day and every year. i can't imagine doing anything else.

we celebrated our anniversary a little early this year because of the new baby on the way. we took a  weekend trip to savannaha where i have never been but always wanted to go. it was so lovely. the weather was hot! but it we stayed in a beautiful old inn right in the heart of everything. it was nice to just park the car and be able to walk everywhere. it was nice to be able to do what we wanted without thinking about whether it would be interesting to kids. we walked all over, went into any shops we wanted to, ate where we wanted, when we wanted, sat on park benches and in coffee shops just talking about nothing... and we ate sweets the entire time! did i say lovely? it was paradise! it is so important to do these things as a couple because sometimes you can forget that you still are a couple and not just mama and papa. i know it will be a while before we get a chance to do something like that again and i'm glad we made the effort to make it all happen.

i'm really looking forward to the suprises the next ten (or sixteen years) will bring!