love letter to our year

dear 2012, 

you were the best kind of life altering, show off kind of year! you were a growing and changing type year with starting anew and waiting it out kinds of days. you were heart mending...mind easing. you helped bring a sense of completion. you brought us our girl. 

you were growing belly...growing baby. you turned max 8 and made him a baseball all-star, a biggest brother, a 2nd grade little man. you were lemonade stands and road trips...modcloth and dollhouses and early birthdays and ice cream afternoons.  you were carnivals and leap days and midnight feedings to sunrise mornings...a new nephew and parties and a little more time with our mimi. you were the last year of my 20's filled to the brim!

throughout your days you gave us the gumption to face the new and the peace to let go of things past. you taught us perspective and patience. we're still learning. you got our little family ball rolling steady into the coming years. you put a ring on my finger. 

we will forever have the fondest memories of you. although, i think you came and went a little too quickly...

xoxo

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thank you all much and much for the sweet lovin' for matt and me...for our family! we're so excited to take a day to honor our commitment to each other! to be married! my fingers are all itchy to start planning..haha. 

we love you all and i can't begin to tell you how much your support has meant to us!

i hope you all have an amazing new years!

2013...ready or not.

snowy days and celebrating big news

 we've had an amazing few days...christmasing and tucking ourselves away in a new blanket of snowy weather. we spent the day all together yesterday, celebrating good things and introducing phoebe to all the beauty of our winters. she's a little snow bunny, that girl...not wanting to come inside and scrunching up her little red cold button nose with happiness.

the boys threw snowballs and shoveled driveways and we all forever basked in the goodness of the season...and this season of our lives together.

my matt asked me to marry him christmas morning....he and phoebe together. 

and in a moment the realization came...that something i never thought i needed again was the very thing i needed most. there is redemption and healing in a second chance so profound that it erases the old with only a memory of new. in that moment he saved me and the small bits of my heart i had unknowingly hidden away. 

and i said yes. always and ever yes.

our christmas card to you

things are warm and bright around here. 

with max on his winter break and a little dusting of snow...all feels right with the world. the house is covered in wrapping paper bits and tape and flour and icing and cookie crumbs. christmas records are spinning and there are no immediate plans to get out of pajamas or matt's socks. we are cluttered and happy. what is it about this time of year that makes me want to wear every color and pattern together at once?

from my little family to yours, wishing you the happiest christmas!

however you plan on spending it, i hope there is peace and joy and lots of sweets.

love and love and love to each of you. 

xoxo

little light of mine

phoebe sue is 5 months old this month and sis is coming into her own!

lots of sweet talking and lovin and orneriness and forever trying to crawl. she's learned to show a bit of affection with gentle pats to the face or the most delicious slobbery kisses in town.

she's a curious gal with a whole world opening up to her. those tiny little fingers of hers are into everything within reach these days...and if it's not she'll make a dive for it. it's been such a joy to see her discover some of the tiny and funny parts of life...and then try to fit it all into her mouth.

the name phoebe means "bright and shining" and she certainly is our little light.

she's a book-reading, hat-removing, one sock always missing, shriek screaming, belly-laugher who refuses to eat solids and prefers her brother over most people. also, her bottom lip has been missing for a month now and probably won't resurface again until those tiny teeth come in already!

5 month bee is my favorite bee. 

but i can't wait to see what else we have in store.

sing oh sing

music to bake and wrap packages with tonight.
happy wednesday, friends!

 

hope

we've got a gaggle of babies going on around here!

my beautiful friend amanda and her 6 week lady clementine and my sister amy and her 3 week jude came over to play today. it was a real hoot to see so many various sizes of baby toes in one room. 

 

it's been a year full of blessings...watching hearts expand and lives spring up. since friday i've been weighing a heavy heart and finding a balance of hope in it all. hope in goodness...hope in the light. hope in these brand new babies and a fire to make their world a loving place.

love each other. be kind. 

sending our all eastward.

paint and trim

today has been spent doing a small bit of christmas trimming...trying to finish up cards and beginning to stash surprises under the tree. giving gifts and wrapping them up special is something i love to do. but having a little teething baby has made making homemade gifts almost impossible this christmas...so i've been doing lots of shopping online. but adding a little special homemade touch is important to me...so this year i decided to use fabric and painted canvas paper to wrap things up with.

i tried my hand at recreating the pom pom anthropologie paper i've been pining over (i used white crate paper (to give it a handmade paper feel) and 7mm red pom poms...wrapped the gift up in the crate paper and hot glued the pom poms on).

to make hand-painted paper, i use primed canvas pads and acrylic paint. max and i had a ball painting away last night...and because the sheets are primed they mold really nicely around the gift when it's time to wrap! they're like little pieces of fine art to make the best kind of first impression.

wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

tonight is a date night/hobbit night (eep!) and tomorrow is mad dash finish shopping saturday...

xoxo

320 sycamore

when i was a little girl i ached for a fancy wooden dollhouse. and i'm sure my mom ached to give me one. but it never was in the cards...and instead we girls made do with homemade shoe box houses and pictures of living room sets ripped out of JC Penney catalogs. and looking back, those ragamuffin dollhouses we made were fine as can be!

now 20 years later, i've been given the most amazing gift of a house from matt's grandma. one that was started but never finished. a beautiful fixer-upper for me and bee (and max!) to work on together. so much of it reminds me of the old granville house in "it's a wonderful life". the abandoned house with the broken windows from wishing rocks...lassoing the moon type wishing rocks.

it came just in time for christmas and 10 year old katie is pleased as punch! 

(and she told me to do a room in catalog pictures just for old time's sake)

skate away

yesterday was a much needed family day--time for last minute hilarious self-timer family christmas card pictures, ice skating in the rain, and a visit to santa's lap for bee. 

(i tried to get max to sit with her but he told me he wasn't interested in setting on an old man's lap...hmph! i guess i can't argue with that.)

ice skating is much more his cup of tea...and it's one of my most favorite traditions this time of year. now if only i could skate without keeping a death grip on someone's hand...

be light

this week has been one of a hectic kind of sorts...pulling us every which way but calm. it's been a cluttered house, hole in your stockings, fast food dinner kind of week.

 good thing peppermint abounds and burl ives cures all crying baby-ails...the season has a way of keeping things sweet and light.