little thoughts and thank yous

 thank you, thank you, thank you from the very bottom of my heart for all of your love and support and congratulations! 

matt and i went out to dinner last night and spent most of it reading your comments and messages out loud and just smiling and staring at each other...amazed by what wonderful people we are surrounded by. each one of you are a gift to me...and we're so excited to take you along on this journey with us!

 

it's so funny to me that most of you were suspect! haha. i was planning on waiting a few more weeks to tell you all (until i knew baby was healthy and staying put) but he/she had other plans...and popped...really really popped...about 2 weeks ago. we had our first appointment last week and got to hear the heartbeat! all is well and as far as we know there is only one in there, but matt is still holding out hope for two. (he is a twin and they don't skip a generation in his family!)

it's been so long since i've done this...it all feels so new and a bit surreal. i'm definitely taking it one day...week...month at a time.

 having another baby has been a hope of mine for a while now...i just didn't realize how much so until i thought it was too late. 

i was sitting this morning, thinking about the beauty of my life from where i sit now...and remembering that decision to let go of hopes and dreams for a better reality. 

i had no idea at the time that God would take those hidden hopes, those desires and plans i once had for myself, and send them back my way...just packaged differently and lovelier than i had seen them or known them before.

and that's the beauty of life and growth...of letting go. 

if you're willing to, you don't really have to at all.

thankful thursday november

 it's a rarity to find someone that forces you to better. even rarer when they make you want to be better all on your own. 

and then you sit back in awe as life and opportunities and fine people and goodness abound and each tiny bit can be traced back directly to the day you met that one person that changed you.

i was thinking about that this morning.

i was thinking about my matt...and feeling so very thankful for the patience and space we're given in life to be better...to grow...to uproot and replant, even if it's slow and painful and we drag our feet a bit.

 

i'm thankful for the knowledge that even the smallest and simplest of lives deserve to be great...that we get to work on it every single day.

 and i'm oh so thankful for those catalyst people in my life that remind me everyday...

but my, oh my, how lucky that one of them is the guy i'm head over heels for!

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if you're doing a thankful post this week, link it below in the comments so we can all read along! 

(photos by jenny haas.)

go build a song

happy friday, friends!

it's definitely been a collect some leaves, have warm tea, steal your boyfriend's shirt kind of day!

max is away this weekend and i'm hoping to steal matt away and take advantage of the sunshine...i've got to keep these fingers busy or i'll start sifting through christmas boxes in the basement.

i've got the fever.

 

i hope your weekend is a happy one!

xoxo

a few things...

1. i've been the worst blogger this week. maybe for the past few, even! every deadline i have, professionally and personally, fell right on this week. ack! i'm a little bit overwhelmed...and my brain is nothing but swimmy. but really that's nothing a little tea and 5 "to-do" lists can't handle! hopefully i'll be able to catch back up here soon! until then...hello! i hope everyone is having a wonderful last week of september!

2. the paint by number mural i started in buddy's art studio is very very not so much finished. hmph! but thank you all so so much for the sweet comments on it. i will say max came home and was over the moon when he saw it. he wants to help me finish it now! i will have pictures very soon...but not too soon because...

3. i'm out of here for a whole week starting sunday! i'm jetting off with my amy and friend beth to los angelas for a girl's week away. we're staying with lovely friends and have absolutely no idea what we're going to get ourselves into. but i'm making us all autograph books just in case!

i haven't been on an airplane in almost 20 years. needless to say, i am beside myself excited and also a tad terrified...if only for having to take off my shoes at security. 

if anyone has any wonderful suggestions for things to do while we're in southern california or tried and true airplane tips, please chime in! this gal hasn't been further west than missouri. true story!

i was planning on having some guest posters lined up while i'm gone but i decided i'm going to bring you along with me instead! i'll be popping in here and there with, hopefully, funny "katie had a panic attack on the airplane" stories and lots of pictures of palm trees and sun.

xoxo

seasons and fast food tears

happy first day of fall!

this is, like for most, my most favorite time of year...when ohio is her most beautiful and i feel the most settled. we've been celebrating around here with lots of warm drinks and caramel apples and hitting snooze on the alarm clock way more than we should. these are sleepy days.

i've spent the past couple of days away from the computer and spending some extra time with the boys. we sent matt away last night for a weekend business trip. and my max goes off this afternoon to be with his dad for a few days. i'm a woman left to her own devices...which is dangerous. i ended up, inexplicably, in tears after ordering lunch today when the boy at the window was so nice to me.  haha. it's going to be that kind of weekend.

have a happy one, friends! 

i'll be back tomorrow with a few projects i've been working on around the house.

thursday perspective

today was a breath of fresh air kind of thursday. where encouragement and gratitude meet up in agreement with the weather and decide to make even the most normal of everydays seem that much shinier. and it got me thinking about how much of the day falls back on perspective. how our lives, our jobs, our relationships, are what we make them. and how much we miss when we let others or circumstances or even our own negativity dictate our outlook.

anyways, today could have been a regular thursday...and in a lot of ways it was. but it was also messy bedhead hair with a new dress. finding a 2 year old piece of gum still stuck on the wall and deciding it's sentimental enough to leave and work into the vignette.

 it was extra puppy scratches despite extra puppy messes.

 mixing work with 20 minute coffee date pleasure for the 2nd time this week.

 it was skipping town (or grocery shopping) to go after-school exploring with my guy. and you can bet your bottom dollar when we happened upon the empty theater stage in the park that i twirled and pirouetted and curtsied while max lay face down stage left in embarrassment.

regardless, today was a lot of things. most importantly, it was a wave a hello, thank you kindly, to your shadow kind of day.

but only because that's the way we choose to see it.

indian summer

"these are the days when birds come back, a very few, a bird or two, to take a backward look.

these are the days when skies put on the old, old sophistries of June, --

a blue and gold mistake." - emily dickinson

oh goodness has it been hot here! i think september is all sorts of mixed up. today has been shade and water with dreams of pumpkin pie. 

i hope everyone has a happy weekend!

xoxo

refreshing

ack! i'm so sorry for the bits of silence yesterday and today.

it's been the busiest days around here. the kinds where i'm reminded of truths about myself that always seem to be the most forgetful kinds of truths. the ones that i need a refresher course on from time to time. like how i can't do it all. or at least, i can't do it all the way i'd like for it to be done. and sometimes, priorities need to be adjusted. it's hard to remember that the perfect mama, homemaker, career gal/blogger, daughter, sister, friend doesn't exist. i can be the coolest mama and still be the worst/ messiest/ most disorganized housekeeper in the world (which i totally am)...have a schedule full of projects and clients and still forget to call home to my parents for days on end.

the important trick is learning how to laugh off  "dropped pins" just as much as learning how to juggle them. to surround yourself with understanding folks that know your heart. to pick up slack by letting go of other ends.

it's also learning to see when your greatest strengths overextended become your greatest weakness (something matt has taught me)

so yesterday was spent recharging and refocusing.. 

and it was spent cleaning the kitchen.

and even though i'll most likely always be a little frazzled and messy and disorganized, i was reminded of another truth about myself: scrubbing cabinets can be therapy. and sometimes a clean house can make you feel like the coolest mama in the world.

beauty

these two guys and their bond send me straight to the moon.

they understand each other. they've been through much of the same things. and there are little things that they know that only they can know, without having to say a word...like how matt will never replace max's dad and would never try. how max doesn't ever have to choose. that there's room.

it's a forever blessing...a sweet reminder that life is meant for loving deeply...for being open to experience love in all sorts of new ways. for making room.

little bits

we've been gliding real slow and awkward around here with the pace of a week back from vacation...lots of the mundane back to work sort (bills, laundry, grocery)...with bits of bliss thrown in here and there. like finding an old, unopened, anthropologie catalog under a pile of mail just after washing up a bowl of new grapes. the two are like peanut butter and jelly, i'm telling you!

but today, today we're embracing the rain...the way it makes the garden greener and brings out the color in a dark room.

and we're still doing naked cereal box feet...regardless if earlier in the week they made us fall down the stairs.

try to imagine the worst commotion you'll ever hear coming down the stairs...and run over to find your 7 year old naked as can be, crying, with cereal boxes on his feet. 

no matter how boring a week can feel, there's always a max to mix things up.

happy happy wednesday.

xo

light breezes seems to whisper

it's taken me years of listening to myself to realize that i need a little solitude every now and again.
time with myself...my thoughts..the silence around me.
most times i find it in small ways...like in the morning when the boys are still asleep or while alone in the car on my way to and from places.
and sometimes i find it in deliberatly special ways.
sometimes i like to wine and dine myself.
get out the fancy glasses, pile up some strawberries on a cake plate, splurge on a new $1 crossword puzzle book and frosted animal crackers, find a place to stake my claim for an hour, and sit and just be.

i found myself in what seemed like my own little secret garden last night..fresh after an evening thunderstorm. i took pictures and watched the sun set and toasted to the brilliance that life can be...to my max who seems like worlds away...to the simple goodness of sipping through a paper straw or wringing out a rain-soaked hem.
and then i sat. and i listened.

eddie veder- dream a little dream

i hope you all can go stake a claim on an hour for yourself this week.

pull out all the stops for yourself...and don't forget the animal crackers.

<3

35

today is my matt's birthday.

i woke up this morning feeling like the luckiest gal on the block for getting to be the one to spend it with him...and to spend as many more birthdays with him as he'll have me.

our story is an unconventional one...it still is i suppose.

it's a story full of terrible timing and fate...lots of healing and patience and faith. but above all, it's a love story.

this guy has restored more in me than i can ever try to explain. he is unrestrained and completely free in his own skin...he allows everyone around him to feel the same. he knows no stranger...no bounds to his giving. my guy is selfless and strong and confident...he's humble and hilarious, always without trying.

he loves, my goodness does he love. 

his talents and thoughts inspire me on a daily.

he can free-style rap and break dance like none other. he does the absolute worst impersonation of harry caray you'll ever care to hear.

when he was 8 he permed his hair and entered a michael jackson look-a-like contest. while he and his twin brother were being born, baby matt pulled his brother back up into the womb so he could go first! i get so lost i could float away into those tiny details of his amazing life so far.

he is really something, that matt.

he has lived a thousand lives compared to mine, and has the wisdom to match...but i'll be forever and ever thankful that he has chosen to spend this one with me, me and my max.

happy birthday, dear.

i love you always and ever.

for your gift, i've decided to perm my hair and learn the moves from billie jean.

xoxo

outside the lines

today was a day for laying low. 

...for hiding out in a teepee fort with nothing but your skivvies and coloring books and some funny conversation with mama.

me and max hid ourselves away up in this room for the better part of the day...escaping the heat and the dishes and work and the thought of another week away from each other next week.

those things are for the birds. 

sometimes you just need to color.

and i think we all could use a day in our underwear.

xoxo

too darn hot

we're officially in the dog days of summer around here...
 so so hot.
this heat makes the afternoons strut to a slower melody...normal clothes feel optional but a sun hat is a must.
and dear oh dear does it make the fruit seem that much more photogenic!

i swear by just looking at those cherries my body temperature goes down.

happy hot hot tuesday!