Bluebirdbaby

an afternoon

the sun was out. we took shelter in the shade under a tree. him and i sipping white wine on the hammock, swaying back and forth. she settled on the picnic blanket with her markers and paper, sipping on lemonade. 

she sang some songs, we talked. there were trips inside for more drinks, library books, and the Times. we snuggled, all three of us, in the hammock reading to each other.

we hung the clothes to dry and painted our new shed. we watched a lot of old colorful cars go by. the windows were up and the doors open wide. the gentle breeze blew in one window and out the other. the house smelled of freshly cut grass and fragrant flowers.

there were giggles and many pushes on the swing in the apple tree. he took pictures while i obliged her with some underdogs.

then we retreated back to the hammock, all quite content with our afternoon of doing "nothing."

sometimes home is the best place to be, and i think that if we had the choice, it's the only place we'd be.

 

 

24/52

this week you:

• were so completely absolutely incredibly content with being out of school for the summer. i've never seen you more relaxed or happier just to be home!
• barely ate a thing! even after we attempted to stuff you full of all kinds of good food. you eat like a bird! (you do NOT take after me that way!)
• were singing all week long. all kinds of songs. it was the cutest thing. i came out of the laundry mat to hear you belting it out in the car with the trunk wide open. the whole town could have heard your beautiful voice!
• danced. like a silly little thing. mark has a fabulous video on his phone of you dancing on the picnic table. you remind me so much of my mother!
• helped me rescue two baby robins which we brought to a bird rescue center where they will be fed and cared for.
• made a cake with me. a 1-2-3-4 cake, with lemon zest and lemon juice to flavor it. we decorated it with nasturtiums, and we surprised mark with it for his "Pappah's day" (you got "Pappah" from the movie "Nanny McPhee" and have wanted to call Mark that ever since)
• you brushed your hair for about 30 minutes, wanting it to be "the smoothest it's ever been before"
• had your violin recital and were absolutely magnificient. i was so proud of you. you are talented in so many ways.
• played kickball. upside down.

the things we do

we seem to do a lot in a week. and yet not everything we want (or have) to do!

here are some things we have done:

the little one played her fiddle for the customers of the fried seafood shack next door. she made $2 that night. (we both dropped $1 in, although she said it didn't count.) by the way, have you seen her recital video here? she totally rocked it!

we worked in the garden. a lot. we made a trellis for the peas and beans, planted more carrots and beets and got the beds ready for the tomatoes coming next.

i made an apple pancake for them. mark devoured it (it's one of his favorite!). i've been making nut granola (paleo!) for me and eating it every morning for breakfast. it's hard to believe it, but i officially overdosed on fried eggs!

she practiced her compositions on the piano one afternoon while mama cleaned. 

she ate rolled up turkey slices while walking through the house and climbing on everything like a monkey. i'm still finding pieces of it...

we played more games of kickball.

we spruced up the front of our house with some more potted plants and two new shrubs our neighbor gave us as a housewarming gift. next up, painting the exterior. colors have already been picked out and we're getting ready to paint!

and lastly, we ended the day with some before bedtime skateboarding and games of hide and seek. 

what have you been doing lately?

23/52

i am so behind responding to all of your incredibly wonderful and sweet comments! summer is already kicking my butt big time! i'm struggling keeping up with all of my t0-do's, but hopefully this week will be full of space to allow me to do that. just know i appreciate every single one and look forward to finding the time to say so individually! xo

this week you:

• had your last day of school for the summer!
• totally sunk into your summer routine already. you are grateful for the relaxed days and no need to go anywhere.
• ran around the yard in polka-dotted pants. and that's all.
• played multiple games of kick ball with mark and i (you really like to be sneaky!)
• kicked my butt at monopoly. you got boardwalk right off the bat!
• ate like a bird. shift in weather?
• got your new favorite toy: a Barbie car. your end of the school year present. you SO wanted one. and you played with it the entire four days, drew pictures of it, and kept hugging me and saying thank you. your joy is so worth my dislike for Barbies!
  

balance

the little one has her last day of school today for the summer. we are getting ready to meet the kids for a goodbye picnic, then we will pack up her school things and head home. home for the summer. home. as a mother, i am so excited. i'm eagerly anticipating all the fun things we will get to do that we have previously been reserving for the weekends. there will be relaxing mornings instead of the rush to get ready for school. there will be trips to the pond for swimming and popsicles dripping on little bare bellies, gardens to weed and fresh vegetables to pick, cars full of sand from the beach, late nights laying in the backyard for star gazing, art projects outside on the picnic table, hikes to the tops of mountains, and more grilled dinners than ever before.

as a business owner, i am frantically wondering how on earth i can continue my more than full-time job during the busiest season. will i find the balance i need to maintain both? i suppose i have no choice. the delicate balance of all parents.

what are your summer plans? how do you maintain that balance?

xo

 

22/52

this week you:

• ran through the sprinkler squealing the entire time
• helped mark light the grill countless times for our many cookouts
• ate 3 smores than said your belly had enough sugar
• collected about 100 rocks in your toy dump truck and spread them all over the lawn. we found them while we were mowing...
• put on a couple of violin "performances" for mark and i at home in preparation for your big concert next week
• slept ALL night 2 nights in a row in your bed downstairs (woohoo!)

fresh.

words by him. photos by her.

the smell of cut grass. the aroma of sizzling burgers on the rill. the tang of lemonade. the feel of buttered corn cascading in your mouth. the shouts and screams from the leaps through the sprinkler.

fresh.

as fresh as it gets.

our summer in maine.

21/52

this week you:

• jumped in rain puddles with your new boots
• were SO excited to see mama AND mark pick you up from school. we took you to the library where you picked out some easy readers and "that darn cat" for movie night
• ate your requested "herb cheese pizza" while watching above movie
• woke up late...twice.

 

her.

oh, the little one and her clothing. just like him, she has a style all her own. and she has ever since the beginning. i can remember letting her pick out her own clothes from the time she could walk. she was pretty intent on a certain "look" even then. it's always been layers with her. and comfortable clothing that is easy to move in.

she prefers stripes or polka dots over solids (and the more, the better!), socks on over her pants (knee socks), leggings instead of jeans, short sleeve shirts over the long sleeve ones, and pretty much always adds a skirt to everything. she went through a phase where everything HAD to be purple AND polka dotted AND striped (mama was really struggling finding clothes during that stage!), and then moved on to adding just about every color in the rainbow.

she's particular about shoes (luckily her feet haven't grown in about 2 years!) and wants her hair braided daily. her sock drawer is overflowing with stripes and polka dots and hedgehog prints, and we won't even get into what she will wear and not wear to bed.

the scene in the morning is typically the same: her clothes are carefully laid out on the floor, usually by her. but some days she comes into the kitchen and says, "Mama or Mark...please pick me out a really funky outfit!" so we do, and she either adds or subtracts to it. this morning it kind of went like this:

and some more from the style files of e:

in the yard

after a long week of heavy rains, cold days, and gray skies, we got a little break and the sun came out! we had so much work to do inside (it's that time of year again! hello thousands of wedding photos i need to edit!), but we just let it all fall away and spent the entire day outside.

i gardened and weeded. he took off the storm windows and managed to get our eight foot windows open to let in some fresh air.

we hung the laundry and he picked up the toys around the yard. we hung bird houses and wind chimes in the trees.

i made a late afternoon snack and got the corn ready for dinner.

then we enjoyed an evening walk through the fields while we watched the sun go down. we returned home to smores and a cup of tea.

it really was the perfect day.

him. and the winner!

 

thanks to all who entered the lisa leanord giveaway! sorry for the delay in announcing the winner...we had a wedding to shoot yesterday and have been super busy. random.org chose #95!

so...

Libbe said...

I love the twig necklace. I always wanted a pice of her jewelery, but just seem to never buy anything for myself - especially with a son in college

 

Congrats Libbe! please e-mail me (erinlittlephoto@gmail.com) and i'll pass along your info to lisa!

..............................................................................................................

 

i was going through my photos recently in an attempt to clean off my desktop and came across oodles of mark that i have taken over the past few months. some don't make it on here. others do. before i put them on the external hard drive, i wanted to share some here.

he is a great subject. i think he's so photogenic (and it helps that i absolutely adore him!) and his style is all his own. pretty good guy style inspiration here. we often walk out of the bedroom wearing the same thing (and one of us always has to change so we don't dress alike). he gets excited about yellow cords, wing tips, striped socks, and he always rolls his pants. he cuts the sleeves off of his stripe marimekko shirts for the summer, always has a hankie in his back pocket, and sews patches on holes like nobody's business. he's in search of the perfect button down cardigan, and an indigo blue suit for our wedding. we pour over W magazine together and he's the best person to ask, "does this look good on me?!" because he's got really good taste.

enjoy! (oh, and the second picture down...? not his empties! random ones in the big city!)

hope you are all having a fabulous weekend!

it's happening...

mark and i were going through the journal we keep together the other night and went way back to our list of goals for 2013. we were pleasantly surprised to find that we've accomplished a good many of them, with only the biggest, and most time consuming ones remaining. it's not unlike us to plow through a list of to-do's. it's really what we do best.

but there are the ones that couldn't really be written down. intentions that have been in my heart and my mind for months, if not years now. visions of where i want my life to head, what i would like to accomplish, personal evolving that i work on daily to be a better human being, and all the dreams and hopes i have for myself and my loved ones.

as i approach my 30th birthday, i've taken a lot of time to really reflect on the past and also look ahead to my future. it's funny how life can suddenly seem like it's just flying right by, not waiting for you to catch up and certainly not slowing down when you find yourself stumbling to get back on board. my life feels compressed suddenly...like there are far too many goals i hope to make a reality, way too many things i need to do; all the while realizing that running a business, being a mother and partner, taking care of a house, and trying to take care of myself really just fill up every single second of my existence. and there's not much left for all that other stuff.

and then i sit back and realize that all the other stuff i want to devote more time to just keeps piling up, and i keep putting it aside. and then i look at that stuff piled up in a dark corner of my mental existence and it starts to overwhelm me. then i get stressed about it just sitting there. and then i feel inadequate, or like i'm just not doing a good enough job.

but it's at that point, where i feel like i'm just absolutely going to give up because i will "never" get to it all, that i let it go. i let it go and the negative energy disappears. the to-do's and hopes and dreams and goals just turn into a type of motivating energy. and then guess what? they start to happen. things just begin moving. they come to me instead of me having to seek them out.

it's a funny thing to witness. and it's very reassuring and i am always ever so grateful for it all. i guess sometimes "making it happen" requires our complete surrender. surrendering to our needs, and instead just relying on faith that things will come our way when they are meant to.

what do you think? what has your experience been so far with the "make it happen" challenge? i'm so interested in hearing your thoughts!

Giveaway :: Lisa Leonard Designs

i am so pleased to announce this giveaway! lisa is a talented artist, amazing mama, and wonderful friend. i've enjoyed getting to know her the last few years!

i am lucky enough to own several of her pieces from her collection. the latest is the necklace above, which i often pair with another shorter gold necklace. it is the perfect piece for a casual outfit, or also looks perfect when i am all dressed up to go out!

she is kindly offering a $50 gift certificate to one lucky reader! hooray! and not to mention...sign up for her newsletter (on the main page here) and receive 15% off your purchase!

just leave us a comment and tell us what you would choose with a $50 gift certificate! winner will be drawn friday at 8 p.m. EST and announced shortly thereafter!

also, like her facebook page here!

good luck and thank you lisa!! xo

 

our weekend.

our weekend started with friday night breakfast for dinner! we had all four burners going making omelettes filled with greens and goat cheese. we light our candles every night, say our blessing, and dig in. then we have our family movie night. this week it was "the sandlot" which is a personal favorite of mine!

saturday morning started with typing some letters, taking some pictures, a bath before her ballet recital!

then it was off to the theater. she looked so amazing up there and enjoyed herself so much. she's already looking forward to next year.

then it was back for a backyard cookout. we ate smores too!

sunday was full of birthday party fun, gardening, and another cookout at a friend's house this time.

 

it was a full and busy weekend. we collapsed into bed sunday night absolutely exhausted, but i told mark it was the best weekend ever.

what did you do over the weekend?

stay tuned for a giveaway tomorrow!

xoxo

20/52

this week you:

• had your very first ballet recital in a big theater with hundreds of people watching. you were so spectacular! you ran off the stage into my arms and said, "oh mama! i didn't want it to end! i can't wait for next year!" we were SO proud of you!
• tried grilled eggplant for the first time. you didn't like it...
• watched one of my favorite kid movies "The Sandlot"
• dressed up as a flower fairy for your friends birthday party. you looked pretty sweet :)

mother's day weekend

this weekend was so special. we celebrate my sister's birthday and mother's day at the same time every year and have a simple gathering full of good food, wine, and music.

this year we hosted and it was just so much fun!

we started the weekend with going next door (yes...next door!) to a fabulous greenhouse and got a bunch of annuals to plant in pots for gifts.

on sunday morning i awoke to a choice of either breakfast in bed, or breakfast upon return from a run. so i chose to run! i ran 6 miles in the pouring rain and returned to my two loves waiting at the door with a towel to dry me off. they had the table all set with a fabulous breakfast (bacon, eggs, and kale) with espresso AND some champagne (wow!). they had the most fabulous gifts for me (how did i get so lucky?!) and both told me i was the best mother ever. aw!

we celebrated all day and into the night...mostly just celebrating being together, because as mark says..."it's what we do best!"

how was your mother's day?