celebrations.

i do love a good birthday celebration, as well. especially when it's, well, you know - MINE!

the mama, at 32.

i love dinner out and dancing with family and besties, and i love a fancy cake made by someone who loves me and pretty candles, and being surrounded by people i love. my baby brother came to visit, we got to play outside a bit, and in all, it was a good way to celebrate the beginning of my thirty second year. so cheers, to me and the peeps who allow me to love and be loved!


(and probably one of my most favorite bits? sharing this fab-o bottle with my bro and his girl. thanks mom & dad for leaving it behind! it was well appreciated....;)

32. (or, ways the universe smiled upon me since i last blew out candles.)

i do like a good list. always have. lately i've been inspired by this site, (which reminds me of a book i had in college called "a writer's book of days") and also this one, to make more lists. i think they're a nice thing to have, just in case you forget stuff. or have a lot of children, which makes you forget stuff. and also? i'm 32 today. so, the way i see it, i had better start writing this stuff down now. because, you know, when else?

and another thing is, i'm trained as a writer. i mean, i went to school for this stuff. and lately, well, i feel a little rusty. so maybe lists will inspire topics, and topics will lead to shhhh.....writing.

i'm not making any hard and fast promises, but i think you'll start to see more lists around here. hooray.

this was a year in which i know that i was extraordinarily blessed. my thirty second year sent me to san diego and yosemite and portland and paris and hawaii. my thirty second year was full of tight hugs around my neck and sweet baby thighs, of first steps and lost teeth and swinging on swings. it was a year of loving and being loved more deeply than i knew i could. i know it. and just so you all know, narrowing the list of times the universe smiled upon me down to 32? nearly impossible.

and without further ado:

32. (or, ways the universe smiled upon me since last I blew out candles.)

1. my two best guys (over the age of 8) built me a space of my own, in which I can sew and think and create to my hearts content.


2. i found myself with a wealth of new vegetables and new eating experiences, thanks to my first journey into community supported agriculture.


3. i realized my middle is happiest in a costume


4. i celebrated the first really warm day of spring with sunlight, a magazine, a homemade quilt, and perfect baby toes.


5. i discovered secret nappers on a rainy saturday


6. we explored disneyland with 1 nana, 1 papa, 4 parents and 6 cousins ages almost 1 to 7 years old. got out purchasing only 1 bottled water, 6 ice cream cones, and two star wars blasters.

7. i gave a baby her very first french fry


8. the boys learned to play marbles (again). thank you, papa!


9. i photographed 5 boys, 1 baby girl, and 6 fake mustaches. laughed hysterically.


10. we planted waaaaaay too many tomatoes


11. i finally got decent portraits of each of my babies


12. for the birthday of my sweet friend, i baked a very, very pretty cake. and it tasted UH-mazing.


13. i held my breath as my oldest pitched a little league inning


14. our whole family fell in love with a pair of robins as they built a nest, laid their eggs, fed their babies, and let them fly. all in two months time.


15. i climbed the eiffel tower. explored the louvre. rowed a boat on the grand canal at the palace of versailles.


16. i discovered (and made about 40 batches of) my new favorite salad

17. i met a friend i knew as a baby and now love as an adult. the kind you can’t believe you haven’t known forever. the kind who will never, ever be far from your heart again.

18. i sewed (and actually subsequently WORE) my first skirt.


19. the mister and i had a water balloon fight. beat the snot out of those pesky kids.


20. i ate my fill of cherries off the tree


21. i spent a long overdue afternoon with my oldest friend, and kissed the heck out of her new baby. watched our girls laugh on a blanket in matching homemade dresses.


22. i watched my last baby take her first steps.

23.i hiked to two waterfalls. waded in one. swam in the other.


24. i shared an ice cream cone to celebrate the first day of second grade.


25. i helped a friend who had watched her house go up in flames move into the home her heart had been searching for. i sat at a beautiful supper outside, breathed the sweet air around us and felt overwhelmed by the good.


26. i sewed a pincushion


27. i began photographing myself for a change, and actually liked a few self-portraits.


28. did flowers for a wedding. Mostly from my garden.

29. to the immense amusement of my mister and my boys, i surfed with the girls.


30. with fear and trepidation, hope and anticipation, i watched two people I hold close to my heart fall in love. with each other.

31. put pigtails in my baby girl’s shiny red hair


32. learned that saying goodbye is always hard, but sometimes nearly unbearable. but hello...hello feels so good after such a big goodbye.

ugh.

It's so winter. it really is. it makes me want to not use proper punctuation, and wear my yoga pants a lot, and drink a lot of coffee and read a lot of books by my fireplace. unfortunately, my plan is often foiled by A) having to leave the house for food and general supplies, and B) three small children, who for some reason do not think reading books by the fire and drinking coffee is necessarily an ALL DAY activity. (luckily, they don't really have an opinion on the yoga pants! YAY!) Although that big one...by the way he's ravenously devouring books lately, i'm starting to think he's coming around. i've got my eye on him....

ahem. anyhow. it's just been a lot lately. i'm not usually one for the winter blues (seeing as how i LOVE LOVE LOVE the seasons, and the cold, and did i mention i LOVE the seasons? have you heard how i feel about FALL?) but this year, they seem to have caught up with me. as a super awesome band once sang,

"And maybe it's the time of year,
Yes and maybe it's the time of man.
And I don't know who I am,
But life is for learning."

thank you, crosby stills and nash. and thank you bill wertz, for the crosby stills and nash education.

so, yeah. i haven't really been wanting to blog, because there's lots of stuff that i just don't really want to talk about. which is probably avoidance, and probably delayed processing, and probably just me being a person who withdraws periodically, because i can. it could also have something to do with my thirty second birthday being right around the corner.....ouch. when did i get to be 32? how is this possible? i'm ninety percent sure i was like 19 just a few weeks ago.....hmmm. fishy.

so i'll leave you with some photos of one thing i do love in the winter....the oregon coast. it's so spectacularly beautiful and dramatic and dark and stormy. i love a good dark and stormy day every once in a while. luckily, i live in oregon. they are in ready supply.

family photos.

Have you ever tried to take family pictures with your camera on a tripod and a timer or remote? Have you ever felt like you were a reasonably competent photographer, only to be confounded by the utter inability to get a decent photo of your entire family at one time? Huh. Me too.

Enter....the professional photographer. Oh, they are worth their weight in gold, especially when you have two little boys who can be magically bewitched by pretty girls with blond hair.

Check out Jenna at Dolce Photography. She's great. I think the photos speak for themselves. AND she was gracious enough to give us a second chance redo, when weather, meltdowns and grumpy babies proved difficult to manage. :) I uploaded just a few, but click here and here for her blog posts...THANK YOU JENNA! It was so fun to have to choose a favorite for Christmas cards this year, instead of just trying to find ONE good one....

oh, hawaii.

i sorta lost momentum on the vacation posts, there. sorry. in order to be fair to our whole vacation (GRANTED it was 24 days long....) i'm uploading the rest of my photos to flickr as fast as i can edit them. i'll post a few more here, but i need to move on in the blogosphere. mostly because i'll probably start crying about the warm sun, the sand, the water....and the family.


the recap? we went to the beach, had a romantic getaway, hung out with friends we don't see nearly enough, bought a teeny baby bikini, surfed together, surfed separately, saw a bunch of fireworks, went on a hike, swam in a waterfall, got on the plane, got off the plane, got a bonus day, and then went home. all the while? we laughed and cried and got irritated with each other, and got unirritated, we did church, and christmas, and breakfast lunch and dinner, and just tried to get our fill of each other while we could. because only half of the people i love the most in the world got on the plane and came home. the other half stayed there.

so, next. winter and such. coming soon.
oh, and p.s. - thanks for anyone who followed the link to Healing Waters International. Again - consider donating if you can!