So Glad I Married This Man...

...Six years ago today! He is amazing and it just keeps getting better.

Happy Anniversary, baby! {Sorry I didn't get you a card...}

For The First Time In A Long Time...

• There is an actual baby sleeping in the nursery...{she's not extremely happy about it, but she's conceding to it here and there}
• The girls are out of their pajamas before lunchtime
• I've been making lots of soap
• I'm planning new products and getting very excited about them
• Layla has wanted to hang out with me ALOT...{due to the fact that her bff is at school, but I'm not dwelling on that!}
• I've just cut a batch of Pumpkin Soap! {and it's totally making me want pumpkin pie!}
• It's actually chilly enough today that I think I could get away with making soup for dinner
• We're making all kinds of baby food
• I kind-of, sort-of have some semblance of a grasp on the laundry
• The windows are open and the AC is off!

What's new and exciting in your world?

We Did Great...

Rayne {of course} loved school. She made some friends on the bus, loves her teacher, feels like such a big girl, and can't wait to go back tomorrow!

I did not shed one tear...until I got back to the house. But even then, I only wept for a few moments. I'm glad the proverbial band-aid is off...but I'm still going to miss her when she goes tomorrow, and every day after.

I am super spent. It's been a very long and busy day. I have many things to say but we'll just wait and start fresh tomorrow.

Thank you so much for your thoughts, prayers, and well wishes. Every one of them gave me much needed strength today!

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow...

Yesterday, my first born and I went on a "big girl" date to celebrate her going off to Kindergarten. The time alone with her to be together, talk one on one, and discuss her upcoming big day was priceless.

Today, I gave Rayne & Layla mani/pedis, to again, get ready for Rayne's big day. I'm feeling more at ease with the transition. My months of fretting are over and I'm relieved that the band-aid is about to be ripped off. Always, I feel the anticipation of something can be harder than the actual event. So, although I keep having slight pangs of sadness, overall I feel calm. And ready.

Also, today, I finished reading the Twilight Saga. I chose those books to read during August as an entertaining distraction from thinking of Rayne going off to school. It's so fitting that I would finish the day before. These books were enjoyable and I'm coming away from them believing {just a little bit} in magic again. Age has made me far too rational and I'm happy to have this little bit of whimsy back in my life.

Tomorrow, I will send my first born off to school {on the bus} for the first of many, many days to come. All I can hope for now is that she is safe and happy, and that I am able to feel all the accompanying emotions authentically, sit with them comfortably, and then move beyond them gracefully. She's very excited/nervous/anxious...but I know we're both going to be great!

Wish us luck!

Small Victories...

Life has been, well, 'little' these days. We've been doing everything in baby steps lately on account of the, er, yeah...baby! Seriously, though...we've been taking little trips out, doing little projects, getting a little work done here and there, straying just a little far from home. You'd think I'd be used to this by now but the size of our living around here often correlates with the size of our kids. And, well, I haven't lived this small in about three years and I'm a bit out of practice. I think it was right around this time three years ago that I started running. There was something about just getting out and using all of my energy, strength, and air that felt so necessary. The baby I had at the time was not quite as attached to her mama as this one is and I am having trouble getting away for any length of time. But I digress...

My original point was that with everything scaled back to such a small, basic increments, I need to remember to measure my daily success accordingly. For example, before baby it was a pretty light day if I did some laundry, ran some errands, made a batch of soap, and got dinner on the table. These days, getting any one of those things done in addition to attending to Maya's needs along with the normal care of two energetic young girls is pretty huge! Now, very often, this perspective clashes with my normal multi-tasking, energetic, over-achieving, never-a-dull-moment mindset I typically posses. {Okay, it pretty much always clashes and I'm having a very hard time with i} But I need to remember to breathe! I need to remind myself that these days will be gone all to quickly and I WILL miss having a wee babe to hold in my arms and having no more important job than doing just that. I need to remember that all this other stuff is not nearly as important as this first fleeting year of her beautiful little life.

So, here's to celebrating the little stuff...and letting go of the rest!

Happy Friday!

{For those of you wondering...I have stuck to my daily photo challenge this week. Not easily, but done. You can check out my week of photos here.}

I Guess It Won't Be So Bad...

Anyone who has read even one of my blog posts this summer knows that I'm all but physically ill over the thought of my first born going to Kindergarten this year...next week in fact. But we had an opportunity to go with Rayne to her school the other night for a special Kindergarten orientation. I really hadn't realized how much of my anxiety over the whole thing involved my unknowns about where she would spend her days, who she would be with, what her classroom would look like, etc. All of those questions were answered the other night. We got to look around her school, see her classroom, meet her teacher, get to know some of the students in her class and talk with their parents. We even saw some people that Brent and I went to school with who now have a child starting Kindergarten as well. I now feel like I can let her go off to school with a bit more ease just having those questions answered. That night I slept better than I had in weeks.

I will still be dreading that first day of school...all the while putting my brave face on for Rayne. I will do my best to smile an encouraging smile while she steps onto that bus and heads off for her first day in the world. I will continue to talk with her about all the friends she'll meet, all the things she'll learn, and all the good times she'll have. But as soon as that bus rolls out of sight, I'll be crying like a baby! Thank goodness Brent will be home with my that day to help me walk back to the house...

Please keep us in your prayers this coming week that Rayne and I can both be strong and enter this new stage with light and open hearts. Thanks!

One More Year 'Til Thirty...

Tomorrow I'll be 29. Not a monumental birthday per se. But the one right before a pretty significant one. It's the last year of my twenties. The last year of a decade: a decade full of many, many changes. A decade which I entered as a child and am leaving, well, a bit more of a grown up. A decade of graduating college, getting married, having a child, then another, and yet another. A decade of hurt, healing, joy, success, failure, happiness, sadness, overcomings, shortcomings, ending, and beginnings. It's hard to look back on all that's occurred in a matter of ten years without being amazed.


I'm not a person to have many goals. I'm far too aware of life's ever-changing nature to attempt to decide what I will and will not be able to accomplish in a year. I do, however, wish to really embrace this year and live it in a very meaningful way as a homage to all that's occurred in the other years making up this decade. I'm hoping that by doing so, I will enter my thirties with an acute awareness of where I have been, where I am now, and where I'd like to be going. I've been thinking for quite some time how I'd like to authenticate this year in a way that is most authentic to me. I've decided that taking at least one picture every day this year is a relatively simple way to chronicle each day of this last year in my twenties. Most days I take plenty of pictures anyway and it will be good photography practice. Plus, it takes minimal time and honestly, most days, that's all I have. I'm hoping that at the end of the year, these pictures will provide a testament to my growth, my core, and my direction. If nothing else, this ritual will demand that I take pause each day to remember the significance of this year and where I hope to be at it's end.

I don't yet have a cute name for my little challenge, but I'll think of one soon. I'll be posting my daily pictures over at my Flickr site {perhaps not daily but for sure every week}. If anyone else would like to join me for a little daily photo challenge, just leave a comment or shoot me an email...I'd love the company!

I'll be spending my "big day" quietly {hopefully} with my family, possibly having a little playdate with some good friends, enjoying the final two Twilight Saga books which arrived in the mail yesterday, and a little celebratory dinner at my mom's. My sweet hubby has arranged for Twilight the movie to arrive for us tomorrow via Netflix! It should be a great day!

I hope you've all had a wonderful weekend!

Happy Friday...

I've Been Bitten...

I'm a hopelessly devoted love slave to the Twilight Saga! As one of the LAST people in the world to get lost in these amazing stories, most of you are either saying "yeah so what" or "oh no...not her now too." I need to say that for over a year I have been doubting what could be so great about these novels: vampire falls in love with a human...big whoop! But you know, I kept hearing about people's complete enthral with this saga and finally it was too much: I HAD to know what was so great about these books! Now was the perfect time...I needed a big distraction from my baby's 5th birthday and from the impending first day of school. Let me just say...WOW! Perfect. Just what I needed.

I bought the first two thinking that if I hated them than at least i hadn't invested in the entire saga and if I liked them I would certainly have time to order books 3 & 4 {they are nearly 600 pages each}. Now, I'm a busy mama of three with birthday parties, dr's appts., library readings, mouths to feed, and so forth going on. But somewhere in there I read the first book in four days and the second book in a day and a half! They are mesmerizing! Now I have to wait a couple of days for the final two to arrive but my hubby is probably happy to have me back in his realm of reality.

This Girl That Is *5*...

...is bright and kind.
...is gentle & caring.
...takes amazing care of her sisters {and has on plenty of occasions taken great care of her Mama, too}
...loves to laugh, and read, and dance, and sing.
...is good at almost everything she does.
...has an old soul filled with all the things that are good and true in the world.
...loves to be fancy.
...is game for anything.
...has changed her Mama so profoundly for the better.
...is loved so much more than she'll ever fully know.

Happy Birthday, Rayne! We all love you so much!

A Cupcake Extravaganza...

Birthdays are big in this house! And turning 5? Well...that's monumental! We celebrated Rayne's big day in true big-girl style with some of her favorite things: girlfriends, cupcakes, and creativity!

The main event was a decorate your own cupcake feast filled with pastel colored icing, sprinkles, edible hearts, M&M's, marshmallows, and a variety of toppers. The guests were free to decorate at their whimsy and then eat their creations. Needless to say...it was a hit!

There were some fabulous cupcakes being created. I will know who to call the next time I need a fancy dessert!

The day was fun, life is great, and Rayne was just so happy to have her friends all over to her house. We'll be preparing to celebrate her actual {OFFICIAL} big day on Tuesday. Yes, we have days of birthday celebrations...I told you birthdays were big in this house!

And mine is coming up in a week!

Us As We Are...

We've had a great week of fun and togetherness! Not without its fair share of tiredness & crankiness...from all of us. But for the most part, it's been extraordinarily nice to spend an entire week together. We enjoyed some time away with family including a day trip to the beach. I mentioned my unusually strong pull to the beach in a previous post and I have to say that I do feel renewed and more at peace now that I've been to the water {around a full moon no less!}. The water was brimming with jellyfish, the beach was super crowded, it was rather hot, and Layla wouldn't go near the water...but it was a day at the beach none-the-less and beggars cannot be choosers!

Our week finished off at home crossing some big things of the never ending to-do list, taking some family photos, and having a birthday bash for Rayne and her friends. It was good...very good. I'll be sad to see the weekend end and reality coming barrelling back at us!

I have many pictures to share. Hopefully I'll get some time to upload them tomorrow so that I can share some more of my week with you. I hope you all have had a lovely first week of August!