Bits of Life
1 & 2. It was a rainy one today, so we made pancakes. Love those tiny tiptoes.
3. Cuddling is the best.
4. My go-to kale salad in process.
5. The playroom got a facelift. {here's a peek inside before I moved everything around}
6. Took a long walk and splashed in puddles.
xoxo.
Lately I've been thinking about what I do and why I do it, and just keeping check on what my motivations and goals are. Yesterday, I "took the day off," and refused to check my technologies whatsoever. I went to church. I took a nap. I enjoyed slower living and perhaps a dose of perspective as well. I spent a good bit being grouchy about the lack of chocolate chip cookies in my life, but otherwise it was a lovely day.
Sometimes life feels like a race against the clock to get things done. Children happy- emails answered- home cleaned- kids taken to lessons- food purchased, meals created, meals cleaned--
It's easy to get off track and get the stay-at-home-mom lifestyle a bit backward. The kids will create and I walk behind them with my broom... figuratively or literally.
It's a funny thing: I tend to get the most accomplished when I'm not doing life in a hurried way. Perhaps it means taking 30 minutes to fold laundry, but little hands are with me, matching socks and folding and refolding together. Perhaps it means everyone "doing work" together at the table: brows furrowed with concentration over their color crayons and workbooks, as I sit beside them, answering emails and paying bills. "Working" together. Perhaps it means starting dinner an hour early and allowing helpers to mix ingredients together themselves.
It's a better way to live. It's more conducive to striking conversations with my girl Sophie about favorites, about what she thinks of different food {her list of favorite foods is hilarious! broccoli, lollipops, cake, brussel sprouts, and ice cream!}, about where she likes to go the most, about what books she enjoys... It's also more conducive to learning about Maggie's interests {she wants to see every.single.thing I'm preparing in the kitchen, and she can spend 30 minutes coloring!}. These are things I don't learn when I'm trailing behind "just trying to keep up."
Cheers to today! I'm raising my {third} mug of coffee to slower living, and to a Monday enjoyed to the fullest!
xoxo,
Kate
Sometimes I'm so thankful I could cry. Confession: I actually did cry from thankfulness this weekend...
On Saturday, we found out that Sophie got into our first choice of schools for kindergarten. Maybe you live in a city or town where that isn't a novelty, but for us-- it's been that nagging underlying x-factor since I found out I was pregnant back in 2008. School was the one thing that could pull us to suburbs if it didn't pan out properly.
This weekend, it panned out properly. I ripped that envelope with so much anticipation, and Brian and I tried to prepare ourselves for it to show us a school across the city. It didn't. It showed us our FIRST CHOICE.
Tears and prayers of thankfulness.
Last year at this time, it seemed so many friends of ours were in limbo- and for that matter- so were we. There were requests for prayer and plenty of tears of sadness for health issues, job issues, relational issues... it was raining hard last year on a lot of us, figuratively and literally.
This weekend the blessings were overwhelming. Dear friends celebrated their love in a gorgeous wedding set in the Santa Cruz mountains, surrounded by incredible redwoods and loved ones. Other beloved friends met their little boy for the first time ever, after years of anticipation and planning. Another starts his new job today after years of training, and even now- as I think of these things- I'm overwhelmed with a grateful heart.
Things are not going to always be blissful. This life does not hand us cupcakes on fancy platters with silver spoons every day, no matter who we are...
The moments that it does... when prayers are answered with our hearts' desires, when God creates JOY from ashes, when hurdles are overcome... these are the times to pause, to be still, and to be thankful.
{Maybe even to the point of tears}.
After Pilates this morning, I vowed off bagels for life if I could never go back to that exercising pain, you know? ... Then I opened the mail and had an ad for some bagels & I'm vowing to go to Pilates again tomorrow so I can have one.
Speaking of eating, Maggie just put a couple of minnie mouse's shoes in her mouth. Why is it that just when you think a 2-year-old is over the whole random dangerous habits bit, they pick it right back up where they left off? They love to keep our heart rates nice and high.
Just another average day around these parts.
Exactly half of my home is seriously clean. Like tidied, vacuumed, wiped, clean-clean. The dining table is included in the clean mix, so my children were treated to sitting on the kitchen counter for breakfast this morning. Everyone was happy. I'm not generally crazy-mom about these things, but sometimes I just want that half of the house to stay clean just one more half-day, so I do crazy things.
We're heading to a playground soon. The weather is strange today. It was so windy in the early morning that the old windows in our home were rattling. It sounded like a storm outside, but it was actually a bit warm... someone called it earthquake weather- gosh, I hope not. The sun shine is becoming such a standard here. It may be time to invest in succulent stock because we're basically becoming desert-like around these parts. Whenever it rains this year, it makes the news headlines.
I like to regularly put up a post without pictures and talking about everything and nothing all at once, just to be rebellious. Do you know bloggers are never supposed to do that? It's true. The thing is: sometimes I just don't think anyone reading needs a picture of my freshly vacuumed rug, or my Pilates sweats {ps. I didn't do laundry in time, so I actually DID wear sweats this morning to Pilates, which is NOT what you do... yoga pants or bust! I figure my dignity is gone the moment I try my first move in class anyway, so how much additional dignity is gone by wearing sweats? At least I'm there.}
Now it's time to get going... green veggie smoothie for lunch, bagel smothered with cream cheese, or something in between?
I'll never tell.
A couple weeks ago, Jeanne from Shop Sweet Things invited Sophie and me to a Marimekko event at Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto. I have been a fan of the brand forever, and we were free to make the drive that day, so we spent the day in the bright, colorful wonderland together. Balloons, face-painting, mini cupcakes and FUN... yes, please!
Sophie and I walked the runway in Marimekko brights, and we had a little one-on-one time eating cupcakes, catching balloons, and perusing the new American Girl store across the way.
We took home pretty new lunch boxes in exchange for modeling the pretty dresses. We'll be packing those boxes daily for my Sophie in the fall {Ohhhhh how can it be? Kindergarten is just around the corner!}.
I could have snagged SO many pieces they had to offer. Tons of cuteness in one small space.
Some photos by Shop Sweet Things // Others taken by me with my iPhone. ;)
Marimekko Palo Alto: Stanford Shopping Center #71 180 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA 94304
Seeing as its Monday, it seems appropriate to talk about coffee.
I had my first sips of coffee at 3 years old, if my mom's memory is to be believed. I think it doubtful she waited that long to share her cups with us. Half of my family is Scandinavian, which all my life I heard is the clear reason that so many of my cousins and I were pouring steaming hot coffee into styrofoam cups regularly by the time we were in junior high {before we recognized styrofoam as the demise of our ecosystem, of course. I feel like talking about styrofoam as a cup choice in childhood will soon date me clearly as an 80's child}.
"It's hereditary," they told us of the coffee addiction.
Though we know underneath it all that it is not truly hereditary, coffee is a thing around here. My husband didn't believe in coffee without a minimum of 35 grams of sugar when he married me; these days he'll drink the largest cup he can get in his hands, morning and night, with or without sugar {generally with}. At 2-years old, Sophie poured real black coffee into a friend's toy teacup during a playdate and was sipping like it was no big deal.
So.
Cheers to coffee today. Cheers to waking on the right side of the bed on an early Monday morning during which I tortured myself with my second Pilates class of 2014.
{And by "right side of the bed" I'm referring to the moment my alarm went off and I said "you have got to be kidding me," and got out of my fluffy covers indignantly only because I didn't want to be charged for missing my class- which I found out was actually scheduled for 6:30 PM, which I only found out after I exercised for an hour. Good morning to me! One of these days I swear I won't be a scatterbrain anymore!}
Let's make it a good week.
xoxo.
Photo above by Pictilio for StyleSmaller.
