seven years.

 (march 17, 2006 on the way to our wedding reception)

i'm so proud of my husband.
i'm proud that as a teenager he showed me what it meant to love and to be loved. i'm proud that he furthered my heart's desire to live a Godly life and that he taught me how to pray out loud.

i'm proud that at 18, he worked at a bagel shop to save up for our future and bought me a pretty old fashioned engagement ring. i'm proud that he drove an hour to and from work to support me through a horribly difficult pregnancy that brought us to our first son roman. i'm proud that he remembered all the instructions from the lactation consultant when i was too extremely exhausted to hear or follow directions after roman’s birth. i'm proud that he has diligently worked at jobs he doesn't love to support our family. i'm proud that he fixed the birthing pool and encouraged and loved me through the childbirth of my dreams to bring us asher. i'm proud that he is a sensitive and compassionate husband to our boys. i'm proud that he has reached for dreams of a better future for us all and that he hasn't given up even though it’s been hard.

there are so many things that i love about aaron. i am teary and full thinking what God has given me. there are many things that are not perfect and not wonderful about my life. but aaron is such a blessing. to think that amidst every barrier in my life, God gave me what my heart wanted more than anything - to get married young, to be a mother, to love Jesus - it just blows me away. sometimes i feel so different than everyone around me, like i am doing things so alternatively and following such a different path, but aaron always gets me. he always has. maybe nothing i am saying makes any sense, but i have to get a little bit of it out anyway while it's on my mind.
seven years ago today i married my best friend. i love you aaron, thank you for loving me always, for your endless prayers and endless back rubs, for sharing all things simple and wonderful with me. forever and always ;)

happy friday.

(november 2012)

i love this photo where roman popped in front of my lens while i was trying to take pictures of asher.

goodness they grow too fast! their nice haircuts here may be part of it!

today is lazy and whiny so far.

asher has thrown a can of pop which exploded on the floor,

taken his diaper off and peed on the floor,

and then decided to eat his lunch off the floor.

my poor carpets - please don't tell the landlord...

happy friday!!

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snow.

i think i may be officially ready for warm weather. so that i can actually WANT to leave my house. and so that these boys can run around in the sunshine everyday... but i was happy when it snowed yesterday and i got a chance to spend a few minutes outside with asher, capturing him as he enjoyed the magic of snow.

happily dancing in the quiet snowflakes. 

with his two different too-small shoes that he picked out all by himself.

 chasing his birdy friends. 

just being wonderfully one.

broken arm.

we are so proud of our roman who got his second cast off yesterday. his poor arm was super sore and he could hardly move it all day. for some reason, i wasn't expecting that. i kind of thought they would take the cast off and he would just be running around doing handstands immediately. but of course, that makes no sense :) so we watched movies all day yesterday, and i hugged and rubbed and kissed his weak little arm.

roman is so brave. he told me that he loved the part where they sawed his cast off and he wanted to "put his cast back on so they could saw it off again!" you could tell he was waiting for me to tell him how brave he is after he told me that. this is the boy who "loves shots," he declared after receiving an iv in the hospital last spring when he had a virus in his leg. he had another iv when he broke his arm this time, and sure enough he still "loves shots"! when he was two and had surgery and was in that scary metallic operating room with strange doctors and nurses all around him and had to breathe in the anesthesia i was a nervous wreck. but not roman. he was totally focused and followed the doctors instructions to breathe deep. he is just amazing with medical things and always impresses everyone at the hospital.

it's so funny to see these little people God makes and puts in our lives. they are each so unique. i'm so proud of our little roman. we are so thankful that he was able to avoid surgery and that his arm has healed as well as could be hoped for! and since he is already broken his arm two times in five years - here's to hoping this was the last!

teddy bear.

ok, so these are obviously old, but i think that they are too special to never share.
i have so many photos of this boy, of these boys of mine.
and they sit on my computer. or on disks. or on flashdrives. and my computer is jam stuffed FULL,
 it always is.
lightroom has 16,000 photos on it right now. as usual.
i have client sessions backed up all over the place in no particular order.
i am a disorganized mess. with random photo albums + half started projects here and there and everywhere.
with all these photos, yet none on my wall.
with visions and dreams of what to do with them, but never really doing much...
honestly it stresses me out sometimes.
 but in reality, it doesn't really matter. at all.
i kind of like being a disorganized mess - thank you very much.
and at the end of the day, it means nothing if the baby book is caught up,
or if i have a  baby book at all.
i'll get around to it, and if i don't, it's okay.
i just want to appreciate my photos for what they are - real moments in time with my blessings.

so, here are some photos from last spring to enjoy, at our last home, when asher was 10 months old.
playing in the back yard with his teddy bear that aunt hillary brought him from europe.

oh these boys, and these days. a dream come true.

p.s. how do you all organize family photos?? i would LOVE some ideas.
you know, ideas that i may never get around to doing ;)
also, do any of you have suggestions on a good external hard drive? 

 

happy friday.

today has been

daddy sleeping in after working all night, then getting up + going back to work,

pbs kids + a long baby nap,

tidying + cleaning up broken glass,

eating sweet potato fries while brothers fight in the bath,

a load of laundry in a broken washer, 

and nursing in the 4 o'clock sunshine.

thankful that the worst of the week is over.
and thankful that the worst really wasn't that bad after all ;)

happy friday to you all!

my spearmint baby post this week ;)

nineteen months.

nineteen months.

oh my.

facing the reality that nineteen months has passed since asher's birth is simply unreal. just a moment ago i was folding tiny newborn gowns + reading spiritual midwifery in the sunshine on the back porch, preparing for a new little life. and now, over a year and a half later - our asher is almost a little boy. pushing his chair up to the sink so that he can grab my yesterday's coffee that sits inside. taking liberties to take his own diaper off when it's time for a change, singing the "mama" song that he composed himself, counting to three in his own little way. closer to two than one.

when the days were slower and asher was itty bitty, i often used to talk to him at night as he nursed to sleep about when he came into my life. i'd pet and kiss his sweet little head and apologize for not being there during that first week when he stayed in the nicu.  one of his doctor's told me during that week, that soon asher would be home and healthy and the time in the nicu would seem distant and brief. in a way that is not true to me. it’s true that one week is a short amount of time, but that was OUR first week. there is something so wrong about a mother and baby being separated at birth. even though i was able to spend much time with him, provide all of his milk for him, and was lucky that his stay was so short - there are still moments that we were robbed from. sometimes now at bedtime, i still go back to the beginning. i tell asher how much he means to me. nineteen months later i am still thankful that God answered my prayers and healed asher. that first week was hard, but for every first moment that was lost, i've now had nineteen months of asher in my arms each and every night to make up for it. and for that i will always be grateful.

Asher at eighteen months.