one year ago.

i know that i always say this, and it is still true - i have SO many unedited photos sitting on my computer. who knows what i'll actually end up doing with all of them.

but today, i happened to look through these photos, that were taken last year.

time flies...

( also, asher just had a bath before these photos, so his hair is wet - not super greasy hah! )

things i love from these photos:

asher's striped romper, painted walls, the changing table i painted, wooden blocks, cloth diapers, roman's baby towel that aaron surprised me with when i was pregnant ;)

broken arm #3.

just a couple quick darling photos of roman with his new cast, and proof of how BIG he is getting!

oh roman, you are too sweet for words!

happy friday!

happy friday everyone!

i just got my little asher to sleep and am pretty tired myself and avoiding going back downstairs. he is so sweet, laying next to me with his little hands wrapped around my arm.

today we had our first moving sale! we are hoping to have 3 more days total of moving sales before we leave. we were only open for about 4 hours today and made only 90 dollars, but i'm happy with it. i love having garage sales. seriously, it is so fun to sit out in the sunshine and wait for people to buy your old stuff. and man, do we have a lot of stuff that needs buying...

roman also got his cast put on today. he decided on black + glow in the dark but changed his mind and ended up with orange + glow in the dark ;) 

goodness he's looking big to me right now.

whenever i buy the boys new clothes and they start wearing the size up - they look HUGE to me. and i don't like it! stay little little ones, will you?

have a good weekend everyone!

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p.s.  i don't think i ever shared my last spearmint baby post about some of my favorite boy shoes for summer.

 

lessons in motherhood.

i always hear that saying about new moms "coming out of the newborn fog." i never felt too bad adjusting to my newborns. i mean yeah sure birth is exhausting but breastfeeding and being up all night and changing diapers feels natural to me and everything newborn is just intoxicating and wonderful and gives me a sort of newborn high. but there is this other fog that i always feel myself trying to pull out of and it is related to my littlest: asher. 

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asher who is full, full, full of energy and passion and love. who was the happiest little birdy of a newborn who just smiled away in his little rocking bed while i homeschooled roman or sucked cheerfully on my arm in the sling. and then as he became more baby and less newborn, he became more and more work. fussy fussy fussy for many hours. and yet also a happy, jolly, chubby elf of a boy with the roundest face and goofiest little smile i ever saw. and now, he is that same happy happy baby - tearing off after birds in the yard, reciting his family's names all in a row ( mama, dada, mono - yaaaay!) and hopping in the stroller full of excitement for a chance to sit back while we walk and point out all the things he knows and loves in the world. This boy is so, so full of passion. he loves with this passion as well and gives us the deepest most sincere hugs complete with gentle pats on the back and cooing. he sings and kisses and loves with reckless abandon.

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and he is also wild as can be. i cannot even describe the amount of energy he pulls from me in the day to day. he is a tiny destroyer, a fighter and a wild animal all wrapped into one. it has been such a learning process and a huge life lesson to me. roman was so calm. i'm not saying that I've never had struggles or issues with roman,  but it was on a much calmer scale. roman painted this picture of my expectation of motherhood for me - taking my boys to target while they sat happily in the cart looking at a toy together while i shopped, going to panera and sipping my caramel coffee across from two polite brothers calmly eating their macaroni and cheese. relaxing outside on a blanket while the boys meandered the yard while staying within view.  this was the way i mothered roman and i expected it to repeat with asher. 

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one thing that i'm learning is that motherhood isn't about me. it isn't something that is always easy or always what we expect. it is about sacrifice and self giving and it is about growth and lessons and love. i am so blessed to have ash. he is so totally unique and sometimes i wonder if there is anyone on earth quite like him. of course there isn't. every baby is new and wonderful and uniquely themselves. it is so fun to see these two beautiful souls that God gave me. i still have so much to learn. i still have so much of myself that needs to be shaken and rocked and adjusted. i still need so much more God and so much less me in my heart and mind. one challenge for me right now is mustering up the constant energy to handle asher's wild wild and crazy side. 

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but sometimes, moments happens like tonight - when we went to kroger, and the boys pushed the little kids cart together and helped pick out and load up tea and fruit and snacks, and roman stacked things up on the self checkout for me while i scanned, balancing ash on my hip, and we all pushed the cart to the car together, and it's moments like that that i feel the fog lifting, if only for a moment. :)

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roman's words.

roman broke his arm again on sunday, falling from a tree in our back yard. ( i know, i know we can NOT believe that he has broken it for the third time.) i rode in the backseat with him on the 30 minute drive to the hospital while we took pictures of ourselves with my ipod, and then i was the one to go into the er at the first hospital (we were later transferred to a specialist) and during those 3 hours we read a book together and playing the "don't you smile game" and joked around. roman kept saying "this is the best worst day, it's the worst because i broke my arm but its the best because we get to spend SO much time together!" of course, roman and i spend everyday, almost all day together, but we really don't get that one on one time that we had on sunday. it was special and good, and i just love that during the pain and fear that roman was experiencing, he was still his usual positive and perceptive self, finding the good things to hold on to.
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aaron and i are always saving texts between each other of things roman says or conversations he has with asher. i keep meaning to write them down in my journal but i keep forgetting. i wanted to jot a few things down just to remember the sweet  soul our roman is at five years old.
he is constantly reminding us of the good things, of the important things. his viewpoints and his feelings are so wonderfully pure and real.
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roman's words:
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"you're different than just any old girl; you're my mommy"
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"there has to be God. or else the world wouldn't feel like joy!"
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"the more love, the more happy."
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"i was MADE for hug and kisses"
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"i was made for everything love."

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be sure to visit out my store! i added a few new things today :)

big move/new store!

well, things are falling into place around here and it looks like we will be moving across the country in six weeks! we have been planning and dreaming and talking about this step in our lives since last summer and it's funny to think back to when i wrote this post, and was thinking about THIS move that we are preparing for now.

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my husband is transferring colleges to finally work on finishing his forestry degree which has been his dream for a long time. there are still so many details to be worked out and i'm not really sure what all is happening right now except that we are moving. soon.

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another facet to this move is that we are planning to basically clear out most of what we own, and start new! which brings me to my next point - my new store!

one dream of mine is to run a second hand children's store online from my home, and since i'm sorting through things for the move, i thought it was a good time to get it going for now and see what happens!

i don't really expect anything to happen but it was fun anyway :)

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so take a look! i've posted a lot of gently used/new kid's clothes and shoes as well as toys. since i homeschool i have a lot of great preschool learning activities. i'll probably try to add more items as the week goes on, so check back! also, i'd love any feedback from you all!

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portraits of ash.

 

two portraits of my twenty one month old asher.

"i am your quiet place; you are my wild"

-Maryann Cusimano