dear spring

thanks for arriving today so unexpectedly.

you made my heart flutter and my children's shoes joyfully muddy.

i love you spring.

please don't break my heart with your "here today gone tomorrow" mentality. you and your teaser lofty breezes and coma-inducing warmth.

let the following merriment entice you to stay forever.

it was your loveliness that caused me to override my 4GB memory card this afternoon, so you should at least get to see the fruit of your ever-desirous labor.

"please don't go...don't gooooo...don't go a-way..."

(isn't that a really lame 80's song?)

sing it proud, Spring.

and heed it's warning.

i might have to vacate the premises and move to the sun.

if you so much as consider retracting your springness

that'll show you, hu?

galavanting

girls night
sweet hubby's on daddy duty
mini cooper chauffeur
ticklish pedicures and awesome massage chairs
venti carmel frap and preggo pizza cravings
shopping shenanigans
bonefish pomegranate martini's and strawberry shortcake
the perfect evening.

moonbounce buddies

thanks to denise for this cutie-pie shot!

tender application

our dearest friends and family

i am writing today because we need you.

we really need you.

especially today at this very moment as my fingers strike the keys of my laptop.

i put the finishing strokes on our precious adoption application today.

i attached our little wallet size photo.

i carried the letter oh-so-gently...
being sure not to wrincle it's delicate corners, or smudge it's perfect crispness.

as i sealed it closed, my stomach completly turned upside down.

it hit me today that we are acctually starting the process we have been dreaming of for years.

i need you today.

please take a moment, oh dear friends and family

and pray for our sweet little girl.

we need you.

she needs you.

pray for her en-utero, as she may not be born yet, or maybe she is.

pray that she grows strong and is loved daily dispite her curcumstances.

pray for her birth-mom and caregivers.

pray that God blesses her sweet little life

pray that we will seek God for the impossible parts of this process and

pray that we will always remember how he provided for us when we look back on this time in our lives.

and please pray for my heart. i ache at the unknowing...i ache as i pray for her...i can hardly think about her without feeling great saddness as the entire process looms before me. but mostly, i ache because i love her so much.

thank you for reading this and lifting up our sweet little one, even though you haven't met her yet.

someday she can thank you in person :)

while i was on the phone this morning...

i heard the following statement:
"mommy, i flashed the toilep all by myself!"

upon opening the "toilep" i found that foster had "flashed" his underwear as well as the remnants from his little potty.

discustingly messy.
but funny :)

i'm a horrible person

a few posts ago, i introduced our sweet little pup.

who's name has already changed 3 times.

she is, in fact, rediculously cute.

rediculously sweet.

rediculously adorable.

but, i am sad to lament that the day-to-day innerworkings of pet ownership have caught me a bit off guard.

from my "already-busy-with-mothering" mom perspective, i didn't even invest thought in the idea that maybe adding a baby puppy into my house already containing two babies might not be a great move.

now i know why my mom, and my mother in law and my friends and my neighbor, and my friend's sister's aunt's boyfriend's doctor's daughter told me that i was out of my mind for getting a 7 week old puppy.

now i get it.

you were all trying to save me the heartache that i now inveitably must bestow upon my family.

my family who undoubtedly loves this little pile of fur and cuteness.

i don't blame them.

she's perfectly adorable.

but i am perfectly irritable and out of sorts.

i think we jumped the gun.

i think i need another year of mothering 2 under my belt before i test the ultimate test of mothering and enter pet ownership.

she is just so stinkin cute.

she was hard to resist.

but i am sad to say i am secretly considering re-homeing her cuteness for someone else to enjoy.

don't tell my son.

my poor, soon-to-be-heartbroken son

so, here is my tribue to my dog.

who may soon be someone else's dog.

and my stone cold heart. (so my husband says )

at least i can look back at this post and remember how beautiful she was

and remember the week we had a dog.

p.s. please don't send me too many "i told you so" comments. i don't think my heart can take it. although i probably deserve it. so go ahead. send them. it serves me right. i should have to bear the pain of my soon to be dog-less children and husband. not sure the hubby will ever forgive me, though. maybe i'll just have another baby to make him forget about the puppy :)

my new favorite things

apparel with accouterments:



matching accessories:


brotherly love:




rowan's least favorite thing?
favorite chair stolen by boot-wearing big brother:

p.s. thanks to uncle steve and aunt lala for the snazzy new rain goloshes. as you can tell, they are quite a hit, although i have no idea how to spell "goloshes" :)

till 'dress' do us part

i had a doosy
a doosy of a day
in order to turn my utmost frustration into positivity,
i took it out on my house.
second only to a shopping spree, "redding out" my closets usually does the trick.

we have several "black holes" in our house
areas of clutter ridden catastrophic toxicity that i only dare enter with utmost caution and usually escape with my brain completely stripped of it's sensibilities.

tonight, i braved the unknown and entered black hole #1
2 hours, 2 large hefty's and 2 empty boxes later
i survived
and started for black hole #2

it is at this point where my post begins
(sorry that it took half of the post to get here. i'm wordy. get over it :)

i found myself at a box which held the very beginning
the literal place where it all began

my wedding dress.
circa 2003.

the true test of sanity for any woman who has let a few years pass since it's wearing and certainly for a woman who has since allowed her midsection to be stretched to unearthly lengths to bring children into the world.

just the sight of it gives me chills.

yes, yes of course lovely memories waft into my brain of the day so beautiful and perfect it changed my life forever...

but the true thought, right after the lovely memories thought
haunts me to my very core
the question on all of our minds
the question i dare not ever consider saying allowed...
"does it still fit???"

my question of all questions got the best of me.
i did the deed.
out came the mounds of satin white with its darling scattering of rhinestones and floral scapes...the tiny precious details i hadn't even noticed in my trip down the isle
i unzipped the claspings and into it i thrust myself.
not quite prepared for how i would ever deal with the situation that would arise if it didn't, in fact, still fit. my heart couldn't even bare to consider it. but as i began to fill it's capacity, my heart welling with utmost angst, certain that i would not recover from such a disappointment...

zip.
it fit.

enter 1/2 hour of prancing about in fairyland-like merriment
enter husband and children overjoyed at such an overjoyed sight

go ahead, ask me how my day was today...
my answer: awesome!

here she is...

our newest family member

hot cakes

i awoke this morning with renewed vigor.

the kind that begs for something special to occur.
a vigor that often results in lunches beneath home-made tents or absurdly elaborate paper-mache robot costumes.

i knew right away when my first born was still enjoying peaceful slumber at the unearthly hour of 7:05 am that i had just enough time to put my vigor into action.
chocolate chip pancakes would be our platform into breakfast perfection.

i snatched second born (who is always first to awake) and snuggled him on my oh-so-ridiculously-strong left arm.

straight away, we took to mixing and pouring and flipping.
it was a plan of seamless formulation.

1 child on arm.

1 child in bed.

1 box of krusteaz.

(as a side note: if you have never tried this brand of perfection, i would highly recomend it's unbelievably delicious "just add water" forumula. you will never return to any other brand. guaronteed.)

we chose fresh blueberries as a side item, as an attempt to justify my tooth-rotting chocolate choice.
i secretly wondered which delicacy my first born, fruitly fanatic child, would be enticed by more...my motherly intuition would be put to the test.

rowan and i marveled at our lovely piles of pancakes.
well, i marveled...rowan taste-tested.

we snuck upstairs to foster's snoring bedside...

me: "buddy wake up! we made you chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast!"
foster: (with sudden alertness usually unknown to a sleepy 2 year old) "really? chocolate???"

me: "yep, and a special surprise on your plate, too!"

foster: "special???!!! surprise???!!!" his feet barely made contact with the flooring as he bolted for the kitchen.

moments later, his delight was fulfilled as he spotted the blueberries nestled beside his chocolaty delight.

my intuition was correct.

first to be devoured: blueberries.

after 3 rounds of gooey hotcakes

more blueberries.

it is mornings like this that help me wake up tomorrow with continued resounding vigor for life. finding special in the everyday littleness that otherwise easily entangles me with doldrum monotony.

it is mornings like this that help me forget about the cheerios crunching on the floor, the pile of 5 loads waiting to be folded, the dexterous state of my own disheveled appearance.

it's the enrapturing delight. the abundances of love. the endearing laughter.
it's a morning that lets me remember being a mom has nothing to do with the things that i make it to be.

super mom doesn't exist.
but i do.
and although my kids will never look at me and see a shining cape with a floating perfection of details, hopefully they will see the joy i take in the little things that get us though our day.

...and cornstalks

we love to daydream here in our household.
we dream and talk amongst ourselves
our daydreams often take our mother/child conversations to a place that i can only describe as preciousness. i daily cherish these little insights as i could never fathom enough time to write them all down.

we dream about getting a sticky kiss from a large hippo.
we dream about eating fresh, juicy blueberries.
we dream about riding on the bumpy bump of a hairy camel.
we dream about having a pet nudibranch (foster somehow finds a nudibranch everytime we look through his ocean book. i am always reading the captions, and guess what...it really is a nudibranch that he pointed to! how on earth does he know that??)

most of all, we dream about our garden.
our soon to be planted, rather large in it's conception, garden.

we plot our little plan.
we sketch pictures of carrots, and green peppers, and cherry tomatoes and strawberries, and sometimes the occasional chocolate chip cookie tree slips into our masterpeice :)
but recently, foster has become obsessed with cornstalks.
a wording that i used maybe once to describe tall stalks of corn...but he picked up on it right away.

everything became a cornstalk.
the long beam of my swiffer sweaper: cornstalk.
a slender peice of string i was attempting to dispose of: cornstalk.
he began to work his new favorite word into our daily conversations that didn't envolve even the slightest reference to corn.

for example:
me: "what should we do today? do you want to do some coloring on your thomas book?"
foster: "i draw cornstalks??!"

me: "look at this fork..."
foster: "...looks like a cornstalk!"

me: "what are you doing?"
foster: "making a cornstalk."

me: what are you looking for?"
foster: "mommy, i lost my cornstalk!"

so now, included in our garden dreams: corn...um, excuse me, cornstalks.