thoughts on mothering

Two of my dear friends and fellow moms to 1 year olds each wrote great posts this week about mothering. I highly recommend reading them.


Danielle of My Sparkle: "Courage"

M of Burnstopia: "On Maternal Bondage"

new photos on the photo blog

Check them out!

Happy Birthday, Jared!

My two favorite boys. My heart gets all melty when I see them together.

Today is my husband's 32nd birthday. 32!
We've had a lovely quiet day at home. And although I didn't get the cleaning done I wanted to, it's been wonderful. I even took a nap.

We went to Thai food for dinner, had key lime pie at home, and now Jared is playing his new video game with the kids.

Although I'm not against public blog displays of affection, I think I'll save my message to Jared for his card. I still need to write it.

Here I will say that I am so happy to be married to this man. So happy he is the father of my child. So happy to get to spend each day with him. So happy to sleep by him every night. So happy to share my joys and sorrows with him. So happy to have him on my team. So happy to have him as my forever friend.

I love him more.

Happy Birthday, dearest.

why i haven't been posting this week

I've been editing two family photo shoots.

Check out this adorableness...

More will be posted to my photo blog soon.

I also have to post about Asher's birthday party.

But tomorrow will be dedicated to my lover who turns 32!

disbelief

I still can't believe this tiny little thing...

Is now such a big boy...
(He's been standing on his own TONS the past few days. For minutes at a time.)

It's ridiculous really.

Will someone please explain to me why it all has to go so fast?
I feel like I've cherished each age and stage as much as I could and it still feels like it went by in a flash. He's going to be heading off to school before I know what happened.
It's frightening.

And all part of life.

Still wish it would go slower though.

my baby is one year old!

Shocking but true.
Pictures now, writing later.
For now suffice it to say, I adore this little boy.
Behold his cuteness!

Seriously, he is freaking adorable.

happy birthday, grace!

This gorgeous girl turned 6 today. Which I just now realized means that I've known Grace for half her life. She was just a little, babbling 3 year old when I met Jared and his three kiddos. Now she is turning into quite the beautiful and sweet young lady.

There are so many wonderful things to say about Grace. She is witty and smart and quick. She has a great sense of humor. She is forever grateful... especially for a good meal! This girl LOVES to eat and would quite possibly eat ALL DAY LONG if we let her. She is constantly bouncing and hardly ever is still. She tells me she loves me every day.

She has been so sweet lately, that I've nearly forgotten last summer when she turned into a demon child and spent a vast majority of her time throwing fits and therefore in timeout. SO glad that phase is over! She still makes faces like this though when she doesn't get her way:

Grace is a hard child not to love. She loves to help us cook. She loves to dance in the yard with me. She loves playing with her brothers and sister. She is chock FULL of personality. She even eats ants and proclaims, "They taste like lemons!"

Grace is also quite the tornado. She can not stay clean. She attracts dirt and messes. Keeping her hair in some kind of order is a never ending quest. Her hair by the way "Is NOT blond, it's gold!"

I'm so happy to have this little girl in my life and to have the chance to watch her grow and learn. She is (most of the time) a joy to have around!

roses in black and white

I was playing around with some of my rose photos in photo shop and made them black and white. I thought they turned out kinda cool. They remind me of x-rays or negatives.

creativity is a choice

My friend Trina wrote a fabulous post over on Mormon Mommy Blogs about choosing to be creative. She has 16 ways we can be creative that are more than just crafting and drawing. This is a must read!

the city library

Salt Lake City has one of the coolest libraries ever. For reals. I've never seen a library like this one anywhere else. It is such an architectural treasure. Last week, I went inside it for the first time. It did not disappoint. Although we have smaller branches of the library closer to our house, we had to take the kids downtown to visit this one. We all got library cards and had a good time exploring and picking out books. Libraries are the best.



First stop was of course the children's section, where we not only picked out books, but explored.


Once we had our new library cards and had checked out our books, we went to explore some more. We all got a little wobbly-kneed climbing the stairs and looking down, down, down.


Then it was up to the rooftop garden to check out the amazing views!



Of course we had to take the glass elevator back down.


And couldn't leave without dipping our fingers in the reflecting pond.

I can't wait to go back and explore some more!

roses, roses, roses

Have I mentioned how much I love having roses in my backyard?
The sun was shining through this one so beautifully the other day.
I couldn't decide which picture I liked best, so you get 4.

The color of these purple ones is just amazing.
And I love the blue and green background here.

This beauty is from a yard in our neighborhood we discovered on a walk to playgroup a couple weeks ago.

The roses are still blooming, so expect more photos.
I can't help it.
I think it's a compulsion.