After a glorious stretch of sunshine and warm temps, we've been dealing with storms and rain for the last three days. Lots of rain.
The weather hasn't done the flowering trees any favors, but man is our yard looking green and beautiful. Maybe the sun will return at some point and we can actually enjoy it again.
Look at this sweet sign of spring. One little guy already begging for attention and one more just starting to peek his beak out of the shell.
Shout out to Grandpa for noticing the action in the nest!
This weekend was really really wonderful. I won't bore you with all the details of what a perfect weekend looks like to me, but here are a few of the highlights:
My heart is happy.
Motherhood. Wow. You would think ten months of carrying a tiny human in your body would give you *just a little* of the time + space necessary to process some of the new realities that will occur when that baby is born. Nope.
Motherhood is a wild ride, to say the least. I have said this over and over again throughout the past five years (in my mind as well as to others) and it still rings true:
Motherhood is the highest of the highs and lowest of the lows - often occurring within minutes of each other. Your best hope is that, on any given day, the high moments overshadow the low ones. That's a good day.
I'm feeling reflective today as I type. I've been thinking about my life just over five years ago. Past Sara definitely wouldn't recognize the person I've become. And that's ok. Current Sara really loves my life and all the ups and downs that come along with it (but I'll still shoot for a day with no downs, thank you very much).
If you're a mom, thank you for all you do. Your job is hard and often under-appreciated.
If you're my mom, thank you for making me into the woman + mom I am. I love you more than words can say.
If you're my husband's mom, thank you for raising the most supportive and empathetic man I could ever have asked for in my soulmate.
And for anyone struggling with becoming a mom or someone who is bearing the heavy burden of loss this year, my heart hurts for you and I'm sending healing thoughts.
I hope you all are enjoying the sunshine and warm temps as much as we are this weekend. It's maybe the best gift of all.
The windows are open, there's a lovely breeze in the air, and our family has been outside all day long. The kids are filthy, and sweaty, and tired. Just what a low-key Saturday should be.
I may have buried the lead...we also managed to craft this amazing garden box. It may have taken a good chuck of the day (and we're still not done with the project), but we have a new garden box for our backyard. The boys and I are crazy excited about all the yummy vegetables we're going to grow in this (and the twin version that will be finished tomorrow when we procure more wood).
I'll be sure to post a photo of the finished project when we get to that point, but for now just make sure you fully appreciate these photos of Chris with his saw and me with a drill. This scene doesn't occur very often.
This beautiful crab tree was planted almost 11 years ago as a gift to my parents for our wedding. Look how our love has grown! And we were actually local to see the blooming tree this year. Yay!
I don't know why I didn't think of this activity before! I had the boys use their sense of touch to identify items I found around the house + backyard.
What you need:
How it's done:
Present one cup with one type of item for each round. Make sure they're not peeking (a definite challenge at our house) and let them guess what's inside.
The surprise chocolate chips as the last round was a total shock to them and made the activity that much more enjoyable.
Yay for free + fun educational activities!
**Special thanks to Uncle Matt for joining us for this activity via FaceTime.
Look at those cute little legs. The first day of shorts weather is always reason to celebrate. The other big thing to celebrate? Robbe's truck shorts still fit! It's some sort of Christmas-in-May miracle.
Remember when spring used to arrive on the blog in April? Yeah, I miss those days, too. Luckily, the gloom + rain of last week was followed by some warm + sunny temps over the weekend. The trees and plants are loving it (and so am I!).
See above for a few of my favorite signs of spring that I've captured in our yard + around the neighborhood. We might not have cherry blossoms on the Tidal Basin (like here or here), but these trees are holding their own.
After too many school tours to list (seriously, between DC + EC, it's pretty ridiculous), I think we might have completed our final school tour! This sweet little elementary school is where Robbe will be attending his speech + language intensive program in the fall. The teacher was delightful and seemed very motivated and experienced with little ones dealing with exactly Robbe's challenges. There's something very reassuring about that.
As we were leaving, Robbe said, "me like my school really bad." Translation: he likes his school a lot. So sweet, right?
I think we might have crammed as many things as physically (and emotionally) possible this weekend. The warmer temps + sunshine were calling our name and we took advantage.
Just a few of the weekend activities:
I'd say we made the most of the 2.5 days.
Chase and I spent the morning selling pork sandwiches at the family grocery store for the town's thrift sale day. He was such a trooper! We labeled him Money Man as he was responsible for taking the money and giving back change. Luckily, the sandwiches were exactly a $1 so it was the perfect math challenge for him!
Plua, we got some quality time with a couple of my nieces. Woohoo!
We used today's holiday for extra crafting inspiration. We made these fun maracas with some friends this morning and then made cute flowers (used as pins and hair flare) with family this afternoon. I couldn't find a simple enough online tutorial so here you go instead:
It was a good day.
I've been busy continuing my work with Mary Catherine but in my *free* time I've been working on a few fun projects on the side. Want to take a peek? See below.
Another lovely spring day around here (two in a row!). How did we spend the time between school and dinner prep? Playing outside, of course. Actually, the boys played while I read a book (they also read for the few minutes it took me to snap this photo). It was amazing. I'm hoping this moment can be replicated over and over this summer, but, just in case, I did not take it for granted!
And, as luck would have it, I have a new book I'm really into. Thanks to this Book of the Month Club that I started last month, I'm reading a relatively random and fun book called Startup. A new book every month? Super fun, right?!? Big thanks to Mary Catherine for the sweet Christmas gift (that I finally redeemed).
**Side note: if you're interested in joining the Club, let me know I can send you a link to get your first book for $1.
**Side side note: no, I'm not getting paid to endorse this Club. I wish I was. ;)
The sun peeked out for a brief time today so we gave Chase's new tee (thanks, Uncle Matt) it's inaugural practice session. I think we have *a bit* of work to do this summer, but I'm hopeful. These two definitely have some raw talent.
It was a gloomy, cold, snowy (ok, just a teeny bit, but still!) May 1st. Two things that helped to brighten my day:
Before I jump into my "best of" post, thank you for your support and encouragement over the years. It makes my heart happy whenever anyone makes a comment or texts or emails in response to one of my posts. As much as I continue this blog for me, it's also for all of you. Thank you.
Now, without further ado...
I've been loving hitting the local consignment stores lately. It started with the giant kids consignment sale where we found this scooter. Then, a friend and I scored some great treasures from two stores earlier this week.
Enter yesterday: Chris and I checked out this sweet little store, Spaced Out Furnishings, and we found some more great stuff. Photographed above: an awesome magazine rack, a framed watercolor Lincoln Memorial print, and...wait for it...a new typewriter! We got all of that plus a few more quality odds + ends all for about $60. What?!?
I imagine the excitement of finding the next treasure will fade eventually...just not quite yet.
And loving every second. Thanks, Mom + Dad!!
I’m going to be honest with you. As May 1st approaches (that’s this blog’s anniversary, for those not keeping track), I’ve been thinking a lot about stopping. Had I known three years (!!!) ago that I would be sinking this much time + energy into this simple blog idea I had, I might have reconsidered ever starting. But, three years and 1061 posts later, I’m happy every day to have this chronicle of such a fleeting + fast-paced time in our lives…that’s one of the reasons I started it after all.
The other main reason for starting it? I wanted a way to make people feel like they were involved in our day-to-day life even if we didn’t talk every day or if they didn’t live in DC. Now, this reason is almost more important as I’m feeling so disconnected from my DC friends lately and hope that at least by keeping tabs on me, they still feel included in my life.
So, having said all that, I was still *just about* to call it quits. I’m burned out. Chris is tired of asking me if I did my post for the night. The boys are probably tired of all the photos…although they’ve been shockingly good sports all along.
Then, I wrote this post. You remember the one…about Miles starting speech therapy. This post triggered such a sweet, loving, + emotional response from several of my dear friends that I realized I still need to share. Parenting isn’t all about the smiling photos. It’s hard stuff and if any of my posts make even one person feel inspired or connected or comforted, than it’s worth it.
Thank you to everyone that reached out after the speech therapy post. It was a tough one to write but the outpouring of love + kind words (plus admissions of everyone else’s mom challenges) warmed my heart and renewed my motivation to keep on keepin’ on.
p.s. We also went to a water park today. See photo above. It was pretty great. That is all.
small city | BIG DAYS
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