sometimes...

... your backyard can be the perfect little getaway.

... this rain that i often wish would go away surprises me with the beauty it leaves behind.

... a single afternoon can take all the stress and worry that's been cluttering up your brain and put things back into perspective.

... i just need to stand very still and quiet, take a deep breath and get swept up in the good.

my heart is cartwheeling.

i don't think i could possibly be more excited about this. 

yep, i am definitely the most excited i could be.

hey it's december twentyfifth!

happy holidays!

wishlisting

one. two. three. four. five. six. seven.

things that are sweet:

saying i love you in stop motion.

saying i love you with a cookie.

also, cookies.

sweet d. she's extra super-duper sweet.

holding  hands.

bedtime stories.

backseat cuddlin'.

counting down.

{photo found here}

14 days from now my sweet d will be nine years old, 21 days from now we will be celebrating christmas, 28 days from now it will be two thousand twelve, and 147 days from now i will turn thirty. all of these things are going to come and go faster than i want them to. time is sort of running away with me these days and i think i'd like it to slow down. yeah, that would be nice.

today is december first.

this morning we finished making & hung up our advent calendar. this afternoon we gathered and stacked 7 wheel barrow loads of wood for the stove. this evening we are baking cookies and possibly watching all of these movies. you can come over if you want to.

to make a long story short...

  

  

...a lot has happened in the past 3 months. now there's an outrageous understatement, here are the highlights. on august 28th jake's dad was offered a job in eugene, oregon and by the end of september they had moved away and we had moved to their farm. which is not in portland, but it is just outside of portland so my heart/sanity is still in tact. that was an awful lot of moving and major life changes crammed into 30 days. we spent the bulk of october and november recovering, getting settled in to our new lives and visiting eugene a lot. halloween and thanksgiving fit in there somewhere, they were both fun and good. that didn't sound very convincing, they were i promise! very fun and good. i suppose that catches you up, more or less.

how about a few extra photographic details? ok, let's!

(1) we packed up all of our things (2) and traded our sweet little antique apartment in the city for a sweet little farmhouse in the country with this enormous and beautiful backyard. (3&4) i've found that there's a pretty clear difference between what i wear in the city vs the farm (5&6) and now i bake. a lot. (7) in this kitchen that is too cute to be a kitchen.  

consider yourself sufficiently-ish up to date.

dinner talk

"if my finger tasted like my favorite food... i could bite it off and eat it, then barf it back up later and smoosh it back into the shape of my finger and then bake it so it would be stiff and glue it back on my hand. and then i could do it all over again."

~ sweet d

craft days are good.

  

  

  

the squirrels and i have been reading the new guest posts on katie's blog, written by her super sweet & stylish daughter, hope. last week hope posted a great tutorial for making very pretty headbands, yesterday we gave it a try... (we needed some good mama/kiddo creative time together, life has been too hectic and stressful lately) ...and we had the most fun making headbands (and messes) together!! now we have so many pretty things to wear in our hair. thanks for the tutorial hope, you are awesome!