birthday buddies

Posted in advantageous adventures, Kiddie Hangouts, love and happiness by

i’m sure everyone remembers that we love to hit up pumpkin patches with these folks. we got to spend yesterday celebrating the birthday of our very best buddy and my favorite little guy at schacht’s family farm. can you believe how big these kids have grown?

patch

birthday party

wagongirlz

trunk party

buddies

these last two are my favorites. they were hissing like snakes and then laughing at how they amused themselves. these kiddos have their own inside jokes now. we’re slowly approaching the age when parents will be outsiders. i’m ok with that. especially if it means their bond will grow stronger. they’ve acted a bit more like twins in the past, but lately there’s been a whole lot of love.

happy 4th birthday burkeybuns! we love you.

thanks for that

Posted in Momma Needs a minute... by

so, i had the privilege of hearing this story for the first time today.

go ahead. pop on over there and read it and then let me know what you think.

it spoke to me in a lot of ways. i’ve been feeling gratitude for some of life’s trials and tribulations lately. it helps me grapple with perspective to remember that everything has it’s purpose and i do not yet know my full path in life.

to me that is freeing and empowering.

weekending

Posted in let me let me update ya, Travels by

i know we’re already into tuesday but i just thought reminiscing about the weekend was still in order. here’s our roadtripy, woodsy, campfirey weekend:

road hat

coffeeauto tunes

shake

1. road hat ready  2. coffee goodness ready  3. auto tunes ready (get it?) 4. pit stop

we stopped at aullwood audubon center in dayton, OH for a little woods-walking leg stretch. i’ve driven past many-a-time and said “we should stop there some day.” well, saturday was the day. and i think i’ll put it on the trip agenda more often. we spent a brief time there and i think…i think i’m gonna like it there

bridge wright trailtickle leaf

eye spyfence

balance footbridge

and then we reached my parents homestead for a fun night with friends.

pumpkin

the great pumpkin

mallows

ghost marshmallows. bonfire tradition now i guess.

it was a pretty quick trip but great just the same. i was so happy to just enjoy everyone’s company and visit with kiddos. i gotta say an added bonus of labor support work is reunion time with the families you have supported in birth.

at the end of the evening darla, mike and i braved the cold for a campout. darla was all like “let’s tell spooky stories!” to which we decided against and settled on robots instead. the best we could come up with was a half-ass account of the jetsons. i think the highlight of my weekend was being snuggled under 20 blankets with my family as the cold air nipped my nose. i kept thinking how great it would be for us to just live in a tent!

yes, a tent. with wheels. called a winnebago. i’ll never give up this dream.

weeksie

Posted in let me let me update ya by

how’d your week shake out? here’s ours:

artsy

guitarmural

outdoorsy

leaves
treetwisted swing

dirtsy

dirt toestoby

patternsy

patterns much

leavesy

door leaves

yumsy

glutenpush pop

lovesy

fly bear

i just wanted to include another shot from these moments when darla was tossing her beloved amanda bear up in the air. we were actually having a bit of a rough walk home as someone was not happy about leaving the playground, even though we’d been there for 2 1/2 hours. so in the middle of her whining and my coaxing us along she stopped and started tossing bear. it was literally and figuratively a release. i was so thankful for that little mood changer that got us home a bit happier.

vinyl frontier

Posted in let me let me update ya by

vf

do you know what that is a picture of? that’s a man living his dream. well, sort of. more like a step towards his dream. anyways, that’s a man working in a record shop and that man is my husband.

darla and i visited mike at his new job at vinyl frontier this past week. i gotta say i really like the space. it has lots of unique touches. and it has tons of records. TONS. husband gets paid to listen to music, talk about music and file music all day. i’m very happy for him that he is getting his hands into something he loves.

darla’s take on vinyl frontier

handstand gargoyle

shesweep

i think it’s safe to say she felt like she fit right in.

51

columbus friends, stop by and talk tunes with mike at vinyl frontier – 51 E Gay St.

presto pesto

Posted in Run Da House by

one of my kitchen projects last week was making pesto cubes. i finally harvested the measly remainder of our basil plant. i whipped up some pesto and then portioned some into cubes in a spare ice tray to freeze. now we have an easy meal option, grab a cube from the freezer add some veggies and saute. yay!

pesto traybag o pesto

sibling participation

Posted in doula work by

in my pursuit of doulaship, i’ve watched my fair share of birth footage and i’ve been drawn to the pictures and footage of older siblings present at the birth of their youngers.

this ideal appeals to me and while i don’t know how realistic it will be for our family in the future, it’s an option that i’d like to explore further.

usually in these online examples the elder siblings are only a few years older than the newest member of the family. i think this is great because it provides an example of normal birth for children at a young age.

but i had a chance to witness sibling involvement with a greater age difference. i was honored to share the support space with a teenage girl as she attended her mother’s labor and birthing. i can’t help but think about how wonderfully impactful that experience would be to a young female.

i’ve thought about my own theoretical future births and the idea of having a friend who hasn’t yet experienced birth be a part of my support team – no one specific picked out – so that the female gets to experience what birth can be like as an observer.

i feel like this kind of involvement, such as that of the girl attending her mother, is a step in mending the fabric of community around birth. birth used to be much more communal. women would have helped with or at least witnessed births before coming to their own time. they would have come to their labors with a knowledge base instead of the current status of most first time mothers – having seen one birth video somewhere in school and all other labor and birth input is from melodramatic television programming.

i was so impressed with the maturity and willingness to tend and care from this young woman. it felt very appropriate to have her presence there. i think some of these young women can handle it. i think it’s possible that it might be a necessary missing piece to our birth structure.

it’s something to think about – involving our children and young females in the birth experience. i’m not 100% sure but i’m willing to discuss it.

what do you think?

FAIRfield

Posted in advantageous adventures, kiddie-do by

and here are some more pics from our visit to the fairfield county fair in mike’s hometown, lancaster oh. because, well, fairs always make for pretty pictures. tickets round

chopper round

slide start round

birch beerbirch round

balloon round

crowdedfair round

this may be the state’s last county fair for the year but i can’t guarantee it’ll be ours. we’re at 5 fairs for the year and one major theme park. we’re gonna see this thing through.

1. ticket to ride  2. new ride  3. dad’s turn on the fun slide  4 & 5. birch beer – it’s not only delicious, it’s pretty too  6 & 7 balloon wrangling. immediately regret the decision to get her that balloon. no i don’t. she loved it and started referring to it as her baby. it was worth it in the end.