Blessing

Last year was a leap year.  
Remember?  
Which means that last year on this day I had my Blessing way.  A beauty filled get together with strong, wonderful women to help prepare me and bless me on my path into motherhood. 
Every soon to be mother or soon to be mother again needs one of these.
It is not a baby shower.  There are no games, no presents to unwrap in front of everyone(not that I had that type of Baby Shower).  Just lovely women celebrating one women and acknowledging the amazing work at hand. It's spiritual.

 A huge and endless thank you to Dana(far left)for organizing this for me.  It wouldn't have been w/o you friend. 
And a big thank you to Emily, in the middle there, for the grounding part of the Blessing way.
And, Grace.  Thank you, Grace, for the string that everyone wore until little sunny came into this world.  What a great way to unite everyone.

And the lovely Maddy.  Thank you for strong words of advice and that wonderful reading that Rose had passed onto you. Lovely. 
I love that all the mothers wore their birthing necklaces(Anna raced back home on bike to grab hers).  These lovely ladies also brought beads and buttons and shells for my own birthing necklace, which I cherish dearly.
And it couldn't have fallen on a better day.  Earth day.  It just felt right. There was food and song and tears and joy and smiles and more.

  
There was even a foot bath with wonderful oils.  This was hands-down the best part.  Oh, man I needed that foot bath.  Pregnant lady feet are no joke.

There is clearly a "whoa" look on my face here.  I like that.  Then look at Beth next to me(what you can see of her face)she's just calm.  I remember Beth getting up and getting me some food.  Thanks Beth!

So 

much 

laughter


Beth has a really great powerful laugh, I can hear it in my ears right now!

Bummer there are no pictures of the photographer Anna.  Thank you Anna for capturing these moments. 

Sunny Days

Oh, Sunny don't you play in Momma's plants!

 All of the sudden
these bloomed.
So pretty.

And these...

 And these...

 And in the garden.

They are sweet, delicious peas.  Our original pea plant died.  This one was a runt, accident plant that just decided to pop up in another bed.  
We left it there and loved it.  And, it is loving back. 
Thanks pea plant!

Daddy is handy.  He makes trellises for the peas, cucumbers, and beans. 

  

Momma & baby explore the flowers.

Yes, another great day for us all.
Happy boy.

I recently taught a kids class at the local garden center(Blue Moon Nursery).
The kids were wonderful, bright and polite little people. Moms and Dads were helpful and standing-by.  Most of the little people were around 4 years old.
We planted sunflower seeds and made these bird feeders. They are SO simple...just one TP roll, peanut butter, one sting, and bird seed.  And, the birds love 'em! 
Win, win.

Lady Di beans and Popcorn.  We transplanted the beans to a small raised bed and planted the corn to a small strip of dirt by our garage as ornamental.  So far, the gophers have taken out a few of the corns, dang.

 This is a not yet finished project of Brady's.  The saws-all just stopped working in the middle of the project! Bummer, total bummer.  Also, we need to purchase a drill. 
For now, it is working well as a plant holder and I still find it aesthetically pleasing.

 It there anything cuter than a baby in a wash tub? If there is please don't let me know I don't think my heart could handle it, srsly.

Music...
(what I happen to be bumpin' today)

Whoa, woke up with Hall & Oates in my head, weird!

 Dancin' in the moonlight.

 

 Take away show feat. Bowerbirds.

 

Thanks for reading.

BeachBaby

  
It was warm.

It was Dad's day off.

It was Sunday.

Beach. 
( This is Sunny's model look ) 

 We woke up lazy, morning.
We made burritos with sausage and delicious eggs.  Wrapped them in tin and headed to the beach as a lovely bunch of my lovelies. 

Sunny & mom. 

Iced coffee and warm sand.

 

Beach dog. Throw the stick already!

Oh dang, mom's sneaking in the bunny ears. Sunny's like pssht!

Beach babes.

 

Things I "thumb's up" on Pandora today...

Oh, love.

There was this too.  I really enjoyed this, very much. 

 

Mason Jennings always reminds me of falling in love with Brady.  

And Alaska.

That's my boy.  

Cute as can be snuggling with a fuzzy butterfly. 

My heart, totally, just melted. 

We have been outside as much as possible.  

Sunny sits in his jogger and watches Momma pull weeds and water plants. We don't stick him in there the whole time.  Sunny loves to shove his hands into the little rocks and fling them around.  It's way too fun. And, he is totally right on it is a great texture on the hands.  I will allow him to me a dirty boy.  I can not wait to make mud pies with this one. 

   This is a Sunny song, a song we listen to and sing for Sunny.  I sang this to him in the belly and still.  

It's a little emotional of me.  

Beautiful.

 And, his nightly lullaby...

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part 1, duh.

My Sunflowers are now in the ground and doing great.  This one is a Skyscrapper sunflower.  And, in between those I planted the Mexican sunflower, a smaller variety.  I hope the gophers don't get them.  I will be so miffed if that happens. 

The egg cartons worked really well for seeding. They were really starting to fall apart at the end.  That's okay, that's kinda the idea.  

I put this dood into the ground just like this.  

I also started MORE seeds!  Watermelons, Kale varieties, melon, corn, IDK a bunch more stuff!  We'll see how all of that works out.  I am planning on planting corn, peas and squash together.  I believe, it's called the "three sisters" and is referred to as companion planting.  The corn grows tall and fast, the peas vine up the corn and the squash stays low and bushy.  

I recently fell in love with lentils.  Why has this taken me so long? Do you even know how healthy and delish these are? Easy to make and the whole family is happy.  I win. Do you eat lentils? What do you put with them? Pretty much every culture has a lentil dish. I saw a thing where they sprouted them.  I think I am going to try that.  If I do I will take a picture and share, fo sho.

 

I will leave you with some tunes...

The whole damn album.  I bought this when I was 'bout 14-15(?)still diggin' it.

I could not be happier about being a nonsmoker, finally. I win.

This too!