What a year - I went a little overboard on the pictures!

We ended the year with friends, sharing a raclette dinner (a cool Swiss meal thing), and watching the kids bust a groove. It was so fun. Here are some other moments from 2010.





























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And today.
In many ways 2010 was the most stressful I can remember. The first year of the flower business, packing up my whole entire house, managing the work on the house while taking care of the kids, and then moving back into our house. Those events truly almost put me over the edge. But like most things they also brought me some of the greatest joy. I feel so truly blessed with the lovely house that was built by family and friends, and so completely awed by their sets of skills and gracious generosity. It was hard to need so much help and to have so many people fill that void and trying to learn that "done" is a relative state, but also a place from which to go forward. I am also truly humbled by the work involved in farming, even on the small scale that I sold flowers this summer, but in it I found an incredibly rewarding creative outlet that I can do while having the kids with me.

Here is a list of some of our highlights of 2010:

• moving into a house that can accommodate us (and guests!) now and into the future.
• being overwhelmed by the generosity of friends and family helping us with our house.
• making money growing flowers!
• making bouquets weekly and giving flowers to friends and family.
• a strengthening circle of friends who get together frequently - taking our kids to the Nutcracker, to the beach, to eachother's houses, and getting together as adults.
• seeing some old friends - Emma, Camille, Bob, Gina, Ethan, Isaac, John, Gwen, Dan
• surfing for my 32nd birthday
• winter solstice bonfire at the Mastersons
• watching my children laugh together
• Makili jumping off of the rocks into the ocean
• Makili ice-skating fearlessly
• laughing at my mom playing hide-n-seek with Makili and Remick (this involves sitting on the ground with a basket on your head.)
• camping in Acadia
• finding a preschool that is a good match for Makili (and me!)
• befriending the farmers at work (the farmers' market)
• meeting Rudy Olivianne and Ploy
• watching Makili and Gabrielle play and run in Arkansas
• getting to know Remick and his personality - the musical, very verbal little thing who cracks himself up and brings so much joy to our lives.
• when my kids started sleeping till 7:00!
• eating out of the garden (still!)
• seeing our friends Mark and Lauren get back together after nearly divorcing
• having many family members gather for Rudy's memorial
• seeing Makili knead the bread dough with Annma.
• Remick's total adoration of Paka and Opa
• having Becky in our lives again
• feeling comfortable leaving my kids with babysitters (even if forced by necessity)
  
• sitting on the dock in Branford
• bringing a bit of simplicity to Christmas
• Matty's baby shower - pin the fetus on the pregnant momma!
  
• the 4th of July party of course
  
• Makili calling people "scurvy dogs" while dressed as a pirate.
• volunteering to pick vegetables for the Plant-a-Row for the hungry program
• the Master Gardener program
• jumping off the dock with the Weyants at Sondog Gardens
• taking 5 kids under the age of 3 to the beach on a 96 degree day and having to walk a mile to get there (oh yeah, except I left them there!)
• watching a summer storm come in with my mom at York Beach
• the introduction of the "toy troll" into our house
• hiking Agamenticus with Ann and Larry
• mushroom hunting with the Mastersons
  

I'm sure I could think of more, but at the moment, the kids need one last snuggle from their mama in 2010. And we have a lot of memories to make in 2011 - starting tomorrow.

Feeling a little low

My parents left this morning after a very pleasant, brief visit. I've been having a hard time keeping the camera handy, and so I don't even have good documentation of such a nice time. The kids love Grammy and Opa (Nomy and Bopa to Remick) so much, at least partly because they are willing to do things like play with Lightning McQueen for hours, or play hide-n-go-seek with the worst seeker on the planet.

Sometimes I think how it must be challenging for my parents to have to go to my house and my siblings' houses and work each of our systems. At my house, there's no TV, composting, recycling, space heaters, wood stove filling at night, vegetarian food, greenhouse duties in the summer, snow removal issues in the winter, etc. (Though it is probably a step up from Hawaii with the class 6 road, solar electricity, and catchment water:) My brother and sister's houses have their own routines and idiosyncrasies - chickens, driving, dogs, running, etc. It must be challenging to have to live in your children's homes and have them be so different.

I feel lucky to get the time I get with them. Now I'm just waiting for them to move in.

Skate School - Christmas 2010

There's a bit of hockey love around here at the moment. Both Makili and Remick had a LOT of fun on the ice today. And skating wasn't enough. They were really only happy with a hockey stick in their hands. But, oh boy the unbridled cuteness!!!






We didn't have much money for Christmas this year with the house and all. And really having a house IS the best present of all any way. Raph really made me a happy though by making me a new lens. Yes, MAKING me a lens! He disassembled an old Holga and an old broken lens, somehow rigged them up together and then messed with it so that it would have light leaks and soft focus like an original Holga (check them out - they're cool). I told him - I'm pretty impressed: free, creative, resourceful, unique, unexpected, recycled. So perfect. These are two of the first pictures I took with it, but I intend to take more tomorrow.

My little one.

My little one seem so big lately. He is so independent and adorable and I could just eat him up most of the time. He wants to do EVERYTHING his big brother does. Today we made cookies and he was literally climbing anything he could find to get more. He is tenacious! He says a ton of words. When Makili took off his clothes to get his pajamas on tonight, Remick was chasing him around grabbing him and naming his body parts - "bum!" "penis!" It was pretty funny. He is back to being a jolly old elf. He thinks he's hilarious. (I do too a lot of the time.) I really am enamored with him and it's a good thing I got my tubes tied, or I'd be wanting more!

He loves hats, and almost always has one on. And he also loves his shoes. He loves being outside. Sucks at sleeping - will lie in bed asleep crying - like really crying while asleep. If he wants what I have, he says "too!" for "me too." He loves to play with play dough (and cookie dough.) He's totally naughty. I KNOW when he's quiet that he is up to no good. He will find any sharp object or tool that has been left around and before I know it he is hammering the newly spread cement in the shower or using the scraper to gauge the chairs. He loved the snow this week and all day would say "snowing!" He kisses - like the sound and everything. He loves to have his teeth brushed like his big brother. He wants to do everything himself (like go down the stairs which can seriously take 45 minutes!) but if he decides he does want help he expects your hand to ready. He likes to sit on the potty like his brother, though he hasn't scored any points there yet (by the way did you know that you can buy a toilet seat at home depot with a built in kid seat? Genious.)

He is just the most delectable thing ever.

Solstice

The solstice has become one of my favorite days to celebrate. I know that is a growing trend. In fact, I like to tell the story of the farmer who told me, "we don't celebrate Christmas. On Christmas, we just go to a friend's house and cross-country ski. We don't do gifts though." And I asked him, "Do you celebrate the solstice?" He replies, "Well yeah that's when I might buy my kids something that would improve their lives - like a new mandolin or a fuzzy pair of socks." OK. So you celebrate Christmas on the Solstice but act like you're some how above the materialism of Xmas. Got it.

Really though, I love the idea that from today forth is growth of light. And I like celebrating that. It's like a beginning.

Last year, I decided that we'd do our homemade gifts on the solstice - make that a special family night. Then this year rolled around and in fact I didn't have time to make any gifts. I snuck a few minutes late last night to make stencils to paint a racecar onto a sweat shirt for Makili and a bike for Remick. Today I spent the afternoon tiling the rest of the shower (I feel cool saying that for the record. Raph's Uncle Joe did all the hards parts, but who's counting?) Raph made a tasty chower and we had a really lovely family dinner. It was a nice night. This month has been so stressful, that it is nice to bring the holidays down a few notches. Christmas certainly will be mellow too since we have no grandparents in town on the day of and we have no money:)

We had a really nice solstice celebrate at the Mastersons' on Sunday night too. A bonfire in December? How cool is that?

WIRED

We're wired again! YEAH! And I'm typing on this computer while sitting at a table!!! So now we can move on from scenes like these...
To scenes more like these (please note unpacked boxes and vacuum hose lying all over the floor)









I understand now that "finished" is a relative state. For now, I couldn't be happier with how things have turned out. A working shower is on the short list, though honestly the bath wasn't too bad this morning:)

Occupancy Permit in HAND~!!!

That's right we're moving home! And maybe I'll even post some pictures soon!

Remick only fell down our new stairs once yesterday:( and we had a nice family dinner of veggie dogs around our working wood stove (our only heat source aside from space heaters.) Even though the flooring is a work in progress as is the tiling and there's not a speck of trim on any window or door (actually there are only two doors at the moment), our team of generous family and friends accomplished an incredible amount in two months. Our house is going to look SO COOL!

So thank you.

to Larry - with the master plan who spent endless hours at my house
to Joe - who makes Makili beyond happy by installing his favorite aspects of the house - the potty and lights!
to Craig - for being willing to do all the stuff that nobody else wants to do but needs to be done
to Ann and Gina and Grammy - for watching the kids countless hours so that Raph and I could work, and for cooking us yummy treats, and doing our laundry!
to Opa and Grammy - for financing part of the project!
to Matty - for helping me pull nails and collect barn boards
to George and Nicole - for helping on so so many occasions
to Tim - for helping in the home stretch!
to Brett - for his current help on the kitchen island
to Mark and Isaac - for helping at crucial points
to Tim Gallagher - for awesome barn boards and lots of free trim
to the Rees clan - for volunteering for clean-up duty, babysitting and helping with the roofing!
to the Fullertons, Sally, and Tim and Tamara - for generously sharing your houses with us at important times!
to Jason - for helping out on his vacation
to Emma - for painting prowess and architectural insight
to Gardiner - for supplying heaters and other needed things!
to George Whitney, Brian and Gardiner - for affidavits that allowed us to get our entryway approved~!
to Nadine - for babysitting services - ever so important!
to Shipp and Brian - for donating tools and supplies
to Grace and Gina and Matty - for sharing your menfolk!

THANK YOU SO MUCH! You all deserve really awesome Xmas gifts, but we're out of money, so I promise to make you something really cool:) as soon as I have time! Seriously though, my gratitude is not expressible. I only hope all of you will make use of our house when able and know that we couldn't have gotten to this point without you.

Like Moons

Spending time with the "cousins" is undoubtedly the funnest part of going to Ann and Larry's of late. Five kids 3 and under is pretty busy though. So much activity. And they are so cute.Thanksgiving was the first time in a long time that I've seen little Rudy who has gotten so big! He likes activity and to be held all. the. time! Much to Matty's frustration. It was fun to see what a cutie he is becoming.


And it's these moon-like eyes that really get me. Oh so delectable.

About Friendship

A friend sent me a note this week that made me cry. She said she was using Thanksgiving as an excuse to make resolutions with relevance to things that she is thankful for. She said that she was thankful for our friendship, that I had really helped her in the transition to two children, and that even though we don't see eachother too often, she is thankful for the fact that we can pick up where we left off with no hard feelings. It really made me cry.

I feel like since Remick was born I've been apologizing non-stop for my life - "my life's a little crazy right now because..." In a lot of ways I've felt like I barely have had anything to give to anybody else, which of course is never true. It sure made me feel good to know that I had impacted someone. When, by the way, will I feel calm enough to not have to apologize for life? Ever?


Also this week, I got to see some really good friends from college for dinner (without kids nonetheless!) It is so nice to be able to pick up where we left on (even if they all seem pretty glamourous to me. I felt like an boring mom compared to them.) It's nice that I still like them a lot all these years later.

Beach Weather

While they were putting in our new windows!!!, the kids and I had a really fun day at the beach the other day, what may possibly be the last "beach day" of the year - and I use that term loosely. It did however almost hit 60 degrees! It was absolutely gorgeous! Aside from a little tatrumming, we had so so so much fun and it felt good to just be outside.




I've been meaning to write about my little Remick's burgeoning vocabulary! He has been a little sponge! He definitely has over 50 words - let's see how many I can think of: mom, daddy, opa, makili, paka, baby, eat, milk, more, ball, blanket, thank you, did it!, cereal, airplane, no, yeah, mine, balloon, I love you, stuck, truck, yuck, hot, out, down, doggie, kittie cat, birdie, apple, belly, eye, ear, water, juice, help, grape, shoe, sock, book, all done, duck, airplane. I can't think of any more at the moment, but I know there are more. It seems like every day he adds more!

The only one

This for some reason was the only picture I was able to upload from my parents' computer. Super frustrating!

Pretty Bummed

I'm really dreading going home tomorrow. It really is a vacation to go home to you parents' house when you have small kids. We've had so much fun this week out around town and in my parents' backyard. Makili is completely enamored with Grammy and makes pretty much all decisions based on whether or not Grammy is coming. He told me tonight that Raph and I could sleep with he and Grammy if we wanted. I'm a little worried about how he is going to deal with going back tomorrow.

It's also fun to be in your hometown and be aware of how your perspective of it changes year after year. I find the architectural elements in Pittsburgh so fun. I was hoping to find some architectural salvage item that might pull something into focus in our house, but didn't score that point yet. It's always fun to look though:)
The rest of the picture are only on my parents' computer because we had an overloaded hard drive issue. So I'll post a few more tomorrow. I also didn't take enough cause I'm out of practice...