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?