This Moment....

A moment from our week to cherish and remember inspired by Soulemama.

Margarita time

I know I talk about margaritas a lot (ask my friends :) but I really only have about 5 or so a year, on a good year. Summertime and margaritas just go so well together. Last year I spent my whole summer terribly ill so I am making up for it this year :) Ben and I found this yummy recipe and gave it a try for a little late summer Solstice celebration last weekend. Since we have a bottle of tequila now, and a freezer packed full of strawberries( a whole flat actually) I think I know what we will make on the 4th of July.... after the kids are in bed of course.

Beautiful chaos

We watched this mama bird for a long time the other morning. She was working endlessly to feed her babies. Can you spot her in the tree? She searched the area around the tree for food and as soon as she had found something acceptable she would return and offer it to her babies. She had four little babies who would pop up and chirp ravenously as soon as she came back to the nest. She seemed to pause and contemplate each time she returned to her nest, I think she was trying to figure out which baby she fed last..most likely the one with the longest neck.

 I returned to the park on a walk just before dark almost 12 hours later and she was still at it. I wondered if she ever got a break, if she ever even slept at night. I felt so sorry for all mama birds and their lack of breasts to feed their babies with :(

I kind of feel like that mama bird lately, overwhelmed and outnumbered. There are times when all three of my children are demanding my attention at the same time and I simply can not keep up.

My husbands new job keeps him out of town all week so I am left to be a single parent until the weekend when he returns. 

The hardest part I have noticed, now that my eldest is out of school is that my children are all at very different stages of childhood, at 11 years, 4.5 years and 3 months old it is very hard to find activities that we can all do together. My two oldest children are constantly fighting with one another. My eldest is 11 but has been talking to me like a sassy teenager since she was about 8 and refuses to follow any of my rules. She really needs the structure of school, I think the endless unstructured days of summer is stressing her out. If we had the funds for day camps and summer classes it would be well spent on her.

My four year old is loving the new apartment( we just moved into the downstairs apartment of a duplex house we have lived in for 7 years). He mostly loves that fact that he can sneak outside when ever he wants to now that we are on the ground floor with a front and back door. It seems every time I sit down to nurse the baby or change her diaper he takes the opportunity to sneak out. This makes me very nervous.

Nalah is a very easy going baby, but she loves to be held and talked to constantly which is a lot harder for me this time around when I have to take care of the older two as well. She is super content for most of the day and doesn't really ever show any signs of discontent.... until right at dinnertime. As soon as my food is cooked and on my plate and I sit down to eat, she cries.I don't eat hot food until the weekends when her Papa is home and we eat in shifts.

I am really trying to live in the moment and not wish these times away. I know one day my little birds will no longer be in the nest and will not need me like they do now. I can't really tell you how often I get teary eyed advice from older women when I am out in the city with all the kids to "enjoy them while they are little, because it goes so fast".... 

I know it does. I cherish all of it, even the chaos.

It is hard but I am doing okay so far. There are times though where I just stare into my nest tying to figure out who I fed last.

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We have been taking many walks in the park these days, that seems to be the one thing we can all do together without any  problems. We are lucky to have a huge park to escape into in our neighborhood. It is big enough so I can forget for a few moments that I am in the middle of a city. We seem to all get along very well with no arguing while we are strolling the trails. It is our sanctuary this summer, a place of peace. I think we will be spending a lot of time .

This moment..

A beautiful moment from my week to cherish and remember. Inspired by Soulemama.

and I noticed that last weeks moment never published so here it is:

Have a great weekend everyone!

Finding time again to Yarn along.....

Joining Ginny for the yarn along this week. I am currently knitting a mermaid tail for my new sweet baby girl. I found this pattern on Ravelry this past winter back when I was pregnant and didn't know what I was having yet. Part of me was secretly thrilled when she came out a girl simply cause I could make this for her...or not so secretly. I think I may have had a boy mermaid if things had turned out differently.

It is also a very fun knit, I love the scale pattern. It is fun to see it come together.

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I am slowly reading(or falling asleep to) Wifey by Judy Blume. I found this book on a shelf at a thrift store for a dollar and was curious to read one of her adult books. I loved Judy Blume's children's books when I was a child. This book is about a housewife gone bad, or slutty it seems. I can't seem to read more than a page or too before I fall asleep.

What are you knitting? Have you read any good books lately?

This Moment.....

A special moment from my week to cherish and remember.

Join along with Soulemama to share yours.

3 months old!

Well our sweet baby goose is three months old already. She is such a blessing. I was aware of the Sanskrit and African meaning of Nalah's name, but I recently found out that the Hebrew meaning of the name Nalah is "to complete something"...which is really quite fitting since he has completed our family.....and my heart.

On our 11th Anniversary.......

We took a break from unpacking our new place this weekend and spent some time in the woods with a little picnic and hike to celebrate our 11th Anniversary. Last year we celebrated our 10th Anniversary in the Redwoods of California...well these trees were not Redwoods but not any less spectacular. The mossy tree in the picture above is one of my favorites that we have revisited several times.

In reality the kids were less than good and quite naughty actually, poor baby Nalah cried the whole drive home even though we pulled the car over three times to nurse her. They didn't seem to care that it was a special day for us. We lucked out and got to spend an hour together in the late afternoon to celebrate with a margarita ....just the two of us:) We haven't had an Anniversary date with just the two of us in many years. It was nice :)

This(ese) Moment(s).......

I couldn't pick just one this week, they cracked me up and I felt I needed to share all of them:

A moment from my week to cherish and remember. Inspired by Soulemama.