her words

A delightful treat to read on mothers day. Written in their own words, typos and all, with the help of questions to prompt.




Funny, nice, helpful, and silly
Mother of... Megan, Bella, and Tess
Lover of...kids, art, and chocolate
Who feels...loved, cared for, and awsame
Who needs...love, family, and friends
Who gives...kisses, warm hugs, and lovings
Who would licke... to see world, future, and jungle.
Love, Megan

You are special because...you buy our food we need, and you make the food to feed us and be healthy.
I like it when...you help me when I need it, and draw with me.
I think your best at...art, photography, sewing, dealing with kids.
I like to make you smile...by smiling back, making funny jokes.
You are as pretty...as a daisy, sunset, sky on a bright sunny day.
You are smart! You even know...mathematics, what's under my bed, where to put things and what to do at the right time.
When I'm at school my mom...goes shopping, laundry, reads, nap, clean, makes food, pictures, talk with friends, pull some weeds in the garden, call on phone, do her photography class, make plans for the week, make brownies.
My mother worries about...our rooms not being clean, bad grades, me practicing my piano, clean clothes, getting hurt, going places on my own.
The most important thing about her life...is love and her family.
Love, Tess

[I'm sharing the projects they did in school, so the other thoughtful words, including Bella's, I will keep for me]

After I stopped smiling after such a delightful morning with breakfast in bed and sweet thoughtful words from each of my girls -- wait I never really did stop smiling -- I couldn't help be grateful for them for coming into my life and making my dreams come true of becoming a mother. As i assume you mothers know, it hasn't always been exactly what I imagined, how could you really know what you're in for. It has certainly tried my patience, made me question myself, but it has, aside from starting a life with adam, been the greatest thing I've ever had the chance to experience. I am most blessed to have my three and I certainly wouldn't want it any other way.

I hope all you lovely mothers had a fabulous day!

12of12 | May

[click here to enlarge]

01. Adam came home from taking the girls (and two friends) to get bagels and related how on the outs he was this morning sitting at a table with 5 girls. Supposedly they didn't stop talking long enough to eat and he couldn't get a word in edgewise. He felt he was on the outside, no longer apart of the conversation that ebb and flowed with laughter.
02. Our day was filled up and my lazy morning in bed only made me behind schedule. I ran to the grocery store and got home just in time to drop the food on the counter and head to Tess' art show.
03. This was one of Tess' pieces she had on display at the art show.
04. We were in the car a lot today.
05. Soccer :: there were two games that overlapped one another. I don't mind having them back to back, but I hate only getting to see half of each.
06. Tess and her friend enjoying the mother's day card Adam was making for his mom.
07. The first watermelon of the season. Delicious.
08. When Megan and her cousin Olivia get together they always end up switching clothes and copying each others hair styles.
09. We met at Robyn's new place to celebrate Mother's day. The first of many celebrations to come -- I hope. :)
10. I'm either getting too old or out of shapes (i hope it's neither). After channeling the kid inside I jumpped for a few minutes with Bella and it took my legs sometime to recover.
11. I saw this photo on Robyn's dresser of her with her siblings and of course loved it. I always imagine my boy would look just like that if I had a son.
12. Heading home.

I love at the end of the day when you've been taking photos the whole way along and thinking you didn't get enough or it wasn't a great day for photos and be pleasantly surprised with what you captured. I suppose your day can be full enough that you forget all that you've done. It was enjoyable to look back at my day and remember it was a great day, full of togetherness. I hope you all had a great day as well. Don't forget to share. :)

12of12 reminder

It's 9pm and I'm just now realizing tomorrow is the 12th. Here is your last minute reminder. Sorry I'm getting this post out to you so late. Enjoy your weekend, I'm excited to capture a Saturday, and I'll see you tomorrow!

random thoughts on a thursday morning

4:55am this morning my alarm rang out and almost immediately I began chasing my dream. I was not ready to be done with it, to wake from my subconscious, and yet as if beyond my control the hours of sleep faded into the growing light and I wasn't sure what I was chasing anymore. It was gone. The day was upon me.

I guess I should be grateful this morning for this hour and fifteen minutes during violin lessons to write. I woke with the desire of expression, to give my thoughts a voice. I don't nearly do it as often as I want to and am saddened by all that I've missed in my quiet.

In my quiet I have grown absent and almost distant with some of my most favorite people. I miss my friends.

May I've decided is one of the busiest months of the year aside from December. Everything is wrapping up and filling up our schedule, not to mention school activities that I have been volunteering for -- not sure what I was thinking. I feel I have definitely maxed myself out and am quite ready for the summer and a little down time. Funny I should say that, when I look at our summer schedule it is anything but slow. It should be good though and full of summery stuff.

Adam continues to travel frequently. Work is keeping him as busy as ever, unfortunately its just not in town. We are holding up the fort without him home, though he is very much missed by all and treated like a rock star when he opens the door. I think he misses the comforts of home just as much, but we both put on a brave face, grateful that this need to travel is a blessing, an answer to our prayers, and keeping us afloat.

Yesterday we celebrated our seventeenth year of knowing one another -- has it really been that long?

Squam is quickly approaching and all my time is going towards working out the kinks, making a power-point, and reviewing my class. I get a little anxious about the work I still feel is left and yet when I do it, and immerse myself, I simple can't wait to teach it -- and I can't wait to see the lake in June.

I have been following along with my friend Maya Stein on her adventure across the country. She's riding a bike with a typewriter in tow and meeting all kinds of people along the way seeking unique perspectives to fill up her pages. I admire her so much for seeing this dream to it's fruition. Makes me contemplate my own. Doesn't it seem a dream should come easy, natural because it's what you always wanted, it's what you've pushed for? This year I have come face to face with that reality and I'm telling you when your dream is finally at a reachable distance it can be overwhelming, scary even, and you wonder what sort of business you had dreaming such a thing. Even dreams, I'm learning take an exorbitant amount of blood, sweat, and tears, but when you are there, living it, it's more rewarding than you can possibly imagine.

Remind me not to forget that -- nothing comes easy, especially the things we want most.

xoxo

how we go

They left me
with your shadow,
saying things like
Life is not fair


& I believed them
for a long time.


But today,
I remembered
the way you laughed
& the heat
of your hand
in mine


& I knew that
life is more fair
than we can
ever imagine
if
we are there to live it

~storypeople

[iphone via instagram]

I gently closed the book, tears slowly falling down my cheeks, and said a prayer of thanksgiving that this life is not the end -- the relationships we are building and working on here will follow us into the next. My days have, for quite some time, moved around this simple, yet most precious truth, my family will live forever together when we are finished with this mortal experience. The peace this knowledge brings on a day to day basis is incomprehensible -- our end is most certainly a new beginning. What a gift.

I wish I could say this moment of solitude took place in the comfort of my bed or a dark quite space where I prefer to shed my tears, instead I sat behind the wheel of my car in the parking lot of Costco. The store hadn't opened quite yet when I parked and I couldn't keep myself from reading the end of The Fault In Our Stars even if I knew I wouldn't be entirely prepared to enter the public eye when I finished -- and I wasn't. I had been right about that.

Some might say it's a love story in unfortunate circumstances, and while I adore love stories this book spoke more to me about life -- how to live, how to appreciate the days we have, how to love and be loved. This book was yet another heavy reminder that while there is much in our way to make us fall, ultimately the path we carve is up to us. We have a choice which direction we go, or better yet, we have a choice how we go.

What will you choose? It's a question I ask myself on a daily basis. Almost as my eyes are attempting to let in the light my mind is already determining what kind of a day is ahead of me. It's a conscious choice I make daily to live in the present, to be happy, to not let the little things derail me. I can't say it always works, there are good days and bad days as I imagine you face as well, but it helps to know it's completely up to me to find the good. And when I can't, as is the case sometimes, I pray, seek perspective, lean on others to help carry me through, and hope for better understanding.