take a walk

more good music

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"To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow - this is a human offering that can border on miraculous"

     - Elizabeth Gilbert

that time natalie and i took our kids downtown on a friday night to take pictures of jackson for his baptism announcements in front of grafitti

we don't gotta work it out

one of my favorite bloggers has been on a journey of self discovery and part of her journey has included experiencing wide varieties of music. when she recommended this group i wasted no time heading over to itunes to buy the whole album. it's not one of those groups where they have 2 good songs and the other 11 are lame.o. every single song rocks my socks off and i've been listening to this group non-stop for the past week.

30

i turned 30.

last weekend.

i saw one of my girlfriends today and she asked me if i freaked out about it at all. but i was excited to turn 30. 

as soon as i woke up on my birthday i sent a text to a friend and said that i woke up smarter and sexier. in my little brain that magic number transformed me into something better. it's all in my head of course, but there's some awesome things that go on in my head.

in reality it's not the number that has had any effect on me. it's just the confidence that comes with maturity and the happiness that comes when you truly figure out who you are and what drives you. 

and in all honesty, i did a lot of really stupid stuff in my early 20's and it feels good to know that i'm not that person anymore.

a workspace that inspires creativity

now that my boys are getting older i'm starting to feel like a lonely little lady in a house full of "dude stuff".

i saw this picture and felt totally inspired to mark some lady territory in my house and bring a little bit more femininity to my surroundings. even if it's just a little pink desk in a corner.

mamma needs pink back in her life!!!!!

image credit

jackson and his cute little face

look at those cute little freckles he's getting on his nose :)

sometimes i sit around and wonder what life would be like right now if i'd made just a couple different choices in my early years. it can be fun sometimes to imagine a life that could've been. but it's always the little things that bring me back to reality.

those cute little freckles on his nose. his skinny legs and knobby knees. how he farts uncontrollably when he laughs.

reality is much better than anything i dream up in my head.

temporary contentment

this is the time of year when i'm at peace with utah. the sky is blue. there's no inversion. the mountains are still green. and you don't melt away or freeze your butt off the second you walk out the door. 

i used to think i need 4 distinct seasons each year. i needed the extremes of winter and summer. 

now that i know better, i know that i don't need winter or summer at all. just the calm in between. 

so now, where do i go to find it??

the boy who couldn't boil a noodle

do you teach your kids to cook? 

i had a boy babysit the boys for me last year. he was 13 so i just assumed he could do basic cooking. i had leftover spaghetti sauce so i said for dinner he could just boil some spaghetti and microwave the sauce. 

but he didn't know how to boil spaghetti. 

so i got out some hot dogs and said he could microwave them for dinner. and i had the popcorn popper out so they could have popcorn while they watched a movie.

i came home to find out that he had no idea how to use an air-popper, and they ate cold hot dogs for dinner. 

and they almost started a fire trying to figure out how to use the air-popper.

i thought back to my childhood and couldn't remember a time when i wasn't cooking things for myself. i was 4 when my brother started paying me a quarter to make him popcorn. i believe i was 7 when i started baking all my siblings birthday cakes. by 6 i could at least make noodles, grilled cheese sandwiches and fry, poach & scramble eggs, and make a killer chocolate chip cookie.

after that incident i realized having the boys in the kitchen with me was more than just a fun activity. i'm determined to raise boys that know how to cook everything that i can cook. 

i can't tell you how nice it is to sleep in on saturdays and not have to worry about breakfast because jackson is in the kitchen happily making toast and scrambled eggs.

teach your boys to cook!

(i was in the kitchen on mothers day happily baking some brownies, when payton came in wanting to share the load so i could enjoy my day.)

a beautiful, beautiful flamingo