Hello.

And a celebration of a real birthday.

We travelled west to wish Great Grandma a joyful birthday last weekend. Good times were had by all.
How much do I love going up to The Mountain? With every fiber of my being and then some. Check out the light that comes into that house. The photos don't do it justice of course, but it comes in from all angles and it's so warm and amazingly soft and comforting. Breathing the air in that home is like dissolving oneself into butter and snuggling up with a worn comfy quilt and your favorite book you've read six times and angels holding you up and warm honey tea and love like you've never known before. I've always had a major soft spot for houses that are homes (because not all are) and homes with spirit and character and soul and heart. But a house does not become a home, nor does it acquire spirit and soul without people and their stories. Enter my mother's mother. She and her husband and their five children lived their stories in this house and gave it the character it has now.

Happy Birthday Grandma! Thank you for being a perfect model of grace and humility, love, strength, and acceptance. You are the heart and life of that home we all love so much.

And flowers for the birthday girl.

Happy Birthday Sara!

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution." -Albert Einstein

I know that imaginative play is good for kids. But there have been times that she gets so deeply involved in something that I start to wonder, and I forget actually how good it is for my kid. I mean come on, how am I supposed to walk around the imaginary schoolbus with all the children and animals and friendly monsters inside if I can't see where it's going? And for that matter, what's my child's name today??? Is she even human!? Because there are a lot of days that she spends very little time being herself; instead she's a pirate or a princess or a crocodile.... the list goes on. The other morning I was pretty grumpy and something she was doing just downright annoyed me, then I got a call from my wonderful mother. "Turn on your NPR station!" I couldn't at the moment, and I don't think our local NPR stations play the same programs at the same times, but I found the article on their website including a link to listen to a recording of the broadcast. The report was on one particular benefit of imaginative play; self-regulation and discipline. Awesome. I started to remember how wonderfully the Peach's mind is growing with all this creativity and how necessary it is for her development in general. Perfect timing too, thanks mom! I've been re-motivated to not only tolerate all the invisible beings and structures in my home, but to have fun with and encourage it.

So without further ado, Happy Birthday, Sara!!! Sara is turning four.

Sara is one of the Peach's best friends, so we hosted her birthday party at our house. Sara likes strawberry cake with chocolate frosting. Mmm. Sara is imaginary, obviously. The gold sparkly thing next to the cake is a wood (wooden?) vase with a pair of kitchen tongs stuck in it and a gold ribbon wrapped around the top of them a bouquet of flowers for the birthday girl.

"Your imagination, my dear fellow, is worth more than you imagine." -Louis Aragon

Aaaaarrgghhh!!!!!

No ninja on this earth is as stealthy as a mother whose infant is a ridiculously light sleeper. That is all.

My babies.

Lately the Peach pretty much refuses to have her picture taken unless it's with Butter Bean. Poor thing has had more than her fair share of illnesses this winter, and she's obviously sick in these pictures. I still love these photos though, they're so content together here... she has that hard-to-capture sweet and genuine smile, and Butter Bean is just his usual chipper self.

Sew lovely.

Peach's first sewing project, a tiny bird called Little Charlie.

Here is Big Charlie in mid-flight:

Booger Nuts and The Backyard Farm

This weather has been wonderful lately, and the Peach has been spending more and more time outdoors. This is especially great for me because it means it's quiet in the house for a little while. Anyone who doesn't think it's possible to talk non-stop for a full 12 hours has never hung around a three year old girl for a full 12 hours. It's incredible, really. Anyway, she hangs out in the yard where I can still see/hear her, and comes in every once in a while asking for hay seeds or a bucket of lemonaid or other such necessities for efficiently running an imaginary farm. A bucket of lemonaid? As it turns out, that's what the horses drink.

I love the pretend play, it's so much fun. The other day she was putting together a picnic or something for dolls/stuffed toys/imaginary people. She marched into the kitchen announcing that she needed some wine and booger nuts. Gastronomy at its finest.

Why blog?

To document how quaint and pretty our life is? Puke. No.

Because I want to share with the world that my way is the way to raise a child and be a model citizen and The Woman Who Has It All? No. Hahaha! No.

To document important things, big or small, that happen in my children's lives because I'm too lame to keep baby books? Yes.

Because I'm another jerk who wants to publicly brag about how adorable and genius her children are? Probably.

Because I expect to be The Most Interesting Person Ever to Write a Blog with gazillions of adoring fan comments with every post? Duh! Of course!

To have photos of us somewhere (because I'm not organized enough to scrapbook)? Yes.

To display my mad artsy-fartsy photography skills? No.... wait, photography skills?! Um, no.

To motivate myself to take more, hopefully better photos? Yep.

To force myself to write, even if it's one run-on sentence per month? Absolutely.

What's in a name?

Hello my name is Jacqueline Anne. Or Mom. Or MAAAMAAAAAA!!!!!! My husband has a name that sounds like a ruthless German warlord or something. Sometimes he thinks he is one. My husband makes me laugh. I attempted to give my children names so sophisticated-sounding they would have no choice upon entering adulthood but to become some sort of haughty aristocrat. The warlord vetoed this plot and they ended up with the ridiculously cute names Peach and Butter Bean. If you believe those are really my children’s names then you obviously can’t handle simple sarcasm and you should move on to another, prettier blog. I have a dog appropriately named after an emotionally unstable Shakespeare character. My daughter has a stuffed dog named Shakespeare. She also has a doll named Snazzlebee. We love to read. We have dance parties. Sometimes to the Beastie Boys, sometimes to Bach. We make fantastic messes baking goodies. Sometimes delicious and sometimes nutritious. Sometimes both. We make fantastic messes creating artwork. Our home is pretty much always a fantastic mess. The mama in this home is a fantastic mess. Welcome to the mess.

Aha!

I love this idea! I have artwork by the peach coming out my ears and need a display method besides just hanging them boringly on the wall or storing them away. Will definitely try this out soon.

One of those days.

So it has actually been sunny and not unbearably frigid lately, and everyone needed some fresh air. So we managed to get out the door. All three of us. At the same time. Finally. Granted, the peach was wearing dress shoes and too-small pants underneath a nightgown. Yes, it was late-afternoon, but it had been one of those days. You know-fits about what to wear, pretty much everything she's willing to wear in the laundry that has been neglected... But we went for a walk and it felt good. I underestimated how much she actually needed to get out of doors and run. Will have to make a habit of this again.

Fun with shadows.