By Natalie
As you may know if you’ve been following along here for a while, every December I assemble an advent calendar for Felicity. This year’s calendar is full of activity sheets from The Box Full, along with a few fun craft kits I found in the Target dollar spot (my greatest weakness) and Michaels. I love seeing Felicity’s joy over this calendar and watching her crafting ability grow each year! (more…)
By Natalie
“I’ll take them.” I said without hesitation. What had come over me? When my friend Jamie mentioned that her girls weren’t crazy about their new preschool and wasn’t sure what to do, I spoke up. “I’ll take them.” I said. Knowing I could do it, I wanted to do it, and was pretty sure that I should do it. Jamie asked if I was serious. I nodded. “Let me know how they do in school the next couple of weeks.” I told her as she was still unsure if they needed time to adjust. (more…)
By Natalie
Lights on 6am
Leggings up, contacts in.
Morning Zoe, time for school.
Dark sky, red lights. (more…)
By Natalie
As much as I wanted to throw another set of Fall Favorites at you I figured I’d tackle household faves first. Most of these favorites have been well tested in our home and we can’t live without them. Some of them are pretty fall themed let’s be honest. (more…)
By Natalie
Zoe’s here! Thanks to everyone who has reached out in the past week to ask how things are going with our new exchange student. Our little family was so excited to finally welcome Zoe to the US. (more…)
By Natalie
We have some exciting news to share! In a few short weeks we will be welcoming a foreign exchange student into our home and our little family for one entire school year ♥ (more…)
By Natalie
We have 14 weeks in our summer. Just 14 weeks of impromptu water gun fights with the neighbor kids, splash pads, juicy watermelon and play dates. That’s about a hundred summer break days and I’m packing in as much as I can! We only have one summer with Felicity at this age and I want to make sure that we had an absolute blast each year! Friends have been asking what we plan to do all summer. The truth is that I probably have way too much planned! I’ve shared some of the big things but here’s a list of everything in between to give you some inspo! A life well lived is a life with intention♥ That’s our family motto. (more…)
By Natalie
I pulled my coffee out from under the espresso machine and poured some milk in the glass. My iced latte swirled into a caramel color. A loud thud vibrated above me. It was the glorious hour of quiet time where I could sit with my second cup of coffee of the day and have a moment to myself while Lici played in her room. Though it was quiet time, she still can’t help but jump around. I went upstairs and opened Lici’s door. She laid on the floor legs up and made eye contact with me upside down. “Hey mama.” she said.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“Oh yea, I was just being a jaguar catching a crocodile.” She curled her fingers as if they were jaguar claws.
“I see.” I nodded. “Well it is quiet time, so rest your body if you’re feeling sleepy.” I told her. She giggled and said, “Ok.” (more…)
By Natalie
Throughout the past couple of months I have been fascinated by the motherhood journey. When a woman becomes a mother she births not only her children, but a new version of herself. She is no longer who she was before. Though pieces of her remain, the core of her breaks down, changes, grows. After noticing this in myself I took a deep look into how my friends have journeyed through motherhood. During small moments that we’ve shared together I’ve taken mental pictures of my beautiful friends and when I had a free moment I would jot down my thoughts and memory of our encounter. I’ve titled this series of essays Portraits. Though I’m no photographer I decided to use my own medium to capture these intimate moments. I wanted to gift my friends a snippet of a their motherhood journey through something a little different than a photo. Something more. Something timeless. Something written. Something they can cherish and look back on and read when they’re feeling like the weight of motherhood is heavy. Something to remind them of the amazing change and growth they have gone through and to remind them of how blessed they are to be a mother. (more…)
By Natalie
Walking into the airport after 9 beautiful days in Puerto Rico was nothing short of heartbreaking. This was so much more than a vacation, it was a homecoming.
Brandon and I had hoped this trip would happen at least 5 years ago, but for one reason and then another it never worked out. As I approached 30 I recognized that something in me longed to connect more with my heritage. I wanted to see where my family and ancestors were from, to experience Puerto Rico for myself. (more…)