5AM

That's right, 5:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, Harper's preferred time to arise from her peaceful restful slumber, start her day, and force the rest of us to follow suit.  Who in their right mind wakes up this early ON PURPOSE?  So by 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time this Sunday we had already tortured the breakfast joint with our presence and jelly stained hands, fed the cows and donkey (yes, donkey) at the local dairy farm and begged and pleaded our way through three failed nap time coups.  I give up.  Happy 'Half Alive Because I Am Dead Exhausted, Who Has Children's Benadryl Handy?' Sunday!

A girl and her horse

Everything has seemed rushed lately, with never enough hours in the day.  But sometimes, I find ourselves in these quiet moments.  Little pockets of peace in the middle of domestic chaos.  Just a little girl and her horse.

Coming Home

The day we leave for vacation is aways the same.  I frantically try to pack while simultaneously trying to clean the house.  The second part will inevitably drive my husband insane during the process because he does not understand why a sane woman needs a clean house NOT to come home to over the next seven days.  Here's why she does...

Because when you finish a vacation.  When you pack up your babies and your memories all mixed up with sand and salt and life.  When you let it spill out of the over-packed trunk, let your two year old put on that tutu she's SO been missing and wade knee deep into familiar waters, well, you teach her not only to appreciate adventure, but also to value home.  Sometimes the first day home is even better than that first day of vacation.

No description necessary.

Just one word.  Vacation....

The Importance of Anniversaries

Today is my (our) anniversary.  3 years ago today I married Michael, pregnant and in flip flops, on an arbor built for the occasion on property established by my family generations ago.  At the time, things like creating a beautiful ceremony and what food to serve to keep our guests happy seemed important, if even for only one day.  And looking back, maybe they seemed important because they WERE important.  Why?  Because showing up and celebrating the rights of our passage through this one wild, raw, graceful existence is important.  Each anniversary of that day serves as an opportunity to reflect and renew the emotions, the love and the connections we experienced.  We pass down our stories so that our legacies are preserved and in the present, we celebrate our special days because they are just that, special. Three years later, this is what that legacy looks like.