Olivia's haircut

Olivia got a new haircut, courtesy of moi, and just in time for school, too! This girl has been begging me to cut her hair for too long, so I finally fulfilled her request. I selfishly wouldn't let her cut it for a while because it had just grown out enough to call it long, and it was just so pretty on her. She's our blondest child, and has the most beautiful natural highlights I've ever seen. I enjoyed it long for a while, but even I got tired of dealing with all her tangles and her not wanting to brush her hair. This short cut is so easy now! Olivia loves it! It's not perfectly straight in the last photos, and I've since straightened it up, so it's even a little shorter. After Mila saw Olivia's new hairdo, she let me cut more than two inches off of her hair, so I ended up giving Mila a nice 5-6-inch trim as well.

Five for Friday: week one

I've been wanting to start a weekly feature on this little blog, and I thought five photos from our week would be the perfect thing! Simple and easy and random, just my style! So, I will be sharing a few snippets of our lives here every Friday, and hopefully it will be fun to look back on after I've gotten a few under my belt. It's a little disappointing that it's officially Saturday right now (2 minutes past midnight), but hey--I was feeding the baby! And catching up on previous posts! Looks like this week is mostly food...gotta remember to lay off the food pictures for next week...

1. I am obsessed with the chocolate almond croissants at the Co-Op. I don't even want to know how many calories they have. Let's just say it's a good thing that place is such a far drive.
2. Naomi loves baths even more if I lay her in the water while swaddled. Got that tip from a friend, and it works wonders!
3. Working on a puzzle with the kids. So fun to do one again!
4. My mom picked up a box of apricots for us. They are one of my absolute favorite fruits, and I sure got my fill this summer.
5. Our tomatoes have finally decided to ripen, so we are enjoying lots of organic, homegrown tomatoes these days.

xoxo,
Tanya

Up in the woods

Summer is almost over, but at least we went camping once! I would love to get away for a weekend just B and me, but it's not an option this year because of Naomi. Can't wait till next year--we need to go for sure! I love being unplugged for a whole weekend and just breathing fresh air 24/7. It's a good change of pace for sure. This was a church camping trip, where anyone from church who wants to go, goes. It's a lot of fun for the kids since there are a bunch of other kids there, and they have a blast running around, swimming, riding bikes, sitting around campfires...it's become a tradition in our house and we didn't want to miss this year, so off we went!

The older three went on Wednesday afternoon with their grandparents, and B, me, and Naomi went Thursday evening, and we all came back Sunday. It was a lot of work with an almost-3-month-old, but it was still a lot of fun. One of my favorite parts of camping is sitting around the campfire late into the night, and I got to do that, so I'm a happy girl. Naomi even joined us one night because she couldn't sleep, and it looked like she loved it as much as I do. It put her out nicely for the night, and we both got some much-needed sleep after a rough first night.

(Please don't judge my thighs...my goodness, I have a lot of work to do. I feel so weird in my body these days. And I'm only buying enough clothes to keep me from having to be naked until I lose some of it. Ugh. But...I still wanted pictures with my baby girl because she won't be little forever!)

We drank a lot of La Croix. My favorite flavor--peach pear.

Little bug in the tent.

Oh, Olivia...

Poor boy gets so many cold sores, and he got two huuuge ones right before camp. Someone said he looks like a vampire with fangs, ha ha! He totally got it from me, I had a million cold sores as a child. Now I get much less of them as an adult.

Just look at those cheeks! No wonder her head is hard to hold up! They look like they're going to swallow her mouth.

 

Not the most beautiful scenery since many of the trees were destroyed by fire, but the camping spots are really nice. Next time I want to camp somewhere super rugged, though. Am I weird to want that? I just feel like the scenery will make up for the inconveniences.

Mila after jumping off the rope swing. I love how daring and athletic she is, and is always up for trying things. I couldn't get a shot of her jumping since I had to launch her.

Adele is such a beautiful little child, and she sure loves her cousins.

And her older brother, Noah. What can I say, always up to something naughty...

Decorate: retro bohemian bedroom

This is going to be a new blog feature that I do, and I'm not going to say weekly, because I will probably fail at that right away, but every once in a while. When I see cool new products, I always imagine a room they would be really great in, and I have a lot of fun putting rooms together in my head. I thought, "Why not do it on my blog?" It's still not decorating for real, but it's the next best thing. And I don't have to spend a ton of money, either!

So, without further ado, this is my first room, a bedroom I call 'retro bohemian'. It was all centered around that crazy amazing bed from Thrive furniture, and has some gold, bright colors, prints, and some beautiful wood to boot. I never liked rooms that are too matchy matchy--complimentary is much more up my alley. And I love something polished next to something a bit scruffy, like the shiny orange lamp against that graphic Moroccan rug, or the Nelson bubble sconce against the more rustic night table. It just brings balance to a room, and doesn't let it gravitate too much towards one look. I really want one of those tree prints for my own room that I found in the Fine Little Day shop the other day.

print // orange lamp // baskets // bubble sconce // bed // lucite table // sheets // pillow // rug // pendant // chair // side table

My son is in the double digits

Benjamin turned ten years old earlier this month, and we celebrated hard this year to commemorate it.  It IS a big milestone in our family, after all! I remember being pregnant with him, the delivery, and then getting to hold him in my arms for the first time. All life-changing experiences.

He was such a good baby, and so good playing on his own with his toys. He could sit and play quietly for hours. I never had to move breakable things away from him because he never touched them. No meant no, and he was content with the things I did let him do.

Now ten years later, I can only wonder how that little baby turned into the boy I see today. He spends hours doing origami, folding all kinds of shapes and cubes and flying objects. He makes all kinds of spit ball and rubber band launchers, ninja stars, and dart guns out of paper, chopsticks, tape, and rubber bands. He loves to read, loves his longboard and his bike, loves to go to the pool, and is always on the trampoline with his sisters. He is so smart and math seems to come so easily to him. Sometimes his boy qualities get him in trouble, like when he makes it seem like he said something different than he did or when he makes a mess and never wants to clean it up. But he is always trying to please B and I and do what's right. He is such a good kid. We love you, Ben, and pray God's blessings are always present in your life. May you be a light for Him in this dark world, and never take your eyes off Him.

On Ben's birthday, we let him open his presents (he told me each gift was just what he wanted), went out for pizza, did a quick photo shoot in the desert with his ten balloons, had dessert at Whole Foods, and went for an evening swim in the pool. We all had so much fun helping him celebrate. Now he is in the double digits, and soon he will be a tween....sigh...I'm getting a little scared just thinking about it.

I have a funny story about those balloons. I was picking them up at Fred Meyer the morning of Ben's birthday, and as I was putting them in the trunk, one of them went over the trunk lid and touched the hot car and popped. I heard the loudest, heartiest laugh behind me! I turned around, and there was an old guy laughing his head off in his car across the street. It was odd, but I guess I'm glad I could give him such a good laugh! ;) It probably made his day. I didn't want to go back in, so I went home with nine balloons. We popped two more on bushes as we were taking pictures, so we ended up releasing seven balloons into the sky at the end of it all. Oh well, gotta roll with the punches, right?

xoxo,
Tanya