And our family keeps growing....

Recently I've come under attack for our lifestyle choices. Comments like "oh god, how can you even think about having more kids" to "your home is over run by animals already!". I really have been hurt by some comments lately. Well, despite recent rain on my party, I'm absolutely happy with my families choices. I don't give a rat's keester if people 'approve' of our number of children or animals. I am completely and totally in love with them!

So, we're proud to announce we're the new adoptive parents of 2 bunnies!

Meet Peter and Daisy. These beautiful little bunnies came from the Idaho Humane Society. I am absolutely in love with them :)

Daisy is this little black ball of fur. She's 8 weeks old. She's still very skittish and hand shy but she and Peter are two peas in a pod that love to play together. Daunika came up with the name Daisy.

And this is Peter. Aurora has been really into the book The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter and when I asked what we should name our bunnies Aurora instantly yelled "Peter Rabbit". I am certain there are many many rabbits in the world named Peter. This little fluffy man is so friendly and relaxed! He loves to hop around and curl up and snuggle too. His happy hop is adorable!

And some of the funnest moments have been learning all about rabbits. We've got a whole bale of timothy hay for them, rabbit pellets, and a hutch for them. We have explored pet stores, local feed shops, and local ranch shops. I've talked to many people and learned a ton already! Our children really seem smitten with their new little pets and I'm glad.

We also went to the library and Daunika was so sweet when she asked the librarian about books about pet rabbits today. We brought home a couple books for us to read that are directed at childrens levels about rabbits.

We are loving our new additions and there is more than enough love to go around. Cheers!

Beginning of June Happiness!

There is nothing happier than pictures of my children. I have come to love my camera completely, totally, and without any boundaries. My camera is especially important because it captures breif moments of our lives. I make sure not to take sure happy poses, but the silly faces, the crying faces, the oh so ridiculous moments. The messy moments, the shocking or funny moments.

When my great grandmother lived with us for her final year, I witnessed first hand that photos can really be everything to someone. She could not remember anything about her day, or her week, but she could look back into her life.

I want to be able to say I captured my life, just in case :)

Our last couple weeks have been so fun! We had the strangest spring in Idaho. As our minister put it "I think its going to rain enough to build an arc soon". It was so bizarre! So, I'm completely happy to report - ITS NICE OUTSIDE FINALLY!

Heres some glimpses into happiness.

Our girls are super excited to see this lovely little truck park itself with us. They love it! 

Here's our moose man showing off his skills. He rolls happily these days :)

Sitting. Yep. That is 3.5 months old and sitting. Yikes! My children grow up SO fast. He absolutely loves to sit too. He's still wobbly and learning, but he sits without help sometimes!

Declan absolutely is mastering a new skill. Other than sitting and rolling, he is REALLY interested in manipulating things in his hands. He concentrates very hard and often gets this look on his face!

Oh man, he is a HAPPY baby!!!!!! 

Aurora is such a delight to watch. I try to capture moments where my children are not paying attention to me. I think its great to see what they are doing without 'posing'.

For the same reason, I absolutely love this picture of Daunika!

These gorgeous children are enjoying their Zoo pass completely!!!!!!!!!

Outside of the Zoo

Aurora looking at the Rose Garden in front of the Zoo.

Of course we need to smell the roses!!!!

This was so cute. Poor Declan was scared because the girls were laughing and having a great time wiggling next to him.

So, we moved Aurora and viola! Happy children giggling on the floor.

This is hysterical. Daunika 'cleaned up' the toy room. I'm not exactly sure why she didn't put them in bins they usually go in, but she was proud of herself.

And lastly..... this is our silly moose. He sleeps with the blankets coiled up to his face as much as he can manage himself. Its cute, and nerve wrecking a bit!

Happy Summer Solstice!

Oh how time flys... Wasn't it just yesterday that I was at church celebrating the Winter Solstice? But what a wonderful time its been since then. In honor of the Summer Solstice, I want to give thanks to my outdoors pleasures. (yes, I know, the solstice was yesterday!)

So often we forget to reflect on the simple things in life. I'm so grateful for this time I've spent in Idaho. I don't know if its motherhood, growing into an adult, my spiritual beliefs or simple common sense - but I LOVE NATURE!

Recently I read "Last Child in the Woods" by author Richard Louv. It was a fascinating book that I could relate to directly. He spoke a lot about the wonder you feel as a child when you connect with nature and its therapeutic benefits. I completely agree. I remember as  a young child being enthralled with the bushes in our back yard. How fun it was to hide in the roadies and be safe. As I grew older and faced more challenges with my family, nature was my safe haven. There was nothing as calming as sitting by a stream in the dawn or dust when I needed space. It grounded me and kept me sane. This love for water and nature continued into my earliest times out of the house. Living in Seattle brought me so much joy to be among the lush greenery.

Of all my memories with the love for green, how could I be happy in the desert I live in? Nature means something different to me now.
There is so many benefits to all of us to being outside. So here's tribute to my love of nature

Have I mentioned how much I love our back yard? Its amazing. There's 4 big trees that shade it so well, yet provide perfect amounts of sunshine on the other side for our garden! 

We assumed this poor rose plant was a goner after last year and Damons mistake of hacking it to death because he thought the poor thing was a weed! But this is a stunning example of how things can reclaim their space among us and grow :)

Thank you Thank you Thank you wonderful husband of mine!! Oh how I adore my clothesline. How in the world does that tie into nature? wind and sun, the simplicity of the clothes blowing in the breeze is just peaceful to me. Its a simple task that is a joyous one. I'm glad to finally have my clothes line back (we had a rockin one at our last place too!!)

Mostly, I love that my children enjoy nature too. I have absolutely no idea how they climbed the tree to reach a branch to pull off. I don't want to know, honestly. I don't want to interrupt their play and wonder with our beautiful yard. Of course, I did eventually talk to them about being kind and not breaking the darn tree next time. But instead of the gut "don't do that!" reaction that would have limited their play, I decided to wait and let them get the branch.

Too often I think parents have to worry about their children too much to let them wonder around outside and be curious and exploring children! I think that's complete shit for childhood. I'm so thankful I live in a wonderful area where my children can go outside without me hovering. They can find their own wonder and fun in natural forms.

One of the things that the book Last Child in the Woods brought to my attention was this: nature can be anything you want it to be. That tree branch in Daunika's hand was not a tree branch at all to her. She and Aurora thought it was a flag, then a fan (maybe an excuse to wave it at each other as they chased each other?) and then it became a 'baby tree' that they tried to plant in the garden.

How joyous of a life is mine that I got to witness happiness today. I know tomorrow will bring the same.

I hope you all can go outside and feel grounded, peaceful and connect with the world around you today :)

The Beginning of Camping Season 2010

What an amazing weekend! Living in Idaho has brought us so many pleasures and joyous moments, and this weekend really took it a step further. We camped a lot last year, and a few times the year before that but never had we just gone with our immediate family. WOW. It was absolutely stunning. 

There is absolutely something to be said for the intimate space shared with our small family. It was great to not have technological distractions. No cell phone coverage, no DVDs, no computers. We explored together, played together. We enjoyed meals together, took lazy walks, and hung out. Damon and I got to have beautiful conversations late into the middle of the night by fireside and caught up on some reading we both wanted to do. 

I'm almost speechless about the joy my heart feels after such a beautiful weekend. So heres some of the great moments captured when I remembered my camera! 

This is the awesome dam someone had built. It was perfect because the normal creek was moving much too fast for us to safely feel the girls could be near it, but when we found this campsite off the road and next to this dam it was meant to be! The kids LOVED it and we felt great because they were safe! 

Daunika enjoyed climbing all over the damn, and it included falling into the freezing water many times but she didn't care. 

We spent so many hours throwing rocks into the water. It was great! 

We went into the mountains without firewood! This is Daunika practicing her firewood chopping skills with our hatchet. It was so cute to watch her concentrate on her work and in the end feel proud of herself. 

Damon was the fire master! I am so thankful because I'm not exactly great with fire. Oh the skills we're learning....

Check out all the wood my stellar husband collected! (ok, I helped. I had to remind him I was a girl scout and had some tricks up my sleeve for finding dead trees)

Aurora absolutely loved the freedom to stay up late and roam around. 

And OF COURSE - we ended our first night with smores!!!!!! 

Saturday was great because we decided to take it slow, play around our campsite, and they go exploring!!! This is a picture of my hikers :) Aren't they beautiful?

This is the view from the top of our hike. Invigorating! 

Declan enjoyed skin to skin time with Daddy while we hiked. He was absolutely happy to go for the hike and enjoy relaxing and looking around. 

And of course, this was hysterical. We took the girls mini potty to our site because it made them independent mostly. This is Aurora yelling at me that there was grass tickling her bottom. LOL

Our moose-man spent most of his days on me or hanging out with Dad. Can I just say how much I love Ergo carriers?

I love this. Daunika and I were enjoying some pretend play. This moment captured her up close and personal with the rocks. 

Rocks? What is so great about rocks? Well, when you have toys - they are already assigned to something. A bird puppet rarely changes into something else. Its a bird already. But a rock - a rock can be anything and everything she wanted. We enjoyed playing hopscotch with rocks, they became shoes to her, and slippers. Then she shaped them into 'families' of rocks. It was absolutely inspiring to watch her take something so simple and create games for her and Aurora with rocks. 

So rocks ROCK!

And what would camping be without some special treats? The girls were ALL over a box of wheat thins when I said they could absolutely have them. Why not? Life's too short not to enjoy wheat thins for lunch while in the middle of paradise. 

Our stinkers :) 

Moose-man did great! He was really a joy to sit back and enjoy. He slept great at night too!

The final day we were joined by our good friends Joe and Megan and their children and Joes parents. It was enjoyable to have the company, but I can say that I absolutely look forward to more time with my family of 5 in the middle of no where enjoying ourselves and our family. 

Blessed are we.

Update on our green solution - Cows!

Recently I blogged about our 'green' solution with the fabric reusable grass bags. At the end of the blog I mentioned we took it a step farther and are now feeding some local cows our fresh cut grass. Living in this family means we include our children in almost everything we do. Its important to our family dynamic.

My husband early Saturday morning invited the girls to go 'feed the cows' with him. It was great! Aurora (and Moose) fell asleep on the way there, but Daunika had a blast!! Heres some pictures of our great adventure.

I thought this was beautiful. This mama cow had the smallest calf on the field and she wouldn't share her pile of grass with anyone. She was 'nursing' while eating too! So cute.
Daunika loved watching them from Daddy's arms!
But soon she got cold (it was windy!) and she decided to get in the car. Well, this calf was suddenly interested in the car. It kept licking the car!
And Daunika got an up close and personal view of this calf

It was great to see Daunikas wonder and awe. It was amazing, truly. We have hopes soon to get our own property. While we may not be able to have cattle immediately, we really want some cows for milking soon!!

*sigh* Oh the dreams....... What a GREAT Saturday!

The Paintbrush that turned into Crayons.

My husband decided to clean out the garage. Recently we lost our garage to junk and I think it was driving him batty... and me! So we committed to going through a lot of the boxes that we didn't know what they were or hadn't touched them in so long.

I was surprised when I opened one full of my childhood and school projects. Inside it was a quilt I never finished. A 12 piece quilt was one of the many projects I found in my box. I never completed the project, though I do remember it completely.

I was almost 13 years old and completely smitten with a kid named Ian. Oh the times you can see so vividly. Instead of thinking of the quilt with fondness like I should, I was struck suddenly and nearly viciously with sadness. I had pictures of myself, mementos on this quilt, and then, in one square... there was a poem. This was a poem I remember completely.

It described me for a very long time. How sad I am to think of the life I couldn't live. Too afraid to simply be me for fear that someone wouldn't like that person. I think we can all relate to the poem in some moments of our lives. What we really need to do is sit back and take a deep breath, and just be. Below follows the poem of a once very lost child....

The Paintbrush
I keep my paint brush with me
Wherever I may go,
In case I need to cover up
So the real me doesn't show.

I'm so afraid to show you me,
Afraid of what you'll do - that
You might laugh or say mean things.
I'm afraid I might lose you.

I'd like to remove all my paint coats
To show you the real, true me,
But I want you to try and understand,
I need you to accept what you see.
So if you'll be patient and close your eyes,
I'll strip off all my coats real slow.

Please understand how much it hurts
To let the real me show.
Now my coats are all stripped off.
I feel naked, bare and cold,
And if you still love me with all that you see,
You are my friend, pure as gold.

I need to save my paint brush, though,
And hold it in my hand,
I want to keep it handy
In case someone doesn't understand.

So please protect me, my dear friend
And thanks for loving me true,
But please let me keep my paint brush with me
Until I love me, too.

Bettie B. Youngs

But this wonderful blog doesn't end in sadness... instead, I took the moment to reflect on the sadness, and I felt relief. It is amazing when you can look back and see growth. Wow. Its been a beautiful, crazy, and dynamic road I've journeyed so far....

I chucked the paintbrush long ago, and found something new. I found confidence in myself. I found a beautiful family and wonderful friends. I found life! So instead of hiding behind paint... I color life vibrantly with my loved ones!!!

Coloring Outside the Lines


Coloring outside the Lines is scary business.
Some days, I don't have the courage for it at all.

On my big, bold days though,
I like to let my red crayon just streak across the lines
Out there with my purple...
In perfect freedom,
No Lines!

Coloring outside the Lines is lonely too!
I'm the only one who doesn't get a gold star on my paper.
The teacher frowns.
The kids call me weird or dumb or stupid.

Why don't they see that I'm not behind them,
I'm actually out in front,
Running free...outside the lines!

It would be nice to have a friend who would
color outside the lines sometimes, too.
Would You?




I found wonderful people that do color outside the lines with me, and its amazing.