a mother's day treat {micro vlog}

on mother's day, j gave me some time off to go do some shopping and stuff without any little people to worry about. i think it's a little funny/ironic that the best mother's day gift is time alone, but it's really kind of true. i actually told j that the only things i wanted for mother's day were a good cup of coffee and a photo with my babies, but when he told me that he was going to take the kids and give me some time to myself i was like heck yeah! haha. it's not that i didn't want to be with my family, but when you're a mom, i think the main thing you really don't get much of is personal space, so you take it whenever you can get it! it's so weird to think that before kids i was lonely a lot! that is definitely an emotion i don't really experience anymore, ha! which is perfectly wonderful to me. but anyways, after i had all my alone time, which naturally i spent running around and doing errands for the most part haha, i came home and we took the kids out for some frozen yogurt. it was actually hands down the best part of my day. here's our little micro vlog about it.

i love my family. they make this mothering gig the best part of life. :)

planting a garden {micro vlog}

a few weeks — months — ago we went to the gardening store and picked up a few plants for our tiny little garden. we built the garden bed last year (our first time trying to grow anything!), and it didn't do too well because we were such novices, so this time we kept it simple and didn't buy any seeds, just plants. we planted strawberries, thyme, french lavender, purple sage, pineapple sage, some peppers and some flowers! it was a lot of fun and hopefully we'll actually get to eat some from this garden! especially since i'm actually remembering to water this year. ;) maybe next year we'll branch out even more.

lullwater park {micro vlog}

last week we went back to lullwater park on emory university for an afternoon picnic. even though it's sometimes work to get us all out of the house on the weekends, it's usually such a good investment because getting out of the house means that we get to focus on spending time together instead of all the chores, etc. of family life. this sunday was no exception. i spent most of nap time grocery shopping and making food for our little picnic, but then when we got there, we all had such a great time. and this weather is like, if you don't get out and enjoy me now you'll be sorry in another week! haha. seriously, i feel like spring is almost over and we are all about to hit summer heat waves, so i want to be outside as much as possible. if you live in atlanta and don't know about this park, it is truly a little gem. geese to feed, lots of clover for little kids to run around in, big ol' trees to get lost in. pretty much the perfect spot.

hope you enjoy the video!

wilder's third birthday {a film}

we made a little movie of wilder's bug-filled third birthday party. we had the best day with wilder (and all his friends) that day, and he is still playing with some of the fake bugs we bought and hid in the pool full of dirt. i can't believe my baby is three! he is such a thoughtful, imaginative, helpful, caring, wonderful three-year-old. i couldn't have dreamed up a better one, and i'm so glad we have this little video of our morning together. after the end credits is a little scene we filmed early that morning right after i told wilder happy birthday, and he excitedly ran to tell his papa how old he was. that little man seriously has both of our hearts all goopy as we watch him grow. but kind of hoping this next year lasts longer than the past one so we can soak in all his little-ness.

family road trip adventure part 2 {roanoke} {a film!}

here's the second part of our road trip to virginia. after visiting jefferson vineyards on sunday we drove to roanoke to visit with j's grandparents and a few of his aunts, uncles and cousins. my in-laws also drove up for the weekend, so wilder and evienne got to see their grandparents and great-grandparents on the same day, which was heaven for wilder. he has missed his grandparents since they moved to charlotte, north carolina, where j's sister lives. we hung out with the family for a few hours before turning in for the night at hotel roanoke and then we were back on the road on monday. it was a good trip and so good to spend some time with family.

family road trip to virginia part 1 {charlottesville} {a film!}

we made a little (ha, or not so little!) video of our family road trip to charlottesville, virginia from a few weeks ago. it's a little longer than our previous videos, so hopefully you aren't bored out of your minds. ;) it was so hard to edit our footage from four days! and actually we are planning to make a part 2 video of our sunday afternoon with j's family in roanoke. this was definitely a labor of love, and i adore having these little moments with my family captured on film. i'm pretty sure the kids are the stars of the show, as always. j's not too bad in those red sunglasses either. :)

hope you enjoy!

my typical day as a stay at home mom (a film!)

when we started making little movies a few weeks back, i thought it would be fun to make a movie all about my typical day as a stay at home mom. i find the idea of routines and schedules and typical days endlessly fascinating, and i love seeing what other people's days are like. little did i know how hard it would be to actually have a typical day and film it too! ha! but no, actually it was lots of fun to make this movie and to "see" what my day looks like (in fast forward;). the funny thing is that while i felt a little hectic making sure that i actually filmed everything, the kids were strangely calm and happy this day, so you don't quite get to see the chaos that sometimes happens around here. ;)

i'm so nervous! i felt so silly recording my voice for this video! hope you like it though! :)

P.s. the cookies that i made for our afternoon nap/craft-time were these sugar cookies from hey natalie jean, and they really, really are THE best sugar cookie ever. they are perfect. i'm obsessed. like, i might have to make them again this week, even though it's really not sugar cookie time of the year anymore. go make them!

family restaurant adventure! {a film!}

well we made another little video (you aren't getting sick of them yet are you??;) from our evening out to dinner and dessert in decatur on saturday as a family. if you are subscribed to my youtube channel you might have already seen it. it's a little bit silly. i'm a little bit silly on camera (ugh), but anyways, hope you like it!

we had fun going out on the town, which it seems like we are doing a lot of on weekends these days. it's just so hard to stay home when the weather is being all sorts of wonderful and you have wiggly littles (and wiggly bigs too, let's be honest) at home! i'm not sure if you can tell from the video because i'm pretty sure the most chaotic parts always happen off camera (because obviously no one has an extra hand for a camera when all hands are needed on deck!), but dinner out is always a study in crazy for us. no one wants to sit still. no one wants to eat their dinner. no one wants to be quiet. ;) it's pretty hilarious for me, to be honest. and while i don't usually get to eat most of my meal (hence the to-go box!), it's the best entertainment, and i love it. and also, you never say no to jeni's ice cream. after dessert we stopped into our favorite little bookstore on decatur square, little shop of stories. i've heard they have story times during the week so we need to go one of these days, because it's the cutest little store ever and kid-friendly, which is important these days.

i wish you a weekend full of all your favorite people, ice cream, food and books, too!

a week of breakfasts {a film!}

breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. there is nothing better than sitting down to a hot cup of coffee, eggs and toast (or donuts;). except having someone else make it for you. :D i'm lucky because for the last little while, j has been taking over our breakfasts. i might help with getting the kids' food, but usually i don't have to make my own, and it is the best part of my morning, especially because there is rarely a meal i get to eat in its entirety without popping up to get something for one of the kids every other minute. and while breakfast is definitely not the leisurely activity it was before having kids, i wanted to just make something to celebrate what to me is the most important meal of the day. so we made a little video about breakfast at our house. it's by no means a masterpiece, but we had a lot of fun making it. and actually, because we were making this movie, we actually sat and enjoyed our breakfasts last week for way longer than we normally do. is it weird to say that filming these little videos is actually causing us to spend more time enjoying each other's company? so even if this probably isn't the kind of video that will get passed down in family lore, it's special to me. and i think i'll probably still love looking back on our breakfast routine from this time right now.

hopefully you'll enjoy it at least a little. ;)

a trip to the zoo! {a film!}

wilder, evienne, and i went to the zoo yesterday with some friends, and i (or mostly j) made a little video of our morning. although it is never a complete breeze to go anywhere with two kids, it is always so worth it to get out of the house and see friends. it is even more fun now, seeing evienne walk around and play too. i love that atlanta's zoo is so easy to get around and small enough that you can do the whole thing in a few hours. we never actually get to the whole thing, because we are on toddler time and also because we stopped to play at the playground for the first time. i think they really loved it — especially evie. it was a really great morning, and we had so much fun seeing the animals and riding the carousel. also, thank you to my friend jean for helping me shoot this video!

climbing stone mountain {a film!}

after approximately zero exercise for the last...ever since wilder was born? so...almost three years? j and i decided to climb a mountain. with our two toddlers. at first i thought this was a super good idea (sarcastically, obviously) and envisioned my babies falling off the mountain and tried to talk j out of it. he had never been, so he didn't know how horribly steep it got at the top. (it doesn't. but in my memory it became this sheer rock face that no one would survive.) but he didn't believe me and suddenly, a windy, chilly saturday morning seemed like the perfect time to attempt such an outing. we packed a picnic, bundled everyone up and put on our best hiking faces. i have to say i am quite proud of j for being the first up and getting us all out the door in record time! thanks j!

when we got to the mountain, everything was basically perfect. we couldn't have asked for better weather. the climb was really beautiful. evie stayed happy in a carrier on j's back the entire time (literally not a peep!)! wilder climbed almost the entire thing by himself! and we crossed something off our list of "things j hasn't done in atlanta"! it was definitely a thing to document. good thing we made a little film! it's a little long, but basically we look at these as family home movies that we will love watching later on, so we edited a lot, but just couldn't cut some parts out. hope you enjoy it:)

date night at the high museum {a film!}

on friday night, j and i got a babysitter and went on a date to the high museum. it had been awhile and we were out of practice, so we...missed our exit, sat in traffic, took a wrong turn, circled a few parking garages (j), got super car sick (me)...basically it was like a normal day with us! ;) but we did make it to the museum! it was definitely worth all the crazy and hopefully we'll do it again sometime. especially since that was j's first time to the high, and we barely scratched the surface of what there is to see. the high is amazing! you should go! also, tickets are half-price on the third friday of every month and it stays open late, so there's your next date night planned! boom.

we also made a little video of our date, if you want to see it. with some extra cool shots of our bedroom/bathroom/closet which will probably make you feel really good about yours, as those are the last areas of our house to remain untouched. you're welcome. ;)

thanks for the date, j! always a pleasure looking at art with you!

Wilder's Birthday Cupcake

on your very first birthday around here, you get to have birthday cake and birthday cupcake, apparently. ;) we gave wilder a cupcake on his actual birth day and made a little movie of him demolishing it. hope you enjoy!

remembering to treasure this

when i'm in the middle of a hard night of little sleep, which is usually followed by a long day (of no napping)—which seems to be happening a lot recently, it can be easy to want to check out. to let my mind wander to the weekend when wilder's playing on the floor. to check my email while i'm feeding him. to moan when he wakes up from only a thirty-minute nap. it's hard to be "on" every minute of every day.

but sometimes in bed at night loverboy and i watch videos we've taken of him on our phones and then, as i'm watching a video from only a month ago of him, i remember how fleeting this time is. and i'm encouraged to keep being present for every moment. i re-remember how exquisitely, painfully precious these every moments are. how evanescent. it makes me sad a little. but mostly, it makes me happy that i get to spend these moments with him. no matter how sleep deprived. i'm lucky.

now, if you so choose, behold the wonder of wilder's first time on the swings:




those happy feet kill me

just a little something we made...

......

we pretty much think it's the greatest thing ever!

:)