this moment.

inspired by SouleMama

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

stuff {+giveaway winner!!}

In the spirit of making it a point to take time to consciously enjoy our family--that sounds silly doesn't it? but the truth is, its so easy to get too busy. Easy to get so wrapped up in details that really don't matter when you step back and look at the 'big picture', that you forget to just be--we decided to randomly go out for an early dinner at our family's favorite pizza place. Among other things, we really love that the kiddos get to play with these wooden pizza toys while the real ones they built are cooking! 

 We also love getting to see our baby learn to do things like this for the first time.

 And the second.

In other news, YOU won the giveaway. Please email me your info so I can get you your prize!

(carey . penn @ gmail . com)

it's a beautiful life

Isn't it funny how whether you're ready or not, life just happens? You can be thrown into an experience and you have two choices about how to look at it.

You can embrace life as a learning experience. Find ways to learn and grow and improve yourself so you can help others.

Or you can feel victim to circumstance.

I like to believe that I choose the prior. I want to set an example to my amazing children that we are here to learn and grow. We are here to see the beauty in our circumstances and our surroundings. 

We are here to improve ourselves and each other.

We are here to learn from the past and enjoy the present moment.

And to see the beauty all around us. Even when life is messy, there is plenty of beauty to be seen.

It all just depends on where you look.

Don't forget about the giveaway. 

:)

this moment

inspired by SouleMama

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

cedar creek soaps {a giveaway!!}

Recently my seeester started making her family's own all-natural soaps, deodorant, lotions, body scrubs, sunscreen, and the list goes on! Lucky for me she decided that she likes doing it so much that she has started selling them! So far my family has tried the lemon-coconut-vanilla body butter, sunscreen bar, bug repellent bar, deodorant bar, apple body lotion (which is Max's favorite!), foaming shave soap (for me), and shave bar (for Karl). We love it all! I think I am most impressed by the deodorant bar and bug repellent bar because they actually work, smell great (well, it all does!), is all natural (all her products are!), and I never would have thought of making them at home. She has been selling them at local bazaars and farmers markets, and lucky for you, she is giving everyone a chance to win some of her lovely products! And if you don't want to wait to see if you win, you can always contact her for a custom order! Meaning, take a look at her list of products and her list of scents. She can make any of her products in any scent, or combination of scents that she carries!

cocoa butter and coconut soap

hand soap in her new Ball jar dispenser!!

an assortment of her products including bar soap, lip balm,
lotion, body butter, and sunscreen bars.

This giveaway is for a jar of all-natural body butter and a bar of soap. See below to enter and be sure to come back next week and I'll announce the winner. :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

baby mullet

It's official. My baby has a mullet, and I'm the guilty party. He's been in need of a haircut for quite some time, and I finally bit the bullet and grabbed the scissors. He did so amazingly well and sat super still the whole time, but I just couldn't make myself cut those curls! They stretch down past his shoulder blades when he takes a bath, and then boing back up when they dry. Neither Mad nor Max had curls like that. Now excuse me while I post 600 of basically the same photo to show how cute he is.

:)

beautiful sunday

Karl would like me to point out that he's my only baby daddy, but for some reason I feel like making that distinction makes the card feel less special. ;)

We had such a lovely time celebrating Father's Day with our favorite man. We treated him with some all natural shave soap I ordered from my sister's shop, Cedar Creek Soaps, a thrifted mug we transformed into a shaving mug and gave a Sharpie treatment to, and a badger brush. Then we spent the afternoon doing some geocaching for the first time this year (and the first time with Milo walking on his own two feet instead of in our hiking pack!), which left us with slivers and dirt under our fingernails--proof that a good time was had by all. Hoping you all had a lovely time celebrating the men in your life, too! 

:)

father's day {card idea}

Yay for fathers! We've all got one, right? Some of us are married to one, are a sister to one, or at least know one, and making them a card to tell them you're thinking of them is SO simple, and can be fun too! Just take a sharpie to some card stock and go buy some social envelopes, and you're good to go! Mad and Max think its especially cool and wonderful to get to use "pregnant" markers... or sometimes they're called "impossible" markers. For some reason the word "permanent" just doesn't seem to stick.

Clearly perfection is not the key here. Just have fun with it.

Try that super fun herringbone pattern you've been wanting to doodle. 

Ignore your mistakes, and maybe he will too? It's just a theory. I'll let you know how it works out. :)

this moment.

I decided to take a look back in time to one of my favorite "this moment" posts ever. This one was from Sept. 2010, and was taken at our annual family camp out in the rain forest. That's my (oldest) boy admiring my (favorite) man doing what he loves to do. Be still, my heart.

::inspired by soulemama::

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. 

I'm still knitting! This is the most recent project off the needles. The pattern is Camilla Kid and the yarn is a discontinued Knit Picks yarn that I got from my mama a while back. I adore this sweater, and Mad loves it too. The pattern comes in a great range of sizes, and I'm thinking I might have to knit a baby one just for  the fun of it... is anyone having a girl anytime soon?! There is also an adult size pattern, which I might have to knit in this yarn. The rest of my notes can be found here. 

:)

an old post

I just found this draft I had written back in early November and never got around to posting. Figured I'd share. We kept this up for a while, and it did really improve the attitude of my little miss. Hoping that after we move we can fit this back into our routine. Also important to note: this is definitely not the first or the last time I was highly inspired by my children to get crafty. ;)

Madelynn is in first grade. FIRST GRADE! I can hardly believe how fast the time goes, and I am amazed at how lovingly this girl has been in her role big sister to two little brothers. There are times when her life is unfair and she has to show what feels like too much patience. At the very beginning of the school year, she had had it. Being the only one in the house who had to get up early for school, meant we held her to her bed time more strictly, reminding her that when she was a baby sometimes she stayed up too late, too. And when she was a baby, she shared the bed with mommy and daddy, too. And when she was three.... yada, yada, yada. Those reminders didn't seem to help, and I noticed that my girly was losing patience more quickly with her brothers. Then, at the perfect timing I got an idea from a blog post I read (written by a wise mama), and I decided to start letting my little miss stay up one night a week to have some special time with just her and myself while the boys were put to bed by Daddy. The first night, she decided she wanted to revisit embroidery and together we drew up a pattern directly onto the fabric. Turns out, she really rocks the floss!

I was immediately inspired. The very next day I got online and purchased some embroidery patterns I'd had my eye on for quite some time (so fun, I also purchased the Ryan Berkley patterns. LOVE his work!), and got to work on this huge canvas tote I scored for a few bucks from the thrift store. It is still only half finished, even though I've been using it as my knitting bag. Oops!

what we'll miss.

from the backyard.

does it get any more beautiful?

we're also going to miss random visits from a neighbors cows. 

So, if you look closely in the insta-update from yesterday you'll see a few photos of us building a back porch. That's a large part of what we've been up to lately. This past year we've taken up residence with my dad out in the country while we searched for, found, started the (much longer than anticipated) buying process and are about to begin the journey of being live-in renovators in our FIRST HOME!! More on that later... For now we are spending our last few weeks out here while Mad finishes out the school year, and I have to say we are going to miss this view. The very top photo is actually from our backyard, and the middle picture is a photo while we were waiting for Mad at the bus stop. Mt Rainier is breathtaking and driving down the highway it looks like you could reach out and touch it. LOVE! 

hello again!

Whew! Here I am popping in after an extra long blogging hiatus, and I'm not even going to attempt to bring anyone up to speed (that's what visits are for!). Instead, I'll just consider this insta-bomb an update and say that I'll be back later with more. :)