we had our first snow.

artificially concocted and blown from machines attached to street lights along a lovely light-speckled street of our little downtown, but it was magical nonetheless.

after a busy day running errands and tidying corners in the house, a photo shoot and some computer work, we joined the throngs of locals.

…toting strollers and wagons full of coolers and backpacks and bright-eyed littles anticipating visions of snow. and yet how i yearned for her to see the real stuff, dusting needly trees outside my dad’s place…on our sledding hill. for now, we’ll take third street.

besides these last two months of extreme energy-depletion, i’m settling into this very happy place of anticipating much beauty in the coming days and with that comes this blanket of contentment and gratitude and in-the-momentness. like the twenty minutes i enjoyed relaxing on the couch tonight while she very tediously brushed my hair with a pasta ladel.

like beginning to prepare for our thanksgiving celebration. amid other boringish tasks today, i commenced the readying of our meaningful day to come. …with spreading my grandma’s crocheted tablecloth under the carefully placed ‘good’ dishes. flowers. candles. peeling apples for pie and freezing my mom’s rolled-out pie crusts.

and consequently, our kitchen nesting transferred a bit into the girls’ room as i arranged a small basket into an empty drawer, filled it with the first tiny bunches of rolled newborn socks and soft hats…and then stared at it for a good several minutes after and smiled.

early last year, i thought we’d have a newborn in our home during the holidays. but, how blessed we are…and i was reminded of that the other night reading this old post. and how the tears came when i read, at the very end, the hope of…

and i may not be holding a baby this christmas, but i hope to be a house carrying one.

and how perfectly and entirely grateful i am that this year, i will chop and stir and hustle apron-tied and flour-handed in the kitchen, listening to football games and the sounds of my family…with this little dream nestled safe inside.

oh, the gratitude is snow-balling, and by thursday, i’m sure an avalanche will be good and ready.

for now, we are thankful for home. for its crayon-stained walls, old-caulked tubs and perfectly scuffed baseboards. for every little sequin and googly eye hidden among carpet threads. for magic dream-dusted pillows that hug our sleepy heads at night. i love the character of our home…and every imperfection that spells the story of a very lived-in love. for every memory made in our happy place…and every perfect one to come.

happy prepping.

my first glimpse of the dirty trucks bearing paintings of colorful merry-go-round horses and the trailers in which i’m sure they sleep during these on-the-road weeks had me proclaiming some statement about how hell, for me, would certainly be waking up on a saturday morning, cotton candy stuck to my hair, some god-forbidden organ circus tune repeating somewhere in the background and a day’s worth of taking tickets from screaming kids and hitting the ‘go’ button on the twirl-a-whirl ahead of me.

maybe it was their faces. sitting on the tables of their prize booths, their dirty untied tennis shoes dangling like lifeless limbs, rows of colorful giant stuffed bananas behind them along with hidden styrofoam dunkin donuts cups littering corners suggesting earlier attempts of caffiene-induced depression-awakenings…unsuccessful, by the looks of it.

that’s when it hit me. you know what? no. maybe it’s not hell. maybe i could rock it out.
because if i was a carnie…
well, for starters, if i was a carnie, i wouldn’t smoke cigarettes and drink gin & lemonade while operating the ferris wheel. i just wouldn’t.
if i was a carnie, i would wear cool shoes…and lipstick.
i would randomly give away giant synthetic carebears to cute little kids who eyed them in my prize booth and make up cool dance routines for us carnies to whip out simultaneously with some secret signal.
if i was a carnie, i’d have all my teeth. i’d design fabulous carnival shirts that weren’t made of polyester and the other carnies & i would look really cool wearing them.
i wouldn’t rig the blunt darts so no one pops a balloon, i wouldn’t charge five bucks for a candied apple, i wouldn’t stare at the moms’ boobs, and i promise you, i wouldn’t say the f-word when piling in a herd of kids past the gate to board the kiddie cars.
if i was a carnie, i’d smile and think that being carnie was perhaps, the coolest job in the world.

with all that said…we had a late-night invite to a local carnival last night and, despite the fact our girl had a short nap and really wasn’t up for a late night, i thought it might be fun & spontaneous for her to enjoy the adventure of bright lights and twirly things when normally, we’d say no.

and she did exactly that.

hesitantly trying her first puffs of sweet cotton candy with a kaleidoscope of flashing lights behind her. patiently waiting outside the big-kid rides while her friend alec enjoyed them…and waving every time his flying dinosoar soared by her. hello, precious.

it was loud and dirty and maybe even over-stimulating…but just what we needed on a saturday evening. seriously. how fun it was to watch my girl in childhood bliss. even if they wouldn’t let this pregnant lady ride the merry-go-round with her. (thank you, dede!)

if i was a carnie and i was watchin’ our little pink-capped, snow-cone stained, big-eyed girl last night…well, that woulda made my night.

it did mine.

oh, wait…fyi.

they arrived. just when i needed them…frantically arriving home from grocery shopping with a popsicle-stained girl and a spilled sippy cup in the back seat not to mention the realization of an entire bag of groceries i left at the store…the ones i needed for my stuffed green pepper soup last night.

and there they were…a little piece of home in a big, crumpled box on my front step.
our leaves.

we left the groceries in the car…let the spilled sippy cup contents seep into the upholstery a little longer…shed our popsicle-stained shirt and bee-lined for the yard where we dumped those beautiful leaves into a crispy heap. and dove feet-first.

they smelled like michigan…of rich dirt and cold morning fog…plus a few teeny tiny critters who greeted me with a michigan hello. like they knew we were from the same place.

it was lovely. thank you, my sweet jo.

and speaking of home…oh, deep breath…my home is coming to me this year. a surprise phone call from my dad yesterday that he found tickets, and in just a matter of weeks…we will celebrate here. everyone. the entire family, and my eyes teared a hundred times just thinking of it. we will gather for four days in one of dad’s houses. we will drink coffee and eat grandpa pancakes in the morning. we will watch movies and play games at night. we will sit by the light of the christmas tree and talk about all that we’ve missed. we might even have one of these nights…

swear i’m not flippin’ the birds. thought it was a cool spontaneous photo moment until i realized later those were my middle fingers, not the ring/pointers i had intended. swear. i wouldn’t do that to my dad who was taking this.

it’s going to be fabulous.

and in the meantime, there’s still a ton of photo work to do which we sandwich between loads of laundry, scraping dried oatmeal (or oma-lo, as she calls it) off her table and still, our lovely picnics in the yard…more frequent now…and more special.

having small reoccurances of morning sickness, strangely…but it’s quick and over and doesn’t phase me much. lainey stands beside me with ‘papah towah’ and hands it to me during the ordeal…and when it’s over she asks, ‘all done, mama?’ which makes me smile.

i did a small mentor session the other day for a sweet young girl who happened upon my blog through mutual acquaintances and expressed a crazy desire and passion to learn more about photography. she came along with a friend whose baby i was shooting the other day to accompany the shoot and took some great photos of her own and learned a little about editing. madisyn…it was so much fun to have you be a part of our day!

and finally…
loving lately…

cold kiwi (i indulge in two whole ones a day).
my catch-all kitchen counter finally becoming decluttered and polished tonight for the first time in weeks, perhaps months.
the winter garnet hill catalogue which is full of pure coziness.
the stack of perfectly packaged orders ready to be picked up by my front door-a reminder of what i actually have accomplished.
wearing my dish-washing gloves on my feet and chasing after her, screaming ‘i’m a crazy duck’…and uproarious laughter on both ends…especially when my big feet ripped the gloves and they fell apart leaving a trail of green rubber fingers across our tile. green rubber fingers on a floor are very funny indeed, in case you wondered.

and my very favorite as of late…waking up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom yet again and returning to bed to lie awake…in the dark…bored and restless and thinking of all i have to do…until suddenly, in the quiet and still of that moment…a kick. a little ‘hey, i’m awake too’…and it’s magical to suddenly be reminded that there’s two of us awake. and i just want to smile and say….well, hello there. it happens every night…and gets me every time.

oh, and mornings.

sweet messy bedheads and after-breakfast cheeks that smell like syrup. slippers and tight jammies and books read under cold covers.

friendly sunshine that sneaks its way between blinds to warm up our room…

…and blurry pictures that don’t show exactly what you like like in the morning.

sending happies…

~k