I started off this adventure in the big bad world of blogging saying that I would share my story. Well, this is probably going to end up being a sporadic walk through my current lifestyle as well as snippets of my past history & big dreams & desires for the future. I am organized in some areas of my life, but when it comes to hanging pictures on my fridge, I like them all different directions, if you know what I’m saying. With that, this blog is going to look more like my fridge then the order found in my dresser drawers.

So for right now, let me share my current status in life. Just so you can get to know me right where I am currently at, which is a good place to start. Go grab a cup of tea & join me on the couch! Let’s play the whole “meet for hot beverages & catch up” game.

Hello there! I’m Katie.

I am the wife to the most incredible human being on earth, the handsomest one of all. His name is Noah & I love him so.

I am the mama to the two most amazing girls, Eliana is 2 1/2, Cora is 5 months. They are the light of my life & I am living a dream come true being their mama.

We are in the beginning stages of fundraising for our next adoption, hopefully internationally. Adoption is one of our hearts greatest joys! We had the privilege of adopting Eliana domestically the day she was born & Cora Kinsey is our miracle bio babe. (More on our adoption story & miracle baby story later)

We have the cutest dog, Gypsy, who brings boundless energy & joy into our lives as well as hair & dirt from the great outdoors. But she is worth all the extra vacuuming.

I am a daughter to the best parental units ever, sister to the raddest little sister & baby brother & auntie TT to 3 adorable nieces & one handsome nephew.

I am currently a stay at home mama with a dash of one weekly day subbing at our local high school where I get to stay connected with my favorite staff & students there. I spent the last 4 years working as a Special Needs Aide paraprofessional & subbed as well until this summer when I felt like I was moving into a new significant season of staying home (mostly) full time with my girls. I miss being at the high school because it was such an incredible job & the humans there are some of the coolest I know, but ultimately my heart is very full & I am at peace knowing I am right where I need to be, right now, as a mama. It is a healthy place to be. Kinda the best of both worlds. I feel like I won the lottery.

We live in my hometown, are still trying to figure out ways to get a Target & Trader Joe’s but are blessed enough to have Walmart & Starbucks, are almost always guaranteed to run into someone we know wherever we go, wave at our neighbors & go on hikes on a regular basis. We go to church at the church I grew up at which is pretty neat because now all of the friends that I was in Sunday School with are mamas & dadas too & we are now getting to watch our own littles grow up as friends. The great circle of life! Noah leads worship with my sister (who all the “older” people in our church still think is me & even though I couldn’t sing if my life depended on it, I still end up getting thanked & complimented afterwards for such a great job even though I’ve been downstairs in the nursing mom’s room the whole time. It’s always good for a chuckle). Our life calendar is dictated by the school year which is awesome. I imagined my whole life that “of course I would marry an educator & be one myself” because that is the household that I grew up in. And that is exactly what happened! So the traditional summers off together as a family continue. It’s a dream come true. We love to travel & have a goal of (now that we have little people in tow) leaving the country every other year. On the in-between summers we love to spend as much time as possible up at our family cabin in the mountains, swimming in the lake, hiking, backpacking, sleeping under the stars & singing songs around the campfire with s’mores. It’s truly a wonderful life. We are blessed & so grateful.

I’d say that for today, in a medium sized nutshell, an extra large peanut size maybe, that is my current status. I am grateful, I am SO glad to be here, in this season as a whiff & mama bear, learning to grow in new ways everyday. Each day has it’s challenges & rewards. Each day I fail & win. It is definitely an adventure being alive! And with that, I will sign off. Have a beautiful day friends!

Cheers,

Katie

Anyone out there have a toddler? How about a toddler & an infant? How about a toddler who loves to BE everywhere you are & an infant who wants to BE on you at all times? Anyone out there love FALL? Ok. So here are some ideas on how to reconcile the two realities of mama & wanting to get every ounce of beauty out of this amazing season we are in. Can I get an amen?!

This is by far my absolute FAVORITE season of the year. The cable knit sweaters, moccasins, steamy cup of tea in hand & a good book tucked under one arm… The gorgeous leaves, tumblr shots of perfectly heaped white pumpkins, cinnamon smells in the air, pumpkin everything, crisp air, rain boots, first fires of the year…. the perfect picture of cozy. I think I saw the Anne of Green Gables quote at least 10 times in the first 3 days of October. I won’t share it again, I’m sure it’s been running through your head as well. Well, having 2 kiddos in this wonderful season does make the simplicity of it more complicated on one hand while on the other WAY more simple & enjoyable. This all goes back to my last post on just BEING. Choosing to enjoy the beauty of fall alongside my two littles instead of feeling robbed of the freedom to experience it has led to a whole new level of enjoyment in the decision to just BE. Be in the moment, share my love for autumn with my favorite tiny humans. I still have an incredibly long list of things I would LOVE to do to celebrate fall that I know I will not get a chance to do, but that is a-okay with me. I’m choosing to let it be. And that, is step in the right direction for me. So I thought I’d share a few ways our little tribe has been celebrating fall, maybe to inspire you to do the same with your family!

Celebration number one.

— Take an adventure hike! We live in one of the most beautiful places on earth (in my unbiased & humble opinion) & are super blessed to have hiking options right out our front door, down the street, up the street or over on neighbor friends properties. It is wonderful. However, I know that whether you live in a city, in the country, in the islands or in the mountains like us, that are trees or at least things that are living… I hope. Nature! There has to be some sort of nature. Unless you live on the moon. SO, wherever it is that you are currently residing, go OUTSIDE. Wrap your littlest ones to your body for warmth & coziness or blanket them up in a stroller (which makes it easier for you to sip on your hot apple cider without potential spillage on their beanie covered heads), grab your toddler by the hand & GO! Bring a bag or a basket with you for treasure finds. We have taken a few days since “fall” started to go on short adventure hikes & collect treasures. It’s been awesome! Especially right before nap time. We walked in different areas each time & collected an amazing variety of fallen leaves, acorns of all sizes & acorn hats. It was really neat actually because I have walked in those places so many times before & I thought I was familiar with all the trees, but wow. I had no idea! We found beautiful leaves splashed with oranges & reds & greens & yellows & browns! They were all great experiences & learning opportunities as well for my little one & my attempts at early preschool. From there, we went home, kept our treasures on the front porch to show Dada once he would get home from work, ate lunch & nap time/mama yoga time ensued. We saved the accumulating treasures for a project that I came up with after a few treasure hunts. I will share that part next.

Celebration number two.

—Make a leaf garland! This was a picture in my head that I had absolutely no idea if it would actually turn out or not but I thought, what the heck. Why not? I love natural seasonal decor for my house & we have a wood burning stove & mantle which is always a prime location for said decor. So I thought that we could attempt to make a garland out of the leaves we had collected & maybe the acorn hats too. That didn’t work.  The acorn hats were too thick, but the leaves did! I am proud of how it turned out, it is definitely going to become a tradition for me each year with my kiddos. Wait for a sunny day, or at least a day when you can sit somewhere outside & not freeze your bum off to do this activity. We actually took two separate days to work on this. Bug (the nickname of my two year old) would hand me a few leaves at a time out of the bags we had collected & I would string them using a simple standard needle & white thread. I think it would look good too if you used a neutral tone, a cream, tan or brown as well. I just grabbed the first thread I found & took a needle out of a repair kit. We sat in the sunshine & did this until she was over it. Her attention span & excitement for this project was definitely not at the same level as mine. So we went back to it a few days later & finished it. When I thought we had enough leaves on it to stretch out across our mantle, we stopped. I took it inside & used thumb tacks to wrap the thread around & eyeballed it to make sure it looked right. Once it was up (after a few failed attempts trying to balance it by myself) I stood back with Bug & we admired her treasures. Her leaf garland was complete & ready for Dada to admire once he got home! It is BEAUTIFUL. Our plan is to keep it there until we start having fires & at that point we will move it to somewhere else in our home. Try it! I think you will enjoy it.

Celebration number three.

—Bake something! One of my current favorite activities with my toddler is baking. She helps me count how many cups of this or that I need & then she gets to pour them into the bowl. That is her favorite part, besides the partaking of baked goodness. We have definitely had a few sessions that include spills due to missing the mixing bowl partially, but this is just another opportunity to practice patience as a mama. I get lots of practice with patience & I am so so far from having it dialed in. I need just as much grace as she does on a very frequent basis. Praise the Lord that His mercies are new every morning! Ok, so what do you have in your fridge? Or what sort of baked goods do you enjoy during autumn? I know pumpkin is a winner for me. But for now we have been using zucchinis from our garden, my sister’s garden & my parent’s garden. They seem to keep on coming so we get to keep enjoying them! Plus, Bug loves zucchini bread, Papa’s zucchini bread to be exact. He really does make the absolute best zucchini bread, hands down. So we use his recipe & it only takes an hour to bake after we have it in the bread pans which is the perfect amount of time to work on the alphabet letters & their sounds with the big sister. Look in your fridge & pantry to create something yummy or go shopping to get just the perfect ingredients for what sounds tasty to you & your little human(s). The internet has a million recipes where you can find something to try, or, if you have a family recipe that has been passed down, use that & then bring some to your family if they live close by or drop it on your neighbors doorstep with a note that says “Happy Autumn” with a signature from your little ones. We need to do that more often, being neighborly, (at least where we live) is not what it used to be when I was growing up. The hubby & I have been talking about that & how we want to be better neighbors. We aren’t bad neighbors, we just don’t interact & drop off baked goods at our surrounding homes like we did when we were kiddos. So challenge yourself along with me & find creative ways to be more neighborly! The world could use a bit more kindness, so lets start with those right next door. And have fun baking with your little ones! Enjoy the whole experience of spills, the AMAZING smells as your bread/cookies/muffins/scones are baking & sharing it with the people in your community.

There you go! A few ways to enjoy & celebrate all the beauty of autumn with your kiddos by your side. It’s a great thing to engage them in the things that you love & for us, this season is one of those things. Happy Autumn to you & yours! May it bring you lots of coziness & joy as your celebrate all the goodness fall has to offer.

Cheers,

Katie.

I want to share my story.

We live in an age where slowing down is hard to do, taking the time to connect, communicate, experience the lives of others as well as be intentional to live in each moment of our own lives is hard. Which is weird. That isn’t the way it should be. We were created in the very beginning to BE, to be in relationship with others, to interact with the world around us, to taste & see goodness. To experience all things, both wonderful & terrible, awe inspiring & stretching. I’ve been bad at it. It’s hard to slow down enough to reflect, to breathe, to experience the feeling of my heart beating against the inside of my chest. It has become a daily practice to slow down, take deep breaths, to use my senses in a moment to experience the fullness it has to offer. I want to improve each day at just BEING. A part of that for me is going to be fulfilling a desire within myself to share my story, taking the time required to sit still, reflect, breathe & share my experiences with the world around me. Most people would call me a quiet person, myself included. Writing has always allowed me to express my heart & thoughts more clearly. I hope in starting this blog I can do just that, as well as encourage some people along the way to simply slow down & BE, enough to take the time to live your life well in community & share your story. Stories change lives, stories have definitely changed mine. I am excited to be pushing myself out of my comfort zone to sit down & share my story with you. I hope my life, the life I have lived up until this point & the life I have yet to experience will buoy you up & encourage you to share your story with others, as well as remind you of the goodness in your own life, in all the seasons of ups & downs, there is always goodness. Always.

Cheers,

Katie