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Bouncing all over the place, but sat down to actually knock out kitchen details tonight with Matthias and that felt reallyyyy good. Praise the Lord for Pinterest and Google Sheets.
We met the builders yesterday to share our ideas for our dream floor plan and now we’re waiting on something a little more professional than the drawings we came up with 🤪 The survey is complete on our land, so on to the next step there. (Don’t ask me what that is, Matthias is in charge of that.)
I’m pretty sure the neighbors are watching as we measure out our future home in this green space & along our buildings.
My little baby isn’t little. Eliot is 20 weeks right now and is so tall & large and in charge that he seems much older. I miss the newborn snuggles, but I love the personality. 😭❤️ he grew out of the solly wrap sooner than I would’ve wished, but he wants to forward-face and see the world.
I understand, little lion. And I hate to lose the chest to chest snuggle, but I’m happy you want to look out and take it all in.
Rose & Andrew’s wedding Friday. Play & work on Saturday. Family time on Sunday. And we picked up Byron! He was at my parents for two days but he (and they) couldn’t stand it any longer. (He hides in the closet and cries endlessly. 🥺)
ROSE MARRIED ANDREW 😍🥰🎉
tonight. hitting Silver. our little life is changed forever and I can cry about that so I will. 😭❤️
Happy to be best friends a n d married.
Months 6-8 of pregnancy were so hard. I couldn’t have imagined the joy to follow so shortly after. Every day I felt like I was just.trying.to.make.it.through.another.day. ⠀
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My heart ached so much. The season was chaos and waiting. Hurry up, slow down. ⠀
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A lot of that feeling was reflected in the photographs we took during that time. ⠀
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November 1st with our daily photo I shared, “someday, soon, it won’t be 10pm all the time.” Even typing those words out brings tears to my eyes. ⠀
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The sun came up. Our seasons shifted. And wow, it all feels like a lifetime ago now. ⠀
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I’m glad we didn’t wait. We didn’t wait for things to be bright & happy to slow down & document our life in a meaningful way. ⠀
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It was an act of faith. Sharing from the valley. Knowing, hoping good things are around the corner. ⠀
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And here they are. So many good things, so many good days.
some harder days:
oh my. in bed until 1pm after Rose’s bachelorette. that’s kind of embarrassing. sign of a good time? 🥴😂 together time today. art. our people. smoking meat. the grounds 1488. more babies & celebrating life. a custom swing. a horny dog. togetherness.
Celebrated Mother’s Day at Bonin family dinner. Hand written notes, a gift thought up & given by the adults kids to our awesome mom. I love having reasons to celebrate.
Yay! Byron is home with us again after a couple weeks at the Frost family home because of a flea incident.
Met today about The Grounds & The North Woodlands Festival. Gosh. Every single thing we discuss when we meet starts a fire in me. Even the boring stuff like admin & emails. ⠀
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I did maybe 700 dishes today. 800? Maybe 1000? It felt like a lot. How can two people make so many dishes? And what will it be like when we have a house full of children? I can see why we had a maid growing up. Help will be necessary if I want to accomplish anything else. ⠀
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I was frustrated with myself tonight. Probably because I’m on my period and have all those ~emotions~ but also because I fill my lists with too many things that I can’t necessarily get to all in one day. I’m always so hopeful about what I’ll accomplish. I need to learn how to make more realistic lists for what I can accomplish in a day. I definitely learned from Amanda (@amandanoel___ ) recently— put the basics on the list too. Unloading a dishwasher & eating lunch ARE a part of my day. So I can’t just NOT count them because my lists are already too overwhelming.. Then at least when I look at my lists they’ll be getting things checked off and I won’t be as frustrated at lacking a sense of accomplishment. ⠀
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Baby steps. Learning to be soft.
ELIOT IS 4 MONTHS OLD.
Not only did I survive the wedding (even with Eliot on his own for his first time) but ROCKED IT. With Kate, because of course. She is the best second shooter + artist I know. I’m sorry. This is like riding a bike. Why do I doubt myself especially after this many years? also, 10000% present for the brides I have left, and confident as ever that this isn’t my dream career anyone. I want to shoot weddings for the people I love and never want to do it again.
Matthias is 28 today 🥰❤️ And yesterday was both Ralynn & Rose’s birthday! We had a sort-of-surprise Frost birthday celebration at his parents for all of them. :) enjoyed a walk on the property before leaving this evening and put the camera on a post for this shot.
SURPRISE! It’s a boy 🥰💙 October 2020. ⠀
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Okay, as much as I’d love to be pregnant again, I know you’re probably like WTH? He’s not ours. ⠀
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ETHAN AND HANNAH JOY ARE HAVING A BABY 😭 and yes. I’m over the moon. And yes. It was hard to keep this a secret for so long. (Wait, this isn’t about me? My big-aunt heart disagrees!)⠀
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If you haven’t seen our story/Ollie’s story... read my big brother highlight… find that highlight here.
Matthias worked from home until 11 this morning. It’s not like we were spending quality time together, but it was fun to have him home when he isn’t normally. 🙂 After dinner this evening we made brownies together. We cook together often, but I can’t recall the last time we baked something sweet together. The first batch was a faillllll. We tried to use Truvia because we didn’t have sugar. I don’t recommend it 🤣 Our sweet neighbor Taryne came through and gave us a little bag of sugar though and we made the yummiest, fudgiest brownies.
Ahh. Happy day! Growth in YL isn’t quick for me. It’s like... literally opposite of “get rich quick”😂 (“get rich quick” isn’t a YL idea at all, but people seem to assume that’s the promise with social sharing structures😂. HAHA. no. slow & steady.) Today feels good. When consistency pays off, I can’t do anything other than dance & praise. There is no such thing as overnight success. Whatever you’re doing right now— keep putting in the work. It’ll pay off.
I feel grateful to be a stay at home mama every day, but especially on days like today. other than being out for a bit for our first festival board meeting since lockdown, Eliot & I just stayed home and rested all day. goodness, I couldn’t shake the sleepiness. thankfully he’s pretty easy and we just did lotsss of snuggling.
Basically spent our day in bed— until about 2pm, really. That never happens for us and it was niceee. 🥰 I have a feeling it’ll never happen once we have a baby on the move so enjoying it now. 😜
Went out to the grounds being prepped for the festival, chatted with the people I’ve missed & am planning with, briefly had a paintbrush in my hand, and grabbed more BTS photos of the property & our photo of the day. And dinner for a second night in a row with Bailey & Josh.
Sweet Matthias, even at nearly midnight he’ll indulge me for 2 minutes to grab our photo of the day. 216 days of these. Our consistency with this project may be the thing I’m proud of the most right now. ⠀
18 years ago Beau was born. Today I didn’t get to celebrate at birthday breakfast. I didn’t get to even see him on his actual 18th birthday— but we did have a pretty awesome party yesterday. His birthday is a bittersweet reminder of how fast the years go. The first time I remember using a camera was taking pictures of Beau. As he grew up I realized he was the sibling most like me. It’s like God forgot he already gave the Bonin’s WAY too much. But actually... no. It wasn’t ever enough. Beau is a perfect piece. The exact person we needed RIGHT in the middle of all of us. 2 boys & 3 girls before him. 2 boys & 3 girls after him.⠀
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Beau is the cream cheese icing in between layers in the cake. (You know, the part everyone ignores the cake to get to cuz it’s so good.) He may be a 8 years younger than me, but he’s a best friend for life.
midnight nursing & cuddles with my firstborn in the same rocker his grandfather used to be rocked in. what a treasure these memories will always be with our sweet Eliot Lionhart. (peep his little toes sticking out of the blanket.) spent our morning at home, afternoon with a dear friend (love you, Michelle!), and evening with Matthias. we’re still eating dinners we prepped before Eliot was born! but we’re basically at the end. ahh! I want to do another batch cooking day! unrelated: anybody else watching Waco right now? it’s so intense.
