A New Favorite Place
I love pictures of people. I love flipping through other people’s photos and studying faces, backgrounds and anything to do with people living life. Since I’ve started taking more photos, I’ve found myself placing more and more value on the moments I capture and of the people that I love. I fight the battle of what to do with my images afterwards….that first year photo book is slowly coming along.
I recently created an area in Maggie’s room of a collage of pictures for The Little Miss to enjoy. As time rolls on and I snap more pictures, we’ll add them or trade them out because it is apparent that she loves having them to look at, making her room all the more homey and totally hers. In all honesty, it makes her room feel more connected to the rest of the house, where we’ve got family photos sprinkled about. Her favorite shots, by far, are the ones that include Barry. She shouts “PAPA” every time we walk into her room and points frantically as if he is going to come alive in the images!
They aren’t framed in matchy-matchy frames and they aren’t even symmetrical (although I did get a level out to put them up!), but they are photos that Maggie can look at and do as she pleases. The faces and places are familiar and I’m hoping that they’re a reminder that she is so loved by so many.
Speaking of looooove, Maggie has been loving her baby dollies more and more these days and it is simply the sweetest thing. We loaded her baby (Valarie) into a little backpack and Maggie wore her around and rocked her for a while. I’d like to think that she was able to make the connection to me wearing her in the Ergo. She is a pretty serious little mama to her babies, but if something better comes along….poor babies have to take a second seat. It is amazing to me how innate taking care of something is for her; however, for all the sweetness that she shows for her baby, we’ve got a ways to go with loving Sydney gently. Girlfriend just loves to tug on Syd’s rolls and bop her on the head, not cool at all.
And because I know you were wondering what those two were up to roughly a year ago, I’ll leave you with this little gem.
You know, because I love photos of people….and my dog.
house , MMM
Remember when we decided to fill in our pond that we inherited when we bought our house? Well, this weekend was a Part 2 of Project Pond Be Gone! I became BFFs with my wheelbarrow, Barry his shovel, Sydney uninterupted naps, and Maggie, that girl, she went and fell in love with dirt. We’ve started referring her to Construciton Sal because she became so interested in the work process.
It has been a slow-going process with lots of loads of rocks getting moved from one place to another and many more shovels full of dirt, but I think Project Pond Be Gone has been a success thus far. I’ve learned my lesson in that home improvement projects are never, ever easy and assuming so is just silly. Maggie also has slowly figured out that the best place to be is right where the action is and tends to stand next to Barry bellowing what sound like orders to shovel faster.
Even when we plopped her down on the other side of the “pond” with a bowl of chocolate zucchini cake and milk, she continued to want to be involved in the work process, giving us cheese-ball smiles and squawking as we shuffled by hauling big rocks. Like I said, Construction Sal seems to be a fitting name for her, especially when she was wearing one knee pad around and ‘helping’ to shovel.
house , MMM
POND BE GONE
- A SPECIAL THANKS TO GREG FOR THE NETS! THEY WORKED GREAT!
When we bought our house one of the things we were excited about was the pond that came fully stocked with huge Koi fish and for a few years there we enjoyed feeding the fish and seeing them multiply. Then Maggie came along and the pond took on a whole new light and we decided to fill it in, rather than constantly be worrying about the dangers of Maggie falling in.
- Maggie’s face when we told her our plan to fill the pond in!
What we failed to really think about was the size of the pond and how we were going to catch those dang fish. Sky Nursery was willing to take the fish off our hands, but we just needed to deliver them safe and sound. Easier said than done, people!! Turns out our pond is easily 5 feet deep and those fish had survived in the pond for so long not because they’re dumb or slow. So we started the process of draining the pond Tuesday morning and finally unplugged the pump Wednesday evening. Ugh.
Once the pond was low enough to get the fish out Barry was the most magnificent fish wrangler I’ve ever seen. He was graceful, patient and all things I wasn’t. If a fish ended up in my net, I started shrieking and cussing. I think that’s why we make such a good team: Barry is steady as a rock and I’m…..I’m wobbly like Beyonce.
- SERIOUSLY THINKING THIS WAS A BAAAAAD IDEA…EXCEPT IT WAS my IDEA
Suffice to say, it was a much larger task than I ever thought to drain the pond and say ‘adios’ to the fish. In total we emptied 7 huge Koi and at least 15 teeny ones out. Thanks to Cora (not Chaya) for coming by and catching some of the tiny baby fish. Where there was a pond now is a huge, gaping hole with disgusting sludge in the bottom. Hopefully we’ll find the time over these next days to start filling it in because falling into a sludge filled hole isn’t much different than falling into a pond, right?
- SPECIAL THANKS TO GRAMMY FIDGET AND SPARKY FOR COMING AND HELPING ENTERTAIN THE MORSELS. COME BACK SOON!
So there you have it. The consolidated first part of this whole pond debacle. I fully wish that we were able blink and the whole project would be done. If only we were so lucky. If you’ve got some things you’d like to throw in the hole, I’m considering making it a huge time capsule, so write yourself a letter and we can toss it in together! When Maggie is a teenager we’re going to reinstall the pond.
Just kidding.
In all honesty, if you’ve got any fill dirt or ideas about this process we’d love to hear from you…..but really if you’ve got some dirt for us, let us know!
Looking forward to the next part of this project?
Me too.
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