November 12, 2013

this way to butterflies.

as part of intentionally parenting with wild freedom, i am trying to say yes. yes to extra trick-or-treating. yes to hanging out with our neighbors. yes to spur of the moment play dates. on saturday my friend ashley texted me saying that she and her son were headed over to the butterfly preserve and would we want to join them? yes. we actually didn't end up overlapping at the preserve for more than a few minutes because of naptimes and trying to wrangle two children into clothes, but i am so glad we said yes!
it was closest to perfect you could imagine. my little boy walked up every steep hill on his own, scrambled over big logs, and took off running in the woods like the best little adverturer you could dream of. we kept choosing to wander down paths that took us deeper and deeper into the woods, stopping to find butterflies and listen to the wind stir the eucalyptus trees. it was warm with just an undercurrent of cool ocean breeze. i stretched my arms wide wide wide because God is so good and His creation so beautiful and He made my children to be so precious and i just can't dare keep that kind of praise to myself. 


November 5, 2013

instatober

here's what we were up to in october... at least according to instagram...
xoxo/becca
^^ lolo and i took a bunch of selfies. after our first all-nighter//embracing fall style//wearing chevron  (cruz: why is everyone wearing pointy stripes?)
^^ in things that can't possibly have happened news, cruz turned three in october. this year he really got it and loved his birthday. we spent about a week singing "happy birthday" and practicing blowing out candles and then he rocked it at the party. (ps: would you like a post on how to plan your child's birthday without pinterest? wild and free, baby)
^^ soccer player. ballerina. curious george. come back soon, halloween!
^^ i've stepped it up in the arts & crafts department. we've been painting, "chalking," and decorating pumpkins with glitter. it's been so fun to watch cruz draw with purpose-- a road for his cars, the sun and moon, our family (we all have very heavy eyebrows in his pictures and also in real life).
^^ cruz is equal parts tovi (awesome ball skills) and me (great satisfaction in completing paperwork)
^^ babies helping me with work
^^ who's the cutest sitting in a bumbo? london rae, that's who.

November 1, 2013

halloween just got a little bit cooler

listen, i've just never been a halloween person. i grew up in the pacific northwest where our halloweens consistently occurred in the rain. there's an awesome costume under all this rain gear kind of affairs. then we moved out near uc santa barbara where halloween gets taken to the next level, but not in a good way. our local grocery store piles pallets of cheap beer in the aisles in the few days before halloween weekend and students stream through our neighborhood in costumes both small (and tight and risque) and scary. it's gotten better over the years, but it felt yucky and dark and turned me off of halloween for a long time.

but this year we took the kids trick or treating and it all turned around.

tovi has been planning matching costumes for him and cruz for a looong time. wanna see??
curious george and the man with the yellow hat!! can you even??
we started trick or treating at ghost village road in montecito. the costumes were cute and creative. we felt like celebrities because everywhere we went someone would yell, "hey, it's the man with the yellow hat!" and tween girls would coo, "look at that george. he is sooooo cuuuuute!" the first time someone recognized cruz as george you would have thought he'd burst open with the pride of it all.
after about an hour, cruz and london got tired and hot and full enough of candy and ice cream (um, yes. ice cream trick or treating for the win!), so we headed home. we still wanted to go out in our neighborhood, so we convinced cruz to go on a walk with us to look at jack-o-lanterns. and we happened to bring his candy bucket just in case.
i don't know if our first trip out had served as a practice run or if the evening light made him more comfortable, but trick or treating around the neighborhood was the stuff dreams are made of. cruz was so bold walking up to each door for candy. he wouldn't say trick or treat, but he did say thank you, which i like even better. it was dusk and there was just something magical in the air. the neighborhood felt so safe and so friendly. we chatted with neighbors and rang doorbells of people we had never talked to before. all around us you could hear people laughing and calling out "see you later!" and "happy halloween!" our neighborhood felt like a community. we went to bed with happy hearts and tummies full of candy we stole from cruz's bucket. i think i could like this holiday.
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