granola

Granola.  Doesn't it just conjure up feelings of goodness, of simplicity, of mornings with sunlight filtering through your windows and all being right with the world?

It does for me, anyway.

I have found two recipes I truly love, and I alternate making them both because I really can't choose a favorite.  Recently, while eating my bowl of homemade yogurt topped with delicious granola, I realized that perhaps I should share.

Share the recipes, not the granola, that is.  Although if you'd like to come visit, I'd be so happy to serve you some granola, and a cup of tea on the side.

But since most of you probably won't come visit, here's where you can find my favorite recipes.

Elise of Hungry Hungry Hippie has a delicious recipe for Quinoa Granola.  This has been my main go-to granola recipe since Elise posted it two years ago.  Very crunchy, lots of variety in it, this is maple-y cinnamon-y goodness.  However, if you're not the kind of person who keeps buckwheat groats, chia seeds, and quinoa on hand, making this recipe might necessitate a trip to the grocery store!

My modifications: I don't usually add the dried fruit to my granola, and I add more oats than called for.  For me, oats are the backbone of granola, and if I don't add some extra, this recipe is a little too seed-y for my taste, with lots of extra chia seeds and quinoa sifting through to the bottom of my container towards the end of each batch.

Jessica from How Sweet It Is recently posted a recipe for Coconut Butter Granola.  The Quinoa granola recipe now has some competition!  This stuff is amazing.  I think the use of honey rather than maple syrup makes the granola stick together in nice big clusters more than the quinoa granola recipe, and the coconut flavor in the granola is so delicious.  Jessica posted this recipe like two weeks ago, and I've just made my second batch of this granola, that's how good it is.

I made it without the unsalted butter, but used all coconut oil instead, and I omitted the vanilla bean paste because I'm not enough of a foodie to have any.  Oh well.  It still turned out amazing.  I also added a bit of raw quinoa to one batch, and I liked the added crunch factor.

I made my own coconut butter, using my food processor, to use for this recipe.  I've found that homemade coconut butter isn't quite as smooth as a jar of Artisana coconut butter, but since the one jar of Artisana I ever bought was about $13, and I could make a jar's worth of my own for $8 or less (two 8 oz bags worth - and you could get it for less if you ordered online somewhere or bought in bulk, I'm sure) of organic, unsweetened flaked coconut, that's a decent savings and makes it well worth the {small} sacrifice in texture, I think.  Especially since in this granola recipe, the creaminess of the coconut butter won't matter at all!  It's just going to be mixed in with all the crunch of the granola, allowing the coconut flavor to permeate everything.  Yum!

Now go make some granola!

maternity clothes

So, remember how I said I wanted to reminisce a bit and do some of the blog posts I never got around to writing while I was pregnant?  Well, this one is for an anonymous friend of mine who recently found out that she is expecting!  Such exciting news!  She asked me where I got maternity clothes, so... here goes!  This post is dedicated to her.

{Disclaimer: I am not a fashion blogger.  There is probably a reason for that.}

* * *

I currently have one (1) bin of maternity clothes down in the basement, and it's not even full.  I'm kind of proud that I made it through pregnancy without spending a fortune on new clothes.  If I can do it, anyone can!  A few clothing items were generous hand-me-overs from a formerly-pregnant friend, some came from Mighty Aphrodite Maternity (a local consignment store), and a few others were from Old Navy, Target, or Gap (on sale).  I had a maternity dress I wore to my baby shower that was from Motherhood...

...but other than that, I didn't really shop at the specifically maternity stores like Motherhood or A Pea in the Pod.

Why not, you ask?

Because they are (what I consider to be) kind of expensive.  I'm not saying you can't ever find a good deal there on a cute piece of clothing, just that it wasn't my go-to type of place to shop.  {But hey, I'm cheap.}

Being pregnant is kind of like being engaged.  Everyone wants to make a lot of money off of you during that time in your life.  It's a smart business move, too, because the "you deserve it!" of getting married is an even more powerful cry when it becomes, "your baby deserves it!" during pregnancy.

Bah.  If spending tons of money on clothes that will fit you for less than a year is your thing, then that's fine!  But it wasn't going to happen for me, and I got by just fine.

Here's my basic advice for all you pregnant people:

STRETCHY. CLOTHES.

Yes.  Your stretchy clothes will be your best friends.  I didn't need any maternity clothes until I was past 20 weeks, but even then, I wore some of my 'regular' clothes for a long time, in the form of elastic waisted skirts with tights or elastic waisted leggings, which are also, you guessed it, stretchy.  

Here I was at 28 weeks, wearing non-maternity clothes:

Embrace the stretchy clothes.  If you're crafty, you can find some pretty great tutorials online for sewing elastic into clothes you have or clothes you find at thrift stores.  But even if you don't know what a sewing machine looks like, I bet you have a few things with elastic waistbands in your closet.

Like foldover skirts!  If you don't already have some nice foldover maxi skirts, get some -- you can wear them while you're pregnant, and keep wearing them when you're not!  I have two such skirts I got on clearance at Target for around $8 apiece; one is a blue chevron print and one is a solid gray.  I would think these would be perfect for someone who will be pregnant over the summer months.  Those stretchy foldover waistbands are so soft and comfy.

{That's me at 38 weeks pregnant.  Just kidding.  That's a random model in a random picture I found online of a foldover maxi skirt similar to one that I have.}

Lots of knit dresses or sweater dresses are nice and stretchy, too!

And like I said in this post, you can wear plenty of non-maternity shirts while pregnant.  I love thrifting, but even if you're not really a thrift store shopper, stores like H&M, Old Navy, Target, etc. are full of loose-fitting boyfriend-style cardigans, flowy tops, and other styles just waiting for you to work them into your maternity wardrobe -- and usually for a lot less than you'd pay for clothing labeled 'maternity.'

I wore this plaid shirt a lot, and it was a regular non-maternity shirt I got on clearance from H&M that just happened to be pintucked and then loose down around the middle.  Perfect.

With that said, I definitely had a few maternity shirts, and if you've never been pregnant before, you can't fully imagine just how large you will get.

Target, H&M, Gap, and Old Navy, as well as most department stores, have maternity departments.  You'll probably find more selection online than in stores.  ASOS has some cute and stylin' maternity clothes too - that's where I got my dress for my master's recital. 

I vividly remember donning a blue and gray maternity shirt one morning and exclaiming to Nathan,

"I look like a hot air balloon!"

Yes, a day will come when you will want some real live maternity clothes despite your best efforts to make regular clothes work.

There is one category of clothing where you definitely can't get by with regular clothes, anyway, and that's pants.

PANTS:

I had three pairs of maternity pants: a pair of demi panel skinny gray corduroy pants from Gap, a pair of full panel jeans from Target, and a pair of Citizens of Humanity maternity jeans that would have been crazy expensive except that I got them at a maternity consignment store.  

The Citizens of Humanity jeans had a very flared leg, which I promptly used my sewing machine to alter into a more slim leg.  They still didn't end up ranking as a favorite, as they had a strange belly panel that was somewhere between demi and full, meaning the snuggest part of the elastic was neither below nor above my belly, but right in the middle of it.  None too comfortable.  You can sort of see me wearing them in this post.

The Gap cords.  I practically lived in those Gap cords.  Which is kind of hilarious, because I had never hopped on the skinny jean bandwagon before that.  Why I chose pregnancy as the first time to rock attempt skinnies is one of the deep questions of the universe.  That along with why I chose labor and delivery as the first time to wear a bikini.  But they were super comfortable, and I seriously loved them.  I had ordered them online at a clearance price, because really, who wants to pay like $70 for a pair of pants you'll wear for a few months... or for any pair of pants, for that matter?  You can sort of see them in this post.  Oh!  And they made an appearance here too.

{Mine are similar to this pair, but in gray}

My only complaint about those pants was that towards the end of my pregnancy, my huge belly would cause the demi panel to roll down.  Another complaint really has nothing to do with the pants at all, which is that towards the end of pregnancy anyone except celebrities looks ridiculous, and it doesn't matter what pair of pants you wear.

The jeans from Target were pretty good.  They were another clearance find, and the size 4 fit me all the way through my pregnancy, which is weird, because I don't think of myself as a size 4.  When you're pregnant you're having nightmares of hippopotamus-like weight gain, and it's easy to think you should buy everything a size or two or three up from your regular size, but really, maternity clothes take a normal amount of weight gain into account, so just buy your regular size, okay?  No freaking out necessary.

My main complaint with the Target jeans was that the full panel was extremely itchy on my belly.  Maybe I just had unusually itchy skin during pregnancy, but even after slathering myself with coconut oil and/or lotion, some days that belly panel was just too itchy, and I'd end up folding it down and hoping it didn't look too weird and lumpy under my shirts.

My other complaint is that the only part of the jeans that was stretchy was the belly panel.  You might find yourself wanting a little bit of stretch in the legs, too; by the final weeks of my pregnancy I wished they were a little more stretchy.

You can see me wearing the Target jeans in this post.  (And I was still managing to wear them at 40 weeks... I'm all about the clothes that can take you from the early days of needing maternity clothes all the way through the end!)

Aside from maternity pants -- and no, you can't just 'suck it in' and wear your regular jeans, because being pregnant is nothing like eating a big Thanksgiving dinner or gaining a couple of pounds over the holidays; it's more like you swallowed a hard, unripe cantaloupe and it's growing every day and sometimes flailing around and kicking you in the ribs -- there are a few other things you probably can't do without.

INDISPENSABLE:

Maternity tanks!  I got three of the Be Maternity tanks from Target, and I definitely feel like I got my money's worth.  In fact, I'm continuing to get my money's worth, because they fit me snugly during pregnancy but miraculously still fit me snugly now that I'm not pregnant (oh, because they're STRETCHY), and the STRETCHY top can be pulled down for nursing, so I basically wear them under all my clothes now that I'm nursing, if I'm not just lounging around the house and wearing a nursing tank instead of a nursing bra.

I wore one of these tanks under my shirt every day while pregnant.  They are nice and long, which is pretty important as your baby will keep getting bigger and bigger and taking up more room in your clothes, making your shirts ride higher if you haven't made sure to get long ones.

Maternity tanks.  These things are awesome.  And no, that isn't me in the picture.

* * *

Shoes.  Apparently pregnancy makes some people go up a shoe size.  This didn't happen to me, but I did need to wear loose-fitting shoes towards the end of my pregnancy because my feet were so swollen and puffy!

* * *

And if you want to swim while you're pregnant, which I highly recommend, the other indispensable item is a maternity swimsuit.  You will look ridiculous wearing a swimsuit while pregnant, but not as ridiculous as you'd look if you tried to wear a regular swimsuit, so just bite the bullet and get a maternity swimsuit.  Swimming while pregnant is sweet, sweet relief.

STUFF YOU {PROBABLY} DON'T ACTUALLY NEED:

Stores want to sell you maternity underwear, maternity bras, maternity tights, maternity leggings, maternity yoga pants, maternity pajamas, maternity EVERYTHING.

Everyone has a different experience, but I wore my regular all of the above until the day Nell was born, and even went home from the hospital still in my regular bra, and regular (stretchy, of course) yoga pants.  I had a few nursing tanks at the ready (my favorites are Gilligan & O'Malley from Target!), but I didn't buy nursing bras until after Nell was born (otherwise you might end up spending money on something that doesn't actually fit you after your milk comes in).  And since you can't nurse a baby on the drive home from the hospital anyway, I just wore regular clothes home from the hospital.

Maternity underwear?  My underwear doesn't come up high enough around my middle to have been an issue.

Maternity tights?  I just rolled my regular ones underneath the belly, or pulled them up over, depending on the size of the pair of tights.

Maternity leggings?  Just folded regular ones down at the waistband.

Maternity pajama pants?  Seriously?  Just let 'em ride low and cover up with a soft, cozy shirt that's long enough.  I had this gray Pure Body long sleeved shirred shirt from Gap, and slept in it pretty much every night of my pregnancy from 20 weeks on.  Soft and stretchy, yes.  But sadly, the fabric is so thin it got holes in it by the end of my pregnancy.  But considering I probably wore the thing for 140 nights or so, I guess I can't complain.

A final word of CHEAPNESS ADVICE:

If you're looking to get through pregnancy without spending a fortune, another thing you can do is check your local Craigslist listings.  Many women are so over being pregnant by the time they deliver, that they immediately want to get rid of their whole maternity wardrobe.  A friend of mine found someone selling all of her maternity clothes, including lots of designer label things, in one lot, at a great price.  She bought the lot and was pretty much set for her whole pregnancy!

And of course, try thrift stores and consignment stores!  Most used maternity clothes will still be in good condition, because people wear them for such a short period of time.

* * *

Well, there you have it!  My advice on maternity clothes.  From someone who is not the most fashionable person in the world, but hopefully also not the least. 

P.S.  Being pregnant can be lots of fun.  And when it's all over, you get one of these:

I mean, {hopefully} not this big at the beginning, but it doesn't take long...

Before you know it there are smiles and giggles...

And lots of sleepy snuggles...

And it really is the best thing in the world.

Even better than waddling around pregnant.  If you can imagine that.

texting with the family

Within the past few months, my parents and my brother Jonathan have all gotten smart phones and joined the world of texting.  I have to say, it's fun to be able to keep in touch with family that way, on a small and casual day-to-day basis.  And sometimes, they really make me laugh!

{Nell's uncle doesn't beat around the bush when it comes to her chubbiness; he once greeted the sight of her in a diaper with the exclamation, "Whoah, hellloooo, Chubbster!"}

Then there was this exchange, my dear old Dad checking in with me after I told him I had fallen down the stairs and gotten quite an impressive bruise on my lower back.  Well, sort of between my lower back and my butt, hah.

Aw shucks.  Thanks, Dad.

a few good links

From here and there around the world wide web:
{I saved the best one for last}

~

In Let the kid study music, already!, Liz Ryan makes some good points about the many ways that studying music, including in a college degree program, does in fact prepare students for 'the real world,' and does so quite well.

"Music kids are smart kids. They could major in anything. Do we seriously believe that a kid with a degree in musicology or piano won’t make it in the real world, and will end up playing for spare change in the subway? That’s ridiculous. Music kids outperform almost every other group of undergraduates when it comes to taking grad-school exams. They become entrepreneurs, leaders and creators, whether in the music business or somewhere else."

I am oh-so-grateful that my parents didn't deter me from pursuing a degree in violin, and in fact, encouraged it!

~

Have you checked out playspent.org?  A pretty alarming reality check regarding what it can be like to be unemployed in today's economy.

~

Some good ideas here, I think: Five things to do with your baby to make potty training later on easier. 

~

A blogger named Nell (!) guest-posted at Camp Patton recently with a bunch of ideas for healthy and simple toddler meals and snacks... but they sound perfectly delicious for adults, too!  I'm all about keeping things healthy and simple.  I can get overwhelmed by all the information out there about paleo vs. vegan vs. vegetarian vs. low carb and all those other voices in the health and nutrition debate.  Don't eat grains!  Eat more whole grains!  Only eat grains that you soak or sprout!  Only eat grains you grind yourself!  Stay away from GMOs!  Only eat organic! Overwhelming, right?  This post was a good reminder to me to keep breathing and keep it simple.  Lots of good stuff at Nell's blog, Whole Parenting Family.

~

Finally, my sister-in-law Jenn has broken the news on her blog!  If all goes according to plan (and what a big leap of faith, and of love, this is for Jonathan and Jenn), Nell will have a girl cousin sometime next month.

Jenn wrote a beautiful post: A Love Letter to Aleena.

I told you I was saving the best link for last.

An Ode to Teaghan

I recently made the decision to stop driving to a nearby town once a week to teach private lessons at the high school there.  Instead, I'm focusing exclusively on my home studio.  I have plenty of students here and, with Nell in the picture now, I no longer needed the stress and headache of teaching outside of the home in exchange for the few additional dollars it provided.

Three of my students from that town are continuing lessons with me here at my home.  Four of them will be studying with a different teacher now.

One of them in particular I am going to miss.  This post is about her.

Teaghan is bright and capable, confident, a tomboy with tangled brown hair and no interest in cute or matching clothes whatsoever.  She's a bookworm.  She once came to a lesson with a black eye, and when I exclaimed, "what happened?" she replied, "I walked into a signpost."  I couldn't help laughing as I said, "I bet you were reading a book while you walked!"  Yes, she had been.

Teaghan's relationship with the violin had its shares of ups and downs over the three years, give or take, that she took lessons with me.  

{This was from a lesson a year ago.  Note the scrawl at the top of the page: 'I'm really mad at my bow!!!'}

She started the violin around the age of seven, as I recall, and is now a fourth grader.

This past fall, her school teacher issued a challenge: to do one thing, an activity of the student's choice, every day for thirty consecutive days.  Teaghan decided to practice her violin each day for those days, without missing a day.  And she did it, too - despite the setback of missing a day when she was nearing the end of her goal, and having to start again from the beginning.

She met her goal, and then she just kept going.  At her last lesson with me, she was on her 131st day of consecutive practice.  One hundred and thirty one.

Can you believe that?

In addition to her Suzuki pieces, she had a book of music from films that she was working on.  She particularly liked some of the music from Harry Potter.  At one recent lesson, as I was writing in a few fingerings and bowings for her, I mentioned in passing, "Someday if you come back to this piece, you could play this passage in third position..."

At her next lesson, she had taught herself how to play that section in third position - just from hearing me mention it and watching me do it.  This from a girl who has not yet actually learned third position.

Teaghan is a pretty special person.

At her last lesson, I told her how much I had enjoyed being a part of her journey with the violin.  How I knew she'd like her new teacher very much.  How proud I was of her.  I gave her a hug, and my heart was full.  She was crying.

And there was this:

These are the moments.  All the students, all the lessons, the squeaky notes, the broken strings, the conspicuously empty practice charts, the hurried passages, and the inaccurate intonation... it all feels so very worthwhile in moments like these, with students who practice, who engage, who connect.

So here's to you, Teaghan.  Here's to hundreds more days to come, to third position and beyond, to the enjoyment of Beethoven and Harry Potter and Bach.  I wish you a lifetime of loving music.

dust to dust

Today, on the day when the Church across the world says, "Remember, o man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return," I finally finished a project involving t-shirts to rags, and rags to... a rug!

I began this rag rug several years ago, before I went back to school for my master's degree.  It's made mostly of Nathan's old white undershirts, with a few different shirts of mine in various shades of brown that had become stained or otherwise unwearable.  I cut the shirts into strips, sewed the strips together, and braided them as I went along.  The most time-consuming part was then sitting on the floor, hunched forward, coiling and stitching the rug into its oval shape by hand.  But even that was nearly completed long ago, when I set it aside to prepare my grad school audition, and then, well, life was busy for a while.  Culminating in a master's degree immediately followed by a baby.

I recently saw the mostly-finished rug lying in its handiwork basket upstairs, and was re-inspired to take it up again and to finish it at last.

It doesn't quite lie flat.

But I still find myself smiling to think that I created something pretty for our home out of old, worn t-shirts.  Upcycling, as I suppose you'd call it, makes us happy because it escapes - or at least evades for a while - the usual "dust to dust" stuff of life, doesn't it?

Not that I'm advocating some sort of escapism from this reality; on the contrary, I love Lent and the many opportunities for reflection and growth that it brings.

Then again, dust to dust isn't how things are meant to be, so I don't think it's wrong to look for glimpses of glory to come, even if that glimpse comes in something so silly as a rag rug.

{Also, I'm hoping that I can rectify the issue with it not lying flat - I have an idea in mind.}

* * *

Tonight we went to church, and sang Allegri's Miserere Mei in the choir.  After having ashes imposed on my own forehead, I glimpsed others receiving the ashes as the choir sang.  A friend, father of a six-month-old baby boy, began to rise after having the ashes imposed on his forehead, but the priest reached out and stopped him, gesturing to the baby in his arms.

No one can escape this reality.  Dust to dust.  Even for babies.  This brief scene gripped me, and the "G" I was singing with the alto section wobbled a bit, caught in my throat.

I was thinking of Nell, of course.

Remember, o man, that you are dust...

Myself.

My parents and siblings.

My friends.

My husband.

My -- and here is where the lump in my throat grows hardest -- my daughter.

In the sermon tonight, it was mentioned that Ash Wednesday is "the great equalizer."  This death, it's coming to all of us, and it doesn't matter the degrees we have or the physical strength we may possess or length of our resumes.

That's true, of course.  On the other hand, I believe it does matter how we use our time in the interim.

To dust we shall return, but we can make rag rugs in the meantime, and that's rather nice.

* * *

For some real Lenten reading, read Auntie Leila's posts on Lent.

And Simcha Fisher is good, as always: Lenten Rookie Mistakes.

And Clive Staples is always excellent, of course: Miserable Offenders from God in the Dock.

Do you have any good Lenten reads to suggest or share?

overdue: the finding out and the telling

I've written Nell's birth story, but there are many things about the pregnancy, and the weeks following Nell's birth, that I never wrote about.  Finding out, telling Nathan, reactions of friends and acquaintances when we shared the good news, how the pregnancy itself went, and finally, processing my thoughts and feelings about the labor and delivery after Nell was born.

So here goes with the first in a series of overdue posts.

* * *

I was standing in the entryway of our first house, up on a stool, painting the walls a nice neutral cream color in preparation for tenants to move in soon.  We had moved into our second home, a bigger house on a quiet cul-de-sac, in July, and now it was September 2nd, 2011.  After a summer of working on the first house full-time to turn it into a suitable rental property, we were in the final preparations.  Several potential tenants were lined up to view the property in the next couple of days, and after taping and sanding the walls in the entryway, I was putting up the first coat of paint.

Standing there on the stool, I felt a little dizzy, and climbed down to sit for a minute.  A wild and crazy thought popped into my head: I think I might be pregnant.

I remembered lying down on the brown couch upstairs in the rental house the day before, to rest for 'just a minute,' and waking up two hours later, and the thought persisted: I think I might be pregnant.

So I closed up the paint can, wrapped the brushes, and drove to our new house to take a pregnancy test.

They say you have to wait a few minutes, and sometimes that second line can be faint, but here there was hardly any waiting, and the line was a dark, dark pink.

I went and sat on our bedroom floor, my back leaning against our bed, and stared at that little white and pink stick with butterflies of excitement.  It's a surreal feeling.  Physically, you don't feel any different than you felt moments ago, but you know that everything has changed, that life will never be the same, that the little pink line represents a person, a life, a soul.

So that was how I found out I was pregnant.  A sudden yet persistent feeling that I just might be, and a pink line less than a centimeter in width that represented our world changing.

I wanted to make telling Nathan kind of special, so I went to the grocery store and picked out two things: a card, and a little jar of poppy seeds -- the size of our baby that day, according to a website I had found.

Now, here's where I have to pat myself on the back.  I was initially looking for a 'Father's Day' type of card, but as it turns out, they don't sell those in September.  However, I ended up finding the perfect card for such an occasion - in the graduation section.

I didn't think much needed to be said, so I just wrote the exciting news in a simple sentence at the bottom of the card, in tiny letters.

Then, card and poppy seeds in my purse, I took Nathan to dinner at Outback that night.

He later told me that he basically knew what was going on the minute that I, a vegetarian, asked if I could take him to Outback for dinner.

Oh well... the card was still brilliant, if I do say so myself.

I don't remember what either of us ate for dinner.  I just remember the excitement, the smiling, the nervous anticipation for all that the future might bring.  Sitting there in our booth together, sharing this secret between the two of us.

"We're having a baby."

There's nothing like the happiness, the thrill, the nervousness, the responsibility, the joy.  Two become three.  A family.

Seventeen months later, I look back on that day as one of my happiest.

{And not just because I had a pretty good excuse to not paint any more walls for the next nine months.}

Nemo

You've probably heard that here in the Boston area we're getting treated to some serious weather tonight.  A blizzard!

Thanks to this storm's name, I can't help thinking to myself, "Just keep snowing, just keep snowing..."

Nell says, "Bring it on, Nemo!"

{Yes, in honor of the blizzard, I pulled out a stuffed Nemo for Nell to play with today, left here accidentally last time my friend Story and her kids visited.  Sorry, Joneses; I hope you're not missing your Nemo too much.}

This is predicted to be the worst storm to hit this area since the blizzard of 1978, when some people trying to get home from work actually died in their idling cars as the exhaust pipes became covered with snow.  Survivors were evacuated from vehicles stuck on the highway by cross country skiers and snowshoers.

Our governor banned transportation starting at 4:00 pm today, with a penalty of a $500 fine or up to a year in jail if people venture out on the roads tonight.

So, suffice it to say, we're staying cozy here at home, with a fire in the fireplace, our electronic devices charging in case of a power outage, and really hoping the load of diapers in the laundry can get finished before such a hypothetical power outage might occur.

Nell loves looking out the window in our front door -- or is it just touching the cold glass she really likes?

Who could mind the little finger prints left behind when faced with a smile like this one?

Stay safe and warm, New Englanders!

yellow like sunshine

One morning early last week, Nell and I found ourselves upstairs in the guest room getting ready to put clean sheets on the bed.  First, though, it was absolutely necessary that we roll around on the bed and do some very important snuggling, kissing, and giggling.

Face-grabbing was involved, too.

{See above, bottom right.}

The sun was pouring in on us, and Nell was wearing a cheery yellow shirt.

And I decided that an impromptu iPhone photo shoot of the fun was called for, despite the fact that one of us was still in pajamas.

{okayitwasme}

Lucky Nell, that girl looks cute any time of day or night, no makeup required.