Sprints and Sprinklers!

I want to remember them just like this.

Young, brave, silly. Free.

I want to remember this stage of our life. Even though it's been a challenge, it's also been a dream come true, watching my boys grow together in love.

I want to remember this summer, every moment of it. This humidity, thick enough to swallow. The slick wet of the sprinkler, the infectious giggle of my baby, the flare of the sun through the backyard trees. Everett's flick of the frisbee, Daxton eying his brother with adoration. Stevie instructing them with everything he knows. I even want to remember the thickness of my body, the roundness of my thighs, ripe with nourishment for my baby boy. I was created to steward my family just like this. I am blessed.

I want to remember it being so hot, so so hot, that we all ran into the yard to cool off in the sprinkler 15 minutes before dinner. Even the mosquitoes needed a reprieve from this heat, and I won't be able to forget them, since our bodies are now riddled with their bites.

I want to remember Everett screaming "super heroes!!!", as he sprints back and forth through the sprinkler.

Every single moment of this life is a blessing. Every single moment, not just the picturesque ones when everyone is smiling in their perfectly pressed clothing. The messy ones, too. The sweaty ones, the stinky ones, the screaming ones. The moments when I'm overwhelmed because everyone is hungry for dinner, the moments when I'm followed into the bathroom by everyone because they all want to tell me things they need, the moments when I'm so tired that I want to slump into a nap at 4pm. These moments, though trying and taxing, are my great blessings. Because they are weaving together the fabric of this family that I am so privileged to shepherd. When I was a little girl, I never really dreamed of having a family. I always dreamed of having my name is lights on Broadway and wearing a red dress while I accepted an Oscar for best actress ;) Gotta love the dreams of a child! But now I know that this, this life I am living right now, is the greatest dream that could have ever come true for me. It's not easy, it's not perfect, but it is stunning. I revel in this blessing, to be a mom and a wife, and if I never accomplish another thing outside of this family life, I will still be a successful, accomplished, astonishingly blessed woman.

The heat is making me all swoony and that is just okay. May there be sprinklers and super heroes and melty popsicles in your future this weekend! Happy summer to us all!

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Watermelon Mojitos!

I know that it's not officially summer yet, but the temperatures in Georgia have reached into the sweltering degrees, so that means its time for weekly watermelon runs to the grocery store. I love the combination of watermelon, lime and mint, and I whipped up a few treats this week re-imagining this symphony of flavors in a few fresh ways. This mojito was by far my favorite, so I wanted to quickly share it here with you all in case you need a new cocktail for those Bachelorette viewing parties. P.S. I'm not watching this season because I am on a strict bedtime schedule. My 5-month-old shows no middle-of-the-night mercy. Hence the cocktail creations :)

Ingredients:
- 1/4 watermelon, cut into chunks
- 20 mint leaves
- juice of 1 lime, plus more cut into wedges for garnish
- 2-4 tbsp. maple syrup (depending on how sweet you like it)
- 3/4 cup light rum

Method:
1. Puree the watermelon in a high-speed blender (I love my Vitamix) until consistency is smooth, about 1 minute.
2. In a pitcher, combine watermelon puree with 2 tbsp. maple syrup, rum and the juice of 1 lime. Stir vigorously to combine.
3. Place several mint leaves in each individual glass and muddle. Add ice and pour in watermelon puree mixture. Garnish with more watermelon chunks, lime wedges and mint leaves. This serves 4-6.

Notes:
- Some people might prefer to strain the watermelon puree to have a more juice-like consistency. I like the frothy, smoothie-like consistency because it almost feels healthy? (Don't tell me that it's not - watermelon is FRUIT.) It's totally your preference, so if you like it that way, by all means STRAIN.
- With the subtraction of the rum, this exact recipe makes great popsicles! My son has been eating them (and asking for more!) all week :)
- Feel free to add more maple syrup if you like it sweeter, more lime if you like it more sour, or more rum if you like to have a goooood time ;)

I hope you have the happiest happy hour with this recipe! Let me know if you decide to give it a try! xox.

Planting geraniums.

We scouted them out a month ago. When Daddy was out of town for days and days and I was about to lose my mind a little bit. I loaded up my little men in the car, along with our giant stroller that could double as a minivan on three wheels, and we went to the happiest place I could think of - Pike's Nursery. Everett is truly my son when it comes to plants and greenery and florals and whatnot. He and I are usually the only people at Pike's under the age of 60 but we lovvvve it. (Daxton has not quite caught on to the family adoration for this place, that child better learrrrrrn). We do this frequently, we walk all the aisles and sniff only the beautiful things and discuss landscape color schemes and Everett puts his hands in all the water fountains and I have to keep him from knocking over the $800 stone statues of frogs and it just makes me feel so close to him because it's like, he gets me.

Like, yesterday, he looked at me and said, "Mom, I love those hydrangeas you picked out." What a freaking blessing this blessed little angel from Heaven is. Also, he says hydrangeas like, "high-dangerous" which I love so much so I don't think I will ever correct him.

Anyway, the purpose of our little field trip last month was to scout out the wonders of my favorite deer resistant, all-summer-long-blooming flower - geraniums. We decided that we liked all the colors instead of just picking one type and that we would come back after the 15th of April, when the chance of frost in our area was finally minimal.

We had a good bit of landscaping done this past month - some diseased trees needed to be removed from our property so we decided to get them taken down and add some new flowers, shrubs and trees to freshen the place up. What a difference it has made! With the newborn situation (AKA the not sleeping situation), we opted to have someone help us out with all the work this time around, which I thought would be hard since I love doing all the planting myself but - who am I kidding - it was extremely wonderful to have someone else do it. But me and Everett decided we wanted to plant the geraniums ourselves, because it's kind of become our thing, so we did our thing. Everett used his new gardening gear, courtesy of the Easter Bunny.

I am not winning at life right now. I am not super mom or super wife or super friend or super rested, but I am winning in love, my friends. These little boys fill me with so much joy and I am the luckiest to call them my own. My little Everett has been so good the past few months. adjusting beautifully to having a new baby bro around. He is definitely aware of the attention being shifted from him to Daxton, so Stevie and I are doing our best to be intentional with both of them with our energy and time. It's so good for his heart and mine, finding these little pockets of time where we can do "our things" together and keep our laughter and love at the center of everything.

Things have changed. It's a brand new season. Which calls for new flowers pots. I fear its just a matter of time before I start collecting lawn gnomes, friends.

Little Black Swimsuits.

Bathing suit shopping is never really fun. It always seems to come astonishingly soon after the holidays, when the sugary coat of treats is still clinging to my overwintered skin. Alas, this year beckons with a set of circumstances that are even more varied for me personally, because I've got a nice layer of newborn baby fat that will be joining along for summer's joyride. I'm okay with it - nursing my baby is a gift and I am truly grateful for the opportunity to be doing this gig again. (And while many people believe breastfeeding helps you lose baby weight, many people don't know that breastfeeding also keeps you from losing the last bit of that weight in an effort to cling to excess fat stores for the baby. Good times, guys.) I would absolutely be lying if I told you I'M TOTALLY FINE WITH LOOKING THIS WAY, because that's not the case. Don't we all want to be the best-looking, fittest version of ourselves? But in my case, the best version of myself is exactly what I am right now - healthy and happy and sustaining 2 human lives. Boom.

Enter the black (bathing suit) market.

I've tried on a handful of these, and I'm still mulling over sizing and whatnot because it's only April and I want to buy suits that will work for me throughout the summer. Who knows what size I'll end up being at the end of the summer? Exactly what size am I am right now? I have no idea. But I do know that black is a gal's BFF and one-pieces will be my jam this summer. So here we go, a few that I loved in a range of price points. Hope you find something you've been looking for, too!

Will you guys let me know if you like posts like this? I'm happy to share more roundup-type posts if you find them helpful and inspiring - but if they're a bore I'll just keep my online shopping to myself :) Let me know in the comments, I'd love to hear from you! And happy spring break shopping to you!

Walking the Brooklyn Bridge + Eating the Juliana's Pizza + Views from Battery City Park.

While we were staying in New York for the month, I lucked out because my friends came to visit :) It felt like a little piece of home, having those girls come and stay for a few days. I love New York so much and I rarely get to share it with friends and family back home, so I was a little giddy to share all my favorite spots with them. And they brought ideas for places they wanted to visit, too, so we went all out and explored and ate everything. It was so much fun (and to be honest, in retrospect I probably walked too much), but at the time the adrenaline was running mile-high and I was just going with it. There's something radical about the second trimester of pregnancy. It really makes you feel like you can fly. We did so much over the course of our few days together that I'm going to have to break it up into a few posts, because otherwise, it's like picture/restaurant recommendation overload. But if you're gathering ideas for an upcoming NYC trip, then make sure to check back here every day this week, because it's going to be New York-centric!

We started this day by driving into the city and parking right next to our old building on the Upper West Side. We showed Everett where we used to live (when I was pregnant with him!) and then hopped on the subway and took the quickest route to Brooklyn, our starting point for the day's events.

Showing Everett our old apartment building.

I know this is a dweeby picture but I don't care. We lived here! We loved it!

I instagrammed this photo last week because these boys were so into the boat watching. It was adorable.

We lost this cute little hat on this particular day :(

I promise he's not as close to the edge as it seems in the photo.

So I've shared before about walking the Brooklyn Bridge here and about eating the AMAZING Juliana's Pizza here, so I won't tell those kinds of stories twice. But all I can say is - do both of these! Get to Juliana's when they open, because then you won't have to wait too long (the line is way out the door for hours), and make sure to get any of the pizzas with scarmorza cheese. You won't be able to forgive yourself for missing it. Everett scarfed so hard and ate more than anyone. He's so my Italian baby.

After our carb-loading we trekked across the Bridge. I'll admit that it's a little annoying on Saturday to walk the bridge because it's so crowded, but the views are really special and not to be missed. Where else do you get to see that particular skyline of Manhattan? It's a stunner.

Vanessa brought one of those trendy Instax-polaroid cameras (I don't know what they're called actually) and Everett went nuts for it. He really likes getting his picture taken these days, but to have the immediate gratification of seeing the photo develop really did something for him. She was sweet to spend so much of her film on him during the trip. He showed everyone that we met his pictures, and would clutch them while we walked him in the stroller. Also, he called her "My Nessa". I almost died.

After walking across the bridge we wandered even further south to the waterfront, through Battery Park, and then wound our way up to Hudson Eats at Brookfield Place. We needed to rest our feet, so we grabbed some drinks and stretched out on the lawn for a bit. This is the perfect spot to take in views of the Statue of Liberty, although if you really want to get up close and personal, you can jump on a free ferry ride down to Staten Island to get a bit closer to Lady Liberty (we did that here).

Note: If you're going to Hudson Eats to really eat, I recommend the brisket at Mighty Quinn's Barbeque, the 5-spice pork belly sandwich at Num Pang, literally anything on the menu at Black Seed Bagel, and the citrus squeeze juice at the Tartinery. Whew, I'm glad I got all that off my chest.

What I love most about this city is that it is a thousand cities in one. It can mean anything to anyone - frenzied, fantastic, mesmerizing, shocking, comforting, challenging, intoxicating, inviting. I've been to a lot of big cities but there is nowhere quite like New York. I think it takes a long time to get the feel for the city - for first-timers it can feel overwhelming, too fast-paced and too crowded. But it grows on you in this sneaky, alluring kind of way. The food is best here. The skyline is exotic. The energy is addictive. The possibilities are infinite. It's truly a dreamer's city and I can't help but get re-bitten by the bug every time I set foot on this maddening island. Isn't it strange to feel most at home in a place that you don't actually call home? That's the magic of New York. It's the greatest city on Earth.

This was not the end of our day but I will split this post in two since we did so much. More tomorrow on wandering through West Village and up into Chelsea :)

P.S. - If you can't hardly wait, check out other NYC shenanigans and recommendations here :)