it's pretty obvious.

You make a candy trail over your entire house.

obviously wonderful. LIFE.

meet kaya.

Back in the spring we had a perfect American Girl Book Club party.  The weather was blue skies and puffy clouds and just right temperatures.

When we arrived and saw the life-sized Teepee the girls were so excited.  I knew before the big day that is was going to be a great party.  I had no idea that we would be next to a pond on acres and acres of land.  The location itself was so much like the place Kaya's family had set up the temporary village. 

We sat around talking about what it would be like to be Kaya, to have responsibilities for the younger children, weave and make beautiful beaded things, cook dinner, go to the bathroom outside, and cook dinner for your family over a fire, eat mostly roots, berries, and the deer the men would kill. 

We also talked about how important it is that you create the story of your own life.  You get to choose how it plays out.

Everyone crowded around the table to eat fruits, beef jerky, salmon jerky, and nuts.

The girls even got to create their own bead bracelet by learning the ancient art of beading.

My favorite part was when the activities were over and the girls ran around the land, waded into the pond looking for tadpoles, finding blue robin's eggs, swinging in a hammock, giggling, discovering, exploring, and completely unaware that the world was moving at the speed of light everywhere else on the planet.

We stepped back in time and walked and played with Kaya for those couple of hours on a Saturday in May.

storybook. LIFE.

sneak peek.

Part 2.

There's something that happens to a woman after hours and hours of labor.  When she finally gets to hold the sweet little being in her arms that she's been talking to and dreaming about for 9 months.  I've felt it.  Experienced it. Getting to see it happen first hand was a gift and completely awe inspiring.  No matter how many times a woman has given birth it changes her every time.

Feeling the soft skin of her newborn that's never been touched by human hands that is all at once familiar and scary and foreign and wonderful.  The feeling of sweet relief that you can hold in your arms this baby that seeems hardly real and the overwhelming feeling that this is going to be really hard.

The smell of her tiny baby's head, the strength of those minute fingers as they curl around her fingers sending a message; saying they're never going to let go, and all the while this mom doesn't ever want that perfect little grasp to let go but in that same moment realizing that at some point they will...

...and when they do this woman will not be the same person she is today.

She will be changed.  

Changed by this bundle laying against her skin who has, for the last 9 months, breathed her air, lived in her womb, known the beat of her heart.

This woman will see new worlds, be introduced to things she had forgotten, feel emotions she didn't know she had, become someone she wouldn't have with out this new little one.

She holds her little girl close and feels her heart beat next to her own.  Big black eyes open, look up into her mother's eyes and when they see each other they know that they belong to each other.

see part 1 here

beautiful. LOVE.

sneak peek.

part 1. 

Birth is an experience that is different from other experiences in life...

...it's not like a scrape on the knee and it's not like major surgery.  It's not a pulled muscle or cramps from swimming too soon after eating.  It's not like pulling your bottom lip over your head.  It's not like breaking your leg and it's not like having a deep tissue massage.  It's not like getting a paper cut or like burning your finger.  It's not like being at the top of the highest, steepest water slide and willing yourself to go down it.  It's not like braving a shaky rope bridge across a deep, wide chasm.  It's not like the anxiety of driving a curvy dark road in a blizzard.  It's not like going to the edge of a cliff and looking down and questioning how you could have gotten so close.  It's not like a workout that pushes you until you think your muscles will scream in protest for days afterward.  It's not like getting on an airplane for the first time.  It's not like taking your final college exams and not recognizing the material.  It's not like wondering if you made a mistake on your career choice.  It's not like intensity or pain you've already known.  It's not like hoping you know what you're doing.    

It is all of these things at once...rushing toward you and not relenting.

It is giving everything you've got to someone you've never met.  

It is knowing you'll love them so much that at some point in your life you'll say...

I didn't know what love was...before.

discovered. LOVE.