family

Starting 2011 Off On A Good Foot… After Rewinding A Bit…

Hello! Welcome to a fresh new year! A year filled with anything you can create… anything you want it to become. Our family took a few minutes on New Years Eve to write down (on our massive chalkboard that I blog about creating here) all the things we want to manifest in 2011. Then we walked around the house with a sage smudge stick and cleared the old energy out of each room, adding back in love and excitement for this new year. But a funny thing happened…. the smudge stick stayed lit while we walked through the downstairs, through …

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Thoughts On Health… FAQ — Parenting Books

My second in my FAQ series, I’m going to continue with book recommendations. Last week I reviewed some great easy to read books that gently introduce an organic lifestyle overview to folks who are interested in learning more about living naturally. This week, I’d like to list some of the parenting books that have helped us develop our particular parenting path. Craig and I both feel like we are here to support our children in any way possible. We feel very much like equals… our parenting style is one of connection to our children… we do not want anything to …

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My Favorite Thing… In My Backyard.

I love my back yard. It is a sanctuary to our whole family. We head out to our backyard multiple times a day, every day, and mill around together. Sometimes gardening. Sometimes taking care of pets. Sometimes rocking on the back porch swing and listening to the chatter of birds. Sometimes jumping on our trampoline. And now… my newest favorite thing about my back yard… our new tree fort. Built by Precision Woodworks, LLC, we couldn’t be more pleased. We had a vision of a tree fort built around the base of a backyard tree… with super safe and wide …

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What I Have In Common With A Cockatiel (hint… we both have a favorite girl, and she turns 9 today!)

See this guy? He is our Cockatiel, Cupcake. We love him so much. And he loves us too… but Clara in particular. One thing I love most about cockatiels, is that they bond for life. Just one life partner that they stay with through thick and thin. If the bond is broken, their heart breaks too. Cupcake has bonded for life with my Clara. She is the only one in the world for him… he is utterly and completely in love with her. I can understand why. Clara is the most magical human being I have ever met. In my …

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Family hiking trip

My daughter immediately rolled down the windows and soaked in the cool air, the first second we entered the mountains. My son loved the solitude of the woods, and was a master at following the markers and trail blazing the way. I promised I’d share some pictures from our recent family trip up to the NC mountains. We had one of our best trips ever. Something about the cool fresh air was so delightful, it was actually hard to come home. And that is one of the first times I’ve every really felt that way, because I am naturally a …

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My Favorite Thing… In My Daughter’s Room

My daughter is going to be turning 9 in two weeks… 9! Almost to the double digits, but luckily I get one more year before I have to face that. What she wants most this year is to re-do her bedroom… making it earthy and organic and painting the walls light brown, putting up a huge mural of a tree on one wall and a big fluffy bean bag chair in the corner. So, in preparation for her new room, I’m painting it this week. She picked the color… it’s Interactive Cream from Sherwin Williams, low-VOC paint. I was pushing …

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Thoughts on Health… Loving my Daughter, Loving Myself

These preteen years are uncharted waters for me as a parent. I find that they bring up lots of intense emotions for me, and I wonder why. I am finding that loving my daughter, truly loving her, even in her angry pre-teen moments when she thinks she isn’t lovable, brings me a deep satisfaction and often moves me to tears. Don’t get me wrong… when I speak of my daughter being emotional I’m talking about a 15 minute spell of her feeling irritable and stand-offish… understandable when I take a look at her pre-teen body and all the changes that …

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