Enjoying November

 As the days continue to shorten, we pour more light into our home.  We get Christmas trees, hang garlands, set up little winter villages with twinkling lights.  We light candles and hang lights outside our homes.  It's part of the ritual of this season, every year.

This December has been unseasonably warm.  We're yet to wake to a snow covered lawn.  I constantly think back to last year, tiny Liam strapped to me all day.  Nursing him, consuming most of my day.  

Today i marvel at him, as he takes his first wobbly steps.  As he says dada, mama, truck, baba, ball and more.  As he crawls faster than we can keep up and learns something new everyday.  As he fills us up with so much joy, it's unbelievable.  

This season, of more dark than light, it's always magical.  I miss having a soft snow blanket to cover the brown of the current landscape, but it will come, surely.

Looking back at my November pictures, I'm enjoying : :

Sunsets that light up the darkness to follow.

Daddy doing what he loves with Liam totally giddy.

Warm weather that calls for extended autumn walks in the sugarbush.

Details of growth and decay, all at once.

Those first few drunken steps.  The sweetest look of determination on his face.

Mothering, him.

Big hat, big mitts and a growing boy under the golden sun.

Decorating with bits of color found right outside my doorstep.

Sketching.  I'm so happy this has made it's way back to me.  I like to come and go from designing, but it seems that it has picked up with full force this winter.  My only sort-of problem is that i draw the same house over and over.  I'm going to work on some ways to expand that, while still drawing farmhouses.  Because really, that's what i love the most.

New nail, new spot, fresh garlic from our winter CSA.

Christmas tree cutting.  Last year it was beyond freezing, Liam strapped to my chest, a foot of snow.  This year, we barely needed a jacket.  Traditions mean so much more now.

And lastly, This guy.  (Well both of these guys).  

But this guy.

Welcoming December, a few weeks late.

Changes, Joy and fullness

Ear tubes were put in, and suddenly we didn't have to worry anymore.

A happy baby evaded our home, joy took over worry and fear.

I wrote this on IG two weeks ago:

For the first time in a year I'm not connected to my pump during the day. We're weaning off the exclusive pumping, I'm down to a morning and night session, thinking I'll drop the night one soon. It feels freeing and emotional. I know everyone has their own story and different experience with breastfeeding. Mine was hard in the beginning. His latch was never great. My supply was just enough. But once we started ep, he became a different baby. More content, happy and full. It's such a hard thing to keep up with producing for over a year. And, I feel good saying that I'm pretty damn proud of myself for it.

And then last week, i had my very last pump sesh.  After hours and days and weeks and months and full year connected to my pump, it was retired to the closet.   Close to 7200 ounces later, we're done with babyhood.

Halloween came, we carved a pumpkin, and watched Liam explore the textures of the slimy inside.  We all giggled in delight.

He happily wore his dino costume, looking cuter than ever.

We visited with both of my grandmothers - his great.  They have so much love for him, it warms my heart.  They have so much love for me.

I'm enjoying getting more time to pull out my macro lens and shoot some food.  I'm enjoying getting back into shape.

I'm incredibly grateful for this life we live.  With so much sadness and terror around the world, my heart  is filled with so much Thankfulness for our little family, our safe home, our warm wood stove, our fresh food and extremly cozy beds.  I don't take it for granted.  Our sheltered life.

I'm so grateful for my hubby, who continues to flow steady with my fluctuating hormones.  That darn thyroid is working on balancing out again after finishing breastfeeding.  It's hard on our marriage when it's out of whack.  We're getting there though.  I've been feeling happy again this last week, and it shows in our easier stride.  

This song has been my background music lately:

now and then someone special comes along now and then someone brings your life a sonf now it's love im hearing in the morning breeze you're everything i wanted love to be

and i'll love you til the closing of our days and i'll need you through the valleys and the shadows and the highways and we'll put our feet upon the path of life and its' byways

and in the morning when i wake up by your side in the evenings as we stand against the tides every hour that you're with me, i can see you're everything i wanted love to be

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

                                       -Mary Oliver

No ma'am.  I'm wading in, up to my chest, full of our beautiful life.