Inspiring Motherhood Interview

I'm so honored to have been interviewed recently over on the Mama Leonie blog as part of their Inspiring Motherhood series. She asked some great questions and got me talking about our home, our connection to the earth, our every day life and why I make my art! See the full interview here.
I'm thankful for the rich community that I have encountered over on Instagram, it is something that I have been so blessed by. Along with inspiring me daily I have also met some wonderful people there and Mama Leonie is one of them.
My daily photo posts on Instagram really have come to feel like my family's photo journal, the kids and I love to scroll back through my feed and look at what we were up to a month or a year ago.
Here are a small collection of our photos from the past few months.
xo

A Week on the Farm

We just returned from a perfect week in the blue ridge mountains of eastern North Carolina, where every summer we spend one of our favorite weeks of the whole year, on my family's farm. Its "family reunion" week, when my mom and her siblings and their children and grandchildren all return to the farm that my Grandfather started back the 1960's when he retired to this beautiful land near Asheville. It's a week of heaven, on dirt roads, swimming in the pond, picking blueberries, farm chores feeding the chickens and cows. Basically my kids never want to leave!

Since we've lived in South Carolina for the past 3 years we've been able to visit the farm for little visits throughout the year. When we were in NYC we drove for two days to come down in the summer, and now we are only a 4 hour drive away! But still, it is only in the summertime family reunion week that the fishing is really good, and we can just strap on a bucket to go picking in the berry patch that is full to bursting with ripe goodness.

Griffin's favorite have always been the cows, I swear I even heard him whispering "cow" in his sleep, he really loves them, especially the two calves.

This year, we figured that the big kids are finally old enough for us to get out the BB gun and teach them to shoot at old cans in the woods. I guess that included me since I had some serious fun shooting the cans too. So much satisfaction in that moment of actually shooting the can off of the tree stump!

The houses on the farm are up on the ridge line, and the views are always changing and inspiring, they never disappoint.

And Frank painted every day during Griffin's nap.

This giant egg, that we found one morning in the chicken coop, had a double yolk. It has to mean good luck I think!

One of the best parts of the week is always watching the little cousins have fun across the ages. This year they were 9, 7, 6, 4, almost 2, and 1.

And there's always the whole group photo, which we've taken in the same spot since I was a baby.

No matter where we are, part of my heart is always at the farm, and family reunion week is a little slice of our heaven.

If you'd like, check out previous years of our reunions on the farm: here, here, here.

A Fairy Birthday Fiesta

My kids love to choose the theme for their birthday party every year, they really start discussing it months in advance. We also enjoy hosting their birthdays in our yard, and luckily all of the dates fall during warm times of year here, so our yard becomes the stage on which the party is planned. This was Carys's second fairy themed birthday party, you can check out the first one when she turned 3 here.

I loved planning this party because as Carys turned 7 she was very excited about helping me to plan all of the details. This fiesta came together beautifully without too much effort.

The day before the party she and I created this fairy crown with faux leaves, little toadstools and ribbon. We also hung a beautiful mosquito netting "castle" for the fairies in our yard,

and the kids and I drew a huge rainbow path across our patio in sidewalk chalk.

The morning of the party we set up some tables, balloons and one of the most fun things that I have bought for any kids party to date, this bubble machine. I was surprised at how much everyone loved the bubbles floating through the party and what an element of magic they brought.

During the party I helped each child guest decorate a wooden box, at the painting table. They took their box home at the end of the party and each guest also got a pair of fairy wings as a favor.

We played some simple games with the kids, and celebrated with cake, but mostly they just ran around and played their own imaginative fairy games.

It was the best sort of time, and one that I hope Carys will treasure as we treasure her.