making a new list for a new year

Find your 2013 printable kit, here!
Hello friends! Go here for the 2012 printable kit!

we went out for greek food tonight. and it was really good. partly because we were there without children. partly because we enjoyed our gyro’s with friends. partly because we were crossing the very last thing off of andrey’s list for twenty-ten.
…and partly because the food was really good.

i get a big fat D+ on my new years goal list. i took my big girl photography class in january, and sent letters to my sisters until february. nice. and despite seeing my list several times a day on the refrigerator, it ended there. i did however spend the year of twenty-ten growing babe. which should give me a little smidge of extra credit, don’t ya think?


i got this idea on a blog a few years back. it’s become a little family tradition of ours and we’re really looking forward to breaking the seal on that orange folder and reading the letters we wrote our future selves. i’m especially curious because that lindsay had no idea that this lindsay would be reading her letter come twenty-eleven with a little bit-o charlie grey in her arms. isn’t it wild how that works? i love the dreaming/scheming ahead and reveling in the retrospect at the same time.

i spent yesterday scurrying to cross something off of my goal list. one of my goals had been to master my illustrator program. yeah. not going to happen in one evening. i did manage to get in a little practice and got to work on making our new years packets for tomorrow nights festivities. everyone will get a goal card to fill out, a notecard to write a letter to themselves on, an envelope to stuff it in and a sticker to seal it up until twenty-twelve.

we keep our goal cards up where we can see them and if you’re like my husband, cross fun things off your list throughout the year. the last few years we’ve had a set of simpler questions to ask lucas and even had him draw a little picture on the back. i loved reading through luc’s old answers to see how much he’s grown.while learning new things last night – i made a PDF of our packets and figured out how to share them with you here!  i’d love for you to be joining us tomorrow evening while we daydream about the coming new year.
free printables:
+ goal cards
+ a letter to myself
+ envelope seals

happy celebrating, friends!
love, lindsay

baby mine.

charlie grey – month two

i’ve been writing charlie’s birth story in my mind. waiting for the right words to tell of how he came to me. and they’re starting to come. bits and pieces. the ones i remember and the ones that have been told to me. my births take a settling time. a getting used to before i can write them. i’ve still yet to write luc’s birth in my words – as it’s still settling. gavin’s came quickly. and i’m swimming in this little charlie-boy’s until i sort them out a bit more.

we like to joke that we should have named him charlie zen. he’s THAT good. and maybe we still will. something amazing has happened with me and raising up charlie. probably due to his zen-ness. it feels like i’ve had all the time in the world to soak him in. there was really no struggle to mother him. he just happened one morning and everything else just happened with him. while he is still growing too quickly – changing from newborn to baby in a blink - i feel like i’ve been watching him in slow motion at the same time.

i’ve been:
folding up the teeny-tiny clothes and pulling out the next size up.
watching baby wrists grow too chubby for handsome boy bracelets.
ohhhh-ing and ahhhh-ing  at more new smiley tricks and less sleeping bundles.

he’s growing and i’m watching.
he’s happening and i’m not missing a thing.
he’s calmed me and i’m soaking it in.

and… that’s a wrap!

  
christmas has been had.

a birth story

i cannot read this version of the nativity without weeping.
something connects with me.
a deep gratitude for this family.
sweet mary, her loving joseph and their boy.

merry christmas, my dear friends.
love, lin

the trimmings

the mood has to be right for me to package up my gifts.
it has to be just the right day. not too early in december but early enough that the packages get a spot under the tree for counting and re-arranging.
there has to be music. christmas music. classics and newbies. a little mariah carey. not-gonna-lie.

and i must be feeling happy.

i’ve kept an on-going collection of pretty trimmings under the table in my craft room for the last few december weeks. there’s been no handmade gifts this year. i crossed that off my list of to-do’s long ago – knowing that come the month of december i’d still be in the transitioning stages of welcoming boy three (whom we now refer to as mister-wild-charlie-grey.) wrapping the gifts up would need to be my creative holiday outlet.

i felt like a happy little birdie yesterday when i pulled out my collection. it was THE absolute last day to get packages off to the post office and i spent ALL of tuesday morning humming away at my kitchen table. but first i had to recover the gifts from their secret hiding places around the house. i studied them all one last time and daydreamed away about the people they were being sent off to.

this years collected trimmings:
*black yarn
*a yard of black + red lumberjack flannel
*silver striped masking tape
*teeny-tiny crisp white tags
*a spool of glittery silver ribbon
*clay monogrammed tags (made by lukey + me especially for wrapping day)


a phone call was made to my natalie-sister in the middle of my taping, tying and happy jingle belling.

“i’ve got three boys. one that must be carried. one that moves too fast and one that dilly-dallies. and i’ve got packages. big ones. i must get to the post-office. today! the line is going to be sooooooooo long. what would you do?” i asked. practically singing with gift wrapping giddy-ness.

we came up with several solutions.

some of the best:
*dropping the baby off to be snuggled –leaving me with only two wilds to wrangle
*hiring a car-sitter to sit in the car with the children
*stroller and suckers and a BIG red santa bag
*calling the whole thing off

luckily for me, andrey saved the day. and i went to post-office alone.
i sang carols the whole way there and may or may not have still used a big red santa bag. 

love, lin

i want to blog…

… but i’m much too busy.
must find a quiet moment soon. maybe.

where i belong

 
photo snitched from her

in the plans for months. big secrets kept with our lips sealed tight. and now we’ve already come and gone. checked every happy place off of a long list of must see’s. filled our bellies with the yummiest of foods. filled our suitcases with treasures. we were moved by music - in the car, in a theatre, in a giant conference center. we were moved by mountains. we shared late night worries and giggles until our eyes were closing. if you haven’t seen the sights with these ladies – well i think you should. they each have the perfect balance of sweet spirit/wild heart. i think my mom explained us something like this: “these are the girls that make things pretty.”

i am lucky.

read danyelle’s utah first’s here and marilyn’s notes here. and hopefully a hipstamatic photo or two will pop up here.