making a new list for a new year.

new kits have been created for 2017!

happy new year, friends!

xo

find them, here.

tucked in my desk drawer is a letter i wrote myself last new year's eve. i'm anxious to read and remember what that girl wrote to this girl. i've been writing new year's letters to myself since high school. it's the best way to see my growth from year to year. to write down secret wishes and remind myself of what's really in my heart. setting goals. and making them. 

i love to gather the ones i'm celebrating with around the table. pour us all a glass of something bubbly,  turn up some good music and pass out these little cards. andrey and i keep ours up on the refrigerator and love to remind each other of the things we'd hoped for ourselves throughout the year. we write our dear me letters and seal them up tight. we ask the littles their favorites and giggle a bunch when we read them their answers from last year. i like to have them draw me a picture of themselves on the back - so that we can see how their drawings have changed during the year, too. 

would you like to join us?
i worked up our new kits last week and asked my dear friend danyelle of dandee designs to style and photograph them for me. a quick little collaboration that will hopefully have us all doing the same thing this coming new year's eve night.
making resolutions. together. 
the kind we'll want to keep.

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purchase and download your printable resolution kits here.
print as many as you need. and be sure to let me know if you post about your goals! i'd love to know what you'll be up to this year.

this holiday | stoyan-house edition

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i'm going to count this holiday twenty-eleven as one of my faves. 

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there was a moment on christmas eve.

watching those silly boys in front of our sparkle tree.

and my heart swelled to huge. 

i dreamt of this once. i thought to myself. 

and then tucked them sweetly into bed. 

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we made memories this year. 

it was magic.

merry christmas!

the elements for our holiday card this year were from the lovely tags 

by Hey Look. go print some out for your last minute wrappings!
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this years family portrait was snapped by k. andelin.

a winter song.

written last week. and tucked away. 
thinking i'll post it tonight - so my mother can take my thoughts with her to fernwood tomorrow.


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the grief surprises me sometimes. but as soon as the ache begins – i remember it. i shake my head, bury my head in my hands and take a deep breath. i’ve felt the familiar for a few days now. a heavy quiet  - sitting right on my heart.  i expected it to come with the putting up of lights, the sipping of hot drinks, of mittens and boots. 

i didn’t make the trip this year. my yearly trek over the mountains. for a 9^th and 9^th shopping trip and christmas card making with my mother.  for lots of reasons, really  - i’m not there this time. am wishing for it, tonight. 
we started our tradition when lucas was a babe. two thousand and seven. i met briana then. at carlucci's bakery. in the back corner table. cath couldn't wait to share her with me. she sipped hot tea and chatted birth and life for an hour or so. the next year was the 'change is coming' house meeting. we exchanged gifts at the salt lake city library. two thousand and nine was a blackwelder booth at the beehive bazaar with in + out burgers after.


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last year on these days – i was in that city with my three dearest friends. i’d imagined that we’d have a free night to huddle together at briana’s. that she’d teach us how to make homemade marshmallows and i’d get to share her space with the holiday trimmings up.  we didn’t try very hard to make it happen – other adventures came up and instead of an entire night in her company we got a quick hello as she hurried out the door with my mother on their way to a holiday gift exchange.

a few days later after my friends had gone home to their families – baby charlie and i headed out for The Children’s Hour with my mom in her li’l red mini. bri wanted to meet up with us. to share hot drinks. to snuggle charlie. to catch up for a minute before i headed back to washington. we kept being in just the wrong place at just the wrong time. we kept missing a meet-in-middle. and i wasn’t trying very hard to make it happen, either. i was feeling selfish and wanted my mom to myself - and so it didn’t.
i love looking back in retrospect. to see things for how they were then and how they are now.

i am wishing for a different story tonight. am wishing i was looking back at homemade marshmallows and good music. at tea shared on 9^th in mugs with mittens.


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tonight the grief came with the words to winter song.
…that you’re not where you belong... inside my arms. 

am wishing that she was with the people she belonged to tonight. 
am wishing that she was with candice. that they’d trimmed that tree together.
that she was with cath tonight. while chuck’s out of town. giggling and tincture sharing. up so late.
am wishing she was with tess and that chubby baby. knitting him some first christmas gifts and making felt birds together.
am wishing she was with rachel and that belly.
and i guess that maybe… she is. 

gift stitching/swapping.

as with most things that i do - i procrastinated until the VERY last minute to get my swap gifts together. i signed up for the freshly picked + ardor gift swap back in october. and didn't get started until the night before they needed to hit the post office. 

lucas helped with the fabric picking and that ended up being my favorite part. i don't love the actual sewing quite as much as i love the planning, picking and purchasing. running the linens and crisp cottons through my fingers. once i got going though, i remembered what it felt like to make something. i didn't love them that night. in fact i almost threw them in the garbage. (this is an effect of manic late night sewing sessions) but i loved them in the morning.  i love the texture these pretty little things have. the hemp. the wood. the tiny 'x' sewing on the button. i really really love them. 

danyelle shared her packaging stash with me. lucky, huh. and i used my favorite olive manna stamp on the front of her paper bags. a little swatch of gold striped washi tape and these were on their way. happy? yes! 

my machine is still out on the kitchen table. like the old, old days. crossing projects off my long list of stitching to-do's. using up fabric that i've been hoarding in galvanized buckets for years. making things for our cozy christmas house and some things for gift-giving-away. any requests? get 'em in now. not sure how long this sewing binge will last. 

one of my swap partners (who also just happens to be a dear friend + neighbor) was asking me how i learned to sew. i was pregnant with lucas and had just discovered amy butler's beautiful fabrics. a diaper bag was made with the help of my mom on an old borrowed machine. a year or so later i discovered my friends jen way, leslie keating, allyson hill, and the blog wee wonderful's. i was so inspired! andrey gifted me my pretty machine that christmas and i would sit down in the basement and stitch away while the rest of the house slept. i'd listen to some of the early brandi carlile in my head phones while my machine hummed along. with fabric picked on shopping trips with ashlee and our baby boys. obsessed with the look of my top stitch. it was calming. and happy. 

deck these halls.

we've been busy. 

 getting the holiday's on over here. 

decking the halls. counting the days.

and missing the ones we love. terribly.

this house is the coziest it's ever been. 

it feels so happy and so good in here.

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i am always amazed at what happens when i put away my expectations 

and just let these boys go free.

tonight turned out to be one of the sweetest/messiest/happiest ever.

just ask charlie.