Avonlea's Ballerina Fairy Birthday Party

Avonlea turned five and to celebrate we hosted a Ballerina Fairy party! It was as magical and "all things pink" as you might imagine, haha! Avonlea, of course, picked the theme, and then I just ran with it using things we had at our house. The party was mostly family members, but Avie invited a few "fairy" friends as well. I asked all the girls to come in their own ballerina tutu's, but then found super cheap fairy wings, flower crowns, and wands on Amazon and gave them to each little girl upon arrival. Their joy and excitement was contagious! 

How to invite your children into a narrative that speaks life

 As a mama, a therapist, and someone who's primary love language is words of affirmation, the following message is my heartbeat.

The way we speak to our children,
the narrative we invite them into,
the modeling we display....

is not just incredibly important,
it is life changing and vital.

Our children are not neutral.
They do not take in information and remain neutral about it.
They are a vacuum that sucks every bit of positive or negative energy up,
and then dumps out precisely what they have just taken in.

Children also are not born knowing what to do. That is why it's called child training:) We are constantly in a state of training our children, both directly and indirectly by our actions.

When we invite them into a narrative that speaks life to others,
they will build momentum in that direction.

Since Everett has been born, we are constantly saying to Avonlea,
"isn't Everett so cute??"
We aren't saying that merely so Avonlea will just agree with us or to stroke our own egos that we created a pretty adorable human:)

No...

We are modeling to her what it looks like to verbally affirm her brother. And not only that, we are hoping that by affirming on repeat over and over, it creates a culture of verbal affirmation in our household that is normal and not awkward (because lezzz be honest friends, how many sitcoms mock or downplay the importance of actually telling each other how we feel?? We've got the Full House sap on one side of the spectrum and we've got pretty much any modern day sitcom on the other side that just makes fun of each other for sport)

Because children don't need us to teach them how to be frustrated with one another. That is purely natural, amirightttttt?!?!?! Watch your child take a toy from your other child, and out comes all the animal instincts that run the gamut of anger, frustration, rage, annoyance. WWIII is on.

But children do need us to invite them into a story where they can become each other's finest cheerleaders and best friends. Now on repeat, Avonlea is constantly telling us "Everett is such a cutie boy!". She has begun to catch the vision that she can delight in her brother. It is now a part of our family culture.

While we fall short in so many parenting ideals, we have always worked hard to delight in our children, and invite our children to delight in one another. Because who wants to live in a household where we are always frustrated with each other? NOT I!

A few weeks ago, Everett started learning to crawl. So I asked Avonlea to come with me to the other side of the room and get down on our knees, and clap and cheer little buddy on in his newfound movement.

Avie got SO excited to be a part of her brother's victory, hooping and hollering in what felt like echos from heaven. To watch my 2.5 year old daughter believe in her brother and cheer him on felt holy. "You can do it little buddy...come on...go buddy go!"
A glimpse of glory. 


Friends, by God's gracious design, we mama's play a huge part in cultivating a sense of delight in our home. Here are a few phrases I love to say to my kids...

"I loved spending time with you today, you're so fun to be with"

"You're my favorite girl/boy in the whole world"

"Do you know how much I love you? Sooooo much" (I say this about 10x a day, and now Avie resends with "I love YOU sooooo much")

Children soak up what we give them, and then they pour it out.
So today, practice delighting in your children.
Practice inviting them into a narrative that speaks life to others,
and cultivate opportunities for them to be cheerleaders for others, especially their siblings!

What a treasure to delight in our children and watch them delight in return.
Truly a glimpse of heaven:)

Celebrating Santa Lucia Day

I have literally waited YEARS to celebrate Santa Lucia with my sweet daughter. Growing up in a household that took our Swedish roots VERY seriously, i'm always surprised that our family never celebrated Lucia day. So naturally when I found out more about it about 8 years ago, I started dreaming of the day I could crown our daughter with a wreath of candles and bake with her a plate of Swedish buns:) 

Traditions have always been important to me. They bring a nostalgic gleam of safety and comfort, that the world is still right and good, and we are still loved. Maybe that's overdramatic, but in the craziness of the world today, I seem to find so much solace in repeating the traditions of my childhood, the warm and familiar feelings that I belong…this is my place. 

So now as a mama to two (and hopefully more in the future), I have spent a lot of time thinking and praying and journaling over the traditions I want to start in my own home. My prayer is that my kiddos see Jesus, bright and beautiful and bursting forth to capture our hearts. 

Sweden revels in Lucia day, which is December 13th. When I've visited with my cousins in Sweden, they all know the special Lucia song (which I've tried to learn in Swedish SO many times and have crashed and burned miserably...but am hoping to learn the English version for my daughter's sake!). There is an official Lucia service that is aired on TV the morning of the 13th that the whole country watches. I watched some on YouTube and cried it was so beautiful! 

But the point of the holiday is to celebrate St. Lucia and the coming of light into the darkness. There are lots of stories that talk about Lucia's significance, but the two that I've read most are as follows:

1) St. Lucy, whose name Lucia refers to "light" is known to have been a Sicilian saint who suffered a sad death in Siracusa, Sicily, around AD 310. She had been engaged to a pagan, and she instead decided to give away her dowry to the poor. The man she had been engaged to was so enraged he reported her to the authorities for being a Christian where she was attacked and died a martyr.

2) Legend also has it that she brought food and aid to Christians hiding in the Roman catacombs, wearing a candlelit wreath on her head to light her way and leave her hands free to carry as much food as possible. 

But the basic gist is that she was a kind and compassionate saint who cared for the poor and spent her life wanting to give to others. 

I'm no expert, but the basic tradition in Sweden is that the first born daughter (if you have more than one daughter they take turns each year) arise early on December 13th and dress in a white dress, with a red sash, and a crown made of leave and candles. She bakes Lussekkater, or saffron buns, and brings the buns and coffee to the rest of the family who are still fast asleep in bed. The light from her candles signify the light of Christ coming into the world. 

So this year, I got my act together and bought this electric candle wreath on Amazon, and this sweet children's book that describes one family in Sweden celebrating Lucia day. I prepped Avonlea a few days before by explaining who Lucia is and what the day looks like. We watched a service on YouTube and I read her the sweet book from above called Lucia Morning in Sweden. 

Avonlea was So excited to celebrate it, I literally almost died of happiness by how much she was getting into it, haha! We put on her crown and white dress, tied the red sash, and I gave her a tray of buns and coffee. Before you start thinking I'm super organized, I'm not really. The night before I realized I didn't have saffron and cognac, which go in the real Lucia buns, so I just took gluten free sugar cookie dough that I had on hand and shaped them into the bun shapes, haha!! There are supposed to be currants on the buns, and I didn't have them, so I perused my trail mix on hand and found that I did have dried blueberries, haha!! It worked, and the memory of it was still special! 

I made Kevin go and act like he was sleeping, and I put on Lucia music, turned out all the lights and let her crown light the way to our bedroom where she woke Kevin up all excited. We all sat in bed, eating treats, and talking about light coming into the darkness, and how Jesus is the light of the world. It was a sweet day, and it was pretty deep considering Avonlea is only 2.5 years old, haha! But she loved it and a few hours later, told me she wanted to "do it again!". Next year!! 

Have you ever celebrated Lucia day?? xoxo 

Avonlea's First Birthday

We had a great afternoon celebrating Avonlea's first birthday. I cannot believe this sweet girl has been in my life for a year, man, the time flew!! I look back on this year and thank God for gifting me such an incredible gift as this sweet daughter of mine. Truly, she is a joy. 

I wanted to celebrate Avonlea with all our family around her, commorating her life in a special way. But I also didn't want to do anything fancy...so I opted for a family party that was real casual. I threw most of the decor together the night before, and woke up early the next day to head to the farmers market to pick out the prettiest bouquet of wildflowers! They were gorgeous and became the focal point...their cherry colorful blooms lighting up each room with celebration! 

My inspiration for Avonlea's party decor came from my love of Rifle Paper Company florals!  I hung this garland above the food table, put out the Rifle Chatbooks I had made for Avonlea, and the crowing jewel was the ADORABLE dress my mom made for Avonlea using this Rifle Paper Co. fabric. She looked so adorable:) 

I also made my first gluten and dairy free cake! I was really nervous as I've never made a cake from scratch before. I had a picture in my mind of making a pretty layered cake with berries on top. I searched Pinterest for the perfect one, and found this recipe here. I totally picked the recipe based on the gorgeous pictures of it (which is probably not the best way to pick a recipe), and the night before had visions of a total Pinterest FAIL! Fortunately the cake was a total success!! So deliciously moist and flavorful....I loved it so much I nearly ate the whole thing myself haha! My mother-in-law also made a bigger funfetti cake for the masses to eat which was great! 

Avonlea thought opening presents was fun...I think she was more enthralled with the tissue paper than her gifts, but she seemed excited regardless! People were so generous, thanks fam!! She was NOT sure about blowing out the candles on her cake. The entire time we sang to her she was looking around super confused at what was going on! Why are all these people looking at me? haha! She wasn't too into the cake, she preferred the strawberries on top more (which I am SOOO fine with, hehe!). 

Kevin made a little slideshow video to music of her first year of life, and we gathered around the tv to watch that! So amazing to see how much she's grown! I made an Avonlea trivia game that people filled out and then everyone guessed the answers. Questions like "when was Avonlea's due date" and "what is her actual birthday" and "what was Avonlea's height and weight when she was born?"....my father in law won! Nice work Mitch!! 

All in all it was a beautiful day spent soaking in the sunshine with the people we love, eating yummy foods, and celebrating one very loved little girl. But I do have to laugh because I think Avonlea's favorite part of the party was watching the dogs play fetch in the backyard! Oh well!! Happy birthday little one!! 

One year ago

One year ago I was pregnant and coming up on my due date of March 21st. Kevin and I were driving back from the bay area and saw this beautiful almond orchard in full bloom, where we stopped the car on the side of the road, and ran out into the blossoms and snapped a few pics of my pregnant belly (here).

Last week, the blossoms were coming to a close and I thought it would be fun to snap some with the sweet baby who was hibernating in my belly last year:) The blossoms are mostly off the trees, and the lighting isn't great, but I didn't care…it was so fun to just see the difference a year makes!

A year ago I was dreaming of holding my sweet baby girl, praying into her life, singing to her in my belly, and preparing for birth (and agonizing over her being So late, haha!). What an incredible time that was. I look back at it as such a sweet time where the Lord was catching all my fears and excitement in his hands, gifting me a peace that surpassed all understanding, and a season of celebration for the life to come. I'm so grateful when I look back on those few months before her birth. They were lovely.

In a few weeks, on April 4th, Avonlea turns one year old (HOLY MOLY!). We are having a little birthday party for her, and I can't wait to really reminisce on this past year with her. But for now, here are my pictures one year a part, wearing the same dress, but one with the hope of a child to come, and one with my little treasure in my arms:)

Happy Tuesday! xoxo

{haha I laugh at that picture on the right…i'm so pregnant and am just ready to have my baby, hehe!}
 My little blossom:)