I know I pretty much do this every year, but it’s time for some reminiscing. Five years ago today yesterday (who thought I would finish a blog post in a day? Not me!), John and I were married. It was a warm fall day, with amazing foliage all around, and we were surrounded by so many of the people we love; it really was one of the best days ever!

It feels a little more special this year, I guess the five-year-mark is a milestone, and also to be sharing this day with Natalie. She’s napping now (of course, how else would I do this?) — but we have lots of fun planned for the day, also including a toddler-less dinner out for mommy and daddy (rev: we did this! It was awesome! We went to Nudel — YUM!), but she’ll have fun with her Grammy so she won’t even notice!

So here’s to love, marriage, babies, all the fun and awesome stuff, plus they yuck in-between that makes us appreciate these love-soaked days, and to all the people who help hold up a couple’s love and convince us to share it with the world. Happy Anniversary, darlin’, I love you so much!

]]> http://www.lauriecoyledesigns.com/blog/2011/10/five-years/feed/ 0 http://www.lauriecoyledesigns.com/blog/2011/08/3049/ http://www.lauriecoyledesigns.com/blog/2011/08/3049/#comments Sun, 14 Aug 2011 14:36:59 +0000 Laurie May http://www.lauriecoyledesigns.com/blog/?p=3049

I was going to reopen my Etsy shop this weekend.

But instead, I’m going to cook, and clean, and sort baby clothes. Do yoga, share photos, send presents to new babies and friends. Buy wedding gifts and eat brownies. Pet the cat. Try to be nicer to my amazing husband. Plan a beach vacation. And maybe even watch some “Master Chef” on hulu. I am keeping busy and learning to live a little simpler and enjoy spending time with Nat and John and friends and our dog. I have been mending toys and clothes, but I haven’t made anything in over a moth. And I’m ok with that.

It’s some sort of transition and I’m embracing it.

If you had told me a few years ago, or even one year ago, that I’d be leaning away from owning a small artistic/creative business to be a “homemaker” with a part-time job in someone else’s business, I would have probably said you were crazy. But here we are. I’m trying to go on a low-stress diet, and I think it’s working. More-or-less, of course.

For now, it’s a wait-and-see, and that’s really ok. Isn’t it? I still have big things up my sleeves, and I’m not abandoning the creating or the business I’ve built, but I’m pushing it a little farther back on the shelf I put it on last month. I hope it doesn’t get too dusty up there, but I think I know how to clean it up if it does.

This baby of ours is quickly turning into a KID. She is blowing us away by learning new words every day (and repeating everything we say!). She is also a master walker/runner and working on her climbing skills.

Over the 4th of July weekend we spent lots of time with family members she’d either never met or hadn’t seen in a while, but she learned everyone’s name! Some are truncated versions (”Julee” for Juliet, but it’ll do!), but they are all adorable versions of the names — “sah-rah” might be my favorite. And she knows a lot of Sarah/Saras so it’s a good one to learn!

She has also started taking our hands and dragging us where she wants to go. She’s very clear about what she wants. And takes after her mama and gets SUPER mad when she doesn’t get what it is she’s asking for. hehe.

It’s finally (finally!) truly, really, actually summer here in the Berkshires!

Everything is green and lush and buzzing and blooming and chirping, and we are swimming as much as possible and we are enjoying the company of friends and family, and sitting on the deck, and watching fireflies.

This summer is different than other summers, though. We are also going to bed early and chasing a little girl who desperately wants to run everywhere, but really isn’t quite able to. She gets to frustrated when we slow her down! But of course with running-when-you-really-don’t-know-how comes falling, and crying, and new bumps and bruises. Her knees are bruised and she has another one on her cheek, but she doesn’t care! The girl has practically no fear! Unless, of course, you are a stranger, who your mother might leave you with. Then you are scary and horrible and how-dare-you. But that’s just the way it goes. If you are within mom’s reach, everything must be safe. Ah, if only it were so, little one!

But we are also enjoying seeing the excitement of summer through her eyes. She was so little last summer that she didn’t really get to experience much of it, except being really hot all the time (it was so hot!). But this year is different. She is walking and running and talking and experiencing all there is to experience! The world is so exciting to her! And I want to keep it that way.

So we are retreating this week, going to pretend we are also on vacation! This was a little idea I had the other night — we live in a place where thousands of people come for vacations every summer. Why not join them? And we have some family coming in from the west coast, some of whom have never been here, so I’ve decided Natalie and I are going to join them on some of their vacation! (I hope they don’t mind if we tag along?!) This might include, but is not limited to, swimming a lot, hiking and canoeing (ok babies might not come canoeing!), visiting our local museums and galleries, shopping and maybe eating too much, but definitely lolling around, chatting, drinking lemonade and resting. Oh and of course not working. That’s the part I really like. Lately I have been in a constant feeling-guilty-if-I’m-not-working-but-not-having-time-to-work mode, and it’s getting a little exhausting. So here’s to letting myself off the hook and going on staycation! Have a happy 4th, y’all!

After writing that last post about berries and the Northwest and summer and water, I just had to haul out the old photo albums and do a little reminiscing. These photos were taken by me and some University of Puget Sound (UPS) friends, using an underwater disposable camera, at Nolte Lake, summer 2003 — oh and the kiddie pool shot is from the backyard of our ad-hoc theatre Fraternity house, MuNu (that’s me under and in the boat, 2nd and 3rd photos).

Ah, college. This was the summer after I graduated, and most of my friends and I were all only working part-time, and enjoying life full-time. Oh that is so cheezy, but so true.

I was feeling nostalgic about the lake, dreaming about that Northwest summer, and then just this past weekend we found out that our town has the lovliest little beach on a lake! It turns out we knew about it but but didn’t think it was so great. So we had ignored it for the last 5 summers! So sad, really. Natalie went with our friend Sylvie on Monday morning, and then we all went in the evening. I think it was the best day of Natalie’s life so far. And as soon as the rain stops we are planning to spend many days there. And I’m planning to channel that full-time-life-enjoying spirit of those “old days”.

I am so thrilled and flattered to be Maeg Yosef’s (aka Edison Rex) Art Crush of the week! Check out the interview I did with her here!

Last Thursday this little baby turned One!

I hardly believe it. How far we’ve come!

We had an awesome party on Saturday, thrown my my amazing mom, Natalie’s Grammy. It was lots of fun, full of family and a few friends. She loved having everyone sing to her! It was so funny to watch her notice that they were all singing, TO HER, TOGETHER! she loved loved loved it.

And she even ate a little bit of her low-sugar cake thingy (more like a frosted pancake, perhaps? It wasn’t bad, though) that I made for her (we made traditional cake for everyone else, but she’s still not had much sugar so I thought I’d keep it that way a little while longer!).

She also loved opening presents. We were sure she’d only open a few and get distracted, but she was all like “what’s next?” That is, until she opened a doll stroller. ALL SHE EVER WANTED. Once it was set up she practically jumped over me to get to it and start pushing it around! Too cute. She kind of wants to push it from the front most of the time, but who am I to judge?

Our babybear is growing up so fast!

I made a little list not long ago on the other blog of things she can say, but now that she’s officially one, here’s a list of her accomplishments thus far:

• Things she can say: hi, Dada, Mama, meow, arf-arf, kitty, doggie, baby (bebe), na-na (i.e. Natalie, or “give it to me/Natalie”), me-me (”Grammy”), duck, owl, down, no, yessss, that.

• Other sound effects: mmm (”moo”), brmm (tractor, car), wee-wee (as in “this little piggy went to market”), an awesome pig snort, a slurping pretend drinking sound, lip-smacking pretend eating sound, a horse-foot clicking/clopping sound, and she bounces up and down like she’s riding a horse when she sees one.

• Sign-language signs: milk, more, food/eat, water, baby, sleep, waves hi and bye, and she points all the time.

• Record # of hours slept at once: 13

• She has been feeding herself since she was 7 months old. She hasn’t mastered the spoon yet, but can get tiny pieces and big pieces and all in-between. She loves most things she’s tried, but her favorites are broccoli, cucumber, bread, banana and pasta (a girl after her Dada’s heart!). She is not fond of cheese and I’m ok with that (cheese being one of my weaknesses, something I’m working on giving up!). She also loves graham crackers, well really any kind of cracker, pizza crust and tiny sips of green juice. She drinks water from her straw cup, and gets really mad at any kind of non-chewy sippy cup spout or having to tip a sippy cup too high. Can’t blame her.

• No crawling, lots of walking — almost running now. She can roll both ways like a champ, and almost does a somersault when she falls sometimes, but not on purpose! The day she got her stitches she learned to get herself up from the floor to walking. She can climb small steps but hasn’t even tried the stairs (thank goodness!).

• She likes to use her imagination and feeds her toy animals and dolls all the time. She’s also started trying to dress and undress the dolls, and has been trying to help dress herself for a while now.

It’s kind of like she’s a KID. Unbelievable. hehe.

Natalie enjoyed her first trip to New York City this weekend! We had so much fun as a little family of three, visiting some of our favorite friends from the West Coast, plus some other favorite friends in Brooklyn, and eating sushi with Natalie’s Uncle Ed, who is a fancy architect down there in that big city.

She loved napping in her stroller among the white-noise of the city, and even sirens and noisy gross motorcycles didn’t wake her up! (Though we had to cover the stroller with John’s sweatshirt to get her to stop watching the people and fall asleep!) She especially loved all the dogs. And meeting our friends Nik and Susan; they had lots of fun together, and we miss ‘em already!

She also got to hang out in Prospect Park with our friends Sara and Pete, who she totally loves!

This was definitely the first time I’ve gone into the city and not shopped or gone to a museum. It was kind of odd, but also sort of nice to just chilax, walk around and visit with friends. Oh and eat good food, of course. We had brunch at the Great Jones Cafe, and awesome sushi at Blue Ginger. YUM!

We also decided to drive in, which as new for us but AWESOME. It was sunday so relatively “quiet” and easy to find parking… win!

Have I mentioned before how much I love this little friend family? Why yes, it seems I did. Friends for practically half our lives, our second annual girls’ weekend has come and gone, was much too short, and super fun and silly.

This year we headed to a gorgeous cabin in New Hampshire, and Natalie joined us (well, she was there last year, but not, you know in person)! I think she’s a fan of the tradition. It took her a good 36 hours to warm up to everyone, but once she did, she had a great time. For the last few hours. Oh well, at least now she’ll be really excited to see them again when they come a’visiting. And we know she’s good at traveling and adaptable to sleeping in other beds and houses. Win! My dear darling Stephanie posted a little about the trip on her blog, too.

It’s been so long since I’ve sewn. I ended up with nasty tendonitis in both wrists around when Natalie was born, and haven’t been back at it since. It felt so (sew? haha) good to be back at it!

This little critter was a gift for the very beautiful 4 month-old Natalie’s manhandling in the photos below.  We hear the pointy owl ears are great for teething. Yum!