Vermont

Andy and I went to Vermont for Thanksgiving. My mom and her partner moved to Burlington, VT and this was our first time visiting. We stayed in their lovely yellow house with a purple garage door. We ate turkey in low candle light and sipped on red wine with pie. We also visited a chocolate factory and a brewery, walked along Lake Champlain (we took the ferry too), watched a glass blower make some art, and we even saw some snow flakes on our last day. It was a relaxing visit to see my mom and explore a new place. I had forgotten how beautiful New England is...despite the cold.

Happy Thanksgiving

Five years ago today, I gave birth to a perfect and beautiful but stillborn baby boy, Matthew.  Matthew.  His meager worldly memories fit in a shoe box, so it is his name that I cling to and use to assure myself that this day five years ago was real, that he was real.  And while I cannot make sense of losing a child, I can now clearly see what a gift the passage of time truly is in healing a heart.  It hurts much less and it hurts much less often.  Thanksgiving that year was a day of birth, death, hellos and goodbyes, and at that time I didn’t know if I’d be able to participate in another Thanksgiving and truly be thankful.

But here I sit five years later happier, content and more complete than I've ever been.  I spent my day marveling over the two perfect children I have here with me and loving them with every fiber of my being.  It took me losing one son, and the hundreds of tests that ensued, to learn that my other two sons had every odd stacked against them when trying to make it into this world.  Today I am thankful for Honey, family, friends, health, happiness and home, but more than anything, today I am thankful for my children and for the opportunity to fill their days with smiles, laughter and unconditional love.
 
 
We lit up the house this morning, hummed along to Christmas carols, drank from our hot chocolate station, enjoyed watching our favorite characters in the Thanksgiving day parade, dined with Honey’s family, played baseball, football, and ran around the yard in our bare feet while Christmas music played on the porch.   A glorious day indeed!

My cup runneth over.
xoxo

Cheers!

Thanksgiving last year.

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope your holiday is filled with delicious fixins and people you love. Andy and I are headed up to Vermont to spend the holiday with my Mom and her partner. They moved almost 2 years ago and this will be our first time visiting. I'm hoping for snow!

Toile Inspiration & Happy Thanksgiving

First before I inspire you with Toile...Happy Thanksgiving to my USA readers. We hope you have a fabulous Thanksgiving filled with family, delicious food and wonderful  friends.

The Wikipedia definition of toile states its origin from the 16th century, a French word meaning "linen cloth" or "canvas".  Toile today is world renown for its decorative use in interior design. Most of us connect it with a classical interior but today this beautiful pattern can be used in most styles of interiors and I'm sharing some  of my inspirational findings. The interiors I discovered illustrate classic to contemporary with some powerful pops of colour which may surprise you....Toile with a twist!

All images via  Pinterest 

Thanksgiving Eve

We’re wrapping up an exceptional Thanksgiving Eve around these parts.  I didn’t lift a finger as far as food prep for tomorrow… or do anything else truly worthwhile as far as those sorts of things go.  Instead, our little party of four spent the day jaunting around town on all sorts of fun outings.  Here’s how it all went down:

met Honey for lunch at the Varsity

   

     

spent a while at Honey’s work

 

went bowling – the littles picked our names and the baby chose “Frankie” this evening

 

 

put on our pjs, lit a fire, turned on the music and lounged on the porch while eating s’mores for supper

 

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!
xoxo

Divine

Cranberry Almond Wedges

View the recipe here.

Yum, these wedges look divine. I might just have to try my hand at making them for a Thanksgiving day snack. Move over turkey and stuffing I want the sweets!

Ramblings

I want to thank y'all for taking time this week to send so many kind, heartfelt and encouraging comments, emails and prayers to me, to sweet little Bird and to our family.  The outpouring of support through Bird's surgery, and as we wait on his test results, has been gracious and heartening. (I sure hope to share some good news on that front today!)  And as for yesterday... wow... the countless comments and emails were affecting and encouraging and beautiful and a blessing.  You see, I didn't intend to talk about Matthew - I just wanted to share a pretty glittery monogrammed canvas (could there be anything better??).  But when my fingers wrote the words that have been weighing on my heart this week, it felt right and it felt good.  So thank you, each and every one of you, for taking time out of your days to connect with us.

Now, this week each class at the PCP’s school put together a basket for a family in need at their sister school.  The basket contains all the fixins for a homemade Thanksgiving feast, including gift cards for perishable items.  Earlier in the week, Mother and I went in to put everything together in a sturdy laundry basket and to help the class decorate a festive “Happy Thanksgiving” pennant banner to include in the delivery.  I pre-printed and cut out a triangle for each student and had them decorate their card before stapling them together on a long ribbon.

The baby was absolutely delighted to sit at John’s table and decorate a card!


Each child contributed something as “small” as a can of green beans, but when we brought everything together in the basket, an entire feast was formed.  A lovely example of how little it takes to bring so much joy to one family’s table this Thanksgiving.  The class was thrilled with what they’d done and I am grateful to have been there to see it!


Changing gears again, we had the baby’s parent-teacher conference this week and just couldn’t have been happier with the report.  Academically, he’s right on track, but it was when Miss L described him as “extremely kind and tenderhearted” and said he is a good friend to everyone in the class that I welled up with tears and my heart grew two sizes.  There’s nothing more I’d ask for out of one of my littles than for them to be happy, good, kind and loving people.  After the glowing report, the baby requested a “Chick-a-lay” peppermint chocolate chip milkshake for his special treat and I was happy to oblige!  It's not surprising that he guzzled it down in no time flat seeing as I drank one every.single. day during the last six weeks of my pregnancy with him.  (Ahhhh, to think I was puzzled by the forty-two pounds I gained!)  Do y'all have any idea how fattening those things are?  No?  Good!  I didn't either at the time so I won't ruin it for you now.



And since this post is already all over the place, I'll leave y'all with a sort of public service announcement:  RUN...don't walk... to Target and buy yourself as many packs of the Limited Edition Peppermint Oreos as you can find.  They are divine and, try as I might, I cannot seem to stop thinking about them.  Run, y'all.  Run!

I'm off to hang with the girls for the weekend (and how sad is it that I already miss Honey and the boys?!?!).  More on that real soon :-)
xoxo

Thanksgiving Porch

This will be my last autumn/Thanksgiving related post this year. I just thought I would show you the little Thanksgiving touches we added to our porch and let you know that the handful of Thanksgiving items we have left in stock are on sale!

Our paper silhouettes are now on sale! Click here for the boy and here for the girl.

Our pilgrim vinyl cutouts are on sale!

Our Pilgrim Boy Pillow Covers and Maple Leaf Cutouts are all on sale too!

 

And all of our Thanksgiving Downloads are on sale as well!

I'll be back tomorrow to show you our newest item that I am so excited about!