A love note for Ivy.

Do you forgive me for one more post about kindergarten?  But sometimes I wonder if doing things like this is going to be the only time I do them so I want to love every second of it.  

Dear Ivy...

You are all grown up.  Kindergarten is a big deal but you are doing it effortlessly.  Today {the second day of school}  you went to the bus stop ahead of me and when I tried to cross the street you said Mom, you don't need to come, I don't need you.  I just chuckled when the other mom's said that would break their heart.  I laughed because I know that while you may not need me at the bus stop, that bravery flies out the window in your own home and you can't go in to the bathroom or even your own room by yourself. Especially if its dark.  It has driven me crazy all summer but now I will take the time to turn on the light in the bathroom for you.  Because you aren't going to need me for that very much longer either.  Ivy you are a strong girl with smart ideas and a beautiful smile.  Watching you go away from me on the bus I realized that I need you probably more than you need me.  You have made me the luckiest girl and I love you.  

But do you think you could stay little for just a while longer?  

The First Day

I only cried for a minute.  Its hard to be sad when she is so happy and excited!  Some things to know about Ivy the kindergartener...  

{back to school interview from PetiteLemon}

I added the sassy, caring and happy just so you know.  She didn't have anything to say on the subject!  

Going to School Dinner.

Well, I am now that mom!  The one that has a kid in school.   Darin and I have been dreading and loving it as this day has gotten closer.  We ask ourselves things like...can she really be that old?  Can we really be that old?  Can she be any cuter?!  

  I've seen others doing their back to school dinners for the past couple years and here I am having my own for my very own kindergartener.  I used the back to school print from eighteen25 as my inspiration for a rainbow party.  And uh, it was all last minute so if you are looking for a quick and easy idea this would be the one! 

First I gathered up some colorful and school-ish things from Ivy's room.  A globe, her set of Roald Dahl books and some markers.  Once I got those arranged on the table I pulled out a piece of cardstock for every color of the rainbow.  I had to substitute pink for orange for two reasons.  One Ivy likes pink and not orange.  And I didn't have any orange.  I cut each sheet in to eight rectangles not being too exact on the size.  I made three strings of garland and with the remaining sixteen rectangles I stitched them together randomly for a little table runner. 

The menu requested by the kindergartener was macaroni & cheese and salad.  Red plates with pencils to make it a little bit fancy added more color to our table.   Its definitely a special occasion if we use fancy glasses AND have juice!

Of course you have to have cupcakes at a party for my girl.  Rainbow sprinkles make them perfect.  

After her cupcake and a blessing from her dad she is all sweetened up and ready to go.  I don't know if there has been a little girl more ready for kindergarten.  I am so excited for her and her new adventures! 

Pink is the new fave.

Wearing pink makes me happy.   Can you believe I am all grown up and just might be saying that pink is my 

favorite color?!  Silly. My 4-17 year old self would die.  

shirt:: old navy

skirt:: h&m

Bananas.

This knee injury is bananas.  It wasn't the 2 week recovery that I was hoping for. Sad face.  So now I have this super awesome brace to wear for the next four weeks.  The best part is it squeaks when I walk.    I also start physical therapy this week.  I've only heard horror stories.  Darin calls them physical terrorists.  I'm up for the challenge, I think.  I am just excited to be able to straighten my leg someday.  And now thanks to the doctor i am freaked out about my left leg muscles being significantly smaller then my right.  GAHHH!!!  So for now I'm still stuck doing pullups and situps.  And dang it I have to eat healthy!  Like SUPER healthy.  Which is way harder in the summer I've decided.  I just want ice cream!  My new favorite treat is saving my sweet tooth.  

{sorry for the rad instagrams.  there are pros and cons to having a photographer spouse.  the cons being they always want to take your picture.  and they always have the camera}

To make frozen bananas you will need bananas, popcicle sticks and some toppings.  My current fave is peanut butter, granola and mini chocolate chips so thats what we are going with here.  Oh you will also need a parchment lined cookie sheet to put them on.  Just peel and cut the bananas in half and insert a Popsicle stick. Spread on some peanut butter.  If you haven't switched to all natural peanut butter here's my plug to do it!  I'm talking the kind where the ingredients are just peanuts and maybe salt. Its a super easy way to cut sugar out of your diet.  The stirring is totally worth it.

Then coat with a mixture of crushed up granola and mini chocolate chips.  I put the granola in a ziplock bag and crush it up a little bit.  Put it in an 8x8 pan and mix in some mini chocolate chips.  I'm going with the mini cuz we are aiming for healthy here!  Place them on the parchment lined cookie sheet and stick em in the freezer.  They freeze fairly fast so after a couple hours you can put them in a ziplock bag.  Or just leave em on the tray if you are lazy and/or crippled like me.  Or if they don't last that long.

There are endless concoctions you can come up with for your frozen bananas.  Greek yogurt is my other go to.  With the greek yogurt or peanut butter you are getting a decent amount of protein so it even makes for a decent breakfast if you are running late.  They also totally satisfy my ice cream cravings at night.  Let me know if you try em out!

happy s'mores day

S'mores are one of my favorite parts of summer.  A perfectly toasted marshmallow is one of my most favorite things in the world.  The perfect combo for me is graham cracker, marshmallow, reeses, marshmallow, graham cracker.  Uh yeah.  Its that good.  Here are some more tips to making the perfect s'more...

But the real question is whether you like your marshmallow perfectly golden brown or do you light em on fire?!  I am a perfectly toasted girl myself.  Have a great weekend!

Ruffled Sunshine Summer Essentials

What?!  There are still two whole months of summer left so don't look at me like I should be giving you fall essentials.  Here are my faves from this summer.  

1.  Sanuk Yoga Mat flip flops.  The most comfortable flips evah.

2.  Mighty Mango.  I have some shade of pink on my toes all summer long.  Right now its neon.

3.  I finally used up my huge stock of lotion.  I got this one from Pink and la la love it.  Sad face its not available online but your local VS might still have it.

4.  A brand new worn out sweatshirt is my fave.  June Gloom by billabong.  I got mine at TJMaxx for $18 so check there first

5.  This stuff will rock your socks.  Big Sexy Hair Powder Play volumizing powder.  My friend Steph gave it to me to try.  Get it.  You will love it.

6.  My go to skirt, black + white stripes from Target.  If you are lucky you might find one in stores.  

instagram photo strip bunting.

I love my instagrams.  But they stay on my phone.  I've printed out some of them using PostalPix before but wanted to come up a way to display a whole bunch in a smaller space.  I got to thinking that photostrips would be way fun!   And they definitely were the right way to go!

 I started making a template in photoshop but I got frustrated that it was taking so long.  So I turned to  my friend google and found these awesome templates from Blush and Jelly. She just happened to post these the very day I was making mine!  It was fate! Plus, I'm not gonna lie I love that people share their talents so my projects are so much easier!

Using her awesome templates I made ten strips of photos.  Then in photoshop I opened a new 5x7 document and lined up my strips.  I resized each strip a little bit bigger and fit 5 strips on my 5x7 template.  If you need help with math that means I made 2 5x7's.  I'm so glad I made them a little bit bigger because the pictures are way smaller than I imagined.  But I like the itty bitty-ness of them!  Since I was headed to costco I uploaded my two 5x7's to their photo site so I could pick them up there.  A 5x7 at Costco is 39 cents.  So for just about a dollar I was able to make a photostrip bunting!

Once I unloaded all my groceries from Costco I cut my 5x7's into strips using a paper trimmer.  Then using bakers twine and some clips I already had I hung them up on a window I have propped in our front entryway.  I stop and look just about every time  I walk by because its such a fun way to display our memories from this summer so far!  

Mothers day written on just a regular day.

I can hardly believe that a year + has gone by in my life. The extra months since Mothers Day have flown by filled with the business of summer.  I haven't sat down at a computer for more than 2 minutes in those months.   But here I am being the working girl for the weekend and staring at the screen trying to remember my feelings and thoughts from that day.  I know there were specific things I wanted to say.  I wanted to tell you how I was okay with Mothers Day this year.  And that I finally feel okay with the fact that I am not going to be pregnant ever again.  Somewhere in the blur of the last year I became okay.

I know there is so much more to say. But I still can't get myself to write it all down.  This peace in my heart is really so new to me that I don't know how I feel about it,  how to share it with you yet.  And maybe that is why I have let the months go by without telling you.  Because I still don't know how.

So for now I'm going to oversimplify it.  I want you to know...

Infertility is hard.  So hard.  The years and years of  hard kind of hard.  And if you are going through any kind of it I'm sorry. I know its hard to believe someone when they tell you its going to be okay.

 So can you trust someone that has been there?  Someone that knows a little bit of how you feel?  Cuz I do.  And its going to be okay.

Promise.

A whole lot of this...

I've been doing a whole lot of this.  And I'll be doing a whole bunch more of this for the next couple of weeks.  Sigh.  

When we were in California last week the Kennedy's met us at Doheney Beach to give us some surf lessons.  Just so you know, April is just as nice as she seems and her family is rad.  Thanks guys for the fun day!!  

I am a rock star and got up on my first try surfing.  The second time I fell.  And busted up my knee.  I kept going and got up another time or two.  Then I hobbled home :(

The good news is that its just a really bad strain.  So after a couple of weeks of rest and ice and ibuprofin I should be on my way to better than new.  The other good news is I now have an excuse to lay by the pool all day!  And depending on how I am feeling at the moment, {right now its bad news!} this means I have get to start eating clean again.  No more ice cream for me!

So my view isn't going to change much for the next few days.  Good thing I have the Olympics to keep me company and an awesome husband to take care of me!  

{eh and also hence the blogging ;) }