a Rainy November

We've had so much rain over here by now it is truly cause for celebration. 

Tonight we were out with friends for a birthday dinner. It seemed there would be a break in the storm but when we came out Polly tilted her bare head right up to the dark skies and felt the little drops of rain starting again. Raindrops glanced off her head and the tips of her ears, she greeted them with surprise. I could feel her curiosity and excitement through her own little body into mine. The rain is not very cold but the night is so dark, the clouds are moody, the fullish moon is lurking back there somewhere making everything even more dreamy.

blanket sleepers and extra quilts. 

bundling up for outdoor adventures.

i love my daughters' profiles so much it hurts. chubby rosy cheeks eternally kissable. i have joined the legions of mothers in the world who are content to kiss babies all day, sighing at their sweet beauty, laughing at their antics, unable to ever really share successfully the small stories of our days, even to their own father. as strange as it sounds, the real truth of being a mother is a very private affair. no one else ever knows the details, what it is like when you nurse them to sleep for nap, or hold your little one to your side as you read a story, learning together. what it's like when they make their first jokes, when they take delight in your laughter, repeating themselves, with a sparkle of glee in their eyes. when they get excited over the cutest simplest things like a christmas noisemaker that would annoy any adult. How they surprise you with new words, quirky ways of saying things, funny requests, coming from the secret growing seeds of their ever personalities. the way the bend of their dancing knees, the fluff of their rounded rumps, the twist of their snowflake hands, makes you burst with pride, as if their every movement is an act of perfect deliberation, poise and purpose. She dances! She rocks back and forth in a squat position, look at that core strength! She looks up at me to see if I'm happy too, if I'm dancing too. Oh my love, I am dancing with you.

gold rush explorers.

the layers and colors of november. 

cotton, velvet, knit, 

cranberry, midnight, cream.

ventures into the attic.

the obvious reason for this graham cracker: streaming tears. probably because she couldn't climb all the way up there by herself.

Noni (Darin's mom) joined us on our Christmas tree sojourn.

can you just smell it?! and candy canes round the bonfire, wreaths of fresh wet pine boughs, the river rushing, a place where native people gathered to fish and grind acorns, there are stories all through this land and it feels good to walk here.

Stunned attention as the woodcutter fells our tree.

texture.

home to deck the halls. to set the scene that returns every december, that reminds me now of last year, lucy napping on the couch to songs of the Time Life treasury of Christmas and the twinkling of the christmas tree lights, how I could tell how much peace and comfort this brought her little soul already. There's a reason we decorate year after year, bringing out the same trinkets. There's a reason I still have the popcorn I strung in 2006, but that's probably not the same reason Lucy ate about a foot's worth this year. yum.

so that in the middle of these longest nights, there will be light.