All posts tagged: manly & babe

Parenting :: Waters

Published by BleuBird Mama

Manly and I had a good teaching moment as parents. We learned something about ourselves and humanity. And about what not to do next time…. It was freezing cold outside so we thought it’d be fun to swim at the hotel pool where Nana & Papa were staying, and Everley talks about her memories of the beach often. Win Win right? Not exactly… Thinking that she was excited about jumping in the pool with Mama & Daddy, we did just that- we jumped in! And to her dismay, the water was kind of chilly. So we sang a song and did a dance to make things exciting šŸ˜€ Bad idea. Being wound up in the positive just got her more wound up in the negative. Manly finally lifted her out of the pool because she seemed truly frightened of being in the pool. What did that result in? A sopping wet, bedraggled toddler screaming in agony that she didn’t want to be in the water or away from her daddy. It was a rather sad …

Be :: Mine

Published by BleuBird Mama

Why do we celebrate Valentine’s Day? I don’t actually know, I’m embarrassed to admit. I know of Saint Valentine and I know of the old practice, spreading love to all. What that morphed into in my family was Daddy bringing flowers home in a crystal vase for Mom, boxes of chocolates, Hallmark cards with sappy sayings, and stuffed animals for me 💕 What it has looked like in my marriage is another thing… Manly, truthfully, sucks at holidays & gift-giving. It’s just not his thing. And he’s not trying to be rude. He just doesn’t think of it ahead of time, and then when it’s rolled around he asks, “Oh is that today?” If left to himself, the holidays would just roll on by. But he’s not left to himself 😉 Enter his sentimental event-planning sappy-card-writing ENFP wife! 🎉 I look forward to every holiday on the calendar with all they entail, the crafty ideas, the fancy recipes, the silly traditions, the obligatory photos. SO, here’s the deal: Manly is married to me and those …

Simply :: Not

Published by BleuBird Mama

I’ve been wanting to write lately about the simple moments of my life; like this little cabin bear that’s growing up far too quickly. Soon she won’t be such a little bear, she’ll be a medium bear with a medium bowl of porridge & cushioned chair ā˜ŗļø And then share a witty moment like this when my dog finds her nook in the baby’s teepee. Sometimes Molle really is a doll (except for when she’s not…. and eaten a farm chicken for lunch). Or days like this when we had 75 degree blue skies weather the day before, but then the winter storm blew in across that mountain there, blanketing our farm in charming white. It’s the simple moments that get me…. But it’s impossible for me to not consider the other not-so-simple things of life. Like my anger issues, my relationships, my words, my parenting skills, my strength to get through another day…. Maybe you saw my post on the FB page & Instagram about my very BAD morning when my husband told me …

Mr DeClutter vs Ms TalkItOutĀ 

Published by BleuBird Mama

After finishing his breakfast and depositing his dishes onto the counter, he began flinging wide the cabinet doors, inspecting collections of dishware, pulling out all cutlery, and throwing away pens and twistyties… This is my husband. Mr DeClutter himself.  They should make a commercial of his frenetic cleaning skills. I walked into the chaos as he threw up his hands in disgust, “This kitchen needs a makeover! There are junk drawers, and piles of business cards we never use, utensils we don’t use anymore, way too many mugs, and…” Okay, I got the picture. I started to ask some preliminary questions to make sure we were on the same page, “Is this a project you’d like to do today? Is this something you’d like to work on together? What do you think the five main problem areas are of this room?” You see, I’m the Talk-It-Out Plan-It-Out Girl and he’s the Throw-It-In-a-Massive-Pile-Get-Mad-About-It-Tear-It-Apart-Put-It-Back-Together-Again Guy.  Yea.  So we pulled a little Chip & Joanna Gaines here. You’ve heard them talk about their marriage, right? Total opposites. Couldn’t …

Pooped: Five Tidbits

Published by BleuBird Mama

That’s a catchy title, isn’t it? Ahahahaha! ;P So, painting a couch, hosting 30 family members for Easter, reuniting with friends, maintaining some semblance of routine, traipsing off to San Francisco for a week…… Noooooo, we haven’t been busy a’tall! I’m too tired to poop out of parties, as Lucy would say. But my husband and I have been keeping it real here, despite our crazy schedule, because we just Ā like to keep each other on our toes ;P Every marriage has a crazy cycle, and we stay on ours for good exercise. Not! In the midst of doing life, I’ve been learning and pondering and discovering and wrestling and learning again….. So here’s a round-up of fiveĀ topics I’ve been, you know, tossing around…. 1. Baby – Sun up to sun down, and even after so it goes, she is my companion come rain or come shine. And as a result I never get anything else done! Haha. I’ve discovered that bath time is the perfect time to clean the bathroom itself, because otherwise I’m …

Christmas: My Miracle

Published by BleuBird Mama

We all look for some little miracle during the Christmas season. Even if it’s the miracle of our spouse remembering what we really wanted under the tree, or just remembering again the miracle of Jesus’s birth in a stable manger. We want to see a miracle. It’s the season for miracles. Well, would you like to hear about my Christmas miracle this year? It’s quite a story of brokenness and redemption. The gift of miracles when it seemed all hope was lost. As I’ve reminisced and revisited memories of this past year in two letters written to two different women who have also tragically lost, I’ve shared my heart about the events of 2015 and how we ended up surviving & arriving at Christmas this year. In these excerpts you’ll see the miracle of this Christmas….   A few days or weeks, time was a blur, after Heidi’s sudden death I was able to visualize the whole event in my mind. For a while I blocked it, which is a common response to trauma. I …

Brevity: Sun & Stars

Published by BleuBird Mama

Twas a refreshingly bright Saturday we celebrated my 27th birthday. We walked around the mountain hardware store so I could drool over kayaks and beg to get my own; instead of hoisting a river ride, we grabbed a bag of saltwater taffies which I shamelessly finished off that day; we visited the local Potter’s Guild display at the city museum and found a little pair of stamped clay earrings; we toured the lush gardens and historical house of the museum property where Ian searched out suitable kissing spots; lastly but not least, we sat through the Fault in Our Stars, which Ian did not want to see but after the main character started talking about zombies and heroes and bloody escapades he perked up, and by the end of that sweetly surreal story we were both a puddle and clinging to each other; as Ian said, “That’s the first love story I’ve liked because it went so deep.” The brevity of life is a fact that we face every day though we rarely acknowledge it; …