Mirrors By Rhia Rae

This weeks song is by my cousin Rhianna, check out her cover of Mirrors by JT :)

Fall

You know when all of those leaves fall off the trees and it's that in between phase of fall slowly turning to winter? That little window is kind of depressing to me. But boy oh boy when the light is right you can find so much beauty if you look for it.

Here are some pictures that I have taken in the past couple of days.

The snow is currently falling and it looks like a winter wonderland out there. The first couple of snowfalls are always so exciting. Can't wait to take some wintery photos.

Willow At 16 Months

Fall has been so bonkers for us! We literally have been living out of suitcases this entire season. I haven't been keeping up with my poor lonely blog and you all must be going CrAzy ;)

I thought I would dedicate this post to my babe. Surprised?! I mean, it's been forever since I did a Willow update.

• Willow loves to dance. She dances all day everyday and to all music. She often closes her eyes and gets real funky with it. Usually with her arms, if you know my style of dance it's pretty close to that...whoops. She also knows what twerk means...whoops.
• We haven't gotten those cabinet locks yet because she hasn't been to interested in the cabinets just yet. When she does get inside the cabinet her go to is vanilla. You will often find her carrying a bottle of it around. 
•  She LOVES food still. I am stoked that she is super into Kale, and will pound back a salad like nobodies business. I am hoping she keeps this up for a little bit longer. 
• Willow is a social butterfly she will go to anybody and snuggle right in like she's known yah forever. Unless you are Uncle Gorgeous or Dave. Awwww and they want to cuddle her the most. Poor fellahs.
• She just loves to be outside. Rocks, sticks, leaves, dirt, pine cones, water pretty much anything she will hold onto and study. Such a nature lover.
• She loves her bath/showers. She will tilt her head back and let the water cascade down her face. She is such a dare devil so we have to really hold on to her tight in pools or lakes. She always is trying to go in head first and doesn't want you to hold onto her. As soon as she sees her lifejacket she starts crying hysterically. Not good.
• She has a thing for dog leashes. She is always trying to walk the dogs and cat. She now has her own leash (from when I was the crazy cat lady for halloween) that has two cat stuffies attached to them which she walks proudly.
• She isn't a gal of many words just yet. She says Meme (mom), Eye (hi), everything is Em and the rest I don't quite understand. She communicates by pointing to everything she wants/needs and can understand so much now.
• This girl loves her books. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say we read at least 50 times a day.
• I allow her to watch one-two shows a day. Her all time fave is the Wiggles, she even does the Wiggle dance with her fingers and a close second is Bookaboo. 
• She loves her pets. Timbit & Lily are her faves because the pay more attention to her. She does love to feed Maple though.
• She loves her baby and ducky. She sleeps with them every night. 
• This girl is an avid toothbrusher just like her ma. If you try to give her a hand though she loses it. Such an independent little thing.
• She still uses her binky for naps and nighttime. I am nervous for the day we take her beloved bink away from her. 
• Willow is a very affectionate little girl. She is famous for her open mouthed sloppy smooches to anyone who doesn't mind a little slobber. She is also very cuddly, I love that.
• Laughter happens  a lot around here. Willow loves to make people laugh and will laugh so hard with you. Way too much fun. 
• She is always down for a game of tag.
• Willow is a little prankster and loves to give you a good scare. She will shout loudly, put her hands up and make one heck of an expression. If you react she will do a solid belly laugh
• She is very independent, spoiled, & stubborn. We are trying our darndest not to give her everything she asks for, but boy it's hard. We need to nip this so she doesn't turn out to be a little bratty'mc'brat. 

I am leaving out a whole whack of stuff because I really could go on forever. I will post a few photos from the past couple of months of my sweet babe.

 

Bear!

This post I found in my drafts telling me to retry to publish. It's from a month and a bit ago already! 

I am always a bit nervous to go for walks with just the dogs, Willow and I as we live in a park and there are a million animals among us. I feel a little bit more safe in the town site which is a five minute drive away. I wasn't even two minutes into my run when out walked a bear right in front of us. The bears are pretty slow moving and fat these days so he or she just looked at us and kept on walking right across the road. It made me realize that yes you always need to be cautious but I shouldn't be such a scaredy cat. It just made me more grateful that I get to share a piece of the Earth with such magnificent creatures. (Yes friends you may laugh at my hippie nonsense) I did however pay a heck of a lot of attention to any little crackle I heard in the woods after that.

It's that time of year where we have the whole park to ourselves. It's seriously the best. On the weekends the stores open back up but not many visitors come up anymore. We have been taking full advantage of the quiet. 

And I Will Swallow My Pride

I shazamed this song a while ago and then when I heard it on The Voice the other night I fell in love with it all over again. I think I like it even better with Christina

Before They Pass Away

 Himba- Namibia

Kazakh- Mongolia

Huli- Indonisia & Papau New Guinea

 Goroka- Indonesia & Papau New Guinea

I literally was so overwhelmed with beauty that I couldn't help but to get emotional while viewing these pictures. Jimmy Nelson spent two weeks totally immersed with each tribe, 33 of them, to give us a unique understanding of each tribes culture, traditions, beliefs, and way of life.

 I don't know what you'll take from all this raw beauty and purity but what I got out of it was how sad it is that we have all become so disconnected from one another. Maybe I am slowly losing it because I haven't been further than  up my road in days and am looking way too far into this, but it got me thinking.  No, I am not  suggesting to become a bunch of savages but I am game to become better connected to my "tribe", my people. Evolution is natural, it's important, but I hate where evolution is taking us. I find I am spending waaaaayyy to much time on my phone playing candy crush (extremely addicted),checking blogs, instagram, facebook, twitter, Pinterest that I have basically become a social media whore. I feel that these things make me feel better connected to people but are they? As my baby plays around me I am "imessaging or bbming" my friends. As my mother is trying to tell me a story I am pinning my dream home. I mean we are all guilty of this but sometimes I find it to be way to excessive and then I end up feeling a terrible amount of guilt. I definitely won't be giving up any of these addictions any time soon but I need to stop checking my phone when in the company of others. Everyone has their vices and needs, something to help them relax or check out so to speak, but this is getting crazy already. I am lucky enough to be able to stay home with my babe that I should be enjoying every waking moment with her teaching, exploring, playing and I do but I always have my phone in reach. I honestly am terrified for Willows future, our children's future. I am going to say this again, she spends way more time in nature than the average toddler and for that I am very grateful. But when we are at home I am spending way too much time on my stupid phone.  I mean, I catch myself daily and then I quickly hide it from myself, but seriously, how sad. What could be more important than my babe? What is going to become of these children when all they see is peoples faces pressed up to a screen? Are our children going to grow up and be socially inept?

Ok I need to cut this off somewhere because my babe has been napping for quite sometime and I do not want to become a total hypocrite. :p  I hope you enjoyed these photo's as much as I did and got a little something, something out of them.

I got all of these images from Jimmy Nelson's website Before They Pass Away. When you have a moment please do yourself a favor and check it out! The photos I have posted is just a little taste of what you will see. If you feel like watching some great videos please watch these that feature Jimmy Nelsons journey. I may have a new idol ;)




The preview at the beginning of this following video is a little cheesy but keep watching

There Once Was A Strawberry, A Buck, A Frog & Their Dogs

I hope that you have all recovered from all that candy binging over the weekend. I know that I have to get my butt on the treadmill ASAP because I had more than a couple of handfuls of Halloween treats. I am feeling extra squishy ;)

Sooooo I may have really gotten into character :) The others that were taken are far to embarrassing. 

Lily has gotten to chubby for her costume and poor Mapes doesn't even have one. We will have to do better next year 

I mean, how cute are these trick or treaters? 

This lil strawberry has discovered how sweet suckers are. She definitely has a full on melt down when we have to take it away.