Chicken Pot Pie

I am surrounded by an amazing community of friends, family and fellow moms! Every time someone from our circle has a baby we set up a meal plan to bring them a yummy meal several times a week and help relieve the cabin fever that sometimes sets in with having a new baby. This whole month my friends have been bringing amazing meals and their love to Sam and I! It has been beyond amazing and so helpful.

I didn't realize how much I would actually need help in the food department after having a baby. Making a meal, or just eating in general...no biggie right? Um...no. Trying to find my grove in mommy-hood, I'm lucky if I have eaten anything by 3 o'clock. I know, I know, I should eat more, but I forget. If I have to prepare something, I'm most likely to just to blow it off. There are diapers to change, stuff to clean, my baby that needs to be fed...

Our dear friends Beth, William and their little baby girl Hannilia, (whom we affectionately call Yaya) came and brought us homemade chicken pot pie and brownies for supper! It was so much fun talking babies and laughing.

Beth topped her chicken pot pie off with a "F" and "K" made out of crust for Forest Káel! :) She's amazing!

Beth and Hannilia (Yaya is playing with Sophie.)

Baby Yoga

Just had to share these too cute and stylin' baby yoga pants from Kate Quinn Organics (which are some of my fav baby clothes). These are sized for 3 mo. but I couldn't wait. ;)

Play Date

Káel had his first play date today! Kristina, my friend and fellow mommy came over today and brought her 3 month old daughter Adoration with her! It was fun! Thought I'd share the little eventful happening today!

The amazing Lambie throw! Our fav.

Káel's little grey tank jump suit is from L'oved Baby! I LOVE their clothes! Very basic, good quality and you can layer them! That makes for a simple, awesome look. (I'm finding I love the all snap outfits and the kimono style ones. They are easier to get on a sleepy baby.)

3 Weeks

Beka has done it once again! She came over on Monday and took Káel's (pronounced like kale) 3 week old pics. He's quite the little model. He followed the camera with his eyes and looked quite interested in it! It was so cute! He loooooves his Auntie Rivka (aka Beka)! There's a link at the bottom of the post to Beka's blog post of all the pics!

Notice his oh so stylin' set of threads that he has on...Gilt group find!

The rug is from Urban Outfitters and that amazing mid-century retro dresser? Craig's list, only $120! It was originally a watermelon color but we boy-ified it with koi orange.

As far as my dreads are concerned, if you noticed... took a break. I have them in now. I just needed a breather after my labor and Samuel wanted to run his fingers through my hair again. (I actually pulled like 7 or 8 of them out during the 10 hours of my transition in labor, haha!) So, I'm still a dready momma, just had to go smooth for a few days. :) They drove me crazy during my labor. I actually wacked my doula in the face with them! They were bunched up like a doubled over pony-tail and wet from the labor tub...in the middle of a contraction, I slung my head and my dreads followed. Oopsie!

Káel is THE best baby! He only cries if he has a wet diaper, is super hungry or needs to be burped. Other than that, he is super happy, peaceful and very inquisitive! He sleeps GREAT, which is the grace of God on my little soul.

Sam is in love with our little man and it is the most precious thing to me to see. From the moment he guided our little dreamer out of me, it has been love at first sight. I'm head over heels in love with my little adventurer. I melt every time Káel looks at me, cooing and smiling.

Being a mommy is like nothing else.

CLICK HERE to see all the photos from Tirzah Photography's Blog!

Morning smiles

My two week old sweet heart loves the morning sunshine and LOVES his lambie!

A Year Ago Today

September 12, 2009 -

The day I told the world that I'm spending the rest of my life with my ultimate love, best friend, hero, deepest confidant and fellow dreamer...

Sam and I got married in the mountains of North Carolina, in the woods, surrounded by a ton our of friends and family. It was awesome. We totally gutted a horse barn and transformed it into a story book wedding party! We even had a film crew from Women's Entertainment Channel there filming it! Ha! (In the hunt for my wedding dress we were approached by them and asked to be featured on their new TV show called "Girl Meets Gown." A reality show about girls and their hunt for "the" dress. After hearing about what we were planning and hearing our story, they decided to fly out and film the whole shebang.) It was fun and made everything all the more crazy cool.

My dad married us and here is announcing the soon coming kiss. It was our second kiss. Samuel first kissed me in Jerusalem the day after we got engaged. (That is another story in and of itself. He flew over there secretly and proposed to me on the beach... I'll tell that story later. ) ;)

We really didn't want a formal wedding...it's just not us. We didn't want a traditional ceremony either. We wanted to seem like everyone just showed up to enjoy this awesome moment in the woods. We had a huge bonfire after the reception where we had a drum circle playing as we danced and sang well into the night!

Here are a few highlights from our wedding including a vid that kinda sums it all up.

Being married to Samuel has been the biggest blast of a joy! More than I could have ever dreamed of. Our love for each other is truly defined by an unlimited amount of wonder we have in each other and selfless adoration. It's a dream. Now, we have a little walking (or soon to be crawling, I should say) story book of our love to cherish on top of all that goodness! Life is wonderful.

My man woke me up as I lay passed out in bed with our little boy conked on my chest. He brought me a huge omelet, sliced fruit, roses and dark chocolate. (my fav.) He is my dream and I'm so in love with him.

Here is a link to a wedding blog that posted our wedding with a ton of pics... CLICK HERE

Our photography was done by

Shelley Paulson

and

Tirzah Photography

Lately...

A couple of days ago we went to my parent's house to hang out and chill.

Lately, I've been learning mommy things. All the love and gushy gooey wonderful feelings that preceded, accompanied and are following the birth of my boho baby boy didn't teach me about the joys of projectile milk vomit, or all the textures of newborn poop. They didn't quite prepare me for the hormone swings that blow almost everything out of proportion to the point where I would burst into tears when I spilled my recently 1 oz. of pumped boob milk, or the massive unrealistic expectations I had put on myself.

This new chapter in our journey has been fabulous, hard, wonderful, exhausting, triumphantly satisfying and defeatingly overwhelming at times.

I would say I'm sorry for not writing in so long, but, I've been falling in love with my son, recovering from an unexpectedly hard labor and learning a brand new way of living with my man and our little dude.

I'm working on a series of small blog posts called "Little Pushes" that are stories from our labor and birth experience. Funny stories, crazy stories and out right RIDICULOUS stories to make you smile and journal in a fun way the thoughts on my baby journey.

Today was my first day with Sam back to work. It was pretty fun! Káel and I had our morning routine of listening and dancing to Regina Spektor's "80's Anthem" song and even went to go have lunch with Sam.

We are crazy about our boy. Sam, as of this moment is talking to Káel about one day having armpit hair... *endearingly rolling my eyes* ...boys... my boys.

He's pretty much addicting.

Birth Story: Part 2

my midwives were amazing

These are just a few pic from the last half of my labor. I highly recommend having a birth photographer. My pictures have so redeemed so many moments for me that I would have forgotten about otherwise. 

CLICK HERE to see the rest of my labor/birth pics posted on Tirzah Photography's photo blog. 

As you are looking through the blog post be sure and watch the video of Samuel singing the lulaby he wrote for Kael. 

Boho Baby Boy Has Arrived!

Forest Káel Gatlyn

8-29-2010 3:33AM

8lb. 9oz.

Tirzah Photography

Birth Story: Part 1 Boho Baby: Forest Káel Gatlyn

Yes, I primped my little self up twice in the middle of active labor...I'm not ashamed. ;) 

my man was the gentlest strength to my heart in the middle of the hardest thing I've ever done.

my mom helping through transition

2.5 weeks overdue. Birth. 43 hours labor, 10 hours of which I was stuck at 9cm in transition having to fight against my own body from pushing...

Until you experience it-no one can convey to you the emotions, the unexpected feelings of joy that come at the end and all the mix of pain, tiredness and utter exhaustion that fill in the middle. Every gal's story is different and uniquely crafted with love, pain and hope but, it's all a miracle beyond words.

Dang, having a baby wasn't a piece of cake and not what I was expecting as far as how it all played out. But the result of my labor was the most amazing, incredible and every wonderful word you can think of to describe every bit of wonderfulness as Samuel caught our little boy and handed him to me. Sheer bliss and delight. (the end that is, not the in between, haha)

I haven't blogged in some days due to recovery and hanging with m'baby boy, Forest Kael. (Pronounced just like kale.) I have been blown away to smiles by all the comments and encouraging notes from so many of you! Thank you so much! After it all went down I was pretty pooped and have been collecting my thoughts on how I want to tell our story. There are SO many hysterically funny, heart breaking, hilarious yet heart wrenching and heroic moments that I will share over the next week. :)

My sister in law, Rebekah Fancher of Tirzah Photography came over to document my labor/birth starting when my active labor began. The photos from my birth have redeemed so many moments for me.  I'm going to start you off with the blog she just posted. 

Click HERE to see the rest of the pics from the first half of my labor. 

PART 2 IS HERE.