Every year is significant but this past year felt especially so for personal growth. Heading into 2016 I hoped that over the year I would begin to emerge from the intensely demanding period of having two boys under three, waking many times during the night and breastfeeding. I was looking forward to reclaiming my body and energy, and focusing some of that new-found energy on myself. So I declared 2016 The Year of Kelsey. I made goals of building a capsule wardrobe, a capsule skin care and makeup routine, going on creative field trips and traveling by myself. I worked... Read more →

Every year I enjoy creating our family Christmas card and sending them all across the country, from San Francisco to Brooklyn, and even to Canada! I designed our cards myself again this year and I'm so happy with how they turned out. Here are our cards in previous years: 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 & 2015 (so many!). Originally I thought I would do a collection of photos from the year like I did in our card last year. But then I remembered the awesome family picture we took together during Chris's birthday trip to Prescott. Plus the fact that our... Read more →

It's my birthday week and on Thursday I'll turn 33! So I've rounded up 32 favorite things. I'm counting myself very lucky that it was hard to keep the list to only 32. And that I definitely could have done so many variations of this: 32 favorite photos, 32 favorite mothering moments, 32 favorite meals... But 32 favorite things is what I've got. So on to the favorites! Most are new from this year although a few have been favorites for a bit longer but still deserve a place on the list. Wearing bangs, a style I returned to this... Read more →

An occasional series of small things that bring some awesome to my life. My nectar bottle for making and storing hummingbird food. Keeping a hummingbird feeder full of fresh sugar-water and watching all the hummingbirds that come to my yard brings me so much happiness. And I find refilling and maintaining the feeder so satisfying. Before finding this nectar bottle I was making a new batch of sugar-water (the ratio for hummingbirds is 1 part sugar to 4 parts water, no red food dye needed!) each time the feeder was low. It's not a huge task but involves boiling or... Read more →

There's a little story in one of the Hello magazines that Cedric likes to read about a baby being pushed in a stroller through a busy town. He notices motorcycles vrooming! and airplanes zooming! Cedric likes to repeat these phrases but in my mind I phrase it, "December zooming!" Because truly it was just hot and summery and now I'm wearing my wicked good slippers and pulling on a sweater before going outside. I suppose it goes this way every year. I'm usually wanting to zoom through the summer but always wanting to put on the brakes for November and... Read more →