yay for love

aunt sarah & uncle aaron with baby ruby when she was spankin' new

wow that picture is large.

i am exhausted. tomorrow is my baby brother aaron's wedding to the fantastic and amazing sarah. so fun! we had the rehearsal dinner at our house tonight & i am so sleepy. yay for love, and awesome new family members, and delicious food, and heartfelt words, and karaoke in my livingroom, and new marriages and also, for my cozy bed.

i love aaron. i love sarah. but i love aaron plus sarah the most.

goodness

happy friday, friends!

well, this week has been eventful for sure - we may very well get keys to a house today...

or we may not.

the roller coaster continues.

our realtor told us the other day that this has been one of his most difficult contracts he has ever worked on (thankfully not because of us, but because of the sellers!)

awesome.

at least that validates my feelings of "is it always this dramatic and crazy when you buy a house? i really don't remember my friends having so many twists and turns along the way..." all i know is that i could never work in the real estate business- too stressful and too much of a game for me.

but i digress...in the midst of it all, points of joy:
these amazing ranunculas that matt gave me this week.
they bring a little beauty to the stacks of boxes consuming our house &
remind me every time i look at them that i am madly in love with my husband.

sitting and talking with matt while he concocts a fun drink
(none for me of course, but so pretty to look at)

yesterday it was one of m's classmates 2nd birthday.
her mom judy whipped up these crazy creative garden/farm themed cupcakes which went along with our class unit right now at school.
um, amazing.
class mom, anyone?

she made all of these from top to bottom-including the little veggies on top.
we all have strengths, and let's just say that when it was m's birthday 2 weeks ago, i made my friend adriane's berry coffee cake for the class- really yummy, but not cute at all.

dance parties to the tune of m's musical winnie the pooh birthday card from her aunt becca and uncle mark. little m pulls her uncle johnny and friend justice into her personal dance-fest.

asparagus season. yum. one dinner this week i ate just one thing: a bundle of roasted asparagus.
and it was so good.
i love this moment.
post bath, post pj's, post stories and songs.
moments after putting her down, she is sound asleep.

my new favorites

this awesome le creuset 9 quart dutch oven that matt's parents got me for christmas
(they just gave it to me when we were down at their house this last week- such an amazing gift. can't wait to use it!)

this cd.
matt scoffed as i bought it. "a compilation?!"
mmm. maybe so, but it's good.
so there.

my daughter entertaining herself for more than 5 minutes in the car.
oh wait, just kidding, she hates the car and she goes crazy after like 30 seconds.
well, i can hope...
(and she looks so happy & content in this misleading photo.)

little m's crazy mullet curls, which i can now commandeer into a mini pony tail.
she is so way hipster than i am. chocolate chip cookies crumbled over vanilla ice cream with homemade caramel on top.
yum.

roasted carrot & avocado salad recipe from jamie oliver's jamie at home cookbook.
you can find a copy of the recipe here

matt's incredible homemade bread that he has been making lately.
i love this man. and his bread is just one of the reasons.

now i am sleepy.
night night, friends!

what are your new favorites?

tell me...

i love this & can't get it out of my mind:

Tell me, what is it you plan to DO

with your ONE wild and precious life?

mary oliver

via bits of beauty

things i love at this very moment

fresh from the tree peaches, nectarines and plums!

sharing long meals with friends

eating outside

celebrations, big & small

not doing much at all but hanging out

listening for airplanes

(little m can hear them pass by, understands the word "airplane" and she points up at the sky!)

sparklers!

summer camp

having the time and space to share life

the front yard with friends from far away, the ice cream cart passing by, watering the garden, sunflowers growing tall, laughter, an entire afternoon of talking and lounging, peets iced coffee, strawberries straight from the garden

little m having relationships with people who love her

impromptu playdates

strawberry shortcake smackdown! 

this yummy version that i concocted vs.

matt's version.

i think i lost.

(but it was close)

and who really loses when you get to eat two versions of strawberry shortcake 

in the same sitting?

the light at the end of the day

i love summertime! 

what do you love right now?

summertime

the other day this double rainbow arched over oakland- 

it felt like a sweet promise over our tired city.

the.best.ever.

going back in time to our vacation a few weeks back, i conclude with the most amazing day. we'd dropped our little monkey at matt's parents, and headed for an overnight trip to solvang.

{two tidbits:}

1. it was the first time we've left little m overnight since she was born; although we have left her with babysitters galore for entire days. 

2. matt and i have chronic plan-making issues. in other words, any time we have a free day or weekend & we try to make plans, then we either enter the zip code of indecision city, we get in a fight, or we end up doing nothing because we can't figure out what we are going to do. so with 36 hours to plan, we were a little anxious about our impending open-ended fun-fest.

but fun fest it was! in just a day we were pretend food critics, wine tasted, went to a rummage sale at the local mission, happy houred, sampled peaches at a peach farm, coffee shopped, book stored, watched the wire (shocking, i know), walked through ye old town of solvang, eclair gobbled, slept in without being awoken by the delightful cries of my daughter. 

it rocked. 

don't we look happy?

we sat for a while at this amazing winery and just talked.

sunshine, conversation, surrounded by a peaceful vineyard with my favorite person.

pretty great, right?

and then, we discovered the. best. thing. ever.

um, no it wasn't these succulents. but they sure are pretty, right? 

and they were hanging right outside of the best thing ever.

it was a pretty good clue that what was inside was super adorable.

we had stumbled upon a tasting room, 

and were lured inside by the pretty vintage trailer 

advertising cupcakes inside.

i couldn't resist.

i'm sorry, did domino magazine (r.i.p.) manifest itself as a wine tasting and cupcake shop?

i was dying from how great this spot was.

adorable city.

how cute are these cupcakes?

you can get yourself one cupcake, or two, or...

a freaking flight of cupcakes, my friends. 

as in, taste 6 different flavors of amazing.

as in the aforementioned best thing ever.

as in, 6 mini cupcakes, just enough to share with your very favorite person.

you only see three cupcakes here because we devoured the first three in mere seconds.

these aren't dry cupcakes in which the cake is merely the vehicle for the frosting 

(which in my opinion is the problem with most cupcakes. 

sure, cupcakes are pretty, but most of the time not so tasty.) 

these yummies have nuggets of delicious filling in the center of each one, 

and the cake itself is moist and so good.

this retro trailer was parked outside. love love love it. how cute would this be, stocked with cupcakes and hitched outside of your next party? but alas, i live half a state away, so i'll just have to hit enjoy cupcakes up the next time i am headed to the southland. or, i can just dream of the delight by following their blog.

(but faithful reader michele mollkoy, who also lives not so far away, there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't hightail it over there and pick yourself up some yummy. like asap.)

berry berry good

with pictures like this, who needs captions?

little m discovers the glories of

strawberries

love it.