Motherhood has been good to me this far, and I feel so blessed to have this sweet, healthy little girl. As typing isn’t so easy at the moment I will continue this post in photo form. Here are various photos taken with my phone over the past few months.

She’s on the home stretch, and she’s starting to feel like it. The determination is setting in, but so is the organ-rearrangement and resulting fatigue.  Luckily for Erica, despite how she might feel, she looks beautiful and radiant.

The above photo on the right is one of my favorites from the day–I think it really captured her essence.

Well, our remaining shoots are numbered–we’ll probably have only one or two more before her baby boy arrives!

I have to say, the left-hand picture above is probably by far one of my favorite photos ever–sheer joy captured while Claire was lap-surfing on Uncle B’s lap.

Conor is gaining weight and getting cuter by the minute. He still sleeps a lot, but he’s getting more alert with each day. I love holding the little guy and snuggling him while he naps. Can’t complain!

Conor seems to take after his sister in the little birdlips face department…see Conor here

and a flashback to Claire here:

And while I was searching for that last picture of Claire, I found another same-face moment. Conor:

And Claire

the view from our room

brandon’s mom painting

the supplies

my friend, the cow in the field next to our room

tide out time

1. Paris, a city beautiful on all levels. Spent a year here, can’t get enough.

2. Music. Oftentimes sad songs. And live performances.

3. Photo adventures, finding the interesting among the mundane.

4. Unexpected moments and sights

5. Art/craft supplies. Don’t take me to an art store if you’re in a hurry.

6. Traveling. Seeing new things, experiencing new places.

7. Babies, with their love for discovery and simple pleasures.

8. Construction sites and their raw beauty. The pieces to the puzzle before the puzzle is complete.

9. Animals. Their loyalty, their companionship, their dependency, their complexity.

10. Texture. I cannot pass something textured without touching it.

*Bonus. As I finished and looked over this post, I realized I couldn’t exclude my husband! He encourages my artistic pursuits, pushes me to carry on when I am discouraged, and is all around a huge support and inspiration. There, I feel much more complete now.

This was much harder than I imagined–I could probably attempt this same post tomorrow with completely different results. I hope you enjoyed as much as I did, and please head over to Cook Craft Read Love tomorrow to see the Blog it Forward post over there!

*images are all my own.  they are as follows…1: Paris, I forget what vantage point I took it from! 2: Bishop Allen @ the Rickshaw Stop, SF 3: Some place in Noe Valley, SF 4: Dog in the window, Noe Valley, SF 5: My knitting bin 6: Eastern Market, DC 7: My niece Claire 8: Marina construction site, SF 9: My cat Ben 10: Apartment building, NYC  *Bonus: Jumping photo, DC

TV: This one was more difficult than I thought it would be, but I think I narrowed it down to a good few.
1. Sex and the City: yes, probably along with many girls around my age, but there is something to be said about that. The ups and downs of love, the strong bond of friendship, the trials and tribulations of life all on an amazing NYC backdrop. What more could you ask for? Although the show is very “Hollywood-ized” in many ways, it speaks to my very girly heart.

2. The Wire: pretty much the exact opposite of the previous choice. Brandon and I recently watched all five seasons, and while this didn’t speak to my soul in a tear-jerking way, it is a brilliantly written show that made me think. I wanted to discuss it, talk about the larger real-life issues it brought up. I couldn’t wait for my good friends and parents to watch so we could debrief. This show challenged my perceptions, opened my eyes, and really made me think about my involvement (or lack thereof) in the greater community.

3. So You Think You Can Dance: it helps that dance in general really gets to me–probably more quickly than all other art forms. Dance has the ability to immediately sweep me away, give me goosebumps, and really just pluck at my soul. While it’s definitely not every episode, there have been a few routines that really got to me. I can watch them over and over, reduced to tears every time. Cheesy as it may sound, with these few routines I feel like I witnessed something much bigger than just a performance on a reality dance show.

Music: While I could name bands and songs/lyrics till the cows come home, I’ll try and keep it to 3, relating to different phases of my life.
1. Dave Matthews Band: in high school and into college, I would put on Dave and regardless of my mood I could find a song that spoke to me at that very moment. Whether I was happy, sad, lonely, full of love, Dave was always there, able to sing exactly what I felt.

2. Coldplay: Coldplay swept me through many college days, particularly riding the metro in Paris. Their album “A Rush of Blood to the Head” has sort of a movie soundtrack-like quality to it. I always sort of felt like I was detached from the world when I would throw on my headphones and wander around Paris with Coldplay being piped into my ears. It was the perfect melancholy for my mood on those beautiful and slightly sad grey European days. Listen to the song “Amsterdam” if you’ve ever been to the city–somehow you can feel Amsterdam, even though they never once refer to the city or anything about it (the song was named because they wrote the song there, not because it’s about Amsterdam).

3. Bright Eyes: Ooh Conor Oberst, how you speak to my sad-loving side. For some reason with music I tend to really love the gut-wrenching, self-loathing, heart-broken songs. My friend Sara even suggested a t-shirt she found that says “Sad Songs Make Me Happy” because of this strange characteristic. His early albums totally portray the dark, broken boy that a girl like me would want to fix. My favorite album has to be “I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning” with every song pretty much getting me in some way or another. Brandon and I even had one of his songs sung at our wedding (First Day of My Life).  Just look up the lyrics (or listen to) a few songs like Lua and Land-Locked Blues and you’ll perhaps see what I mean.

Thanks to Kelly for this idea!  Who wants to go next?