A is for Ames

Birthdays have been on my mind. Tate's fifth birthday is coming up in a few months and he has been vacillating between a dinosaur party, a space party, a ghost party (?!?!?) and a trip to the zoo. I feel like I have to plan ahead because spring around the Holmboe household is a virtual gauntlet of celebrations. It all starts with Valentine's Day, which is one of my favorite holidays (I know, I know, but I just can't help it!) Shortly after that I start thinking dyed eggs and Easter baskets. Five days after Easter is Tate's birthday. Next comes Mother's Day. Ames' birthday is a few weeks later, with mine following less than a week after that. Zach's birthday is 18 days after mine, with Father's Day conveniently located just two days earlier.

Whew. 

If I don't start planning early, I feel like I get caught off guard, and I want to feel like I have the bandwidth to focus as much on the events at the end as I do at the beginning (poor Zach always gets the short end of the stick). So I am trying to start thinking early.

Predictably, I am thinking cake.

We celebrated Ames' first birthday last year and I had so much fun with his cake. It featured a super (super super super!) easy and cheap cake topper. A big letter "A" made out of wood from Michael's. White glue. Lots of sprinkles. Skewers. Piles of whipped cream and fresh strawberries.

I think it was really high impact without taking a ton of planning, and it felt so happy to me. Much like Ames himself, really.

I am having so much fun trying to decide what the cakes will be like this year! I love finding ways to make birthdays extra-special. How should the cakes do that this year? Any ideas? 

On Technology

I have such a complicated relationship with technology. In many ways, I am a Luddite. Zach still doesn't have a cell phone and I am known to go days without charging mine. Ask anyone who texts me and they will tell you I am unlikely to text back. And yet I love what technology does for our creative communities. I love that I can read (and write) blog posts, and Pin, and Skype with my mom and dad all the way in California, and that technology helps our world feel so much more connected. 

But sometimes it feels like technology makes us feel so much less connected, doesn't it? 

I experienced that while traveling this weekend. Due to weather, I missed my connection and had a few hours to kill in the airport. The restaurant I had breakfast at had two iPads installed at every table, and those iPads were used for every part of my dining experience- ordering, paying (I swiped my own credit card at my table), sending myself a receipt via email, and staying up-to-date about my flight status.

There were some things about this that were awesome. I got to give my preference for half-and-half in my coffee instead of milk. I don't have to worry about not losing my receipt for my expense report for work. I wasn't forced to chit-chat with my server.

But.

I couldn't help but feel like all this convenience came at a cost, and one that I'm not sure I am completely comfortable with. Here's the thing- the iPads were positioned in such a way that if I had been having breakfast with Zach, it would have been difficult to see over them to have a conversation. And if the boys had been there, the iPads would have been impossibly tempting; it would have been tantrum-inducing for us to try to enforce our "no screens at the table" family rule. And as I looked around, it was clear that the iPads were contributing to an overly hushed quality among the diners, where people weren't talking to each other or even the servers. In some ways, it felt like the technology was intruding on the dining experience. And the even sadder fact was that the restaurant-supplied iPads clearly had no impact on whether or not diners were still accessing their own technology devices; most of the other diners, even those with traveling companions, were also scrolling through their own phones or devices. 

What are your thoughts on all the ways technology is creeping into our lives? Are you an early adopter, with your emails pinging in on your watch? Or have you rejected technology completely? I like to think that we are pretty balanced, but I struggle with what that balance looks like. I want the boys to be exposed to and enjoy what technology can do for us. I love watching Tate ask Zach to pull up Google Earth. At the same time, I want them to know how to linger leisurely over a cup of coffee if you miss your flight, reading a good book or having an unexpected conversation with your friend or waiter. How do you strike this balance in your life and family? Any tips?

Freezing (literally)

By Janelle.

Today was so cold. -20 degrees when we woke up. I think I spent less than 10 minutes total outside today. Needless to say, Mesa was the only one who truly enjoyed it.

That said, the boys were pretty adorable too.

We started the day with a 2-hour delay for Zach, hot coffee, and warm (but messy!) oatmeal for the boys.

Bundling up was absolutely necessary.

Coincidentally, I leave tomorrow for Florida for a conference. So strange to be packing warm-weather clothes in the midst of an arctic blast. 

Adult Dating

By Janelle.

Zach and I had lived here in Western Mass for over a year before we looked at each other and realized that we had not been out alone once since we moved here.

I know. Unbelievable, right? Over a year without a date?

But here's the thing. It happened so easily. In fact, it is almost scary how easily this happened to us, in large part because of the following:

• We were running short on fun money (the move was really expensive and left us feeling a little strapped, not to mention the craziness of daycare costs).
• Far (far far far) from any friends or family. When we moved here, we didn't know anyone. Not a single, solitary person. No old college friends lived here. No distant family. So it was incredibly isolating. Which leads me to the fact that we were...
• Trying to make new friends. Anytime we actually made the effort to try to find a baby-sitter, it was because we had been invited to a social event and we were trying to make new friends. This led to some fun nights out, but never time alone, something I think is so, so important.
• (and speaking of babysitters) It is really hard to trust a potential baby-sitter when you have no connection to them. Lack of sitters made us feel like we had few options for going out and not spending the whole night worried.
• Plus, the lonely and scary feelings associated with the move made us hunker down as a family, so we were just never without Tate. I felt like we sort of barricaded our little family up in an effort to feel centered. This was nice, in a way, but over time, became too much.

So suffice it to say, our marriage suffered. Without any true alone time together, there were a lot of moments when I felt disconnected from Zach, sort of slowly spinning in my own orbit of Western-Massachusetts-hating-misery. Added to that was the guilt I felt about the move (we moved because of my job), and I felt incredibly alone.

The last year, happily, has been so much better. But I still reflect often on how hard the first two years here were, and work hard to make a conscious effort to prioritize time alone with Zach. That time comes in strange ways now- a late-night glass of prosecco after the kids have gone to bed or 5:00 a.m. oatmeal before work. Our alone time is infrequent but I think we are doing a much better job with it more recently.

And then. The weekend before Christmas a dear friend came to visit, and she gifted us with a date-night. Stayed home watching the boys while we went out. We had a long meal. Good wine. Conversation. I learned Zach's feelings on so many things. I knew that he had thoughts about more than just who was going to pick the kids up from school, but it was amazing to get to really listen, to discuss big issues like policing in the United States, or silly things like the most recent episode of Parks and Rec. And by the end of the night, I was so completely smitten with my husband. I felt giddy. I spent the next week texting him randomly throughout the day, teen-girl texts about how much I missed him, or that I was thinking about his smile, or that I couldn't wait to see him when I got home. 

It was such a powerful reminder of the importance of connection outside the hum-drum ordinariness of our days. 

Z and I have already talked about how we're going to keep this momentum going. Any suggestions? Ways to make more time for each other in a busy life?

Artifact Uprising

By Janelle.

You guys. Now that I am back to O Chickadee, I am completely overwhelmed with what to talk about next. I have two years of amazing things stocked up to share with you! How to choose?! This feels like an impossible task. But choose we must.

So. We have to talk about Artifact Uprising. I knew that this year, I wanted to start creating photo albums of the year, featuring the boys. But despite my long-time love of Nations Photo Lab for high-quality photography prints, I had not yet found a source for a photo album that had a look and feel I loved. Too many plastic-ey printed covers. Too many thin pages. Too shiny a finish. So when I stumbled across Artifact Uprising's website, with their thick paper, linen covers with gorgeous photo sleeves, and matte finishes, I decided to give them a try. I ordered one album just to see if I liked the quality in person as much as I did online. I called it The Life of the Boys 2013, knowing that if I liked the quality, I could do the 2014 version next.

I can't even begin to tell you how pleased I was with the quality of the book! It exceeded every expectation I had- the linen cover, the soft jacket, the quality of the printing, the overall lack of shine... I was thrilled!

Add to it the fact that they have a commitment to our environment and had outstanding customer service (I had a minor problem and they replaced my album lickety-split, with no hassle and a completely friendly demeanor), and I was one happy camper.

They have so many other things to love too. Next up on my list (following my soon-to-be-placed order of The Life of the Boys 2014, of course), are the wooden wall calendar, the postcard pack, and the wood block + print.

What do you think? Is Artifact Uprising your style? Or do you like a shinier, brighter quality to your photo albums?

A New Year

It has been two years since I've been to this space. A lot has happened in two years. Last we talked, our entire family had just relocated to Massachusetts, frantically packing and organizing and setting off on a new adventure. And what a journey it has been. We moved, sight unseen, into a new house, simultaneously becoming renters and renting our own home in Oregon at the same time. We learned that moving a Newfoundland across the country is really (really!) complicated.  We welcomed our sweet baby Ames to the family (having two boys is the best!). And (if I'm being completely honest), really, really struggled to adapt to our new, East coast life.

The whirlwind of something new has such a way of carrying us, doesn't it? All the build-up to the move was so exciting, such a flurry. But then we got here, and we got here in November. I still remember the first night- none of our belongings had arrived yet, there had just been what I now know was an epic October snowstorm (but which, at the time, I assumed was normal for the East coast), and Zach, Tate and I sat in a cold, dark, empty living room with no food, blankets or beds. And a kind neighbor, knowing we had just moved in, brought us over a rotisserie chicken and some mashed potatoes. And because we didn't have any silverware, we made do- using our credit cards to scoop little bites of mashed potatoes into Tate's mouth, like feeding a hungry little bird.

This so reflects how I feel this entire transition has been. Moments of incredibly uncertainty and loneliness and darkness, momentarily illuminated by moments of kindness.

Only now am I beginning to feel like myself again, which is why I felt like now was a good time to get back to this again. To sharing our lives through O Chickadee, and to finding beautiful things, and looking around at my life through the lens of appreciation and gratefulness that I think I lost for the past few years as I struggled to just tread water. I don't know that I was capable of that before now- I felt too sad for all we had lost, all I naively thought we had left behind. But now, it feels like I'm coming out of a fog, and able to realize that here, I had what I needed most all along. My boys.

drawn by Tate, December 2014. In his own words: "this is our whole family at the beach, and Daddy is helping me dig a hole in the sand."

So stay tuned! I know that 2015 is going to be an incredible year for the Holmboe's.

P.S. I wrote this post 3 days ago. Three days! And I haven't been able to push "publish". It feels so real then, doesn't it?

Doesn't the Audrey Hepburn print pictured above make you happy? Me too. The moment I saw it I knew I had to have it. It's available here and is even prettier in person.

In Appreciation

In appreciation of good husbands everywhere. Wow. After spending the last few days home sick, I have NO idea how I could possibly be a parent without Zach. He is amazing.