I’m still alive and well… just a bit of writers block lately. That tends to happen when work gets busy and family life is low key. Here are a few pretty pictures from the past two weeks.
Pretty Pictures
08/12/2014
Leave a Comment » | 
Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation, Family, Family: Chickens, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: phone photography, photography, photos, pretty | 
Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Eggs!
07/24/2014At 5 months old, our first hen started to lay eggs! Meringue the Rhode Island Red (dark brown one pictured below) is our first layer. She started on 7/7/14 while we were on vacation. We missed the thrill of finding the first one in the nest box but my mom collected them each day and saved them for us. They’re a bit small to start out so we waited until the 9th day when we had 8 eggs (before she laid the 9th) and we all enjoyed a wonderful fried egg breakfast. Meringue has laid a perfect, beautiful, small brown egg every day without fail for the past 17 days. It’s bizarre and wonderful to eat eggs that were collected from our own backyard. I joyfully discovered our first two-egg day, which was almost as exciting as the first egg. Sunny S.U. the Buff Orpington (gold one pictured below), my favorite hen, was our second layer starting on 7/19/14. I’m really proud of my chickens and I’m excited for the others to start laying, too. Within a month Poach and Custard (black and orange ones below), the Black Star and Production Red, should start laying. By the end of October we might be getting half a dozen eggs per day, which is good because our family can easily eat half a dozen eggs in one breakfast. The plan is to have plenty to share with friends and neighbors though.
Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: Cooking, Art: God's creation, Family, Family: Chickens | Tagged: backyard chickens, chickens, eggs, first eggs, fresh eggs, hens, urban chicken keeping | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Naples, Florida Family Vacation July 2014
07/22/2014The real reason I didn’t write any blog posts for 2 weeks is because we left for vacation a couple days after Firefly left and there was a lot to catch up on at home and work when we got back. Jason and I love to vacation in Naples, Florida. I think we’ve gone 4 times in the past 5 years. This was the first time Ali has been there, though. She’s been to the beach before but this time she was old enough to really enjoy it and play in the sand and water. She’s a little fish and the Gulf in South Florida is warm, clear and gentle. We stayed in Foxfire Country Club in a condo that happened to have a bunch of really cool mid-century modern teak furniture. The pool was warm and we usually had it all to ourselves. Ali did awesome on the 12-14 hour car ride both ways. She’s a pro traveler. We used our DVD player for the first time. On the way to Florida she watched Frozen 4.5 times! Once there we saw so much native wildlife, mostly found by or spotted by Jason. He caught 5 large 9-point starfish out in the ocean. He also found 2 live sand dollars. We released all of them after admiring them. We also saw dolphins, manatees, sting rays (I stepped on one that didn’t have a tail. Phew!) and tons of little lizards in the wild. We visited the Everglades Wonder Garden and saw captive alligators, parrots, macaws, turtles and tortoises, butterflies, flamingos and lots of other birds and reptiles. We ate so much good seafood, saw gorgeous sunsets and had lots of time to play and have fun together as a family of three. We had our vacation planned long before Firefly joined our family but God must have known that it’s timing would perfect for our family to escape the painful realities at home and reset.
Ready for the photo overload?
Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: God's creation, Art: mid-century design, Family, Family: Jason, Family: Me, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: beach, Family, Florida, Naples, sunset, vacation | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
11th Anniversary Squirrel Buster
06/26/2014We celebrated BIG last anniversary with a trip to Naples and Key West for 10 days, including snorkeling in a coral reef—the highlight of the trip. Father’s Day, our anniversary, my (30th!) birthday all fall within 5 days of each other. Combine that with newborn baby induced sleep-depravation and schedule-juggling and… This year I ordered a bird feeder. To celebrate our 11 years of blissful matrimony, we have a Brome 1015 Squirrel Buster Classic hanging outside our living room window. (Using this bracket.) It really is a gift to both of us, our whole family, as we’ve already been seeing lots of birds frequenting the feeder and we can see it from the dining room table and from the living room (where I’ve been sitting a lot to feed Firefly.)
It’s pretty cool how this works. It has a spring mechanism that closes up all the feed openings if a squirrel-weight animal clings to it. But for bird-weight animals, there are several openings for seeds. The birds are dropping a lot on the ground, though, so the squirrels are still happy.
1 Comment | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation, Art: modern design, Family | Tagged: anniversary, bird feeder, home, squirrel buster | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Peace
04/14/2014For the first time in as long as I can remember we didn’t have any plans for the weekend—nowhere we had to be. Saturday was absolutely gorgeous and we spent the entire day outside: cleaning the chicken coop, planting plants, running around with Ali, cleaning out the garage. Sore muscles and sunburns but it was worth it, so refreshing and relaxing, just the three of us breathing deep and living our lives, going on. The judge’s pending decision pops back into my mind all the time but I shush the anxious thoughts and do my best to just be. To keep moving forward.
Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation, Faith, Family | Tagged: Family, joy, patience, peace, rest, saturday, wait | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Snow Day – December 10, 2013
12/24/2013I’m not a fan of snow and cold—I’m still bitter from all those years living in the snow belt in NW Pennsylvania—but who could resist the joy and wonder of a toddler exploring the freshly fallen snow? This stuff is pretty rare down in Nashville so I bundled her up and we headed out to play before breakfast.
Ali’s reaction to tasting an icicle: “Mmm…tastes like popsicles from the ‘frigerator!”
And then by the afternoon it was all melted. Thank God!
I’ll be away for the next week or so enjoying the holidays with my people. Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: God's creation, Family, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: alianna, snow, snow day, winter | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
It’s November and I’m Back
11/04/2013I’m back to blogging. I think. Taking a month off has forced me to reevaluate my frequency of blogging and realizing I could take some pressure off of myself. For years I’ve pushed myself to post 5x a week. I really enjoy blogging but at the end of the day after working full time, being a wife and mom, fostering (again soon), doing freelance…sometimes it starts to feel like another chore to tick off my to do list.
Reflecting on my most recent post, we haven’t sold our old car yet, we didn’t end up doing respite (only had one request and Jason was out of town), and I’m still not sure what I want to do with the rest of my life. However we did take Alianna to Dollywood and it was a blast. The month of October also included a lot of rest, prayer, preparations to our next foster kid’s bedroom, meals cooked and stocked in the freezer, reading, and time well spent with friends and family. I’ll be posting some pictures of specific adventures from October but for now, here is a little photo summary.
In foster care news, we’ve started receiving calls for placement #4 and by “calls” I mean we got one call last Tuesday for a teenager. I said no. We had planned to wait to reopen our home until Buzz is officially out of state care but our worker said we needed to open sooner because they have a shortage of homes. I’m kind of surprised we haven’t had more calls but I’m honestly in no hurry. Life is easy, sweet and comfortable right now. I trust in God’s timing and I know He has something specific planned for us, and a specific child He wants us to open our home and hearts to next. Buzz’s exit hearing was moved back to mid-November but everything is still looking great for him to be officially back in his mom’s custody, where he’s been living since he left our home at the beginning of August. I’m so happy that we’ve been able to stay in touch and stay friends. We text back and forth often and have gotten together twice so far. We’re planning a celebratory dinner the night after his exit hearing.
2 Comments | Art, Art: God's creation, Faith, Family, Family: Foster Parenting, Family: Me | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
At the Nashville Zoo
08/05/2013One morning last month had the chance to take my little punkin to the Nashville Zoo (my first time, her third time) and it was so fun! She loves animals and has a general zest for life so it was exciting for me to see her reactions to everything. In general I just love hanging out with her; she’s so cool! My sister-in-law got us in as guests with my niece Eliza and a friend. We also met up with Ali’s friend JeeJee (Jaron) for a little bit.
Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: God's creation, Family, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: Ali, animals, kids, Nashville, parenting, toddler, zoo | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Good Morning from the Sunshine State
07/08/2013
I had planned to schedule a bunch of posts for this week but with Jason and Buzz sick last week and the holiday, time just got away from me. So know you get to know: Jason and I are in Florida this week. Since before Buzz arrived (at the beginning of May) we had been planning a getaway to celebrate our 10th Anniversary. We’re not big on celebrating milestones with “stuff” like cards or gifts but we always set aside some time for a dinner date. We did that this year too and it was painfully clear that 2 hours away from the toddlers was not enough time to catch up, and definitely not enough time to rest and relax.
A kid-less vacation was what we needed. Four days into our vacation and we already feel like its been SO refreshing! We had dinner at the Columbia in Sarasota, spent the weekend in Naples, Fl (our favorite) and this morning we’re heading to Key West – somewhere new to us.
My mama always told me that the best gift you can give your kids is to love your spouse well.
1 Comment | Art, Art: God's creation, Family, Family: Jason, Family: Me | Tagged: anniversary, Florida, getaway, vacation | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Weekend Part 1
06/17/2013After Buzz’s long nap on Friday afternoon, I took him and Ali for a swim at my parents’ house and then we ate pizza and my parents treated us an exhibit at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens called Night Lights by Bruce Munro. I got so many great photos of Buzz, but of course I can’t share them here.
Saturday morning our original plan for a visit with his mom had to change last minute because the splash park we were going to meet at was closed. Like Ali’s post-pigtails bed head?
I told her I needed to go to Target and we ended up meeting there and doing our shopping together. It felt like hanging out with a friend. She was so sweet and got Ali and Buzz matching outfits at Old Navy before we met.
I am so thankful for her kindness and patience, for how much she loves her son and for how hard she is fighting to get him back. He’s one blessed little dude to have his mama working so hard to get him back.
And then, of course, we went swimming again.
Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: God's creation, Art: modern design, Family, Family: Buzz, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: Ali, Art, buzz, Family, garden, grandma, grandpa, lights, swim, weekend | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
myMCMlife.com 