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Stranger Friends near Eiffel Tower

DenaSeptember 22, 2010

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Welcome

Welcome to Live, Love, Simple. This is our little corner of the world. We are so grateful to have you here. We are a blended family of 6! This is our story of family life, faith + grace, heart-centered living, suburban homesteading, and all of the magic + madness that happens in between. Thanks for stopping by.

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Local friends! Come see us today at The Wanaque To

Local friends! Come see us today at The Wanaque Town Picnic. We will have our autumn honey harvest for sale. 🍯 🐝🍂✨🌼 Sale starts @ 2:00 p.m. and goes until we sell out!

I cannot tell you how much I love this photo. Firs

I cannot tell you how much I love this photo. First off, who doesn’t love a little burrito baby? 🌯🥰 But the real reason I love it is because it was the first picture I got of Jonah where his eyes were perfectly clear. You see, a few days after we got home from the hospital, Jonah developed clogged tear ducts.

For the first 7 weeks of his life, his eyes were constantly tearing, crusty, and producing gunk. This is relatively common for newborns apparently, but it was devastating for me to see my baby uncomfortable. It was excruciating at times even though he was always okay, just uncomfortable. My heart wrenched every day because the worst thing in the world to me is to see my babies uncomfortable. I would do anything in this world to keep them comfortable, happy and healthy. But with clogged tear ducts there is nothing you can do except wait for it to clear up and if it doesn’t clear, surgery is an option once they are one-year-old.

We were always cleaning his eyes and massaging his tear ducts and that was incredibly uncomfortable for him, too. It truly broke my heart every day. But it was also an important lesson in letting go and accepting God’s plan for our family. It made me so aware of how fragile my children truly are and how much I must cherish their health. It made me think of the mamas whose babies face serious chronic health issues or dangerous disease. It’s a suffering that I cannot imagine.

Having my tiny baby go through this ordeal truly put things into perspective for me. By the grace of God, his eyes finally began to clear up about a week ago and the last week or so they have been doing great. There is still a little discharge from time to time, but it’s nothing like it was. I’d say it’s 90% better. Praise God! It’s been so nice to see my sweet boy with clear eyes and not having to bother him with those awful eye-cleanings throughout the days and nights.

I pray that he stays well and that experience is behind us. 💛🙏🏻

My beautiful “big” girls. These two never ceas

My beautiful “big” girls. These two never cease to amaze me with how smart & sweet they are. Both girls were the babies of the family up until the twins came along. (The girls are just 8 weeks apart.) I didn’t know how either of them would adjust to becoming big sisters, but they have both fallen into the role beautifully! They absolutely love being big sisters and they adore their baby twins. They are so happy to help in any way that they can. I am so grateful for these girls & all of the joy that they bring to our family. 💛🌼✨

First, let me say that I am as guilty as anyone el

First, let me say that I am as guilty as anyone else of glorifying my busy at times. For some reason in this society, especially women, we glorify our busy.

We wear it as a badge of honor. Through smiles painted on beneath empty, dead eyes we talk about how “busy” we are. At the school pick up line, at sports practices, on playgrounds, in the supermarket. We run into someone and soon it becomes an unintentional pissing match about who is the busiest.

Honestly I used to play this game with the best of them. I stayed busy. Packed my schedule with all sorts of things. I overcommitted myself and over extended myself like it was my job. I was busy and I was proud.

But.

I was also empty.

For all of that busyness, I was hollow. I was running around because I thought that I should be. I thought I was making someone happy or accomplishing something important. But when I look back on it, “being busy” is all that it ever was. Nothing more.

It wasn’t until I slowed down, until I stripped away everything that wasn’t truly good or beautiful or fulfilling—that the emptiness started to leave me.

You see, the less that I do, the more that I am. The more clear my schedule is, the more time I have to just truly be. To listen to my body. To listen to my children. To listen to the earth. To listen to my friends. When we are still, we can listen. We can breathe. We can grow.

I will never be the mother who _________. Fill in the blank with any of the things that the cult of busy worships. No, I will never be that mom.

But I will be the mother who is present; who slows down; who makes time to listen to her children’s hearts—and just as importantly, who listens to her own.

I admire the cult of busy. I give so much credit to those who are willing to jump on that treadmill and run themselves into the damned ground. But it’s not me. I invite you to ask yourself if it’s you.

There is more to life than busy. It’s okay to embrace slowness, too. There is no shame in that. It is, perhaps, in slowness where we remember.

“Slowness remembers, hurry forgets. Softness remembers, hardness forgets. Surrender remembers, fear forgets." —Mark Nepo ✨

There is so much that I want to say about our brea

There is so much that I want to say about our breastfeeding journey so far! It has truly been a rollercoaster and absolutely nothing like my experiences with my first two children. Those first experiences were beyond “easy” when it came to breastfeeding. My milk came in, my babies were huge little chunkers and neither took a bottle, ever. Fast-forward to this time around and it’s been quite the opposite. My milk never came in, well at least not in abundance. I simply never made enough milk to support them. The babies needed formula and for their first 6 weeks they were mostly formula fed. It wasn’t until just recently, when my husband went back to work, that my milk really started to come in! I don’t know what exactly caused the transition, but I’m grateful for it. A few weeks ago I thought my breastfeeding days were just about over. And now the babies are nursing consistently! They don’t even get bottles in the night. There are a few things that I’ve been doing differently since the improvement and I’ll share those soon in case my experience may be helpful to others. 🤍 #fedisbest #twinmom #twinpregnancy #freethenipple #freethenipplemovement #mindfulmotherhood #seasonedmotherhood

My heart is overflowing with joy because today is

My heart is overflowing with joy because today is the day that I begin a new chapter—a season of sharing my 𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕗𝕦𝕝𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕤 journey with you & inviting you to join me. ⁠
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Through my life, mindfulness has come and gone. I've gone through periods where I was incredibly mindful. Those seasons were marked with wellness, joy, abundance, and peace. And I've gone through seasons where I wasn't mindful at all. Those seasons were marked with sickness, loss, fear, and depression.⁠
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I've learned that mindfulness is a key. When we are mindful—when we focus on the present and experience our thoughts, feelings, and sensations without judging them—then we are truly alive. We can overcome the inevitable adversity that life throws our way and we can enjoy the present moment for exactly what it is, whatever that may be.⁠
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In the coming weeks, I will be sharing everything that I have learned about mindfulness with you here. I am often asked, "How?" . . . How did you overcome debilitating anxiety & depression? How did you find lasting health & fitness? How did you only gain 35 pounds with twins? How did you lose all of your baby weight within two weeks after your twin pregnancy? How do you maintain a positive attitude after all that you have been through? And so on...⁠
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The answers to all of these questions is the same: 𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕗𝕦𝕝𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕤. I can't wait to share more on this profound topic with you and to answer more on the questions that I mentioned above. I want to show you how mindfulness can help you overcome anything that you may be struggling with. Thank you for being on this journey with me. 🖤

Happy Autumn Equinox, sweet friends! 🧡🍂✨ I

Happy Autumn Equinox, sweet friends! 🧡🍂✨ I cannot express how happy I am to be here, at the start of my very favorite season. So much is changing for me right now. After a very difficult season, the tides are changing. Of course this season has its own set of challenges. Newborn twin mama life is not a walk in the park! But these are the days that I spent 9 months praying for. Beautiful, healthy, (sometimes) happy babies. The rest of the kids have settled back into the school routine nicely. After 2 years of pandemic turbulence, things are back to normal at school, except for the awful masks, but I won’t go there right now. On the whole, things are good—really good. I am entering into new chapters personally & professionally as well. I will share much (MUCH!) more about these things soon. But let’s just say that the theme for the coming season of my life is 𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕗𝕦𝕝𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕤. I cannot wait to share all about it with you very, very soon. In the meantime, I have a huge favor to ask of you, friends. Can you tell me in the comments, what is the one area of your life that you are struggling with the most right now? I’ll go first. Mine is: feeling like there’s not enough time in the day. Now it’s your turn. Please tell me in the comments or in a private message— What is your biggest struggle right now?

Some days you are going to forget how to be happy,

Some days you are going to forget how to be happy, the way that you can forget a language if you do not speak it often enough. At first, it will leave you slowly—you’ll forget little things; and then one day it will fade away, all at once, leaving only traces behind. You will forget how it feels to really smile, only knowing forced grimaces that you squeeze out to be polite. You will forget how it feels to laugh into the hollows of your belly so that joy flushes through you making you feel warm and alive. Hope will feel like a distant memory and grief will consume you. You will mourn everything that you once were. • • • But then, one day, when you least expect it… happiness will return. Something small will press deeply into your chest and you will feel a light turn on inside you. It will be a small flicker at first, but then it will spread through you, the way that ripples spread out across water, farther and farther still. You will be consumed by a happiness so vast that you will think, how can a body withstand this? Joy, joy, unbridled joy. • • • So when you are stuck in the grips of sadness or anger or fear or loneliness—just wait. It is a season, and no season lasts forever. 🍂

The twins are 7-weeks-old today. Some moments it f

The twins are 7-weeks-old today. Some moments it feels like they’ve been here forever & other moments I can’t believe how fast it’s all going. That, I suppose, is motherhood in a nutshell.🌻 #twinmom #twinpregnancy #seasonedmotherhood

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