when the weather warms up, we start every weekend with an early morning trip to the farmers market and it’s one of my favorite summer traditions we have started as a family.  greeted by brightly colored produce sitting alluringly atop long tabletops, we eagerly step underneath each and every single tent to sample what they have to offer, making our way through the entire farmers market before deciding which farmers we should buy from.  we listen to farmers discuss their crops for the season, always imagining what it would be like to be one of those farmers waking up before the sun rises to get their produce to the market.  holden runs up and down the aisles, eager to bite into everything within his reach (regardless of whether the skin is edible or not).  we leave with a large basket full of fresh fruit and vegetables and it seems no matter how much we buy, it’s always devoured within a few hours of arriving home because it’s just that good.

while chasing holden up and down the aisles, i felt people staring.  while the majority of people were clad in black spandex coming straight from a morning workout or in their favorite pair of weekend jeans, i was dressed in stark contrast, the only person there in a brightly colored skirt with tulle poking out from underneath.  as i stopped to buy a basket of cherries, the man beside me complimented me on my skirt saying “women don’t wear dresses anymore.  it’s nice to see a woman looking like a lady.”   i received compliments at every booth we stopped in and a women even took a picture of holden and i waiting on our balloon animal and then asked if she could text it to me because she said we looked so adorable.  it didn’t take me any extra time to throw on the skirt versus my favorite pair of yoga pants (my usual early morning weekend attire) and where i’d usually have a giant pair of sunnies on hoping that nobody recognized me, the skirt made me feel good about myself (altogether forgetting the fact that i didn’t have a chance to put on makeup or run a comb through my hair).  i am grateful for all of the choices that women have in fashion these days, but sometimes, it’s nice to opt for something feminine and girly (or whatever makes you feel good…for me it happens to be giant tulle skirts) for an outing that doesn’t really require it.

]]> http://holdenonbaby.com/2013/05/14/the-farmers-market/feed/ 3 http://holdenonbaby.com/2013/05/10/in-motion/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=in-motion http://holdenonbaby.com/2013/05/10/in-motion/#comments Fri, 10 May 2013 07:33:49 +0000 Isobel http://holdenonbaby.com/?p=5502

in the last week, holden’s vocabulary has just exploded.  suddenly, he is repeating every single thing we say (meaning we need to be extra careful about the things we say which is probably just a good life lesson).  he started saying cool!  and ohhhhh man, but the best words he has started saying are our names.  while daddy and mommy used to be “baba”, last friday he started actually saying daddy and mama and it is probably the most heart melting thing he has done yet.  i’m pretty sure that he could get away with just about anything in the entire world by saying that word.  and even though it’s only been a few days, i can barely remember when he didn’t say it.

over the weekend we headed into our old neighborhood after holden’s nap and spent the late afternoon and evening trekking up and down the steep hills, showing holden all of our old walking routes before stopping at a favorite restaurant for dinner.  holden jumped into every open stoop and doorway he could find, always laying down on his stomach to investigate the ground and search for ants and other miniature bugs.  we bumped into a few friends we haven’t seen in a long time on our walk back to the car which is always a pleasant surprise.  even if it’s just for a couple hours, it’s always fun to get out of our element and let holden explore somewhere new.

holden can make an adventure out of pretty much anything which makes a trip to the grocery store is a million times more exciting than it used to be.  this means that a trip to the shoreline is an island adventure, a pirate searching for buried treasure, a mountain goat scaling cliffs, and a bear searching for strawberries in the grass.  he seems to now fully understand playing make believe and it makes up the majority of our days.

it was hot, hot, hot this weekend so we decided to head towards the ocean for some cooler weather and much needed relief from the heat.  on our drive along the coast, we stumbled across a deserted point where a thin strip of land stretched into the sea.  reaching the end, it felt as though we were the only people on the planet, just us three.  or at least that’s what we imagined.  we skipped rocks into the ocean (holden’s favorite thing to do when there is any body of water in close proximity), we searched for fish and crabs along the shoreline, caught a few ladybugs in the grass before they flew off, and went along with holden’s imagination as he morphed into multiple creatures and personas.  oh how we love stepping inside holden’s mind and being a part of his grand adventures.

holden and his friend, addie, had a photo shoot back in january with the amazing photographer, wendy vonsosen of wendy vonsosen photography (if you are in the bay area she is a must call…i mean, how adorable are these photos?!) and i just had to share some of these amazing shots of the two of them.

also, can we talk about how much older holden is looking from when these photos were taken just a short four months ago?!  right before my eyes.