Celebrating Three Years

Dear Joseph,

I bet what you don't want for your anniversary is a mushy, public letter, so I'll try to keep the mushiness to a minimum. Hey, you know by now you can't win 'em all.

My initial idea was to make this letter something about the "lessons" I've learned in the last three years with you but not much came to mind. It's not that I haven't learned much about marriage and myself and us, but let's be real, it has only been three years--what I hope just scratches the surface of our journey through life together.

What does come to me in reflecting on the last three years is overwhelming  gratitude. It was a good precursor to this day that we got to attend a wedding a couple weeks ago--at the church where we said "I do" ourselves, nonetheless. It was good to hear those vows and think about their significance. 

So here goes my feeble attempt to express those thoughts to you:

I Holli, take you, Joseph, to be my husband.

I'm thankful you said the same thing back to me in 2013 (except you know, wife). You are the perfect match for me in ways I could have never known I'd need in my life.

I promise to be true to you, in good times and in bad,

I am thankful that three years have brought way more good times than bad. I'm thankful for those big moments like the birth of our sweet Gabriel and waiting for the arrival of our little girl, our first house and a couple amazing career choices. I'm thankful for the little moments we've shared, too--almost all our meals together, watching mindless TV shows and lots of laughter. I may not always show it, but I'm even thankful for the not-so-pleasant moments.

In sickness and in health.

Again, I'm thankful three years has brought us way more of the latter than the former. Thank you for taking care of me every time I've been sick, though. I hope we will continue to enjoy good health, but regardless, I will always cherish caring for you in whatever state we are in.

I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.

In you--and from you--I have the family I have always hoped and prayed for since I was a little girl. I have, truly, more than I ever could possibly deserve.

You're my favorite.

Holli

P.S. At least we have something on our blog now. Maybe we should start using it?

5 Ways to Re-Spark Creativity from a Couple Busy Parents

Cartoon by @joseph_melancon 

Sometimes being a parent is crazy inspiring. Your kid develops new skills that ever impress you. He's generally cooperative. You find yourself overwhelmed by just how sweet the snuggles are.

Other times, you find yourself drained, at the end of your rope, relishing the 4.5 seconds you have to go to the bathroom with the door closed because you can pretend to be alone despite the little hands under the door.

The last couple weeks have sort of been like the latter for this Mama & Papa Bear. Little man got sick, which started the domino effect of us getting sick, too. It wasn't the kind of summer vacation we were hoping for, but we did take a minute to count the blessings of being stuck at home and in this together.

STILL, sick kids  and being sick is no fun, and it started this trend of just getting by for a couple of weeks. So when our anticipated July 4th 3-day weekend came, and we were in good health, we were so excited for three days to create and regroup.

Only what happened instead was we realized how out of the groove we were, how uninspired we were. It was that dreaded creative lull, and it got us  pretty whiny.

Luckily, we've managed to climb our way out of this particular valley for the meantime. This wasn't our first experience with a creative drought and it definitely won't be our last.

THAT got us talking with each other about the different things we do to inspire ourselves and reignite our creative flames, and so we thought we'd share just a couple of those.

1. Indulge

You know sometimes when you're body just tells you it's done for the day at 7 p.m. seemingly out of nowhere? Our bodies are good at telling us what they need, and sometimes you just have to give in to a bedtime that doesn't make much sense. The same is true to an extent with creativity. Now there is a fine line here between letting yourself waste all the time you have by watching Netflix, browsing Pinterest and home good stores (Holli) and watching too much YouTube (Joseph) and letting yourself take a needed break. But, sometimes we find that just letting ourselves do whatever we want snaps us out of our funks pretty quickly.

2. Get out of our heads

A creative lull is often caused by either having so many ideas we don't know what to do, so few ideas that we think we're destined to fail or thinking about something so much we have trouble acting on it. The project's too big and daunting or we've built it up too much or something dramatic. All of it involves overthinking, and in these instances it's crucial to just stop the madness. That's when we TRY to get out of our heads by doing some of the more mindless things in life. Cleaning, running (well, not for Joseph who would certainly NOT be inspired by this task), just going to a new place...all these things take our minds off ourselves and sometimes just free our brains up to wander back to where we wanted them to go all along.

3. Get back to our roots

When the going gets tough, it's important to remember exactly WHY you are doing all this. It's not just meaningless; there was someone or something that made you think it was a good idea, and we definitely are the type of people who need reminders of this from time to time. For Joseph, it's reading comics and watching cartoons and for me, it's reading a good book, browsing awesome DIYs and recipes and watching TV shows or movies with compelling stories. Seeing others creating and doing these amazing things definitely pulls at our inner desires to do the same.

4. Work through it

This is the worst, am I right? But sometimes just biting the bullet and doing exactly what you need to be doing, no matter how much you hate it, ends up being the best thing. We both have our daily drawing/writing goals, respectively, and just sticking with those daily commitments is important to keeping the dream alive. Working through it  leads to actually accomplishing something, and that makes the painful (dramatic much?) days not so bad.

5. Remember how short life is

OK, this might sound silly, but as parents, there is nothing like our quickly growing offspring to make us realize how fast time goes. And in the moments where we'd much rather be indulging in some mindless activity rather than making things, it's helpful to just look at our child and remember that things are not slowing down anytime soon. Not wanting to live with regret and not having to tell our kid all the dreams we didn't accomplish are plenty reason to keep going when we'd rather not.

A Couple of Newbs Go House Hunting

Well, we have some news, and you've probably guessed it from the title of this post: We are shopping for our first home. 

The even bigger news is it turns out house hunting is exactly like the TV show. We get to look at three houses with cameras following us and then weigh the pros and cons over coffee. In our next post we'll announce which one is our dream home.

OK, really, though, we've looked at what feels like a million houses (though it's probably like 10-15) and all we've been talking about over coffee is how in the world that show actually works. Well, not ALL we've been talking about but you get it.

This whole process is really exciting but also a little overwhelming and terrifying. The picture above displays our feelings best. 

Since we don't actually have a house to announce or anything just yet, I thought I'd just sort of give an overview of what led us to this point and what we're hoping our final outcome will be (um, besides the obvious, a house).

Talking About Buying a House

We have been discussing buying a house on and off for a couple years now, but it hadn't felt like the right decision until now. Honestly, it's kind of a surprise even to us that now is (potentially) the right time because our conversations always ended with home buying being a much more long-term goal.

We've been in Columbus for about 3 years now, and in our specific 2-bedroom duplex for a year and a half. This house definitely isn't our favorite home we've ever lived in, but it's the perfect amount of space for us and we love a lot of things about it. However, it suddenly feels really small when we have people come visit, and the thing is we WANT people to visit. We want our parents, in particular, to feel like they can come stay comfortably because we want them to be a big part of Gabe's life.

So, several months ago I started looking for a three-bedroom to rent. I looked daily-obsessively-for four months to no avail. (Not that there aren't plenty of places to rent, but we didn't really want to add too much to our current payments. It just didn't feel like the right choice).

At that point, we just decided to let it go for a while. We rearranged our house and did some things to make it a little more roomy in here, and we do feel comfy and happy in our home for sure. Could we stay here longer and be happy? Of course. 

But somehow, in the last couple months, in all our on and off discussion of buying a house, staying in Columbus, raising little man here despite our family being elsewhere, something just clicked for us that maybe we should start exploring the option more seriously. We love this city, love our jobs, the friendships we have made. Doors have been opening for us in crazy ways since we've gotten here. 

And when we asked ourselves if we would be here at least 5-10 more years, we couldn't come up with any reason why not. (Of course, life can lead in all kinds of directions, and we are open to that, too).  I've always said we'd just leave when the doors stopped opening, and I think buying a house doesn't change that answer.

So We're Doing This?

We met with my dear friends at NeighborWorks Columbus and talked about our options before we went through the official pre-approval process. They gave us a little more confidence with that, so we went onto the lender and got all set up to go. 

We've looked at several houses with a realtor and do have at least one we are head-over-heels for but are being really cautious about choosing and about falling in love with a house too quickly or for the wrong reasons.

Anyway, I think I've rambled long enough. We are just taking it all one step at a time, and trying not to get overwhelmed by the 30-year mortgage commitment or the fact that we are NOT handymen in the slightest and just trust that we'll make the right decision for our family.

Clearly, we'll have more updates on this. In the meantime, here's Gabe being really cute. 

The balancing act of a Work at Home Mom

The last couple years have been full of change to say the least. I've gone from full time freelancer to part time employee/freelancer to working two office jobs to working one office job to working one office job from home.

Add to that, getting married, getting pregnant, being a mom and moving to a few different houses along the way and you've got yourself two crazy busy years!

I knew that having a baby would be a huge adjustment in a lot of ways, particularly as a mom who works. We decided before Gabe was born that childcare (at least in a full-time setting) just wasn't what we wanted to do for our family, so I became a work at home mom. (Well first, I was actually a bring the baby to work mom, but I'll talk about that more in a minute).

It's a blessing to be able to do both. And it's crazy beyond anything I ever thought. There are many musings I could throw out on being a work at home mom, like how to balance work and family life, how to make a schedule, how to breath while doing everything. Truth is, I'm still figuring all that out, and have a feeling I will be doing that for a long, long time. (Hey, life's a journey, right?!)

Before the year even started I knew that this would be something I would be learning/struggling with in 2014. That's why "courage" is my word of the year (More on that HERE). You may be thinking...courage is what you think you need to adjust your schedule 100 times a year? Yes, for a control freak who has anxiety issues galore, courage is just what the doctor ordered.

Anyway, this blog is not to talk about courage, but rather, to share a little about the zany work-at-home mom life. My son just turned 8 months old, and some days we are rocking life together and others are oh. so. rocky. Here's a glimpse of how my "schedule" has evolved over the last 8 months:

Gabe is born 2/23/14 in a whirlwind of an event at almost midnight. I recover, enjoy my baby and e-mail my coworkers from my phone. "Hey, I'm not coming in this week because I had a baby!"

Month 1: I check in with work here and there and do some social media updating, but mostly I adjust to mom life, nurse that baby 400 times a day and binge watch all three seasons of Scandal. Oh. My.

Month 2: It's time to be "normal" again I decide. Gabe's healthy. I'm healthy. Let's go back to work. I somehow think it'll be easier to work in an office, so from 9-12 or 1 every day I load up my boy and head to the office. I put that little rugrat on a pillow on my boob and type away. He gets tired of that, and we bounce around the office, walk outside so he doesn't disturb the peace, get him to sleep. Finally! But only on my lap. I muster up a solid hour of productivity in and then surprise, Gabe is ready to be awake again and it's only 10:30.

Month 3: I learn what a Moby wrap is, so all the same stuff as the month 2, but we have slightly more napping success.

Month 4: Surprise! Gabe doesn't JUST want to eat or sleep anymore. And when he does sleep and eat it's not always between 9-12 every morning. And, if he does eat between 9-12 he doesn't do it without a lot of wiggling around. I must be quiet. VERY quiet and still and dark and MAYBE he'll focus long enough then. Maybe. I cut back days going in the office. I switch up hours to afternoons. I cry and decide I just can't do it anymore and it's time to be poor!

Month 5: My coworkers understand and let me become a Work at Home Mom! Everything will be sunshine and butterflies now.

The REAL Month 5-7 (A Day in the Life):
6 a.m.: I attempt to wake up around now to have those few quiet moments before Gabe wakes up, put on clothes, collect my thoughts, pray. I fail 75% of the time on this.

8 a.m.: Gabe wakes up for real this time and usually that signals me to get a move on. I scramble for clothes for me and a clean diaper for Gabe. I put him in the living room with some entertainment and locate coffee. I attempt a morning devotional while chasing Gabe around the room, feeding the dog and eating breakfast. I definitely don't finish my coffee.

9 a.m.: Check in the work world (read e-mails, update social media). Go for a walk/run with the little one OR don't. One of those.

10 a.m.: Come home. Sometimes he's fallen asleep on the walk and I sing praises and quietly attempt the stroller to bed transfer. Usually that doesn't go down, so instead I put him in a highchair or johnny jumper and shower quickly while singing and peeking my head out to keep him calm for just. five. minutes.

11 a.m.: Maybe Gabe's ready for a nap around now. He's rubbing his eyes and whining about everything. I feed him. Bounce him. Try to reason with him. Repeat that a few times and BAM he's out! If I haven't fallen asleep trying to settle Gabe down, I reheat my cup of coffee and work for some amount of time. Sometimes it's hours, usually much less.

12/1 p.m.: Gabe wakes up and eats. Joseph comes home for lunch and I make us some food.

1 p.m.: Joseph's gone. Gabe's wide open. We play and all that stuff for the next few hours. Inside/outside. Sometimes we run some errands, etc.

3-4ish: Nap time again! Usually we both fall asleep here but also it sometimes serves as a window for more work done and coffee reheat #3.

5:30 p.m.: Gabe's up! Dad's home! I start dinner.

6/7 p.m.: We all eat and hang out and do our family thing.

7-9 p.m.: Helloooooo, grumpy-o'clock. This is the two-hour stretch of "I want to go to sleep but I will fight it for the next two hours." Baths happen here. Stories sometimes go down. Joseph and I tag team chasing the baby around while I squeeze in a little work and he draws. And at last, bed time for the baby.

9 p.m.: Sometimes, more coffee happens here. I finally have a stretch of time to work. And usually, I capitalize on it, at least for a couple hours. I also write and work on blogs here when I don't have tons of work left to do or managed to get somethings done during the day.

12-2 a.m.: I decide I should go to bed too, so I don't fail at that 6 a.m. wake up thing.

3 a.m.: Gabe wants to wake up too!

5 a.m.: Definitely Gabe wants to eat.

6 a.m. No, definitely, no. I stayed up way too late.

And that's sorta how my day goes. To sum up, I work when I can. I try to pray and exercise, feed my family and take time to do my personal creative projects all while being an awesome, available wife, mom and employee.

Some days are better than others.

It takes courage for all moms to do what they do, however they do it. To all you work-at-home moms, here's me telling you, telling us, to cut ourselves a little slack. You can't be good at everything every single day, so relax. Do what you can. It will all get done eventually. It always does. Breath. Cry a little. Hug that baby. And have the courage to do it all again the next day!

Happy Mommying!

XOXO-Holli

Wait what?! A Blog Post is Here!

I think it's safe to say our little family had better intentions for this blog when we started it. We still have good intentions, but I guess without actions those don't mean a whole lot, huh?

What are our intentions? Well, at minimum, it'd be nice to keep people updated on our family (you know, you guys who love us and aren't around everyday for our world). We'd love to do videos and family posts and also tell you about our creative projects, our fun home projects and even the cool food we sometimes get to eat (thanks to new recipes and such).

I could give you 100 reasons WHY we don't update our blog regularly: we are busy parents, Joseph works full time, I am a work from home mom (meaning I get my work done around midnight every night), Joseph's working hard on his illustration goals AND he's in a band. I'm writing a book and co-running a blog.

The truth is, everyone in the world is busy, so instead, I'll just say this. Here we are! We're happy, healthy, growing, thriving and just having a plain ole' good time!

Here's a bit of a recap.

4 Month Old Gabe:

I made the best purchase I've ever made: This cowboy hat!

Gabe spent a lot of time in this chair, chillin', watching me do activities. Man, the house was so clean all the time when he was 4 months old because he LOVED this so much!

5 Month Old Gabe:

First family vacation to D.C. and back. Gabe hit many milestones on that trip: learning to roll over, sleeping through the night the first AND last time. Oh, the days.

6 Month Old Gabe:

He doesn't just roll over. He crawls and crawls and crawls! The house is no longer clean and getting "work done," well that's just a cute concept of old. Oh, and two teeth emerge!

7 Month Old Gabe:

He tries to talk and tries to walk! 

I've loved every stage but this one, this is my favorite! I'm sure they'll all just keep getting better and better!

And currently for the family:

Dad is drawing like a pro! Check out his #inktober drawings, where he's doing an ink drawing a day for the month of October.

Mom is loving her jobs and starting to work seriously on her book once again. More on that later!

Fall inspires this family!

XOXO-The Melancons

Dear Gabriel {2 & 3 months}

Dear Gabriel,

First of all, sorry for combining your two and three month letters into one. As you will learn through the years, I get a little behind on projects like these sometimes.

Your life has changed so much in the last two months, and it’s been so fun getting to know you a little more every day. I think you’re having fun, too, because you’re starting to smile! This was the first time I captured one of your heart-melting grins on camera. 

That gorgeous grin has only gotten much bigger. A lot of mornings you wake up with a big smile on your face and it is the best way I could ever imagine waking up. A few mornings ago, you woke up at 4 a.m. not for your usual snack but just to grin for an hour. Your dad and I laughed a lot about that, though, it’d be nice if you did that a tad later, little one!

In the last two months, you have grown so much you look like a whole new baby! I’ve had to shuffle through your clothes so many times already. (and yes, it made me sad!) You’re definitely over 12 pounds now.

So here’s some of what you’ve been up to these last two months:

You had your first bath in the tub! You had a really pesky umbilical cord that took a whole month to fall off, so that’s why we had to wait. Don’t worry, we washed you off before that…but you don’t get into too much that makes you really “dirty.” You have mixed feelings on baths, it seems, but I think you’re growing into them more.

I also started going back to work this month, and you get to come along. You’re the star of the office, for sure! It’s a huge blessing that I work somewhere that I get to take you, but it doesn’t come without some challenges for both of us. Turns out you don’t always want to work in the hours I go to the office.

Luckily, you tried the Moby wrap and like it, so I can wear you around from time to time and keep you close to me. I also use it as a trick to get you to fall asleep when nothing else works. It works every time. 

You were Baptized on Palm Sunday at Holy Family. Your godparents (Nanan and Paran) Becca and Mike (and little baby Vera Grace in Becca’s belly) came all the way from D.C. to experience this with you. You also had your first party in your honor, complete with a photo booth!

Becca was nice enough to take some family photos of us at our house before she left.

This month we went on your first lengthy out of town trip to meet your Uncles Chris and Phillip and your Aunt Lauren and cousins Trenton and Lincoln (and for mom and dad to eat crawfish!) You were a great traveler!

You also met Uncle Sean, Aunt Lynn and our good friend Dominic. And, you had plenty of visitors here this month, too! Our friends  Chelsea, Travis, None Mae and Eden Claire; Greg, David and Andrew; and your Aunt Jade and Uncle Reuben. Everyone loved you!

You are really starting to engage with the world and just enjoy learning about it. Some of your favorite things are just hanging out with me while I cook dinner or fold laundry. My goodness, you really get into laundry, and I’m hopeful when you’re the age to fold clothes you’ll still enjoy it!

You don’t quite grab toys and play with them yet, but you love when we shake your rattle for you. You like playing on your activity mat pretty well if I put you down in the right mood. Mostly, you really love when we talk to you, sing to you and tickle you!

Probably the place you love to be most is outside! You do like car rides, but nothing gets you as calm as a stroller ride, which is good because mom likes walking and running! I put you down on a blanket in the grass the other day and you really loved that, so maybe some summer picnics are in our future. And, you were pretty happy watching your dad play music with Alli & Jon, too :)

You love outside so much, I even have started rocking you to sleep in your bassinet outside to coerce you to take naps. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out as you get older.

You’re a busy baby who seems to like being on the go, so that’s handy for us all.

You really are happy most of the time. In the evenings, though, you get really tired and cranky. We call this time grumpy o’clock. We do our best to keep you calm until you get to bed.

Oh yeah, and you did your first art project for your grandmas...you weren't super thrilled.

What your parents are feeling:

We are incredibly happy! It’s amazing how quickly a day goes by with you and how rewarding it is to see you smile, even on the hardest days we have.

We’re all still adjusting to this whole parent venture and to working and parenting, and it has definitely been challenging and tested me in so many ways! You, Dad and Charley are my heart.

I always knew I wanted to be a mother, but I never imagined how incredible it would be until these last two months, and it was so wonderful to celebrate my first Mother's Day with you! Here's the sweet present your dad made me.

Love, Mom

P.S. Here's you dressed up for a golf tournament for my work. You were the star of the Country Club, for sure! 

P.S.S. Here's what happens when you play with a five-year-old :)

Lately...

Our little family has been pretty active these days! Sweet Gabriel is 2 and a 1/2 months AND weighs 11 pounds. He's becoming more and more alert everyday (except today he's napping like a champ, which is why I have time to write this blog :)

We owe you lots of pictures, and we promise to post them soon, soon, soon!

In the meantime, I wanted to share with you some of what I've been up to. I blog for Almost There (a beautiful corner of the Internet that you should visit), and I've been sharing things going on in our family there lately.

First, I've been really trying to help our family get healthier. Not lose weight (though it'd be swell if some of Gabe's aftermath fell right off, huh?!). Just be healthy all around...no more chemicals, no more things that cause us allergies, no more garbage. Here's a blog about that if you wanna know more.

Also, I posted a little about Gabe's Baptism event and the photo booth we had at his party here. Check out this picture of him looking super solemn.

AND finally, here's a recap of my life since Gabe's been out of the womb, complete with a sneak peek of some family photos I will post stat.

Hope you enjoy!

-Holli