CEEEELLLLOOOO!

It was hard but Gabriel let Oliver and I go just for a few days to head back to our home away from home in Celo. It just would have been heart breaking if Oliver's first summer had come and gone without being baptized in the waters of the South Toe, bottle fedding the baby goats, picking blueberries on the edge of Roan Mountain, having dinner at the Knife and Fork, and having dinner on grandma's porch, in the house that his dad grew up in, with the crickets chirping while gazing at Mt Mitchell. Sigh....Once again, Celo just hits the home run as the most wonderful place on Earth.

Sampling blueberries for the first time








Flowers from grandma's garden


Auntie Em and Uncle Alex


Meeting new life


Napping by the river with 9 week old Shaw and Gray








Crawling to grandpa Bruce


Giggles with grandma Marilyn


Many trips were made to the washer and dryer which are right at Oliver height and right outside of our bedroom




More river time with grandmas



Oliver loved riding back up the driveway from the river in the back with no car seat.






He was also a big fan of grandpa's iPad





Becoming the new face of Mountain Farm yarn

The wild flowers on my mom's hillside were just amazing.

Non Baby post: Pretzels

Ha ha! A non baby post! I do have other things going on in my life....occasionally....

For the month of February Gabriel was gone doing a wilderness medicine rotation in the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee. We saw him two weekends up in Celo. The month apart wasn't quite as hard as I thought it would be but that is also because I was rescued by my mother who spent three weeks helping me to take care of Oliver and myself. We spent a week of that in Chapel Hill and the last two weeks up in Celo.

Poor Gabriel. He works so hard at work and I know he has so much to do for school when he gets home but between his own wishes and the maintenance of my own sanity and our marriage he spends most of his time at home playing with Oliver and helping me out. He has had some adorable little tokens of love which I have accepted as peace offerings for his time away. He has done a lot of cooking, bringing of flowers and letting me take off for yoga classes or other things on my own. One of the strange cooking streaks he has been on has been baking. Candied almonds, biscotti, and soft pretzels. The pretzels were kind of extraordinary. Real proper pretzels which were poached and then baked. So delicious. It was a recipe from the New York Times Sunday Magazine which my mom intended to make but she asked us to get them started for her because of all of the rising etc...but once Gabriel got started he became wildly possessive and possessed and wouldn't let anyone else near. Very sweet. Goes great with the family's secret mustard recipe! I keep trying to tell people how amazing these were and no one seems to get it so here are the photos to prove it.

McDowells come to town

Thank you also to my dad, Carolyn and Addie for coming across country to see what the heck we do all day out here in North Carolina. Thanks for letting us put you to work with projects like refinishing our wood furniture and making blackberry jam. Love you guys!

Noelle and Annie come to visit!

I didn't get a lot of photos when my friend Noelle and her cutie miss Annie came up to the farm but I did get a couple of keepers. Fun to share our blueberry picking and crazy baby goats and bunnies. Thanks for making the trip Noelle!

Celo Baby Shower

Thank you to my mother in-law Marilyn who organized a baby shower for me in Celo. Even though we don't live there it is still such an important and supportive family of people to us. It is so special how many people have known Gabriel his whole life and it is so exciting to see so many of his peers from childhood now also having children of their own. The shower was over the 4th of July weekend which was while my dad, Carolyn and Addie were still in NC so it was fun for them to meet the greater Celo family.

My dad is never afraid to be surrounded by a bunch of women.






Mimi and Jerricho who was born at the end of March. Love you guys!




Gabriel and his knife getting ready for present opening



Gabriel and the frog try on the Baby Becco





This face and the laughter that was the laughs so hard it hurts brand was due to the present gifted in the photo above this one. We were given a set of Pee Pee Tee Pees. Things I guess that come in handy when you have a baby boy. The instructions on the label read "place the pee pee tee pee on the wee wee." Totally laugh worthy.




The lovely sweater knit by Sarah House pictured in tye dye above.



I had to put this photo in because of the expression on my dear sister in-law Emily who is in the right side of the photo hiding her face in shame because she just couldn't control herself buying the most adorable things for her first nephew.



Gabriel taste testing the cutest little hoodie from Emily that is made out of soy.