This week’s challenge at It Begins With a Colour is to capture the precious morning moments that start your day. At this house, the day doesn’t begin without a rousing rendition of Bunny’s Noisy Book. Poppy loves the textured illustrations and all of Mama’s voices and motions. I love sitting behind my little baby, helping her to hold the pages, and sniffing her sweet, soft head as we point and look together. Our day just wouldn’t be complete without a snuggle and our little Bunny friend.

This is Poppy with her Uncle Shawn, my youngest brother. This photo was taken while they were sitting on a blanket in the morning dew on one of the first days of our vacation. Camping is the highlight of summer fun for me, and yet her tiny little sweatshirt merrily indicates the stealthy approach of fall.

Our vacation was lovely, and far too short. A week in the mountains, drenched in the fragrance of campfire, could last forever and ever in my book. Poppy was a real trooper and A+ camper. She slept well at night, ate her food despite it being cold and soggy all the time, and loved being outdoors. She soaked in the crisp mountain air every day like it was the best thing ever, and trooped along trails with us like she was Marty-Freaking-Stouffer.

We visited a petting zoo on Sunday which was a real hoot. Yes, I said REAL HOOT.

You see, back when we got our kitten, we showed Poppy how to call Penny over by patting her hand on her knee and saying “Come here, Penny.” Poppy caught on to this pretty quickly and has since start calling Penny over by banging on her leg and making a sweet, high-pitched noise that somewhat resembles my irritating I’ll-Raise-You-One-Octive-While-Talking-To-Cute-Things voice. When we got to the petting zoo this weekend, Poppy immediately started patting her leg and frantically summoning all the animals from their cages. I do believe the pot-bellied pigs took one look at my Little Bacon Bit and said “Hell with that, kid. Let me eat that handful of corn you got there.” Either way, MAJOR HOOT.

I’m glad to be back home and I feel ready for a new season. Fall in Cleveland is the best. We might have to endure everlasting winters and humid summers, but I can safely say that I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else during these crisp autumn mornings than right here.

This week’s It Begins With a Colour challenge to find the beauty in blur is a tribute to Poppy’s blanket, Lovey. Watching these two together, it’s not hard to capture some very blurry moments. In our recent quest to help Poppy sleep better, we showed her how to snuggle the heck out of this blanket, and now she pretty much makes out with it 24/7. It is so adorable to watch her bury her face in its softness in the early morning. When Poppy gets into bed at night, she grabs for the silky corner and gently rubs it on her cheek, melting me with each and every stroke. Oh how we love you, Lovey.

The nursery’s mobile owls named Frances, Tulip, Kit, Paisley and Spaceball are this week’s It Begins With a Colour challenge to find red. Not hard at all in the bedroom of a child named Poppy. Cheers!

When I discovered that this week’s It Begins With a Colour challenge was to find a mess and capture it, I was beyond delighted. Our house is full of messes, so I knew that it wouldn’t be hard to find just the right one to post for all the INTERNETS! to see. Poppy’s little trail of toys is, by far the most charming of all the messes in this house. Now that she can roll and scoot to and fro, I find traces of her play all over the place and it doesn’t unnerve me one bit. Mostly because these aren’t tiny Lego pieces I am stepping on in the middle of the night yet.

This week’s challenge is capturing happiness.

Happiness swirls all around me when I am dancing in a huge, open studio to the sound of music that moves my body through space and time in both grace and strength.

I was hit with an ironic blow this morning when I read Erin’s It Begins With a Colour challenge for this week.

“Yesterday I watched a small bird, flying very fast, disappear into the canopy of an oak tree. So dense were its leaves that it was impossible to see what happened next, though I can tell you it remained inside. I wondered how the little bird found its opening through the leaves at such a speed, and then managed to gently align its fragile body on the branch it chose to land upon, all within a fraction of a second. Not to mention the impossible to imagine flying maneuvers required: the banking, the curling, the vertical and horizontal stabilizations, the deceleration and landing. Memory? Calculation? Not in that tiny brain. Instinct? Maybe, but how does instinct know which way the branches of a tree have grown when no two are the same? That little bird just knew. It had faith, in spite of not being able to see how things would work out, that if (and only if) it stayed the course the details would be taken care of; that an opening would appear and a twig would be found. In fact, had she slowed down enough to carefully and logically inspect the tree first, the prudent thing to do, she would have lost her lift and fallen to the ground. Kind of like reaching for your dreams. Neither memory, nor calculating, nor instincts are the deciding factors, but faith coupled with action.”

What dreams am I over-thinking? In the wake of yesterday’s thoughts and a provoking conversation with a good friend last night, I am left standing today asking myself why I over-think the simplest of dreams. All that my dreams require is faith, coupled with action. Not precise calculations, not memory, not my faulty instincts. Thank God.

The simplest way to get moving? Move. Let go, and move.

[It Begins with a Colour]

The challenge from Erin at Apples for Poppy Anne this week is to find purple all around. So far, I was lucky to remember the beautiful African violets that are sitting in the window sill in our kitchen. Other than these beauties, I am having a hard time finding purple around the house. Hmmm, maybe it’s time to get outside. Are rainclouds purple?