Threw in the towel on responsibility today! We came home from school, skipped naps, watched Monster’s University, played in the rain and made yummy pizzas. We even skipped homework…The truth is, we all went to bed rosy-cheeked, exhausted and content. Ahhh, it feels so good to let go! So therapeutic, so calming and just so much bonding…

In the morning I got the urge to make a chicken “stew” meaning that I stuck two chicken breasts, various veggies, herbs, spices, chicken stock and diced tomatoes in a slow cooker for about 6 hours. I have got to say, this type of meal can last for a long time and serve several purposes. I can chop up the chicken and add it to the boys’ lunches, I use the tender veggies for Quinny and I can add all of it, or variations of it, to my lunch salads. Lastly, the broth is such a treat, Matty will just suck it down.

So, after our romp in the rain we made pizzas. I bought the dough from Whole Foods, as well as the sauce and the toppings. We have a pizza stone that I heated at 500 degrees for one hour and then very ungraciously, dumped the dough and the toppings – sort of – onto the stone. In the end, they were so yummy and it was cool to customize them to our personal tastes: Me: fresh mozzarella, tomatoes & basil, Matty: sauce & pepperoni (no cheese) & Ben: sauce and cheese all piled in the middle. It was the most amazing end to a cold and rainy day (which incidentally, I love, because days like these remind me of growing up in beautiful, rainy Vancouver, BC).

STAY TUNED: Next week is my husband’s birthday and Matty and I are very excited to cook for him! So far on the menu is Croissant French Toast…and beer.

XOXO!

Here are our weekend curiosities!

This was a doozy of a week. It was the first week back after a super long winter break and I can easily say that we feel pretty beat, overwhelmed and in need of some serious comfort.

So, this afternoon we cooked Chicken Parmesan, had a family hot tub with calming essential oils (which may or may not have been calming and I feel like I have to admit there was beer involved) and did a little work on settling and cooling some of the rampant energy that abounds in the Asch home!

Cooking: The Pioneer Woman’s Chicken Parmigiana: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/chicken-parmigiana/

Now, this was super fun to make and pretty much one of the yummiest dishes I have ever tasted. It was also very simple and easy enough for Matty to help with. I think that cooking can be really therapeutic when you have the stuff, have the time, and it’s something you really love to eat. I plan to serve our Chicken Parmesan tonight with some sauteed green beans and some type of noodle with butter. Take a look at our pics below and stay tuned for a few adorable videos that my YouTube lover made.

Calming: http://www.sensorytreat.com/single-post/2015/04/30/IT-IS-TIME-FOR-A-DEEP-PRESSURE-MASSAGE

In addition to our cooking endeavors, we visited an Occupational Therapist this week to figure out some strategies to calm our kiddo with ADHD. She taught us a version of the massage above, which is interesting, because we had been doing our own form of this massage based on instinct, before learning this. It was amazing! Who doesn’t benefit from some loving touch? My kid looked like a cat basking in the sun while this was being performed and I feel like I actually saw excess energy melt out from his body. It was cool. We have a long way to go with this, but each week we hope to implement a new and interesting calming technique that is relevant to the WHOLE family, no matter what what’s going on in your tribe.

As always, we must end in GRATITUDE: I am overwhelmingly thankful for my family and for the closeness, loyalty, love and dedication that abounds. Life can be really hard at times and we’ve had a rough few weeks, but the belonging and security we have within these walls is the definition of comfort.

So much love! See you next week! XO

Cooking Curiosity #1: Marbled Chocolate Apples by The Pioneer Woman

I would say this recipe was a fail for me, although I went all in, I promise. I should truly throw in the towel on trying to make sweets, I really am a cook at heart, not a confectioner. My first attempt at melting the chocolate discs came out chunky and yucky, not smooth as satin like in the video. So, that kind of messed up the whole thing. The icing on the cake, so to speak, was when my kids bit into the chilled apples, both were poked by the chocolate coating (only one bled).

I wasn’t able to squeeze in any yoga today, but collectively (two helpful boys, one paper-eating toddler) we attempted to “de-boyify” my daughter’s bedroom with some sweet decals ordered off of Etsy.com. The process was actually quite calming and therapeutic…sometimes that repetitive type of action can be meditative and super satisfying! We started by cutting out the images, which consisted of different sizes of stems and flowers in two different colors, and then just randomly placed the stems where they looked balanced. The boys learned how to gently pull off the transfer paper and press the decals into the walls, which was cool to watch. I am really happy with how adorable her room looks!

Here are our pics from the day…

Prep Work

Matty Dipping

Chunky Chocolate Mess – Ew!

Our Goal

Our Sad Result

Quinn Madison’s New Boudoir

I have a new passion! One that actually fits into my current reality.

As a mama who has had to put her business on hold due to the need for 100% family present-ness, as well as some annoying physical injuries, I have decided to make the absolute most of it and to quell my need for creativity, nourishment and adventure.

My new project is…

My Cooking & Calming Curiosities: A look into feeding the family with new and comforting recipes while breathing in the invaluable benefits and life changing attributes of simple yoga poses and other quick calming gems for families. Just a bunch of fun little tidbits to read! I’m doing this for my own therapy as I forge forward in life (my career on hold) while balancing the well-being of 3 young kiddos while and mom-managing of a swift and busy household.

Mad Matt (oldest son, 6) and I are absolutely obsessed with The Pioneer Woman and are about to dive into working our way through her cookbooks. Her recipes are anything but gluten free, dairy free, soy free and meat free, but she is all about COMFORT and WHOLENESS and we need both of those right now in our busy home! In addition, we are going to start experimenting with what helps bring us more peace and more of that luscious and comforting zen feeling. The Asch family is taking it down about 100 notches in 2017 in the hopes of getting more centered, grounded, content, healthy and happy.

Stay tuned for how our Marbled Apple experiment goes this afternoon!

Have a great day out there! XO

In my field of work, we talk about this concept of, “being who you truly are” and “finding our true selves” and attempting to accomplish these somewhat elusive notions in our lives.

In yoga we work to do this by moving our bodies, shifting out what doesn’t serve us and working to create space for what we want to cultivate and bring in. In energy work we remove barriers and clear energies that aren’t benefiting us, or perhaps having a negative impact.

All of the great spiritual teachers refer to this concept of revealing and honoring our true selves, some even saying that we are just a dream here on earth and our true selves are shining gems beyond what most of us can comprehend…

If we work to reveal these beautiful and pure true beings, what does that then look like in the here and now? How does this manifest? Is it truly possible to bask in the light of our own selves, honoring and listening to what we feel despite all the commitments, obligations and expectations that exist today?

When we go into a yoga class or meet a friend for coffee and we are feeling so down, so spent, so taken from, is it okay to sit there and be energetically held and supported? Do we do this?

Often we stuff it all down and go through the expected motions because that’s just what we do. Or we will  spit out one small truth and then backtrack or make it seem like all is good.

But, how is this truly serving us?

Is it possible to just show up as is?

Don’t we deserve this?

Is it possible to bow out of social plans because our hearts tell us that it might take more energy reserves than we have to offer that day without making a self-sacrifice and compromise?

I just think it’s a good idea for us to think about this. We need to honor our hearts, tune into our bodies and really believe that intuition…listen to those feelings that well up on the inside and let that truth be okay.

Because it our truth and our truth is our everything.

Here is where our real selfhood is rooted, in the divine spark or seed, in the image of God imprinted on the human soul. The True Self is not our creation, but God’s. It is the self we are in our depths. It is our capacity for divinity and transcendence – Sue Monk Kidd

I began practicing yoga in 1998 and have practiced through heartache, loss, injuries, surgeries, pregnancies, dark, happy and uncertain times. I have cried in child’s pose through an entire practice and have also kicked myself into headstand while 8 months pregnant. Yoga has restored my faith (in a lot of things), cultivated a steadiness inside my heart and continues to be both my medicine and my therapist. Yoga is essentially essential to my overall wellbeing.

When I get on my yoga mat I am forced to face the reality of what’s going on in my life, bottom line. There I sit in the present moment, with nothing but my cartwheeling thoughts, with no other option than to breathe do the poses. The poses that were created to open us up, to stretch us long and wide, to strengthen, balance and ground us. To teach us that when things get really freaking hard, that we can get through it.

We do yoga to refine ourselves, to melt down the armor, the defenses and the falsities to reveal that sparkly and pure authenticity that resides within.

We do yoga to release the negative, to clean out the junk and muck to create energetic spaces where there were none, making room for the good stuff to flow in, creating a total body/mind renovation and restoration.

Yoga creates an energetic ball of light inside us that grows brighter each time we practice. This light represents an immoveable steadiness and wholeness that keeps us calm and centered when the world goes nuts around us.

This is why I do yoga. I would be lost without it.

As I embark on my 5^th Self-Care retreat at my beloved yoga studio, I have been obsessed with the concept of Renegade Self-Care.

What is Renegade Self-Care (or RSC for short)?

The RSC concept embodies the harder, deeper and more soulful pieces of the Self-Care notion. It involves jumping into the more tumultuous and less-forgiving waters of our hearts and swimming through all that scary darkness.

Most commonly in my circles, Self-Care is defined as taking time out for oneself. Taking time for yoga, reading, fun with friends, pedicures, going for hikes, etc. These are all necessary, valid and totally beautiful ways to take care of YOU.

But, what I want to discuss today, is taking a holistic look at what we need, not just a “break”, but where we need to be nourished in addition to giving ourselves a break.

RSC is much more personal, powerful and challenging to dive into and implement than our surface level Self-Care.

Born out of childhood, fostered by negative thinking, a lack of Renegade Self-Care is understandable. It takes AWARENESS, first and foremost, and then fierce self-love, belief in oneself and major BRAVERY to implement RSC. If you didn’t grow up with these inner qualities, it can be a struggle harder than anyone might ever know.

So much of our behavior comes from hurts from the past, negative patterns and self-doubt and to blaze through these beliefs, we must learn to live and think differently…and this can be really scary.

But it’s essential.

RSC not about being “better” it’s about accessing, revealing and unveiling our real, authentic selves and allowing it all to unfold without judgment.

It means setting boundaries where we have had none and knowing that people may take issue with that. It means looking someone in the eye and saying how we truly, truly feel (with love) instead of trying to protect their feelings over expressing ours. It means going against the grain and tapping into our intuition when our friends are going the other direction. It means passionately respecting and believing in ourselves, even when we are overcome with doubt.

When we engage in RSC it means that we are truly LOVING OURSELVES.

There is really no other way to live, so we need to keep at this. We need to keep peeling off the layers, tuning into our hearts, trying out those difficult conversations, cancelling what doesn’t align with our intentions…always going back to our heart space to make sure it all resonates with who we TRULY ARE INSIDE.

I am the oldest child in my family and I am an independent, do-it-myself kind of wife, mother, daughter and friend.

This fact has not served me that well in motherhood.

I have come to understand that there is a great amount of truth and value to the idea of it taking a village to raise a family, something that I didn’t necessarily believe in my early parenting years. I thought I could do it all. I thought I knew a lot more than I did.

When I was well into active labor with my second baby, I thought it would be helpful and efficient to drive myself to the hospital. This well-intentioned, but truly stupid choice, lead me into a birth scenario that was fast, painful and needlessly traumatic.

Noah and I quickly realized that we didn’t have a solid plan in place for what would happen when I went into labor, so he had to stay home to situate our firstborn. After checking myself in, the nurses left me alone for quite a while in the cold hospital room, and everything I had read and learned about labor through my prenatal yoga training and reading Ina May Gaskin flew out the window as my body went from zero to 60 in literally no time. As I crawled across the floor, mumbling prayers and crying to the angels, my mind truly left me and came back a zillion times and I forgot how to breathe. As I have since learned, being alone and being scared while about to give birth or any other life-changing situation, makes everything unnecessarily and exponentially more difficult.

When Noah finally arrived, I grabbed onto him right in the middle of a bone-crushing contraction and remember the pain melting into a whisper of the previous sensations. As long as I maintained a physical connection with Noah, my pain was dulled, my breathing deepened, and I was able to continue and give birth to Ben. I am not typically a clinger, I don’t lean on others when I am in pain; I tend to go inward. This birth experience, however, left me with no choice, and for that I am eternally grateful.

It was a life-changing lesson for me and I think about it almost every day.

Slowly, throughout my first year with two kids at home, I tried to let go a little bit in order to take care of myself. I hired a postpartum doula for a few weeks as we relocated to a new town. She was a lovely, witty nanny from England, who got after me constantly for not letting her do more around the house. Still, during that year, I struggled. I developed shingles, several recurrent sinus infections, lost about 20 pounds, along with my milk supply (which I built back up with a lot of blood, sweat and tears) and had wrist surgery. As I always say in yoga, our bodies are telling us something when this kind of pain and inflammation manifests! My body was telling me to find some help and to build my village. I can see that clearly now.

Letting go and letting others into our chaos was tricky business. I suffered with the defeating feelings of not being able to do everything myself, plus a heavy dose of guilt. Why do I keep having kids if I can’t do everything myself? Slowly though, I was able to make some changes that allowed me to lean on others – to receive and to surrender.

In the end, this martyr type of thinking doesn’t end up benefitting us mamas in any way. We aren’t seen as heroes if we try and do it all. In fact, I’ve been told that when I can delegate and pass stuff off, that I’m much more pleasant (thanks, Noah). In my recent experience, the act of giving up some control and letting people in also helps deepen relationships. By showing vulnerability and “realness” in these situations, people can connect on a deeper level, leading to growth and fulfillment in the heart department.

Asking for help and creating our sweet little village has also been great for my kiddos. I see the people in our lives helping to shape these babes, teaching them how to interact with personalities that differ from their crazy, attachment-obsessed parents. There are so many ways of doing things, so many new experiences to have and spaces, not only in our little environment to explore, but also within the human experience for them to absorb.

It is a daily, active practice to allow myself to lean on the support of others, to let the village support my family and me and to be available for the village as an exchange. I am, however, fully committed and finally feel like I am learning the life-saving art of letting go…maybe. It’s kind of like three steps forward and one back, but at least I am going forward.

Please bear with me as I express my overwhelming love and gratitude to the team behind the launch of the Birdhouse. It took a very special village to get this off the ground, and each of these people was an integral part of the success and beauty of the party.

To Noah, Brenda, Bill & Patta (my family), thank you for watching my boys, making sure I was fed and giving me hugs. And thank you for being here for so many hours and allowing me to be mentally and physically present.

Thank you to Rachel, Liz, Stef & Teri, our incredible pre-event team. I couldn’t have done it without you, not just because you rock at cutting fruit and ironing linens, but because of your incredible attitudes, love & selflessness. I love you guys so much.

To Joe & Rach for the late night potted plant move. That was really fun.

Thank you to my precious yoginis, Lisa, Arch, Jess, Sabrina & Jen. Your energy carried me through the party. It means the world to me that you came and I am so excited about what’s to come for each of you. Come teach.

Thank you to Courtney & Katy, my sweet and supportive friends. The candles and wind chime will be a very special part of the Birdhouse. I love you.

Thank you to Jennifer Lato for the incredible flowers. You are a floral genius.

To the Bollengier family, Rachel, Maddy, Abby & Jack: you make me laugh and I love you all. Please come hang out with me all the time ; )

Thank you to Rachel Bollengier for all the beautiful signs inside and outside of the Birdhouse and for all the help leading up to the event. I adore you so much, special girl.

Thank you to Joanne Sposito for all your work on the website, booking site & sponsor cards. I sure put you to work!! (SPO Creative, http://www.spocreative.com)

Thank you to Latitude, Spatini and Justin for the incredible wine. And a special thanks to Meaghan Mott & Nancy Morrill!!

A huge hug and thank you to Lisa Bonacic with Photography by Lisa B. Your positivity and beautiful smile calmed my nerves. I can’t wait to see the pictures. You were an absolute gem to work with and can’t wait to do more work together in the future.

Thank you to Arlene Thompson for the yummy and adorable cookies! You are so talented!

Thank you to Teri Reynolds & JSP Concierge. I can’t seem to do a life event without you. Watch out, we are friends for life and you are never getting rid of us. Besides, my kids love Teri more than me!

Thank you to Penny Lorain (Auntie Penny) for the stunning mural on the Birdhouse wall. It is absolutely perfect.

Thank you to Jenn Fitzpatrick, Jami Garner, Katy Jensen, Leah Hardesty, Jessica Schwerma & Missy Bollengier for the raffle giveaways. You were so generous to have donated such incredible gifts for our party guests.

And to all the beautiful families who came: it was such a joy to meet you and your kids. I am so excited to have you in our classes and get to know you better. It was so wonderful to put faces to names : )

To Greg Muyskens and his incredible team for building our beautiful studio.

For all of the thoughtful gifts and the cards, they will grace the studio and be a constant reminder of this blessed launch.

And the hugest thank you of all to my dear friend and partner, Missy Bollengier. This has been such an incredible journey and I feel so blessed that our worlds coincided in this beautiful way. You are so mindful, so aware and so calming. Your insights, ideas and perspectives are so fresh and thoughtful. I feel so excited for our students to learn from you and all your invaluable experience. Thank you for listening, for bearing with my messy and crowded mind, for showing so much love and acceptance to my kids, for laughing uncontrollably with me and for being up for anything. You are an incredible person and I am so so so blessed to have you be a part of the studio.

It’s overwhelming, touching & humbling when your dream comes true. I am honored to have had each and every one of you at our grand opening. There is so much good to come. Thank you from the bottom of my over-flowing heart.

Let’s be honest, lovey. The 2’s & 3’s were hard on us and hate to admit how much time I have spent with scrunched eye-brows, pointed fingers, and shushing lips. We drove each other crazy, little one, but we survived it. I hardly ever see glimpses of my baby in your face anymore, which makes me feel a mishmash of pride and heartbreak all in one overwhelming moment.

Even though these young years are somewhat tumultuous, filled with development, lessons and growth, they have been the best years of my life so far. You came into this world early, before you were ready, and fought your way through the NICU to home and back to the NICU. We used to peer over your little isolette with all of your tubing and wires and see your eyes, bright blue and beautiful, staring back as if you’d known us forever. This memory makes me cry. I felt so connected to you even before I could hold you.

You are such a fighter.

You are so brave and so tough. I will never forget picking you up from school this year with road rash on your face and head, still crusty with blood. Your teacher told me that she couldn’t get you to stop playing after you fell and skidded four feet across the ground. As you told me when you were 2, your head is as hard as a Pachycephalosaurus and we’ve had lots of incidents that prove you right.

And, while I do adore the fact that you are fiercely in love with your brother, I hope someday that you can hug him with out knocking him over and grab his hand without mashing his fingers and dragging him along beside you.

Aside from the gentle abuse, Ben is so lucky to have you as his big brother. I love watching you giggle together and I love how his eyes light up when he sees you. I love it when you alert me to the fact that Ben is eating chalk, a fly or dirt with such a sense of urgency. I know things won’t always be perfect, but I do know, because you are Asch boys, that you will grow to have each other’s backs, be loyal and loving.

I love your squeals of joy, even when they pierce my ears. I swear, love bug, you might be the loudest babe I know! It’s because you love life so furiously and I think this is going to serve you well in the future.

It was you, my first baby, who cracked me open and taught me about real, raw, unconditional love. You made me a mom.

I could go on and on and on about you and what I love about you for pages and pages.

Happy Birthday, gorgeous boy.