my big little family and fifteen reasons to love the month of june

a little while back i ordered these letter charms on clearance from anthropologie's web site. they just came in the mail yesterday, and i could not love them more. this morning, i added them to a long gold chain that i already owned, and i have been wearing them around my neck ever since.

i bought the first initial of each of our first names... mr. b's, isaac's and mine. but after i added the charms to the chain, i realized that, put in the right order, our initials would spell big. i thought that was cute... and sort of ironic, because we are actually quite small, as far as families go.

i still liked it, though. my big, little family.

aren't they cute? they are just little carved wood letters, but very big on charm. and i symbolically treasure them so much!... as much as i treasure my small family.

and speaking of necklaces, since today is the first day of june, i also decided to wear my mother-of-pearl june birthstone necklace today. 

back when i got it almost a year ago, i wore it quite often. {a somewhat new friend of mine bought it for me as a baby gift, but since most new moms get gifts for their babies after having them, she wanted to be a bit different and give the mama the gift instead. so she gave me isaac's birthstone on a sweet little dainty silver chain. i thought that was so thoughtful.} after a while, i took it off and i guess if forgot to put it back on again. 

since this is the first day of june, i decided today that i would start wearing it again.

and in doing so , i realized that i could write about the many things i love about the month of june.

i'd like to list fifteen things, because it is the fifteenth of june in 2011 that is the most special day and date of my entire life and always will be.

so here they are... in no particular order.

one.

i get to wear this pretty necklace. {although, i realize i could wear it at any time during the year.}

two.

june fifteenth is a very special day, as i said above. it is the day my sweet baby boy was born last year. i can't think of a better reason to love this month.

three.

june 19th was his due date, and for almost nine months, i looked forward to that day with great anticipation and excitement. i had bookmarked the page for june 19th in my vintage cheerio's book of days, {which my friend chris bought for me when i was pregnant while we shopped at an antique store together} because i found a special poem for that day on it called life. it says this...

a little house to keep,

a little floor to sweep.

a little meal to make,

a little sweet to bake.

a little friend to know,

a little flower to grow.

a little bird to sing,

a little hand to cling.

a little child's caress,

a little life to bless.

a little grief and pain,

a little cheer again. 

a little fleeting day,

a little prayer to say.

a little house to keep,

there is no joy so deep.

{by anne campbell}

how sweet is that? i found it to be so perfect for what i was about to embark on in so many ways. and it turned out to be even more appropriate than i imagined it would {even though he ended up being born four days earlier}. this poem describes this past year in so many ways. so simple... but so telling and so full of... well, LIFE. i love it to pieces.

four.

june holds the seventeenth day, which is the day my late father was born.

five.

june holds father's day, and this one coming up will be more special than ever... for it lands on the seventeenth, as i celebrate the birth of my dad {while missing him greatly} and celebrate having him for a dad. i will also celebrate the second father's day of my husband... the first one that comes after a substantial amount of time passed since isaac's birth, though. {isaac was only a few days old on father's day last year.} this father's day will be two days after his first birthday and one day after his first birthday party. i look forward to that sunday in june so much.

six.

june holds the first day of summer! though autumn is my favorite season, summer would come in at a very, very close second. i love the heat. i love the sun. i even love humidity sometimes. i am really looking forward to summer.

seven.

this year, june will be the first time i host a birthday party for a child of mine... just one of many pieces of a dream that i once questioned if it would ever be fulfilled.

eight.

though i recently received some difficult and sort of scary news, i have something unsure and still unknown, yet exciting to look forward to in its place. it will be a fresh start... a new beginning. i'm not big on change. but it promises to hold promise. and i pray it does. if all goes as planned, that will happen this june. {so mysterious, i know. but i don't want to divulge all at once, here.}

nine.

by the time the month is over, we are half-way through the year! that could be a bad thing, too... depending on how you look at it. but i'm going to see it as a good thing.

ten.

uh-oh... i've run out of reasons. {or rather, i can't think of any now.} so why don't you tell me... why do you like the month of june?