a traveler. a photographer. a wife. a mother. a muser. a lover of northern california. a child of southern california. a beer connoisseur. a scuba diver. a roller coaster enthusiast. a renowned chef in her own kitchen. there is no rhyme or reason in this tumblr. and my name is kim. all images and content © kim ebbets unless otherwise stated. all rights reserved.

  1.  

    when the lil’ one was born, she was given a gift from her great grandmother in the netherlands, a beautiful silver bottle with her name and birthday etched into it. it is tarnished with our fingerprints and we have never cleaned it because the lil’ one has never known about it. it decorates the furthest kitchen window where the lil’ one can never see it. the morning after we returned home from our long vacation through l.a. and the cruise, the lil’ one asked for this bottle. in her toddler language, she asked me to put her up onto the kitchen counter and pointed to her cup and wanted to use it. i filled it for her, she said oma and used it all day long. that night after she went to bed, i told the husband about it and we put it back in it’s place on the kitchen window. she hasn’t asked for it since.

    imageand on april 30th, she passed. i will always be grateful that she had the chance to meet the lil’ one. the lil’ one will never remember her but will know of her through stories and photos and when she’s older, i’ll tell her the story of her cup. because i think that these lil’ ones sometimes know more than we do…image

  2.  

    our new hot tub…

    and the way she eats her chips? 

    like a boss…

  3.  

    i tend to buy things that can be used at home or at a photo shoot. i am going to have a very hard time getting this one away from the lil’ one. she is obsessed. 

  4.  

    it has been years since i’ve gone scuba diving (i think my last trip was in vietnam back in 2010) so i was a bit nervous about diving again during our cruise vacation. i was worried if i would forget how do to breathe or maintain buoyancy or even swim but once under the clear water of cabo san lucas, it all came back to me. hopefully i can do another trip sooner rather than later :) 

  5.  

    i learned something quite important today.

    if you stick a lil’ one on a step stool with nothing around her to support herself down, she will be stuck there. this made making dinner much easier.

  6.  

    with my grandparents in town, we took them up the hill for sunset.

    my grandparents have been married for sixty seven years and still hold hands and snuggle like they’re newlyweds…

  7.  

    this lil’ one had a rager for her birthday party and i barely managed to take any photos, ha! it was so wonderful to have my parents, grandparents and lil’ sister come up to celebrate the lil’ one’s second birthday. she loved spending quality time with everyone and would probably love to have her birthday every weekend if we let her. 

    with our family photo, we had her sitting on our laps but halfway through the picture…

    she decided that she would rather put her arms around us!

    we also went a bit untraditional with her birthday cake and got her a pizza donut from psycho donuts which is a giant donut with four different toppings…

    we got maple bacon, crushed butterfinger, nutella with sprinkles and strawberry delight. that was a definite crowd pleaser. 

    and the best birthday present ever? a vintage scwhinn tricycle that i found at the pasadena rose bowl flea market a few months back. it was a $30 find that i thought would make a great birthday present and photo prop. 

    she is obsessed with her ride. i wish that i would have taken more photos from her party but it was super hectic with a lot of families and friends that i forgot to pick up the camera which was a good thing but it would have been nice to have more photos. d’oh :) 

  8.  

    another year has flown by.

    happy birthday to our lil’ one. 

  9.  

    i’ve been on two cruises prior to this vacation, the three day booze cruise and a seven day alaskan cruise. both were enjoyable experiences but they didn’t leave me with the desire to cruise. i wasn’t sure about this cruise adventure since it would be the first time for the husband and lil’ one. seven days out to the mexican riviera on carnival (they were actually really great) and would there even be enough to do to keep the lil’ one entertained especially since she was one week shy of being able to do the camp carnival where you can drop your kids off to be watched. luckily at this age, the whole boat was her playground. 

    being on a vacation where you don’t have to cook, clean, think about entertainment or entertaining, look at the clock (almost non-existent to find the time anywhere), check email (no wifi or 4g so we were unplugged the whole time) really made us enjoy the cruise. enough that we will probably do another one at some point because it was that easy to do. 

    only problem with being unplugged for a week, i am having a very very hard time getting back to work. the week prior, i was in l.a. and had five sessions in seven days which was wonderful but since i lost the momentum from being on vacation, it’s really hard to get the focus back. i’m hoping to find it by next week.

  10.  

    on our first night home from the cruise, the lil’ one was pretty worked up and didn’t want to sleep so she climb out of the crib and fell. it was the only time that she climbed out of the crib but we figured that it was time. the husband and i were a bit teary eyed because even though we only removed one side to make it a toddler bed, that one side signified the removal of her babyhood. that side was the last link that we had of her as a baby and we were surprised at the emotions that we felt over it. 

    i thought that the moment she would have a toddler bed, mayhem would ensue, she would roam her room, try to escape her room or just not sleep. but we were wrong with that. with her bedroom, there are no toys and very few books. when we moved to the new home, we just never bothered putting anything in there and i think that subconsciously, we showed her that her bedroom is for changing clothes and sleeping. so now that she’s has this new freedom in her room, she only uses her room for sleeping. i don’t know how long that will last but for now, i like that she associates her room only as a place to sleep and we don’t have to really worry about her causing mayhem in her room…yet.