remembering

I've been looking over old pictures during Peter's nap today.

I'm in awe of the last four months.  Have I ever experienced so much change in so short a time?
Remember when my sweet mom, sister and brother came and saved me after Peter was born?

I do.

Their presence was more comforting than anything I've experienced in my adult life.  I felt like I was a kid again,  with a feeling similar to when I crawled into my parent's bed after having a nightmare.  Loved, comfortable and safe.  Mom even made us her incredible Persian food and it tasted like Christmas.  Our gratitude for having them there is hard to express.  Thank you mom.  You too, Sophie and Thomas.

Our world felt a little crazy after they left.  Here we were with a tiny baby in our tiny apartment and life had changed.  I'd been told this multiple times. "Your life is going to change," they'd say.  I didn't get it.  Of course my life is going to change!  I will have a baby where I didn't have a baby before.  But I didn't know that what they meant was that my life would start over.  I'd be an infant again with an infant of my own.  I'd have to relearn how to function, and relearn how to live.  Particularly a life of balance, again.  At least this was my experience.  Some of the most joyous moments of my life all jumbled up with the most difficult.  Though I wouldn't change it even if I could.

And then some friends of ours who've been housesitting for a family in my ward had been offered a job out west.  And would we like to move in and housesit for them?  We felt right about it, so we packed up our special little place and moved.  I may have shed some tears over the apartment we'd grown the most as a family in--but I knew the time to move on had come.

So now we are inhabiting a somewhat enormous house (6000 square feet thereabouts) for a reasonable rate and we'll stay here for a year or two until the family currently in Canada comes home.  And then on to the next adventure, whatever that is.

See what I mean when I say... a lot of change?  Though I was mostly speaking of Peter and I to be honest.

How does this....

....Turn to this in just three months??

All I know is that in all this change and experience we are coming to know a little bit more about living.  We are learning a little more about our tiny family and our place in this life.  I am also learning what it means to be a mom.  And though it made me ache to wait... the waiting has made it awfully easy to be grateful for my little one.  I laugh at myself that even when my baby is crying at times-- I will smile.  I love to be the one that fixes it.  I love that I can call him mine.  And that I'm learning about love all over again.

We are feeling remarkably blessed. But also humbled by all of this incredible change.  Our pace has slowed some, tried though I did to get back to the pace of life before Peter came.  I've stopped trying so hard.  I've learned and I'm learning to accept this new track we're on.  It may be slower than I'm accustomed but then again, there's more to see up here.   

happy halloween!

I just needed a real Halloween.  I know not everyone shares my feelings, but I love Halloween.  As a child it was the time of year that I got to dress up legitimately (compared to my donning a ballet tutu during all other times of the year)  and not only was it acceptable, my whole family joined in!  My mother added to this holiday particularly, having a serious gift for homemade costumes.  Somehow the Halloween decorations made our house feel special in relation to the changing weather outside.   Celebrating my love of fall seems incomplete without the proper celebration of Halloween.  So when Ian and I were married and our first Halloween came around... I felt at a loss.  There were no parties to dress up for.  We obviously can't trick-or-treat.  So we stayed in and ate pizza and tried to watch a semi-scary movie.  It was sweet but, dare I say it, boring.  All other Halloweens since our first have been similar until now.  Beyond my decorating the house, Halloween has been pretty sad. But now... we have a kid.  And so I set to work.  

Originally I thought Peter could go as Chewbacca.  Then Ian and I could go as the classic Han Solo and Princess Leia with the cinnamon bun hairdo.  I looked up ideas online and realized that the only acceptable way (to me) would be for me to fashion a body suit out of faux fur fabric for the baby wookie.  A few weeks before Halloween however, as I was wandering around the Goodwill... I saw a teddy bear about Peter's size.  I then remembered this Ewok costume I'd seen on Pinterest.  So while I didn't have a teddy bear costume, I did find an actual teddy bear.  The best part about it being that it was only fifty cents.  So I came home, took the teddy bear apart, cut, sewed, hot glued and messed around until the suit was complete.  A cut up brown t-shirt and a spear made out of a stick and card stock later-- we had our Ewok.  And doesn't he make a pretty darling Ewok?

^^^ I love the timing on his being able to grab things.

I banked on that, and I was not disappointed as he clung to that spear with all his might.

With Peter's costume change, Han and Leia's costumes had to change as well.

 The reason we laughingly staged the photo below is because that photo is what we fashioned our costumes after.  

Google image search: han solo and leia return of the jedi.

 I think we did a pretty swell job.

 ^^^You can see where Peter gets his angry brows

No Ewok's were harmed in the making of this shot ^^^

And a thanks must go out to Uncle James who took our photos for us.  

It was a boost.  I don't know why??  But somehow, being able to put my energy into something that was cute and fun and allowed for my Halloween (and therefore Fall) to feel more real to me... it felt good.  Bless Ian for being so on board.  So on board in fact that he asked me what we were going to be next halloween.

Can't.  Wait.

gif credit

outerbanks, north carolina

When Peter was just over two months old, we made a trip with our friends to the Outerbanks in North Carolina.  I, being a frazzled new mom, was a little nervous that vacationing with a tiny baby would make our "vacation" more of a stress fest.  

Thank goodness I was wrong.

The Gang. ^^^  

We are all in developing stages of life.  All women but I were pregnant.  One couple with an older toddler, one with a crawling baby, one with a newborn, and one pregnant with their first.  This group of friends formed between the men before high school.  

They laughed that their conversation has changed so drastically from what it use to be, 

now surrounding the logistics of fatherhood and the like.

^^^ 

This is the beach house we shared, which made the trip affordable.  Both because of the shared living space but also because of the groceries we bought together.  It was fun to try everyone's home cooked meals.  It was perfect, really.  

We each enjoyed our own space with our own bathroom 

and it was only a short walk from the beach.

^^^This picture makes me swoon.  Continuously.  Every time I see it. 

 I'm so glad this baby loves water. ^^

  ^^^I love his little hand in this one!

These couple of shots were from a morning walk we took as a family.  

Can you believe the sight of that sunlight shining on the water?  It was rejuvenating.  

It was the trip we didn't realize we needed.  Laid back, enjoyable and comfortably spaced between getting out and staying in to relax.  And all in good company!  We each agreed that it was good enough to make a tradition out of.  I'm glad to have one more thing in my life to look forward to.

brand new

I'm so glad your dad woke up and caught you sleeping in the morning light pouring in from the window.  You were barely a week old when these photos were taken.  I'm amazed at the light you've poured into our lives, Peter.  

We are so glad you are here.

hospital stay