This little piggy...

I was going through my photos from this past summer and I found these pictures of her:

visiting them:

I love Wheeler Farm and looking at these pictures made me feel nostalgic for summer all over again. It really hasn't been to long since we were enjoying the blissful days of late summer. But it snowed this week. Which means our bimonthly visits to the farm for a picnic are over.

I've had a hard time lately for reasons that I can't really pinpoint. The seasons are changing and my life just feels out of sync. Moving has definitely taken more of a toll on me than I think I would have imagined. We are in our home home now, not just our starter home. That should feel like a relief. But I find myself being plagued by the walls that I loved most when we first walked through the home. They are bare and still reveal that our house is really just that. A house. I want to start making it a home.

Another thing I have deeply missed is the ability to go out and garden. At our first home we had a tiny garden that provided me more relief than just about anything. I would plant flowers and vegetables every spring and nurture them to adulthood. October meant hauling away all of the decaying plants and making room in anticipation of next spring. Not having that opportunity has left me feeling a little empty.

So I am going to try and haul away all of the stressful events of this year and make room in anticipation for what is to come in my life. With our home, my family, my job. I have so much to be grateful for. It is coming to be that time of year again when it is a chance to reflect on gratitude and blessings. And I am going to try to be more patient and maybe it won't feel too long until I am home. With a garden to boot.

These boots.

I finally did it. After years (no exaggeration) of talking myself in and out of buying some leather boots I went and got these last week:
I'm too frugally-minded to justify spending a lot of money on something that I may or may not get the use out of. But after wearing these I wonder why I waited so long. They are so comfortable. And I am seriously contemplating buying a pair of skinny jeans to go with them.

P.S.

There's actually a new post under the birthday one. Gotta love blogger.

They say it's your birthday; Happy Birthday to Ya'...six weeks ago...

I was thinking about my post about Bean's first birthday when...I realized I never did one! So here's a trip down memory lane.

I actually woke up a little early to sneak into Bean's room and take a picture of her at her birth minute. Isn't she sweet?


It was a tender moment as I reflected on the events of the previous year. Then I went back to bed.

All year I had told S that I would like to take Bean to the zoo on her birthday so that's exactly what we did. What we couldn't have predicted was that one of the worst rainstorms this valley has seen would begin the minute we pulled her stroller out of the car. It's not like I didn't have warning or anything. I haven't seen such black skies in awhile. But like any mom excited to share in her child's first trip to the zoo, I figured it would blow over. Which it did--ten minutes after we left the zoo.

It will still go down as one of my most memorable trips there, though. Bean didn't seem at all to mind the rain, or that the air temperature had dropped 20 degrees since we left our home. In fact, by the time we left she and I were soaked through to our skin and she was giggling and giving me love pats. It was very sweet.

We stayed indoor at one of the monkey exhibits for 20 minutes and watched the rain come down.



Then we ran across to some [dumb] exhibit with creepy creatures and stood underneath some bats waiting some more for the rain to stop.

At this point we realized this storm wasn't just going to blow over so we ventured out: no umbrellas, no jackets, just two crazy parents bound to make the most of the experience with their birthday girl.

The funny thing is most of the animals were taking shelter inside from the storm (hmmm...) Here's the baby elephant that is, in fact, only a few weeks older than Bean.

Bean looked so cute in her little sunhat/rainhat.

After we left the zoo we went over to S's parents. They were gracious enough to let us have Bean's party at their house since we didn't exactly know where we would be living at the time I sent out the invitations. Every single cloud in the sky had disappeared by late afternoon so it was time to start setting up for the party. I had spent the previous weeks crafting whimsical decorations and making the party into a living photo album of Bean's first year. Ironically I didn't actually capture any of it in photos the night of the party to preserve in a future album. (My mom says she has pictures, thankfully, but none are at my disposal to use in this post.) We invited several close friends and family and ended up having a really good turnout. I was so surprised and grateful! We set up a dessert bar with brownies, cupcakes and, of course, my favorite: rice krispy treats. I think S's nephews ate more than anyone at the party and my coworkers (many of whom attended the party themselves) helped me polish them off the next day.

So since I lack several pictures of the atmosphere or Bean's guests, I will focus on the EVENT. A one-year-olds first experience with their birthday cake.

Here it is before: (S baked, I decorated)

Here it is after:

Yes my daughter ate half of the cake. Here's how it went down...

We lit the candle while singing a very sweet and tame version of Happy Birthday to You (very unlike my side of the family.)

We presented the offerings. (We may not know alot as one-year-old parents but at least we had the foresight to salvage her party dress prior to giving her the cake.) S helped her blow out the candle.

Food? She's game. Here she is taking her first few tastes.

Here she is taking her 30th taste. She was a mess but she still ate it so daintily!

Here she is after I gave her a cup of lemon water to wash it down. A teaspoon made it into her mouth (to the delight of the crowd,) but at this point did it really matter?

And one of my favorite pictures of the day: Bean with her little buddy E who celebrated his first birthday a few weeks prior to hers.

The party came to a close as Bean was stripped of her frosting covered onesie and put in the bathtub by her daddy. I'm not particularly great at hosting parties (I want to get better!) but this was such a fun experience and we are so grateful to all of those who came and celebrated with us.


And to anyone worried about strolling around the zoo with their baby in the pouring rain and then giving her large quantites of sugar late in the evening: she slept like an angel that night.

Two weeks later.

On my goal sheet last week (yes, I have a goal sheet; it is seriously the only way I can get things done) I had listed to post on my blog about the fire and I...just couldn't do it for some reason. Today I finally felt motivated so I thought I would at least try to sum up what has happened since my last post. And it's all good. Things have turned out better than I could have imagined.

From S's first time walking in our home after the fire it seemed like it would be a long haul to get things cleaned up. But I don't know if it is an awesome HVAC system (or the fact that a lot of prayers have been answered) but I can hardly smell smoke at all anymore. Every once in awhile I find it in odd places. Our basement smelled for days (which makes sense because we have very little ventilation down there for now) and I caught a whiff from Bean's crib. But the new home smell has actually come back.

It's amazing how, 2 weeks later, I've almost even forgot it happened. I was in church the following Sunday and I couldn't figure out why it smelled like a campfire until I was like, duh. Our building was right on the fire line. There were several prayers of gratitude offered that day to still have a building to meet in.

So rather than go into every detail about the event (since I think my previous posts summed it up pretty well in 400 characters or less) I will simply say that I am grateful that we didn't lose our home that night. It wasn't until I got back home that I was able to look around and see all of the things that were irreplacable.

Life moves on. The last bit of residue will leave when we get our carpets cleaned. There is a black mountain where the beautiful oak leaves were beginning to charge. There are families who are having to start over from nothing. But this experience has taught me a lesson in resilience. And that I have an awful lot to be thankful for.

Oh, yeah. And I have some pictures.

Here's a picture of one of the homes that burned down. All that remains is the chimney. I took this from our front doorstep.

A view of the mountain from our front doorstep again.

This is the next street to our east. Anyone following KSL during this whole thing might remember the pictures of the home with flames burning around it, as well as an aerial shot of a home that had the fire burn a circle around it. The blue house you see is that house. The owner of this home actually shared his testimony in Sacrament meeting the following Sunday. It is an amazing story.

A view of our church building. The fire is still smoking 48 hours later in this picture.

Another shot of some homes in our neighborhood area.