MOVING IN

Hooray! We're moving in at last! The bad news for YOU, however, is that we do not currently have the internet at our home, so if I owe you an email sorry and if you are lusting after baby photos, my deepest condolences and you'll have to wait a week or two.

But we're moving in! Staying with M's family has been lots of fun but it sure is nice to have our own itty bitty little place.

Oh, and I forgot to tell you this earlier but we have bought a car!!! Yep, we got a 2003 Honda Accord LX. It's emerald green and so plush that it feels like I'm driving a space ship! I love it! AND it is officially mine and Jed's. I've never had a car so nice to drive. The radio even works. I'm trying to take good care of it. Which is why I immediately spilled a half a bottle of baby shampoo on the back seat and spent an entire rainy afternoon cleaning it up (ugh! If only I could grow up!) Apparently those seats are really just big sponges and hold the suds remarkably well. I said several fervent prayers of thanks for the inventor of wet vacs.

Getting Ready for Bath Time

Baby got ahold of a watercolor pencil yesterday and within ten seconds was a blue MESS! His tongue, spit, chin, and a big slash across his cheek. I cleaned up the rest, but the blue warpaint cheek was too cute to clean.





Here are some more of my baby photos... I've been trying to practice every day. Still have a long way to go. I think on these photos my ISO was too low. It was too dark. Hooray for photoshop. :c) I'm having a fun time tweaking my photos, too. A few people have asked, and most of these photos were taken with M's Canon 5D. Some of others I've posted were taken with the old RolleiFlex, but I haven't used that in a month or two. We've kind of swapped for a while, so you'll have some of M's Rollei photos up here soon.

Carrots

Another Apartment Video

Here is the exterior of our future home.

Another Apartment Video

Here is the interior of our apartment.

Found a Home at Last!

Well, ok, not a HOME, but a home for now. Finally, after much searching, anguish, and occasional confusion, we found a place to live here in Newburgh.

We thought we had found a place two weeks ago, but found out Monday that it had fallen through. Bummer. That's ok, though, because our new place is BETTER! We found a little townhouse with 2 bedrooms and 1.5 baths in a lovely, quiet area that is surrounded by fields. It's only $500/mo and all we pay is electricity! It's about 20-25 minutes from Michael's work, so a little farther than we anticipated, but the location is so nice we can't turn it down! Here is a map of where it is. Green is Michael's parents (where we are staying now.) Yellow is our new little townhouse. Red is Michael's work.

View Larger Map

One of my favorite things about it is that even though we are in the Newburgh zipcode, the name of our little town is "Paradise." :c) And here I always thought that was in Montana.

I took a few videos to send to Michael this morning. They aren't all that great and if you would mute my awful narration I would appreciate it. But here's the general idea. The house is in a shambles because they recently gutted the whole thing and completely rebuilt it. Everything is new except a few kitchen cupboards and the sinks. It will be all ready for us (fingers crossed) a week from this coming Monday.

Dance Party

There were no adults around Monday evening. So for Family Home Evening activity we had a hip-hop dance party. Here's a clip. Of course, it was much more glamorous in person. And it's so humiliating to see yourself dancing out of the moment. This particular clip features everyone but me.

Baby LOVES dancing and gave meaning to lyrics that otherwise would have been... questionable? Baby come into my arms! Baby want to go to bed with me! Baby oh baby! Baby I think I love you!

Moving Video

Here is a little video I took while we were moving and I didn't get my camera unloaded until today. My child is so masculine. I am astonished. Anything big truck like is an immediate fascination to him. When we are at Granny Zo'An's house, you can hardly get the child to look at you because he's always craning his head to look at the window at the big trucks going up the hill!

Michael was pretty thrilled about his big truck, too. Until he hit about 18 hours and a night spent in the cab, then he was sick of it. He did enjoy, however, the fact that all the other truckers became his immediate friends. They would wave and make manly trucker gestures every time he saw him. And all the ladies at the truck stops, upon seeing his haggard, unwashed, and bearded state started calling him "hon." "How you doin, hon? Long night?" Good thing I wasn't there or I would have beat up those sassy Southern broads for hittin' on my man. ;c)

Bath Baby

I just love love love taking photos of baby in the bath. He looks like a cherub. I've been practicing with Michael's nice camera during the day while he's at work. Taking photos is easy when you have perfection for a child.
V


I think this bottom one is M's favorite.

Conference Weekend

Yesterday we presented quite a scene. After two days of rotting in front of the TV, several movies, very little bathing, a bag of Chocolate Turtle Chex Mix, a huge bowl of barbecue/sour cream potato chips, leftover shrimp/lemon linguine, olive-oil drenched foccaccia, ice cream, brownies, and candy bars, yesterday evening Michael, Annie and I lay sprawled out on their parents' couches, still in jammies and sweaters, bloated and groaning beneath a misty cloud of released noxious gas. ohhhhhhhhhhhh the suffering! Ohhhhhhhhh the heartburn! Ohhhhhhh the releasing of noxious gases! Oh, the joys of conference weekend!

Fantastic conference! Favorite talk has to be Sister Beck's talk on motherhood. Listen to it here, promise you're gonna love it.

Fun fact: check out this video. If you click on number 17, church membership, the eighth person they show, the cute waving girl, is my old mission companion Claudia Boscolo from Brazil! I screamed in excitement and jumped from my chair when I saw that. I miss her! I don't have her address so we aren't in touch, and seeing her happy face made my day.

Angel

Jed has had a banner week. In the past 7 days he has:
- Turned 8 months
- Caught his first cold
- Started to scoot around on his belly
- Cut his first tooth
- Stood up on his own (holding on)

And all this on top of a major move and still no place to call home. He's had a hard time sleeping, but he is still his mommy's angel.
We love you, Perry Jed!

Tongue