Ode to Summer: North Shore

About a month ago I was completely mindless and somehow deleted Adobe Bridge from my computer, which means I basically lost access to photoshop. 

And these pictures were taken on Auto in the brightest part of the day with the sun to our backs (because hello, we needed to be in the water) so they needed a little tlc. 

And heaven help my stubborn self if I was going to post anything else before I fixed the problem.

I just really love these pictures! The baby bellies! The turtles! That water!

Jess' friend from college lives on the North Shore and we drove up to meet her and have her be our tour guide for the afternoon (and also spend the whole day with her) and it was amazing. We swam with turtles and went to Matsumoto's shave ice with babies in bikinis. And the three babies came home with sweet plush turtles...Rory's still receives affectionate hugs and kisses on a daily basis and his name is Herman.

Anyways, this is the final blog post from Hawaii, which coincides with our first real week of cold weather and makes it feel like we are putting all things summer away for good. 

But I got out all my favorite fall decorations and bought a fall-scented candle at West Elm, 

and Rory looks amazing in beanies and tights so all is right in the world. 

Bring on the holidays. Homemade Halloween costumes! Pumpkin baked goods!

Moody neutrals! Dark lipstick! (ok fine I do that all year round) Molasses cookies! 

Stuffed scarecrows on the doorstep! Rain boots! (As Rory has been doing for a month)

Summer was really good to us, even though Rory hates splash pads but is too small to swim, 

which left us spending a lot of time in shallow ended pools with big sun hats for her ever-bald head.

We really are loving crunching leaves with rainboots, but we will be ready for you next year summer!

oh, august

The last time I posted was just after my grandfather died at the end of July.
There's good reason I haven't posted since-August has been a whirlwind.
I looked at my calendar and everything we have done has overlapped.
I think our little family has had maybe a total of four days at home without visitors or vacations.
We've spent 24 hours in the car with a baby driving back and forth from grandpa's funeral,
a week with my entire family in Hawaii,
had Jay's family in town for education week at BYU,
my family come to town to move my little sister in (YAYYYY.),
a tiny human with the stomach flu while everyone was here,
and today Jay's family comes back to town for a family wedding.
August is nearly through and had I blinked I might have missed it.

I remember last summer when there was so much going on for us with a new baby, state, house, puppy, job, etc. somebody told me to try and take a step back to enjoy it because there are very few stages where everything will be so new and exciting. And it's true. And I recognize there will be phases where we won't have so many places to be and people to be with. So I'm just sitting back the best I can, not worrying about the un-mopped floors or unfinished upstairs bathroom. Not stressing about getting up the pictures from Hawaii with accompanying posts, and only focusing on loving my sweet sick baby (and hard-working husband) and getting the spare bedroom sheets washed between visitors.

So in honor of our month, I'll share some family pictures we took in Hawaii that sort of speak to our life right now. Jay laughed when I wanted a family picture just how we were on our last day in Hawaii before the sunset, but I knew we wouldn't get another chance before we left and we had minutes until the sun went down. So although I am still in my bathing suit, Rory is naked eating pizza, Jay is only humoring me, and we have a sweet little tag-along: this is life lately. A little nuts, extra people involved, not always put together, but really happy.

Summer magic & one year plus some

The months are flying! I've been reminiscing a lot on how far we've come this past year. From the work we've put into our fixer-upper home (which is an entirely different set of posts in itself) and watching our baby grow it has really been something.

Rory is so fun right now. She's got the best sense of humor and loves making people laugh. And she laughs easily, which she comes by naturally.

She crawls EVERYwhere, sometimes in the downward dog position because she still prefers using her feet over using her knees. She can stand for long periods of time and took her first step on the 4th of July, but doesn't regularly walk without a finger or couch to hold on to. She does crawl up the stairs like a champ, and is getting pretty good at going down as well. Her favorite thing to do is crawl over to the bottom of the stairs and laugh and squeal preemptively because she knows I'll come get her any second.

She finally decided that she likes the water! So our favorite thing to do right now is go to the gym the moment she wakes up from her morning nap, then spend an hour or so at the rec center pool after I'm done. She stands waist high in the kiddie pool water and happily splashes and watches the other kids. It's so so magical.

She eats more than I do, and that's not a joke. Some days I run out of ideas of things to feed her. Anybody else have this issue? We've mostly weaned. I still nurse her once every couple of days if she will nurse, though I know that can't go on forever as I'm sure I eventually won't have anything left to give. Thank heavens for Boo the vacuum cleaner who eats all her crumbs off the floor as self-feeding is a beautiful, messy thing. Rory has also been known to feed Boo on purpose from her chair the little rascal.

Puppy and baby become more and more mutually obsessed as the days go by. Rory easily gives Boo ten kisses in the space of 5 minutes and giggles at her so hard that she gives herself hiccups at least once a day. Boo is done with the bulk of her shedding for summer, but even still the constant vacuuming is worth it for how much these two love each other.

Our neighbor has the most magical apricot tree in her backyard. It's so full of apricots that she and I had to go out and brace the limbs to keep them from breaking, as several of the others already had. She has no family here and is so sweet to let us play on the lawn and steal an apricot here and there. (she sent me home with 3 full bags last week) Speaking of lawns, we are finally going to have a yard! We've been doing everything ourselves, so it's been quite the process. But we are almost there! My friend said I will just roll around in it I'll be so happy, and I quite agree. Anyways, I knew the moment I saw those limbs full of apricots that I needed to get a picture or two of Rory there. So I did, and Rory picked an apricot right off the tree and ate it mid-photo. Sometimes there's magic in our backyards. Really.

I did include a crying picture to bring us all back to reality. Homegirl is breaking 4 of her top teeth at the same time right now. So much drool, so many chewed fingers, and a good bit of fussing depending on the day.

Pool time at Nana's

Both girls (puppy + tiny human) were introduced to the water when we went to CA a few weeks ago.
Boo literally could not get enough, and we often had to escort her out to take a break.
(her presence/enthusiasm & doggy-paddle/claw combo was a little overwhelming)
Rory was much more content sitting on a towel and watching from afar.
There may have been some panicky whining when her toes touched the water.

We are really wishing we were back there lathered in sunscreen right now.
A community pool just doesn't live up to that view, am I right?