Fall is Here!

The Seattle area is absolutely stunning in the Fall. Every time I drive anywhere or step outside I want to take a million pictures, but somehow only end up with a couple here and there.

Our street

General Conference

Best weekend ever! It started out with a sleepover Friday night with Taylor, Martha, and Nelli, and just got better and better as Grandma Jana, Grandpa Scott, and GG joined us Saturday afternoon. Tyler has spent at least one session of General Conference with Grandma Ruby since his mission, and we were really sad about the inevitable discontinuation of the tradition with our move to Washington. But alas, it continues! At least for now.  

Saturday Morning

Listening to conference with GG through her hearing aids

Lots of snuggles

The men headed to Priesthood Session. Ty is already eager to take Thayne when he's 12

Modeling his new hat and mittens. I only put them on. He did all the posing himself

Playing Aggravation 

The messages from Conference were wonderful. The message for me was: no matter the cost, the trouble, or inconvenience, following the Savior is ALWAYS worth it. 

It felt so good to be with family and to have the space to take care of everyone. If only every weekend could be that perfect

Thayne Has an Announcement!

18 Weeks! 

We're due March 5th, and can't wait until the 19th to find out if Thayne will have a little baby brother, or a baby sister!

Piano

Our first investment to furnish our new home: a piano! We found it on Craigslist from a sweet older gentleman that even had a lift on the back of his truck and delivered to our house. It's nothing fancy, and certainly needs to be tuned, but it's in good condition and we absolutely love it. 

New Park!

A couple of days after getting into the new house, Thayne started saying, "Wee? Wee? Wee?" Which really means he wants to go the the park. Swinging elicits such joy that he can't help but say, "Wee! Wee!" Our apartment was literally across the street from a great park with baseball diamonds, tennis courts, and of course, an awesome playground. Thayne knew precisely where the park was and would start pulling me towards it whenever we would go out the door. So needless to say, exploring the new park was essential for Thayne to really feel comfortable in our new house.

The park is only a quarter mile away from our house and Thayne loves looking at every rock, plant, and front door along the way. He's getting so big! When we got to the park, I showed him how he could go down the slide by himself and he took off. It was a surprisingly easy trip to the park that resulted in one tired Thayne and one happy Momma. 

Tears

This has been One-Of-Those-Weeks for me. One filled with a variety of tears and an equal variety of sources. Each definitely enhanced by the five inch babe in my womb, but valid emotions nonetheless. 

Tears of Sorrow: This past Tuesday, Tyler's cousin delivered two sweet baby boys. They were beautiful and perfect in every way. To me, their perfection and beauty was anything but diminished by their delicately joined torsos. Their shared heart and liver made any chance of survival grim, but made their hour of life outside of the womb all the more precious and dear. Faith based knowledge fills any like-situation with hope and comfort, but there were still many tears shed from this new mother's eyes at the thought of saying good bye to such sweet babes for any length of mortal time.

Tears of Frustration and Stress: On the same Tuesday, we received a call from a man named Joe who said he had the papers for our house ready to sign, and asked if we'd be available that night. This was at 8 PM. He claimed to be a mobile notary and thus able to bring the papers to us where ever that may be within the city and surrounding area. We tentatively made an appointment for 10 PM that night and frantically tried to get a hold of our Realtor to verify that we hadn't just volunteered ourselves for some scam, theft, or planned murder. She was wonderful and confirmed all the information with us and Joe did indeed show up at our apartment at 10 PM with an inch thick stack of papers for us to sign. We signed our lives away and wired all the money the following morning after doing a final walk through of the house. The Escrow company involved in the sale was new to our Realtor, and while with a normal sale we would expect to receive the keys the following day or perhaps the next we found our selves three days later with a U Haul scheduled for the following day, various family members planning on making the five hour drive over to help with the move, and no keys in our hands. Things did in fact work out perfectly, but there were still tears shed before keys were handed over, and especially before the Calvary of Angels (our families) arrived. 

Tears of Gratitude and Peace: On initial reflection, these tears on the brink and easily flowing since the move could be merely from the end of a long summer's wait for this beautiful home that, in all things considered, went through with a surprisingly small number of hindrances. And in part they are. But they are more adequately attributed to the aforementioned Calvary of Angels. Housed in the area and coming in at all hours of the evening and night from "distant lands" came angels to our rescue. Thayne was loved, taken care of, and played with through our two days of packing, moving, and unpacking. Food was brought to ease the burden of making sure everyone was taken care of. When I was crying at the thought of getting the rest of our apartment boxed up, there were multiple hands that appeared to box right with me. Our home was loaded, moved, and unloaded in a matter of four hours. And by the end of the day, not a box remained to be unpacked. I walked through the various rooms to find beds up and made, books and linens on the shelves, toiletries in the drawers, and food in the pantry. These simple acts would have taken me weeks to accomplish. 

We have a comfortable home, brought together by people who love us, and I have the most wonderful boys to share that with on a daily basis. We have a knowledge of life after death and the nature of eternal families. At this point, I'm thinking maybe tears aren't so bad after all. 

"Mommy, Daddy?"

There are so many events and pieces of news to share and catch up on, but I want to record this little story before it becomes lost in my muddled memory. Last week I was talking to Thayne about our upcoming move and our conversation went something like this:

Me -  "Thayne, soon we're going to move into our NEW house! We'll move all of Thayne's toys, and Thayne's bed into the new house and it will be so fun!"

With a slightly furrowed brow Thayne looked at me and said, 

Thayne - "Mommy, Daddy?"

Me - "Oh, we'll bring Mommy and Daddy's bed too and all of our things. We'll all be at the new house together!"

He paused for a moment. His look of puzzlement changed to one of satisfaction, and he kept playing with his toys.

In a Thayne manner that I can't quite catch with words, he seemed genuinely concerned that Mommy's and Daddy's  things weren't included in the list and perhaps we wouldn't be included in the move at all. He is such a smart little guys these days as his language comprehension seems to reach new levels with every new day.