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.

Walking!

I would officially call him a walker now since he walks more than he crawls. He was on the verge of becoming a walker back in May, but then we started moving and the upheaval in our house was not so conducive to the budding skill. This was taken with Laino's camera and the audio is a little funny, but it works. 

On the Road and in Our New Home

We didn't get a lot of pictures, but here is a quick summary of our journey to Seattle:

Our first stop was Menan, Idaho. Spencer and Allison moved into their new place early that week and were so sweet to let us stay with them for a couple of nights. We also got to see Uncle Clyde and Michelle's family, Anna, and even did a temple session with Spencer, Allison, and Grandpa Ricks.

Visiting Grandma Ricks 

 Then we headed up to Spokane. Thayne was a trooper. He was so good the whole trip.

This was in Missoula, just 4 hours from Spokane

We started at our Miller family house and spent a few much needed days relaxing and enjoying family. We left Thayne overnight for the first time. Thank you Mom and Laine! We stayed at the Spokane Club Inn and loved being able to sleep in! We even found a little French Cafe and ate a delightful breakfast before rushing home to our little man.

 Then we headed over to our Southwick family home and had so much fun celebrating Katie's birthday with Jason and Leah's family, Martha & Nelli, Siri, and Grandma & Grandpa.

Then we headed off to Seattle and stayed with Taylor and Martha the first night until our PODS container showed up at the new apartment the next day. Siri was wonder woman and helped Ty and I get everything unpacked while Martha watch the Thayne for us. We love love our apartment and are so grateful that everything worked out. We're renting from Chris's Mom, who just bought the apartment earlier this year and wasn't looking for renters until June. We're right across the street from an awesome park with lots of grass and playground equipment. Albertson's is two doors down. It takes 10 minutes to drive to Ty's office (in good traffic). There are a couple different bus stops within blocks of our house. The church building is a block away. The area is gorgeous and we love this little neighborhood. We're so excited to be in Seattle! 

Just Need A Little Help From Our Friends

This post: Corny, but necessary. This post is dedicated to people that saved my life this past month. Our last couple of weeks in Provo were absolutely crazy and there is no way we would have made it out alive without so many good people to help us. And yes, all pictures are pirated from various sources.

Thayne and I took turns being sick about the time we needed to really get into the nitty gritty of packing. Kalie & Jordan, Katrina, and Bethanie came to the rescue to entertain and help.

To make light work of loading our PODS container, Dallas & Jessica, DJ & Sammy, and Jason & Suzy were right there with us. And I don't know what we would have done without Jason and Suzy's air mattress those few days we camped in our house with our mattress load up.

 Eileen and Maran were so sweet. Maran came to help watch Thayne and Eileen saved us with delightfully yummy food.

A very old, but very cute picture of Eileen and Maran

And what would we have done without the Noyes'? Amanda and Eric were positively angelic. They let us sleep at their house once ours was packed, watched Thayne for hours on end, helped clean our empty house, and made the crazy hectic-ness completely doable. Thayne absolutely loved spending time with them which made it so much easier to leave him and focus on getting work done even sneaking away for the best date we've had in a long time (we got to use our Seven Peaks Passes one last time, went out to eat at The Banana Leaf on University, and even went out for ice cream afterward). Thayne had a blast swimming, playing the piano, eating yummy food, going on walks, taking naps, 

and playing with Eric. 

They even indulged us in a last minute photo shoot in front of our little house, another photo shoot with Ty in his cap and gown in front of the BYU entrance, and one last stop at our favorite Provo restaurant. When we meet up again I'll have to steal the cap and gown pics of Ty. Right, Manda? 

From here, we jumped in the car and started the journey to our new home.

We were fed, sheltered, and helped by so many people that will be terribly missed by this little family.

Spring Term

This has been a crazy Spring Term. Tyler quit his Full-time position at the end of Winter Semester and started Spring as a Part-time employee in order to finish up all this classes to graduate in time to start working for Amazon at the end of June. A full credit load during the Spring term is 9 credits. Tyler took 11 credits on campus and 3 credits through Independent Study, while squeezing in as many hours at the office as he could. There have been a lot of late nights and early mornings for Ty, and lots of missing Daddy for Thayne and I. Though Thayne and I have stayed quite busy ourselves.

We put the house up on the market the beginning of April and had an offer by the end of the month. There were lots of frantic cleanings for house showings and many prayers of gratitude that my son enjoys watching PBS. Once we had the offer and inspections in, Thayne started helping me pack. We started early so we could pack at a rate of a box a day, and thank goodness we did since the last couple weeks we all took turns being sick! I am so grateful for so many good friends that came over and helped. I never could have gotten everything done without them.

When we could, Thayne and I took trips to the BYU duck pond on the South side of campus where we watched all the baby ducks and would meet up with Daddy when he had time. I never caught it on camera, but Thayne would see the duckies and say "Kack! Kack! Kack!"

Here's a little glimpse of Thayne's excitement 

After a crazy day of packing, duck ponding, or what have you, this was Thayne's all time favorite activity:

Thayne couldn't be more content than to sit with Daddy while he did his homework

And it made Daddy pretty happy too

Birthday Boy!

Thayne is one year old! He is the sweetest, smartest, funniest little guy ever. He loves "Apple" (the phonetic alphabet song on YouTube), any kind of "hat", he'll tell you when his food is "hot" (which includes food that is slightly warm), and gets excited to see "mama" and "daddy". For his special day, Jill, Tevya, Colter, and Ellie met us in Saratoga for a birthday celebration. We went on a walk by the Jordan River, had a yummy barbecue, ate cake, and took pictures down by the lake. I can't even express how much we love this little boy. Being his mom is the Best Thing EVER! 

Anxiously waiting 

When he saw the little cake he started doing his "Please! Please! " sign

This kind of sums up his thoughts on the whole occasion

He was a very clean eater

Just checking things out 

Offering some help

Darcy and Colter know how to eat cupcakes

Thayne's ritualistic offering to the Floor Gods 

A more generous offering

One beautiful Momma and baby

Spencer

Cousin loves

So Big

Happy Birthday, Thayne! 

5 Toothed Boy