Growing Up and Moving On

Happy Autumn! Amelia has really grown. She is just about 8 months old now, and a total darling.

 

Every day begins with his sweet morning face and continues on with babbles, giggles, and squeals.

 

Amelia follows in her mommy's footsteps and LOVES nature. I have often averted her attention by showing her a leaf and she will hold one for 15 minutes or longer. She also likes to put them in her mouth.

Speaking of putting things in her mouth, Amelia really wants to feed herself and was quick to use a cup all by herself. This is her at 6 months.

Mark saw a job ad on some nerdy website back in July and responded "just for the practice." He was the number one candidate and they offered him starting salary $12,000 more than his current job if we'd move out to this beautiful resort in the middle of nowhere. We moved to Colorado 2 months ago and have been so incredibly happy. Mark's commute to work has gone from a 20+ minute drive to a three-minute walk. Non-busy work hours are 9-5; and, when he does have busy weeks, he doesn't even mind. Just this Saturday, he had to start at 6am, had a couple hours off here and there, and didn't take his badge off until 10:30pm. He is a technical specialist (computer nerd) for the resort and has to set up and often be present for company retreat lectures and presentations. But Saturday, he also got to drive a van full of National Forest Foundation board members up the canyon to see dinosaur tracks; then, after sunset, he HAD to meet a group out in a field and play with star gazing toys. Darn, right? Most of the time, this still feels like vacation. Mark's boss penned, "I keep wondering when my vacation is going to be over."

The biggest downfall about this move is our proximity to church and store (an hour). Check out the view on our drive, though!

Gateway is getting a grocery store this January and everyone is very excited. To give you an idea of this tiny, abandoned mining town: Gateway School is Preschool to 12th grade and has 38 students. There are 3 grades per teacher, and even then, the classes are small. The Post Mistress is Nancy. She knows everything about everyone. There's two paved roads in town (laid within the last 25 years or so): the one lane Highway 141 and Foy Road, which makes a short, mile-long U-shape to touch the highway twice. The school is essentially across the street from the community building, which houses the library, fire department, meeting hall, AND post office. There's a  shooting range behind the building and a park with one tree next to the post office side. The gas station (no attendant, just pumps) lies on the other side of the building and rumor has it the grocery store will be in this same parking lot.

This fence is right outside our apartment door and has been a great source of standing practice for Millie. She's checking out the beautiful palisade that's just across the field where the horses winter.

 This footprint has been here HOW LONG?!

Mark and I make sure to take plenty of walks and hikes around this beautiful area. Although we've already ventured to Moab, we've barely even dipped out toes in the many adventures available to us. There's so much to do and see. Hope you can come play!

My New Life

I'm a mom now. I fully love it. I mean, who wouldn't love to see this every day? 

 

Or get these kind of wonderful snuggles?

But as my dad pointed out to me yesterday, I've been 100% mom for the past 7 weeks. It's wearing on me and I need to stay me. I need to find a good level of balance in my life. This is not some underlying insinuation that I'm not Mommy material. It's just that I'm also a horticulturist, as well as a sister, friend, daughter, and wife. oh yeah--and an individual person who needs to take proper care of herself.

Truth be told, I've been looking out at my yard this week almost choking up at how much it's been neglected. I think my weeds have weeds. Time to start rebalancing my life.

The weeds took priority for their convenient location to the nursery and because of how embarrassing my yard has been for about a year now. I like to weed, except for how tight the squatting and kneeling makes my calf muscles (if only that happened to my abs). It has been a very dry couple of weeks here, too, so if I'm out there with Amelia and she goes into a wail, I can get her inside without a huge mess of mud hall over me, her, and the carpet. So out we went for an hour and half today. I'd say I got a good 40% of that bed done. This picture was taken about 30 minutes in.

AMELIA JEAN

She came out in a snap! 20 minutes of pushing and she was in my arms. I wanted to give birth again. Consider it, such a huge reward for so little effort. Oh heck yeah!

And what a sweet reward she is. Daddy made the bow. I think she was a few hours old in this picture. I had no idea what I was in for.

One month down the road, she's still not really sure what's going on around her, but she's learning so much every day and her eyes are almost always bugged out like this. "Wow! look at that!" There really is so much to take in and I can tell she doesn't want to miss a thing.

I spend every day with her and I couldn't be happier. This time is precious. My biggest challenge is getting her to stop looking at everything and actually LET herself fall asleep! She fights it. I should get it on video. maybe I will, but her eyelids will start to droop and she has this 5 minute battle to try to keep them open. Sometimes she wins, but I'm learning a few tricks to teach her it's ok to not absorb everything all at once.

Mark is so good with her. he feeds her every night at bedtime and is starting to give her baths. I appreciate how willing he is to relieve me every evening. He's been napping with her after work a lot lately.

The Nursery






this little lambie is going to be printed within the next week or so and hung on the wall above the armoir.



 Though I'm not sure I'll be able to say so three months from now,  I LOVE spending time in this cozy room. I hope Amelia likes it.  I have one of those Ikea Poang chairs & foot rests next to the armoir. It is so comfortable and I have it all set up with reading material in a little basket, along with prop-me-up pillows and some breastfeeding instructional charts taped to the wall. this computer couldn't get the picture to turn upright, though.


Here's Captain installing the drawer pulls





Little lambies everywhere! and a random singing counting caterpillar...

(Those 2 pictures will be hung this weekend. I just knew that if I didn't post now, I never would.)

  I know of babies who spent hours crying because they were so captivated by their brightly colored sheets, that the poor dears got over-stimulated and over-tired. I don't want that, I really don't.  I love neutral beiges, though! Don't worry--little Millie has plenty of bright toys and blankets. I will make sure she is not under-stimulated.

February 25, 2012

That's right. We just got back from the doctor and heard that little 160 bpm heart pumping away in our 2-inch tyke. We are in for a treat and super excited.

Spring Projects

Our friend's brother, Brad Schroth, died last August and we have recently been blessed to inherit his dining room set:

Here it is in our front room. We like it a lot. The walls just look so nehked! So I've been hunting for THE decor to dress them up a little--make it look like a put-together room. My neighbor is re-working her basement and had this picture sitting around and very thoughtfully asked me if I would like it:

That's me holding the camera crooked, I promise. I admit I was a little apprehensive with the darkness of the boats being a little too gloomy; but, for a dining room, I think the "darkness" keeps it a little more formal-ly. Thank you, Daphne. She also gave us her mother's old croquet set which we are very excited to use.

In case you were wondering, our attic is still in shambles. My energy has been re-devoted to the outdoors for the spring/summer/fall and our yards look kinda crappy, but they have improved in some ways. For instance: I moved a shade-loving Mountain Laurel from the front of the house (hot afternoon sun) to the north side, along the driveway. We've dug up several Hosta from an undesirable location and distributed them around the neighborhood, along with some Red Hot Poker (Knifophia), chives, and Joe Pie Weed. 

Mark took on the most horrifying part of our garden one day, the black berry, kiwi, and ivy vine patch. The battle is not over, but he got a good start.

Everything on the ground behind him used to go up to about chest level. It's at least not giving me nightmares anymore.

That garden got a couple more spats of attention that week. I pulled out all the un-fruitful, overgrown raspberries. They are still there, just under control now. The final project I grumbled through was the removal of the bog garden (a bog is a land of saturated mud; things like cat tails and irises grow well in them). I like bogs, but not in my vegetable garden. That just doesn't work for me. I decided that I was going to pull out all of the plants and build the area up to ground level; and, what cheaper way to do that than to make it into a compost pile area?!

Here's me post-bog makeover. I love the previous owners dearly, but did a lot of cursing over the course of those 3 hours, as they had used a plastic tarp under the mud to line the bog. It was still holding pretty strong, and I had to dig it out of the mud! *not cool* I'm glad it's done now, though. I've got a great compost pile going: newspaper, grass, fruit & veggie scraps...blessedly nice potential.

The rest of the summer will be spent working as a counselor for the county's summer camp programs. With week one almost finished, I'm exhausted, but super happy to be busy; and, this camp makes me want kids more than ever. Just as soon as we feel better about Mark's occupation...

Mr. Fix-it

Mark had spring break from school last week. It was VERY needed, since he leaves the house by 6:30 every morning and Monday through Thursday nights does not get home until 10:45. Of course, he went to bed earlier, napped, and got to play on the computer during the week; but, he also got some really great handy man things done. He said it felt so good to accomplish things for US... as in, not because it was an assignment for school or work.

What started it all: our bathroom sink. I used the pipe to hoist myself out of the bathtub once (and never again) this past December and the threaded area where the pipes screw together broke, or ripped...but anyway, we couldn't use that sink--the water would drip onto the floor. Remember we have 2 other bathrooms, so it wasn't a huge deal for us. I was not strong enough to move the rest of the pipe out, but Mark was. So when he finally had more than a Saturday to pretend to replenish his strength, he got in there and removed the old pipe and voila! New and Improved.

Well, that felt so good, Mark proceeded to fix more things. This includes the antenna on top of the car. (we also hadn't been able to use our radio since fall because of a collision with the antenna and the bottom panel of the garage door (both broke). It was early, Mark was tired...

Here's a picture of the fixed antenna. It's sealed with the use of a caulking gun. Kind of laughable, I know. But thanks to Mark keeping a soldering gun handy, he was able to sit on the car and fix the wires back together. What a stud!

Next up: I asked Mark if he'd give the attic wiring situation a "college try" since I can't get a hold of Dom yet. He worked mightily for several hours on that dang thing. It's just that the wires aren't adding up. Don't know what needs to be done. He did get it down to what DOESN'T connect to the light switch.

I'm so proud of him. Such an accomplished fellah. We are really looking forward to when school is over on October 13th. Associates out of the way, and then Bachelors program doesn't start till later. Good luck, Mark. At least I hope your Autumn will be restful and productive.