We’re moving in exactly 1 month and 2 days.  I’m sad about it.  Real sad.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m super excited to moving back to America.  To our friends and family.  I’m very much looking forward to going home.  But I will miss Scotland deeply.

So in honor of our 4 and a half years here in Scotland, I wanted to make a list of the things that I will miss about Scotland and about living in Scotland.  There are plenty of things I won’t miss, but I thought I’d keep this list more positive than my pregnancy overdue top ten list.  🙂

In no particular order, I will miss:

– Scottish green grass.

-The rainbows.

– The accents.

-Alanna’s preschool- she loves it there, and she loves Mrs. Maclean, her teacher.

-My Scottish friends, most of all, Fran.

-Mulled wine in the winter

-Christmas village on Princes street during Christmastime.

-Long long days during summer.

-Walking to Tesco.

-Heck, getting Tesco to deliver my groceries to my doorstep for only £3.50 (about  5 dollars). I will really miss that!!!

-Seeing people all bundeled up walking- they love to walk here!

-The bike path behind our house.

-All of the fun day trips that are to be had here.

-The castles.

– Our house, especially the room that I made for Cole, just for him.

-The breathtakingly gorgeous sunsets.

-Walking Alanna to and from school. Even in the rain.

-Seeing all of the children walking to school in their school uniforms.

-Our church- what an amazing group of people.

– Roundabouts.

– I’ll miss Edinburgh- what a pretty city.

-Sleeping with the windows open year round (yes, even in winter, I get really hot at night!)

-The air just smells cleaner here.

-I know I’ll miss a good Scottish rainy day (that one may take awhile to miss though!)

-The amazing water that we drink right out of our tap.

-The scenery.

-Meeting up with friend for a cuppa.

-British humor on TV.

-Mark and Miranda- what lifesavers they have been as far as Christian community is concerned.

-My photography business- it has just started to pick up in the last 3 months- fab timing!!

-Hearing the use of the word, “wee,” incessantly in conversation.

-I swear the sky is bluer here than anywhere else in the world.

————————————————————————————————-

Though far frae thee, my native shore,
And tossed on life’s tempestuous ocean,
My heart-aye Scottish to the core-
Shall cling to thee wi’ warm devotion.
And while the waving Heather grows,
And onward rows the winding river,
The toast be “Scotland’s broomy knowes,
Her mountains, rocks, and glens forever!”

So, I think these pictures are my favorites that I have ever taken.  I just love the lighting, the way they look in black and white, and of course, the subject is super cute too.  🙂

This one is my fav from the set.

There will be a lot of pictures in this post.  A lot. Sorry.  Poor baby Cole… he can’t run away from me yet.  And yes, I fully intend to exploit him to the fullest before the day does come that he can run away from me.

He’ll be the most photographed 3rd child in all of history.

We’ve been doing SO well around here.  We’re all just loving having a baby in the house.  The girls are adjusting well.  They just love him to bits.  Cole is doing great, he definitely has his “off’ nights, but on the whole, he’s a pretty good sleeper.  We kind of do the normal thing around here with him… feed him, he poops, he sleeps.  Rinse and repeat.

And now onto the photos.

This was just before his first bath.  Believe it or not, he had not been bathed at all by this point.  They don’t bathe babies until they are 24 hours old here, and we were discharged from the hospital before he was 24 hours old.  Fortunately for me, he wasn’t too messy after he was born.  In fact, our dear friend Mark Kelly (who has an imaginary blog, yes he really does) looked at a picture of Cole right after he was born and said, “Wow, Hope even keeps her womb tidy.”  LOL!!!

Wee man was not happy about that first bath.  Look how red he is!!!

Cute little guy.  And wearing the shoes that I made at that.  Unfortunately, I made them WAY too small, so they’ll probably only fit him for a few more days.  Oh well…

Can’t leave my little ladies out!  They got a surprise from baby Cole after he came home from the hospital.

Sweet little man…

Can I eat his cheeks?  Pretty please??

So, the girls are sitting next to me right now.  Nora just sneezed allllllll over my computer.  Loving the snot and slobber all over my computer screen now.

Anyway.

Here are some of the newborn portraits that I’ve gotten.  Poor kid and my photographic torture… yes, he did pee all over everything on multiple occasions.

As a side note… and all mothers will totally understand what I’m talking about here.  Why is it that newborns instincually know when mom is just about to fall asleep?  Seriously,  it does’t matter if you wait 5, 10, 20 minutes just to make sure that the baby is asleep when you put him in his bed (Cole is currently in a moses basket next to our bed), he will nearly always wake up just as you’re about to fall asleep.  It really cracks me up.  In those moments that he won’t wake up to finish a feed, I just put him in his moses basket and lay down.  9 times out of 10, he’ll wake up just as I’m about to drift off, lol!!!!  And then we finish the feed.  Cracks me up.

The second bath went much better than the first.  You know what he’s thinking here… “Why hello hand. Do you have milk for me??”

This little onesie was Nora’s when she was a baby.  It is soooooo tiny.

Gosh, I just love his baggy skin on his knees and thighs.  Precious.

Gotta love some baby feet.

And to end this blog post, the quote of the week goes to me, said to Nora.  Which was, “Nora, please don’t put lipstick on baby Cole.”

🙂