Our First House Guests

So I guess the picture of the donuts & cider worked! We had our first house guests last week. Thanks for coming Gramps and Nana Lou! It was fun having you around for a few days. Canon's room became the guest room and Canon slept under our bed. (lest you think the picture above was of Canon in a cage, although that would be nice too :) Do you like Seth's foot?) Nana read him his night time story through the "bars". I only felt his head hit the bed a few times during the night :). Anyway, Canon was happy in the end (not that he hated sleeping under the bed - it was like a big cave!) because now he has a big bed. We bought another twin mattress, that became part of the king guest bed, but is now stacked with his other mattress to make a "big bed" for Canon.

The other pictures are just some fun shots of life in our new home. We are loving it. I promise I will take pictures soon. In other news, Savana qualified for physical therapy through the state last week. She scored 8 months old in locomotion, half of her real age, qualifying her for assistance. So our new busy schedule will include 1 1/2 hours of physical therapy 2 or 3 times a week. I'm actually most nervous about having to keep that kind of schedule. But we are excited to help Savana become a little more independent. She is very much a Mama's girl and loves to be very very near me. Mostly in my arms. Seth tells me not to spoil, I think he means pick her up, so much. But it is hard to listen to the crying at my feet all day, and when she crawls up to me, grabs and positions my feet towards her, and then reaches up to me with her fat little arms. It is hard to say no. Oh well, she is cute and hopefully she will love to walk soon. I'm hoping Canon will enjoy the little class he gets to attend while we are doing it as well.

Devastation

I found this text to a scrapbook page on a digital scrap booking site that I really liked and thought many of my friends and family would appreciate. I copied the text because this is exactly how I feel some days. Moving into a new house has made me want to keep it model home clean. After a couple weeks of constantly trying to get it clean, I've realized that is just not going to happen. But this text has made me want to stop and look at the "mess" a little closer and think about what was really going on at the time of it's creation, and even be a little grateful for it. (Even as a write this, Canon is in the kitchen "making cookies.") I've also committed myself to taking pictures of some of the most classic messes, I mean creations and journal Canon's creative thinking. First of all so I can look back when he is grown up and be more grateful for my clean house then, when I'm sad they are gone, and second so I can be more thankful for the messes now. Don't get me wrong, I'm still trying to get my home clean enough to take pictures so I can show off our new house, but I'm trying not to be as frustrated my the little messes everywhere.

Devastation

When I came downstairs this morning, if I had to give one word to describe the “devastation” which ran through the entire house, it would be abandoned. Whatever activity that had passed the day before lay before me almost as if a moment in time had been paused momentarily.

With two of you now to make the mess, I admit I just can’t keep up. I can spend my entire day cleaning up after you both and you follow right behind me undoing everything that I just put straight. I cannot begin to describe my frustration, and because you often go to bed when I do, I neither have the energy nor the inclination to tidy up at the end of the day. Hence, the abandoned scene that not just welcomed me this morning, but every other morning for the past week, month, even year.

But as I nurse Luke from my chair and look around, I no longer see a mess, but the creative play of my children. I see the sun catching a dainty pink shoe in the middle of my kitchen floor left by a practicing princess, a slice of plastic pizza placed on my desk just in case I might be hungry, several abstract art pieces placed with love on my refrigerator, a baby tucked up sound asleep by her nurturing Mommy, a building block placed precariously on a DVD and a juice cup abandoned in a quest for more play. Yes, it is a mess for sure, but I’m not sure I would have it any other way.

I am beginning to realize how quickly the years will pass. It will not be long before you have families and homes of your own and my longing for tidiness will come all too quickly. While I find it hard to cope with now, I find comfort in the fact that it’s a reminder, even when you’re sleeping, that you are never too far away.

It's That Time!!

We made our first apple orchard trip today. We love apple orchards. They are almost always more than just an apple orchard and a lot of fun. The one we went to today with the MOMS Club had a tractor ride to the apple orchard where we picked apples. Then we came back and ate pumpkin donuts with apple cider. After getting sticky enough that the bees were following Canon a little too closely, we escaped to the play area where they had John Deere tricycles. The MOMs Club of Wixom has a lot of boys Canon's age. In fact all the kids that went today were boys age 2 1/2 to 3 1/2. Notice the tricycle traffic jam in the picture above. Savana was the only girl - but that is OK, there are a lot little baby girls her age at church. There were also goats to feed and a hay maze. If it sounds like fall heaven - it is. You should come visit. I included a picture of the donuts and apple cider just to entice everyone a little more. September is the perfect month in Michigan. Still nice and warm, but all the fall stuff is in full swing. True, the leaves haven't quite turned, but there is a taste here and there of fall leaves. I also took the most beautiful drive yesterday to Stake Conference, which is right next to the temple. It is a 40 minute drive along the most beautiful tree lined streets and some of the most amazing houses, all lined up along the lakes. After that, you could swing down to Kirtland OH for a day and take in the church sites. Sounds like fun, huh? Just book your stay early at the Grant Bed and Breakfast!

Moving in and Moving up!!

Yes, we are getting moved in. It is a TON of work. I can't believe we had all this stuff in our apartment. Moving from our apartment was like the the loaves and fishes. There was more, and more and more. And just when we thought we had the last car load done, there was somehow enough to fill one more car load. But now that we are completely out of our apartment, we have begun the process of putting all that stuff away. It is fun to have ample storage and places for everything. Not only that, we have a basement and a garage!! Now we just have to be careful not to fill it all up with stuff we don't need. I'm just happy not to have the bikes in and the piano out of the bedrooms. When we finally get everything put away, we will post pictures of our new home. The added bonus to moving and trying to get everything put away is that I have been climbing up and down two flights of stairs fifty times a day. Every night my legs are dead and my "stair climbing" muscles are stiff. I guess it will get me in shape for hiking mountains when we come visit.

In addition to our wonderful new house, we are learning that we have moved into a great neighborhood as well. It may not sound like a big deal, but this neighborhood allows fenced yards and has sidewalks on both sides of the street, a rarity in this area. I can send Canon out back, or if he wants to ride his tricycle he can ride on the sidewalk rather than the street. We've also been told that we need to stock up on Halloween candy. Apparently this is the neighborhood that everyone brings their kids to for Trick-or-Treating. Probably because there are a zillion kids in this neighborhood. We met many of our new neighbors and have one family from the ward that lives just a few houses away.

Now for the kid update. Canon loves his new house. It has a loft that looks over into the family room that he likes to pretend is his tree house or his pirate ship or whatever else fits his imagination for the day. Last night he was a dog and was crawling everywhere. Since dogs don't sleep in beds, but in dog houses, the picture of Canon above, is of him sleeping in his make shift dog house last night. I didn't know if he would really last there all night, but he did. We'll have to see if he does that again. Wouldn't it be great just to be able to sleep anyway. Even all night on the floor! Savana is still just our sitting princess. She loves to sit on the Winnie the Pooh car and push all the buttons and "dance" to the music. She has figured out how to go backwards a little, but she is really just happy sitting there. She is getting fast at crawling and has started to stand up more finally. But her balance is truly that of a 6 month old baby standing on your lap. She actually took walking steps while she was holding my fingers today for the first time. Usually when she stands with her feet planted in one spot, as if she had no idea that they were supposed to move and walk. She does love wearing her shoes though. In the morning when I get her dressed she always grabs her little leather shoes and hands them to me so I can put them on her feet. What a funny baby. It will be interesting to see how long it takes her to walk on her own.