Saturday mornings are always a big deal for us, we are all home, we get to spend breakfast together and enjoy each others company, which means we usually take a bit of time for making our meal. Today I made an extra special meal, pumpkin spiced pancakes with eggnog lattes. David had is midpoint review yesterday and after the review they announced that he has progressed to candidacy for his masters degrees!!! Congratulations David, we love you!
Dad and Emmett staring each other down on who likes the pancakes better!!
Emmett was sick yesterday and it always breaks David and my hearts when he's sick. I really do believe the Lord should prevent babies from getting sick until they are able to understand why it is happening. Yesterday I was trying to explain to Emmett, 19months old, why he was throwing up. His look on his face was so sad, how could this be happening to me?, why is this happening to me?, how long will this happen to me?
Thankfully the vomiting part of the sickness ended mid morning so we relaxed the rest of the day and enjoyed each others company in quiet activities: reading on the hammock, reading while swinging in his swing, watching movies, cuddling, going on walks, and napping. It turned out to be a lovely day. And this morning Emmett is back to his fun-loving, energy filled self, singing and playing drums with a spoon while eating his toast.
Funny little tid bit of what Emmett just did. He is playing with one of my hair clips and opened it up just enough to get his finger stuck in it which of course scared him a bit and Dad came to the rescue. I then took my clip and opened it up, Emmett pulled his hands to his chest and growled at it :-) What a great kid!!
Emmett and I had such a wonderful Saturday filled with friends and exciting adventures.
In the morning we enjoyed a walk with our friends Charlene and Rainea, the statue walk as we call it. In old downtown Mesa there are about 20 statues and we walk from one to the next reading the historical plates while Emmett climbs on them and chats in his own wonderful creative language.
We also discovered the Asian Culture Festival where there were amazing traditional Japanese style drummers performing. Emmett was mesmerized.
After a couple hours of napping for Emmett and chores for myself we got to enjoy our friend Ashley's company who joined us for an afternoon of baking. We decided to take on the challenge of Lemon Meringue Pie and it was amazing! The recipe is from Flour, a wonderful bakery in Boston.
Emmett and his back-up dancers
Us in the attic of the fire truck
Floating lanterns, about 40 from the north
At the end of the evening we had a wonderful surprise, a block party!!! that included lots of dancing and a visit from the fire department with a fire truck as well as the police department with a police car and motorcycle. Emmett was so funny studying all of the different buttons in the vehicles and asking the guys questions in his own language. The men were great with him, they even took him up on top of the fire trunk into the attic of the ladder which he thought was the greatest.
Ok so I know I have been very bad about posting blogs but today I realized I was going about it the wrong way, I don't need to update it and write everything down and make a big deal. I am going to treat it more like a daily journal to my friends and family. And this starts today.
I just want to say tonight was such a delightful surprise, David and I were sitting around thinking about what we were going to do and decided to call our friend Jane who is facing some challenges right now and invite her over for dinner. It was wonderful, uplifting and a pure delight. An evening filled with good food, drink and stories always puts a smile on my face and my heart.
I can't believe what has happened this past year, or even two years. August of 2010 David and I had just decided that he would go to graduate school for his masters in fine arts and then we learned we were pregnant leading us to believe our lives would change; however it is very difficult to image how much your life will change.
We decided to go into this completely open minded and faithful, knowing the lord would lead us where he wanted us to be, and he waited until after we had Emmett in April 2011, to let us know that Arizona State University would be the best place for David, almost as far from our parents as we could get while staying in the same country, with of course a brand new baby. But we believed that this would be a great adventure and we were both excited and anxious.
Taking time off to introduce Emmett to friends and family across the U.S. on our way to Arizona we enjoyed seeing our so many things, relaxing, preparing for the change in culture and work and play. Arriving in Arizona in August, 110 degrees most days, was a rude awakening however David's new professors, my new coworkers and Emmett's daycare staff all welcomed us with open arms and made us feel at home right from the start.
Over the past nine months life continues to change as we progress in our work here and Emmett changes everyday, now walking and evening climbing, we are so blessed to have a new place for all of us to explore. We will admit that we miss our families and friends daily but having our own space to form our own family unit has also been such a blessing.
As Emmett's first birthday approached I was a bit nervous to celebrate this huge event with new friends, mostly nervous that no one would show up to drink and be merry with us as we acknowledged that all of us (David, Emmett and myself) made it through the first year without any major scares. But as the party began I realized that we were forming a family far from our blood family and it made me so happy to share this time with them.
We still are loving when family and friends from home come to visit and when we get a chance to catch up in person. We hope that over the next couple years while we are here we can share this amazing place with everyone who can make it out here. And we want to thank you all for always being supportive, thinking and praying for us, sending us wonderful messages, emails, letters, and gifts. It is hard to be so far away but we are doing it with pizzazz, or at least I believe so.
Emmett perfecting relaxing in his swing (sorry it's so blurry in the beginning)
The mornings here are bliss. The birds chirping, Emmett's little voice gabbing as he plays with Olive, a cool breeze. I love getting up early and sitting in the backyard when it's like this, I think we all do. It brings us such peace, joy and wonderful quiet time for us.
It was so wonderful to have our good friends, Josh and Paige visit during the holidays. Coming for a week they spent the weekends with us and went up north to Sedona and the Grand Canyon. It was refreshing for us to have familiar faces in our home and
tohave time to catch up. Just look at all the fun we had here in sunny Arizona! In the middle of December it was in the 70s and sunny. Take note of this all you northeastern friends! If you come down to visit us you could get a tan. Paige and Josh did. We took Paige and Josh to Tortilla flat and on a hike up the Boulder Canyon trail in the Superstition Wilderness.
It was a blast, except for the fact that Olive stepped on a cactus. Then, in the process of biting the cactus spikes out of her paw, she got them stuck in her tongue. Cactus spikes in the tongue! Can you believe it? We had to perform a trailside surgery on her tongue and paw to remove the spikes, during which Alison got a spike in the thumb. I bravely pulled the spike out of Alison's thumb and Olive's tongue. All was well capping a super fun visit from our friends up north.
We are starting a band based on the visit. This is our album cover art for our first release titled "Cactus Rising." Look for it this spring.
Saturday mornings are always a big deal for us, we are all home, we get to spend breakfast together and enjoy each others company, which means we usually take a bit of time for making our meal. Today I made an extra special meal, pumpkin spiced pancakes with eggnog lattes. David had is midpoint review yesterday and after the review they announced that he has progressed to candidacy for his masters degrees!!! Congratulations David, we love you!
Olive stepped on a cactus. Then, in the process of biting the cactus spikes out of her paw, she got them stuck in her tongue. Cactus spikes in the tongue! Can you believe it? We had to perform a trailside surgery on her tongue and paw to remove the spikes, during which Alison got a spike in the thumb. I bravely pulled the spike out of Alison's thumb and Olive's tongue. All was well capping a super fun visit from our friends up north.
