It was Home

It was home when we came from Montana,
Ready to get out of the basement with the stowaway cat and the faulty plumbing.

It was home with the little balcony and willow trees and kids leaving all their toys out on the lawn.
(Kid, don't you leave your full deck of Pokemon cards out again or we'll confiscate them)

It was home when we could hear the Asian family upstairs making their porkchops,
Although it took us much fruitless strategy and many failed attempts to figure out what the deafening thud-thud-thud was.

It was home when we painted the living room green and hung up a map of the world, as if the world was ours.

And when the kitchen was a tornado of flower trimmings, nothing felt more like home.

It was an ecstatic home when we found out we were having a baby,
And then a jail of a home when I was trapped there, sick.

It was home when we took the growing baby bump pictures in front of the "shed" door,

when Bryan got his promotions at work, and I finally became a nationally certified SLP.

But it was the best home of all, when we came home from the hospital on a bright, snowy day with Three in our family and placed our tiny, precious one in her bassinet. At home.

Home through sleepless nights with her, home through stroller walks around the apartments, home for her first smile, first laugh, first movements.

Home through terrors of medical complications and immense fear and heartache and love and hoping.

It was home when my third round of houseplants died and I decided to give it up until we had a place with more sunlight for those little guys.
RIP houseplants.

It was home when we started packing boxes and boxes and boxes. We put away dishes and toys and baby beds and blankets, loaded our truck, and left #14-10 behind.


Though it was far from our dream living space, it was just what we needed.

And we won't ever forget this place, because

It was home.

--------------------------------------------
The following are some raw "snapshots" of life at our little place.
Not high-quality in pixels and lighting, but high-quality in memories.

"Bye-Bye, West Jordan!" - Jenna

Pumpkins, Pinterest, and Project Runway

Being in a new place AND having a new baby somehow brought a whole new excitement for the holiday season.  So we started off with a bang, pumpkin hunting at Linder Farms.

We have officially be in our house for about a month and a week, so we decided to have a little "Haunted" Housewarming. We've never been big into Halloween, but for me, any party is an excuse to consult the gods of Pinterest. And what they supplied was spooktacular.

Pumpkin Patch dirt cups,
Mummy's tomb cake pops,
and Graveyard brownies.

THANK YOU FOR THAT SUGAR HIGH. Wheeeeeee.

Another idea we tried was an ice hand in a punch bowl. Basically you just freeze water in a glove, float it in red punch, and voila---  a shivers-down-the-back party drink.

No where did it say that it was so difficult to peel the glove off the ice with no finger casualties.

Some of the fingers came off as I was removing the casing, so I just shrugged and plopped it in the bowl.
The next time I looked over, there was only one finger remaining on the hand, and I'll give you one guess as to which one it was.
Not gonna post a picture because I'm pretty positive my mother is the main reader of this blog.

Kudos to Bryan for coming up with our party games, Bean Boozled and The Whisper Game.

Bryan and I really planned ahead on our costumes. We spent since last Halloween sketching them out, picking fabric, doing fittings.

...
Thats a lie. We were winging it a couple days before all our Halloween activities but narrowed it down in time to throw everything together. Thrifty as we are, there was no way we were buying whole outfits at overpriced Halloween stores, so,

Me + minimal sewing experience + one day + our ideal costumes in mind =
basically a mini episode of Project Runway. I could hear Tim Gunn's voice in my head telling me it was a make it work moment.

Here's what our first Halloween looked like with our Jen!

Did I mention how proud I am of those homemade parts of our costumes? :D

  

Now I am just even more excited for the rest of the holidays!