All At Once Part 1...October

Have you ever noticed life seems to be trodding along at its own speed and there's just nothing to really write about and then suddenly it smacks you right in the face and suddenly you're intimidated by the mere thought of trying to jot even part of it down? No?  Just me? And then you go to put in a pic and you notice that life was happening before and you should probably at least mention it?

Well, here's my attempt to capture the moments that make life magical.

These first pics are of our first trip to Zoo Boise, and Gideon's first trip to a zoo. He LOVED it! There's an ocelot in the lower right hand corner. :)

 This is one of Gideon's favorite animals...the lion. He loves to roar like a lion and it was hard to get him to turn around long enough to take the pic.

 Another favorite, the zebra, came right on over to say hi.

If you ever wanted to slide down a giraffe's neck, here's the way to do so.

My what big ears you have, my little fox.

Gideon loves playing games. This is a tic tac toe board that we got for Christmas years ago and and he loves playing with it, dominoes, memory cards, etc.

Gideon has a great love for reading. Here's a nice picture of him reading with Trevor.

Ok, so those are my pictures for October...on to November!

Garbage Day II

I'm pretty sure we have the coolest public workers here in Meridian, ID.  So today is once again trash day. But its not just any trash day...its trash AND recycle day. That means that we have trucks in our community 4 times!  (each truck comes through twice to be able to get both sides of the road).  Well, as usual, Gideon and I head out to watch/follow the trucks. This round the drivers made it an extra special tour for Gideon. The first act of coolness was the recycle truck guy using the arm of his truck (usually used to pick up the trash bins and dump them in the truck) to wave to Gideon. Down the road, he lifted up the back of the truck dump-truck style (I assume this is to move everything to the back of the truck to make more room at the front but I've never seen it done. I'm not sure therefore if he did this because he needed to or to be cool. Yes, I'm a toddler mom who is starting to call garbage trucks cool.) Later, the trash truck guy stopped and asked Gideon's name. He then introduced himself as Bart and told Gideon that "I love picking up your trash". Like we were making his day or something. When the recycle guy came back to finish his route he lifted the whole truck again. Anyway, they wave, they honk, they make his day.

Garbage Day

One of Gideon's favorite days of the week is Thursday because he loves Garbage Day. We live in a cute little housing community where the garbage truck has to wind through this maze to get to everybody. Every Thursday morning around 9:30-10am, Gideon perks right up as the unmistakable sound of the truck reaches his ears. We then drop everything, get on shoes and socks (and now a jacket) and fly out the door to follow the truck. Luckily, it is in the nature of the garbage truck to move slowly, stopping frequently, and following a predictable route. Gideon's little toddler legs pump as fast as they can go keeping up with him, but its fun to have something to do together that makes him so happy and is so easy to make happen. And it gets a smile from the garbage man too.

Pictures

He loves soft things and my sister Rachel has a giant caterpillar which was no exception.

To the side he made his bed all by himself and was all ready for me when I came to get him up!

 First dentist visit and he's rocking the dentist's glasses.

Watermelon? Yes, please!!! Condie Campout, Diamond Fork Canyon, UT. Daniel Edlund in background.

Frigid water cannot quench his desire to splash. Condie Campout with Rachel Edlund.

 Conquering butterflies at mall play area

 Wait...who is this? 

Kingsley Park swings

 Happiness is quality time with Dad, and a balloon to go with it!

Picking "flowers" for Mommy.

Helping out around the house. Sweeping is Gideon's favorite!

We've Moved!

I'm back!  It's been a bit since my last post, so let me fill you in on some of the in-between. In April, Trevor graduated from BYU with his bachelor's in IT. Chelsea, his sister, also graduated that day so they chose to walk together.

Although Gideon was super proud of his father and aunt, he was more interested in the game room.

The next week, we left Utah to become Idahoans. Trevor has landed a fabulous job working for Hewlett-Packard (aka HP, a computer/printer/etc company) up in Boise, ID. 

The short version of the next 3 months is that we were house-tenders until our house was finished being built and then we closed and moved. The longer version goes like this: We found a house that we loved that was bigger, cheaper, and in a better school district than any other house we had looked at...by a lot. We were super excited. The only catch was that it wasn't built yet, so we'd have to wait for it to be completed. This left us with a couple months with no where to stay!  So we started looking and looking. Most apartments wanted a 6 month minimum lease, but we found this lady on craigslist that did "house-tending". Basically you stay at a home that's on the market and you maintain it, prep it for showings, stage it, etc and get reduced rent in return.  Well, this turned from being a fabulous find to chaos. 

Within the first week of having moved in, the owners of the home became disenchanted with the idea of house-tenders and the house-tending lady informed us that it was our job to impress them so they would let us stay. Their home has been on the market for over a year so they were mostly just sick of the house not selling. The house tending lady also wanted us to buy a TON of new furniture and do-dads to stage the house. This was annoying to us because we sent her pics of all our furniture so she could ok us to stay in the house. Her excuse was she never actually opened the pics anyway and it was our fault. Alas. 

That first week we told the home-tending lady AND the owners that the kitchen sink was leaking and I put a bucket under to catch the frequent drips. They gave us the "ok we'll come fix it" but never came. Anyway, within the first month, we come down to the kitchen for breakfast and find a puddle on the kitchen floor in front of the sink. We mopped it up, but hardwood floor isn't forgiving of these things so they had extensive water damage. While this wasn't our fault, nonetheless, the disenchanted home owners really didn't like us after this point. It is my belief that this is the reason they kicked us out 3 days before we closed on our home. Eek!  Not only that, we didn't find out we had to be out on Tuesday until Saturday. 

So Saturday they tell us we have to be out by Tuesday (despite closing Friday) but that we can leave our stuff in the garage until we close and move into our house. Then Monday morning after Trevor's at work, I get a call. Just kidding! We CAN'T leave our stuff in the garage and have to be completely out by tomorrow. Double eek! This lead to having 3 different addresses in one week. Luckily we got a lot of help from our ward, the missionaries, and neighbors to make it possible. Ironically, closing itself went crazy smooth. I always heard that was the hardest part!

So now we live in a beautiful home that we OWN. This house-tending mess has made me hugely grateful for the blessing of owning our home. It's so convenient to not answer to crazy people. We now have internet (which we didn't in the home tending place, which is my excuse for not writing for at least 3 of the months). Anyway, now our lives our blissfully happy living in our own little piece of paradise!

Merry Christmas and Happy 1st Birthday Gideon!

The holiday season always fills my heart with gratitude. We have so much to be grateful for!  It's a season to remember Jesus Christ, his birth, and his life. His selflessness and compassion for others. His generous heart and sacrifices for others. After Christmas we celebrated the gift of another life, as Gideon had his first birthday on the 28th. What a blessing it is to have him in our lives!  How fortunate we are that the Lord trusts us with the care of his little one. How glad we are that he is in good health and spirits. And then to round off the season with the New Year, the opportunity to look back on the year and see all the blessings we've been given and to reflect on the future and make goals. For me, the New Year is also a religious holiday, because it is only with the Atonement that we are given the opportunity to repent, change, and become better. It is one of the gifts we give our Lord to be the best we can be and the New Year encourages us to take advantage of that. May we all be a little better this next year than we were the last!

Gideon had a lot of fun with his birthday cupcake, although he wasn't sure about the candle. He has gotten very good at opening presents over the past week and was excited to rip open his presents. Even the card envelopes got opened like they were gift wrapped!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 We had some fun times this Thanksgiving Holiday. It was nice to have a break for Trevor since he's been working so hard. On the left there, they're spending some time reading together one morning. On the left you can see that it started to get chilly. We've wrapped Gideon up with layer upon layer to keep him warm.

 We had a lovely Thanksgiving at my mother's parents house. This particular picture is of Trevor helping Gideon sample the pumpkin pie, which is one of Trevor's favorite foods, especially during the holidays.

At the end of the night, we dabbled in the Black Friday (Black Thursday? Black Thanksgiving?) shopping and were able to get some much needed things for the house to put under our Christmas tree (which we probably won't put up until a week or two before Christmas since our little fellow is so curious about everything he shouldn't touch).
 We have so much to be grateful for. The Lord has been very generous with us in giving us lots of loving family and friends and each other. I hope you all had a great holiday season!