This Crazy Life

Life doesn't always go the way you have it planned out. Now that it's middle of April we're just starting to settle back into a new normal.

Mid January Jake and I were feeling pretty settled and comfortable with how life was going. We planned on being in the home we were renting for 3-5 years. We had a budget set up to save money so we could buy land and build a home or buy our very first home. We both had recently received callings in our ward. Jake in Scouts and me as an Activity Day leader. Kaleb was doing good in school. We had talked to the homeowners about painting because we were ready to make this home ours as much as we could. Then Jake got a text from one of the homeowners. They are a divorced couple and to make a long story short, one of the owners broke our lease and neither of the two could settle on any new terms.  So after 6 months, we needed to be out by the end of February.  This began a whirlwind of packing and trying to find a place to live. Trying to decide if we should find another rental or look more into buying our own home. We thought for sure we couldn't do that. We hadn't been able to save any money. But, as it turned out, it was the right time and things fell into place for us to get our own home.

In the middle of all this craziness I made a quilt for a dear friend and their new baby Enoch.

It was a kaleidoscope eye-spy:

We also had Evelyn's 1st birthday mid February. I still wanted to have a small party for her. There weren't very many kids in our neighborhood but I still invited a few families to join us. And our friends from Rexburg came as well:

I put out some of her favorite toys and books for the kids to play with:

Then had fun decorating. I created everything myself:

I made a simple cake that was still fun but of course didn't turn out as nice and polished as I had envisioned in my head.
2 ... or was it 4? Layer cake with vanilla frosting. I used melted chocolate to create designs on it. I had planned on using melted chocolate to create little musical notes to create the 'Happy Birthday' music around the cake. I found an edible cake design that had just what I wanted. It was worth it to buy it.

In January I asked out-loud if we still wanted to have a birthday party for Evelyn. The boys said we for sure needed one. Well, what should we eat? Waffles! So thus was born, our Rockin' Waffle party. Evelyn loves music so we had children's music playing in the background and I had fun combining waffles and musical decorations.
I made a whole bunch of heart shaped Norwegian style waffles. Then laid out lots of various toppings: whipped cream, powder sugar, buttermilk syrup, maple syrup, different jams, berries, chocolate syrup, Nutella, peanut butter and more. Waffle bar!

 

Evelyn loved her waffles and cake: 

amidst piles of boxes and housing chaos and woes we paused to celebrate a very special girl:

She is such a happy light in our family. She loves to laugh and play. Loves music, Life cereal, car rides, snuggles and tickles. She's bull-headed and will only do things on her own time. She's been crawling for several months but although she can stand up no problem she doesn't feel like walking.
She is a blessed addition to our family.

As we were all headed to bed after the part hype had died down I suddenly remembered I had a present for Evelyn in my closet!
My prayer for you little Evelyn is that you learn to march to the beat of your own drum. Dream and be yourself rather than follow the masses.

The next day we needed a little break so we went to spend a little time by the river. It was colder than we had anticipated so we didn't last long. In fact, me and the girls sat in the car most of the time because the wind was a bit too much, especially for Evelyn.

This poor girl and her hair. She will have fun with it when she's a teenager and cares how it looks. It's always so full of static:

This was our first kid to get a full on black eye. She was jumping on the bed, even though I told her not to: 'One fell off and bumped her head'
Ouch