aaaaand we're back.

whoa.  it took a long time for me to get back on the computer.  between unpacking, cleaning, and soaking up family time, we've literally had zero time to take pictures, let alone upload them!  but here i am, finally sitting down to document.  

what can i say about two plane rides with a 6-month old?  DON'T DO IT.  but honestly, if it wasn't in place of a 28-hour drive, it wouldn't have been worth it.  hazel is just not a flyer.  she screamed during the entire take-off of both flights.  lesson learned:  don't take a 6-month old on two flights in a row.  one is okay.  two is not.  and fly in the morning when she's happy.  

anyways, during the flight a really nice french woman that spoke zero english helped me with hazel. she held her while she screamed and i tried to get my crap together, and then distracted her later on when i was trying to do who knows what to keep her happy.  grateful for little french strangers that are willing to help out.  

the past week here we have mostly just spent time with family and helped a teething/post-shots baby hazel.  john is getting ready for mba school and i am all for this dry heat.  bring it on, utah!

how we changed atlanta.

john and i single-handedly rid all the grocery stores of all blue bell red velvet cake ice cream.

we also missed at least ten freeway exits, and wrote google maps about it.

i made the pool manager at our apartment paranoid that i was going to come swimming, even on cold days, and that he would have to be present.

our local walmart now keeps double the amount of monster energy drinks/coke zero in stock.

there is a significant amount of raid outside and around our apartment.  some spiders/june bugs/cockroaches may have developed some tolerance to it.  while many others have died quite horrifically.  sorry, environment.

today is john's last day at the good ole internship.  and while living in atlanta {and making our little mark ;} has been so fun, we are ready to be back with family for awhile.  we are so grateful for our opportunity to have been here, to learn to lean on each other, and to have discovered a new city.

that time i went from ordering medium-well, to medium.

to celebrate john's completion of his internship, we decided to go out for a nice dinner.  and i'm talking nice.  like, so nice i felt out of place.  we haven't been to a restaurant that nice since.... i don't even know.  but we'd heard lots of good things about it, and it came highly recommended from so many people.  so we decided to give it a shot.

and oh.my.f a n c y!  sometimes you forget when you're living off home-cooked meals and $15 date-nights that such places exist.  but they do, and they are fun to go to once and awhile.  

john ordered the braised rabbit, i ordered the duck n' beef burger, medium-well.

i regretted it once i said it.  medium-well, you idiot! they will over cook it and it will be dry!

and it was.

when i mentioned this to john, he encouraged me to send it back, which i inevitably did.  and then, after they brought me back a perfectly medium burger, {i should have known!  from now on i will always order medium, i've made up my mind.}, and i finished it to my heart's content, and my stomach overflowed with delicious duck meat.... they brought us three desserts to compensate.  you heard me.  three desserts.  < insert embarrassed emoticon >

oh man.  those desserts.  that were soooo good.  and i was soooo embarrassed.  but nothing could top my surprise when we got in the car and john said, 

"well, i didn't want to say it in the restaurant but i had read on yelp that if you send your food back they bring you their entire dessert menu."

no wonder he encouraged me to send my food back!  he's a smart man, and i love him.

well, there's no great way to end this story so i guess.... may the force be with you.

some things i've been thinking about, as we approach six months.

my baby is going to be six months old in about two weeks.  and i'm all, rude!

she has grown and developed so much.  she's ten pounds heavier than she was when she was born, {oink! oink!}, can sit up all by herself nowadays, and is discovering the world around her.  each day she makes developmental leaps that can't be easy.  so as hard as being a mom has been, i submit to you that life for babies is much, much harder.

first off, babies can't tell you what they need.  they can only cry and hope that you figure it out. sad!  they don't know how to fall asleep on their own, and when first born they can't even lift their ginormous heads.  they have to be taught to sleep, pooping is often difficult, and they move their body as uncoordinated as frankenstein.  {sometimes we call hazel frankenbaby when she's doing her jerky arm-movements}.  gosh, being a baby is hard.

so as frustrating as my life has been as a mom, {and it goes without saying that being a mom is also the most wonderful thing that has happened to me since marrying john....} i can't help but imagine that her life is frustrating, too.  and that when i'm struggling to get her down for a nap it's only because she can't help it, she just wants to explore the world around her!

lately i've been a little selfish, saying, "it took me an hour and a half to get the baby down for her nap!"  when i should have been saying, "the poor baby was exhausted and really needed sleep, but she didn't know how to fall asleep... poor thing."  some things about being a mom will be as they always have been - amazing.  and some things about being a mom will be as they always have been - so incredibly hard.  but gosh, i feel like it's my calling in life.  i love it, and i want to make 500 of them. ;)  hopefully, by some miracle, i can make this developmentally difficult year in my baby's life a happy one.  i can only help by giving her all the love and care she needs. 

last weekend.

our weekend was pretty low-key.  after several weekends of sight-seeing, it was nice to take a break and just relax.  on friday night, john took me out for burritos, then we went home, curled up on our classy blow-up mattress, opened up a pint of half-baked ben and jerry's, and put in burt wonderstone.  perfect date night, if you ask me.

on saturday we went to the frisbee golf park, which basically means these days that john frisbee golfs and hazel and i watch/throw a couple frisbees.  we had a great time.  i think john is really going to miss that course.  after the park we had all-you-can-eat sushi and headed home for a relaxing afternoon.  the rest of the weekend was filled with walks, eating food, church, watching shows.... basically nothing noteworthy.  but it was so great to recharge.  we definitely needed it.  

we head home to utah in only 9 days!  hazel is pretty excited about it.

some instas.

i'm obsessed.

hazelnut. from Paige Brunt on Vimeo.

"i've humbled you, and i've lectured you and you have borne it as noone could have born it. maybe it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another."

via

as i was watching this scene yesterday, it struck me at how true this quote is of marriage.  i speak specifically of how two people can help each other strive to be better.  as mr. knightly suggests: john and i, imperfect as we are as individuals, are more perfect together.  john helps me each day to be a more patient and kind person.  truly, "i feel so full of error, so mistaken in my make-up to deserve [him]".  but he, in his patient, loving way, encourages me each day to be a better person.

i can't even count the number of times that i have been frustrated with the beebes and he lovingly reminds me to not let her fussiness/refusal to nap/teething crankiness affect my mood.  if i'm in a humble mood then i take his advice and make a serious commitment to be better.  the trick is humility.  and it is sometimes so so hard to be humble, isn't it?

last night, we had a long conversation.  and i thanked and thanked john for all that he teaches me and that he doesn't give up on me, despite my resilience.  and he thanked me for the things i do to help him strengthen his weaknesses as well.  i went to bed feeling quite whole with him beside me and a sleeping baby in her crib on the other.

john, thanks for making our life together so magical.

some things about us.

1}  we have breakfast for dinner at least once a week.
2}  our agreed-upon nickname for hazel over the past few weeks has been "the beebes"
3}  she has developed a habit of eating ice cream every night, and he lets her
4}  sometimes we have full texting conversations purely in emojis.
5}  we have collectively watched all the episodes of 24, big bang theory, star trek (well, okay, most of star trek, there's a lot!), breaking bad, psych, and many, many more!  (we're kind of t.v. junkies)
6}  frisbee golfing is a must at least once a month
7}  he didn't like condiments or diet coke, and then she ruined him ;)
8}  he sings incorrect lyrics to almost every tune, and she corrects him
9}  sometimes when hazelnut is sleeping, we sit in bed and watch videos of her
10}  we plan our halloween costumes months in advance
11}  our first kiss was during "bill and ted's excellent adventure"
12}  saturday mornings usually consist of a family snuggle
13}  he can quote "dumb and dumber" word-for-word
14}  she never knows he's quoting "dumb and dumber"
15}  10-20% of our days are spent trying to get the beebes to laugh, and catch it on camera

the triple-bypass burger.

sometimes, you hear about an amazing place to eat in atlanta.  and, because you live in atlanta, you really really want to try it.  so, even though it's a bar, and even though they won't let you bring your baby inside, you go anyway, and get it to go, and eat it in your car.  sometimes, that "triple-bypass burger" is totally worth it.  

^^^^ you also get a glimpse of the mary margaret house, and reminisce of days reading gone with the wind, and being so furious about the ending you could cry.

you then decide to see what's what at piedmont park, because you've heard of piedmont park and you're generally curious.

and then sometimes, in the afternoon, you undress your baby down to her drawers, because you live in atlanta after all, and it's so dang hot outside!

then you call it a day, go home, and eat peach cobbler.

the darlingest.

happy 5 months, baby girl.

today.

today i spent $140 dollars to be told my daughter has a cold.

yep.  i'm one of those moms.

i was overwhelmed and alone and could tell something was wrong with my baby, i just didn't know what.  {and for the record, it is really hard to tell if your baby has an ear infection when you left your otoscope back home....}

all things aside, i'm stoked she isn't seriously sick, or that i have to try to get her to take oral antibiotics {she still vehemently refuses anything but the breast}

and, $140 or not, she's still totally worth it.