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.