New, and the same

We've been adjusting to a lot of "new" around here while many things are still the same.

my *almost* two year old

I think one of our favorite new things is the neighborhood pool.

another favorite is a bigger bathtub to practice her "swimming"

I've tried to keep things as predictable as possible. Like keeping our morning routines the same. With plenty of time for quiet and playing in pajamas.

she has a dainty way of picking off the sprinkles and eating them first.

We've checked out our new donut shop

We tried a new library, but have been going back to the old one because we like it better. I am missing some things about our old place and its location, but enjoying our new place as well.

There is much excitement around here with college football starting this weekend, Michael's birthday to celebrate in a few days, and I just ordered 2nd birthday invitations!

Saying goodbye to our house. Isabella was just interested in eating her cookie.

Over the past few weeks we have moved, attempted to get settled in our new home, and got our old house ready for our renters to move in, in between having lots of other things going on. Our families and friends have been so generous with their time to help us with many different things during this transition and other events we have had. I took a couple of weeks to step away from being online, reading blogs, and getting on Facebook. By the end I decided I really could do without Facebook, but missed some of my favorite blogs. It was good to think about how I occupy my time and what matters to me in life and that sometimes those things don't match up. I'm ready for things to slow down a little and to get more settled. I hope to enjoy a couple weeks of things being a bit slower as our fall is already looking pretty full.

Some of our week in Instagrams

 Tuesday: We went to the water park as it will be closing soon with school starting back

 I had put on our summer list to play in the rain, forgetting that we are pretty much in a drought and aren't really getting rain. It finally rained and before it turned to hurricane-like conditions and we lost power, we went for a rain walk and did some rain dancing.

 Thursday: Breakfast with Thomas

 At frontier city with Milo waiting on the train. Such anticipation!

 Friday: Evening swim with Mimi while Daddy's out of town

Saturday: Brunch with some of my cousins

Coffee break...way better than Starbucks!

We had a couple fun outings and some down time this week, as I anticipate this coming week to not allow for much of that with our move. Also this week, Isabella had a blast at the toddler Olympics at Mother's day out at our church, and we were both super happy to have Michael back home after his work trips. I will be taking a break from the internet for a couple of weeks to focus on some other things and get settled in our new home.

I decided one day this week it was time to start living in the reality that we are moving...on Tuesday. This opportunity came unexpectedly and with other stuff we've had going on this Summer, I really haven't thought about it much.

So I began packing up our stuff yesterday. This makes our 7th move in 10 years, all within our local area. You would think in that time I would have developed some great system for moving. I haven't. I am terrible at packing. But, I have learned I am good at getting us settled pretty quickly and creating a space to be our home. (With the help of many gracious friends and family members). And also I've learned it doesn't matter where we live, a boys dorm, a tiny apartment, a house, wherever, home consists of our family and the experiences we share in our home with friends not the space we are in. This will be our first move with a child, other than when we moved and I was 8 months pregnant, so I am wondering how that will change things. I'm not excited about the moving process, but I am excited to create new memories and share our home with those we love.

10 years

We celebrated 10 years of marriage this past friday! For our family celebration we picked up sandwiches from our favorite place for a picnic and went swimming.

 We went home and put Isabella down for a nap and began packing our bags. My sister and mom both volunteered some time ago to stay at our house and keep Isabella if we wanted to go away for our anniversary. My mom ended up staying with her, and after much debate of where to go, we settled on staying at the Skirvin, here in OKC. One of the upsides to Michael traveling is that we had enough points to stay for free. It was so great to pack a bag just for me, and not have to think about diapers, wipes, books, lugging a pack-n-play, snacks, and all the other extras.

 We were pretty pumped about it. We checked into our room and no one ran around the room screaming, pulling the phone across the room stretching out the cord, while putting the ice bucket on their head...

although, I have no idea where our child would get that

wild behavior from... :)

We got ready to go out to dinner.

Ate delicious food.
Watched a movie in bed.
Slept in.

Ate a yummy breakfast in bed.

I read. 

And then I said, "I'm ready to see Isabella". And Michael said, "Me too."

So we went home an hour or two earlier than planned. I suppose that is the sign of a good night away, being relaxed and refreshed and ready to see our girl again. Someday we hope to take a trip for a few days to celebrate, but until we are able to make that happen, we enjoyed our night away.

We were able to reflect on the past 10 years during our night away. We have grown up a lot, struggled at times, moved a lot, traveled a lot, and laughed a lot in 10 years. Through it all, I love sharing life with my best friend.

The themes of this week have been getting back in the swing of things after being on vacation along with surviving the heat and Michael being gone for three days.
In search of somewhere indoors to play, we went to the science museum on Wednesday.

We hadn't been in a while, but Isabella went right back to her face painting shenanigans.

She loves water play

Tractor driving with Milo

Cookie break- indoors. She picked the chocolate parts off...

Thursday we drove to Stillwater and went to the Oklahoma WONDERtorium with cousins. (I did not make that name up). It is a children's museum that opened last year, and it was really great!

Catching a fish

Painting

Playing grocery store

Another painting center

After all of her painting at the WONDERtorium she wanted to paint after nap time when we got home.

This was before the painting got out of hand. Isabella took "finger painting" to a whole new level. I  ended up taking her outside to hose off.

I'm waiting on Michael to get home from the airport and then our weekend begins. Tomorrow we celebrate our 10 year anniversary! We are having a family day and then Michael and I are having our first night away together since we had Isabella. We have each been gone overnight but not both at the same time. I'm pretty excited about it!