Musings of a Homemaker: Better Late Than Never

We've been here, there, and yonder. Mostly there and yonder...and a little bit here. My "here" time, however, has been full of chubby baby thighs and new teeth, glass slippers and twirling, and generally trying to create a life in this still-new town.

And where is "there and yonder" you might ask? Oh we went to Oregon for a week and half, married off my brother, met our sweet and beautiful niece, and enjoyed some busy family time.

Look at my handsome brother and my gorgeous new sister. Love them!

See my big girl on the top right as the flower girl? I am overwhelmingly proud of what a great job she did in the wedding! I don't know many two-year-old girls that would so meticulously walk down the aisle, ensuring that the flower petals we evenly sprinkled. I am telling you, we were all pretty amazed.

(wedding photos by Katelyn Dawn Photography)

We road tripped it from NM to OR in a compact car. Yikes! We slept in 5 different shared rooms on the trip. We learned A LOT about traveling with our little ones. One thing that we discovered, is that we need to carry with one of those canvas closet organizers (sort of like this). It is just imperative with all the tiny clothes that a two-year-old and baby require to keep them from getting buried in the suitcase. Being able to find small clothing items = sanity for Mommy.

We also learned to bring along a collapsible hamper for dirty clothes. I love how it stands upright and clothes can literally be tossed across the room into said hamper. No more trash bags on the floor for us.

And when traveling for more than a week, I learned that I prefer to pack only 5 - 7 days of clothes and just do laundry once or twice.

Lastly, so long as I have access to a washer (and owner of washer does not mind), I will always travel with cloth diapers. I forgot how much disposables leak breast milk poop everywhere! I had to work hard to get some awful stains off of clothes when we got home and even had to wash the baby's bedding a time or two because of disposable diaper leaks. Cloth is rad. I have had two Smooch poop leaks EVER in the cloth diapers.

Isn't it awesome how much moms can talk about poop without so much as batting at eye?

We spent Smooch's first Fourth of July on the road traveling back home. I think Independence Day might be my second favorite holiday, so I was disappointed that we saw exactly one straggling firework late at night as we approached Salt Lake City. We were literally in the middle of nowhere, Utah during firework time. Don't worry though. I still dressed our girls in patriotic colors, and though no decent picture exists to prove it, I was happy.

Once we got home, we discovered our yard/garden had been overtaken by weeds...and that our spinach was in desperate need of harvesting. Buuuuut, I procrastinated and waited another week before pulling it up.

But wait. My procrastination was not entirely in my control. As soon as my husband returned to work that week, his boss said, Hey go to Phoenix on Tuesday and Wednesday next week for a training class. So just as soon as all the clean laundry was put away, I pulled it back out and we headed to the inferno that Friday (spending the weekend before the training class with family and friends.)

Here is one of my favorite pictures from our Phoenix trip:

Well after being "there" and "yonder" so much this past month, we have been out of wack lately. Today was the third day in a row that our girls have been back to their normal sleep habits, so things are improving. For a minute there, I was beginning to feel like I had a newborn all over again. :-)

Busy as we have been, I did manage to shoot a couple of 6 month photos of Miss Smooch. She is now 7 months, and her two bottom teeth have since made their appearance.