the world according to Sarah

This is what you get when a 4-year old finds your camera.

^ the cloudy sky

^ the gravel driveway (notice the bolt—there are all kinds of artifacts like this in our driveway from the years of working on farm equipment.)

^ a random rubber boot (either drug up to the house by the dog or Sarah—hard to tell. Maybe it was the dog and Sarah.)

^ the living room wallpaper

^ the popcorn ceiling (it's sparkly!)

^ the living room carpet

^ her *messy* room

^ toys on our new table

^ the baby's head

^ the shop

^ her Daddy working on the swather


There were a hundred more like this. I should give her the camera more often. Gives you a glimpse into life around here!

Our farm house—on the outside

^ The east side. We can't park in the garage yet. It's still full of stuff from our move!

^ The front entry.

^ The wrap-around deck. I'm not sure I would trust your kids on it . . .

^ Looking out the front door

^ The front of the house. Daylight basement.


^ The back yard.

^ Much of our yard looks like this: dirt, dry patchy grass, and gopher holes. We have some work to do! :)

^ The back of the house.

^ The back from another angle.

We are very blessed to have such a large house to raise our girls in. This was my Grandpa and Grandma's house and they built it in 1971. I have many memories here of picking strawberries in the backyard, sledding down the hill out back, harvest dinners in the front, and playing "kick the can" below the deck. Coming soon: a tour of the inside!

Utah house tour

Before I show you our new house in Montana, I thought I would give you a tour of our house in Utah.
My mom wondered if that would make you all think we were missing it. Well, are we? Not really. We miss the neighbors of course, and we miss that everything was new and clean, but the house belongs to someone else now. Picturing them living there makes me not miss it at all. Sure, we were proud of it and all the work we did to make it home, but we brought our belongings with us and look forward to making our imprint on this house here, eventually.

It took us a little over a month to sell the house, which was pretty good in the current market. We definitely didn't get the price we would have liked, but we were lucky to not be in a short sale or foreclosure situation like so many others in our neighborhood.
So, here is the tour:

^ This was a great kitchen. I loved the rich dark cabinets, granite counters, and tile floors.

^ I installed the glass mosaic tiles myself.

^ In the dining room, I painted this mural on the wall to match the wallpaper in the entry (next photo). I loved the impact it made in the room.

^ I found the wallpaper on sale online from Ferm Living.


^ We tore out the original deck and added a Trex deck and this iron railing. It added tons of character to the backyard.

^ We had a small backyard, but we had one little area with drip irrigation lines so I could grow flowers, tomatoes, herbs, and peppers in pots. It was a fun, manageable way to have a low maintenance garden.

^ The living room. Tom bought my piano for Valentine's Day one year. He'll never top that one. :) I loved my photo gallery wall.

^ Sarah's room. I pulled her two-tone pink wall from a Martha Stewert paint card. Her bedding was Shabby Chic from Target.

^ Sarah's dress-up wall.

^ Abby's room. Bedding from Pottery Barn Kids.

^ The girl's bathroom. Lots of pink in our house!

^ Our master bedroom.

^ I loved the vaulted ceiling and chocolate brown wall in here.

^ Master bath. I do miss this bathroom. Its just a tad bigger and better appointed than our current master bath. I miss our walk-in closet too.

^ Hallway and laundry room.


^ The basement. This table and chairs is an antique that belonged to Tom's grandma.
^ Our office area. Most of our basement furniture was from IKEA–the cheapest way to furnish a large room!

^ The family room. The wall hanging is from CB2.

^ The kids' play area. The vinyl on the shelves are Stampin' Up! and left from a photo shoot we did for the catalog.

^ Guest room #1

^ Guest room #2

^ Basement bathroom. We finished this room ourselves and I love how it turned out.

^ More vinyl from Stampin' Up!

Hope you enjoyed the tour! Coming soon: photos from our new old house in Montana.

August panorama

(click to enlarge)


Yesterday I showed you the view from our front porch. Here is the same view, almost a month later on a hot, dusty, August afternoon. The green wheat fields have all turned golden. This time it's taken with my zoom lens so you can see all the combines across the valley. These are custom cutting crews that can cut their way across the valley in a hurry. The other night we could see 16 from our window. I can count at least 9 in this picture alone.

We (Benjamin Ranch) own a combine so we do all our own cutting. It will take us until the end of August—at least—to finish the cutting. It will be fun to watch them cut the fields right below our house. Normally I would be out getting my time in driving the combine, but this year I will have to be content watching the action from the house with the baby.

Chubs








The longest stretch Eva has slept at 6 weeks is 5 1/2 hours. She hasn't repeated it yet, but we'll take what we can get! :)

playing salon

Abby and Sarah have to get creative and entertain themselves a lot while I tend to Eva. They were playing "salon" the other day and came to show me Sarah's hairdo. What do you think? I was impressed.



We did swimming lessons every morning for 2 weeks and had lots of chilly rainy mornings at the pool. Crazy Montana weather. Still, it was a good way to add some variety to these girls' days.

5 weeks

At 5 weeks Eva still has her fair share of fussy times but she is starting to mellow out a little. We figured she had a little bug (like the rest of the family), but she is feeling better and we've started to see some smiles emerge. Oh how we love her!





1 month old

Eva's first month went by so fast. She is filling out, and she likes to eat at least every two hours. That means mommy doesn't get a lot done, but we don't mind because this time will pass too quickly.

^ Sleeping peacefully, as long as she is being held.

^ She just loves my mom. I do too, and she is my indispensable helper.

^ This is my sweet future sister Annie.

^ And this is our growing family!

Josh's wedding

On July 7, we had the privilege of attending Tom's cousin's wedding. It was a beautiful setting with a gorgeous view of the Bridger's and a creek running through it.




We got to see some great old friends, and Eva got to meet her Nanna and Papa and Auntie and Uncle for the first time.



It is great to be back home in Montana so we can enjoy occasions like these!

Leaving town

This photo isn't the best, but it represents a good memory. We were on our way to Montana (for good this time), and Eva was so relieved to be out of her car seat, which she would barely tolerate. (She does much better with it now). We had stopped at a hotel in Butte after a drive that took nearly twice as long as normal. Sarah and Eva were so cute visiting on the bed and enjoying a break.

Goodbyes

***post edit: Sorry, there was a problem with the photos. Fixed!

Our last week in Utah was spent saying many special goodbyes. One afternoon we met these dear friends at the park for a picnic.


Charlet and I had fun being preggos together and comparing notes. These little critters were born only 2 weeks apart. I wish they could play together when they are older, but hopefully we will still get to see them once in a while! Miss you already!

^ Nicholas and Eva

red, white, and blue


Here is Eva sporting her adorable red, white, and blue plaid dress (Thanks, Jordan and Erin!). So patriotic. I should take a photo of her in her car seat now so you can see how much she has grown!

By the way, if you gave us a baby gift for Eva, you haven't received a thank you note. Yet. I have big plans to get announcements and thank you notes out one of these days and I haven't even started. Nor have I unpacked the boxes that contain the supplies to make them. But I have good intentions! I'm sure they will arrive in your mailbox before she goes to Kindergarten.

In the meantime, thank you all for your generosity. Love ya!

Catching up

My card reader just blinked "CARD FULL". And then it said "REPLACE BATTERY BACK". Not a good combination when there is a new baby in the house. There were photos like this one from when Eva was only a week old. That means I have a lot of catching up to do!

^ Notice the blue glow under Eva's blanket—evidence of the Photo therapy light treatment for her jaundice. It was a relatively painless experience this time thanks to a blanket style that we could use while holding her (instead of a bed style like we had when Abby was a baby.)

I'm going to postdate some photos to go up each day so I can ignore my blog for a couple more weeks. What??? You think I have time to blog with a new baby, a house to unpack, swimming lessons to attend, laundry to do, and harvest meals to cook?

No, really, I know some of you are anxious to see photos of our new old house and life on the farm so you can better picture how crazy a couple of city geeks like us look in the midst of it. I promise they will come soon.

Until then, this blog is going to be dedicated to baby bragging. With that, here are a couple more photos from the first week Eva was home with us.


^ Note the adorable Hanna Andersson polka dot jammies. Love these. Thanks, Paula!

6 weeks old

This is one of Eva's sweetest times of day. I was sitting here enjoying her sweet contentment and little smiles when I finally decided to get up and get the camera. This is the only photo I got though. Because every time I get the camera she gets this look on her face like "that's lookin' a little sketchy. Can you get that thing outta my face?"

And sure enough, the next photo looked like this:

She's saying, "Let's get on with this business so I can go back to sleep".

Wait a minute. That's my line!

Did I mention it was 4 AM?