But, while I was dealing with boxes, my lovely friend’s son Aeden was growing bigger by the minute, and before I knew it he was 3 months old. He did an amazing job during the photo session and gave a smile that was worth it when I was quick enough to catch it. In a few more months, he’ll be grabbing and gabbing up a storm and I can’t wait to see what new little stories he’ll try to tell us. Until then, enjoy these photos!

Last weekend, I got the opportunity to celebrate with Peter and his family as he turned one. The Elmo themed party was complete with family, friends, great food, a pile of presents to tear open, a beautiful Elmo cake, and a bowling pin signed by the crowd with well-wishes to Peter. This was fitting as the location was at a bowling venue. And what was Peter sporting? A cute red shirt with his name on it and some Elmo shoes, styled by his mom of course who planned a very memorable first birthday party.

If you’re like me, you love flowers, having them around you or purchasing them, but when it comes to naming them- well that’s a whole other story. And now that spring is upon us, I’ve got a lot of lovely flowers budding up around me that haven’t bloomed and I am waiting in anticipation to see what they’ll look like. I know there’s a lot of you out there who can look at the leaves and say, oh that’s a blah blah blah, but the extent of my naming system is, “that yellow one” or “the pink spikey one.”

Sometimes I wonder if I’m looking at a weed or a flower, but I don’t care much as long as it’s pretty to look at. It’s really something I need to work on I admit, if I’m going to have my own garden. And then there’s Step 2: Keep the plant alive. Maybe I’ll have more success this year with outdoor plants, because indoor ones haven’t been my forte. So I’ll keep watching the tiny green leaves sprout up through the ground, one surprise at a time. I’ve already received some hints from a few early blossoms.

We’re packing our bags, again! Thankfully we decided to keep everything in boxes so the move into our new home should be a cake walk compared to the last one. Can I say this will be our last move…let’s hope so. But, we’ll need to play the waiting game a little longer before we get to smell the fresh paint. Waiting for the “next move” seems to be our lives as of recently, but I guess it’s all part of the master plan.

I’ll admit getting to this point has required patience. First it was finding renters for the Florida home, then the right house here, and now all we can do is hope that the closing process goes smoothly, by waiting. But we’re experts at it by now and good things have come from it. The renters we got ended up being from Wisconsin also (coincidental!?!), and the right house has indeed finally come along.

I’ve been thankful that I haven’t had to wait for the unpredictable Wisconsin weather to warm up because that means more photo sessions outside. Although, this morning’s fog meant cooling temps, but I love a nice foggy photo. I am still waiting to find the right job to complement my new small photography business, but that will come in time too. Who knew switching your career completely and finding a part-time job would be so tricky? Everyone in America, oh yeah. It seems I’ve got a promising interview coming up that should pair well with my business, so fingers crossed there.

One thing I can’t seem to wait for is setting up my studio in our new place. I’ve thought about having my own space to be creative with for so long, so it seems a little too good to be true that I’ll finally have a spot to call mine instead of forcing all my equipment and props to live in boxes. It just seems cruel, really.

So we wait, happily, because life’s made up of more “waiting moments” it seems than anything else, and that makes it all a little more interesting, doesn’t it?

Click the image to find out more.

I thought I’d share a little piece of tranquility on what is shaping up to be a very industrious Saturday. I won’t get your feathers ruffled with the details. Just a simple photo. Which you can find here on Etsy, if it so fancies you :)

Life on the farm has been good the last couple of weeks, and I will say we never feel alone. It had crossed my mind that I was moving from a highly populated city to wide open spaces, but I can’t say I’ve felt stranded. At any given moment, whether I’m walking up to the barn where my car is parked to run errands, watching Bailey sprint from the chicken coop to the shop, or picking up debris left from the latest snow, I can always count on the sound of “mooooooo” to be there as my new soundtrack. [...]

I wasn’t sure how I would like living with cows (or insert technical term for cow here), but they seem friendly enough. I did not realize that they were so curious either, or maybe I had forgotten. I thought I remember them being skittish, but no sir. If I so much as throw a stick into their territory, they immediately run over. I always give a, “Good morning moo moos!” to make sure they understand I’m a friendly passerby.

As for B, I don’t know what they think of her. Her first two weeks on the farm did not go over smoothly with the current tenants. There was a slight misunderstanding where B thought these Jurassic looking and oddly colored things were going to attack her at any moment, and the cows thought she was a very fast-moving disturbance that created a lot of noise. Then, a cow “mooed” in B’s direction and oh boy–she did not realize these things could also be vocal, and that shut her up for a day. They’ve come to some treaty that I don’t fully understand, but I guess it’s okay for both parties to stare at each other for long periods of time.

Very nosy.

I suppose it goes without saying, but when there are cows, there is poo. And when there is poo, there are farmers. They also keep me company. Not that I bring them iced lemonade or anything like that, but they come and go a few times a day and I waive. As for visitors, I get plenty of those too. It’s been nice because unexpected visitors were uncommon in Florida and it may seem odd to some, but that’s been welcoming. In a couple of weeks, the farm will be full of people and full of tables lined with everything from pots, pans, vases– you name it. It will be my first rummage sale in years and I’m sure I’ll be spotting a few more familiar faces then too.

And, I still hear a very familiar sound on occasion, which is the sound of fireworks. Like in Florida, it could be on any given night that they go off, but in actuality, we’re not in Florida anymore and let’s face it, those aren’t fireworks. They’re gun shots. But they sound the same so it’s comforting, I guess.

Despite the minor adjustments, we’re pretty settled and overjoyed to be home. And it just so happens that our current, temporary home is a pretty historical one. We’re living on my great grandparent’s farm, which became my grandparent’s home that my father grew up on as well. And that lead to my brother and I spending a great deal of time on the farm every summer as kids. People ask me what it’s like living here, and it’s hard to explain the feeling in just one word.

I will say my husband and I are nothing but grateful that we can stay here while we search for our permanent address, and I often wonder how coincidental it is that we ended up here. A lot of people say my grandmother would be proud, and I’d have to say I agree.

I thought about how I would share this place of so many great memories, and I decided to share the small bits and pieces that made this house so full of character instead of showing you room by room with the furniture we’ve recently inserted and the boxes we still haven’t unpacked.

You might see old, but I see memories at every turn…

A note about the below photo: This is a vent in the ceiling of the first floor. I remember going to the second floor as a child, opening up the vent and talking down to whoever would listen on the first floor. I used to imagine I was some kind of sneaky spy looking through it, of course.

The below is wall paper I used to stare at when I would play on my grandma’s organ in the back room.

This bumper sticker says it all.

The below is a photo of the plasticky floor in an upstairs bedroom. I used to think the different floor designs were so cool.

Another floor design.

And of course the aquarium, which used to house hundreds of guppies! I’d feed them and stare at those little fish forever, and watch them give birth to 20 more little guppies, most of which would disappear by the next day. I’d always wonder why. Such is the circle of life.

When I woke up and realized it was snowing, I grabbed my camera and this is the first photo I took of the snow flakes.

Following up from my last post about moving, I will announce that we made the trek north and arrived safely! Besides the 25-hour continuous drive, car-egging incident, wildfire set-back and two other major traffic jams that forced us to u-turn in a grassy median, it all went swimmingly. And I have to give a huge thanks to my parents who helped us drive the moving truck cross-country. The whole do-it-yourself moving method is more work and headache, but by us packing everything and using the help of friends loading up the truck, we sure saved a lot of money and probably will have some pretty lasting memories to say the least.

Currently we’re settled in a farm house (yes, on an actual farm!) until we find and purchase our permanent address. So the months ahead will be just as exciting as the last couple. We’ve only chosen a handful of boxes to unpack along with our clothes, to avoid any unnecessary packing–we’ve had our fill. As for friends and family, it has been exciting to be able to make plans and see them without purchasing a plane ticket. Small things you might take for granted seem so wonderfully convenient, like being able to drive our very own car to a restaurant instead of borrowing someone else’s while in town.

One piece of the puzzle that was missing was the snow. I, a lover of snow, looked forward to catching the tail-end of winter (for Wisconsinites that’s kind of a joke) and getting to “play in the snow” a little before spring set in. But, with the mild winter the Midwest has been having, I began to think that maybe we wouldn’t be seeing much aside from a few flurries. And then I went to sleep the other night saying to my husband just before I shut my eyes, “Why won’t it just snow?”

And I woke up to this, a beautiful invitation to play in the snow…

Bailey dove right in, racing back and forth. Digging, biting, licking, I saw it all.

She also stopped to sniff it all in.

A tennis ball in the snow is a whole other animal.

Took a quick snap of the barn.

And I included the shot below because I took it the day before, when we thought the yellow grass would be our playground. But we were wrong, luckily.

It’s fun to discover a baby’s tendencies, too. Even with their eyes closed, they tell you yes or no to certain positions, laying their little hands and feet where they feel comfortable. That’s why you never know what types of photos you might get with newborns. Aeden frowned at a hat we tried, and smiled while laying on his side (below)! And it always amazes me when I see their little toes up by their nose, reminding me that I need to go home and stretch more. All in all, it was a great photo session and I can’t thank the family enough for having me photograph their new addition.

Enjoy!

Packing day 5:

Packing day 7:

We’ve already started getting the tape measure out trying to guesstimate if everything will fit, but I guess there’s no sense in worrying because there’s not much we can do–we’ve already rented the largest truck! As it stands now, the garage is a disaster area where cars no longer belong; photos will be coming soon. The living room is increasingly becoming the place where odd and breakable items are to be placed until we get moving blankets. Great spot too since this is where B goes tearing through with her tennis ball.

And one surprising find was my one and only Cabbage Patch Kids doll. I don’t know how it made it to Florida, but there she was all wrapped up, clothes a little faded and her plasticky face a little dingy (I did find her other shoe though). Some more good memories uncovered.

Related articles

• Proceed to Pack (kimhopfphotography.com)
• Hints and Tips for Packing Your Moving Truck (apartmentguide.com)