a birthday celebration

The synopsis: we rushed out of bed and into little E's room to sing him happy birthday. We've been talking about his birthday for a few weeks, so he knew it was coming and was so excited. Sleepy, but excited, as shown in the photos. We sort of rushed through getting ready (thankfully I had packed our bags the night before) so we could make it to the Jetty Island Ferry. I called my sisters and woke them to give them instructions on how to save us a place on said ferry. Emory decided to have pancakes for breakfast, of all choices the most lengthy in preparation. Jon made the pancakes while I busied myself loading the car and Emory threw a fit, thinking I would leave him behind, no matter how many promises of "you're coming with me when I leave" came out of my mouth. For the record, it was pretty sad to see big tears flowing unnecessarily from the birthday boy's eyes. Then Jon saved my day and announced he was coming with us. I have gotten so accustomed to doing things without him that I didn't know what to think or even if I could believe he was serious, but he was, and I will forever be grateful that we all got to spend Emory's whole birthday together.

As we drove to Everett, we finalized plans with my sisters, and made our way to my mom's house to pick up Amber and my grandma to take them to meet the others at Jetty Island. When Kendal called and said the tickets sold out, we quickly changed our plans and headed the opposite direction, to Mukilteo Beach, where Emory played in the sand, and played with his aunties and cousins on the playground.

After lunch and a good de-sanding bath, it took an excited little boy a couple hours to fall asleep for his nap. But when he finally did, I frosted a very flawed cake, while my mom and grandma made potato and pasta salad for the upcoming feast, sisters and cousins wrapped presents, and Jon assembled a tricycle.

We woke Emory up and walked him across the street to Harborview Park, where he first saw his balloons tied to his trike, or "zumba," as he called it. Jon's parents, Nanny, Kenny, and Kenny's parents all joined us at that point. We spent the rest of the evening enjoying the view, pushing E around the grass on his tricycle, eating, and watching the little man open presents. Highlights included seeing his faces of wonder at his gifts and watching him successfully blow out one of the two candles on his cake.

happy 2nd birthday to emory from Meghan Beutler on Vimeo.

summer came and summer goes

Summer passed so quickly that I didn't have the chance to really relish in its goodness. Though to be fair, warm weather arrived in the PNW only a few weeks ago, so I suppose it really didn't feel like the season arrived until recently anyway, except for a few fleeting days of warmth and sun here and there. Perhaps it's because this summer coincides with an extremely busy season of our lives; the beginning of June marked the ground-breaking and foundation for our home and we've been making decision after decision ever since--a full-time job, we took an impromptu trip to the Oregon Coast, we have watched Emory grow and change so much in the past few months and he turns 2 this Friday--hard to believe, we have seen ups and downs with the dealership, we traveled to Eastern Washington to visit with family and participate in temple work together and then took scenic Highway 2 on the way back, we've come to know the Camano/ Stanwood community much better--thanks to Zumba, the list could go on...

Most of our days are full, in one way or another, and I'm realizing that I'm sad that I've let summer pass while being so preoccupied with this and that--I haven't fully allowed myself to enjoy this time. So my goal is this: I will enjoy the rest of my summer, take Emory to the beach at least once per week (the park too!), actually spend evenings in the hammock with Jon, and eat the bounty of late summer produce. I will welcome Emory's second birthday, renewed and ready to take on more challenges and joys as a mother (he's really working both sides of parenthood these days), and I will live--not just do, but live.

And now some photos from the past couple months, mostly courtesy of the iphone and mostly in order.

the summer started out with a mostly bad haircut... poor little guy and his straight across the head bangs... though now his hair is so long he can pull off a Justin Bieber pre-haircut look

Dr. Seuss character?

watching the Cars 2 preview before heading to see it as his first theater experience

early round of birthday gifts + exhaustion all in one day

this is us. 3 + 1 fat cat on a diet.

he was born in utah but he's a pnw boy at heart

Last weekend Jon carved a golf cart race track into the tall grass in the far pastures. We spent a good chunk of our afternoon going for it, timing our races and competing against each other. Jon came in first, naturally, with Kendal second (but if you add in her off-course penalties she came in last) I came next, and then Amber brought in the rear, but with her gimpy arm we should have subtracted at least 15 seconds. Anyway, all that playing in the tall, loose grass that has gone to seed led to a massive allergy attack. Thankfully, we live on Camano Island and a trip to the beach to breath in the clean, salty air is only a few minutes' drive from our house.

As soon as we let Emory loose on the rocks, he marched straight for the water, gracefully making it over the slippery seaweed-covered rocks. He crouched and threw rocks into the water, tasted seashells, played with seaweed, got soaked, and loved every second. I'm not sure why we haven't been to the beach in the past 6 months we've been here (must have been the cold, rainy weather that lasted so long this year and the nearly freezing temperature of the water in Puget Sound), but with warm enough temperatures, we were able to just let our little boy play and get as wet and dirty as he wanted. I hope we're breeding a webbed-toed kid. And I'm so grateful to live surrounded by water and so much beauty, even if that means his diapers will be full of gravelly sand all summer.