10 on 10 (Half-in-Black-and-White Edition) -

A lot has happened over the last month (and it shows in these pictures, which are a little all over the place).

Such can only be expected when one of the events of the past 30 days involved moving to another town.

Here we go:

1 // Eatin’ grilled cheese (“cheesy toast”) for lunch in the old apartment. Since she started sitting up at her little table (pictured here), she’s also taken to wanting to sit up at the “big” table like a “big girl” (aka, sans high chair). It’s been…interesting. Apparently, it’s fun to sit at the table like a big girl because it means you can get down and walk around whenever you want…

2 // It took longer than I thought it would, but she now likes to brush her teeth. Correction: She likes to brush her OWN teeth, not for Mom or Dad to brush her teeth. We’ve got an independent spirit here, folks.

3 // Sometimes being a toddler is hard. Sometimes, being the parent of a toddler is hard.

4 // There was a whole slew of days right before the move when I could barely remember to squeeze in our picture of the day, so I got a lot of pictures of her eating, laying down, and/or pictures that were mirror selfies. You gotta do what you gotta do.

5 // Direct quote: “New house! Hooray! Hooray!!” (And pretty excited about the new kiddie pool, too!)

6 // We had a lot of visitors/helpers our first several nights in the house, including my dad, who had flown in from Kansas City for the week. His time with us was pretty low-key compared to his time with my siblings down further south, but a big move really throws everything, it seems. Honestly, sitting around and watching movies and eating Thai food was probably what we ALL needed by that point in the week, ha ha.

7 // Raven has loved having random boxes of stuff sitting all over the house, and she has even taken up making a “treasure box” of her own, where she takes random things from various boxes throughout the house that catch her eye and puts them into her own box. (Note: I am dreading having to go through that box and figure out where it all goes.) One particularly popular find with her was this ridiculous (but totally adorable) bunny coat, which she took to wearing around the house at every opportunity until I hid it.

8 // Another bonus to not having everything unpacked and hung up…watching Raven entertain herself for hours with this mirror, which is currently propped up against the front room wall. I tried and tried to catch this on video (and couldn’t), but she’s gone by it several times, stopped, swished her shirts and shorts/skirt a bit, then said, looking right into it, “You look so pretty!!”

9 // Another big-girl accomplishment: learning to drink the milk from the bottom of the cereal bowl without spilling (too much). We’re so proud.

10 // We almost ripped out our raspberry patch at the new house because it’s just so out of control, but after tasting a few (and watching Raven get so excited over picking and eating her own), the patch is here to stay. (More pics up on my Instagram because I just can’t narrow it down any more from the oodles of cute shots we took.)

11 // Our friends from way back when we were still newlyweds just moved back from Texas, and it was pretty wild to get to spend a couple days with them since the last time we were really all here and together, they only had two kids and we had none at all. Something I appreciate a lot more now as an adult (and that I tended to take a bit for granted as a kid) is how amazing it is to actually be able to spend time with your friends. It’s something I need to be a lot better about.

12 // We took the footrest for the rocker back out of storage when we moved, and Raven’s been rocking herself to sleep on it (okay, not literally to sleep, but she’ll go and rock herself back and forth when she’s tired). It’s basically adorable.

13 // I don’t do well with extreme heat, so these weeks of summer, where it’s consistently close to 100 degrees or over, are always a bit of a challenge. However, I do try every day to make sure I take Raven out of the house to do something fun, or at least out of the ordinary. These pics were taken on a day when I took her up to the nearby Blacksmith Fork Canyon to go wildflower hunting. Coincidentally, we found no wildflowers, but we did still enjoy ourselves.

14 // The biggest news of the past week is that we’ve finally started transitioning Raven into her “big girl” bed. Because the bed up on the frame is a bit high (and we’re paranoid she’ll fall out of it and break her arm), we’ve shifted the top mattress to the floor and have been trying that out for the past couple nights. So far, so good!