Empty nest + full hearts

Friday Emma texted us pictures of apartments she had been looking at.  She is looking to move on at some point and Adam and I are looking to keep her as long as we can.

When I got home, she sat across from me and said, "Besides you don't want me to, what do you think about me moving out?"

This is how I feel about it.

I want to keep that little girl with the milk dud eyes on my lap for as long as I can, but we're both a lot older than we were in that picture so I guess I need to be a big girl about all of this.

Since I looked into the archives anyway, here's another picture of my girl, surveying the scene at Trafalgar Square.

She's always been quietly watchful, waiting to make her move and then heaven help anyone who tries to get in her way.

I know I can't get in her way.  I don't want to.

Saturday we did all the things and then in the evening, Emma was gone with friends and Adam wrapped up his church stuff (which is never actually wrapped up as long as he has a cell phone).  I said, "Let's go do something."

He said, "Want to walk around IKEA and look at stuff?"

And I did. 

We like the same things and each other.

We drove to IKEA and chatted the whole time and then we walked around and pointed at what we liked and what we didn't.  We had dinner. I had Swedish meatballs (like a normal person) and he had a salad with marinated salmon that wasn't cooked.  I'm the one who sends a hamburger or steak back if it is still pink (Go ahead and tell me it's better when it's pink.  I like my meat well done.  I will die on that hill.) and I tried to give him dire warnings if he ate that uncooked salmon and he tried to convince me that marinated salmon has undergone a chemical reaction like cooking and we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

I started to tell him the plot of Howard's End, which he'd seen, but a long time ago.  

I got distracted and never finished. 

I asked Adam if I should get another plant and he said no.

I said, "Not even if it was a rescue plant?"

He said, "No."

I said, "Doesn't that make it seem nobler if it's a rescue plant?"

He said, "Yes, it does seem nobler."

I resisted those noble urges and walked past the plants.

We walked around some more and my pulse quickened at the Christmas decorations.  IKEA looked in my heart and got all the red I could want.  I was tempted to get another big straw goat but maybe we're just a one pukki family. 

Braeden and Anna called so we chatted with them on the drive home.  It was good to have an extended conversation with them.  They told us about their lives and their plans and the landscape around them, which is farmland. They go to institute and the local stake members have a sign up and make dinner each week for the kids that go to institute.

Doesn't that just warm your heart?

Before we hung up with them, Adam said, "We are going to need to sit down and have a conversation at some point about strollers and carseats."

I dream of buying books and footie pajamas and Adam's been researching the best strollers and carseats like it's his job.

Adam said one time that his dad only bought camping equipment that had been tested on Mt. Everest.  Adam is that guy. 

The eventual carseat that man buys will be the best.  We already have so much love for that little baby we have to channel it somewhere.

In addition to Adam approaching a carseat/stroller purchase with the same style of his dad, he's flying off to Atlanta this morning.  His beloved aunt Susie is sick and Adam wanted to go see her.

When he was deciding about it, he said, "I keep thinking about what my dad would do."

I love that.

I want Adam to keep thinking about what his dad would do and I want our boys to do the same.