Create.

 It always takes a while after moving to a new place it to feel like Home. I go to my house but it just doesn't feel like Home. It always takes awhile to meet new people, make new friends, to make a new little niche for myself and feel like I belong--like I'm Home. After our many moves (we've moved seven times and have lived in six states in our 11 years of marriage. Wowzas!), I recognize this phenomenon and you'd think I would be used to it. But even with all that moving experience under my belt...it's usually takes at least six to eight months before I'm Home.

This move is no different.

Even though it takes months, I have learned a how to make the time more joyful while I dig in and learn to make our new state Home, a way to keep myself from feeling lonely and wishing that I could return to any of the other places where I've left part of my heart.

I create.

One of my favorite people in the world, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, said this about creating:

Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty

You may think you don’t have talents, but that is a false assumption, for we all have talents and gifts, every one of us. The bounds of creativity extend far beyond the limits of a canvas or a sheet of paper and do not require a brush, a pen, or the keys of a piano. Creation means bringing into existence something that did not exist before—colorful gardens, harmonious homes, family memories, flowing laughter.

 And that is my task. To create a new Home out of this new house, new town, new state, new people. And slowly, I am getting there. I always feel rejuvenated and energized when I finish a project--when I have taken something raw and turned it into something beautiful. I feel more at Home when I have created something that was not there before.

For the past few weeks, I've been working on the concrete-type of creating--trying to make a cute nursery for this little one who should be making her arrival in 10 1/2 short weeks.

I started with a baby quilt:

And from there, decided that I might as well make crib sheets to match it:

I used this DIY crib sheet tutorial. As my kids would say, it was "easy-peasy-pumpkin-sqeezie".

Next up is a crib skirt out of this unorganized material:

And Miss Banana...always my little helper-creator, decided to create a little photo bombing:

She really just wanted the camera all on her, so happily, I obliged...because, really, who can get enough of this cute face?!? 

I know I can't. 

Plus, she is one of my 3 and 3/4 favorite creations (with her brothers and soon-to-be-sister rounding out that list) so she fits right in with this post.

Miss Banana is also my little kitchen-helper-creator, and this morning we created these delicious pumpkin scones:

And through those efforts of creating something tangible, I can feel the intangible creating is going on as well. It is happening when Fearless helps me thread the elastic through the crib sheet casings, or when Miss B sticks her head in the bowl to lick out the last of the pumpkin scone glaze, or when T-Man wants me to teach him to how to tie a quilt--little by little, those events and memories are creating this new place into Home.