When I was a kid, we had a book called Mitchell is Moving about a dinosaur who decides one day he needs a change of scenery and moves across . . . the swamp? "I am a moving Mitchell!" he says throughout the book. When he gets to where he's going, though, he realizes how much he misses his friend, Margo. Luckily, she decides to move right next door to his new place. I've lost track of how many times I've moved (it was over a dozen times before I started college.) Every time, I hear Mitchell's self-affirming mantra in my mind. "I am a moving Emily!"

But really, moving stinks. Even when you know the move is for the best, you have to let go of a part of your past. I looked up our current address on Google Maps today and used street view to see our building. It's the same picture we've posted here before (though I can't for the life of me find which post) which has our car w/ Utah plates and our neighbors sitting on the stoop. It's still funny to me that they're in the picture, but this time I realized I could name each person in that picture, even the blurred, white-t-shirted boys running by.

For how long have I complained about our neighbors' smoke habits, or our nasty carpeting, or the run-down neighborhood? For how long have I dreamed of living in Bay Ridge, like it's the Happy Valley of Brooklyn? I'm sure the ward members who live down there think I'm such a wannabe. But now that we're getting down to it, it's hard to leave.

That picture on Google maps is from the fall of 2007, not long after we moved in. I remember sitting on our couch in this living room, as Adam told me he'd lost his job at the Moderns. I remember walking quietly into our bedroom and telling Adam when I found out I was pregnant with Elizabeth. It was in this living room I went through hours of labor. Heck, I almost gave birth to her right here. It's staggering to think of all we've been through in the last 2 1/2 years. Now the living room is lined with packed boxes and the walls are completely blank. I won't miss the smoke or the noise or the cracked tile or the sleeping arrangements, but I feel like when we move I'll be missing a piece of myself.

Good thing, I suppose, that there's more of me each day to make up for any losses. Here are some pics to chart my expanding sense of self:

14 weeks


17 weeks


21 weeks

What's really fun is standing next to my friend, Naomi, who is as far along as I am and just looks like a normal woman with a less-than-flat stomach. But I'm not complaining. I know some day not far from now I'll probably look like this poor soul:

But hey! At least she's smiling! (Maybe it's the beer cup she's holding, as Adam so kindly pointed out AFTER I'd uploaded the image. Oh well. Let's pretend it has water in it.)

Ch-Ch-Change . . .

This was a rather momentous week for the Johnson family.

This time last week, we still hadn't found a new apartment, though we had gone to a broker who had shown us a few. Then, on Monday, we got word that the landlord, whom we had met, had liked us and was willing to come down in the price. Adam was sold. I still wasn't convinced. The apartment was on the second floor, for one, and the kitchen was smaller (and uglier) than I'd hoped for. But the building was clean, the landlord lived on the premises, and our broker said we could probably store the stroller on the first floor. So we had just a few days to make our decision. I tried to set something up with another broker to see more apartments—just to satisfy myself that we weren't "settling"—but it never worked out. After a few very stressful days, I got so sick of going back and forth over it with Adam that I finally said I wanted to take it. I think what I actually said was "NYAAAAAAAAAAA!"

So Saturday we signed the lease and on June 1st or thereabouts, we will live here:

Adam and I will finally have a room of our own and we'll live in walking distance of a lot of our friends. (Read: close to the people we'll be asking to help with the triplets :) We didn't relish forking over a month's worth of rent as a broker fee, but, by george, I'm glad the search is over!

Another big blessing came when Adam got the word that his submission had been selected for AIGA'a 50 Books/50 Covers. (For those of us NOT in the design world, AIGA is the foremost professional association for design.) So out of the 800+ submissions, Adam's "Classic Shorts" series was in the top 50.

Adam's work will be featured in their annual, be archived online, and will be on display this fall at an exhibition here in New York. Go Adam!

As if all this weren't enough, Adam got an email Friday from a member of the stake presidency asking to meet with both of us Saturday morning. Knowing that our current bishop is moving soon, and that a new bishop had more than likely already been called, we could only conclude what inevitably happened: Adam is now a second counselor in the bishopric and, what's more, a high priest! (Again, for the uninitiated, most men in the church who reach the level of high priest are usually . . . past the bloom of youth. And don't think of it as a promotion. It's more of a place we send the gray-hairs when they're not young enough anymore to help members move but old enough to be our wise leaders. Just kidding.) The best part is that the new bishop is already our good friend. But I think the combined age of the entire bishopric is still less than the age of your average Utah stake president. Not that this is a big change. Our wonderful former bishop has a young family, too. So I guess that's just how things work here in good ol' Brooklyn. All joking aside, I'm really proud of Adam and his willingness to serve the Lord, despite all the challenges that lie ahead of us. I know he'll do a wonderful job cuz he's just that kind of guy.

Oh, and I'm 20 weeks now (4 1/2 months.) I've gained 35 lbs (right on track, according to my book,) and the triplets are growing well. So all in all, we have a lot to be grateful for, even amongst all this change.