Thanksgiving family pictures

The wife of one of Byron's cousins is a professional photographer in the making. With 52 people showing up for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday night, she had her fair share of eager models, us being one of them.

We are saving the best pictures for our 2011 Christmas card and as gifts for this holiday season, but hope you enjoy these in the meantime.

Note: Emma was not her big-eyed, toothless-smile self during this photo shoot.

Princess

Being thankful

In this season of thanksgiving, yes, I am thankful for my wonderful husband and for my little Emma girl, but let not this day go by without giving thanks to the most wonderful invention ever...

the baby swing!

Emma waking up from a 3 hour long nap yesterday afternoon.

3 month old!

Happy 3 months old to my sweet little Emma girl!

Not the most exciting picture of Emma, but it'll have to do.


Newborn picture

1 month old picture

2 month old picture

Mama's shirt

Emma has inherited some clothes that I used at her age. This vest is one of them. Thanks mom for having saved them for so many years. I love seeing her wear them.

Million dollar crib

The crib Emma sleeps in is a 60 year old crib that was passed down to us by Byron's grandmother. What seemed to be a good idea at the time turned into a several hundred dollars project. We jokingly baptized this crib as the "million dollar crib."

It took about five months worth of Saturdays and multiple trips to Lowes to complete this crib. I am thankful that not once did Byron get upset or resentful over this project I made him embark. I married a good man :)

But take a look for yourself. Didn't my man do a great job?

Before

After

Bottle

Emma is not a fan of the bottle, or a fan of anyone else but her mother *sigh*

So I'd like B to start feeding her once in a while so she can begin to associate him with food as well and be able to be soothed in his arms. We'll see how it goes...

Pushing buttons

It's joked about that all Byron does for work is push buttons, and truth be told, that is exactly what he does all day! Certainly Emma can help him out in this.

But in all seriousness, the reason why we went to visit daddy at work yesterday was because he no longer gets to see his little girl at night when he gets back from work. Because of the time change, Emma is sound asleep and good for the night by 6 pm. This makes Byron very sad. So we decided to take Emma to see him during the afternoon. She sported an "I love my daddy" shirt and was showed off to Byron's three other co-workers.

How the Lord encourages me as a mom

In order for my Emma girl to nap during the day, I need to hold her in my arms. This translates into spending anywhere between five to six hours a day in my chair holding her. I try to entertain myself by watching the news, reading a book, or just sitting. I know you may think to yourself: "and what's the problem? I'd kill to have that kind of quiet time."

Believe it or not, sitting with a sleeping child in your arms can be quite draining, mostly because you have the time to think and doubt yourself - doubt the God-given instinct and wonder whether you are doing things correctly or not. I can drive myself insane at times.

Thankfully, the Lord is good to me. Right when I was breaking down today, my friend Jamie stops by: "Lauren, this is what I would do if I were you: hold that baby in your arms and relax! Don't be hard on yourself." About an hour later, Memma stops by and takes over and lets me go out and have some me-time at Starbucks.

While at Starbucks, I find myself longing to spend time with the Lord. I pray (I normally write my prayers) and then write a list of things I love about Emma girl. As I write this long list of things, two of these stand out:

- I love how Emma makes me long for the Lord. I've never felt so in need of Him.
- I love how Emma has humbled me.

The Lord is faithful in answering prayers.

Rattle

It's been a while since I've posted on my blog, mostly because I'm physically, but also emotionally exhausted! Parenthood has proven itself to be quite challenging, primarily because I'm constantly flooded with self doubt.

A few quotes from fellow moms that have encouraged me:
- Parent without regret. Parent in a way that when you look back at things, you don't wish you had done things differently.
- For the first few months of your child's life, you just do what you need to do in order to survive.
- "I do not regret having held my daughter so many hours in a day" - mother of a very colic baby.

In the meantime, a few fun pictures of Emma holding her rattle that her aunt and uncle gave her.