They play!

I love watching my children enjoy each other.  Byron loves to follow his big sister around, and laughs at just about everything she does (his new favorite thing is watching her play soccer).  

Here is a sample video of what their interacting is like (we are still working on Emma not being too rough with him).

Thank you, Oma!

Valentine's Celebration

Our ice storm coincided with Valentine's Day this year, so the last thing on our mind was celebrating our love for each other :)

Once life returned to normal, I planned a little Valentine morning with the family.  I went to Target and got some 50%-off chocolate, and wrapped it up in a nice bag and set it on the breakfast table.  Our little family was happy to wake to such treats!

Leah's 1-year old party was the weekend before, and watching her open gifts was still fresh in Emma's mind.  When she saw the gifts on the table, she exclaimed:  "Leah's presents!"

"Leah's presents!"

 Mommy gets to enjoy Baby Byron's Valentine's gift :)

First snow

This post goes along with our snow day post from last month.

Singing at the table

The following two videos were taken two months ago at the dinner table one night.  Emma entertained us with some live music.  We must have recorded about a dozen videos.  We will only upload our top two.

The first one is of Emma singing her ABCs.  What's special about this song is how she cycles through it and never quite ends it (notice this line:  "now I know my ABC, next time won't you L M N O P...")

This second song is of her singing "The Wheels on the Bus."  This song was taught to her by Memma.  Watching her sing this song bring such delight to my soul.  We will be driving down the road somewhere, I'll be lost in my thoughts, and I'll notice this little girl beginning to sing this song to herself in my rear view mirror. 

It will be interesting to see if this little girl grows up to love to sing.  Neither Byron nor I are music-inclined, so it would be fun to have a little singer in our home.

Byron's first solids

I am so incredibly behind on posting our home videos.

This first one is of Byron having his first solids a month ago when he was 5.5 months old.

Grape Family

This morning at breakfast, with four grapes left in her plate:

"This is hermana mayor [big sister], this is Baby Byron, this is Mommy, this is Daddy"

Thought Memma and Aunt Rebecca would particularly enjoy this one :)

Family walk

Sunday afternoon, only days after our ice storm, was a beautiful day for a family walk.  We added the second seat to our double stroller.  This was BB's first time facing out (opposed to being in his car seat) while being in the stroller.

All the branches that fell off in our yard.

Little Man with a hat from Oma.

Mommy's Byrons.

Emma 'Monkey' Girl

Ice Storm 2014

Exactly one week ago today, Augusta was hit my an ice storm.  I've only lived here for 4.5 years, but people who have lived here for decades said this was the most devastating natural disaster they had ever experienced in town.  

I've lived through two major hurricanes in my lifetime, and I must say that the devastation left behind by the storm was very similar to that of a hurricane.

Having said that, America being the First World country that it is, got it's act together ASAP.  Though the town seemed to have been destroyed and 85% of the area lost power, we are now back and running as if nothing ever happened.

We woke up Wednesday morning to crashing sounds-- tree limbs falling to the ground from the weight of ice.  Byron stayed home and worked out of the dinning room table.  Emma and I made some chocolate chip cookies and hung around until we lost power at around 4 pm.

That first evening was really hard.  It was freezing cold and the kids kept waking each other up all night long.  We had breakfast by the fire and sat and wondered how on Earth we were going to get through the rest of the day without heat.

 

We drove around town and crashed Byron's office which had not lost power (the storm had already ended by Thursday morning).  We warmed up there while we decided what we were going to do afterwards.  We booked a hotel in Columbia, SC and drove an hour to spend the day/night there.  

When we returned from Columbia, our home still did not have power, but my in-laws' home did, so we spent the night there.  By Saturday morning, our power was back on and we returned to our home sweet home.

Outdoors

Believe it or not, only a week after our snow day, the weather became incredibly beautiful-- Spring-like beautiful!  I took the kids outside to get some sunshine and kick the soccer ball around a little.  Little Byron enjoyed laying on his side while watching his mommy and big sister play.

Oh, how I love this little man!

Prayer hands.

This man sure loves his right index finger.

Baby Byron's baptism

We were thankful to get to baptize BB this past Sunday.  Though we missed not having all of our family together (some missing on Byron's side, and all missing on mine), we still had a number of people who witnessed our little one officially become part of the Covenant Family.

We had a small reception at my in-laws' home right after.  I made three different kinds of sandwiches (pimento cheese, chicken salad and PB&J), a ham & cheese tray with crackers, Wife Saver's chicken fingers, chocolate strawberries, deviled eggs, and a veggie tray.

 

The flattering picture of the kids' corner.

A family friend who has a cake business custom made the cake for our lunch.  It was beautiful!  It had BB's monogram at the top, and Psalm 100:5 written on the sides of it ("For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations").

 

Baby Byron wore a guayabera that one of my aunts in Mexico gave him when he was born.

Emma's baptism.

Baby Byron's first solids

Since I cloth diaper and exclusively breastfeed my children, I normally try to hold off solids as long as possible (dirty diapers of exclusively breastfed babies do not need to be rinsed, btw).  With Emma, I waited until she was 6.5 months old before we fed her for the first time.  

But with Baby Byron, things went a little differently.  First of all, at around his 5 month birthday, my hunger was CEASELESS!  Now matter how much or how often I ate, I would never become satisfied.  I would spend most of my waking time either thinking about what I could eat, or in the kitchen eating.  

The second thing that motivated me to feed BB solids early on was the fact that he does not poop!  I kid you not-- I don't think he has had more than a dozen BMs in two months.  The doctor suggested I give him some apple juice to help him out a little, but our little man does not take a bottle *SIGH***

So what am I to do?!?!  Apple sauce.  So at 5.5 months old, our little man enjoyed his first experience with grown up food.

He liked it!  

Unlike with Emma, I decided that with Byron I was not going to feed him anything I would not be willing to eat myself (no baby food, or rice cereal, or nasty purees, etc).  His first experience with food was some apple sauce from a pouch (Emma eats these herself).  I have since also given him mashed sweet potatoes.

He still does not know how to eat much, and we still do not feed him every day.  Only when we feel he needs some help using the bathroom.  We can normally get about a tablespoon of food in his system each time.

And just like with everything we do these days, Emma needs to be part of the experience.  So our firstborn regressed.  Instead of eating her apple sauce pouch through the opening like she normally does, she wanted to use a spoon like her baby brother.

I still sometimes wonder if she really is left-handed.

Snow Day 2014

Augusta hasn't seen snow in three years, so this was both Emma and BB's first experience with snow.  It snowed barely enough for it to stick to the ground, but not enough for a snowman.  We still had fun making a few balls and gently throwing them at each other.