Wedding welcome dinner part 2

Byron with Kristen, a former student of his and my sister's good friend.

Alison with Alex, Eduardo and Kristen.

The party is over and look at the leftovers! Mom didn't have to worry about cooking for DAYS!

Wedding welcome dinner part 1

On Sunday, my mom hosted a welcome dinner at her home for friends and out of town guests.

The bride and groom, Alison and Rob.

Dona Esperanza preparing hand made tortillas... yum!

Rob's dad and uncle, with Lynn --mom's friend.

The Georgia Tech men.
Rob and his groomsmen.

Dona Mary and the serving table.

Chichi Velia, bisabuelo Ali & abu Naamen

After church, we went to my aunt Miriam's house for lunch, the house where my dad grew up, and where he lived for the last 10 years of his life.

After eating a good Yucatecan/Lebanese meal (kibis and cochinita pibil, yum!), Byron and I took a little girl around the house introducing her to her two great grandparents and grandfather, all three of which have passed away.

With Chichi Velia (chichi = grandmother in Maya, Yucatan's native language). Passed away in August 2006.

With bisabuelo Ali (great grandfather).
He passed away 9 months before I was born almost 28 years ago.

With abu Naamen (abu = short for abuelo, grandfather in Spanish).
Passed away November 2007, five months after I got married.

Byron pointing out abu Naamen and his four siblings.

Emma & Manuelito, my cousin's son, who wanted to take Emma home with him :)

Church

We took Emma to church with us last Sunday to Shalom, the same church where Byron and I got married and attended while living in Merida.

We got to see a few of our friends again and have them meet our little girl for the first time. Despite being tired at the time and at the verge of being fussy, she was a sweet girl who enjoyed being held by others.

Alejandra (one of B's former students), Claudia and Karina.

Chucho, one of the two pastors who led our wedding in 2007.

With Vivi and Cesar.

Emma snuggles

While in Merida, Emma would "sneak" into Oma's bedroom in the mornings to get some snuggle time with her.

Emma and Daniela

My mom has always said that Brenda was my first friend. We lived just a few houses apart from each other as baby girls, and our mothers would often get us together to play and spend time with each other, even as newborns.

Fast forward 27 years and both of us are married to foreign men (she married a Canadian, I married an American), both of us live abroad, and both of us have little girls just six weeks apart.

While our hectic time in Merida these past few days, we made it a point to get together with Brenda, her mom and daughter Daniela.

Chinese fortune

This past Friday I was sick as a dog. I spent most of my day on the couch recovering from a cold. I had to eventually leave the house to get some much needed Christmas shopping before my Mexico trip this week, but I had already warned Byron I was not going to put one foot in the kitchen that day. I made him in charge of dinner.

We hardly ever do this, but I asked Byron to buy food and bring it home. He brought Chinese food, and OH! it was so yummy! I'm half tempted to make Friday nights "Chinese nights" from now on. Anyway, all that to say is that I got a smile on my face when I opened my fortune cookie and read my fortune.

Growing up

For a few weeks now we've started noticing that Emma will intentionally grab things in her reach. She still can't grab things off the ground, but if they are hanging above her or are right in front of her (for example, her pacifier string, shirt, blanket), she'll grab it and either just look at it or stick it in her mouth.

Another thing we've noticed her doing is that she rubs her eyes when tired.

And finally, you may remember me mentioning how she likes to suck on her fists and we were just waiting for her to discover her thumb. Well, she discovered her thumb, but was not that interested in it. What she really likes to suck on is her left hand index finger. Byron's dad, one of Byron's brothers and Byron himself are all left handed, so Byron likes to hope that Emma girl will be left handed as well.

Bumbo seat

Each day I seem to fall more and more in love with my little girl. Today we decided to give the Bumbo seat a try, and OH DEAR! How sweet she looked sitting up like a big girl. I of course busted out the camera and took what seemed to be enough picture to fill an entire photo album.

The perfect Christmas gift!

Setting up for Christmas

Last Saturday we went out to buy a little girl's first Christmas tree. After a four hour long nap (in her swing, of course), we drove over to Publix. It took just a few minutes to find the perfect tree, and most of our time there seemed to be spent taking pictures.

In front of our Christmas tree.

Emma's first snowman friend.

Finally, a picture smiling! Check out how huge those cloth diapers look on her!


While we were decorating, Emma took yet another nap (in her swing, of course). She woke up to a decorated tree and house.

Our traditional Christmas picture with our Santa hats in front of the tree.

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.