Happy First Birthday Salem!

Hard to believe it's been a year since this...


Happy 1st Birthday to our sweet Salem!! Little, mischievous, peaceful, adorable Salem.


More to come on his big day, party on Saturday, 1 year photos, 1 year slideshow, etc...
All when his daddy returns and the world is all as it should be again.

There's no place like Home

24 hours of driving.

5 states.

2 Trucks. 2 Trailers.

6 Veggie Tales. 1 Toy Story. 1 Nemo. 

2 exhausted parents and 2 screaming children.

1 Traumatized little girl who desperately misses NC. (but she's quickly making improvement!)

and we're back in the plains of Texas. We're unpacking our stuff in a newly renovated guest house of a local church. We're TRULY loving the space of the house, having a backyard, and being so close to lots of family.

For the next two weeks though I'm sleeping in the middle of a queen-sized bed. Brandon left this morning (on his birthday...Happy Birthday Bran!) for a two week trip to The Big Chicken. All this transition, unpacking, traumatization (word?) of Eden, and my husband flying around the world is leaving me a bit out of sorts. It's oddly unsettling to be back here. 

God did so many good things in our family in NC. He confirmed our desire to return overseas. Grew us both individually and together in our spiritual walk. Gave us a beautiful son. Gave us great friends. I could go on and on.

Praise the Lord that in all this transition, when so many things around us are different, HE is unchanging. He's our constant. And when we feel unsettled or out of sorts, He's our solid rock.

I'm looking forward to what He's going to do in our family during our time in Texas.

Come on Down!

Eden does this cool thing where she occasionally sing-talks. Instead of just saying something to me, she'll sing it to me. Well usually, it's something that I've said and then she'll sing it back to me. And probably too often it is something that I've repeatedly said to her in a very "you-better-behave-young-lady" type of tone. Then she'll sing back to me what I've just said to her usually to the tune of Frere Jacques. (creepy yes?)
something a little like this:
"Sit on your bottom, sit on your bottom. Sit on your bottom. Sit on your bottom. Sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit...Sit on your bottom. Sit on your bottom."

And now that you have that in your head...

So it's surprising to me that she's only just now coming up with the idea of a microphone for all this singing.
Enter: Drumstick.
Drumstick seems to be THE long lost answer to all these sing-songy times. It's also the answer to no more drumming as she no longer sees fit for said drumstick to be used as anything other than a microphone. a win/win situation.


as you can see, she's VERY into the performance now!




And as terrible as this may seem, I just. can't. help. but be reminded of Bob Barker and his infamous microphone.




Yes, I know, I know. Comparing my daughter to Bob Barker is a little bit weird. creepy. whatever.
But at least I've not taught her to say, "Have your pets spayed and neutered!" yet. Now THAT would be creepy. :)

Another D.C. Weekend

D.C is one of our favorite places out here on the East Coast. Though we've only been up there four times, we say each time we visit that we'd love to live there! Our motivation for the visit this time around was this little guy, Hudson.



Well, ok, we love his parents too! He looks exactly like his daddy but is already very much a babbler...just like his mommy! :) We ate up his sweetness all weekend and very much enjoyed the fellowship with S&A again!

Last time we were there we got some cool shots of Eden with some of the monuments, so that was one of my goals for Salem this time around. But after taking 30 minutes to park our Toyota Tundra in the spot meant for a tricycle, the capitol building and the Natural History museum was all we felt in the mood for! We still got some fun shots and really just enjoyed hanging out on the Mall for awhile.


Eden chased the pigeons and ran in lots and lots and lots of circles.




We'd never been to the zoo before and having kids is something that basically requires you to do that sort of thing. So we went to the zoo. The cool thing about the D.C. zoo is that it's free. AND, they have Chinese-speaking pandas. Well, that's according to Eden. This was a new fact to us, and one mysteriously not included on the little "Official Zoo Guide."
Oddly, the best picture we got of our zoo excursion was this one. A LOT of excitement for one day.


D.C. is a SERIOUSLY gorgeous place to visit. I think that's the Robert E. Lee memorial in the background.


One reason we love it so much is the hodge podge of cultures. While we were in the Natural History museum I tried to help a lady with her back pack. And then I think she thought I was trying to steal something out of her backpack. And I realized it a little too late that she had NO CLUE what I was saying and since my dutch/polish/swedish/whatever-it-was language is severly lacking, all I could do was muster up a "I'm so sorry, I'm as confused as you are" apology face.

And then at the zoo I tried to help a family of three have a picture together so that they didn't have to mess with the ridiculous timer. Doing my universal-sign-language-invisible-camera click apparently didn't translate well in Russian, and she looked at me like I was seriously deranged.

BUT despite my inability to culture-jump with success, D.C. makes up for it with all sorts of food from other cultures. We had THE BEST Thai food on this side of the planet. I think S&A ordering it in Thai may have added to the taste as well. So fun! And then for Mother's Day we had Lebanese chicken shawarmas, falafel, hummus, fried zucchini, and spinach wraps. YUM! And topped it off with an entirely too big piece of cheese cake from The Cheesecake Factory (which I'll gladly admit that I had no trouble polishing off all by myself).

Thanks S&A! We had an awesome weekend!!

11 Months!

Yesterday when I changed Salem's dirty diaper there was a completely legible piece of a book page matted between some not-so-pleasantness. I felt that it was a pretty good summary of the last month of his life. Not only is he doing great when it comes to eating a variety of foods, but he also likes to munch on (and apparently digest) some other inedible items.
I realize admitting this could get me awarded the "Un-Amazing Mother of the Year Award" but I'm afraid that the pictures to come might actually prove it better than the above story.
So here's a bunch of pictures to prove just how much Salem likes munching/teething/biting/slobbering on a variety of items and how I think it's more fun to take pictures of it than come to the rescue and make sure he doesn't choke on it. *though just as a disclaimer, he didn't ACTUALLY choke on any of the items* :)
















And recently we like to break the "don't let your child get used to sleeping on you" rule. He's quickly outgrowing the still-little-enough-to-want-to-sleep-on-us-phase so we're taking advantage of it before it goes. :)



He's also definitely a climber. Maybe that comes with the territory of being a boy, but he likes to climb and squeeze himself into tight spaces. Being the award winning mother stated above, I prefer to capture it on camera before coming to his aid.



He's currently gnawing on my knee as I type this....quite attached to his mommy.



But at 11 months old, his favorite person by far is his big sister. Regardless of the fact that to her, he's occasionally just something picked up from the grocery store. "Mommy, I got a Salem."



Other quick facts...
8 teeth
21.5 pounds
cruisin' along the furniture
pushing his hippo around the apartment
new favorite food: mango sticky rice
melts his mommy's heart

a little bragging never hurt anyone

Eden is becoming geography savvy...

And Salem is taking his first hippo-assisted steps...

take a gander:

A friend's blog recently inspired us to start teaching Eden the states and countries. She's LOVING it! And Salem may follow in his sister's footsteps and be walking by his first birthday!

The First Trim

Eden and Salem both had their first hair cut this week. Since sweet Eden was a bit unfortunate when it came to baby hair, she hasn't needed a hair cut until just recently! And then Salem's is growing like a weed...

Yes is hair had actually grown to the bottom of his ears. He wouldn't have been allowed to go to my high school. :)

So our new friend, Nicole, made a house call!



And yes I am feeding my 10 month old a popsicle so he'll hold his head still!



I promise the look above is him trying to get an entire hair clip into his mouth and not a face of agony.



Eden thought her "cape" was cool. And turns out she'll sit still too when promised a pink popsicle.



He's quickly turning into a little boy and loosing that "baby" look!



Eden didn't want me to brush her hair that evening because she didn't want me to "mess up her hair cut." I'm pretty sure that the next time they get hair cuts they'll be expecting popsicles and will be confused about not getting to sit outside in their wagon. Thanks Nicole for making it easy on us!!