Happy Father's Day

I've been a bit of a slacker this year for Father's day, Brandon. sorry.  :) But I've been a little busy having a baby boy and adjusting to it all, so I'm hoping that's a good excuse. I thought about tying a blue bow around Salem and attaching a card that says, "Happy Father's Day!" to his back, but alas, I didn't get that done either. None the less, I'm hoping birthing our first son will do as this year's Father's day present!

Brandon, you are an amazing father and I can't wait to see how you'll adapt to raising a son and teach him about our heavenly father. For now, you are doing great at your new job of playing intervention between Eden and Salem. I love you babe!

ok...sappy part over. :)

We're blessed to have my dad here for father's day this year and he's really enjoying his new grandson. He's managed to have Salem fall asleep on his chest just about every afternoon since he's been here.

And Happy Father's day to Pops (Brandon's dad) too! We'll see you in a few weeks! Can't wait for you to meet your first grandson!

Sleepy Sleepy

There aren't many things in the world (if anything) cuter than a sleeping baby. 

Sleepy grins. Baby REM is fun to watch. :)

Loving on Salem

We're loving being at home finally and Eden is loving having her parents back at home! We're doing our best to take lots of pictures of Salem so he doesn't feel the neglect of being the second child and not having anything to document his cute newborn stage. He is quite a handsome little man too. He looks a lot like Eden did as a newborn, but with lots more (and darker!) hair, and definitely a boyish touch to him.

As with any newborn, he's absolutely adorable when he's sleeping but he's also quite the wiggler and Houdini-d his way out of Brandon's expert swaddling.
Eden is incredibly enamored with her baby brother and it takes all of her self control to not squeeze his guts out when she gets to hold him. She loves to pull on his toes, poke at his eyes, and point at the nastiness that still is his belly button. "Gross" she says. :)  I agree.

I've decided that so far the hardest part of having two is just making sure Eden doesn't torture him or feed him cheerios.
Brandon is taking a week long class starting Monday and has tried to get in as much studying as possible even with a newborn around. 
He's keeping us all busy, entertained, and sleepy. But we're doing well and we're really enjoying having my mom around to help out for the next week or so.

Salem Is Here!

Salem Luke Chancler was born on June 10, 2009 at 1:16 p.m. He weighed 8 lbs 8 oz. and was 21 inches long. 

Both April and Salem are doing good.  Here are a few photos, and if you know anything about April, she will post many more soon.

Blessings,

Brandon

Brag Blog

If you're at all sensitive to people bragging about their children's many skills or talents, this perhaps might be a post to skip. However, if you're interested in how awesome our daughter is, keep reading. :)

Eden has just about mastered her ABCs, and counting to 10 in English and Chinese, though almost always skipping #4 in English and #6 in Chinese. And occasionally when she gets to "R" in her ABCs (which sounds identical to #2 in Chinese) she'll jump from the alphabet to counting to 10 in Chinese. Also, apparently she's got no use for "m" and "n" still. eh...she's still brilliant. :)  

For your viewing pleasure:

Family of Three

We finally have some pictures with all three of us in them! These are probably our last official pics as just a family of three and they turned out really great! Thanks Cindy! 

There's more here if you care to see them. :)

and as promised...a pregnancy photo. 

Salem's Snoopy-less Room

Salem's room is finally finished and just waiting for his arrival! I think it's both mine and Eden's favorite room in the apt. :)  Makes me wish I'd done a girly jungle theme for Eden because she loves (L.O.V.E.S.) the monkeys and elephants on the wall!

Decorating a baby's room in America is soooooo much easier than China, because well, America has decorations and China doesn't...well, nothing that doesn't have Hello Kitty or Snoopy on it. 

So Jungle theme it is. And I had fun. :) It's no page out of the pottery barn catalog or anything, but we like it, we kept it affordable, and it's simple. We like simplicity. 

I painted his letters on the wall. Michael's was my best friend throughout this process. And thank you Jordan for the shelves idea for his little jungle friends! (notice eden in the pic...I think she was confused as to why I wasn't pointing the camera directly at her). The chair in the corner is an IKEA Poang chair...seriously one of our best purchases ever. After buying one in Beijing for Eden's room in China (and having to leave it there), we passed an IKEA on the way back from South Carolina a couple months ago and knew it was destiny.

Curtains are another made by me project. It's just ribbon glued on a beige curtain we already had. Curtains are kinda pricey it turns out...so this was cheap. :)  Look at his cute little blue and green diapers just waiting on his tiny butt! The Papasan swing was an awesome craigslist score from his Granddad. Brandon had to get over his fear of the craigslist killer in order for us to go pick it up. And the oh so fantastic changing table was made by cousin Evan. It's ginormous (translation...perfect for cloth diapers!), the perfect height, and fits right into our keeping it simple mindset. And since it is so big it's got tons of room for all the diapers it takes to diaper 2 kiddos at one time. (did we really think this through?)

Seriously...just a few more weeks until there's a baby in that bed.

Did I mention that Eden loves his room? She likes to kiss the animals on the quilt. (??)

I really meant to include a belly pic of me in this post...but I'm lazy and that usually requires someone else behind the camera. But we have plans this week for going out and taking some family pics and some belly pics. So hopefully that will come soon. If not, I may have to reenact in a few weeks with a pillow.