Well, I'm just now getting to actually post the posts I wrote 3 1/2 weeks ago. I got interrupted and thought I'd get back to add pictures, and, well, here I am 3 weeks later, no pics!
Anyway, of course, the time lapse includes more of life, so here's another attempt to updating!
The Fall Festival at church was great as usual! Emma played her heart out and was the most beautiful princess I've ever seen! Bryson didn't do a whole lot more than take a nap. He was certainly the most precious sleeping penguin! : )
The house is not sold. We thought we had a buyer...came and looked, brought his family back that night, was so excited about it. It somehow fell through, though. A little disappointing, but I am thrilled to be in my home for Christmas and Emma's birthday! We haven't done much to advertise other than a sign in the yard and at the neighborhood entrance. We decided to wait until after the holidays to put any expense into advertising since now is not generally a time people are looking anyway. We'll give it a few months on our own after the new year and then talk to a realtor if it's not sold by then. We're not in a pinch, but we are itching to build and move. For now, we are thinking through and writing down details hoping to help make the process fairly quick. Plus, there were lots of things I/we had to make split second decisions on last time, and I do not want that again.
Sadly, since I last wrote, we got the wonderful news that my sister was expecting baby number 2...and then last week that the precious little miracle went to Heaven early. Mary Matheson went to the doctor last Monday for a check up, and they could not find the heartbeat. They are diong well, and Will says they'll get a new one. The kids and I went down last Tuesday morning and spent the day with them. We headed home after I cooked them dinner and Rick got home. It was so wonderful to spend time together despite the sadness of losing the baby. MM is quite the trooper, and I really admire how firm her faith remains as she trusts in God's plan so completely. I hope that my faith remains as strong during trials!
The whole family loaded up in 2 vehicles Saturday to head down to Clemson for the last home game of 2009...and our victory put us in the ACC championship game in Tampa against Ga Tech! (I think technically the BC game put us there, but it was nice to know our win got us there either way!) It was finally a beautiful day, and we all enjoyed it--I think I can say that for Ben too. He was very gracious to go with us. It's just hard to be fun for me when I have both kids on a trip like that. My back has been killing me a lot lately too, so it was nice to not have Bryson strapped to me the majority of the day--nice not to have to make potty trips like that too! ; )
As a result of all the football action and cheering, our little man has now got the clapping thing down! : ) He "mastered" it yesterday after working so hard to figure it out since the game Saturday and is so proud of himself! It is the cutest thing! He even woke up around 4 this morning (yes, still in our bed most of the night) and sat up babbling and clapping, with a few squeals about the claps! How cute. I have a cold or allergies or something, so I wasn't getting much sleep, so at least I got some sweet entertainment to lighten the load. : ) Since I'm writing of Bryson's accomplishments, I should add that he is working so hard on pulling up on things too. He was really getting the hang of it tonight; he wants to go so badly! Actually, as he was screaming at me for putting him to bed tonight, he was working on it too...after a while, I went down the hall to check on him and found him sitting up with his legs through the rails. Resituated and layed him down again, and the screaming resumed...another while later I found him pulled up almost completely to a standing position! : ) He is sleeping a little better, but he never makes it past midnight. I bring him to my bed to nurse him and fall asleep. Several nights in the last few weeks, he's slept until 4 or 5 then, nursed again, then gone back to sleep. Those nights, I LOVE...it's the others that are spend very restless or with several times nursing that just wear me out. I don't know why he's like that at night. Well, really, he's like that any time he's sleeping. He just wakes up screaming. Our attempts at letting him "cry it out" have not been successful. I'm not a fan of that to start with bc I want my kids to feel security more than anything this first year of life. We have tried it at different times when it truly seemed that nothing was bothering him, and he was just mad. The longest we've made it was 20-30 minutes, but to no avail. He gets so worked up he can hardly breathe, then it takes forever to get him settled down, Emma often wakes up when he cries (she doesn't seem to be doing that lately though), and then the majority of the house is up. Just seems pointless and cruel. I keep praying he'll work through it. I just can't figure out why he always wakes up crying. I seriously don't know that he's woken happy more than 5 times in his little lifetime--naps and nighttime.
Emma continues to grow. She seems to be getting past the separation anxiety thing, thankfully. She loves to be Mommy and for me to be her, and she seems to get more and more independent daily. She is a great helper and loves to tend to Bryson and help me in the kitchen. She's great about knowing what he can eat...I was worried she might start giving him food once we started solids, but she only gives him what she's seen us giving him. The biggest problem is her eating his food. : ) She has actually even changed a few diapers herself. For a while, she was bad about stripping and changing him while I was in the shower. She did a good job most of the time though. : ) It's so fun to have conversations with her and see her personality and individuality coming out more now. Her favorite food is PopTarts, favorite color is blue, favorite sport is "Clemson Tigers". She is so expressive when she talks; I love to watch her eyes and body language! She says "disgusting" a lot right now. : )
I hit the big 3-0 in September. : ( My sweet friends threw me a surprise party and had all my favorite things...rainbow sherbert, coke, and reeses...and Steph's amazing chocolate and peanut butter pie! It is a bit depressing to cross into another decade, but I am truly thankful for so many wonderful years of life and blessings! I guess the depressing part is really more of how quickly it's flying!
Business is very back and forth. It's down to just Ben and Judah. Some weeks are very full with very little time with Ben once he works all day and then does "office work" at night. Then there are weeks where we are going day to day piecing together work and not getting many hours. Hopefully things will really pick up steadily after Christmas! It's so hard to not get overwhelmed, but it is surely good for testing our faith. We know the Lord is our provider; we just have to live that out!
We're gearing up for the holidays and looking forward to some great times with family as we celebrate Thanksgiving in a couple of days! Hopefully I'll get some pictures on here tonight or tomorrow!
Here are some pictures...mostly just random. Some highlights include Bryson's first taste of solids...a banana! Emma was so excited she didn't wait; I was talking about giving her some and found her with a banana peeled trying to feed him on the floor! Another is Emma asleep 1/2 way in bed...I seriously found her asleep looking like she was climbing out of bed. There are some of Bryson when he was first working on the real crawling thing, one of Ben's b'day dinner, and then some of our first turkey deep frying attempt.
The turkey was for a Thanksgiving dinner we had with our small group from church last week. The turkey turned out great, and the feast was WONDERFUL---food and company! Since it was raining, Ben had to borrow Dad's tent, so I of course had to have pictures of him sitting under a Clemson tent in the backyard! Emma was real pumped about that! : )
