Dad's big juice....

It happens whenever we drink out of any bottle of liquid but for some reason when Dave gets out his big jug of iced tea, Brenden is polarized by it. He wants so badly to drink out of it. It doesn't hurt that it has a nice big handle to grab onto as well. The bottle is about half the size of him but you wouldn't know it by how he manhandles it. Take a look:

The Big Juice

The daily baby proofing of the house continues and presents new challenges each day. Things one wouldn't think would be interesting to a baby suddenly are! We need a storage shed to put all the things that aren't baby friendly - at least for a year or two. It certainly changes the landscape of the decor!

Snow at the beach

Yesterday was apparently unusual for this part of North Carolina. Beaches and snow colliding is a rarity - sort of strange as I see it, but nothing out of the ordinary. Barely a skiff of snow actually accumulated. The news varied their reports from about 2 or 3 inches. That equates enough for the region to basically shut down. I mean shutdown big time! Schools and Government establishments for the state were told not to show up 24 hours before the storm even hit. So with a 70% chance of 2-3" snow you can see why you would want to shut everything in the state down. Then the storm finally hit. It took us 8 hours to get some coverage on the ground. But after the storm was complete, the first ten minutes of the local news was not on the momentous Presidential inauguration holding the attention of the country but the "horrible road conditions making travel extremely hazardous in Eastern North Carolina." It made David and I laugh and laugh...I guess growing up in Utah for thirty years, I got used to snow and A LOT of it. Still it was bizarre to see it on the sand. The dogs and Brenden hadn't seen it before, so far be it for me to not take my camera outside and document the day wind and snow a blowin'. Here are some pictures of our place:Have to snap a family shot. Dave is good at doing this:Had to take the dogs out to go to the bathroom. It was really windy coming off the water and they were definitely not amused:I dig this photo: The Cute all warmed up inside with Dad's hat on:

I knew this day would come.....

.....where we would have to baby proof the house. I was just hoping it would be later rather than sooner. A few posts ago I posted that Brenden was starting to crawl. A few days after that (literally)he stood up on his own grabbing onto the coffee table. In just two weeks time he went from being immobile to crawling to now standing. I guess I thought we would have a little bit more than a few days in between to put things like power cords and lamps in a place where he couldn't grab them. Very detail oriented this boy - he sees a speck on the carpet from a room away and goes for it!
As for the baby proofing, we don't exactly have traditional furniture that one can easily pad. Our coffee table is an architectural flat file with a 1/2" thick glass top that freely slides around. I ended up wrapping it up like a big present with one of the moving blankets the movers left us. Not exactly ideal but we shall see. The other option is to put away what we just spent four weeks unpacking and organizing and letting the lad run around an empty house.
Brenden's favorite thing now is to stand up in his crib and walk around. We lowered the mattress to the lowest setting with my back thanking me on a daily basis. Here is a video clip showing the enthusiasm he has for the crib rails:

Strong boy


and the big grin he gave me after filming him.. what a ham!

I had to put this picture up beause it cracks me up. He loves my old laptop as you can see - oh and also check out my coffee table wrapping job~
I think he will be walking by nine months.. help us all!

Recent photo sesh....

We recently had a professional photo session, the first time since The Cute was three weeks old (I know we are lame in the professional photo area mostly because the thought of it all makes my head hurt). I guess I enjoy taking my own pictures too much ~ the control freak that I am. If only I had four arms to hold baby and operate camera. Oh well...
We couldn't get to this before Christmas because of the move so better late than never, right? Here you go - it's just a sampling of the pictures that we have.. short but sweet post :


I like the last one because if you look closely.. his first tooth is on the left bottom..

I think The Cute needs to work for UL labratories

He is a bruiser no doubt. Granted this video is from about a month ago when we first got to the new house and set up his Exersaucer that he hadn't seen in about a month. He is a jumping fool and also didn't have his doorway jumper thingy (as I like to call it) for the same period of time. You can tell he was itching to jump. We thought the hydraulics on the thing weren't going to take the abuse but it held up fine. By the way, this is him after his first bout in it when he was really crazy. I went and retrieved the video camera after that and believe it or not, this one is toned down from that one. He hasn't been this aggressive since then on the poor unit but it made me stop and think this boy should be testing products for durability at UL labs. Any product that can withstand his abuse gets a thumbs up in my book. Take a look and you be the judge:

The Bruiser

Right before our eyes

I always told myself I would write this blog to document the ordinary events of our lives. The events that when taken singularly don't mean all that much but when strung together tells the story and experiences of our family.
Some posts are much more significant and/or important than others for various reasons. This post happens to be about crawling. Brenden's crawling to be exact. Literally two weeks ago he was on his hands and stomach but couldn't quite lift up his belly to go anywhere so he would roll around until he got to where he wanted to go. Effective but inefficient. Last week he started lifting up his belly and moving backwards which wasn't the direction he wanted to go which got him frustrated enough to motivate forward. This weekend.. boom! He is off full steam ahead! It's a good thing that we have just finished unpacking boxes and cleaning up the house - just in time to baby proof it. We also discovered this weekend that he has cut his first tooth. It will only be a matter of time before he is eating a T-Bone steak with us. Everyone always told me that babies grow up fast. They are right. It's only been eight months and I can't believe how much he has changed.

As usual I couldn't let you escape without a visual aid - here you go:

Watch out here he comes....

New Bern and the Tryon Palace Historic Sites and Gardens

Yesterday I needed my architecture fix. I just really craved seeing brick and mortar - the kind that has history and character. The kind that I personally could spend days regarding with a magnifying glass. All the small details of craftsmanship and careful design. The kind of architecture one finds in older towns and cities. These types of places don't really exist back west where I grew up so I thought my chance would come living in the east - or is it the south? Maybe southeast? Regardless, we didn't have the time during the holiday break to travel far but there is a town near where we live called New Bern that we can easily get to that does have quite an interesting historic downtown. We decided to check it out.

Sorry in advance if this post becomes boring or is weighted heavily on building nomenclature.. I do realize that this stuff isn't as interesting to most as it is for me. Suck it up though and read on.. you might find yourself entertained.

New Bern was the Colonial capital in 1766-76 and was the state of North Carolina's capital from 1776-1794. It played an active part in the American Revolution by being a major port and trading center. The city was captured and occupied by the Union army in 1862 which also meant it played an active part in the Civil War. It's also the birthplace of Pepsi-Cola invented in 1898. The gentleman who invented it had a pharmacy which is now a soda fountain store dedicated to Pepsi. The downtown streets are lined with historic sites and outstanding examples of American architecture, especially the early 19th-century Federal style. The houses on the historic registry are in really great shape and taken care of meticulously.

The crown jewel of the city is the Tryon Palace and the grounds surrounding it. The Palace was originally constructed between 1767 and 1770 in the Georgian style. It was a meeting place for the colonial assembly and a residence for the Royal Governor appointed by the King of England. The main building burned down in 1798 but in the 1950's there were some zealots that championed to reconstruct everything down to the last detail. They did a great job and while the buildings aren't original, the furnishings are authentic to that period and as a whole work well.

The gardens I am sure are lovely in the Spring and Summer but since it was December.. they were lacking any depth. Alright enough on the history lessons, here are the inevitable pictures to show you all. We weren't allowed to take any inside the buildings.

Dave walking up to the Palace with The Cute:

Close up of the coat of arms detail. The G III signifies King George III and the R signifies Rex which means King: Outside in one of many gardens on the grounds:

I am sure in the summer the picture below would be a stunning view.... Below is the John Wright Stanly house. The house was the birthplace of two men who fought on opposing sides in the Civil War. It was built between 1779 and 1783. Here is a close up of the wreath on the front door. It was beautifully made with oyster shells reflecting the local taste for such.
Brenden October was quite the trooper and hung in there for four hours of strangeness:

A day of fish and forts

This past week since Christmas has been a unique time for us. Moving the house to a new state and spending Christmas for the first time with Brenden - just the three of us. It was very nice and low key. We did miss spending time with friends and family but we got a lot done on Christmas day.. yes.. unpacking boxes. Dave has the week off from work so our resolve is to get this house in order! Having some fun in between is a must though so we went to the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores and Fort Macon the day after Christmas. As some of you know from former posts, Brenden loves aquariums so we searched out one that was about 45 minutes from Cherry Point which isn't a bad drive. The facility is on the small sidebut does have some impressive exhibits and of course The Cute dug it.

After the aquarium we took a drive and ended up at Fort Macon by chance. The Fort was constructed between 1826 and 1834 and used in the Civil War, Spanish War and World War II. It was one of a series of seacoast fortifications for national defense. It was acquired by the state of North Carolina in 1924 and was then established as North Carolina's first functioning state park in 1936. It was interesting to check out especially since I have seen very little when it comes to military architecture of this type.

Here are some pictures that I took that day .....

Nothing says Christmas like a big bronze frog with a Santa hat!

They had a large Christmas tree in front of their large tank with a shipwreck exhibit. Kind of a cool shot with the reflections:

T'was a bit chilly when we went to the outside exhibits..... Can you tell David is happy that I kept taking pictures?On to Fort Macon (a side note.... this is where the nerdy Architect in me shines through).

This ramp is steeper than it looks here in the picture. I wish I had taken a picture of the sign posted that said 'This Fort was built for war not safety! Watch your step!' It is definitely not handicap accessible which in turn meant taking the stroller around it was interesting. Thank you Dave for taking on the challenge!

Merry Christmas 2008

What an awesome year it has been for the Slay family. The birth of B.O.S. has changed everything in our family dynamic for the better of course. The holidays are a little bit more special because you get to see the wonder of Christmas through a child's eyes. Never mind that he is only seven months old and doesn't know what all the fuss is about. What he did love was manhandling the wrapped presents under the tree just for him. Here are some pictures and from our family to yours - have a safe and peaceful holiday season!

We decided to take a Christmas eve stroll around the neighborhood to see the lights - the lights sooth him when he is fussy:Must get into this package Mom!Wow this bear is as big as The Cute.. He loved the nubby fur on it:A great book with textures and shiny stuff:

He was more interested in eating the tag on the clothes than the clothes themselves:Next year I am going to have to childproof the tree. It will be a wild time I am sure!

Holidays 2008

O.k I am not usually the cheesy type ~ but I ran across a website called Scrapblog and decided to mess around with it because the thought of unpacking another box makes my head hurt so that means procrastination which in turns means messing around on the computer. Here is what I came up with and I wanted to share. A side note - I really wanted to put up a Christmas tree for Brenden's first Christmas but with the move and having a hundred boxes piled up in each room of the new house, it seemed it wasn't going to happen. I mustered the energy to put up our small tree (4') instead of the big one. It will have to do this year. I took some pictures a few days ago and with some creative cropping out of the mess around the tree, one can hardly tell it's a disaster area here! Hey one has to create memories anyway possible right?

Enjoy and have a great holiday season with your loved ones!