Baby's First Easter

We got lucky that moving weekend was the same as Easter since that meant Grandma and Grandpa were already here. We picked a church that looked nice. It may have been Methodist, but if you went by the number of hymns and responsive readings it might as well have been Episcopalian. I would say Lutheran, but only half the congregation was white haired! Ha!

After church we had a lovely brunch at the Blue Ridge Brewery where they serve some of the best shrimp and grits east of Louisiana. They do not, however, serve liquor on the patio which put a major hindrance in our quest to find the best bloody mary in town. Ah well, maybe next time.















The brewery is on Main Street in downtown Greenville so after brunch we walked around until we found this creepy warthog fountain. We all put pennies in its mouth for good luck and even threw in a Canadian penny for Pam (who I missed already on Day Two of Being Gone). My wish is to bring Dex back to Furman so Pam is here in Greenville again. That may take more than luck...

Let the Moving Begin

The movers showed up bright and early on a Thursday morning. Inexplicably they arrived in a 24' truck, which sounds huge but really isn't when you are moving an entire house. They did a phenomenal job other than the fact that there are a few important items which went to storage (aka the jam packed abyss of things we probably don't really need). Such as my printer power cord. Hmm.


Jackson and I left Birmingham after a court hearing so that we could get the paperwork squared away at the new apartment and storage unit. Matt stayed behind to clean and help the movers. Poor guys were there packing so late Friday night they had to stop because they had gone over on hours. And I told them our job would be easy. Maybe not.

Grandma and Grandpa met us at the hotel to help. I truly don't know what we would have done without them.

One of the first things we took care of was hanging the swing. The ceiling on the porch was too high so we used the door frame to the storage closet. Fail. Jackson isn't a fan of this at all so we will be changing locations shortly... This project came second to putting up room darkening curtains and amping up the volume on the noise machine. There is a major drawback to living anywhere with a gate and that is having to hear the idiots trying to phone a friend to let them in the gate. Actually that pales in comparison to having to pick up after your dog. THAT is the worst.

Fun Times as a Five Month Old

The little man can sit. At first he was just a tripod, but by 5.5 months he was legitimately sitting up. This makes photo sessions a lot more fun for us both. Actually, it makes everything more fun other than when I forget to keep a hand on him and he bonks himself into a toilet or bookshelf. He also got started on baby food toward the end of the month. Pumpkin wins his top favorite. Green beans were a fail- how you can gag on puree is baffling but he did it.



My wonderful Samford friend, Mary, lives in Huntsville. Her husband deployed to Afghanistan last October and I've been terrible in not visiting her at all so Jackson and I drove up for some fun with Mary and Hannah. She lent us all kinds of baby things so part of our trip was to return what we aren't using so it didn't make the move with us to Greenville. Mostly it was just an excuse to have some girl time and catch up. I'm going to need to be able to teleport Mary to SC every so often!



Jackson also went swimming for the first time while we were at the hotel on our house hunting trip! He loved it and I am SO glad he is a water baby. It's a good thing the pool was indoors seeing as how both he and Matt are virtually translucent. Bless their hearts.

Even though we had to take it down after two weeks, the weather was so nice we put up the swing Great Gran sent for Christmas. The first time I put him in it a giant wasp buzzed by and I whisked Jackson out so fast it scratched his leg. Pretty sure that's the best way to instill a fear of the swing. It was short lived thankfully, and now he is happy to swing as long as you will push him.

Postmarked Birmingham

If anyone had told me two years ago that come April 2012 I would be married, with a baby, and moved to South Carolina I would have handed them a tin foil hat and called in Team Prozac.
Just about every advice dispensing source says not to make more than two life changes per year. They are probably right. After Christmas Matt and I made a pact to have "status quo" year. Fate scoffed at our naivete.

We started looking at houses in Birmingham and even made an offer on one that we really liked. Two days later Matt found out about a job opening within his company. We withdrew our offer. A week later we listed our own house. Two weeks after that we made an apartment hunting trip to Greenville, SC. Not too surprisingly our options were a bit limited with a 60lb dog that requires a ground floor apartment and a short term lease. Within 5 weeks we were packed and moved two states away.

Our house in Birmingham should close within the next week. It was my first house and I cried all the way to Talladega to leave it, and although part of me won't miss mowing the giant yard all summer long the rest of me never minded yard work. I dug up as many of my "people" as possible- so many in fact that our back porch looks like an arboretum and we are expecting a friendly notice about tidy porch upkeep from the front office any day now. There is a farmer's market with $2 plants within walking distance. Good luck with that, leasing office lady.

Baptism Weekend

My friend Jen, who I have known since we were in the seventh grade, sent us the most precious white, smocked outfit after Jackson was born. Actually her mom sent it, and Jen tried to talk her out of it by telling her you can't send someone a baptism outfit but I'm glad Jen didn't listen. Another friend's mom hand made us the most beautiful bonnet as a baby gift. As if it wasn't special already, the idea is that one day the bonnet be given to a future bride, which makes it a double keepsake. I tried the outfit on Jackson several times and finally decided that it would fit him best in March, so we invited both of our families up for the big event.



Jackson was the perfect baby during the service. He gave the pastor a pretty funny look when they put the water on him, but never made a peep and was happily beaming during the parade around the sanctuary. Grandma crocheted a little white cloth which we passed to the pastor, but thankfully Jackson managed not to spit up until they passed him back to me. We had a bet going on when it would happen. I lost.

Afterwards we had a very nice lunch at our house. It was great to have a chance for both of our families to spend a little more time together. We are so thankful to everyone for coming up.














It just so happened that my niece Meredith had her 2nd birthday while she was here so I wanted to do something special for her too. Being a total Pinterest addict, Pam found the cutest cake and offered to make it. So cute!! Meredith insisted on blowing out her candles three times :)

Fun Times as a Four Month Old

The little man is already four months old and learning something new every day. In the last few weeks he has started propping himself up to sit, tried cereal for the first time, started drinking from a cup, and started really learning how to jump in his saucer and jumper. He weighed in at 15.5 lbs at his 4 month visit and was 25" tall. Quite the little chunker.





This month it warmed up enough to take him hiking close to our house at Ruffner Mt. He is big enough to ride in his carrier on your back now and once we turned him around so he could see out he spent the entire walk just laughing and smiling at every person who passed by.



Still needs a some work but he's getting there!

Callaway Gardens with Great Grandad

Every year at Christmas there is a HUGE light display at Callaway Gardens, which is about an hour from my Grandad's house. I've always wanted to go see it but never have. This year someone told us that the gardens are actually free Jan-Feb so we picked a weekend to take Great Grandad and go look around. I had no idea how much there is to see and do at Callaway! Turns out that we needed an entire weekend to really see it all and that was in the middle of winter.

Hands down the best part was the Birds of Prey show. Honestly, we all thought if you've seen one you've seen them all, but this show was great. The birds skimmed right over the heads of the audience, it was all done outdoors, and the host was a pretty funny guy. Most definitely worth the trip in itself.

Callaway also has a pretty large butterfly conservatory. It wasn't too full this time of year, but it was very pretty and well kept with a nice waterfall flowing through the middle.

This was Jackson's first trip to Grandad's. We're pretty sure they both enjoyed it :)