Kitchen Refacing Project

A grand undertaking has begun. With the assistance of our neighbor's son-in-law, we are refacing our kitchen. I will attempt to chronicle the progress here on the blog. The project began on Friday, July 15th. Pray for us!

Day 0


Day 1


Day 2

Sibling Love

For Alyssa, it was love at first sight. For Titus, it has developed over the last 5.5 months. While I know there will be bickering and quarrels in the months and years to come, I also hope that the love these two share now will grow and prevail in our home.

Wildlife Seen IN and AROUND Our Home

 

From left to right, top row: golden silk spider, ground skink, white-tailed deer, opossum, brown anole; middle row: barred owl, Mediterranean gecko, green tree frog; bottom row: blue-tailed skink, cockroach, raccoon, armadillo.

Not pictured: all the common birds, the unidentified snakes, the unidentified spiders and the bajillion insects including the grasshopper that must have been 4 inches long.

Alyssa's 3rd B-day

Alyssa turned 3 this week. It's hard to believe. It's past my bedtime, so I won't write much. Here are a few pictures to summarize the big day.

Mid-March

A quick update on each of us:

LeMar is still working two jobs: Wachovia and Target. This amounts to about 55-60 hours of work per week. It is exhausting for him and for me as well. He will probably scale back to only working at Wachovia in the near future to spend more time with the family and pursue a volunteer position with a law enforcement agency in the area. This will allow him to keep his Florida certification current

Alyssa is doing very well. She has made a very smooth adjustment to being a big sister. She loves interacting with Titus and rarely has jealousy issues. Occasionally she will have accidents at home which I'm interpreting as an attempt to demand attention from LeMar or me. She was moved to the 3 year old class at day care at the beginning of January even though she was only two and a half. They determined that with her being very smart, completely potty trained, tall for her age and having great verbal skills she would fit right in. She made the transition very smoothly and has continued to do well with all the three-year-olds. Many members of the staff are still surprised when I tell them she won't turn three until the end of June.

Titus is growing at an alarming rate. He is two months old now, and I don't know where the time went. Just before he hit two months, he rolled over from belly to back. I don't think he has done it since, but I don't think it will be long before he is doing it regularly. Last week he made a shift from being a newborn to being an infant. He began having long periods of alert time and starting taking more milk during a given feeding and overall throughout the day. His adjustment to daycare was very smooth, but that is not shocking at such a young age. He doesn't mind going back and forth between breast and bottle. I've been pumping at work, so he is still getting breast milk even when we are apart.

As for me, the first few days back at work were tough. I was missing Titus and just being at home. Also, restarting all my research drives took a little time and a lot of brain power. Now, I seem to be into the swing of things and I'm keeping busy throughout the day. I'm writing this post between giving an instrument attention when it needs it every 4 minutes or so.

Happy St. Patrick's Day (a day early). Here are a couple pictures from a going away/St. Patty's Day party for some friends of ours:

Who's who?

One of these was taken in June 2008 and the other in February 2011. Can you tell who's who?

Happy Birthday to LeMar

LeMar is celebrating his birthday today. This event is preceded by my new holiday on 3/6: Annual Bake-a-Cheesecake Day. Tonight we will eat hot wings and cheesecake, open presents, put the kids to bed and watch House.

Alyssa was recently diagnosed with a level 4 peanut allergy. Her pediatrician has recommended removing ALL nuts (peanuts AND tree nuts), any nut products (e.g. butters, sauces, oils), and anything potentially containing nuts (e.g. M&Ms, chocolate chips, yogurt covered raisins) from the house. Additionally, she/we need to carry EpiPens everywhere she goes. Furthermore, we can't eat at places like Chick-Fil-A that cook in peanut oil. For Alyssa, the impact of this is minimal since most of these things she hasn't ever had or become accustomed to. For LeMar and I, this is terrible news! At least we are not with her 24/7, so we can still enjoy these things when she is elsewhere as long as we wash hands and brush teeth before seeing her again.

My maternity leave is over; today is my second Monday back at work. Titus adjusted quickly to day care. He does not mind the bottle at all; he, like Alyssa, is easily motivated by food.

My parents visited for two weeks before and briefly overlapping my return to work. It was great to have them visit, and we really appreciated all the help they gave while here. We put them to work fixing leaks above ceilings, installing a recessed light, stripping wallpaper and painting in a bathroom, solving leaky toilet issues, typical household upkeep, cooking and cleaning. Thanks again for all the help!

Titus is growing very nicely. He even rolled over this weekend from tummy to back. It was pretty cool because I was able to watch the whole thing happen from start to finish. Alyssa's first roll happened when neither LeMar nor I where watching.

LeMar's sister Ayrielle and two friends paid us a brief but lovely visit Saturday into yesterday. They were on their way to Orlando for spring break, but we were happy to host them for a night en route. It was great to visit and for Alyssa to spend a bit of memorable time with her only biological Aunt.

Here a few pictures before I get back to work:

Welcome Titus

Titus LeMar was born yesterday, January 12th at 1527. 8 lbs. 8 oz. and 21 in. All the family is doing well! More pictures are available via LeMar's Picassa album (link in the right hand column).