Settling in...

So two weeks ago, I had one child to care for, was pregnant, working (for a paycheck), and living in Birmingham. Then a hurricane swept through, and I quit work, had a baby, and moved out of one house and into another...in Chattanooga! Add to that, a month ago, Tyler was a resident, then commuting between two cities, and now officially owns a practice and goes to a real job every day, and you could say it's been a busy few weeks!

There is just so much I want to write about, but the timer that is currently laying on my chest is ticking down quickly, so I'll just share some pictures of our first week in Chattanooga and commentary from my first guest blogger.

"Hi, I'm Katie Beth, and I am two weeks old!"

"Mommy borrowed this sling from her good friend, and we're trying to figure out how I should sit in it without suffocating or falling out. The online tutorials were marginally helpful."

"I'm sleeping well through the night - feeding every three hours for 40 mins or so - and taking long snoozes during the day."

"zzzz...."

"Here are my tiny feet. I'm precious in most every way."

"My hairdo is ridiculous, and so far, bows don't stay put."

"So much for Mommy's plan of avoiding a pink overload!"

"Whew, blogging wears me out. zzz..."

Thank you KB! Now here is a shot that takes some time to get used to. Not to mention the time it takes to get them both in there! We have so far had two outings on our own. Katie Beth is so far not a fan of Starbucks, BiLo, Gymboree or the McD's drive-thru. To calm her down when she cries, Ben sings her a precious song that my mom taught him that needs to be videotaped...I'll get right on that.

Speaking of Ben, aside from some whining and tantrum issues, he's handling all the change like a champ! After telling him over and over that we were moving to Chattanooga, I found out yesterday that he thinks the house is named Chattanooga! As in, "yook, Mahmmy, Chanoona!" as we pull in the driveway yesterday, and "bye-bye Chanoona!" as we pull out today.

He talks about all his friends from school often, but has been keeping busy...

birdwatching through self-decorated "binoculars",

building houses with Legos,

bathing (occasionally),

and doting on his little sister.

He loves to hold her,

and stroke her face, and hold her hand.

But then reminds us that he's not all growed-up just yet! He still needs lots of hugs and cuddles, and we're happy to oblige.

After a long few days of packing, moving, unpacking, unpacking, unpacking, we decided to take the night off last night! We met up with Francis, Kirsten, and Austin (one month younger than Ben, and his totally awesome pal) in Northshore for dinner at Mudpie and fun at Coolidge Park. It was a beautiful evening, and I'm so mad that I didn't have my camera. Hopefully, it's something we'll do again soon!

So that concludes the first blog post from this stay-at-home mom-of-two in Chattanooga! Thanks to lots of prayers, support from our friends and help from our parents, whom we are eternally indebted to, we have survived so far...