A Growing Family

We went out to dinner last night with my former residency class (minus Drew who is in Texas).  Our family has grown and we are becoming out numbered by babies!  The Drennens were also there - Michael was in the class above us.  Little Landon was sleeping on the booth so you can't see him in the picture.  We can't wait to meet the two newest members of the group coming this summer!  It has been amazing to have such a great group of friends through all of residency and into attending life.  Chancy will be starting at my hospital next week and I am looking forward to being on call together!
   

Ethan: 6 Months

The little man is six months old!  He can sit up on his own now and is close to crawling.  He truly doesn't stop moving and will remind you of this if you are holding him and try to stand still.  We are introducing him to different vegetables.  He has tried sweet potatoes, carrots and butternut squash.  His favorite so far is the squash.  He still has several teething buds, but no teeth have broken through yet.  We are planning to put him in his own room to sleep in the next several days, which I am sure will be hard for both of us!

    

   

   

    

Sweet Potato Baby

Harper and I made Ethan sweet potato baby food tonight.  He liked it!!  We steamed and pureed the sweet potato in our Beaba and added a little of his precious milk to smooth it out.  He has had several helpings of rice cereal up to this point and never really loved it.  Sweet potato was Harper's first real food too!  Heres to hoping this helps with his sleep :)

     

First taste!  Big sister had the honor of being the first to feed Ethan.

    

    

     

     

    

   

Ethan's twin Harper enjoyed sweet potatoes for the first time three years ago!

     

Bug Lab

We went to Discovery Place this rainy weekend to visit the Bug Lab Exhibit.  It was amazing!!  There were huge walk-through displays for four different bugs where you could learn about their eating habits, survival skills and abilities.  We learned about different bug venom and how it is helpful to human life.  There was a slide through the intestine of a dung beetle on which Harper spent about an hour playing.  Who ever knew bugs could be so interesting?!

  

Harper had been to the Bug Lab before with Alex so she was excited to show me around.

   

This exhibit had an awesome zoetrope to see a 3D animation of the flight of the dragonfly.

  

The orchid mantis was beautiful!

    

    

Bees

   

There was a display asking kids to write which bug they would like to be.  Harper's answer was, "A red one!"  We put it on the magnet wall.

      

We did a lot of learning!

   

   

   

   

   

     

   

Tiger World

I took the kids to Tiger World yesterday.  Tiger World is a nonprofit animal conservation and educational center dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and preservation of exotic animals.  It was only forty minutes away from our house!  The kids had a great time learning about the different animals and could not believe how big the cats were!  We enjoyed the seventy degree weather and sunny skies.

    

This one year old lion baby was eating her lunch when we arrived.

   

My cubs!

   

   

Another lion cub eating lunch!

   

    

     

This tiger was beautiful!  We were so very close to all the animals, only a few feet away!

    

  

There were also some kangaroos.

    

   

   

    

   

Alex would have liked the wolves.

    

The ligers were huge!!

    

    

Second Christmas

We had a second Christmas this year when the Scheers arrived in Charlotte.  Harper enjoyed opening another round of gifts.  We were lucky enough to spend the last few days of 2018 with the Scheers.  Merry second Christmas!

   

    

    

    

      

We celebrated with a raclette dinner!

Ethan: 5 Months

Our little man is now five months!  He continues to be the happiest baby I have ever met.  He wakes up with a smile every day.  He is starting to teeth now which will be a new adventure for sure.  We are going to try to introduce rice cereal again soon and solids at six months.  He loves grabbing with his hands.  His favorite thing to grab is sister's hair!  He had a wonderful Christmas with both families.