Happy Anniversary!

Eight years ago tonight, Rob and I met at our mutual friend Adam's New Year's Eve party. It was 1999 and no one was quite sure what would happen when we entered a new century (remember Y2K?). We ended up in the kitchen, me chopping onions and green peppers for the jambalaya he was preparing for everyone. He had asked what everyone wanted to eat, and all I requested was something not too spicy. So he left out all of the jalapeños just for me! Such a sweet gesture that started it all. So tonight, we will make jambalaya together again (this time spicy), as our 3 little munchkins look on.

And here we are. A family of five.

Happy New Year!

Home sweet home

The boys' passport:

The Bunn boys' east coast tour is officially over. And I don't think we'll leave the house for at least a month. We were blessed with great weather for traveling (we missed huge snow storms by one day for our departure and return). It took 12 hours to drive down to VA (this includes stopping to feed the boys) and 3 days to return home. The return did not go as hoped, missing Lizzie and her family due to strep (Lizzie - I'm just impressed you went to the doctor!) as well as missing Aunt Wendy, Ginny, Uncle Henry and Aunt Mary. We are praying for your health and speedy recoveries. But we did get to spend time with Rob's Uncle Jerry and family as well as our dear friends the Schneiders, Brackins and Hustons, who bravely and lovingly welcomed us, as well as all at the family reunion. The boys did remarkably well with the car rides, in all new settings, and meeting all the folks who had prayed for them and for us.

We were able to make it home at 8pm for their last feeding last night - a half an hour later than they normally would eat. Charlie started crying out around 6:30pm, and our deal with each other was if another woke up, we would pull over and attempt to feed all 3 at a rest stop. But unfortunately for Charlie, and fortunately for us, Win and Wes continued to sleep on. We couldn't get home fast enough. But it was so emotionally and physically necessary to just be home. After 2.5 weeks on the road, 4 different places to sleep, we are all thankful to be home, but are overjoyed with the visits with family and friends.

5 months old

The boys turned 5 months old on Christmas Day. They are such wonderful little men. On this trip, they made it through the 12 hour drive from Boston, 2 church services without a peep, have been held and fed by multiple new people and have remained content throughout all. They even continued to sleep through the night - 11 continuous hours! This will all probably change, as things are guaranteed to do, but we'll enjoy it while it lasts! Winston, Wesley and Charlie are truly gifts from God.

5 month photos: L-R Winston, Wesley and Charlie


Outtakes



As Christmas elves (in their new Christmas outfits from GeGe)

Merry Christmas again!

The shotgun was fired at 5:45am, as it has for generations. Christmas can now begin!

Here's the gang from last night!

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!


photo by Adam Olenn

The Bunn tradition is to gather at Granny's house for a large Christmas Eve celebration which brings together two branches of the family tree. My parents drove down from Boston to be part of the service yesterday, as well as to spend Christmas with us all. We are blessed to have these moments with family, whether it is by blood, marriage or Church.

All smiles after meeting their Boykins Baptist Church family
(When we have a moment, we will write a longer post on what a special and moving experience that was.)

Hello Visitors!

You may have noticed that we added a fun little widget to the left. It lists the location of the daily visitors. I don't know what is more cool - that we have about 30 stalkers, I mean visitors a day, or that we've had visitors from India, Brazil, Austria, Panama and England (hi Lon!). I'm also very impressed how many people are here from New Jersey! Hi Jersey! I just hope you're not all Yankees fans like Lizzie. Feel free to leave a comment to say hi and let us know you're here.

Next stop on the Virginia tour? Boykins - home of Uncle Raymond and delicious peanuts. According to vapeanuts.com: Southeastern Virginia is the only place in America where you can find large peanuts cooked in the "home-style" tradition. Yum!

Death by Chocolate

The troops watched the boys on Monday so that Rob & I could run errands and have an official date. We went to the Trellis in Williamsburg, home of the famous Death by Chocolate dessert. Thankfully, we survived. It was so wonderful to be able to stroll the streets of colonial Williamsburg and have those few hours off of diapers>feed>playtime>nap>repeat. Here is Rob at the Trellis, embarrassed that I pulled out the camera at dinner.

The boys, enjoying the bubble lights on the Christmas tree

Christmas in VA - a very full mantle

The tour begins in Holland

The boys were presented at Holland Baptist Church, where Poppa is the pastor. During the pregnancy, delivery, and following complications, we received countless prayers from these faithful folks. So it was our honor to meet them, introduce them to the boys and thank them for their prayers, support and generosity. Winston even smiled on cue for Poppa.

Poppa & Charlie

Ginger, Rob, Winston, Nana, Wesley, Charlie & Poppa

VA

We survived the drive to Virginia. Uncle Raymond flew up to accompany us on our drive south, and we could not have made it without him. We set off at 9:30pm, after the boys' last feed, so that they would sleep overnight in the car. They did so well! They barely fussed, and slept until 6:30am, at which point we found a McDonald's in which to feed them. The trip would have only taken 10 hours had we not hit major construction outside of DC!

This was also Julep's longest car ride. I think she kept thinking this was a short car ride and she was going to end up either in the Cove or Grammy and Poppy's house, so she barely slept. But she has been loving romping in the yard with her cousins Ann & Abby!

Ann

Abby

Playtime

A sandwich with 3 bunns

During tummy time this morning, the boys were lined up Win, Charlie and then Wes. Win and Wes decided they both wanted to roll - on Charlie - from both directions. It looked something like this:





You can see how pleased Charlie was. So I swapped Win and Wes so they would roll outward, but it ended up looking something like this:





In other news, we're on the search for formula that doesn't make the boys spit up constantly. We're getting tired of the constant formula showers, so hopefully we'll find the right formula soon. And I can't imagine the boys are too pleased with it either.

Best time of the day

It is such a joy to hear the boys wake in the morning with sounds of chatter instead of cries. They are often full of smiles after their long rest. When I entered the nursery this morning, Win and Wes had broken out of their swaddles and moved their sleep positioners so that their heads were close together. They were holding hands, smiling and talking to each other. Charlie was sound asleep.

Cheeeeeese

Our dear friends Adam and Jen and our Goddaughter Piper came over on Saturday. Adam is a fantastic photographer and lovingly agreed to spend his Saturday taking photos of us to use for Christmas. I won't spoil the surprise and post the photos just yet, but here is the funniest one...

Making progress

The boys went to sleep last night at 7:15pm (after much less screaming than the night before - good thing our downstairs neighbor was away for the weekend). And didn't wake up until 7:15am! Well, we had one swaddle break (Wes) around 3:30am. Win didn't budge with all the fussing, but Charlie woke up (I'm guessing he doesn't want to miss any of the excitement). But they settled themselves after a few minutes once re-swaddled. I actually found Win this morning with both arms behind his head, curled up in the corner of the crib - still sound asleep.

Rob also did the math and realized that the switch to regular formula will cut our costs from $300/month to $75/month. And that is with about 30oz of breast milk! But it shouldn't go up too much once I stop pumping.