Then There Were Four

I know you think we very well may still be in Spain if your only interaction is this blog so I'll try to get you caught up on the last few months.

You really haven't missed much except work, playing with Ehren and getting ready for the new baby.

Can you see why I haven't blogged lately?

Just as a reminder the new baby was due December 27th. Notice the past tense? Yeah, he decided he was ready to enter the world on December 5th instead. We now have another son: Asher Spurgeon Fykes.

Now we weren't exactly ready for this and my water actually broke in the middle of 2 different real estate negotiations which means I was that pretentious person at the hospital on the phone. At one point the doctor on call actually came in the room and I was on the phone with another agent and I held up my finger and asked her to come back in a second. Luckily, the doctor thought it was pretty funny instead of annoying and you really should have heard the other agents once I told them..."okay I'm going to have to go I'm at the hospital and my water just broke so it may be a few days before we can get back to you."

We've now been home almost 3 weeks and we're learning to adjust. My parents are here for a couple more days and we're trying to soak the help in while we can. This is the longest they've ever stayed with us (two whole weeks) but I'm not looking forward to them leaving. NOT.A.BIT.

Life with 2 kids is going to be different but you've never known us to shy away from a challenge, right?

Merry Christmas everyone!

Family Photos

You know what I love most about my job? All the amazing people I get to meet. One of my past clients gifted us with the best thing ever after we returned from Taiwan - family photos. Since our wedding we have never had more than a snapshot so this was such a treat. You can check out her website here and she has a great blog too (I'm actually going to write articles for it every once in a while).

But anyway without further ado...the things you came for.

P.S. Joshua made the jacket he is wearing. Like sat down with no sewing experience one day and decided he wanted to make him something so he made this lined jacket with a hood and buttons. Turns out sewing is a lot like architectural model making.

My parents were actually in town when she came over to shoot so we have a bonus Felton picture as well. Ehren looks slightly terrified but I just love this picture of my parents.

Ehren Update

You know a good time to post cute pictures of your kid? Halfway through a day when he is getting sick and has soaked both parents in cantalope/yogurt vomit. Twice.

Ahhh the good times when he kept food down.

Our holidays this year were spent introducing all the grandparents to Ehren. We even had Christmas Eve with some great friends so I would say we celebrated well. Now it looks like we're starting the year off with a new challenge. If you can handle a sick baby you can handle anything, right?

Now We All Match!

Our Little News

So the Fykes have big news. Every time you say something like that when you are married without kids everyone assumes we're going to announce that we're pregnant.

We are NOT pregnant!

However!

Hopefully we're gonna have a kid in the next year. This month we kicked our plans to adopt into high gear. Well, technically we are really in neutral while we change our health insurance but the clutch is in and our hand is on the gear ready to go.

Joshua and I have always talked about adopting as a way to grow our family. We just feel like there are too many kids out there that need homes and we have a great one to share. So as soon as we get our new health insurance cards we'll be probed, questioned, fingerprinted, lectured to and then hopefully be deemed "fit" parents.

Stay tuned as the newest Fykes adventure unfolds.

Photoessay: A Brief History of Lemon Bread

To those who will smile and laugh (you know who you are):

LEMON: The start and most important ingredient of the Felton tradition.

You have to squeeze as much juice as you can.

For those wondering - those are the hands of my wonderful mother-in-law. She is the "mother"(pun very much intended) of lemon bread. We know this delicacy originated in her childhood, but her memory is a bit fuzzy as to why. An interesting sidenote from the creator: saltine crackers can be used in lieu of bread.

To eliminate any doubts or suspicions you might be having about us "staging" this very real phenomenon.

The final step and pièce de résistance is munching down on all the lemons used, leaving nothing but peels.

With Family

We are in Texas for about a week visiting my family. You get away from Texas for a while and you forget how common things like this are.

My sister, Tawna, had a baby while we were away on our European adventure so we decided to head back down to Texas to visit BriLane. It just happened to work out that she and my parents were heading to Denton to visit my brother the same weekend we wanted to come down so it turned into a mini family reunion. It is very rare that we are all together so it has been a lot of fun.

For your enjoyment Joshua decided to document our trip to Chik-fil-a yesterday.

And finally...Brilane and her mom