The times are changing

Brinley has been growing up so fast lately. She is now 9 ½ months old! Since we have been here I feel like she has changed dramatically. Here are some of the things she has been doing:

Finally sleeping through the night! For the past two weeks Brinley has slept through the night every night. Doesn’t sound like much for a 9 month old, but for us this is wonderful. For the past three or four months Brinley decided that she wanted to wake up every 3 hours on the dot, all night long. I had forgotten what it was like to actually sleep at night. We did recently move her into our closet (a little Harry Potterish, I know). It’s the darkest place we could find and it has seemed to do the trick.

Brinley is also finally eating food. For some reason she would never eat ANYTHING before we moved out here. She wouldn’t even take a bottle, meaning that she could never leave mom for more than 3 hour period. So lovely. As soon as we got here she became an eating champ. She will eat virtually anything. She has mostly had just baby food but has occasionally had bites of mom and dad’s food. Her favorite: otter pops. She is just like her mom.

Brinley has finally started crawling! She still prefers army crawling to crawling on her knees, although she can do it if she wants. She crawls all over our apartment, eating anything she can possibly find, the toilet being her favorite. Needless to say we keep the bathroom doors closed.

She can pull herself up onto our coffee table and walk all around it. This is the best toy we have right now. She also loves to walk around holding our hands.

This way is more fun anyways.

I love this picture. She looks so grown up with her jeans and shoes, standing up.

This little munchkin really is at a fun stage right now. We love playing with her. We are so lucky to be a mom and dad and have this little girl to take care of. I couldn’t ask for anything better!

Greenville Mississippi

I promised I would tell you some about where we are living. So here it is! For the next 2 years we will be living in a little town called Greenville in Mississippi. Brent is going to be teaching in Lake Village in Arkansas about 20 minutes away. We opted to live in Greenville for many reasons. For one they actually have things, i.e. a grocery store. There are also people here and places to live for a decent price. All in all we are happy with our decision to live here and have enjoyed it so far. Here are some things about Greenville:

The water is brown. Brent claims that it is safe to drink but it scares me half to death. I guess I developed a water complex after living in Thailand where we couldn’t drink the water. I have got up the gumption to drink some. I don’t particularly like the taste of it but I guess it’s time to deal with it.

The people are awesome. Everyone is extremely friendly. We have had a few encounters while we’ve been out where we have ended up talking to strangers for hours. Southern hospitality. It’s a real deal.

There are some really cool little areas around here. There is what is called a Cypress Slough (pronounced slew) about 15 seconds from our apartment. It’s a marshy area where the cypress trees grow out of the water. There are places like this all around. It really is beautiful. Here are some pictures of the one next to our apartment.

The green stuff is actually water. It just has a layer of something on top (not sure what it is).

I just can’t wait until we find an alligator in it. Our one alligator hunt didn’t end up producing any alligators for us. My one goal is to see one before we leave.

Fried foods. Need I say more? So far we have had blackened catfish, fried catfish, fried oysters, fried shrimp, hush puppies, and of course my favorite, fried frog legs. Yum!

I have learned that plenty of people don’t really speak English down here. I am not really sure what language they are speaking. All I know is that I do not understand.

Walmart has now become my favorite store. I was never much of a walmart shopper but I almost live there now. Greenville, as big as it is, has the one movie theater within a 50 mile radius. It has a mall that has a total of 3 stores in it. I have yet to find a craft store or any fabric stores that I dare go into. Well at least I won’t be tempted to shop while we are here!

We are looking forward to the fall when we can go outside for thirty seconds without sweating out all the water we drank in the last 24 hours. We really are having a great time learning to make new friends and navigating a new place. Here are some pictures of Brinley since we have been here.

At Walmart on a futon couch. She loved it.

We miss you all and can’t wait until we see you again!