4 Years

How is it possible that we have been married for 4 years already? Crazy! We now have equivalent to a standard undergraduate degree in marriage and each other :) To celebrate we went out to Outback Steakhouse in Goiania. It's pretty much our go-to place for birthdays and whatever excuse we can come up with, but it's special every time. We love it there because it feels like a quick trip to the States - minus the jet lag! Cranberry iced tea (with refills...wohoo...SO miss refills!), ribs, and a cinnamon oblivion for dessert. But more than the food, it's the cozy booths, carpeting, free bread, and good customer service that make me feel at home. It was wonderful!

Two things were different this year:

1. We are getting older and our metabolisms are slowing down. On our first anniversary here, we both ate our OWN rib dinners. If you know Outback, you know how HUGE that is!)

This time we split one and still were busting at the seams. I guess rather than thinking of us as getting older, I'm choosing to think of us as getting wiser. It probably was never a good idea to eat that much! (Of course even this time, the cinnamon dessert still managed to slide down somehow :)

2. We brought Elijah along. We had originally thought to leave him with a babysitter for the first time, but with nursing and the restaurant being an hour away, bringing him just was easier. He sat quietly the whole time which was great! I wasn't sure if he should be allowed in the official anniversary picture, but he was part of the memory, so we included him.

I just love my husband so much....the past years married to him have been the best of my life. And I can't even begin to imagine doing this life and all God has called us to here in Brazil without Jeyson next to me each step of the way.

Basic and Indescribable

Well I realize it's Christmas week, and that means I"m supposed to be posting pictures of our home decorated for the holiday etc. However, today is also 5 weeks since Elijah was born and that means it's starting to get a bit late to post one more post about his birth...so that's why I'm doing it today. Even though it's been 5 weeks, I still can't get over what an incredibly smooth and awesome day it was. It all was a blessing from God that we were able to do things so naturally. We wanted to lower our risk of complications as much as possible, after all we live in a third world country!

I have lots of pictures of the birth, but not many that I want to post online :) I just wanted to show you back home what a Brazilian hospital looks like (at least the one we stayed in anyway). This is the room where we had the birth and where we stayed. Isn't it so different than the States? You even have to bring your own pillow and blankets!
And you can see in the bottom corner that my hospital bed even had a manual crank to go up and down! I had to keep asking Jeyson to raise and lower the head part of my bed throughout the night so I could nurse comfortably and sleep again. You can also see tiny Elijah in the bed/cart that he slept in. Pretty crazy basic, huh?

But none of that remains in my mind when I remember Elijah's birthday. All that comes to mind is the most challenging and beautiful day of my life when we changed forever with Elijah coming into our lives. This photo captures my emotions and memories as much as they can be captured....tears of joy. In this picture Elijah is literally about 10 seconds old.
I will never forget holding and seeing Elijah for the first time. I love that he is looking right at Jeyson...and the emotions of it all...as you can see from my expression, there are no words! I think my heart exploded out of my chest (and still is!) with feeling of love for this little guy. It was truly indescribable!

Mr. Elijah - 1 Month

I can not believe Elijah is one month old today! On one hand, the first time I held him in my arms is so vivid that it feels like it just happened yesterday, but on the other hand we can barely remember life before Elijah...it seems like we've had him forever.

So in thinking about how I wanted to do Elijah's monthly updates, I knew it had to include this monkey. It was Elijah's first gift and Elijah seems to like him a lot. Jeyson also had a stuffed monkey growing up, so it seems just perfect.

Yep, this monkey is going to get lots of abuse...err I mean love over the years!


Next, we really wanted to include this special rocking chair from G-ma and Poppy...
So, this is what we ended up with. The first of many shots to come.

There is so much to say about this little lovebug. Elijah is known by everyone who meets him as an exceptionally calm and content baby. I think a lot of it is his personality (after all, his dad is the definition of calm!) but he has really taken to the structure and routine that we try to follow and I think all of the routine helps him sleep better and then be happier when he is awake. He is a great sleeper at night. After his dreamfeed at 11pm, he sleeps until somewhere between 3-5am when he wakes up for another feed and goes right back to sleep until 7:30-8:00. Not bad at all!! He follows a 2-3 hour routine of eat, "play", sleep during the day. It's GREAT because we know what his needs are (almost) all of the time.

He is developing so quickly - it's so bittersweet. He is picking his head up now when he's on his stomach and making great eye contact. Elijah is an awesome nurser and eats a lot each time and goes to sleep quickly and easily without needing to fall asleep while nursing. He is a super loud nurser though - lots of grunts and slurping sometimes :) He gets tons of hiccups and almost always sneezes in groups of three. He loves to wait to get out of his dirty diaper to let it all out (1 or 2!) so I've learned to outsmart him by putting down a cloth diaper after taking off the old one until it's out of his system (literally). He likes to take baths sitting up in a bucket (another post on that later), loves being swaddled, accepts a pacifier sometimes, enjoys playing in his gym, and can't get enough of being in the moby wrap. One of my favorite things about Elijah right now is that he LOVES to stretch when he wakes up. He will seriously spend five or more minutes stretching his arms, legs, and leaning his head WAY back and legs back to form a backwards curl...even when you're holding him. I love it!

Even though he's still so new, we're getting better at understanding his cues and we're feeling like more experienced parents and more connected with him each day. There are some difficult moments, like when he refuses to take his evening nap, but when I need some encouragement I just stick him in this cute shirt and I'm good to go. I can't wait for many, many more months to come!

Braun Babies

Everyone keeps commenting on how much Elijah looks like Jeyson. We were looking through some old Braun family pictures and found this picture of Jeyson being held by his dad almost 30 years ago...


And couldn't help but notice how much it looks like this picture of Elijah's first day at home. The babies are being held at almost the exact same angles so it really is easy to compare. I'd say we have a match!

Although that picture wasn't the most flattering of Elijah - this one was cuter.

It's hard to believe how quickly he is growing and changing! Here are a few pictures from the other day
It's so fun to see him develop physically as he works on picking up his head and other challenging tasks :) and we love seeing his sweet personality starting to shine through.

It's official...we'll keep him!

Bobby's New Home

After living with us for two years, Bobby finally got an official house. Before, he was sleeping in a cardboard box that was nice and roomy, but got soggy and needed replacing often during rainy season. Also, since the cardboard box was flat and in our garage, we often used the top of it to throw things on "temporarily". Sometimes when the top got so heavy with random garage things, it would collapse in on him since the top was just the folded in ends of the box! Poor Bobby! It was time to make him officially part of the family. So, here's the final project.
I love all of the details Jeyson included - practical ones like feet for when it gets rainy so the bottom doesn't get soaked and a hinged roof so it can been opened to clean, (also a slanted roof so we can't use it for storage anymore :)

And fun details like the chimney and "windows"

Here's a picture for size (this is inside our garage/carport area). Jeyson and Elijah "hanging out"(haha) with all of the manly stuff around - dog house, motorcycle, and Jeyson's tool cart.

I can't wait to Elijah to join in making projects with Jeyson soon!

Oh no! The Ice Cream Fits!

With a baby on the way, I did something I'd never done before...freezer cooking. When I'd finished I couldn't even fit in a tray for ice cubes it was so packed. Although that's not saying TOO much since my freezer is small, the point is I had quite a few meals ready to pull out and heat up. Now I'm getting nervous. Why? After two weeks, not only does the ice cube tray fit, but also an entire half gallon of ice cream! There is a black hole in my freezer and I'm getting panicky!
Is it time to face life and start cooking daily or do I dedicate another day (when Jeyson can watch Elijah on a weekend) to load up my freezer again? If so, with what? I'm tired of the meals I made before. Have you ever had freezer black hole panic before?

First Photos

I've been wanting to create a second blog for a while now...a blog for shamelessly posting pictures and updates of us Brauns just being us. The name "Just Braun Family"doesn't mean that only family can read this blog. Everyone is welcome! It simply means it's a blog about us just being the Braun family. With grandparents and aunts and uncles across the world and a slow internet connection here, it seems like this is the best way to try to keep you up to date on our lives via pictures. I've attempted a second blog before and have been unsuccessful, but here's another try. If all goes well, expect occasional updates on fun things we do and pictures of Elijah as he grows up (but hopefully not too fast :)

Jeyson headed back to Asas on Tuesday, but we loved having him around for the first 10 days of Elijah's life. Father/son morning coffee time.

We love being parents, but we can't deny it's been a bit exhausting! Often Elijah seems to be the only one not tired.

Caught sleeping on the job again!

On Sunday Jeyson's parents and Lika, Mario, and Lucas came to visit.

And a little photoshoot with Mom (I couldn't decide which I liked best so I'm posting a bunch...I told you it is a shameless blog :)

I can't believe I was carrying this cutie around inside me for 9 months!

No wonder my belly was so big!

Before:

After: