the brown family

Here are some pictures of Charlotte on the move this past month. 

Charlotte taking a bath with her friend Abigail.

Charlotte trying to go through the fridge when Mom isn't looking (she's checking to see if I'm coming to get her).

Standing on her tiptoes trying to get stuff off the hall furniture. 

Taking a walk with Mom.

Well, Charlotte will be 11 months next week so I am beginning to wean her now. I'd like her to be ready to drink milk on her 1st birthday. She is really good at drinking from her sippy cup so hopefully this will be a smooth transition! Since she was about 6 months old I've been nursing her 4 times a day (7, 11, 3, and 7). But, as she's been eating more and more table food she has really lost interest in her midday feedings. We have to be in a private place because she is so easily distracted! So this week I dropped her 3 pm feeding. 

We had such a rough time getting started with breastfeeding. The lactation consultant said she was just sucking to shallow?! and that hopefully as she got older she would be able to do this better. The first week home was horrible - she lost way too much weight and cried literally the whole time (I would too if I wasn't getting enough to eat!). So after a trip to the lactation consultant I had to begin pumping to get my milk supply back and get her some food to eat. Ahhh pumping....little did I know that I'd be pumping ALL the time for the next 2 1/2 months!! But, PRAISE GOD we finally got the hang of it! I appreciate being able to offer Charlotte a bottle every now and then but breastfeeding is so much easier! All this to say, I am very thankful for all that the Lord taught me during that very trying time and that we were finally able to breasfeed. Besides the fact that breasfeeding is nutritionally superior, provides all kinds of immunity, and helped me lose the baby weight (yeah!), I have really come to love the special time spent with Charlotte. And I will miss it! 

We went home to Spartanburg, SC this past weekend to celebrate Easter - that Christ has risen indeed! We are so thankful for all the wonderful family we have to celebrate our Lord with. Here are some pictures from the weekend:

Charlotte and Mom

Eating - one of Charlotte's favortie things to do!

Charlotte with her great grandfather - Papa (David's Mom's Dad)

Charlotte with her great grandparents (David's Dad's parents)

In other news, David will be doing a residency for a year at Forest Hill Church starting in July. This is such an answer to prayer and such a great opportunity for him to train as a Christian Counselor. It looks like he will graduate with his MACC in December of this year and his MDiv in May of 2010. I am so proud of all his hard work these past few years!

We were at the beach from March 21 - 28 in Florida with David's family and had a wonderful time. Charlotte LOVED the beach - she crawled all over the place and ate a lot of sand. She also had her 5th tooth come in (on the bottom) which caused her to run a fever and stop nursing for about 36 hours (yikes for Mom!). So that was a little more excitement than we wanted to have at the beach!