Walk Like an Egyptian...

In January, we got the once in a lifetime opportunity to visit Egypt. Jonathan was invited by Sir Magdi Yacoub to present his research at a meeting to kick off a surgical mission by Chain of Hope. Like I said, once in a lifetime. So, we hauled off Mags and Jack to their Memere's and took off to Aswan, Egypt with Thomas. Let's just say, Thomas was the.best.little.traveler ever. Given how long our journey was (20 hours there, 24 hours back), he did awesome. And, I think he thoroughly enjoyed having Jonathan and I both all to himself for 7 days. Our trip began in Boston with a blessing AND a curse. First, when our name was called at the gate, Jonathan BOOKED IT to the counter and scored us an upgrade to "club world" as they call it on British Airways. It was incredible, to say the least. We pretty much HAD to sample the free champagne (btw - in the first picture, we are facing backwards in the plane... yes, that's right - backwards).

So, we spent 4 days in Aswan, a city in southern Egypt, at the first cataract of the Nile. We went to their market, took a ride on a feluca on the Nile, and went to a light show at the Philae Temple*. Then we spent 2 days in Cairo. On the first, we visited the Egyptian Museum - really incredible artifacts from ancient Egypt are held within. On the second, we went to the Pyramids and a section of the city referred to as Coptic Cairo. Though, I will say, not many Egyptians knew what we were referring to when we started trying to get there... it is the ancient Christian part of the city - and contains the Hanging Church, a place where the Holy Family stayed during their escape to Egypt. Being there sort of left me speechless. So, that is a short summary of our trip, and below each picture I'm leaving a little piece of info...

our totally awesome upgrade, thanks to Jono.

the cutest little boy in Africa, if you ask me.

the Market

Seriously, does this even need a caption? (for those who want to know, he's wearing a Nubian hat)

at sunset, the Nile behind us

Like I said, he was the.best.traveler.

That's our hotel from the feluca we were on.

McDonald's.is.everywhere.

Incredible, huh?

Philae Temple

I'm pretty proud of this picture...if only I knew what the image meant.

Moments before they turned ALL the lights on the Temple out.

Someone once told us, that on a scale of 1-10 worst cities to drive in, Rome was a 9 and Cairo was was a 10. And now we know why.

A friend of ours from college recommended Maison Thomas as having the best pizza in Cairo...we had lunch there both days. Lucky for us, it was around the corner from our hotel.

The Egyptian Museum

Our hotel (Hotel Longchamps) - another of Jonathan's incredible finds

Riding out to the Pyramids

Seriously incredible.

I LOVE this picture cause you can see all 3 Pyramids, one after the next.

*sigh*... this was the last picture taken on our brand new camera... right before it got smashed. To be fair, it was Thomas or the camera... so better it was the camera.

Merry Christmas!

So, I don't have much time to update our "Life and Times"... but things are great with us and life is wonderful. Not because it's easy, but because it's ours and each day is a precious gift from God. Even the days yours truly is "Done." the minute Jonathan hits the door and I need to escape the 6 little hands that are grabbing for me all day long. But Christmas is here and we are all excited and feeling so grateful for God's gift to us in the birth of His son. I'm currently debating letting the kids have birthday cake for breakfast on Christmas morning (a little something another mom told me her family did...) but I'm not sure I want the ensuing sugar high so early in the day. However you celebrate, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!.

As an aside, a few recent pictures of our brood...

Under Construction...

Life as a family of five is well underway here at the Butchers. Thankfully, it's summertime, and the sometimes excruciatingly slow and steady pace of feeding, changing diapers, putting baby to sleep a baby as well as feeding, entertaining, policing/refereeing, putting down for naps two toddlers is broken up by bright moments of playing in the beautiful sunshine and blooming backyard. Or by a particularly creative "sculpture" that Maggie makes of playdoh (which I have absolutely compromised by view of for the sake of sanity... the kids love it but i think it is ggggross). Or by watching Jack become fascinated with tractors and trucks (which he pronounces closer to a four letter word that rhymes with truck...luckily we have not run into that in public yet). It's also broken up by watching Thomas give us his first smiles and start cooing here and there. And by watching the kids smother him with affection and feeling glad that even though this transition is hard on them, at least they do not hold it against him. And in the midst of all this, I, for all intents and purposes, am officially "under construction". My habitual routines and my close to OCD over tidiness is tested daily. I'm still trying to establish a new routine that is fitting for the sanity of at least each of the children and myself, as Jonathan is not so particular and is transitioning back to full-day work mode. And as hard as I try for it to not be a big deal... I can't help but project that when the baby only gets a 30 minute "nap" it's not going to destroy his sleep for the rest of the day which will then ruin his (and subsequently, my) night which will then screw up tomorrow because I'll be cranky and he'll stop nursing well... and on and on. I was having this discussion with my mom last night who apologized for passing on her compulsion to project onto me. However, it came with the confession that it has taken her ~ 50 years to learn to let things go.... so it looks like I have a decent "grace period" to work with. Hopefully I'll be able to ease up before my kids are having children of their own... but realizing just how much I need to control the flow of our day is going makes me think that's a lofty goal.

Thomas Edward Butcher has arrived!

After keeping me waiting for a torturous 6 extra days, baby Thomas finally arrived on May 22nd, 2009 at 10:50am! We were so happy to welcome him into the family, and a bit surprised he made his entrance so quickly! I had experienced quite a bit of false labor in the 6 days he was late, but when my contractions started for real, he showed his beautiful blue eyes only 6 hours later. Only an hour and a half after my contractions started, they were right on top of each other and I was super anxious for the anesthesiologist to appear with sweet relief... which he did... but instead of an epidural, I got what is called an intrathecal (which my girls in ATL tell me they don't even DO there anymore...). And it wore off just in time for me to complete to 10cm and push the little man out without any medicine! (my exclamation point is a hint of sarcasm at the end of that statement) In all actuality, I am *sort of* glad that I now know I really COULD do it if I had to...but at the same time, every woman could do it if she had to... cause you just have to. A baby has to come out so you really have no choice. However, if given the chance to have pain meds the next go round (whenever that may be and NO we are not planning for it to be soon) I will choose pain meds as I chose for all three...and hopefully they'll hold all the way through.
But - all in all - it was still a great birth experience. Our friend, Sonja, is an L&D nurse here and she came in to take care of me and help deliver Thomas. I can't imagine having that experience without her there to help us (this is not to say Jonathan wasn't pivotal, of course he was the most important person there for me)... she really was so supportive, helpful, and encouraging.... her presence gave me quite a bit of mental fortitude to "rise above" and not hoot and holler through the delivery. On a side note - birthing a child is HARD WORK and contrary to my experience with Maggie and Jack, I sure did sweat with this one!
So, enough about the birth story....Thomas weighed in at 8 lbs 13 oz and 20.5 inches tall. By 5 days after his birth he was almost back up to birth weight, and sleeping and eating like a champ. Maggie and Jack absolutely love him and are constantly trying to kiss him, hug him, give him his paci, put a blanket on him, yada yada... they really are too cute. And finally - here are some pictures! -

Baby Butcher #3 Ultrasound Pics

Yep, it's about time. Here are a number of ultrasound pics of Baby Butcher #3 (Thomas).

Our first look at the little peanut - 8 wks 2 days

3d image at 12 wks (sometime in November)

Even at 12 wks you can spot a little somethin...

Profile of baby's face and hand at 12 weeks

Suckin' his thumb (just like his mama and diddy did for too many years!)

3d image of his face at 21 weeks (Jan 2nd)

Profile shot - 21 weeks

And... it's a boy. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Sweet Southern Comfort...

We just spent 5 full days in the beautiful Carolina sunshine... and my oh my it was sweet southern comfort. It was cold our first couple of days in Chucktown, but it was sunny and warmed up well by the end of the week. THANK GOODNESS we missed the snow in DC. The good Lord knows I have seen ENOUGH of that.

We split our time between Charleston and Hilton Head, so I don't feel like we got enough quality time in either place... But we caught up with great friends and got to enjoy Sea Pines Resort in HH once again (thanks to the fact that Jon's mentor at Ga Tech has a house there and has been organizing the same conference there every March since before Jon and I lived in Atlanta). This time, my mom, sister and bro-in-law met us there and came with us to HH. I wish we'd had more time to truly "vacation"... but maybe next year. Rumor has it the conference in HH will be a whole WEEK long. But, as short as it seemed, and despite the fact that we started the trip with pink-eye and then my sister came down with the stomach flu .... it was so.stinking.good. to be there and see our friends in Charleston. Thanks, girls and guys for taking the time to catch up with us! Unfortunately, I don't have many pictures of us (meaning, Jon and I) but I have loads of the kids. Here is just a sampling of our fun in the sun:

Jack pointing out one of thousands of planes he's spotted flying high... incidentally, this pic was snapped on the West Ashley Greenway which runs right by our first abode in Charleston.

This was actually at the end of our time at the beach - Mags was finally a bit chilly and sort of pooped out.
One of my favorites of the week - Grandma and Maggie searching for seashells.

Maggie insisted on putting the seashells into the clam holes...er maybe they're sand flee holes?

This was basically Jack's MO at the beach: Run towards the water. Fast.


Maggie and Connor: Hopefully Connor will remain Maggie's "oldest" friend - Connor is the son of some dear friends of ours in Charleston. Me and his Mama (Dara) became good friends during our pregnancies with Maggie and Connor and they were born just 8 days apart.

Maggie's 3, It's a Boy, and In Other News...

I have big plans of blogging every time the kids do something funny or new, or we do something exceptionally interesting with them.... but, alas, that obviously is a wanna-be-blogger's dream. So, for the time being, to at least stay up to date, here's a summary (in list version and with a few pictures) of the past 2 months:

1) First and foremost - today is Maggie's 3rd Birthday! We can hardly believe she's three, though she acts every bit of it. I love Jack dearly and what I'm about to say has nothing to do with wishing it WERE this way again - but I truly miss the first few months after Maggie was born. There are few times in life that are as momentous as reveling in the reality and innocence of your first baby. And Mags was a sweet sweet baby. We spent the morning getting hot chocolate at Barnes and Nobles, letting the kids play with the trainset in the kids' section there and picking out some craft books for them.

2) Poor Mags spent the 2.5 days leading up to her 3rd birthday in the hospital. The doc believes she had(has) rotavirus - a nasty stomach virus - that led to her getting dehydrated. So we were admitted Thursday evening and by the middle of Thursday night, she was past the scary, pitiful lethargic stage of dehydration. But she did NOT enjoy being confined to her room/radius of her IV pole. But, believe you me, she had all those peds nurses charmed in no time by greeting them all as they walked in on Friday, "Hi! I'm Maggie Butcher! What's your name?" (The first pic is within an hour of her IV starting so she was still wiped; the second was after 24 hours and she was back to her goofy self):


3) We found out baby #3 is a BOY! And there's no if-ands-or buts to about it. The doc got a money shot. As soon as we scan the ultrasound pics, we'll post 'em (and we're back logged now to ultrasound pics from 8 wks, 12 wks, 21 wks... and we have another at 27 wks which is probably when we'll get caught up on them).

4) Jack is talkey-talkerson these days. He is picking up new words every day and is really impressing the both of us. Just the other day he identified when he heard someone crying by saying "Mimi (that's me to Jack), she's crying" - in so many sounds. If you never met him, you may not have understood that's what he was saying but being his Momma, I sure did. And he is identifying when people are sad, too. His favorite games are playing chase - which he instigates by snatching whatever object Maggie is playing with and running like a mad man - and he loves playing with dinosaurs (thanks Aunt Kiki and Grandma!) and little people. Sometimes the the dinosaurs and little people are family in his little pretend world. And here he his, dressed to the nines for family pictures at Christmas time (cute lil dapper outfit courtesy of Memere):



5) It has been really really cold here. Like, uninhabitably cold. For the past 2 weeks, it's been hovering between 0 and 15. One day we got up to 45. Which was awesome, except all the snow melted just enough to make every sidewalk a death trap. And it keeps snowing. And these little suckers are gettin' might brave. I took this picture today, from inside my kitchen. Those steps are approximately 20 ft from where I was standing and this doe-eye-deea did not care whatsoever that I caught her eating my bushes:

6) Jack got his first haircut! The weekend before Thanksgiving. And he grew into a little boy instantly. It broke my heart. It also breaks my heart how darn handsome he is... just like his daddy :) (see above picture for his new do).

7) At least 3 of the 4 of us are anxiously awaiting our annual trip to Hilton Head for a conference that Jonathan attends. I've explained to Maggie recently that she was born at the beach (Charleston, SC) and she now believes she is a mermaid :D. I'm not squelching that little dream just yet...