Our Growing Family

Mr. Brooks Warren Byrd is here!!

Brooks Warren was born on August 14 at 2:58am. He weighed in at 6lbs 6oz and was 20.5 inches long. Just like with Mallory, Jennifer had Brooks all natural with no epidural. She was such a trooper. She labored most of the time at home on Thursday but from about midnight to 1:30am, the contractions got a lot worse. We decided to call my parents so they could stay with Mallory until she woke up (it takes 15-20 min. to get from their house to ours but my Dad made it in about 5-10 min. So we finally went to the hospital to find out she was 9 cm. The nurse got real anxious and immediately called for the doctor. Shortly after that, Brooks arrived with no complications. We cut it pretty close this time but it was nice for Jennifer not being in the delivery bed very long.

Mallory is adjusting to having Brooks around. At first, she definitely sensed something was different and that he was here to stay. She likes to hug and kiss him but also likes to crawl up in Jennifer's lap when she is nursing Brooks. You quickly forget how small they are at birth because Mallory looks like a giant next to him.

Here are some pictures of everyone.

Summer Fun

Surfer Chic Mallory

I just love this swimsuit on her! I got it so it would protect more of her skin from the sun and I think she looks just like a surfer girl in it!


This is from our "Babymoon" we took recently to Hot Springs. The weekend was also known as "Mallory Fest" to her grandparents! It was the first time for us to leave her for that long, but we thought if not now, it would be quite a while before we could have time like this together again.


Playing some bball with her cousins at the camp on Memorial Day weekend.


We call the slide "wee!". Mallory goes down all by herself and says "agin".

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The long awaited wedding picture. This is Mallory taking pictures with Sarah & Jake before the wedding. As you can see, she was loving all of the attention.

4 Years Ago...

I married a wonderful, Godly man. He is the greatest gift God has given me besides Salvation through Jesus. God has blessed our marriage so much and we are so excited to see our family growing. Here is a picture of that young couple from 4 years ago on our honeymoon in Gatlinburg, TN. I am a dork and brought my little tripod around with us so we could have pictures with both of us in it.

I trust that our marriage will go the distance because we are Christians and understand that the Bible teaches that we choose to love. Our love is more than a feeling. I am forever thankful to God for providing Warren as my husband and the spiritual leader of our home. God's grace overflows!

It's a Boy!

We found out last week that we are going to have a baby boy this time. The planning has already begun and Warren is giving a lot more input this time for some reason...this is the baby bedding we've decided on:



The only one "man" enough for Daddy! He insisted on a road construction theme for our little boy. He also says his "coming home" outfit will be camouflage. Since he didn't get his way with that with Mallory (he wanted camo for her too), I am going to give in this time around.

We have decided to name our son Brooks Warren Byrd. We like picking a name early so we can begin calling the baby by his/her name as soon as we know what we're having. We did that with Mallory and enjoyed it and so we decided to do it again with Brooks.

Here is a family Easter pic taken during the egg hunt at Honey's house (my Grandmother). It had gotten pretty cold and it stormed soon after the hunt. Mallory was a champ at picking up eggs and putting them in the basket. Warren was trying to teach her how to steal other kids' eggs out of their basket...


I recently went without my Mac for a while because my friend Jenny's husband, Richard, was helping me install some updates. Thank you Richard, I'm really enjoying my "new" iMac and appreciate all of your help. He is quite the IT guru, you should check out his site that showcases many of the websites he's created: www.shiftedfrequency.net

So ready for Springtime!

We went to Ruston this past weekend for Sarah Elshout and Jake Leger's wedding. The Elshout's are great friends of ours from Cook Baptist Church and have adopted us into their sweet family. The wedding was gorgeous! Mallory made her first appearance in a wedding as part of the Bridal Entourage. It was a small group of children going down the aisle ringing bells and repeating "The bride is coming!" Of course, Mallory didn't say all that, but she did an excellent job walking down the aisle holding onto Kenzie's hand. We stayed the weekend with the Nutts, no really! LOL, just kidding Katie & Stephen! We had such a good time visiting with their family and Mallory really enjoyed playing with Rylie and Morgan. I regret to inform you that I have no pictures of the wedding or our visit with the Nutt family at this time...but I do have some incredible pics to share!

While we were in Ruston, we decided to get pictures taken of Mallory by our friend and fabulous photographer, Crystal Garcia. Her site is www.crystalgarcia.com. She's located in Ruston, but is willing to travel to other areas to photograph.

We first got to know Crystal through one of her other entrepreneurial tasks, Bradley Method Childbirth Instructor. We were expecting Mallory and were really interested in having a natural childbirth, but weren't really sure if we could do it. We were so glad we took her class! We did have a completely natural birth with Mallory and Warren was an excellent coach/supporter! I really don't think we would have had the strength, courage, and knowledge to have a successful natural birth had it not been for Crystal's class. If you are in the North LA area and are expecting, I highly recommend taking her Bradley Method class.

Here are some of our favorite pictures of our beautiful baby girl:






Me with my new Mommy 'do!

Missing Them Already!

This is a Byrd family photo taken a couple of weeks ago. We wanted to get a pic of the whole gang while we were all around. Scott, Rebecca, Landon & Patrick all left this week to return to their work in Turkey. We really enjoyed having them in the States for 6 months and are already missing them so much! Mallory loved playing with her cousins and it's so weird to think how much all of the kids will have grown when they return in a couple of years.