The race is on

While I was pregnant, Kyle and I had a several debates as to who the baby would look like. If you have ever seen my family, we have very strong genes and all look very similar. However, Kyle and his mom and sister look very similar also. I figured that since I had the dark hair/green eyes that my genes would overpower Kyle's recessive genes of blonde hair/blue eyes.

However, ever since Charlie was born everyone comments on how much he looks like Kyle because of his blonde hair and blue eyes. But thanks to my mom and my cousin Megan for noticing this -- I think my genes might be starting to peek through on Charlie!

(me on the left at three months, Charlie on the right at three months)

Fiddle Dee Dee

We've got to get Charlie back to the South fast -- he is turning into a Yankee!

(Thanks to my cousin Megan for this cute onesie!)

Happy (belated) Easter!!!

Fun videos for your weekend

Here are a few videos that make me laugh...

This one has been making the rounds but it still makes me smile each time I see it.



This video makes me laugh because when I was 12 years old I had to have a few teeth pulled. They had me breathe gas during the whole procedure and in the car afterwards, I remember telling my mom, "When they told me they were almost done I tried to breathe really deeply because I wanted to get as much of that stuff as I could. It made me feel so good!" No wonder she lectured us so much about not doing drugs!




I can relate to this video because I always feel that first white girls in situations like these.




This one also cracks me up because I have definitley felt the burn in my arms after living Charlie. He is only three months old (and pretty small for his age) so I should be really ripped by the time he is one. (Thanks to Gretchen for this one).

HOW TO WORK OUT FROM HOME - watch more funny videos

It's a jungle out there...

A friend once said that moving away from being an expat is a little like dying. The statement seemed a bit severe at the time, but now it is making more and more sense. In a very odd way, it is like you are experiencing death from both sides -- you are the one dying and having to say goodbye to your life but you are also the one that is still living and having to mourn a whole part of your life that is now empty and gone.

This week I have been saying goodbye to friends, knowing that we will never see each other again. I give away my things as fast as I can just to have one less item to deal with later. I reflect on my time here and whether I think I lived it to the fullest. I look back on where I wasted time and how I could have done things differently.

I am trying to prepare myself emotionally for closing off this part of my life and knowing that I will never have it back again, but it has been hard. I try to remember that I had these same emotions when I left Wyoming, when I left Australia and when I graduated from college. Each of those times were painful for awhile but eventually I got busy in my new life and the pain faded and I just held on to the memories. I know that this too shall pass, but it sure hurts while it is happening.

Tulip Mania

We were fortunate enough to have Kyle's mom come over for her spring break to help take care of Charlie. We didn't want her to spend her whole week in the apartment so we headed up to the Netherlands and Keukenhof for one last visit. One of my favorite things we have done here is ride bikes through the tulip fields in the Netherlands. We couldn't do the bikes with Charlie so we just drove this year, but it was still amazing seeing so many vibrant colors. I always say it feels like you are living in a rainbow up there! Below is a photo of just some of the tulip fields.

The main reason I wanted to go was to get pictures of Charlie in the tulips. However, one thing I have really, really been trying to learn is that with a child you can't always get what you want, things don't always happen the way you want them to and the only thing you can do is let it go and move on. We were up in the fields and Keukenhof for about six hours and in all of that time we got two photos with Charlie. I'm not even putting the other one up because it is just Kyle holding him while he is screaming. We just couldn't get the timing right of him being awake, fed, with a clean diaper, warm, happy, and in the tulips. Oh well, c'est la vie. At least we still got some wonderful photos of the tulips! I don't have time to upload all of our photos but luckily you can just look at the pictures from when we did this with my dad four years ago.

Bring on the Barn

Although I wanted Charlie to be close to our families, it was very difficult for me to make the decision to actually choose to leave Belgium versus being forced to leave because of tax reasons. (If you stay here over five years you are taxed like a local which is 55%). I got weepy every time I thought of leaving the slower pace of life, the markets, the food, our friends and all the other things I have grown to love about living here. But once we finally looked at it as -- we are going to have to leave Belgium in November either way, we just need to make a decision if we want to be in NYC with the WSJ or ATL with the AJC then our decision became much easier. Even though it would have been nice to be here another seven months, the timing just didn't work out that way.

Because of all the tears I shed at the thought of leaving Belgium I am now shocked at what I am feeling as I gear up for the move to Atlanta -- I can't wait! I am like a horse going to the barn and I can't get back to the USA soon enough. It is as if now that I have a plane ticket home I am finally letting myself acknowledge all the things that bother me about living here.

I am tired of thinking about everything I buy in relation to how heavy it will be to carry up our stairs. I am sick of the coldness of other people here. I am tired of the weather, the constant road construction, the dog poop everywhere and dealing with a baby in a very urban setting.

I can't wait to chit-chat with store clerks about nothing at all, get free ice water at restaurants, have public toilets everywhere I go, take food home in a doggie bag, have so many inexpensive places to shop, and most of all -- speak English!!!

I know that I will get tired of things in the USA just as much as I do about things here. Annoyances are just a fact of life. But I can't wait for new annoyances rather than the ones I have been dealing with for four years.

G20

While Kyle was busy writing important editorials about the economic and global issues that were addressed at the G20, Charlie and I were having our own stimulating conversation at home regarding the summit.

Emily -- "Charlie, what did you think about Michelle Obama's argyle sweater and blue dress?" Emily -- "I agree. Now how did you feel about how tight Sarah Brown's outfit was?"

Emily -- "You said it! I couldn't agree more."

Oh, Atlanta!

The time comes for every expat to pack their bags and move on. And after four and half incredible years here in Belgium, our time has now come. We are sad to say goodbye to so many wonderful friends here in Brussels, but are happy to say hello to our family and old friends back home in Atlanta, Georgia! Kyle has accepted a job at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as their conservative columnist. He will be writing three columns a week as well as having some speaking engagements and keeping a daily blog on their Web site.

God’s hand was in all of this as the process has progressed over the last two months. The wheels got turning only two days before Charlie was born and the selection process just concluded this past week. For a total of two months Kyle has completed an extensive application, written articles, done a video interview and flown back to Atlanta for a final interview, all while still doing his normal WSJ work. And while all of this was happening we had my parents, then Kyle’s parents, and then my sister staying with us – and we hadn’t told any of them about the process just in case things didn’t work out. After getting through all of this Kyle and I are thinking we could be spies for how much lying and covertness we have done! Needless to say, these have been some of the most stressful and sleepless days and nights of our lives.

We haven’t set an exact move date yet, but will most likely be heading back to Atlanta around May 1. The AJC is paying for the move but we are in charge of coordinating it so I welcome any advice or tips from anyone who has done something like this before. I’ll try to keep updating the blog as we move forward but it might be sporadic at times. In the meantime, go check out www.ajc.com, look under Opinion and click on “Who’s new conservative columnist?” to see a little bit more about the application process and what Kyle will be doing back in Atlanta.

Lots of love,
Emily, Kyle and Charlie

PS—For those of you in Brussels, you can go to http://picasaweb.google.com/brusselssale2009
for pictures and details of what we are selling.

Here are a few cute photos from this week...

Charlie is definitely long and skinny!He has taken to putting his thumb between his first two fingers whenever he is drinking his bottle or just hanging out.
Charlie loves his bedspread that Dearie made him!

And I will never get enough of his feet!

Spot the difference...

Can you figure out what is different between these two pictures?

The top picture is Charlie and the bottom picture is my friend Kelly's baby Dali who is now one years old.

Kelly is the most kind and generous person I think I have ever known. We met in my first month in Brussels and have been friends ever since. Thank goodness we like each other so much because she is also the friend I have known the longest here that still lives in Brussels. When Kelly and I first met she had a three year old and a nine month old. Now her girls are 7, 5, 3 and 1. It has been so much fun to watch both her girls and family grow.

I took this photo because Charlie is in Dali (and Sonny, Poppy and Maya's) gown and chair. When Kelly found out I was pregnant she overwhelmed me with passing on all the clothes, chairs, and baby supplies I might ever need that her girls has used. If Charlie had been a girl he would have had the cutest wardrobe around! Since she has four children of her own she has been a wondeful person to be able to call with all of my baby questions.

The only problem with being Kelly's friend is that you always feel lazy around her. Take this week for example -- today she is packing her family of six for a Disney cruise which they are leaving for on Tuesday. In between getting the car seats, pack & play, diapers, formula, clothes and all the other details together before flying with four children on a ten hour flight she is just going to squeeze in running a marathon. Yes, you read that right. Kelly and her husband Rich are running a marathon on Sunday, "resting" on Monday and then flying to the States on Tuesday. And since she has already trained for this marathon, she is just going to go on and run another one in three weeks. I get exhausted just talking to her about her schedule!

So here is to you Kelly, a wonderful mother and friend! Brussels would not have been the same without you.

Happy go lucky

God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only choice is how.

The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.
--Both quotes are by Henry Ward Beecher

Over Christmas one year we played a question game at the Wingfields' house. One of the questions was, "If you could, what would you change about your life?" I answered that I wish I knew French better, but besides that, there is nothing else I would change. Burt (Kyle's dad) pointed out that I have a pretty darn good life if my biggest concern is that I don't speak enough French. I couldn't agree more.


God has blessed me with so, so many wonderful things in my life, but the thing I am most thankful to have been born with is my good attitude. Sometimes people tease me about how happy I am, but I can't help it. I do try to channel my mind to think positive thoughts, but most of my happiness just comes from the personality I was born with. I feel bad for negative people because I really don't think they can change their attitudes that much -- they were born that way, just the same way I was born happy.


I sometimes wonder if I would be this happy if I didn't have such a wonderful, easy life, but I think I would be. There are plenty of people with easy lives that still don't seem happy. An odd personality trait that I seem to have that helps my happiness is that I can always think of someone worse off than I am. Although it sounds like I am putting someone else down, it really helps me to keep things in perspective with any situation. Yes, each of us has struggles, but in the big picture, especially when looking at how so many people in the rest of the world suffer, we really have nothing to complain about.

Ahoy Charlie!

If it weren't for my mom's creativity and hard work and my dad's resourcefulness then I would be embarassed to admit what Charlie's room looked like. Before my parent's arrival to Brussels, Charlie's room decoration was basically a crib in our spare bedroom. I have no talent at decorating and since we didn't know the gender we didn't really put much effort into picking out a theme. But now that my parents have worked their magic, this is where Charlie is lucky enough to lay his head...

I had taken some photos of sailboats when I worked in Nantucket. When we combined those with the blue color of a bookshelf Dad found we decided to go with a nautical theme. Mom worked her tail off while she was here sanding and painting both a chest of drawers and the changing table in a really sweet blue color. The glider is a gift from my wonderful friends at the American Women's Club. Charlie and I rock in it every day and I spend the time thinking of just how blessed I am (and how I would like him to fall asleep).

We bought the crib from our friends Rick and Rachel. Their girls ended up sleeping in their bed pretty often so it is only a very gently used one. We want to hang more pictures on the wall, but at the same time we also want to get our apartment's security deposit back so we are hesitant to put too many holes in the walls.But the pièce de résistance of the room is the bed cover my mom made by hand. She took a standard white quilt and added the blue and red borders. Then she painted on the anchors, added a rope feature over the anchors and then painted an incredibly intricate nautical star in the middle.

Thank goodness Charlie has some hard working and creative grandparents because his parents definitely did not inherit that gene. Thanks so much to my dad and especially my mom for all the hard work they put into making Charlie's room look like a precious little boys room!

He's just not that into you

This is the look Charlie gives us as we kiss, cuddle and coo all over him while telling him how much we love him and how cute we think he is. I like Kyle's reasoning though -- Charlie can only cry, and since he doesn't cry when we do this, then he must like it.

Yes, it is not a good reason to have a baby just so you can play dress up with him.......but it sure is fun!!! I love putting Charlie in different outfits and he humors me most of the time. (Thanks to Julie Smith for this precious outfit).




Charlie is already protesting being seen in public with his parents.


People always comment about how long Charlie's fingers are for a baby. Along with the blonde hair and blue eyes, Charlie also got Kyle's fingers.

Since Charlie has become the main topic of this blog, I am thinking of getting him this onesie (available at the etsy shop Love September so she doesn't think I am stealing her image).