Firsts

One of the most fun things for Matt and I being parents is watching our Little Bug experience things for the first time.  To see her little brain churn over a new experience is so exciting.  We've had quite a few firsts this summer, but I think 2 from the last couple of weeks deserve to be highlighted.

1. Barbecue.
Matthew and I love barbecue.  Love. It.  Often we are trying to plan dinner and both are simply craving barbecue making whatever we had on the meal plan for that night seem like nothing we want to eat.  We push through though and when we do get to go to our favorite barbecue place it is even more of a treat.  When we want good barbecue we head to Carolina Brothers.  Carolina Brothers is no frills at its finest.  You walk into a very small house/shack looking building to the sight of about a dozen kitchen tables (plain old kitchen tables) with chairs at them.  You walk up to the counter and order, your food is already ready to go as it's been smoking and cooking for the last 48 hours in the smokers out back.  Find empty chairs, sit down, enjoy.  We usually get a rack of ribs to share and 2 sides worth of baked beans, because, well, they're that good.  Maggie was munching on Cheerios and baked beans when she noticed the pile of discarded bones on my plate in her reach.  Before I knew what was happening she had snagged one and was sucking every little bit of fat/meat/sauce she could get off the already pretty clean bones.  She cleaned one and promptly asked for another.  It was so funny and she was so excited to have the bones!  I started giving her little pieces of meat and girlfriends was in Heaven!

                                This is her haha! face after she grabbed the
                                          first bone.  We moved all the plates away from
                                          her at this point.

2. Donuts
Maggie was a good girl in Church on Sunday, so she got a donut (read: Mom decided she really wanted a donut after Mass so told Dad that Maggie had been good and she probably wanted a donut).  We stopped and got donuts and came home.  As Matt put Maggie in her highchair and handed her a donut he said, "Well Maggie, you are about to experience a little bit of Heaven."  And I believe she agreed.  She was very hesitant at first, but it didn't take long for her to figure out that this was good stuff.  After we had all enjoyed a donut (which is waaaay more sugar intake than anyone is this family is used to getting) we all took a glorious 2 hour Sunday afternoon nap and woke up starving for an early dinner.

                                                                    Sugar Crash