Girl's PJ Party

Julie, our incredible hostess.

She threw the BEST girl's night, PJ party! I don't think I've laughed this hard, possibly EVER. And it's been years since I've stayed up until 5am!

Don't you just love her footed onesie?? :)

There were pranks...this is Katherine opening the fake can of chips!

There were games...this one included us having to sit on each other's laps!

There was painting, instructed by one of our great artist friends

Yes, I've become slightly obsessed with painting these days!

(sorry about the smudge on my face from my camera lense)

Here is mine.

Then there were facials and manicures...of course "Sherman" went first.

Heather and Me with our masks.

Facials and paintings!!! Don't you love how different they all are!

Chubby bunny!!!

Have you ever played, or at the very least watched, "Chubby Bunny"? OMG, seriously, hilarious!!!!! It starts off with everyone putting one marshmallow in their mouth, then going around and saying the phrase, "chubby bunny". You cannot chew or swallow any marshmallows. And you go around adding in one more marshmallow, one more, one more, until others just cannot doing it anymore! HILARIOUS!!!!

Almost at the end of "Chubby Bunny"!!!!

Heather and Kim, please don't kill me! :) I just couldn't resist!

Then, my favorite, the shower caps, shaving cream....and cheese puffs!

Our partner had to throw the cheese puffs, as we caught them in the shaving cream.

Tada....the final result...a BIG HUGE MESS!!!!!

Brandi sang, sang, sang...

As we cleaned (what else does a group of mom's do??)

There was dancing...

And board games...

And well, the first to fall asleep...I can't show you those pictures!!! :)

But I'll tell you this, that was a VERY entertaining hour!

Thanks Julie for an absolutely awesome night! I had SO MUCH FUN!!!!!

I'm still here!

Sorry, I've been slacking...according to a recent phone call with my mom! ;)

I was thinking I hadn't blogged because not much has happened, but no, no indeed, that's not the case. How quickly I forget (oh if I didn't have pictures to document our life)! It's not that we haven't done much...it's that I haven't stuck my memory card into my computer to upload picutures and then...OH YEAH...we did that, and that, and that!

So....

There were birthday parties, lots of them in the last 2 weeks!!! 5 I believe! :) And we're not done yet!

Here are some pictures of a snow party! The weather was a beautiful almost 70 degrees and I thought beautiful weather was going to ruin a party (lol...sounds odd right?), but it did not at all..it was more than perfect. Some were in short sleeves, some were in long sleeves, but playing comfortably in the snow -- which of course they brought in by machine for the party! The kids had so much fun in the Lousiana "snow"!

Then, Brookston discovered the bikes...

Looks like we know what he's getting for his 3rd birthday!

Sorry Kaisley, you're still too young for your own!

Then there was the party that we hosted for some of Richard's people from work. Of course being a not so impressive cook, this was a bit stressful for me...but I think it went off pretty well!

It was a number of days of stress (to which I thank my friends for helping me out with some issues, from what to cook to a friend offering to make dessert for us :) :) Thanks to all of my friends for dealing with me that week). I guess it sounds funny to some of you for me to stress so much over a dinner, but well, when you're not a confident cook, cooking for anyone other than your family (who has to eat what you put on the table), it's stressful!

So, as a result from the dinner party....Kaisley now thinks she's a big girl...

Honestly, I was pretty impressed! ;)

He reads! (sort of!)

Kaisley got a new book for her birthday and Brookston loves it! He can "read" it, since it's just recognizing the color and article of clothing in each picture.

This was about his 4th time reading it and he was very distracted because Kaisley was quickly approaching him (which he did not want...and you'll see evidence of that towards the end!)

Hahaha!

Painting again!

For my mom's birthday, she was in town for Kaisley's birthday, so I took her to "Corks N Canvas", just like the "Painting with a Twist" I did a couple weeks ago with friends.

I was not nearly as impressed with my work, BUT the artists did say this was one of their hardest paintings! WHAT? I wish I would have known that! Hahaha!

Regardless, it was FUN!

(New post below too!)

Mardi Gras - catch up

February was a busy month for us, so I never got around to posting about our last Mardi Gras parade. This was "Spanish Town" parade...I believe the biggest in Baton Rouge. It's held the Saturday before Mardi Gras and was the parade that put me into labor with Kaisley the year before. But this year it was on February 13th.

Brookston and his buddy, Grady, waiting for the parade the start

They took Kaisley for a ride

This is a video of the boys dancing as a float passes by, oh my goodness, you have to see Brookston at the end (about 13 seconds into the video):

And this video just cracks me up...at the parade each year, this group does something hilarious with lawn mowers....(9 second video):

Ladybug Birthday Party

The table of goodies

(cake, cupcakes, and chocolate covered marshmallows)

The cake!!!

Cupcakes!!!

Waiting for the kids...

Daddy and the birthday girl on the balance beam

Kaisley on the parachute

Playing with the hula hoops and balls

Singing happy birthday...she loved the candle

Eating her cupcake...she was very gentle

Opening presents

Eager to see inside the bag!

We decided to let her at the rest of the cake when we got home since the cupcake was waaaaay to clean/tidy for a 1st birthday!

She enjoyed playing more than eating!

Messy, messy baby!!

More what I expected with a 1 year old and her cake!

(Don't miss the 2 other new posts below related to Kaisley's 1st Birthday!!!)

Ladybug party prep work

Mommy working on the ladybug cake

Birthday cakes for the kids has sort of become my thing,
it makes me so happy to make them a special cake on their birthday!

Ta Da!!! I LOVE IT!

Daddy & Nana working on cupcakes to match the theme!

Papa also on cupcake duty!

(Professional Birthday pictures below!!)

Kaisley is ONE!!!

Kaisley's professional pictures

She was in a GREAT mood

This picture is for Nana...she loves her black background pictures!

Such a Kaisley face, with her scrunched up nose!

Happy 1st Birthday baby girl!!!

(Party pictures to come!!!!)

I can't beleive it's been a year. (Isn't every parent saying that at each birthday?) Time really does fly! I've found myself over the last week thinking back to what I was doing exactly a year ago. I remember it all so well. Since it was mardi gras season, I remember each parade, conversations about my anticipation, paths we walked to and from parades, all the way down to where I was at what time when contractions started, my water broke, and of course, 11:46pm, my baby girl entered the world! We're so glad you're here sweet Kaisley!

Lent

Do you give something up for Lent? If so, what? Is "giving something up" mostly a Catholic thing? Just curious...I'm not Catholic, but every since I can remember, I've given something up.

So, this year, I was battling between giving up "just candy" or all sweets. I realized that the only thing that was holding me back from giving up all sweets was because it will be hard. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE sweets! Well, I then realized that "just candy" wasn't really putting my whole heart into it. It was my way of participating without REALLY having to put forth a great deal of effort. Geez, what's the point then, right? Just so I can say, "I gave something up!" Where is my commitment to that? How does that tell God that I'm committed to Him if I can't even commit to giving up something "hard"? So, all sweets it is! Eeeek! That REALLY is going to be hard for me! God, you're challenging me already as I stare at those chocolate covered marshmallows Brookston and I made for Richard's work!

Then, today I read on Facebook of a friend giving up Facebook and I thought, wow, that's a great idea! I check Facebook daily, twice a day, three times a day, four times a day (basically every time I feed Kaisley)...it really does become an addiction! You want to know what everyone is up to and stay in touch! I have it on my phone, so it goes everywhere with me and I can pop on real quick and easy! So convenient for a nursing mom this last year though, I have to admit!!! Giving Facebook up will be a big challenge, but a great one! One that will benefit me and my whole family! So, bye bye Facebook...maybe I will never go back! Hahaha, yeah right!

Videos, videos, videos

I've been trying to be better about videos on my still picture camera, I just never think to use it over my actual video camera. I take plenty of videos on our actual video camera, but it's absolutely impossible to transfer from there onto my computer. But a video on my still camera can easily go on here! Okay, you probably don't care...to the videos...



Brookston enjoying his first Mardi Gras Parade of 2010 - Krewe of Orion



Kaisley enjoying her first Mardi Gras Parade...ever - Krewe of Orion



Kaisley enjoying some Mardi Gras treats



Brookston singing his ABC's...he's not a fan of performing for the camera, so this was as good as I could get.



Brookston enjoying his "Smart Cycle"...he was really getting into it!

Another tooth, oh my!

Just a month ago, Kaisley only had 2 teeth. The bottom front ones. I was wondering how slow this process would be, until this month...she's gotten 5 more!!!!

About a month ago, the next teeth to make their appearances were the second from the middle teeth, on the top, on both sides (kind of a funny picture when I thought about those two teeth coming in all the way before the middle two). But it's been such a slow process that the middle right one had time to sort of catch up when it arrived about 2 weeks later. Still no middle left tooth. HOWEVER the top molars on both sides have bust through this week too!

So....from 2 teeth last month, to 7 teeth this month...oh my! I guess I'll give her a little slack since she's been waking up more at night this week.

Saints and Brees

So the Saints WIN!!!!! Geaux Saints!!!!

Oh my goodness, wasn't Drew Brees and his son the cutest ever??

(pictures from huffingtonpost.com)

"Painting with a Twist"

Last night a few mommy friends and I went to enjoy a mom's night out at a new place, called "Painting with a Twist". Well, the idea isn't new, but the location is brand new, we were only the second class ever at this place! You bring your own wine (and snacks if you want) and they lead you through the painting of the night. It was a ton of fun and I think I did a pretty decent job!

Not the best close up picture, but you can see a little more detail...and the orange in the bottom right corner of the fleur de lis are my initals and year! :)

Here's our whole class..the fleur de lis is a popular one (full class)!

Mommy and Kaisley

I can't believe my baby girl is almost ONE...where oh where does the time go?