Fair pictures

I have a few fair pictures from our trip a couple of weeks ago. AEH loved it! She is already talking about going next year. She rode rides and ate a corn dog, cotton candy and a funnel cake. I had my favorites, grilled corn on the cob, a gyro and a funnel cake. SLH had some kind of steak sandwich and a cinnamon roll. EMH rode a couple of rides but he mostly enjoyed all the bright lights. His little finger didn't stop pointing the whole time we were there. We had great time and it was fun watching the kids enjoy themselves.

Mom and Dad met up with us and Granddad even rode a couple of rides. He went down the big yellow slide with AEH. He said the landing was a little rough. :)

And here is EMH and Juju. He is just a pointing!!

Riding the Merry Go Round.

This is SLH and EMH coming down the slide. EMH wasn't sure about this. He didn't have much expression. He looked like he was thinking "what in the world was that?"

AEH sliding down on a ride.

My girls trip.

Just as I had thought our girls trip was so much fun!!! We ate, shopped, played games, shopped some more and enjoyed catching up and talking about anything and everything. We stayed up late and as the nights went on getting in the bed got later and later. I think the last night it was around 3:00 in the morning. :) I am just now catching up on my sleep. We made a lot of new memories that we will never forget...from milk in a wine glass, backwards spelling in a game, misreading a name in a game and many more. I am already ready for next year. I think I am going to propose one during the spring. A year is just too long to wait.
Other than a wasp sting on EMH, everything went great here on the home front. I am very comforted and don't every have to worry,thanks to my wonderful husband and the grandparents. Actually one of the grandparents told me they didn't even want me to come home because they were having so much fun here. I don't take that any other way than a compliment to what fun children I have. :)
I did get some cute pictures.

We definitely did our part in helping out the economy. :) I think when we added up about how much we all spent, it was around 3,000 dollars all together. WOO HOOO! I bought a little of everything from clothes for all of us, a new purse :), shoes for the kids and I, sunglasses and jewelry and a Christmas present for SLH. I had been saving up because I knew I would find a lot of GOOD DEALS! :)

Eating at Desoto's.

I had me a feast on crab legs. They were GOOD!!!

All ready for our first shopping adventure.

Eating at The Original Oyster House. Oh, and by the way I lost a couple of pounds on the trip. I really tried to do portion control...or I guess it could have been all the walking from shopping. :) I have gained them back while being back home. :(


I will try to update later this week on our fun trip to the fair this past weekend.

I'm a big kid now!

EMH graduated to the tub this week. We have been bathing him in a little ducky float thingy, because he was scared of the big tub. After a couple of times, he decided he liked it.

He and sister playing together.

He can now stand alone and when he does, he wants us to clap for him. He even claps for himself. Also, he is cutting 2 teeth and drooling buckets. So you will notice the drool on his clothes. He leaves drool all over the floors and I've given up on trying to keep it wiped up. I was walking on the wood floor the other day and I slipped on it. Who knew drool could be dangerous.

And, one for good measure. The tigers play Florida this weekend. YIKES!!! SLH is going to Baton Rouge to the game. Man did he pick a tough one to go too. EMH wore his LSU outfit last Sunday because we are not sure this next Sunday will be appropriate.

I am going to Gulf Shores with some of my girl friends this weekend. I'll try to take lots of pictures in between all the fun!!!! YEA!!!!

Soccer and Sweet Moments

AEH had her first soccer game today. I have two words to describe her first game...NOT INTERESTED. She never did make contact with the ball. On the way home SLH and I decided that she was probably the worst on the team but we would never let her think that. We are fine if this is not her thing. We plan on trying whatever she wants to and this year we decided on soccer and gymnastics. She is just not showing any interest in this sport. Let me just put it this way... On the way to the field we saw her teacher from last year and she jokingly said "Is she going to get sweaty?". We laughed and said "we will see". She did have her coach laughing during the game because as she was lagging behind most of the game she was talking to him. He told us after the game how funny she was and that she was saying stuff like this... Molly (his daughter) and she were friends and that they were going to have a sleep over. SO not interested in soccer. She would cheer for the girls that scored and try to comfort the ones who got hurt. At least she was a good team mate. :) When leaving she actually said "I had fun playing soccer". We just laughed and said I guess that's all that matters. Our team actually has about 3 girls on it that are really good. They don't keep score so there is not a winner and the rules are not really followed. The rest of the season should be interesting for AEH and soccer.

This was the best family picture that we got.


AEH talking to her friend Molly.
She is actually in the middle of this run, you just have to look real close.

Off by herself. Where's the team???

She loved the water breaks. :)

EMH hanging out.


I have a couple of pictures of some sweet moments. Now that EMH is standing up and can stand alone, he will stand up holding AEH's hands and then hug her. It is just so sweet and she LOVES it. She always wants me to see and says "Awww, mommy look how sweet". We were in Kroger this past week and they were riding together in the car that's in front of the buggy and he leaned over on his on and put his head on her shoulder. It was so sweet.

Notice AEH's attire...a gown, red slippers that don't match and a Halloween headband.

Then, when we were coming home from the infamous soccer game. AEH said "look he's holding my hand."

They stayed like this for a while.

So thankful that God brought this brother and sister together. It is just more than we can comprehend at times and nothing short of amazing at how our family has been brought together. God is so good, and thankfully he is SO in control!

Home sick...

AEH is sick and we are staying in today from church. Long story short...I took EMH for his 1 year check up Friday and AEH woke up that morning sick. So she ended up getting checked too. She had fever when we got there and a headache and cold. They did a Flu test and it came back negative but they said it could just be too early to pick it up. Whatever it is... flu or virus, she is sick but getting better. She still had a little fever this morning and a runny nose. She was sad when SLH and EMH left for church without her. We are going have to find something fun for us to do this morning.

EMH would not look at the camera because he was too busy checking out one of his favorite things, WHEELS!

EMH's check up went good and he is on target with everything for his age. He got a shot in each arm and one in his leg. He was M-A-D! He doesn't even like to sit on the weighing scale. He and AEH are totally different when it comes to going to the doctor. We know that there will be a lot of screaming with him. He did muster up a "bye- bye" when we were leaving. He was glad to say those words. :)

As a mother this is one thing I don't like to do. Hold my children down while they get shots. I wish someone else could do this so that I don't have to be associated with it. I am not so sure that it comforts them for me to be there anyway. I don't want them to think that I am allowing them to get hurt. :( Just something that has always bothered me. AEH is right there to check it all out.


We are staying busy around here. AEH is still enjoying gymnastics but has yet to play a soccer game due to all the rain. They have practiced a couple of times though. Maybe we will get a game in this next week. She is enjoying school and has been getting green hearts regularly. YEAH!!! They are learning letters and numbers. She has been calling out letters on labels and anything else in the house with words on it.
SLH was in Paris last week. Yes, that is Paris, France. He was there for a quick trip with work. We all missed him greatly and are soooo glad he's home.
I am looking forward to my weekend get away with some of my girl friends in a couple of weeks. We are going on our annual trip to Gulf Shores. This will be our forth year and we always have sooo much FUN!
Tennis is back in full swing and I am enjoying that! I started working out a couple of months ago to try to get off about 5-10 pounds. I have been doing step aerobics, body pump and sport zone. I have succeeded and feel much better. Now I just need to maintain and keep it off. You know the age thing is catching up with me. I will be 38 in a couple of weeks and I just can't eat like I use to.

Well, I have a little sick girl here wanting my attention so we are off to find something fun to do!

Birthdays, Birthdays, Birthdays

It has been a busy couple of weeks, filled with birthdays. Between my family and SLH's family, we have 5 in September. We have had in order my dad's, EMH's, Ms. Judy (SLH's mom) and SLH's. My sister in law, "Aunt Suzi's" is next week. Needless to say we have had a lot of delicious "Aunt Gayla" cake. Not to mention that I am trying to do a little dieting. :)
With my family we just had a big get together last Saturday night and celebrated all of the birthdays at once. We even did mine since it is in early Oct. We had a great meal. One of my favorite, boiled shrimp. SLH got a digital photo frame and I got money to spend on my girls trip in Oct.
We celebrated Ms. Judy's birthday this past Monday at McDonald's. Yes, that is right. She wanted to do it there for the kids. It was fun even at McDonald's and we took our cake and presents in there and just had our own little party.
Blowing out the candles.

The Birthday girl!

We gave her some Volatile sandals.

AEH always makes some friends when she goes to McDonald's.

Tuesday was SLH's birthday. He turned the big 4-0. Yes, we celebrated his 40th and EMH's 1st. :0) SLH can be is a little sensitive about the whole age thing. I tell him that it will keep him young longer but he doesn't seem to see it that way. :)
We went to his parents on Tuesday night and celebrated with more great food and cake. Actually we are still eating cake from this past week. The kids and I gave SLH a couple of shirts and a new book. His parents gave him gift cards to Home Depot and the movie theater. And his standard every year for his birthday, a new LSU shirt.

SLH celebrating with his little princess. His mom said the glasses were flaming and symbolized that he was still "hot". :) I definitely think so! :)

EMH hanging out in the swing, taking it all in.

Now we have a couple of weeks before more cake for my birthday. :)

Our Little Man Is One!

Well, our little boy is a year old. What a wonderful year it has been! He is such a blessing from God and we love him so much. He had a great birthday party at our house the night of his birthday. He was the star of the show and he loved all of the attention. We sang the traditional Happy Birthday and then Aunt Kip found a song for us to sing to him. It was one of the highlights of the night. The other highlight was his smash cake. This was the first time he had ever had cake and ice cream. I think it is safe to say that he liked it. We weren’t sure just how much he liked sweets because he didn’t eat the fruit and desert baby food very well. He seemed to like it okay though. It was so much fun watching him and seeing his expressions. He got a lot of great gifts. We mainly asked for some boy toys like trucks, cars. Well he got several of those, along with a glove chair an overnight monogrammed bag,a big farmhouse and some gift cards for some clothes. We got him a little baseball, basketball and football gym.
Our friend "Aunt Gayla" (as the kids call her) made the cakes and they were absolutely darling and delicious! Thanks for this gift, "Aunt Gayla".
Here is a video of our special song. The quality of the video is not really great. You will hear us trying to come in a couple of times too early (pretty funny, we didn't have time to rehearse it) and yes, we are a CRAZY family! :)
Here is what we sang.
EMH has hit some milestones these last couple of months:
This is kind of long so if you are not a Grandparent then you may want to skip this. I wanted to write it for his baby book.

He is eating a lot of table food now and he really likes it. We probably won’t buy any more baby food because he will not eat it now after having our food. We can’t blame him. He has four teeth now and can pretty much eat anything we eat if it is small enough. We go to the doctor for his yearly check up next week.

He is babbling a lot and he has said his first word, “bye-bye”. It is so cute and he has such a sweet little voice. Not sure if we can classify this as a word but he is also saying “uh, oh”. We think it is great and of course, he’s the smartest little one year old boy in the world.

He is pointing to things and babbling about them. His favorite things are lights and fans. When he goes into a room, that is the first thing he looks for. His Granddaddy put him a fan up in his room. It is so cute. It has sports balls on it.

He is walking behind his walker now and can stand alone for a few seconds. He can walk very slowly when we hold his hand. It probably won’t be long before he is walking.

He can put his play phone next to his ear and pretend to be on the phone. It is so cute because the phone is usually upside down and turned around.

He no longer is taking a pacifier. He wasn’t completely attached to it so we decided to do without it for a week and see how he did. We could see that he was probably about to start getting more attached to it and thought it would be better now than when he was 2. We found that he missed it mostly when going to sleep. We rocked him more often for about a couple of weeks and he has been passy free for 4 weeks now. We like rocking him anyway. There is just nothing like that sweet little head being on your shoulder sleeping.

He has started sleeping with a stuffed animal. It’s a pig. :) With the passy being gone we thought he might like to have something to hold. When we ask him were his pig is he starts looking for it. We may have to come up with a better name other that just “pig”.

He has switched from a bottle to a sippy cup. He didn’t like it at first but just like everything with him he doesn’t put up much a fuss for long and is very easy going. He is doing good with it now.

He is starting to climb on things. He has climbed on some steps that are by our bed and on AEH's piano stool. AEH never was a climber and stayed in her crib a long time. This will be different for us.

He loves to try and get in all of the cabinets and drawers. He is not so much interested in what is in them as he is in just wanting to open and close them. We have child proofed all that are hazardous or that we don’t want him in.

As you can see EMH is changing and doing new things every day. This is such a fun age and he is such a fun little boy. We look forward to a lot more birthdays and fun times with our "little man"!

Here is a slide show of some pictures from his Birthday.