Buckle Your Seatbelts.....

This is going to be a long ride!  I am soooo behind on blogging and honestly have a ton to do at the very moment.  However, I am on strike until I finish this post.  I blame it on our move, our visitors, our birthdays, our vacation, and our consistently busy schedule, all of which I love.  You'll be hearing about all of those things in this one blog post.  I hope you like pictures!  


Ok, so we closed on our house on a Monday.  Some amazing ladies met me an hour after closing to help paint that evening and Tuesday morning.  The rest of the Tuesday was spent moving our stuff.  We are SO thankful for all the wonderful people who took time out to help us.  It would have taken us at least a week on our own!  Once I get my house to my liking, I'll post "after" pictures.  We're getting there......slooooowly.


Wednesday....Open House for Landry's School

  
Friday....we had guests!!  We were so excited to have two of our college students, Olive and Chris, from Georgia come to visit!  We had lots of fun just hanging out and visiting.  I cooked gumbo and crawfish etouffee for them.  They were "sold" immediately.  Olive called me the next week and told me Popeyes was lying when they say it tastes like Louisiana cooking. LOL
Here are some fun moments we had with our visitors:

Olive and Cory had "playdough playdate"

 They are all piled on the air mattress watching "Up"

Thanks again, Chris and Olive, for coming out to visit us.  We love and miss you guys so much!

The following week...Landry start's school, Eli has 6-month check-up (I did blog about those things here and here), and I am secretly scrambling to plan Cory's surprise 30th birthday party.  

The party was a success!!!!  He had no clue and everyone had a great time at his party.  I was, again, so thankful to the many people that helped me to pull it off.  I couldn't have done it otherwise.  I was also grateful to Cory's mom and sister and my parents, who came for the special event.  Here are some pictures of the special moment

 This is me asking him, "Were you really suprised?"

I also made a slideshow that had wonderful pictures of the different stages of Cory's life, but I couldn't get it to download here.  So here are some of my favorite pics from the slideshow:

Ok, fast forward to Tuesday and we are driving to Louisiana to drop off our kids at my parents house, then waking up Wednesday to drive on to Houston in order to catch a plane to Seattle.  I need to thank a few more people who made that a possibility.  Thanks so much to Tim and Shonda for opening up their home to us in Seattle!  Thanks to my parents who kept the kids while we were gone!  And thanks to everyone who filled-in for Cory while we were gone!  We LOVE you!  The vacation was amazing.  I already posted a few pictures of the week, but here is what we did the rest of the time we were there:

We watched the Mariners and the Rangers.  Cory was being a neutral fan with is Mariners hat and red shirt.

 This troll is featured in "10 Things I Hate About You"  If you can't tell, the troll is grabbling a VW bug and his eye is one of the hubcaps.

 Cory had to check out his nose, but there was nothing there to pick.

 Cory was so excited to find Starburst jelly beans, and he decided to conduct an experiment with them.  Why shouldn't I be surprised that their were fewer pinks than any other color.  Not fair!

 I got to reunite with a couple of people.  This is Sheena, my best friend from my Young Continentals Tour, 14 years ago.  She just had a beautiful new baby girl!  I also met up with one of my closest friends from high school, Tyler, but sadly I forgot to take a picture.

 We also celebrated Cory's real birthday with Cheesecake from Pike Place Market!

And I had the opportunity to do a few photo shoots with this beautiful boy!  This is just a taste, but you can go here to see more.

Ok, are you tired of reading yet?  But there's more.....

While we were in Seattle, my mom was wonderful enough to take lots of pictures for me.  She knew I would miss those little ones tremendously, and I'm so thankful that she recorded the week for me.

Landry and Eli both had fun playing with hair, Landry, with her own...

....Eli, with Paw Paw's facial hair

 Landry played with all kinds of critters.  Eeew!

 Can you spot the lizard on her bathing suit?

 Eli rocked a little with Aunt Connie

 Landry and Paw Paw shared popsicles 

 Poor Eli wanted some too

 Landry got to play with Alivia.  

 And she acquired some new dress-up clothes.  Here, she is a pirate kitty cat.

 Eli got to swing

And so did Landry, on the swing Paw Paw made her

This little clip made me laugh.

Landry made Paw Paw the world's best carrot cake (apparently the pirate costume was a hit)

 and then they all celebrated Paw Paw's 52nd birthday

 Landry and Eli also got the opportunity to visit with Uncle Josh and Aunt Trista.  What a treat!

 And they even played together a little

 Landry loved the new bed GiGi and Paw Paw re-finished for her.  She decided to share it with her Barbie Dolls

 And she made us a special sign to greet us when we got home

When we got home, I did a fun photoshoot of this gorgeous guy for his first birthday

I know....his eyes are to die for!

And then today, I ran a 5K with a precious friend.  The race was to benefit Mental Health which is especially dear to her heart.  We met our two goals which were to finish the race and jog the entire time.  I had a time of 37:44, and that was more than fine with me since I hadn't run in over a year.  I'm hoping to do more 5ks in the near future.  Since the weather will be cooling soon, I may have to get the trusty jogging stroller out and begin training.

Whew!  I think i am finally finished!  If you are still reading, I applaud you :)  Good Night!

Adventures in Seattle

Cory and I did it!  We took a vacation without the kids.  It was hard, but we are having a BLAST.  I'll write later with more details, but for now I'll post some pictures fun pictures of our adventures thus far.

Look how cute Atticus is all grown up!  I blogged about him first, here.

Cory and me at the Space Needle

Cory and me at Pike Place Market

In a fun wall cut-out

This is Maximus Minimus.  You can get a piping hot pulled-pork sandwich from this pig-mobile.

Cory at Top Pot Doughnuts.  They were delicious, but left Cory feeling a little ill.

The license plate on this car said Disc Drive.  HAHAHA!

We've been to Starbucks a time or two or five since being in Seattle.  Look how sweet Shonda and Atticus are in the background.

Nothing says "love" like a gazillion pieces of gum stuck to an alley wall. Seriously, people literally "write" with their gum proclaiming their love for someone on this wall. How Romantic?!?!

And lastly, Cory is contemplative about the gum wall.  He's thinking he should have saved his gum rather than swallowing it.  At least that is what a friend of ours thought this picture stated.  LOL

Big Girl School

Landry started her first day of preschool today!  I had not originally planned on putting Landry in preschool at age 2, but since our church has a preschool we jumped at the opportunity.  She'll be going 3 half days a week.  It will be a perfect time for her to get out and spend time with friends her age, and also allow Eli and I some great mommy/son time.
  
She handled her first day like a pro.  She seemed a little nervous upon entering the classroom this morning, but she quickly became comfortable with her new friends and teachers.  When I picked her up, she was wearing cookie cutters on her arms like bracelets.  She's showing off her creativity already!

Here is Landry checking out what she has for lunch

Here is Landry with her new teachers, Mrs. Alyson and Mrs. Chantal.  She was being a little bashful at this point.

We were fortunate that Landry and her friend Reece were placed in the same class.  This made them feel much more at ease.

Looking forward to a great school year.  I'm very anxious to see how Landry matures from this experience.