6 year anniversary

This weekend Kenton and I headed downtown to spend a couple of nights 

to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary.

How in the word did we go from this...

To this in 6 short years?

In 6 years we have gone from just the 2 of us to 2.75 kids.

In the blink of an eye...

So what did we do during our weekend of just the 2 of us?

Well...

We enjoyed this beautiful view from our hotel room.

On the first night we celebrated over a wonderful dinner at Mr. John's Steakhouse.

Lucky for the hubs I am a pretty cheap date right now.

Keep the water coming and I share his meal with him.

At 7 months pregnant I don't have much room to breathe much less eat anymore!

Here we are after our waiter was kind enough to surprise us with a delicious dessert.

We headed back towards the hotel and stopped into Mannings.

Satch wants to know how do we get a row of recliners 

and a tv the size of the wall inside our keeping room?

I was only half listening as I kicked back with my feet up in the recliner next to him.

Who in the heck cares if basketball is on the tv?

Clearly a Lazy-Boy is the key to my heart right now.

With 2 early birds at the house we don't sleep in ever much. 

It was kind of nice just to hang out in a hotel bed with fluffy white sheets.

Once again basketball was on the tv.

You would think that I am a fan.  :)

On Friday evening we headed over to the House of Blues for Chase McCloud's cd release party.

If you don't know who he is check him out.

Very talented musician and great guy!  

Before the show we met up with another couple for dinner at the Foundation Room.

Great food and wonderful company.

Once we made it into the Parish room we met up with other friends for a fun night!

To mark the spot of our nuptials we had to seal the deal with another kiss.

6 years later....

I still do!

Before heading out we stopped into Stanley's for our favorite breakfast

of poached eggs and boudin po boy topped with hollandaise.  

Yeah you rite...

The afternoon was so lovely that we took a quite stroll down Freret Street for the street market.

This is our old hood and we stop in whenever we get a chance.

6 year later.

I love this man more than the day that I married him.

He has given me 2.75 kids and a life richer than I ever dreamed of.

I love the beautiful life that we have created together.

Cheers to spending the rest of my forever with you...

Anniversary notes:

1st- Surprise trip to Miami, Fl

2nd- Dinner at Bayona (first trip out with a 1 month Griff at home)

3rd- Lunch at Commander's Palace

4th- ??? (baby brain- Roman was born less than a month later)

5th- Lunch at Ruth's Chris

6th- NOLA weekend

4 year old shots

I brought Griff in for his 4 year old check up and shots a few weeks ago.

I fully expected this visit to be pretty bad.

Because of this I brought back up in with me.

MiMi Kat.

To be totally honest it exceeded my expectations of bad.

It was terrible.

I needed a few weeks to regroup before reliving this experience in my mind.

Bad news.

I will have to go through this with 2 more kids.

Boo...

Started out a-okay.

Compliant patient getting measured.

(75% height and 50% weight)

Next up, blood pressure.

All was good until she blew it up on his arm.

He then politely told the nurse, "no tanks, dats not for me."

When she took the cuff off he said, "oh well."

Yes, a 4 year old refused his blood pressure.

I knew what was to come so I tried to keep it cool.

Eye test.

The good news is he can see.

His attention and focus?

Well that is a work in progress.

Hearing test.

Fun for one minute.

He then also refused this test.

This did not make Momma happy considering his history with his ears.

Next Dr. C tried to check his ears.

That would be a total NO-GO.

Call it flash backs from years past?

I do not know.

This was a test that he could not refuse.

We needed to know that his ears are clear now that his tubes have fallen out.

No more being nice.

It was time to hold him down on the table.

Everything went downhill from here.

Following the ear check he was assaulted with lots of shots.

I have always split up the boys shots in the past.

Not this time.

 I knew that getting him back into the Dr's office would be more than I was willing to take on.

This was the first time that he went in for shots and was totally "aware."

It broke my heart.

He was so worked up.

He is also a very tough cookie.

He didn't even realize that he was getting shots until they had already given him 1.5

After the shots it only took him a second to calm down.

He then asked Dr. C to check out his knee.

According to Griff this is the reasons for the appointment.

She put a ban-aid on gave him a sucker and we were sent on our way!

Reasons that I smile...

So I have been a little busy planning a party and being pregnant.

I have not blogged as much recently, but I still continue to snap pictures daily.

I don't drag "my precious" (big camera) out often, but I always have my iphone handy.

• The other day Griff ran into the kitchen yelling, "hurry!  Come see!  It's a mergency!" (emergency)  Satch ran to tend to the emergency.  Satch returned a minute later.  I asked what was the emergency?  His reply, "Griff's sheets came off the corner of his bed."  We repeated this "emergency" drill 2 more times.  The next morning we were driving to church.  I tried to explain that an "emergency" is pretty serious business.  I then gave him examples of real life emergencies. (if you really hurt yourself, blood, fire, etc)  I then asked him to give me an example back.  His response, "when I jump on my bed and my pirate sheets come off."  Ummm, awesome...

• This morning Griff came into our bedroom and looked at a picture of me in my wedding gown.  He said, "Oooooooo Mommy, I like your tutu." :)

Now for my iphone photo dump.

Enjoy!

Baby Bear washing his Daddy's car

Can not even begin to tell you how much "help"
we get around here!

The weather went from warm to summer in about a week.
Time to start enjoying a little summer fun!

Here we are walking in the neighborhood.
7 months pregnant.  What's another 30 lbs?

Love that smile!

Playing "I spy," one of the games from a busy bag swap.

Enjoying our afternoon walk while G rides his bike.

Boys running home while Daddy carries the bike.

Time for bed.

Seriously...

This baby 2 going on 20.  Sniff.  Sniff.

Swollen feet kicked up while boys tear down the joint.

My little party animals.

Blue Steel

Enjoying a little sun at the park.

Sno-ball time!

I adore this pic.

Roman painting and catching some rays.

Working on a master piece.

Really?!?  

Enjoying the time that we have with Uncle Al.

Super hero training academy

It is my favorite time of the year.

Birthday party time for my boys!  

Their birthdays are a month apart so I go all out and have 1 big birthday blow out for both of them.

I know this won't last forever, but it works for now!

I can not even begin to tell you the amount of time that I day dream about party themes.

I first brain storm with a few of my boys favorites of the moment.

From there I search the internet for fun and creative ideas.

Pinterest has made my life a little easier.

In the past I would actually print out tons of information.

This year I was able to "pin" ideas on my virtual pin board.

And that is how it all began!

It all started with this blog post that I ran across about a super cute super hero party.

http://party.tipjunkie.com/superhero-academy-birthday-party-super-hero-birthday-party/

The boys were into super heroes, but I wanted a fun twist on your average party.

I knew that this super hero training academy was the theme for us!

I wanted to run with the super hero idea and give it a vintage pop art feel without going the commercial route.

Once I ran across this beauty http://onecharmingparty.com/tag/superhero-party-2/ I knew this was the  way to go for a super cute party!

(I started daydreaming about this late last year.)

This year is the first year that I have a child, Griffin, old enough to voice his opinion on party stuff.

First I let him write out his guest list.

I mean it is his party after all!

He had no problem rattling off all of his classmates and friends that he wanted to celebrate with.

Another notable change this year.

We always have birthday parties at home.

This year I felt it would be too much to plan the party AND to get the house ready.

Instead we decided to host the event at a local park.

It is a great location with lots of beautiful shade trees.

Today was the perfect day to spend the afternoon outside.

The sun was shining and the breeze was blowing.

Thank you Jesus for giving us the most beautiful day to celebrate outside!

~TOP SECRET AND CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION~

I will let you in on a little secret to a great party.

Find friends with talent!

Thanks to MiMi Kat for making all of the capes.

Yes, she made a cape for all of the super heroes at the party.

Another big thanks to my awesomely talented friend Lacey for creating the back drop and villains that were used in one of the games.

I would also like to send a shout out to Cristina for making the cake pops for me.  They were the cutest cake pops that I have EVER seen all dressed out in super hero gear!

http://www.littlebitfunky.com/2012_01_15_archive.html

It wasn't easy getting everything ready considering that I am 7 months pregnant.  

I logged quite a few late night hours finishing up the details.

At the end of the day it was so worth it to see the smiles today.

Without further adieu here are TONS-O-Pictures from 

Griffin and Roman's Super Hero Training Academy!

Here is the cool city scape back drop created by my friend Lacey.

I did all of the baking this year.  After a day of standing I had the cankles to prove it!

Told ya!

The most adorable dressed up cakes pops.

These were supposed to be another take home favor. 

They were starting to melt wilt in the 80 + degree temps so they were gobbled up early!

Here are the cupcakes and toppers.

Overhead view of the cake table.

I really like the comic book bunting with each boys name on their cakes.

Here we are.

Dressed and ready for a great day!

The cutest 2 year old and 4 year old that I know!

Here is the signage for the games.

There were 6 tasks that the kids had to perform in order to be a real life super hero accredited by the Justice league.

The tasks were:

Vaporize the villain

Kryptonite krawl

Super speed

Mighty Muscles

Leap a building in a single bound and

Lava pit

Here I am.

Side note: I do not speak in front of groups.

Today I found myself as the "mistress of ceremonies" for about 40 kids.

Needless to say I was out of my comfort zone...

And here are the trainees reporting to duty!

1st up: Vaporize the villain. 

The trainees had to use silly string and hit the target.

The birthday boy takes the first shot at the target.

Next up: the other birthday boy.

2nd task:  Walk the lava pit.

3rd task: Mighty Muscles.

Have you ever seen such brute strength in a 4 year old?

I think not...

Not a problem for Roman.

One hand strong man!

4th task: Super speed.

5th task: Kryptonite krawl

Just in case I forgot to mention.

I am really pregnant...

6th task: Leap a building in a single bound

Griff hanging out with Tio at the craft table.

He was creating his own super hero.

Next on the agenda?

The awards ceremony.

We had a very special guest join us to induct the latest super heroes into the Justice League.

This guest came in all the way from Gotham City.

Batman...

I am so proud of this boy.

He had a ball at his party.

He thanked all of his friends for coming to his party.

Striking a pose.

After all he is officially a super hero! 

After all of our friends enjoyed pizza it was time to gather everyone to sing happy birthday.

Almost time to sing...

Happy birthday to you,

happy birthday to you,

happy birthday dear GRIFFIN,

happy birthday to you...

Make a wish and dream BIG sweet boy.

Four candles takes a lot air to blow out!

Next up... 

Roman

Happy birthday to you,

happy birthday to you,

happy birthday dear ROMAN, 

happy birthday to you...

Make a wish and dream BIG sweet boy...

Some of our friends at the craft table.

Here are the villains that were created by Lacey.

Needless to say after this group the bad guys were well handled! 

All of the time invested in the party is so worth it because of this.

$1,000,000 smiles.

A few more details.

Comic book letters.  I plan to use these in the boys room now.

 Success!  A happy and tired birthday boy.

Roman's favorite activity of the day?

Mighty muscles.

Here he is just pumping a little iron.

There was so much chaos action at the park today we waited until we got home to open gifts.  

Glad that we did.  I like to be able to write a gift list in order to send out thank you notes.

I also like for boys to actually see each gift without it just being a cloud of paper flying in the air!  

Thanks to all of our awesome friends for celebrating with us today.

We had a super time!

Momma notes~ This was my favorite party theme thus far.  

Griffin's 1st birthday- carnival

              2nd birthday- train ride

Griffin's 3rd and Roman's 1st- Mustache party "stache bash"

Griffin's 4th and Roman's 2nd- Super hero training academy

The party this year was also the first time that I put together games for kids to play.  Others years I have hired the entertainment.  Hands down this was favorite party.  Also interesting to note it was done with very little money.  Everything was home made with lots of love!