Quick trip to Paris

At the last minute today we decided to go to Paris.... Texas. Derek's grandpa was in town just for the evening. We had some Mexican food and then stuffed ourselves with Braum's.

Grant sitting on Dada's lap. :)

LOVE this! Abby chewing on her Papa's glasses - she looks mischievous and he looks elated!

We took a series of photos after dinner. These are my favorites:

Joyce and Grant (and Abby's toe - she was asleep in her carseat on the table).

Public Service Announcement - Back that Thing Up

Sunday night (June 24), I was preparing a blog post about our Cali trip last month and uploading some old pics to Shutterfly. But then my computer froze and made this light clicking noise... plus the fan seemed to be working overtime.

My hard drive crashed, taking with it almost 2 years of photos. We've gotten 3 opinions on this and they all agree the data is gone, unless we send the hard drive off to a clean room and pay one G to find out if/what they can recover. Ugh. Every time I think about it, I tear up. We have photos in all sorts of places though - many still live in our iPhones, our 8 month old fancy camera, Facebook, Shutterfly, this blog, Grant's blog book from his first year, photo CDs from Jesse Leos, etc. In fact, right before the crash, I uploaded photos from Abby's first 2 weeks onto Shutterfly. PHEW!

The hard drive was still under warranty, so I'll be back up and running as soon as I install it. Then I'll be pulling together and reorganizing a TON of photos (we have an external hard drive with 2010 and earlier photos but they are NOT organized. I'd invested the time to organize them, but that organization is obviously gone now!). And I'll see if we need to pay big bucks to pay for our mistake of not backing up (cross your fingers the answer is no!).

But for now, I'll leave you with a public service announcement. If you love your children, back up your computer files. We hadn't done so in about 18 months, and those darn kids change too much for us to procrastinate that much. Truthfully, it was just off the radar. So I'm putting it on your radar now.

This message has been brought to you by the Sarah Hicks Sometimes Makes Mistakes But Not Too Often Fund.

Naked baby!!

Had to get some shots of my babies! Apparently, I say "Naked boy" all the time after Grant's bath because he's started saying it too.

Fish

Grant just wrapped up taking 2 weeks (10 days) of swim lessons. Derek showed me his skills for the first time today. As it turns out, he had a 101 fever while he was showing off. Poor boy!!

Jaime got married

My favorite cousin Jaime got married in May in beautiful San Luis Obispo, CA. It was a big deal. Back in December, my parents let us know that our Christmas present this year was a trip to Cali! And the icing on the cake was that Derek's parents watched our babies for SIX DAYS while we were gone!!! The rest of the trip will appear on the blog later (too many pics and stories to tell).

This post is all about the MISSUS and her amazing wedding. First up, the ceremony. Most of the wedding guests took the PARTY BUS that Jaime provided so that we could party it up right! And to truly start it off right, cocktails were available, if not encouraged, pre-ceremony.

Jaime's bridesmaids were assisted down steps by the ushers - all lined up down the side of the steps. It reminded me of the Miss America pagaent when the contestants come down the aisle of men and they do something fancy like uncross their swords in unison when each contestant passes. Jaime definitely had the details down!! I mean, I thought the ushers could have used jazz hands... but whatever. And how does J walk down the aisle? With a rock-and-roll wedding march, of course.

After the ceremony, the final photos were taken and hors d'oeuvres were served. I wish I had a photo of them. Tomato Bisque Soup Shooters with a sliver of a fancy grilled cheese sandwich? GREAT! (In fact both Derek and I ordered the full size of this at Hattie's when we went for our anniversary last week). But you should hold your applause for the bacon-wrapped dates. **smacks lips** Something else was served with goat cheese. I am against goat cheese on principle, so I didn't try it. I don't think I'll ever understand goat cheese.

We took some family photos, danced, mingled, ate dinner (which I remember was delicious but started to get foggy on specifics).... all the usual fun wedding stuff. The bride and groom danced for the first time. Then Jaime and her dad, Art, started dancing to Butterfly Kisses.... We were mystified. WHY WOULD JAIME, the same bride that couldn't walk down the aisle without an electric guitar accompanying her, PICK THIS SONG? Super Sandy built us up, "I know! Can you believe she chose this song?"

As if on cue, Art leaves the dance floor... bribes the DJ to pump up the tunes... and gets the nearest young boy to start snapping with him. WHAT?! Is that Party Rock Anthem?!?! I scrambled to the front to watch the choreographed routine.

I'm not big on this word, but it's appropriate here - AMAZEBALLS. I mean, 3 months ago Art couldn't even walk. Plus he's got the rhythm of a Paxton (that's not a good thing). Despite the fact that everything was going against him, he NAILED it! Reactions after the dance from the crowd:

From there, the five cakes were cut... magnificent cakes, but I only have photos of people eating them:

We danced to classic 80's tunes, ran out of Texas Spiked Lemonade (don't fret - there was plenty of wine!), and before you could even THINK about rolling your eyes at another Tiffany song, the band appeared. The Atomic Punks - not just A Van Halen cover band, but THE Van Halen cover band. My brother and the groom helped them out a little from time-to time during the night:

But mostly we all just danced, sang and enjoyed the show.

And when the Punks took a break, there may or may not have been a dance-off. Sadly, it's not the first dance-off I've lost at a wedding. But I recovered well because a FLASH MOB to I'm Sexy and I Know It made me feel allllll better!! Unlike all the other wedding surprises, I was in the loop on this one. And by in the loop, I mean that people I didn't know approached me before the wedding saying "Hey - I know you from that youTube video" and it wasn't even a bad thing.

From there, the band played, we drank a little more, then sent the newlyweds off with sparklers. And beer cans tied to their car. CLASSY!!

The party bus moved the party on to the hotel bar, which was already open late for the festivities. Derek and I didn't party very long - we were in bed before midnight, which was good because we had more fun planned for the next day. But that's for another blog...

Playing at the house

Grant making some post-spaghetti funny faces:

Abby made some cute faces too!

And watching/playing with Lola!

And you know you've taken too many photos when...

Abby's first swim

Abby got in the pool for the first time this weekend! She didn't hate it, but didn't blissfully splash around either. Pool time before kids meant a cold beverage (Blizzard or 'Ritas), the Poolside playlist on my iPod, and a good book. Then Grant came along and pooltime got a little more challenging... but TWO babies make it even more work interesting. I remembered that I had captured Grant's first time in the pool. So I tried to use the camera timer to capture Abby's first time in the pool. The shots are so bad they're good.

Twinkle, Twinkle

He was getting distracted, so I struggled to keep him focused. But this is Grant singing Twinkle, Twinkle:

Grant's 2nd Birthday Party!!!

We celebrated Grant's birthday this weekend! The theme was ELMO!!! He's Grant's favorite. Check out the invitations:
Front

Back

I was so on top of things that I never got them in the mail! So people that we saw received an invitation in person, but all the other guests got a text invitation. Classy, I know.

Elmo also made appearances in the cake, a balloon, plates, napkins, and wall decals (thanks to Groupon for the gear)! There is a 50/50 chance that Abby will have an Elmo first birthday party in 6 months. My desire to have a full out pink party may win out though! I served Jill's pizza rolls (adding peppercinis in some & fresh basil in all of them) and some other snacks. The pizza rolls were a huge hit!

Juggling 2 kiddos, guests, and a 2 year old playing in the pool is not an easy feat. Thankfully everyone helped. Abby was passed around and entertained by all. Wrapping paper and cardboard boxes magically found their way to the recycle bin thanks to the Motos. And the icing on the cake (pun intended)? Shauna playing with my babies after the party, making clean up SO MUCH EASIER on me!

Grant did a much better job eating cake this year! He still used his hands (mostly to put the cake on the spoon) and ended up with some on his face, yes, but it was a MUCH cleaner affair than last year.

Party pics:
Singing Happy Birthday:

Blowing out candles:

Some of the baby whisperers: (this does NOT include my mom. Abby loved Rose the next day in Red Oak, but she pouted and cried at the sight of her at Grant's party!!!)
Guests:


Pool fun:

Eating cake with less mess than last year:
Notice Abby isn't facing my mom!

Grant's favorite new toys!!

Abby is 6 months!

Weight: 17lb, 3 oz = 75th percentile
Height: 25.75 inches = 55th percentile
Head Circumference: 44 cm = 90th percentile
Our kids have big heads. No doubt Derek is their daddy!
Diaper: Still in 3's because I didn't stop the Amazon order in time. NEXT time, we'll move up to 4's!
Eating: 7 ounces every 3 hours. Formula only now. We started solids today! We're skipping rice cereal because Grant didn't eat it, and he turned out just fine.

Abby isn't so sure about green beans!
She holds her bottle really well until the end of the bottle when she's tired.

She is very mobile now - leaning over in her swing!
Clothing: I desperately need to switch out her clothes. I keep stuffing her into 3-6 month clothes that REALLY don't fit!

Sleeping: About 11 hours every night. She isn't swaddled at night, but I do use a pacifier when I rock her. The key is to remove it while she's still in your arms. That way, she doesn't miss it at night. The past 3 days, she has refused the paci.

Talking: Same as last month - lots of screaching and cooing.

Teeth: Same as last month - two on bottom.

Milestones: She's rolling all over the place! New this month, she can sit up for about 1 minute (sometimes it's only 5 seconds though)!! She did it for the first time last week. I get giddy when I think about what this means. Using the double stroller on walks instead of wearing her!! Taking baths with her brother!! Come on Abby!!

Guaranteed Smiles: Same as last month - watching Lola and watching Grant. She also really loves the airplane that Marlene gave Grant.

Guaranteed Crying: She really doesn't like watching you make her bottle. We've started "hiding" her bottle from her to keep her quiet.

I sent my milk donation 2 weeks ago. It was 309 ounces by my count, but was 300.82 by their count. YEAH! That means my $300 bonus will be in this week! And it's a good thing - I'm unemployed for the next week, then I start up the new job!

Outtakes:


And more for myself, a link to Grant's 6 month stats.