Mmmmm...Italian Casserole.

I made Italian Casserole last night and I just had to share the pictures. Bennett seemed to LOVE it! This makes me happy because it is one of my favorite things to cook and eat.

He devoured all of it! He would pick up huge handfuls of food and stuff them in his mouth. This is a boy who loves to eat!

Roommate.

We are so lucky to have a new roommate for the next 6 weeks. Andrew, Neil's baby brother, my brother-in-law, and Bennett's Uncle Checkers is moving in to our guest room. Andrew started working at Twin Cities on Monday and is staying with us until his friend Russell closes on his house. On Sunday, Richard and Janine came over to get him set up and to see Bennett. We went to eat at Imperial for a celebratory dinner.

I know Bennett is going to love having Uncle Checkers around.

I tried to snap a cute photo of Nana and Bennett playing, but of course he got up just as I got my camera!

Fun Saturday.

We had a pretty laid back day on Saturday. We got up and pretty much stayed in our pajamas until around 1 pm. It was nice to get some house work done and not have anything on our schedule. My mom called around 3 to see if she could take Bennett to the park on the gorgeous day we had. I needed to go to the grocery store so it was perfect timing. He had a blast at the park! They stayed for 2 hours. He was worn out when he got home. Neil also put together Bennett's table and chairs that he received from Aunt Rebecca for his birthday. He LOVED it. He would go from chair to chair trying each one out. I tried to get him to color at his little table, but the crayons just ended up in his mouth.

Later, we ran to Shane's to pick up some food to take over to the Burford's house. We got to sit on their totally awesome 2nd story porch.

It was such a nice evening. Ann set it up with cute crawfish place-mats and Adirondack chair napkin rings! They back up to the park, so the view was nice, too.

Here are Chris and our boys. Max and Bennett were loving being outside. Did I mention that Chris built their whole second story by himself? It is awesome! He can build/invent anything.

Which one is Bennett? We just love their bald heads! We just kept saying "bald-headed babies are the best" the whole time we were there.

Ann put Max's footie pjs on him while we were there and their funny Valentine's Day story came up. Ann has talked about loving footie pjs (for Max). So...for Valentine's Day Chris bought Ann some footie pj's! Here she is wearing them. When she received them, she asked if they were for him! She still had the tag on them, but modeled them for us anyway.

Thanks for the invite Burfords!

1 year Blog-a-versary!

I don't have an exciting giveaway or anything profound to say. I just wanted to say I can't believe that I have been blogging for 1 year! I plan to keep it up because I just love the blog book that I made. It is so nice to have all of our pictures and stories to go along with them. I just like that I have a virtual scrapbook, too. Anytime I want to show people pictures...I just pull up the blog! I feel like I have come a long way in my blogging since my first post. I still have SO much to learn though. If you don't have a blog, you should start one to document your lives! It's fun, easy, and free!

Bennett's Mardi Gras Parade

Bennett had his little Mardi Gras parade at daycare on Tuesday. Unfortunately, Neil and I had to work so we couldn't make it. I was glad that my mom was off work and able to attend. I sent my camera to get some pictures and I tried to watch on the daycare cameras. I heard it was adorable! Bennett's class was "The Little Saints." We were all supposed to send them in Saints attire. We were going to do this, but one of the other mom's from his class made shirts for every child in the class. They were so cute. They said "Little Saints" on the front and "Who Dat!" on the back. She even made black and gold tutu's for the girls! Talk about Mom of the Year!

Anyway, my mom said that Bennett was not loving the parade. She said he cried the whole time. Poor little angel. Erinn went and watched Georgia, too. She took some pictures of Bennett's class and videoed it. Bennett was crying in her video, too. Maybe he will like it better next year. Thanks so much for the pictures, Erinn!

Here are Bennett and Aurora. I like the plate he is holding for his prop.

Mom had to console him after the parade. I am so glad she was able to be there! They had lots of parents and grandparents there. Look at all of the decorations on their "float!"

Here is his class. Megan, Bennett, Zoey, Addie, Piper, Aurora, Hudson, and Hendrix.

They ended up winning "Best Overall" and "Most Entertaining" for the parade! Next year, I am going to take off work to go to the parade.

Valentine's Fun.

We went to Bennett's Valentine's party today at daycare. It was sort of non-eventful. They just ate lunch while we watched. We were so excited to go though. We signed up to bring treat bags and they turned out so cute. The only problem was when we got there today, there were 2 new kids in the class. I didn't have enough bags. Oops!

Here's Bennett eating his meatballs, corn, fruit cup, goldfish, and a sandwich!

He was wearing his "love machine" shirt!

We had a big crew at the party. Me, Pops, Gammy, Aunt Becky and her boyfriend, Stephen.

Bennett received this ball in the mail from his "Scuzins in Spring." It was neat to receive a ball in the mail! He loves this thing! He really likes when we throw it and bounce it.

Highland Parade!

My mom lives on the parade route of the Highland Parade. It has to be my favorite parade in our area. It is family oriented and in the middle of the day. The float riders throw tons of stuff...even hotdogs! We had a great time with friends and family. Neil even used his Christmas fryer and fried up some fish.

This float was a converted old school bus. It was stopped so we got a family shot!

Here I am with my sweetest boy.

Here is Bennett with the Shriner's clowns. He was not loving them. I hope he doesn't develop a clown phobia after this.

Rebecca and Stephen came over from Ruston to go to the parade with us. That's Beau, Drew, and Chris is the background.

Chris, Margaret, and Annabella came over, too. Bennett was wearing Annabella's hat and his totally awesome tie-dyed Mardi Gras shirt.

Sweet baby Bennett.

Here is Neil hard at work with the fish frying. He did a great job. Everyone loved the fish, hushpuppies, and fries.

Here's Mom and me.

Yay! I got tons of beads, stuffed animals, and cups!

Happy Boy!

Valentine's Day

Neil and I celebrated Valentine's a day early this year. Since I received Martina McBride concert tickets in my shoe from the Christmas elf, we used them for Valentines Day. Neil made reservations at the Vintage steakhouse in the El Dorado casino. We were talking at dinner and realized that we always forget about the good restaurants at the casinos. Maybe we will try the other ones. We got to dinner at 5:30 because the concert started at 7:30. I was excited to wear my pink REAL cowgirl boots. I got them before George closed the "western wear" part of Ranchland a few years ago. This is my second time to wear them.

Here we are in front of the restaurant.

After a wonderful dinner, we headed to the Martina McBride/Trace Adkins concert. Trace's band was in a tragic head on collision the morning of the concert and they were all so upset. They came out and played 3 songs and basically said that they didn't want to play out of respect for the families who were suffering. Everyone understood and they received a standing ovation.

At around 9 pm...Martina family started! She was AWESOME! Neil was so sweet to take me and let me sing the whole time. He never even complained and he said that his favorite part of the night was when I was singing! I should have been a sweet wife and bought him some ear plugs before we got to the concert.

Here she is! She is about the tiniest thing you have ever seen.

She rode this blue moon from the main stage to a small stage in the back of the arena. We thought is was a mighty expensive contraption for 1 song. But, no one asked us.

Yay! I told Neil that we could leave after she sang "Broken Wing," but it was the 2nd to last song she sang. The last one was "Independence Day" and I couldn't miss that!

We really had a great night with just the 2 of us. Bennett was staying in Ruston with Nana and Grand-Machine. We know he was in good hands so that's how we were able to have such a good time.

Happy Valentine's Day Neil!

Happy 30th James!

We were so excited to be invited to Jay Hanna's 30th birthday extravaganza at Noble Savage. His wife, Nikki, made some cute decorations all in the Mardi Gras theme. His parents brought a cake from Winnfield too. We had a great time!

Me, Lindsay, and Margaret

Me and Marge with the birthday boy. Margaret and I took close to 100 pictures with each others cameras. I made sure to get in most of the ones she was taking.

Here is a group photo. It was good to see Hunter and Becky Smith. They came over from Ruston for the party. (They are sitting in between Neil and me.)

Margaret, Cole, me, and Lindsay

And here are Nikki and Jay.

Happy 30th Jay!