Leslie's 30th!

Erinn and I were trying to come up with a plan to celebrate Leslie's 30th birthday.  She is so special and we wanted to make her feel that way.  We decided to pop over to Dallas to surprise her at lunch.  Carol, Erinn and I have been scheming this for a while lining up child care, planning our lunch story, and getting our little decorations made.

Erinn and I both rounded up people to watch our kids and headed out about 7 am for Dallas.  It felt so good to cruise over to the big city for the day.  We arrived at Leslie's apartment and met her mom.  We added a few decorations to the apartment for when she got home from work.  Carol was trying to get Leslie to commit to a restaurant and she just wouldn't.  She kept saying "we will decide later!"  Erinn and I wanted to add a couple decorations so we needed a place.  We decided on Breadwinner's and Leslie was in!  Erinn and I arrived and added a of couple details to the table including flowers and a banner. We were so nervous the whole time that we were going to give it away or have our cover blown.  I am totally not good at surprises and I feel like I am lying the whole time.  I am not good with deception!

So, Leslie and Carol walked in the restaurant and I waved to Leslie just like I would if she were meeting me anywhere.  I guess I should have let them just stumble upon us but I was too excited!  We've been planning it for so long I couldn't understand why she was so shocked!  She kept saying "I can't believe y'all are here!"  We were thrilled to celebrate Leslie's 30th with her!!  


Happy 30th, Leslie!  I hope it was a special, wonderful, totally awesome day!  You deserve it!

Walking in to the restaurant

Erinn, Leslie, and me

Happy 30th! (The only candles at CVS were tealights!)

me, Erinn, Leslie, and Carol

Carol and Leslie

Phone Dump

Both of our computers have been in the shop for a week so that's why I've been MIA around the blog. Bennett decided to jump on my laptop while we were in Charleston so it was just falling apart. I'm having all the data moved to Neil's laptop which will now become my laptop!

So, here are a bunch of pictures from my phone.

Bennett loves to have Henry in his bed!

Maddie and Bennett making mini pizzas

Bennett getting to FaceTime with Mason

Henry and our neighbor, Aiden

Erinn's 30th birthday dinner

Neil and me celebrating Erin's birthday

Brown, Briggs, Georgia, and Bennett eating donuts for Erinn's birthday breakfast

My aunt sent me this picture of my grandfather and his siblings in Oneonta, AL.  It said "Happy 4th from the French kids!"

Alex (our neighbor) and Bennett making cookies

Family Filled 4th!

I'm sure it's no secret that I love holidays or really any occasion. I love being able to make foods using the colors of the holiday and having my family enjoy it. Food, holidays, and family are some of my favorite things.  The 4th is no different.  I didn't take any pictures of what I made but they were all Pinterest inspired. I made red, white, and blue strawberries, strawberry/blueberry kabobs, and patriotic cupcakes.

When Dianne said she was having a 4th of July family reunion I was thrilled. We were excited that 25 people would be coming. I was really excited to see our Olympic gold medal winning cousin but that side of the family went home to Arkansas. We had other family coming in from Florida but ended up sick at he last minute. Even though some were missing, we still had a wonderful time. We were surprised by cousin Don who drove in from Tyler, TX despite his wife being laid up with a hurt ankle.

My dad's side of the family had a big 4th of July family reunion every year. I used to look forward to it every summer. My mom always took us to get a new red, white, and blue outfit." I can still remember my favorite 4th outfit. It was red/white striped shorts with a little swing top that was covered in a pattern of assorted fruit. It had a matching red/white striped tie/sash type thing to match! I was very stylish. A few months ago, my childhood best friend, Jennifer told me that outfit was her favorite one to borrow from me. This just confirms my stylishness at age 9. I can't believe she remembered it!

Anyway, we used to assemble at one of my dad's aunt's lake houses every year. My grandmother had 3 sisters and 1 brother so we had plenty of people there. My dad has lots of 1st cousins. We all have 2nd and 3rd and on down the line cousins. I have zero first cousins on his side. Cousins are great!

We even stopped by the Dicharry's for a second to say hi but as we were pulling up they had just finished their fireworks. :(

Here's the whole group of Jones, Dumas, Schick, Minter, Hurtle, Chambers and so on and so forth!  

It was a great time and I am already looking forward to next year!

Ear tubes, walking pneumonia, and strep throat Oh, my!

We are just falling apart around here. Henry had tubes placed on Thursday. We went to the doctor for Bennett on Saturday and found out he has walking pneumonia. On Sunday I went to quick care and found out I had strep throat.

Bennett showed basically no signs of anything wrong except for a cough. He was behaving normally even jumping of the diving board the day before. I decided to take him in for piece of mind and I'm so glad I did. She said he was wheezing and had stuff in his left lung. Poor baby! We were all shocked by his diagnosis.

I woke up Sunday morning and couldn't swallow without severe pain.

Sunday I just maxed and relaxed. I literally could not get myself out of bed or off the couch. I was cold all day. It just surprised me how bad strep actually knocked me on my butt because I'm usually a get up and go type person. No lounging for me.

Around 1pm on Sunday Neil said "I don't know how you do it with the boys all day everyday I'm about to go insane!"

Here's to hoping we are all feeling 100% ASAP!

Couples shower

Neil and I had a fabulous time Saturday night at James and Emily's couples shower. Have I ever mentioned that I love showers? People go all out on decorating and food and those are 2 of my favorite things. They got some great stuff and look so cute together!

Neil went to high school with James and I went to school with Emily. There seems to be something special about people from Ruston marrying people from Shreveport! I just love the Shreveport/Ruston love match.

A Totally Awesome Date Night

We have a local art museum that brings in various exhibits.  They have mini golf going on right now.  They had several local artists create and build different holes for the course.  We happened to go during mini golf happy hour and had a great time.  It was totally different than what we would normally do and it was a lot of fun.  You should go on a date there but you have to go before August.

One of the highlights was that both of us made a hole in one on the same hole!  I got to sign our names on the  "Hole-in-Ones" poster.  I pretty much started jumping up and down when we both made them and Neil had to bring me back down to earth by saying "this isn't the PGA!" It doesn't take much to excite me.

After mini golf, we met some friends at Country Tavern.  We had some friends in from Atlanta with their new baby so it was fun to meet up.  It was a total impromptu gathering but turned out to be bigger than I thought.  

Megan and her Baby Henry (love that name)

Danny/Megan, Mallory/Heath, me/Neil, Emily/James, and Kyle sans Lindsey who we totes wish would have been there

Down the Tubes

Henry had tubes placed in his ears yesterday.  We were shocked at how fast it all happened.  We went to the ENT and he scheduled us for 2 days later.  I didn't even have time to get the word out!

Henry has had a few ear infections since April and it just seems that he is always on an antibiotic.  He has been on a different antibiotic every week this month.  Our doctor sent us to the ENT last week after the 4th ear infection.  He checked his ears and said they both looked terrible and Henry was taking medicine!  I was shocked and just hate that my sweet angel lives in pain.

We got to the surgery center at 6 am, filled out paperwork, and waited to be called back.  Filling out the paperwork took longer than the actual surgery!

My sweet baby lying on the bed before they took him back.

They sent us to the waiting room to wait on the doctor to tell us how it went.  We literally had enough time to get a cup of coffee (Neil) and sit down before they came to get us.  The doctor said his ears were full of fluid and that he did great.  We got to give him a bottle as soon as we got him.  He was irritable for about 10 minutes and then went on about his business the rest of the day.  In fact, when we got home he wanted to play!  I thought he would have wanted to sleep but NO!  We didn't sit around the house either.  We picked up Bennett from Veggie Tales camp and went to our weekly Gymboree class.  He was a total trooper and basically acted like nothing even happened.

The Buteaus were so sweet to drop off this Get Well balloon for Henry!