Anniversary Weekend- Sans James

John and I just celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary over the weekend. SIX! Not sure how that is possible, but anyway. We had talked off and on whether we should take a quick weekend trip to celebrate. After much debate and hesitation on my end, John took it upon himself to just plan something and surprise me. If you recall, our honeymoon was a surprise to me, as well as a past birthday trip. He finds joy in planning something and hiding it from me until we get to the airport while heckling me about it and giving lame hints. I digress. :)




My hints prior to the trip were:


1.) It would be hot.
2.) Might rain
3.) No beach time would occur (darn!)




My two guesses as we headed to the airport were either Austin or New Orleans, with New Orleans being my #1 guess. Turns out, I was right! :) I had a feeling it would be New Orleans, so I planned my toe polish color accordingly: O.P.I.'s Cajun Shrimp!


I should note....Friday as I was home with James, he made sure to raise the bar on snuggles being super sweet all day. Laying on the mom guilt SUPER thick!









We left home about 5:00 a.m. on Saturday, but not without everything for James prepped and ready to go. I may be a tad OCD about my frozen milk. Liquid gold, people!!





Grandmommy was given the run down of an abundance of instructions and we were on our way. A few tears were shed as I read a few Anniversary cards prior to our departure.










Once we were at the airport, John gave me my boarding pass- I was right, New Orleans!! We grabbed a coffee and boarded our flight. We had a quick stop in Dallas and then we were NOLA bound.


We arrived in NOLA around lunch time. As we were almost to NOLA I discretely pumped on the plane while also finding the perfect spot for our drink mixers. Ha!





We quickly checked in to the hotel, dropped off our bags, and headed for some food. First stop, The French Market, at J's seafood where we definitely indulged in some po'boy sandwiches, soft shell crabs, and crawfish beignets. Lets not forget the refreshing mango rum punch!












We decided it would be a good idea to walk off some of our lunch. He strolled through the French quarter before ending up at Café Du Monde to grab a famous beignet and wait for the rain to pass. I could eat these delicious little pastries of goodness everyday if I was given the chance. So good!





















On a whim we ended up at NOLA Brewing Co. next. Great beer, awesome atmosphere, and fun just relaxing sharing an uninterrupted adult conversation.













Once we had our share of good beers, we headed back to the hotel so I could pump before dinner. We attempted to eat at Acme Oyster house until we discovered the line to get in wrapped around the block. So, we settled for a similar restraunt across the street, Felix's.







Both still so full from the craft beers and snacks, we shared some gator bites and shrimp and grits. Both were amazing!! Tired from our first day of travel, we called in an early night to rest up for our Sunday of fun.






Sunday morning we got up to head to a cemetery tour. I'll admit, this tour was pretty awesome. It was neat learning about the history behind the NOLA cemeteries. Very interesting!
















We thought we would continue the fun on Sunday but hitting up the NOLA Rum Distillery to do some rum sampling. We were the only ones there when it opened and got a nice one-on-one sampling run down of all of the rums, and a few extra samples. :)













Next up, back at NOLA Brewing Co. Are you seeing a pattern here? :) We had to go back to NOLA to try the food this time. We had just finished lunch before we got there on Saturday and all of the food passing us by looked AMAZING. And it was amazing. We relaxed, sampled some more beers, and had great food while waiting out another rain storm.













The fun continued as we ended up at The Blind Pelican for oyster happy hour. Yet another win on our NOLA trip. We indulged in some fresh oysters, both raw and charbroiled. Both amazing! I was skeptical about trying oysters but they did not disappoint.

 

 

Monday's time in NOLA would be short as we had a flight to catch home. We made a point to try a different beignet place, Café Beignet. We both agreed the beignets and ambiance was far better than Café Du Monde! For lunch we dined at Emeril's. Yet again, great food!!


We headed back to the airport both tired and stuffed with good food, anxious to see our little nugget. 

I think it's safe to say we were all happy to reunited again! Kuddos to John for taking the time to treat me/us to some time away. Although it was tough to leave James behind we truly enjoyed our time together. Until next time, NOLA!

Oh, and P.S., we definitely missed this cute face while we were gone!

 

James- in pictures

Recents pictures of James and his silly, busy self. :)

Happy 10 Months!

Sweet boy- you are 10 months old today. TEN! Double digit age! To say that each month is more fun than the month before would be an understatement. Just when I think we are in a "sweet spot" of an age you surprise me and become even more charming than you already are. Some things about you at 10 months...

• Man, are you a busy boy! You are so active- speed crawling, cruising along furniture, walking with push toys. You're everywhere and you are getting FAST! You have even taken an occasional baby step. I'll be totally surprised if you are not walking by your 11 month birthday. You are also finding ways to protest getting into your car seat as well as thinking it's fun to stand in the bathtub.

• Food- you love anything that comes remotely close to your mouth. Your true loves are cheese (those are the Birnbaum genes in you) and cheerios. You'll eat really any fruits and vegetables and are slowly but surely coming around on different meats. You still love breast milk, either straight from the tap or in a bottle. You are doing great with a sippy cup. At school you occasionally don't want to finish you milk in a bottle but you will finish it in the sippy cup. It's like you just want to be "big" or something. :)

• You continue to be a good sleeper. You will occasionally fight going to sleep or may wake in the night. This really only seems to happen around the time you meet milestones or when you aren't feeling very well. You usually take 1-2 naps per day. Please continue to keep this up well into your toddler years!
• Man, are you a funny boy! Your personality has really taken off in the past month. You will do anything and make sure you have our attention in doing so. You'll fake cough, crawl over and wrestle us, and you've recently started making animal noises.
• You are still saying "mama" and "dada". Over the weekend we believe we heard you say "quack-quack" while holding your rubber duck. You will sign for "more", "please", "all done", "milk", and will wave "bye-bye" (although it kind of looks like you're signing for milk). Just watching you learn and gain more knowledge is such a joy.
• You are just sweet as pie. You love to snuggle (mostly when you're tired) and will greet us at daycare pick up with a big hug and full of excitement. The highlight of my day is truly when I get to pick you up. You'll crawl over to me as fast as humanly possible, pull on my pant leg until I pick you up, and then give me the biggest hug imaginable. It is truly the sweetest and best feeling as your momma.
• You have a few new favorite games- 1.) You will crawl over to the curtains in the den and wedge yourself between them and the door. You will then peek around them to see if I'm looking at you and wait for me to say "peed-a-boo" so you can poke your head out. A.D.O.R.A.B.L.E. 2.) You love you ball popper toy. So much so that you have started experimenting if your rubber ducks will pop out the same way as the balls. Too funny!
• You currently have 6 teeth and are on the verge of getting tooth #7. I don't blame you when you're crabby while teething. I'd be crabby too if I got all 4 top front teeth at once.

  

  

 



James, you are truly the best gift from God that we have ever received. You bring absolute joy to our days, smiles to our faces, and so much love in our hearts. We could not imagine our life without a blessing such as you. We pray that you continue to be a happy boy! We love you to the moon and back!

 

   

Saturday Night Sickness

We spent the late night hours of Saturday in the ER with James. As he was getting ready for bed around 8:00pm he suddenly started vomiting. A LOT. About 4 times with large amounts of vomit. I'll spare you the rest of the details, but it was awful. Poor kid was losing fluids and energy quickly so we opted to take him in and get checked out.

nce in the ER the poor kid continued to dry heave. He barely had any energy and would just lay his head on the side of the barf bag and was like a limp noodle. Upon exam, the doctor ordered a few tests while we got him started on some Zofran and a fluid challenge with some pedialyte. Zofran is such a miracle drug. It helped settle his tummy ad he was able to hold down some pedialyte between little naps. Poor kid was wiped out.

After about 4 hours in the ER we headed home with the diagnosis of a "stomach bug". All of his scans were clear and we would just have to ride this out.

Sunday was a rough day. James was pretty clingy, fussy, restless, you name it. The poor kid felt awful and you could tell. We did our best to keep him pretty calm and stay low key. We pretty much limited him to breast milk and pedialyte. He tolerate some rice cereal with bananas and that was pretty much it. Despite fighting to sleep yesterday and fighting going to bed, he slept 12 hours! The rest was much needed for him and mommy and daddy.

We're crossing our fingers that he continues to be on the mend. What a rough almost 48 hours it has been for all of us.

Sleeping on daddy in the ER.

Poor baby. :(

Reading books with daddy on Sunday morning.

Poor baby struggled to get some sleep. So a little ride in the car helped him get a 45-60 minute nap.

Snuggling on momma.

Busy Boy

Oh James, you are quite a fun ball of energy. You are one busy boy and seem to be getting busier by the minute. These pictures speak to your exact level of energy at this stage of life. :)

Climbing tubs. Yes, he got up there all by himself.

"Running" with our push toy.

Looking so proud of your accomplishment.

Back to running again.

And then you started to stand up...on your own...without help...from a squatting position.



In other news, this next picture gave me a good laugh. There was a day last week where I had to pump right after I got home from work (thanks a lot to the afternoon full of meetings at work!). James had already had his afternoon bottle. From the looks of his excitement at seeing his beloved liquid gold, it appears that I won't be able to pump in front of him much longer. Ha!

And in more news, James got his first official bite at daycare! :( I noticed it Monday night as we were getting him ready for bed. Poor baby! I'll spare everyone the details of the conversation that Momma Bear had with daycare on Tuesday morning.