Christmas in Seattle with mom, Peter and Selena was celebrated the Monday before Christmas. I hate leaving mom for Christmas. I wish she would have joined us.

Here’s a picture of Selena wearing Peter’s new boxers.

From Christmas 2011

Other highlights….both Peter and Mom purchased a new crockpot for me…hahha. I had to take one back.

Christmas in NOLA

We made our rounds and spent time with everyone. Highlights from the trip:

• Getting a family shot with the Mattingly’s and seeing Uncle Joey feeling better
• Getting to see Selena and Dylan race around on their little cars
• Kicking butt with Grambo as my beer pong partner
• Watching the Saints game (Peter got to go to the game)
• Going to the Children’s Museum and the Zoo with all the family
• And of course seeing everyone…I really miss home

Some of my favorite pics

From Christmas 2011

From Christmas 2011

From Christmas 2011

From Christmas 2011

From Christmas 2011

From Christmas 2011

I passed right over Thanksgiving in our blog….so I’ll give a recap.

We celebrated at my mom’s house with Chocolate turkeys, real turkeys, mud masks and intense games of spades and hearts.

From Gobble Day 2011

Christmas season is upon us and I have to say Selena’s Santa pic is one to remember.

From Gobble Day 2011

We lost our video camera….hopefully we will replace it soon so I can add video. More to come….

We traveled to NOLA for Suzie’s wedding and San Antonio for Annalisa’s wedding. Both weddings were beautiful and fantastic.

We had a few healthy days….watched LSU beat Bama and the Saints take a win and then the flu blew through our family. The only survivors were Ryan and Sarah (Peter’s mom). Not sure how Sarah managed to not get sick since she was around us when we were the most contagious.

Video of Annalisa Before the Wedding

Selena as the Flower Girl

Here are a few pics of the weddings

From November Weddings 2011

From November Weddings 2011

From November Weddings 2011

From November Weddings 2011

From November Weddings 2011

In other news…

• Selena tries to dress herself and seems very much into fashion. She loves to wear her dress shoes.
• The other day she was getting undressed for the bath and put on her boots and nothing else. She was ready to get in the tub with her blue boots on….hilarious.
• Selena is growing and learning so much.
• She loves bananas and eats about two a day.
• She mimics what we say all the time.
• She’s ready for potty training.
• So much energy and a great sense of humor. She makes everyday more enjoyable and exciting.
• I’ve been drawing a lot for her and she loves all of my creations….makes me want to do more.

Peter and I are still planning our house renovations. We’ve had to minimize what we’re doing at this time.
We’re planning our next trips and trying to relax….big changes are on the horizon….I can feel them coming!!!

I wore my costume for three occasions and was able to perfect my makeup, and I will never do that to my face again. The same costume over and over again gets old.

The month of October was filled with pumpkin patches, hayrides, pumpkin carving, Bone Bash, bar hopping, Sounders games and my birthday! There were other things in between too.

Selena actually used the potty by herself for the first time. Woo weee.

Pics I like:

From October2011

From October2011

From October2011

From October2011

From October2011

From October2011

Trick or Treat

Selena was much more aware this Halloween and could actually walk. After one house she had the routine down and ran to each door with her hands open wide and then said, “Fwank ewe.” Her bag was so full of candy, we asked her if she needed help, she said, “no,” and ran off dragging that big bag behind her. Yup our daughter is stubborn and willful.

BTW we had a little red riding hood outfit that she outgrew in two weeks, so for Halloween she was a pink skeleton (it happened to be one of her nighttime outfits).

Halloween and Halloween night was a blast…the next day was “fun.”

In other news…

Griffy says meow. I actually heard him growl the other day.

If I were a super hero I would choose to fly. It would make it easier to visit home.

I’ve been slow to update. It’s been a busy month full of freelance projects, trying to figure out our house renovation to traveling. This weekend I’m trying to do as little as possible.

Wedding Bliss

Amber and Craig’s wedding was awesome. I enjoyed meeting their friends and family (that we don’t already know), and we made new friends.

Highlights of the Wedding from My Perspective

• Flying with Selena – she was crazy energetic, but very good on the flight
• Seeing my sister Sara (she flew in to watch Selena so we could enjoy the wedding festivities)
• The rehearsal dinner at a small winery
• Jumping in the pool with my clothes on
• Peter racing and having chicken fights with Craig’s buddies in the pool
• Getting sick all morning the day of the wedding. I threw up on Meah and Warren’s rental car
• The look on Amber and Craig’s face when they first saw each other. Craig tripped (Lisa and I peeked when they saw each other before pictures)
• Amber’s parent’s house (I’ve heard many haunted stories)
• Amber walking down the isle to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”
• Amber riding in for the wedding dinner on a motorcycle with her dad
• Wade and Heather’s wedding speeches (brother and sister of the bride and groom). All I can say is, “nice job”
• All the awesome dancers at the wedding…we danced for 5 hours straight
• Climbing through the window in the limo to rescue the keys in the ignition – the driver was locked out and the limo was on (the little window I climbed through was the one between the driver and the rider)
• Giving our pink flamingo pen back to Amber and Craig. They found it on their hotel door…hahahha

Here are some pictures from the wedding

From September – Amber’s Wedding and More

From September – Amber’s Wedding and More

From September – Amber’s Wedding and More

Selena Update

She went through a growth spurt this week and we need to buy all new clothes for her. I feel like this happened overnight.

Selena is such a sweet girl. She is loving and snuggly and very smart. Her favorite words are; Who dat, No, Yes, Mommy, Daddy, Gwiffy, Pew weee, Luw you, night night…..and she has a lot more. She’s starting to mimic things we do and say. We have to be careful.

Selena starts preschool in a week. I think she will love it.

From September – Amber’s Wedding and More

From September – Amber’s Wedding and More

From September – Amber’s Wedding and More

From September – Amber’s Wedding and More

In other news

We finally found an architect and she’s coming over this week to get plans started for the house. We have to get permits before we can start.

I saw Junior Boys this past week at Neumos….it was awesome.
We have our tickets for the US Open Cup on October 4th.
We helped Rachele and Chad clean their new house today. Damn what a fantastic crazy house. It overlooks the Puget Sound and is at least 6,000 square feet.

Oh and I’m winning our fantasy football league so far and I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m sure I’ll be losing by next week.

Mims Got Selena New Shoes….Oh Noooos

Swimming in Mt. Baker Lake…brrrr

Selena and her big shoes

Yeah pretty much haven’t had a summer yet and I’m itching for a vaca.

Selena Update:

From August 2011

She is talking like crazy, new words all the time and she’s like a parrot so I have to be careful

She’s trying to climb out of her crib and she’s 17 months. I think it’s still too young to move her to a toddler bed, not sure what to do. Maybe I can pad her entire bedroom floor in case she falls….hahah that would be fun and almost enticing to jump.

She gives us big hugs and kisses and says, “lub you.”

She is what we all call a “doer” and is ready for action.

She doesn’t really play with toys, she would rather engage with us. She does like to color and sit and read magazines with us.

She has a farm house that she rides like a car, but doesn’t play with it.

In other news

We have our initial blueprint for our house redesign….we’ll see how our estimates change and if we can even do what we would like to do.

Here’s a link to our blueprint.

Peter is going “man” camping this weekend and I’ll be hanging with granny.

More pics and video to come this weekend.

Griffy was missing for an entire month, but he made it home weighing only 8 pounds. I guess his “diet vacation” wasn’t very eventful. The vet said he probably hid somewhere….he looked alright for being missing for a month, no cat fights, no fleas (so far) and no dehydration.

Welcome back buddy!

In other news…we had field passes for the Sounders game (from our fiasco at the Saints game) and it was awesome. We had to watch what we yelled because they could actually hear us (we still didn’t watch what we yelled).

So our table came with free food and booze….yea free booze during a soccer game…again it was awesome.

Strawberry Fields Forever

Ok so I’m actually kind of sick of eating fresh strawberries…..I know, I know. I can’t believe I said that.

We went strawberry picking and I now realize why more people pick blueberries. You can actually stand when you pick blueberries. It was still fun and I had to work for my food

And now for some video

And more video…

In other news

We’re going to hire someone to do renovation plans for us, then we’ll get quotes again from a few contractors we’ve been working with and we’ll decide to renovate our house or not…hmmm.

This weekend is the 4th of July and I plan to do much of nothing. Life is great and sometimes I just need to slow down.

In any case I’ve been missing brass bands. Gone are the days of waking up to brass bands outside my window. There’s no place like home, but Seattle will do for now.

Griffy has been missing for over three weeks

I hope he comes home. We’ve had Griffy for 9 years. I miss the little fuzzball. If you have any advice on how to catch a cat, let us know. We’ve handed out fliers and talked to neighbors. We had a sighting this past week but he ran

I finally got crawfish!!!!

We went to an LSU alumni crawfish boil here in Seattle and man was it excellent!

Selena wouldn’t eat any and was scared of the live crawfish. I can’t blame her, those little pinchers can hurt. I’ll try to feed her crawfish at the Tulane alumni crawfish boil in two weeks.

Selena wants to go to LSU…

Selena Update

She had her 15 month appointment last week and weighs 21 pounds and is 2 feet 6.7 inches.

She talks a lot and is feisty and stubborn (nice combo). Ha. She keeps us running around.

I painted my toenails the other day and Selena wanted her toes painted and she actually sat still.

When Selena is hungry or wants a bite, she does the following:

Selena’s first sunburn

I tried to introduce her to painting and man was it a mess. Hahahahah.

Here are some of our favorite pics.