The Big Easy

We had a great weekend in New Orleans!  We took off from Montgomery as soon as Aaron got off work and were blessed with a sleepy baby the entire way there!  On the drive we got the scoop on the restaurants we HAD to eat at (from Nana and Grandpa Dave).  Our hotel was just a block from Bourbon street in the heart of the French Quarter so we walked everywhere and tried to do as much sight seeing as possible in 2 days!

Breakfast and Cafe Du Monde, mmm Beignets!

 Our hotel pool was like bath water so we made sure to take Marek swimming both days and as usual he loved it!

We took a mule drawn carriage ride tour of the French Quarter and a walking ghosts of New Orleans tour, but we mostly just ate a lot!

We wandered the French Market next to the Mississippi looking for fried oyster po' boys (as instructed) and found a cute Saints outfit for Marek.  The football fans were out in full force this weekend, LSU played Alabama on Saturday and the Saints played the Eagles on Monday, so he got a lot of comments on his suit!

Who Dat?

Mmmm Toes!

During our ghosts tour we stopped by the oldest bar in North America for a quick drink and the waitress thought it was funny enough that the baby was with us that she took a picture and texted it to us.  Marek jut wanted to chew on the wooden bar...

This weekend Marek started making word sounds instead of just squeals, its amazing how fast time goes!  We miss you all and wish this could have been a family trip!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween in Alabama is a little different than home...  The fairies and princesses don't wear snow suits over their costumes here, and people sit in their front yards and on their porches while they hand out candy instead of hiding inside the entryway.  People go all out decorating too, blow up ghosts and orange Christmas lights galore!

The base had a little festival before trick or treating with hotdogs, bouncy castles and of course pony rides, which I couldn't turn down.  Marek was as chill about the pony ride as he is about everything... At one point he looked at me like "doesn't this thing go any faster?" meanwhile I was jogging along side of him trying to keep up!  All the other little kids riding the ponies kept turning around and talking about how cool it was that there was a baby riding, it was pretty funny.

I think I got the slow pony...

 We went trick or treating for pumpkin photo ops after the festival.  The high ranking officer base housing here is so beautiful!  The houses all look like old plantation homes and were decorated really fun.  We found a few pumpkins and decorations to get him to pose with before he decided he'd had enough.

In other news he got his second tooth this morning!  He was patient with me trying to take pictures but they are just tooth nubs so they're not very easy to photograph...   It turns out his cousin Hunter just lost two teeth this week so maybe the tooth fairy has started recycling?

We've attempted a few rounds of rice cereal.  We're 1 for 3 right now, most of the time this is his reaction.  (He reminds me of his Aunt Maggie doing her Liger impression.)

He also went to his first football game the other night.   (Well, his first intramural flag football / ultimate Frisbee game.)  Aaron had to go for school so we tagged along and watched with some of the other family members that are here.

This last one is just a sweet picture.  I know I'm a little biased but I think he's pretty darn cute!

We're off to New Orleans this weekend so I'll try and get some good ones of him making his way down Bourbon Street!  By the time we get home he's going to be a very well traveled baby!

Hi From Alabama!

Sorry this first post is so late in coming!  We've been busy getting settled in Montgomery and just about the time we got settled we took off for a weekend at the beach!

I apologize to any non-grandmas in advance, there are a lot of photos of little M here and you probably don't care to see as many as they do, so sorry, feel free to scan thru quickly!

One of the first things we did when we got here was got M and new potty, just like his one at home, he's happy.  I'm pretty sure the maid thinks we're nuts but thats OK.

Aaron has to do a bit of homework, so most nights look like this.  Marek really likes country music, especially Zac Brown Band, so Dad does homework and bounces M while he listens to his tunes and I sing and cook.  It's a good system. 

We love our new stroller!  Marek has gone for a run in it every day since we got here and most days we take him for a walk too.  This is a nice base because it is small and we can walk everywhere.  Most days Aaron walks or runs to work so we can have the car but some days he drives and we walk over later and pick it up so M and I can sleep in (he's still sleeping 10-11 hrs a night!)

He face planted the other day and scraped up his nose but this is a great pic of his new tooth!  I'm pretty sure the one next to it will be here any day now, until then we expect lots of whining and drooling...

He's finally enjoying tummy time, he does a lot of super mans, and a few push ups.

Aaron and I take turns feeding him because he is a PAIN!  He doesn't want to eat at all lately, but then acts starved... its tiring...  We eventually get all his bottles down but it takes a lot of time.

Panama City Beach was great except for getting hives all over my body...  I seem to finally have them in check after double dosing zertec and benedryl and lots of hydrocortisone.  Hopefully they don't come back any time soon.

We got to take M to our favorite bar from back in Aaron's dive school days, Tootsies!  We had lunch there and then went back in the evening to listen to a live country band.  He loved the band and loved looking around at all the stuff hanging on the wall.  All the ladies at the bar loved him too and wanted to come meet him.  He's a very popular baby.

The road trip went OK but just OK.  It was about a 3 hr drive and convinced us that attempting a 12 hr drive to Oklahoma City for Thanksgiving would be suicide.  We booked tickets to fly today and will be staying with Aaron's Uncle Kevin for the weekend.

We survived the 3 hr drive with lots of toys, country music and one of the two of us sitting in the back seat with him entertaining him full time!

If you can tell by the look on his face he is not amused...

Here are some beach/swimming pics. 

Dad finally got to swim with his boy again!

Snuggles in the hot tub

First time with his toes in the sand

First time with his toes in the water

Family photo op

I'll try and update this more often so that there wont be such an over load of photos at once next time!

I'm going to text you guys the link to the blog and any time you want to check it you can just go to the site but I'll try and text you each time I update it.

If you want to leave a comment below you can by either signing on to your gmail account or leaving one anonymously and signing your name.

Love you guys and miss you!

Monumental News!

A while back I got Marek a potty....

This Is how he felt about his potty for a long time so it just sat there....

Then he started getting diaper rash from his nasty new formula poo so I read more in the book Chad and Kara gave us and started doing a lot of this....

Eventually he was pretty cool with sitting on it, as long as he had dumbo...

Laid back, with my mind on my $ and my $ on my mind.

And then this happened...

Holy crap!

Just some pretty pics