New Orleans, May 2011 trip!

Jase chillin' on the plane, watching a movie on the iPod

I haven't been back home to visit in just over 2 years. Last time I was there, I was able to see one of my dear high school friends (Maria) get married! Yay! Seems like I am never there long enough, and I cry my eyes out when I leave. Reuben had too much work going on, so I took myself and the boys, along with my mom (big help to me on the plane!) down for about 7.5 days. I had to make a deal with my mom to get her to stay that extra day bc she works full time and it is hard on her to leave. I wanted to stay more like 10 days, but I was terrified of flying alone with the boys. Jase ended up being really good on the plane, but Ian, as expected, was very restless and fussy. This is mostly due to the fact that I don't rock my babies to sleep, so they are not used to being held while falling asleep. Works great for when you are home, but not so great on a plane! Ha! My mom finally pinned Ian down and he yelled for about 2 minutes, then went out like a light. Hee hee. Problem solved. Anyway, I digress!

Jase swimming for the 1st time using floaties at Ashley's in-laws' pool. He would not get out of the pool! Ha!

I stayed with my sister, Ashley, who just had a baby boy 2 months prior, and my mom stayed with her cousin Rodney. She ran around and did her own thing, and so did I. However, we did meet up a few times to visit with my grammy, who fell and broke her hip last November (more on that later). We also met up to take the kids to Storyland (cute play area in New Orleans City Park that I actually played in as a child myself), Audubon Zoo, and once to meet up with my Grandpa Lucien (mother's dad), my Uncle Lucien (mom's brother) and Aunt Colleen and 2 of their kids for lunch. We also got stinkin' L-U-C-K-Y with the weather! The first 2 days were fairly warm (80 degrees and lots of humidity) but then cold front came through and the weather was more like 65! What! It was actually cool and I was wearing cardigans! Nuts! But I was happy about it except that we didn't really get to go swimming much due to the cold!

Me and my sister, Ashley (she favors her mom and I look more like our dad!)

Cousins Jazz & Jase at the rehab facility visiting Grammy

Jaxon and big sister, Jazz--visiting Grammy

I had the chance to meet up with my old high school buddies at Maria's house. She got us takeout from a place called "Zea's" and I'll never be the same! It was delicious! We had a good time hanging out (also flew by) and letting our kids play. I love that we are still good friends after all these years. I just feel so sad that I don't get to see them more often. Thank goodness for Facebook, bc that helps me keep tabs on them a little bit better than in the past!

Ian, Amiee, Laci & Maria (High School friends), Max

Overall it was a GREAT trip, except for the fact that Jase and his cousin Jazzmyn fought like cats and dogs. Oh my goodness. My sister and I were at our wits end with it all. They would purposefully tease and torment each other with a few shining moments of getting along...Oh and I forgot to mention it took about 2 full days to get Ian to adjust. He would not sleep well for naps at first and then just cry and cry. But after the 3rd day he was fine! Phew!

Ian playing on Aunt Ashley's porch

The other thing that is hard for me when I go back to Louisiana is trying to see everyone and do everything and fit it all in. It's nuts. I feel crazy. I cry a lot. I feel like I am hurting people's feelings all the time bc I can't see everyone when I am there (still have plenty of family in the area). My sister lives a good hour's drive from New Orleans (which is mainly where everyone is at except my dad, thank goodness), so it makes it more difficult with the drive time, traffic, and not to mention two 3 year olds (Jase and Jazzmyn), a 1 yr old (Ian), and her 2.5 month old baby (Jaxon). Coo-coo town!!!! I get so wrapped up with making everyone happy that I just break down. And my poor sister is like Amiee's Shuttle Service! It's like I just want a normal day where I can just chill and do nothing. Or have nothing scheduled to do. But then again, I do like seeing people and visiting! I think my main problem was that in order to prevent us from having the long drive into the city, I would schedule as much as I could with family/friends during the day and that is what made it tough. I felt rushed from thing to thing to thing, instead of being able to just relax and thoroughly enjoy my time. I will try to remember this for next time I come down. I will probably need to rent a car and stay for a month! LOL!

My mom with Ian in front of the Little Pigs' House at Storyland in City Park, NOLA

Jasey with one of the 3 Little Pigs at Storyland, hee hee

My sweetie niece with Snow White!

So I mentioned my grammy earlier in this post. She fell and broke her hip last Nov. and is 89 years old. Since then, she has been in and out of a rehab facility and the hospital. She'll be doing just fine, but then all of a sudden something will happen and she'll be whisked back to the hospital. Recently while at the rehab place, she fell AGAIN, which has hindered all the progress she had been making. It was so good to see her, but tough emotionally at the same time. I hated seeing her in that lonely rehab place. I hoped the staff was treating her well. I am really close to her and I have never seen her this weak and frail, wheelchair bound. The great thing is that she is still of sound mind, so you can still talk to her just like normal.  She had also never met Ian, so this was a big deal for me as well. Although she had a hard time seeing him due to her cataracts--so I held him up to her face really close, LOL, so she could get a good look at him :) I visited her as much as I could while I was there (she was also in the big city), so that was difficult as well with 4 children.

Hopefully learning some wisdom from his Great Grammy!

A couple days before we left she started complaining of not feeling well. Back to the hospital. My sister sat in the car with the children while mom and I went up. I was not prepared for the emotions that followed. She looked just miserable. I thought surely she was going to die that very night. I did. She was hard to understand bc she had an oxygen mask on due to not being able to breathe very well. Turns out she had pnemonia (sp?). I tried to find the words to say since I thought it was very likely that this would be the last time I'd see her on this earth, since who knows when I could come back? I think I sputtered out something about how much I love her, and I'm sorry she was feeling so badly, and I'm so glad I got to see her...then the tears came. I couldn't stop crying. Ugh. I left feeling just, well, sad. I left the day after that, and she was eating well, in good spirits, and had come through the whole sickness thing! What! I couldn't believe it. But my dad and sis tell me that she has been there many times, and always bounces right back! Guess the Good Lord isn't ready to take her just yet! I'm glad I got to see her and get some much needed pictures with her and also with my boys! I have so many more pictures to post...and some of the best shots are on my mom's camera and Ashley's camera! One day I will get them! Oh and I am missing pictures with so many people! What is wrong with my brain? Dad! Did we take any pictures with you??? OMG so dumb! Ha ha ha! 

Easter 2011

Jase & Ian with the Easter Bunny!

Check out Ian's face--this is the picture I took first, so I had just put him there, heh heh

We took the boys to both of their first official easter egg hunts. We (Reuben would like to point out that it was my fault we were late) missed the first one by a few seconds...so luckily the next town over was having theirs in just a few more minutes. We hopped (no pun intended!) into the car and drove over there asap! I learned quite a lot about community easter egg hunts (I have no memory of them from my childhood). There are like 5 billion people and children there. They have plenty of eggs that just sit in the grass (in plain view--for some reason I was thinking that these eggs would be a bit more hidden), they section off areas of the grass by  age groups which is nice (until you get the crazy parents that are running around picking up eggs FOR the kids that are old enough to pick up their own eggs, grrr), from the time they say "go" till all the eggs are picked up is literally about 60 seconds. No joke. You blink and it's over! But it's lots of fun and the Easter bunny was there. Ian was very wary of him, as was Jase. But at least I was able to snap a couple pics! 

The Loot!

 We had an interesting thing happen during the hunt. This place had a few golden eggs that contained $5. Before the hunt began, we spotted one and showed Jase where it was and told him to try and get it--but if he didn't that was ok, too. Good thing I said that because this one crazy mom RUNS over to the golden egg and literally hovers over it, yelling for her kid to come and get it. She got there like 2 seconds before Jase did (and was using her body to keep Jase away--the nerve!) and of course Jase totally loses it (bawling) bc that is the egg he wanted. Oh my goodness. I was recording at the time and can't post it bc my hubby said some non-kid friendly words! LOL. I felt so bad for Jasey and I was irritated that that lady would do such a thing and keep other kids from getting the eggs. The easter egg hunt is for KIDS, not their parents. Anyway, we got over it quickly without any confrontations happening, hahaha. It was still a fun day!

Bah! Sunshine in my face! Hat was a bit too small :)

Ian's 1 year Stats

Technically now Ian is almost 14 months old! But I took him in for his 1 yr well visit at 12.5 months. Here's the lowdown:

Ian about 13 months old

Head Size: 18.1 inches, 34th percentile
Weight: 22.7 lbs, 44th percentile
Height: 30.4 inches, 64th percentile

So our little guy is roughly average sized for his height & weight! I think Jase was much bigger than Ian at this age (I'll have to look back and double check but I'm pretty sure). Even though he's now almost 14 months, here's some things he's been doing lately...

He is awesome fast at crawling around (used to be army crawling but just recently during our trip to New Orleans started "regular" crawling). He can also pull himself to standing on anything...and he can hold onto stuff and walk around the edges of furniture. He will also balance standing up for a few seconds before falling. He will take steps if you hold both of his hands and walk with him, but he has yet to try walking on his own (without holding onto anything).  He loves to crawl over and through objects, like chairs, boxes, etc--almost like an obstacle course, LOL! I have a really funny picture of him stuck hanging  from the rungs underneath our kitchen chair--I need to look for that! He says "mama, dada, yaya (he says yaya so much that I started calling him Yaya), uh-oh (he says this sooo cute), and just the other day he said "nana" for banana (his most favorite thing to eat).

He's making a funny face here! But you can kind of see his gap between his teeth.

He is in that super dooper picky stage of eating. Oh my goodness he won't eat hardly anything! And he has to put it in his own mouth (doesn't like to be spoon fed much). Sometimes I have to "force feed" him something I know he'll like just so he'll get the taste of it, and THEN he will eat it. Stubborn boy! Besides bananas, he loves Goldfish cheese crackers or those Annie's bunny crackers. His new thing to eat is peeled apple slices. Also yogurt.


His hair is blonde (def gets this from Roob), the top is straight and wispy and the sides are super curly. It is getting long but Reuben will NOT allow me to cut it! His eyes are still blue, but a deeper/greenish gray blue than Jase's ice blue color. I think they might turn officially hazel. His little teeth are still coming in. Right now he has 4 on the top and 4 on the bottom. Some molars are already cutting through as well (probably helps with the eating of apples). We found out that his frenulum (sp?) (skin that connects upper lip to gums) is rather long, so that is probably what is causing the gap in between his front teeth. According to the dentist, most likely he'll fall and tear this skin himself, but if not, by 2 years old they can snip it if they need to (ouch! poor baby). We shall see.