Louiiiiisiana!

As I mentioned in my last post, we just returned from an awesome week in Louisiana visiting Dennis' side of the family. His parents hadn't seen Charlie since he was 2 weeks old and the rest of his family hadn't ever met him. Charlie was definitely a charmer throughout the entire trip... he LOVES everyone. We had a great time seeing all of the family and it was so nice to be able to introduce them to the little person that they've been bombarded with pictures of for the last 10 and a half months!

We spent most of our time eating all of our favorite foods that we've missed for SO long.... Lee's burgers, roast beef po'boys, shrimp po'boys, crawfish, snowballs (which I had forgotten how amazing they were and are a BAZILLION times better than Hawaii Shave Ice), daiquiris, and even beignets at Cafe Du Monde in the French Market... it was all amazing.

Here are some photos from our trip down to the French Market:









Beignets! Soooooooooo yummy!












I took this next photo to hang in our dining room when we get settled in Connecticut. It's a composite of 4 photos that I merged together to make a panoramic of the cathedral in Jackson Square. I can't wait to blow it up and have it framed!


On Father's Day we had a crawfish boil...it's been a LONG 5 years since Dennis and I were in Louisiana during crawfish season. We've definitely been missing out!















Dennis made me take this photo for my mom because she asked us before we left if we were going to suck the heads of the crawfish when we ate them. 5 years ago...NEVER would I have even tried it. Now... absolutely! Turns out that's where all the flavor is! Unfortunately, I'm always the one behind the camera and there were no clean enough hands to prove that I did it so this photo of Dennis will have to suffice!



I took some photos later in the afternoon of Dennis and Charlie with Dennis' dad and brother...





Charlie and his PawPaw


Uncle Dillon






Charlie and his Mimi



While we were in town we finally at the opportunity to meet (and photograph!) Dennis' cousin's AMAZING three year old daughter, Hailey.


you can read about that here:

http://laurenksandersphotography.blogspot.com/2011/06/hailey-and-family.html




Louisiana may not be "home" to me but it definitely has a special place in my heart and I can't wait until we can make another trip down there! To ALL of Dennis' family and friends that have completely and totally welcomed me into their lives and accepted me as family, even after spending the last 5 years living SO far away, Thank you. I love you all and I'm SO glad Charlie has such an amazing extended family!

We finally left the rock!

SOOOO much has happened in the last month!
Threw weeks ago, we FINALLY left Hawaii and are back on the mainland and it is absolutely wonderful! There was a surprise waiting for him in the backyard when we got to Virginia...
Grandpa had built him a swing set with his name on it!

Charlie LOVES swinging!






We took Charlie to Chuck E. Cheese for the first time where we met his friends Mikey and Gunnar. Three year old Mikey who is OBSESSED with Spiderman, came dressed in none other than a spiderman costume... Charlie hung out with Gunnar at the table and played with balloons, lollypops, and each others faces.




































The next day Mikey had a Spiderman themed third birthday party where the "real spiderman" made a guest appearance and Charlie got to take a picture with him!



We just got back to Virginia after visiting Charlie's Mimi and PawPaw (Dennis' parents) in Louisiana (I'll post about that later) and in the past 2 days, Charlie has been walking like crazy! He was taking steps here and there before we left, but now stands up on his own without holding onto anything and walks all over the place. His PawPaw said it must be from all that cajun food he ate down there.

He's also got 2 molars that have broken through on top and 2 molars that are about to break through on the bottom... that definitely makes for a grumpy little dude (but his mouth full of teeth is really cute!)

...coming up, our trip to Louisiana to visit Mimi and PawPaw!!!

Family Photos

As promised, here are few of our photos that we had taken in Kaneohe a few weeks ago.
I'm so surprised that there were so many with Charlie looking at the camera considering he was so all over the place that day! I can't wait to get settled into our home in Connecticut so I can frame some!

3 more weeks left!

Holy crap! We have just over THREE WEEKS left on the island! I seriously can't believe it...even more so I can't believe just how much we still have to do to prepare. Moving was so much easier before a baby was involved. I think my biggest anxiety comes from trying to figure out how I'm going to entertain Charlie our last week on the island while stuck in a hotel room without the help of Yo Gabba Gabba and all of his toys...and a baby gate to contain him! Not to mention, we just FINALLY got him in a routine of sleeping in his room by himself, now after the movers come, we're going to have to go at least a month and a half before we get his crib back! But, if we were able to survive dealing with crazy Charlie up until this point, we can survive anything...even a move across an entire ocean and continent!

Charlie has a mouth full of teeth now! I think 5 broke through in a matter of a week. I hope that when the time comes that we decide we want another child, God helps me to forget this teething process.

He's still not walking, although he's been cruising for a couple of months now. I honestly don't think he'll ever walk...as soon as he figures it out, he's just going to start running. Even when he's pushing his walker, he takes off like he's starting off in a marathon. But... he's never done anything slow so why am I even surprised?

We had family photos taken by another photographer on the island. I figured that maybe someone else would be able to grab his attention long enough for us to get a decent family photo. Who was I kidding? Charlie was all over the place looking everywhere but the camera. Here's a sneak peek of our session:




I've also started obsessively planning Charlie's first birthday party. I kept going back and forth about whether or not we'd even have one because we will just be settling in Connecticut and not knowing anyone. Ultimately, I decided that we've already missed entirely too much this last year (baby showers, friends and family meeting Charlie, etc) that we need to have a party, if anything just for Dennis and I to celebrate that we survived. That being said, what better theme to celebrate Charlie turning one than to have a monster-themed first birthday party! Our plan is to drive down to Virginia Beach on a Friday night when Dennis finishes at work, have the party that Saturday afternoon, and head back to Connecticut on Sunday morning. It's going to be crazy, and we're going to be exhausted...but he'll only turn one once!

Here are a few photos of Charlie I took a few of weeks ago..




and one that Dennis took: