Pool Time and Party Planning!

Grandpa and Grandma bought Charlie a pool for the backyard and he absolutely LOVES the water...did you expect anything less from a baby born in Hawaii!? Here are some shots from yesterday afternoon:

We are having Charlie's monster themed first birthday party a couple of weeks before his actual birthday so we can celebrate with our family and friends before we head up to Connecticut. I found a few invitations that I loved on etsy.com so I created my own in photoshop to use for Charlie's party. Here's a peek! (without the date and address of course!)

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!