new orleans weekend

back november, for my birthday, rett gave me saints tickets! i was soo excited. i've never been to a saints game. well, it's probably the last one i'll ever attend since they lost :( oh well, we had a blast anyway! we left saturday morning, dropped olivia off in the 'boro at gg and pops and headed down. saturday night we just went down to the quarter for dinner and to find me a tshirt to wear to the game. surely, that wouldn't be hard. WRONG! we came to the conclusion that to be officially licensed it had to say "saints". all you could find down in the quarter were "ghetto" shirts. they all said "who dat" or had players names and numbers. so, bummer. no shirt on saturday night. ok, no biggie, we'll just get up early to go find one before the game. sunday morning we got up and went to the "mall" (the place connected to the hilton) for beneigts at cafe du monde (i know, we never go to the original anymore; it's so much quicker just to go to the "mall"!!) after beneigts we went to this sports shop in the "mall" that had TONS of legit saints gear. OMG, how hard is it for stores to order medium tshirts! the only shirt they had in a medium was simple enough, it just had brees and the number 9 on the back. so, i bought it b/c i really didn't have an option. i hope brees is there a while so i can get some use out of this shirt! then, on to the game. it was great! until we lost. after that we headed to maspero's for an early dinner and then to pat o's. we called it early both nights to catch up on some sleep that we both needed badly! you know you're old when you're in bed by 10 pm in new orleans! ha! enjoy the pics from the game!
this last picture has a story. if you've ever been to bourbon street then you've seen this man. he was "posing" in the middle of the road. rett was walking just a tad in front of me. i saw the "statue" and thought to myself "wonder if he'll get rett?" well, he did. and it scared the crap out of rett! it was too funny. after the hoopla rett admited that he thought it was a real statue and was wondering what the bucket in front of it was for! too funny! we gave the man some money and continued on our way. a little way up the road was another "statue". this one was a white girl dressed as an angel. rett goes, "why couldn't the hot white girl get me?" maybe next time!



edit: monday morning as i was getting dressed rett went back to the "mall" to get more beneigts and saw urban meyer in the lobby! he didn't take a picture but oh well. to each his own! if it had been me i'd have walked right up to him and introduced myself before asking for the photo op! he also saw some players but no tim tebow. i hung around in the lobby while rett was checking out to see if i'd see anyone i recognized but no such luck. rett assured me that i probably wouldn't see tim tebow hanging out in the lobby but one can always wish!

santa was sooo good!

it's LATE and i still have to do a load of laundry, finish cleaning the house and then pack for our trip to new orleans tomorrow. so, this will be quick. we had a GREAT Christmas today! olivia didn't "get it" but it was still fun. we woke up to santa presents and then jackie, jenny, john, mom and dad came over for our traditional breakfast. then, we opened more presents and played, played, played. tonight we went to monroe to brock's parent's house. that was fun too! enjoy these sweet pics of olivia's first Christmas!

look what santa brought!

olivia with her santa presents

mom and dad loved their present from the 3j's!

reading her new book with daddy and gg

testing the new high chair!

i got this santa when i was 2 or 3 years old. i've loved it ever since and now it will be olivia's!

happy girl!

with santa again

playing with brintley's toys at bud and joni's

in her other set of christmas pj's!

christmas eve

we've had quite a busy day! olivia was up from 11:30 pm last night until 4:30 am this morning. finally, at 4 am we took her temp and it was 101.something. sooo, off to the bathroom in the dark to find the tylenol. i went back and forth about what to do and decided to hold off on anything until the sun came up. she was asleep by 4:30 am (thank you tylenol) so rett and i finally got a few hours of shut eye. i woke at 7 am to shower and get ready to head to the 'boro. olivia seemed to be in better spirits so we dressed and got out the door before 10. that's close to a record for us! we got to the 'boro and ate and hung out all day. by the end of the day olivia had had enough. all of the people and presents - whew! she was wiped out. so we loaded up and headed back to ruston. once back we took her temp again and it was still 101.something. i called a friend of ours who is a nurse and her husband is an ER doc. they assured me that this was nothing to be alarmed by unless we noticed a big spike in a short amount of time. so, we're here and alternating tylenol and motrin every 4-6 hours...around.the.clock. merry christmas to us! on a good note - we had a great time today at gg and pop's! thanks for the great gumbo and for olivia's new toys. she loves them! all of the below pics were taken today - olivia's first christmas eve!
now, we're all anxiously awaiting santa claus!!

practice makes perfect

we broke out the new fancy canon rebel tonight for practice. i hope to learn enough to really get some use out of this camera. enjoy!

tis the season

omg. where has this month gone? this time of year is just soo busy. last week alone i didn't get home any night until at least 8:30; most were more like 9:30-10. so, needless to say, the blog has been neglected. let me try to catch you up now!

olivia likes to "scoot" backwards and in circles. she can occasionaly get her knees under her but can't quite figure out the whole crawling thing. the other day i heard her crying when i got out of the shower and walked in the living room to find this...

she had scooted under the chair! now, i realize i probably shouldn't leave my child unsupervised while i shower but when your by yourself you do what works. and, it did work, until she got stuck under the chair! ha!

she turned 7 months old last tuesday. she just keeps getting older right before my eyes!

we introduced the sippy cup last week. she LOVED chewing on the spout but didn't figure out the sippy function... oh well. we'll keep trying!

we went to ms this weekend to do christmas with rett's grandmother. i'm a terrible mother and didn't take the first photo of olivia's first christmas experience. shoot me. i'll do better on the actual day. i promise. on the way home we had to stop and feed her. she, again, told me she wanted to drive. so we let her!

we are FINALLY getting into the christmas spirit around here. oh, don't worry, i've been feeling the christmas spirit all over. i just haven't brought that to our house yet, until last night! we FINALLY got our tree up. sad, i know. i even had a fleeting thought that i wouldn't do one this year. but, then i thought that a child's first christmas MUST include a tree. so, up the tree went. i'm not at all happy with it. not enough lights and not nearly enough ornaments (i only put half of my ornaments on it)... i'm swearing to do better next year.

olivia finally met THE big man. i think she liked him. she's actually met him 3 times this year! my mom took her on her 7 month bday. we took her the next day for the "official" photo and then daycare surprised me with a picture of her with santa. he went to the daycare! here's the official photo. the quality is not great. i had to take a picture of the picture. when will santa get with the times and sell you a digital file???

and this picture i took with my camera from outside the "set". the 'ol point and shoot didn't quite get the job done.

we recently inherited a nice canon rebel. soo, i finally went and got a lens for it and now we can start taking real pictures! get ready to see a lot, i'm going to start practicing over christmas.

that should catch you up on everything! have a merry christmas!!!

merry christmas!

i just love the holiday season. the highlight of my day (besides seeing my precious olivia) is checking the mail. i LOVE getting christmas cards! our cards went in the mail today so i'm probably spoiling this for some, but oh well! consider this your warning! if you know you're on my christmas card list then do not look at this picture! here's our card this year. i just love it! what do your cards look like this year?this was our first year to do a picture card. i just always felt dumb doing it before we had kids. i figured no one wanted a picture of just me and rett! i think we're pretty and fun to look at though! now that we have olivia i'm looking forward to taking family photos every year for our card.

rett's in arkansas this weekend on a duck hunt with the boys. soooo, olivia and i have a full weekend planned. tomorrow she has to get her 6 month shots. i know, we're late. but, b/c of the rsv i had to put them off. then, on to monroe to see SANTA! i can't wait to see how she reacts to him! tomorrow night we're going to the lady techster game with emery and possibly hudson. sunday i'm hoping to get our christmas tree up. sad, i know. i debated about whether or not to put it up but then decided that it's olivia's first christmas and i'd never forgive myself for not getting her picture in front of it. so, the tree will go up this weekend, come hell or high water.

this is a pretty random post. i'm sorry. i get bored when rett's not here! :) hope everyone has a great weekend!

i'll leave you with a few more shots that are blow-up worthy! all photos by crysal garcia - http://www.crystalgarcia.com/ she's great! mom and/or dad - if you're reading this stop now or you'll ruin your christmas present!

merry christmas!

edit

edit to the last post...

the racers mentioned below did not finish in the 1,000's of all the finishers. they finished in the 3,000's. which is still AWESOME! 50th percentile! way to go guys!

i knew it didn't sound right when i posted it but i couldn't figure out why!

and because i screwed up i'll leave you with a picture that i just LOVE...

memphis, 2009

WARNING - PICTURE OVERLOAD. but, hey, if you read my blog you know that's about every post...

what a great weekend we had! we left thursday morning, dropped olivia off in winnsboro and headed to memphis. rett, jackie, john (jenny's husband) and emily pullin were running in the st. jude half marathon. this was their first one and it was a huge success! my parents brought olivia to us friday night so she could be there to see her daddy finish his first big race! here's a recap of our weekend.

we got to memphis late thursday (7ish - later than planned) so rett didn't get to "check-in" that night. so, we went to beale street for some adult time. jenny and john met us at silky o's and a few drinks and some dueling pianos later, it was time for bed!

friday was a PACKED day. we got up early so rett could check-in for the race. we got there about 10:30 b/c rett SWORE they opened at 10. wrong! they opened at 11; so, we killed time until 11. after that we headed to graceland. yes, graceland. i wanted to do this b/c i remembered it being huge and grand and awesome. it's actually none of those things. it's a somewhat modest house with terrible decor. oh well. we made the best of it!then on to lunch at huey's with jenny, john, jackie and brock, and then to sun studios. elvis and johnny cash recorded here. i'm sure others have to but we skipped the tour so i can't tell you any of them. friday night after my parents arrived with child in tow we had dinner at mcewan's. we could only get a table in the wine cellar - no problem with that! olivia had her first lemon! she loved it. wanted more. couldn't get enough!saturday was race day. the alarm went off at 5:30. that's way too early for me. but, in order to get ourselves and child ready to leave by 6:45 that's what we had to do. we met up with the whole group in the lobby of jackie's hotel. the racer's lined up and we headed to the start line. after watching them cross the start line we dashed over to the mile 3 marker on beale street. brock and matt headed to the mile 10 marker to see them further in the race. then to the finish line. everyone did great! they all finished right at the 2:20 mark, within 2 minutes of each other. they were all in the 1,000's of over 6,000 finishers. that's awesome!

after the race rett, olivia and i headed to germantown to the comissiary. GO THERE NEXT TIME YOU'RE IN MEMPHIS. it's a whole in the wall that matt suggested. we found it and loved it.

while there we got a text that BROCK FINALLY PROPOSED TO JACKIE!!! they're looking at a may wedding.

saturday night was a family dinner at the butcher shop. sorry, no pics.

sunday we were slow to get moving but oh well. we headed to the KD national headquarters. took olivia's picture and then headed home. she told us she wanted to drive so i was going to let her but she couldn't reach the pedals!

we had a great trip and can't wait for next year!