Andi's Bachelorette Party

Last weekend I got to go out of town for two nights for Andi's Bachelorette Party!  This was the first time I was away from my girl overnight since she was a week old and strangely I wasn't that stressed about it at all.  Casey took great care of her and I had a blast having some girl time.

Friday afternoon we arrived in New Braunfels, grabbed lunch, and did some shopping around Gruene.

Then we had dinner at Huisache...

 The beautiful bride

 Group shot at Huisache

Then the next morning floating the river!

 

 

Then out in Austin for dinner

 The gorgeous bride and me!

7 Months

Sweet Pea is 7 months old!!

UPDATE:  
Height: Probably close to 27" now
Weight: about 16 lbs 12 oz
Head: still tiny, don't have an accurate measurement this month

Updates on our Ellie girl - not much has changed this month

• She is sitting up like a champ and doesn't even need a pillow behind her!  This is SO nice because I can let her play on the floor and get stuff done while she is playing without worrying.
• She JUST started eating puffs!  She is already getting pretty good at picking them up and putting them in her mouth on her own.  I am so proud!
• No more teeth, but she is drooling again like crazy so maybe a top tooth will come soon?
• Still super grabby, she loves to touch things!
• Ellie is a mover and a shaker!  Not only is she almost crawling, but she is a master butt scooter now. 
• Still loves the water and her bath time.  We still use the baby seat in the tub because we are too paranoid to just let her sit in the tub by herself.
• Her favorite foods are: Prunes, Pears, Apple-Blueberry sauce, Peas, Carrots, Sweet Potatoes, and she looooooves puffs.  Especially the sweet potato, blueberry, and apple strawberry ones. 
• She still has a hard time using a regular sippy cup, but she is getting the hang of it slowly but surely.  She can also drink straight from a cup now if I hold it for her.  This makes things very easy when we are out and she wants some of my water.
• She loves to bang things against the floor or table.  
• Homegirl is the shrieking queen.  She LOVES to scream as loud as possible and wait or our reaction.  Apparently this is a little girl thing?
• Eleanor is quite the singer.  Sometimes she will wake up from a nap or during the night and will sing to herself for a few minutes and go back to sleep.  It's so cute!
• Little girl is OBSESSED with toys.  Her favorite toy right now is one of her Ugly Dolls that we have dubbed "Franklin".  Usually Casey just makes up a silly name on the spot for each of her stuffed animals, but this one stuck while we were in New York.  

And last, but not least, here are the pics!

Ellie in NY or EleaNewYorker

Baby's First Trip to New York!

Forgive me for picture overload... Here we go!

On Thursday we flew in to LGA (LaGuardia) from IAH.  Ellie had a bit of a rough flight, but overall not too bad.  At almost 7 months old she is very active and does NOT like being constricted.  She would much rather be playing on the floor where she can roll around and sit up and then lay back down, etc.  Thursday night we went down to a local favorite The Cull House for dinner.  As always our eyes were much larger than our stomachs and we had tons of food we couldn't finish.  You can't get better lobster anywhere in my opinion.

On Friday it was a rainy day so we stayed around the house for most of the morning and then ventured out to Harbor Crab Company for lunch.  The food there was AWESOME.  My sister in law Katie and I shared a Tuna Wrap and some Lobster Bisque and both were AHH-MAZING.   After Harbor Crab we headed over to Blue Point Brewery for a little beer tasting.  Casey and I quickly realized that a brewery is not a great place to bring a baby.  Though this may seem like a no-brainer, C & I thought it was going to be more of a microbrewery/restaurant type atmosphere.  It was not.  It was a rowdy crowd of beer drinking New Yorkers and it was CROWDED.  We stayed for a little while and then luckily everyone was ready to go.  We headed home and ordered some pizza from a favorite spot, Mulberry Street (not THE Mulberry Street, but a restaurant with the same name).

Saturday was a BBQ at Aunt Lorie and Uncle Ed's house.  Here are some pics:

Ellie and her Pawpaw

 Our little family

 The guys playing Bocce

 Ellie, Grammy, and "Gr-aunt Lorie)

 The guys keeping it classy after Bocce...

 Aunt Katie and Eleanor

On Sunday morning we headed to Robert Moses beach park for Ellie's first beach trip.  Can you tell she was excited?

 Playing in the sand for the first time.  She loved it!  She also ate a handful or so..

 Mommy, Daddy, and Eleanor

 Feet in the Atlantic.  She loooooved the waves!

 Sunday afternoon we  went to Jeanette's for a 40th birthday BBQ.  Her birthday was in June so she waited to celebrate.  It was technically my birthday that day, but we had already celebrated on Friday night.  It was a little weird singing Happy Birthday to someone else on your own birthday though - haha.

Ellie and her bling

 Sisters!

 Casey with Ellie in the Ergo

And finally, on Monday we headed in to the city.  It was my dad's first time getting to actually spend time in the city (and not just drive through).  Here are the highlights!

Lunch at a deli, yum!

 Dad, Ellie, and me in Times Square

 Family photo with Ellie asleep in the Ergo.  Yes asleep.  In Times Square. Sheesh.

 B.B. King's

 We're on a boat!  We took the Boat Tour around the island

 City in the background

 Statue of Liberty!

The boat trip was SO cool.  Having been on the bus tour, I would still recommend that, but it was really cool getting to see the city from a different angle.  Seeing the Statue of Liberty up close was pretty amazing as well.  After the boat tour we headed back to Penn Station in a taxi and let me just tell you.. it was REALLY difficult for me to let Eleanor ride in my lap with no car seat.  It is LEGAL to do so, but it felt SO wrong.  I basically had my arms wrapped around her like a harness and I was flinching every time he hit the brake or accelerator suddenly (so yeah like the entire time).  At Penn Station we grabbed a drink and a black and white cookie and boarded the train back to Long Island.  Unfortunately we did not time our train home properly and we got on right at rush hour.  I barely got a seat and most of the family had to stand.  Ellie was good on the ride back and we all were pretty tired so we grabbed dinner to go at Boston Market and went to bed. 

Today we flew home and as usual it was bittersweet.  It always feels good to head home, but this time was different.  Casey had flown home the night before so he could go to work today (he ended up having to call in sick because his flight was delayed 4 hours) so we didn't get to say our normal goodbyes.  Also, since Aunt Lorie and Uncle Ed are moving to Texas soon we had to say goodbye to their house.  I. LOVE. their house.  It makes me sad to think that we won't ever get to sit out on the deck and have fruit and bagels for breakfast and talk about everything.  There's just something about that deck.  Oh well, having Aunt Lorie and Uncle Ed around more often will be so much better.  :)

Cousins

For those of you who don't know my family that well (all 3 of you), I am an only child, but I have a HUUUUUGE extended family.  Since my maternal grandfather was never really in the picture, my great Aunt and Uncle (Meme and Papaw) took over the role of my grandparents.  This means my 2nd cousins are more like brothers and sisters to me than cousins.  One cousin in particular, Jen, and I have always been super close.  We are 10 days apart in age and spent more time around each other growing up than anyone else.  We fought like sisters and now love each other like sisters.  Since she lives in Colorado now, we make sure to spend as much time together as possible anytime she is in Texas. 

This past weekend we got our kids together for a little cousin photoshoot and I LOVE some of the shots we got.  None of them are "perfect", but they show our crazy family's personality so well that it makes them perfect. 

Ab and Elle

 Cousins/Best Friends

 Rylan running away

 Almost everyone cooperating

 Mommy and Eleanor

4th of July!

Oops forgot to blog this before I left to go home to Longview:

For Ellie's 1st 4th of July we....

Took our first "complete" family photo:

 Dressed patriotically with Pop:

 Played with Daddy's hair:

 Watched Riley play in the pool:

 Swam with Mommy:

 Played with Grammy:

and stayed up WAAAAAAY past my bedtime.  Fireworks were going off like CRAZY in our new neighborhood (weird that we weren't the ones doing them this year).  Thank goodness our little girl is a heavy sleeper!

Eastex Ellie

We went home to Longview this weekend for 4 full days of family time. A lot of my family hasn't had a chance to meet Eleanor because we live in Houston so Ellie and I packed up and headed to East Texas for some family time.
Most of the weekend was spent with Ellie's PawPaw, but we still managed to see everyone on our list of people to visit. We arrived on Thursday and immediately headed up to my Dad's work to show Daddy's work friends the little lady they had all been hearing about. She was a big hit and loved being passed around to all of the ladies in the office. For dinner we went to one of Longview's 724,837 new restaurants ( my little hometown is blowing up!) Fish City Grill.
On Friday we got up and had lunch at an awesome Longview spot called "The Little Thai House" in downtown. After that my cousin Jennifer and I loaded up the kiddos and went out to see my grandparents. Meme and Papaw were so glad to meet Elle finally! After that we headed to Bubby and Jill's to meet the newest member of our family, little Jace. He is 6 months younger than Ellie and soooo sweet! It made me miss Eleanor as a newbie. We finally headed over to my Aunt Karen's for Pizza King (yum!) and then I met Lacy and Camden for some yogurt. What a packed day! Ellie was a champ and did so well. I was a proud mama!
On Saturday we got up and Mom came over to hang out. We got lunch at The Butcher Shop and then shopped for a little while. Saturday night was UFC Fight Night so after putting sweet Elle to bed I went back over to the Garner's to hang out with the family.

Sunday morning was cartoons with PawPaw and hanging out until Jen and I took my sweet God daughter Abby to go see Brave. It was SO cute and I can't wait for it to come out on DVD!
Sunday afternoon we did some quick family photos and then back to Pizza King for dinner. I can't get enough of that place when I'm home!

Today Daddy and I met Uncle Hollis, Aunt Jeanne, and Aunt Patti for lunch in Kilgore and had a nice visit. Aunt Jeanne brought us tons of cucumbers from her garden and I am not sure what I'm going to do with all of them. Pinterest here I come!

After lunch and packing up we said our goodbyes and got on the road. Of course and Etex trip wouldn't be complete without a stop through Nac to see Auntie Lean (my best friend Leigh Anne) so we stopped at The Frozen Goat for some delicious yogurt.

Although we hit some bad weather in Lufkin, the drive really wasn't that bad. I had an AWESOME copilot -Shout Out to Elle for being a great baby and not crying the entire road trip home! It feels good to be home, but I'm already homesick for Longview a little. I may say that I'll never move back but I sure do miss my family.




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