As the song by Jack Johnson goes, "It's always better when we're together."

Monday, April 20, 2015

Happy Birthday, Nate!

Our smart, sweet, and not so little anymore little boy turned four in March. He is growing up way too quickly for me, but I love to see the person he is becoming. This year it was all about the Legos. We have Legos everywhere in our house and it was only fitting that he have a Lego themed birthday party. 

We celebrated his birthday pretty low key here in Florida and then had his party a few weeks later in Alabama. We took Nate out to eat at Mitchell's Fish Market the day before his birthday because he wanted strawberries. Nate loves his strawberries and this is the only restaurant I have found that will serve him a side of nothing but strawberries. His birthday fell on a Monday this year and he requested that I cook Spaghetti-O's with meatballs as his birthday dinner. The poor guy came home from school on his big day feeling great, but by the time Matt got home he was very lethargic and refused to eat his Spaghetti-O's. He spiked a fever before bed and eventually ended up in our bed later in the night. I gave him some medicine to help with the fever and by Tuesday afternoon he was feeling better. However, the fever returned that evening and by Wednesday morning he had a lovely rash all over his body. Thankfully his 4 year old check up was scheduled for Wednesday morning so I went ahead and took him in to the doctor. Poor Nate was diagnosed with scarlet fever. Not exactly a fun bug to get on your birthday, but after the antibiotics kicked in he started feeling much better. Thankfully Abby did not come down with it and our household was quickly on the mend.

We had his party at my brother's house in Moody. I owe a huge thank you to Jeffery and Chanlee for allowing us to commandeer their house for a few hours! Unfortunately, it was cold and rainy, but the kids didn't seem to mind. They had a fun time playing indoors, eating cake and pizza, and playing with Legos. It was great to be around family and the kids were so excited to get to see each other. Here are a few pictures from the day:

Pizza!! Can you tell that Nate's favorite color is red? 

Opening presents with the cousins 

My birthday boy!

Nate and Matt trying to make his Hex Bug work. Abby is in the background taking a nose dive with her Nanny :-) 

Nate and his Hex Bug 

Abby had a great time pulling Noah's hair 

Nate's Lego cake courtesy of Publix 

What is a Lego cake without Lego candles?

Nate loves to blow out the candles! 

It is insanely hard to get a family photo with everyone looking at the camera these days...

We had a great time celebrating our little man. He is growing up so fast, but we are loving every minute of it!

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Hey baby, let's go to Vegas!

Back in February Matt and I were fortunate enough to travel to Las Vegas. He submitted a paper to a conference back in the fall and it was accepted. My sweet mom came to town to keep our little monkeys so that I could tag along. While Matt had several engagements he had to attend at the conference, we were still able to have a little time to venture out into the city and see some sights. We didn't have enough free time or cash to take in many of the popular Vegas shows, but that's okay! We'll just go back some other time. This was the first trip out there for both of us and we had a fun time checking out Vegas.

We stayed at the Encore. This was our view from our room. It was a super nice hotel!


Wednesday was our day to explore the city. We went to the mall first to try and find Matt a new pair of shoes. The sole decided to detach from his dress shoes after his first presentation! After shopping we at lunch at the Wynn buffet. We heard that when in Vegas you had to try a buffet. We headed back to the hotel for a quick nap before heading out to explore a little more. We walked through the Venetian and took in views of the gondolas.

,
I couldn't convince Matt to take a ride!

I like to watch the Food Network and I thought it might be fun to check out Bobby Flay's restaurant, Mesa Grill, while we were out there. We had dinner and it was pretty good. We had to meander through Caesar's Palace in order to find the restaurant, but it was a fun journey.

Us at Mesa Grill 

After dinner we wandered down the street where we saw the Eiffel Tower at Paris Las Vegas and the fountains at the Bellagio. It was really cool to see everything lit up at night. 



We were making our way to the one show we were able to see -- Britney! We caught a little grief over traveling to Vegas to see Britney, but whatever. She was in town, we were in town, why not go? It was a really fun show and the crowd was made up mostly of people our age. We really enjoyed it even though we were up way past our bedtime!


Here is a blurry picture of Matt presenting his research on Thursday. He did a great job! I wish my phone was better equipped to take pictures with the zoom!

 He even won an award for his presentation!!

We had a little free time Thursday afternoon so we decided to check out the wax museum. It was more fun than I expected! We took a ton of pictures, but I chose a few of my favorites to share.

Of course we had to have our picture made with Britney! 

I found my man, and he's really tall! 

This picture just makes me laugh!

It was a short, but fun trip. I've been telling Matt for years that we are going to Vegas to get our vows renewed by Elvis for our tenth anniversary. It's coming up next year. He thinks I'm kidding.......