Happy Birthday, Slade!!

 at Gymboree

 Elmo Bday cupcakes

 enjoying his cupcake :-) Yummy!

 Camryn and Gavin at Luke's party

Slade and Aunt Kim at Luke's party

Slade turned 2 on August 17th!! He started out his day by going to hang out with his pals at Gymboree! He loves playing there and during parachute time everyone sang Happy Birthday! :-) His teacher blew extra birthday bubbles Slade's way too! Awesome!! Gavin helped me make Slade's Elmo cupcakes. I baked them and Gav decorated them. He did great! Slade loves Elmo and he really enjoyed his cupcakes as much as Gavin did making them. :-) After we picked up big bro from school we took Slade for a trip to ToysRUs then we all went out to dinner. Everyone loves that! The next day was Luke's bday party; so I threw in a couple pics from that. Not sure how I managed not to get one of Luke...??

Back To School!

 Gav on his way to his first day of 2nd grade!

Gavin is in 2nd grade and he is at St. Laurence this year. He was so excited to meet new friends at his new school! We are very proud of him; he's doing well. Things are a lot different at St. Laurence compared to his old school. He has more homework that's a bit of a challenge; which is great! He also has more auxiliary classes. They have two per day of the following they attend every other day: Spanish, Art, PE, Computer and Music. Art is his favorite and he also likes that they have to leave his classroom in order to attend those classes and have a different teacher. They go to Mass on Fridays and have Religion everyday. Part of their Spanish curriculum is learning their prayers in Spanish. This year Gavin will be receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation and First Holy Communion. He also recently joined the Chess club at school and loves it! The club was open to the entire school; so Gavin thinks it's neat to have 8th graders in there with him. They meet once a week and play chess. :-) He's still involved in karate and soccer starts soon; so he is busy, busy, busy! Go Gav! We are very proud of him; he doing awesome!

Summer Vaca in the ATL

This summer Gavin asked if we could visit Atlanta, GA. He found out about the awesome aquarium... I guess Google told him. ;-) We flew to Atlanta and Gavin always does well on flights, but Slade... He was a mess on the way there. Not a screaming mess; just a squirmy/whiny one. We made it though and had a blast while visiting Atlanta!

 Gav enjoying the flight to Atlanta

Beluga whales

 Gavin and Slade loved watching the Beluga whales swim.

 They get very excited when children get close to the glass. The whales really put on a good show and pulled out all their fancy tricks when all the children moved in for a closer look. Belugas love attention.

 Gavin was trying to identify all the marine life in the aquarium; so he could check it off his manual.

 Japanese Spider Crab

 Stingray and baby sharks - You can touch them if you want.

 Sawfish

 Look how big that Whale shark is compared to all the rest of the fish... They had 2 of them and they are awesome!

 Slade loved the fishies

 Guitar fish

 Manta Rays

 Whale sharks

 Cute dolphin painted sculpture at the entrance of the Aquarium. It's wearing a Falcons jersey and the players autographed it. We thought that was cool of them.

 World of Coca-Cola

 Look at him... he's just gotta know everything! Go Gav

 Since Art and I used to live in Atlanta; there were a few restaurants we were dying to get back to because we missed them! Here we are... :-) In the evenings we all hit our hotel pool. Art stayed with Gav in the pool and Slade liked the hot tub; so that's where we hung out. We had a great time! We got a ball from the $ store and all the kiddos at the pool had fun throwing it around! Gav had a great idea suggesting Atlanta for our family vacation. Their aquarium is amazing, but busy... like super packed! If you go; buy your admission tickets in advance and you will have no problems with the 45 minute line for tickets. Good news! On our flight home Slade slept. Yay! :-)

4th of July

I'm way behind on blogging because Google did an update that was terrible for the blog. For a long time I the function to add photos was down; so I just didn't blog until it was fixed.

Ok, catch up time!

We went to the Aquarium to catch the Bayou Park firework display. It's a lot less crowded than going to the festival.There was hardly anyone there. The kids loved playing in the fountain! :-)

 Gavin 

 Slade

 the guys enjoying the fireworks

carriage ride downtown

Bless You or Elmo...

Slade does a good job remembering to use his manners. He says "pwease" and thank you. Although he's shortened it to "tanks"... He also says excuse me; which is nice too. However don't get confused when he says Elmo after you sneeze. He can't seem to get bless you down. He says Elmo everytime someone sneezes. Every now and then he will say awesome instead of Elmo. Slade loves Elmo! :-)

Thank You Easter Bunny! ;-)

Gavin's Easter Egg creation - school project
Ready to see what the Easter Bunny brought!

Slade just found out and likes it!

After Easter Mass pic with Mom

Awe! :-)

and with Dad

Gavin Luke and Camryn

Slade's 1st Easter Egg Hunt

He's got the idea... ;-)

I don't know about these two... looks suspicious.

Yay Easter! Everyone was off for Good Friday; even Art! :-) I love having my boys home! We did nothing that day but chill. Saturday Art and Gav went to play somewhere; I forgot while I ran around the house like a mad woman trying to clean and prepare for Easter. When the boys got home they got their Easter baskets! Then Easter Sunday we had Mass that morning, came home for some pics in the front yard, changed, got a bunch of stuff packed and off to PaPa's! It was hot and fun! Margaret cooked practically everything... I love her! :-) The kids played and then we went on a random hike to see the new dam they're constructing for the creek... should have worn different shoes/outfit... I survived and Gavin and Camryn loved it! Slade went too; he's crazy. :-) Shortly after we got back a few of us hid all of the 90 some odd eggs for the kids' hunt... great, blessed day!

Gavin the Karate Superstar!

Champion!

The Karate Kid in action

Gav receiving his 1st place trophy!

Gavin has been taking karate for a couple of months and he's already a yellow belt! He participated in his first tournament and was very excited! He did so well and we're very proud of him! He takes karate very seriously and enjoys it so much! He likes his sensei and is learning a lot of kick butt moves! :-) Look out...