Tour du Teche

To conclude my posts about our Louisiana trip, while we were there Matt competed in a kayak/canoe race on Saturday morning, Tour du Teche.  And for the second year in a row took home the first place paddle in his category!  We are so proud of you Dada! This is Matt's fourth year competing in the race. 

The first year Matt and his brother did the entire 135 mile race- in a canoe- and finished it!  They paddled for 3 days straight! 

The second year Matt and I competed in the race together.  We were pretty adventurous and signed up for the entire 135 mile race but ended up finishing at 60 miles.  Matt would have kept going but I had to call it quits after a few tears and paddling 12 hours straight in a kayak.  I am pretty proud of our 60 miles though.  I can't find any pictures of Matt and I, but here are some general pictures from the year we competed in the race. 



 























The year that Matt and I did it together Pops and Auntie Heather paddled together in the race as well.  It was a lot of fun and we all had fun at the party at the end of the race.  I also feel like I should put a disclaimer here as well.  The pictures directly above are not my pictures and I actually took them off of the Tour du Teche website- hopefully they don't mind!

The third year Matt competed in the race by himself and won first place! 

And here is this year winning 1st place again in his category! 

Way to go Matt!  We are so proud of you! 



9 Months!

I don’t know what happened to the last month. I feel like I just did the 8 month post yesterday! But, here we are…9 months old.  Ben is just a huggable, squeezable, giggly little guy. His personality is coming through more and more and he is going to be a charmer! He loooooves being around people, especially other kids, and smiles at just about everyone. He’s super curious and is constantly looking around and checking things out when we are out and about. He’s just a happy baby and I feel so lucky to be his momma.  Ben's schedule really hasn’t changed since last month – still 2 naps a day at 10:00 and 2:00. He’s such a good sleeper now. We just put him down in his crib and, after playing for a few minutes, he’ll just roll over and go to sleep. At night, we lay him in his crib around 6:45 and he sleeps all night until we go get him around 6:15 in the morning.   He’s still eating 3 meals a day – usually fruit and oatmeal for breakfast, fruit and vegetable for lunch and then a vegetable/meat/fruit for dinner.   I’m excited to start trying new foods with him but, so far, he hasn’t done that great with non-baby food.   Ben has 2 teeth, 1 on the bottom and 1 on top.  Ben is just starting to crawl. He’s not consistent with it yet but he is trying so hard and that seems to be all he wants to do these days is try to crawl.  He has moved his hand and arm but can't quite get the other hand and foot coordinated.  I know it will be just a matter of time before he is officially on the move.  He is already all over the place and gets where he needs to go via rolling or creeping across the floor- I call it the army crawl!  Ben is constantly on the move and changing his diaper these days is quite the adventure!  He is learning all sorts of new tricks like waving bye bye and patty cake is definitely on the horizon!  His belly laughs are just the best and Matt can always get him going by doing something silly.  I just love this sqeezable, huggable, giggly little baby that lights up my day, everyday! 

NOLA

I don't think I mentioned to you guys that GiGi and Poppy also came to Louisiana for the weekend!

We had so much stuff to pack for the weekend that I actually forgot my camera so I was relying on my iPhone camera the whole weekend, hence the short amount of pictures.  Anyway, GiGi and Poppy left Sunday morning and Matt and I left Ben with Nana and Pops and headed to New Orleans.  I just love New Orleans.  The food.  The music.  The cultural.  I just love the way it feels.  It was a fun, relaxing trip centered around eating and drinking our way through the streets of NOLA. 

 

We had so many great recommendations on places to eat that we shared lots of dishes at many different restaurants so that we could try them all.  A favorite of mine?  The macarons at Sucre. 

 

We also ate at Cafe du Monde, Port of Call - delicious hamburgers!, Cochon, and a handful of other places but those are my recommendations if you are ever in NOLA.  Of course, what would a trip the the Quarter be without a few hand grenades and fruity drinks at Tropical Isle?! 

 

That rounds out our 36 hours in NOLA and now you have my recommendations if you ever find yourself there. 

 

Do you know what today is?!  It is Ben's 9 month birthday!!!  I can't even believe our sweet baby boy is 9 months old.   Saturday you can expect lots of 9 month pictures and all the latest on what our sweet punkin' is doing these days.  In other exciting news Ben had a follow up for his helmet on Wednesday and he is officially within normal range of head shape symetry and Dr. Luerrsen gave us the go ahead to take it off but we are going to continue for 6 more weeks just to make it perfectly round.  Really, because Ben doesn't mind and 6 more weeks will make it extra perfect.  Hope everyone has a great Friday!







Louisiana!

We spent the weekend in Lafayette and had such a great time catching up with friends and family.  We left Friday around 5:30 which worked out perfectly because Ben's usual bed time is at 6:30 so he slept the entire trip. 

Ben loved all of the attention and most of all loved spending time with his Nana and Pops! 

 
































Sunday before we left for New Orleans we stopped by Jon and Sarah's house and got to meet their sweet baby girl Harper. 



Ben loved getting to meet Jon, Sarah, and Harper and we are so glad we got to meet precious little Harper.  

 

We're Back!!!

Missing this little guy?

We spent the weekend in Louisiana and just came back today and went to a Baptism class this evening so we are a little exhausted.  I promise lots of pictures from our weekend tomorrow!

Happy Birthday Uncle Elliott!

Today is a very special day.  Know why?  Okay, we will tell you.  Today is Ben's Uncle Elliott's birthday!!!  We miss you Uncle Elliott and hope you have a great day! 

Obviously I take a lot of pictures.  The pictures that you see on the blog are not even 1/1000th of the pictures I take.  I literally have over 7,000 pictures of Ben.  It takes a lot of time to sort through them and tonight I went back to the very first picture we took of Ben and it made me cry.  He is getting so big so fast and I love him more than I ever thought possible and sometimes I like to just look back through the pictures and remember those days.  I love you so much sweet boy.  This is one that I love. It was taken when Ben was a month old.

Jumperoo Fun!

We had a great weekend despite watching LSU lose to Georgia on Saturday.   Oh well, there is always next week.  It rained a lot so we spent much of the weekend indoors.  Hopefully the rain holds off this afternoon so we can walk to the park. 

Something very exciting also happened this weekend- Ben has almost started crawling!