Catching Up...

Seville's 2nd birthday is tomorrow and I still haven't posted Scott's SURPRISE 30th birthday pictures from January, so I decided I should probably do that real quick!  Seriously, where does the time go!  I can't believe tomorrow is March 1st!  2009 has been a blur so far!  

Of course I couldn't let Scott's 30th go by without a SURPRISE party for my fantastic hubby!  He is just the best, and I don't know what I would do without him!  It was so fun planning a special party for him, and he really did have NO CLUE!  

Here we are walking in for the BIG SURPRISE!

I guess you can tell that I was pretty happy we pulled off the surprise!

The birthday boy greeting his crowd of 40 family and friends!

Some of our neighbors!

Uncle Shawn and Uncle Craig!

This is our little neighbor Ian...isn't he a doll!

The girls couldn't get enough of him...

...especially Seville!

All my parents...yes they do get along...THANKFULLY!  From left to right: My step-mom Pat, dad John, mom Cheri and step-dad Jon!

Scott's KU themed double layer cookie cake...his FAVORITE!

Make a wish!

My birthday boy!  This is what I look like always running around with a camera around my neck!  That is why I am never in any pics!

The Skinner Family!

Present time...my Mom, Jon and I got Scott Rock Band 2 for the Wii!

Hadley picked out this special card for her Daddy!

Our next door neighbors Amy and Aaron gave him some "special blue pills!"

Seville and Gracyn being cute!

Me and Jen!

Rockstar Alyson...

...and her sidekick Hadley!  I'm not sure what this pose is, but I love it! 

Every band needs a cute drummer...we had TWO!

The girls had to sit down for the slow songs!

Ride-em cowgirl!

Dan's first time on the drums!

Jeremy on the mic!

Kristi the STAR drummer!  She ROCKS!

Jen's first time on the guitar!

Even Grandma Sue Sue had to get her grove on!

A little mother/son duet!

Okay, in the spirit of catching up here are some pics of the girls that I have been meaning to post!  This is Seville with her big girl piggy tails!  Can you believe she will be TWO tomorrow!  I always try to do her hair in the morning before school, but she ALWAYS takes it out a Mrs. Gail's!  Owell, at least I try!  Daddy was out of town the morning I took these, and I wanted him to see how cute she looked!

My sweet girls in the morning!

Here they are another morning in their v-day outfits.  This is a very typical morning for us.  They always love to have a "breakfast snack" in our bed before I do their hair and we head out for the day!  Both of our girls wake up so hungry and instantly want something to eat (normally a waffle or pancake!)

Well, that is all I have right now!  Stay tuned for pictures of Seville's 2nd birthday tomorrow!  Hadley and I made her a special cake tonight that looks like a purse!  We are taking her and a few friends to Monkey Buziness to play and celebrate!  

Stinkerbell

Seville has recently become increasingly attached to two things.  The first thing is her blanket (or "kinky" as she calls it!)  She is now requesting "kinky" everywhere we go!  "Kinky" is always in the car with us, but if we leave the car to go into a store or restaurant she asks to bring it in, to which I say, "no, we have to leave kinky in the car!" and I usually get a protest of some sort, but then she gets over it real quick (phew!)  However, halfway through the store she will shout out "kinky, kinky!?!?!" and I have to explain again that "kinky" is in the car.  When we finally get back to the car she is so relieved!  She also does this when she is playing at home.  She will be immersed in play and then all the sudden she must miss her blankie and out comes the shout..."kinky, kinky?!?!?"  Then she goes on a search! When she finds it she hugs it and lays on it like it has been lost FOREVER!  Hadley was never attached to anything, so I must admit I think this is pretty cute!  However, I do stick to my guns for the most part and do not allow her to take it in places unless I think there is a good reason!  Oh, and don't worry...we have multiple "kinkys," so we are covered should one every show up missing or is temporarily lost!  

The second item she has become attached to recently is her Tinkerbell nightgown jammies. Grandma Sue Sue got them for her awhile back and we have been wearing them at least once a week since, but now they are being worn BY REQUEST EVERY NIGHT!!  When we go to get her ready for bed and start digging though her jammie drawer she instantly starts saying "uh uh, uh uh" until you get your hand on the Tinkerbell nightgown and then she squeals with delight! However, it doesn't stop there!  She insists she MUST put them on by HERSELF!  We are not allowed to help even one bit!  She is very determined and does very well for an almost two year old, but they are kind of tricky jammies with multiple layers, etc.  Below are some pictures from how the scene played out last night!  Notice that the jammies are on inside out and she doesn't have either sleeve on!  Unlike "kinky" we only have one pair of these jammies, so if anyone sees another pair please let me know!   

Dallas Weekend Getaway!

Scott and I just got back last night from a long weekend in Dallas! Sure, Dallas isn’t the most exciting city for a weekend getaway, but we wanted to get some use out of his Southwest Companion Pass status and this seemed like a great way to do that! Also, since I get President’s Day off from work, this was the perfect weekend to get away for an extended period of time. We flew out bright and early on Friday morning, and by 10:00 a.m. I was working from the hotel room and he was at his job site in Dallas! We had no plans for the weekend other than going out for sushi on Friday night and going out to a favorite Texas restaurant of ours on Saturday night for Valentine’s Day! Everyone kept asking us what our plans were for the weekend and to be totally honest we didn’t really want any! We just wanted to play it by ear, rest and relax…and that is exactly what we did. It couldn’t have been more perfect! Oh, and by the way, the girls stayed back in KC with my mom and Jon and Susie and Jim! We know they had a great time and got spoiled rotten! Thanks to the grandparents for letting us have a weekend away! We haven’t slept in until 10:00 is probably over 5 years and it felt oh so good!

On Friday late afternoon Scott got back to the hotel and informed me that we had a problem…I was a bit worried, but then he informed me that the problem was that he didn’t have his black “going-out” shoes! (Scott wants me to inform everyone that he did NOT forget his shoes, but rather that he knew they were in Dallas and when we got down there just happened to be locked in someone’s truck for the weekend!) Okay, anyway, back to the story! We decided we would try to go find him some nicer shoes before we went out to this swanky sushi restaurant for dinner! We searched the local mall quickly to no avail! Luckily the restaurant still let us in even though he had on tennis shoes! PHEW!! ;) Some places are actually getting weird about that!

Now, just to back track a bit, I decided NOT to take a camera on this trip because 1) my camera is too big, and 2) I didn’t want to hassle with it, but along the way I decided that I could fill you in with links to the places we went! Our Friday night sushi dinner was at this awesome, totally modern sushi restaurant located in the new “W” hotel. It is called Kenichi! http://www.kenichirestaurants.com/

We had a fabulous meal and were totally in awe of the style in this fabulous restaurant! Afterwards we decided to take a peek around the “W” hotel! It was amazing! Scott said he checked into a room for us there, but they were over $300 a night…not quite keeping with our budget minded weekend, but I sure hope we can stay there someday! Or maybe we can just steal their ideas to decorate our next house! :) This is a picture of their lobby!

On Saturday we slept in till 10:00 a.m. and then headed out for brunch at a restaurant recommended by the concierge (Dream Café, http://www.thedreamcafe.com/). We really liked it and decided we would need to go back the next day to try some other items on the menu since we just couldn’t decide what to order!

After brunch we headed back to the mall to search again for the perfect shoes and to see a movie. We actually ended up finding two shoes…the black ones we were looking for and a pair of white ones that Scott just had to have. (If you don’t know, he has a thing with white lately!)

Then we saw a movie! “He’s Just Not That Into You!” It was very good and had enough chick flick qualities and funny moments to keep both men and women happy!

Then we headed to our valentine’s dinner reservation at one of our favorite Texas restaurants…Pappadeaux’s, http://www.pappadeaux.com/. I had my favorite item from the menu: Blacked Shrimp and Crawfish Fondue! It was so yummy!

Then we went shopping at one of my favorite stores:

And then to Barnes & Nobel to buy this book:

I read the entire book this weekend and really enjoyed it. I know a lot of people think the Duggar’s are crazy, but I think they are inspiring. Their household runs so smoothly, the children are all so well behaved and well-spoken and the parents are always so calm, cool and collected! They have also made so really amazing financial decisions.

On Sunday we slept in again and then went back to Dream Café for breakfast! Then we headed back to the mall to see another movie. This time we saw “Confessions of a Shopaholic!” It was fine, but it was a total chick flick and I would wait for it on video! I felt sorry for making Scott sit through that one, but he was a good sport as usual!

After the movie I noticed I had a message from my friend Kelly and instantly called her back hoping for some exciting news…I was right…they are pregnant with baby #2 and we are just so excited for them! Kelly and Kyle are such great parents and we just can’t wait for their daughter Evie to be a big sister!! Congrats Kelly and Kyle, we can’t wait to meet baby #2!!

Sunday night Scott gave me a driving tour of Dallas and all his job sites, and then we went to eat a Dick’s Last Resort. I wanted to eat there because I was craving bar food and felt like I had been there before, but I couldn’t put my finger on it! As soon as we walked in I knew exactly when I had been to Dick’s Last Resort before…on our yearly trips to Myrtle Beach with Jon’s family back when I was in high school! Dick’s Last Resort is a restaurant where the waiters and waitress act really mean to you and they make hats for the guests and right funny phrases on them. One guy’s hat last night said “I got this shirt free with my copy of Broke Back Mountain!” I think the waiters and waitresses knew that we probably weren’t hat people, but they did make sure we felt included and made us this nice “romantic dinner for two” as they called it: Parsley in a shot glass and a flaming pack of matches! We loved it!

Well, that is about it for our weekend. Monday morning Scott headed off to his job site again while I slept in again! Around lunchtime we headed back to the airport to catch our flight home! This might sound like a fairly normal weekend to some of you, and it use to be a normal weekend for us too before we had kids, but now sleeping in, seeing movies and going out to eat are all luxuries and we wouldn’t have it any other way…but it was nice to go back in time for one weekend! We hope you all had a GREAT Valentine’s Day weekend too!

SNEEK PEEK!

Last Sunday I was privileged and honored to take maternity pictures for one of my very dearest friends, Aundria!  Aundria and her husband Aladdin are absolutely stunning individuals (inside and out), and Aundria is even more so when she is pregnant!  They also have a handsome son, Laith, but he was not too keen on getting his picture taken last week, nor did he really want daddy in many of the pictures!  Nevertheless, Aundria and I had a great time and got some beautiful pictures for them to remember this amazing time in their lives.  I just loved being pregnant with my girls and taking pictures of Aundria just made all of those wonderful feelings reemerge!  Pregnancy is such a special time...feeling a baby grow and kick inside you...it just doesn't get a whole lot better than that!  Aundria and Aladdin do not now what they are having, so we are now just counting down the days to meet little him or her!  I can't wait!  

Aundria and Aladdin, thank you for letting me take these special pictures!  I will be sending you the link to all of them tomorrow!

Love ya all! 

XOXOX 

Kenna