Auntie Edition: Eli's Here!

Well, if you didn't see on Facebook or hear me shouting from the rooftop of the hospital, my sister finally had her baby and now I'm an aunt!

Here are the deets:

Eli Christopher
8 lb 3 oz
Born 7/9/12 at 8:46 p.m.
Mom, Dad and Eli are all doing really well

I don't have any pics of the new mommy yet, but here are just a few that I've taken.

Just a few minutes after his arrival. Looking at daddy :-)

Probably my favorite picture of Chris & Eli

Ok, actually this might be my fave. :-)

My first time holding this little one.

Did you know they have entire social networks devoted to aunts? Crazy. Well, while I can promise that I won't be joining SavvyAuntie.com, one thing I probably can't promise is that I'm not going to be the crazy aunt who obsessively posts pictures of their nephew. Love!

Time Just Flies

You may have noticed that I have not been blogging as much as I normally do this month. June has been a bit of a whirlwind and this past weekend was the first weekend we've actually stayed home/stayed low-key in well over a month. Since we've been back from vacay, I've been very busy. And to clarify, when I say "very busy," I really mean "caught up in the throws of the 50 Shades of Grey series." Um, whoa.

But a few weeks back, the hubby and I went down to Houston for a super-short, overnight visit to watch my little sister graduate high school.

Me & Evan with the graduate

Ugh, as I type this I feel like I'm going to be border-line weepy. This week, she turns 18 and later this year will be heading off to college. The funny thing is that when I look at her, this is what I see:

Not this:

And don't even get me started on my "little" brother who starts high school this fall but is the same height as my hubby (and Greg is not a short guy).

Evan & Greg

 Yikes, where does time go?! Well, luckily I will get to see them in a few short weeks when they all come in town after my sister has her baby. Eeee!

Aunt Lauren and Kruncle G

As you may or may not know, we're going to be an aunt and uncle!!

I found out this amazing news at Thanksgiving when my older sister surprised us all and have been sitting on this lovely little secret for about six weeks now.

It went down like this:
We were all gathered in the living room of my Mom and Step-dad's house and she told us that she had printed off some photos for each of us (we had all been together a couple of months prior and she had taken some pics of the family); it wasn't really that odd for her to do. So, she each gave us a stack of photos... we were all casually flipping through them and the third picture was of this:

(She's a knitter - can you tell?!) P.S. I marked out her name for privacy reasons...

Of course, everyone was so excited, I got weepy... nothing too shocking there.

(me with the Momma-to-be)

(Sibs)

So the same weekend we found out, the hubby was joking that he wants to have a cool uncle name and threw out Kruncle, which somehow morphed into Kruncle G ("Krunc" for short) - again, as a joke - but for some reason it just stuck.

So it goes without saying that we are so excited for July 2012, when this little blessing will enter our lives. And of course, Kruncle G and Aunt Lauren Can. Not. Wait. :-)

Side note: It hasn't happened yet, but I'm just waiting for the day when I meander pass the baby wing of the mall (ever notice how they lump all the adorable baby stores and boutiques together?), spot a sale at Baby Gap and black out, only to wake up an hour later with lots of bags and far less money. It's really only a matter of time...

And I came across these precious little Toms for babies that I think this child will have to have.

I mean, what are aunts for?!

Celebration Marathon

It has been (and will continue to be) a whirlwind, celebratory month. It kicked off last weekend driving to Oklahoma (trip #1) for my friend and pledge sister's baby shower. Next weekend, I'll be in Oklahoma next weekend again for another friend/pledge sister's bridal shower and bachelorette party. And (you'll see a trend) we were in Oklahoma THIS weekend (trip #3) for a VERY exciting weekend.

My bro-in-law proposed to his sweet girlfriend on Friday night and we were excited to be able to attend the surprise engagement party on Friday as there was lots of celebrating to do!

We found out a few weeks ago that he would be proposing the same weekend we were coming to visit so I started thinking what would be a cute engagement gift I could buy for my sister-in-law to be. I love themed gifts and when I came across this cute "housewarming basket gift," I thought I could definitely re-purpose the idea for an engagement gift!

Here's what I came up with:

It consists of bridal magazines (a rite of passage for all brides-to-be, if you ask me. The only time in your life that it's not creepy to buy bridal magazines!), cute thank-you cards (for all the fun showers, bachelorette parties that will be thrown for the bride), a bottle of champagne (for obvious reasons) and a little ring dish (to keep by - but not too close to - your bathroom sink or in your bedroom to hold your wedding rings when you're not wearing).

I came across this adorable Etsy shop (all her items are hand-made and ceramic) where I ordered the ring dish from and just had to share!

I love the simple, yet so sweet "forever" text on the ring dish.

I was walking in to the engagement party all excited for the night and for my cute basket when I literally saw at least two other engagement baskets and about 6 other bridal mags from her friends. So, while I was mildly deflated that my engagement basket wasn't ground-breakingly creative, it turned out really cute!

While I didn't take a ton of pictures, here's a cute one of the fam:

We were able to attend the Oklahoma State football game the next day with the happy couple - Go Pokes!

All in all, a wonderful weekend. Let the celebrations continue!

Um, Excuse Me. Your Louisiana is Showing.

Over the past weekend, me and the hubby (along with my older sister and her hubby) road-tripped to Louisiana for a good ole-fashioned family reunion. While I've spent a good number of years in Oklahoma, I was actually born in Louisiana and still have quite a bit of family there. Anyways, the reunion was great, it was really good to see lots of family, but I want to talk about the trip.

On our 16-hour round-trip to a small town outside Baton Rouge, I started to take note of what makes Louisiana totally awesome.

First and most obviously, the food. I'm a total sucker for cajun food. Of course, we ate our way through the state and then ate and drank throughout the entire reunion. Top of the list? Crawfish, of course!

I come from a family of great cooks, so when the family came together there was a lot of food. A lot of meat, in particular... Various kinds of sausage, seafood and more. I think someone called it a "meat parade." (Editor's Note: This is not the same kind of a meat parade that you would find in the Gayborhood Bars in Dallas, although I hear those are fun, too!)

Second, Louisiana Lottery tickets. Does Texas sell Lottery tickets? Yes. Are they mildly trashy? Oh ya. But when in Louisiana, we couldn't resist buying four $1 scratchers. And guess what? Greg won 12 bucks.

So, what do we do? In the Louisiana state of mind, of course we bought four $3 tickets. Then, something crazy happened. He won $25. I think it was the high of winning (I'm scared I'm developing a problem), but we took that money and bought five $5 tickets. And would you believe they all lost except mine. I won $50! So that paid for our lunch on the way home in a quaint little cafe in a small town. I've gotta tell you, I'd never really noticed the Lottery ticket machines at the grocery stores in Texas before, but now I see them and I've got to be honest, I'm getting an urge. But it's just way too embarassing to have a gambling problem, so I'm letting this one go.

OK, let's get back on track. The third thing that's so great about Louisiana? It's so... let's say vintage. (And I don't mean that in the pretentious way that it probably came across.) Driving through some of the small towns, I see things I haven't seen in years. Case in point: local grocery stores (I swear I saw a Piggly Wiggly). Also, really, really old gas stations. Check out this old gas pump. This has gotta be from at least the 80s, right? I think it's so charming!

Finally, and this is by the best, you can buy liquor in grocery stores. Cheers to that!

All in all, it was great to be back in Louisiana!