Memorial Day Weekend

Things are still moving fast for us. We had our annual Memorial Day weekend, which is always so much fun. Our friends from Texas come over, and we have a big ole crawfish boil. The Casas family got into town on Thursday night. Unfortunately, John and I still had to work on Friday, but by the time John got home from work Eddie and Will had gotten there. The group was complete after Drew and Carissa got there later on in the evening.

Drew and Carissa were staying with family, but everybody else piled into our house. We gave Eddie and Will fair warning that Miller and McKason would be up at 6:30 regardless of what happened the night before. They said they were fine with that, which I was a little unsure of at first, but they were troopers. It's definitely a switch from a few years ago. Our whole household was up by 7:00 in the morning. Eddie did roll around for awhile, until he was called to the breakfast table. When, Eddie sat down at the table, I brought him a cup of coffee. I was holding Miller at the time, and I just slipped the cup of coffee in front of Eddie. Miller just so happened to sneeze all over the back of Eddie's neck right as I was putting the cup down. Eddie turned around, a look of horror in his eyes. Once he realized it was Miller and not me who had sneezed all over him, he was OK with it. Humorous. Saturday, we got some pool time in before we headed to my parents' house for the crawfish boil. John and Austin were the chefs of the night, and they did an awesome job. I've got to say, the crawfish were amazing. They were huge, easy to peel, and well seasoned. It was the best batch of the year, and maybe one of the best batches ever. Of course there was plenty of domino playing, washer throwing, and even some homerun derby.

Sunday morning, Eddie and Will hit the road early. Amy took family pictures for us, which I can't wait to show. She is just amazing. We went to the pool again, and cooked hamburgers with my parents. Moday we went to the splash pad. I've never actually been to the park in Brownlee subdivision, but it is amazing. I'm sure we'll be spending plenty of time there as Miller gets older, especially since they're working on building a bike trail from our neighborhood to the park.

This weekend, I've got a baby shower for one of my oldest friends. I can't wait to post some pictures of what I've been working on. :-)

Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

Miller, Daddy, and Lexi putting together the umbrella stand.

Thursday night, Amy and I went on a walk with the kiddos. Notice the babies in diapers and the beer in the stroller...not white trash at all. ;-)

My men at the pool on Saturday. Jessie and McKason are floating in the background.
Eddie, pouring one out for his homies, I'm sure.

Will, throwing some washers. Drew's in the background.

Miller and McKason. They were playing with bubbles.

Aunt Amy was blowing bubbles for them.

The little bugger had just eaten a blackberry, and he was trying his hardest to wipe his mouth off on Mommy.

McKason with his pickle. When we give Miller a pickle, he ends up biting off a huge portion and holding it in his mouth until one of us pulls it out.

Jessie, John, Mary Alice, Paw-paw, Mom, Austin, McKason, and a little bit of Amy. Also, in the picture, the wonderfulness that is boiled crawfish.

Nonna, feeding Miller a popsicle. At least it was sugar free, as McKade kept telling us.

The chefs. These guys were awesome. We had two pots going, and it was easily 15 degrees hotter under here with the boilers going.

Miller is taking after his Aunt Amy. He loves the camera. Here's a self-portrait. I think this is one of the few times he actually showed off his teeth!

We blew up the pool Saturday, but the boys didn't fill it up. Miller didn't mind.

Playing with the dragon head.

Homerun derby!

I think Jessie stuffs his bra.

McKason, licking up yogurt.

So proud of himself too!

McKade, playing in the pool on Sunday, after Dad boiled water for it. That well water is COLD!

He is such a cutie. He's started really going for the camera now.

He gave Pops the big blue eyes until he pulled him out.

John, Miller, McKason, and Jessie at the Splash pad. McKason isn't a year old, and he already does "Cheese!" He doesn't have a photographer for a mother or anything.

Cutest little Godson in the world!

Miller loves to take glasses off. So beware if you're wearing them around him.

OK, I'm all done. I'm not sure this was a really long post, but it took me forever to get all these pictures in. Have a great rest of your week everybody!

Getting into our busy season.

I know I always talk about how busy we are, but things are about to kick it into high gear for the summer. In the next few weeks, we've got our big Memorial Day shingdig, showers, and two very important birthday parties, including our big boy's first birthday. So, I wanted to get a post in as quick as possible before time got away from me. As it was, we've had a bunch going on. I had my very first Mother's Day, which John and Miller did a wonderful job of making feel loved and appreciated. Then, Granny Chris came for a visit last weekend. With everything we had going on, I didn't get a single picture of Miller and Granny Chris while she was here. Last night we were able to go out to eat with another couple, and it was such a nice break. Unfortunately, as soon as we picked up Miller, we found out he'd been sick. Poor baby was running a 101.9 degree fever. We were running to the doctor first thing this morning, and he has, yet another, ear infection. Poor little guy. We've started him on antibiotics, and I hope he starts feeling better soon. We did get him weighed while he was there, and he's officially passed the 20 pound mark. Our baby is 20 lbs 6 oz. He's just growing too fast.

There should be plenty of pictures of the weeks to come, but here's what we've got for now:

I couldn't do a very good job taking a picture of this, but this is the necklace John and Miller gave me for Mother's Day. It has John's, Miller's and my birthstones. It's so beautiful, and John did a great job designing it.

The next series of pictures have been a long time coming. If you've been following our blog for a while, you'll remember me posting pictures of Miller in this outfit when he wore it in the 0-3 month size. Here he is in his 9-12 month size, sitting on Daddy's lap.

Here's the original picture, cuddled up in Daddy's lap, back when all he did was sleep.

Here they are months later, and, all of the sudden, my little boy looks like a monster.

Mrs. Dorothy is just the best. She does a great job of taking pictures for us when I leave the camera for her. Look at the big boy, starting to stand up on his own.

I just thought this was such a cute picture.

Miller with all of his day care buddies.

Look Mom, no hands!

I'm only posting these because they've already been mailed out. I'm working on a baby shower for one of my oldest friends, who I talk about on this blog quite often, Amy B. She's having a baby girl, and I picked out a ladybug theme. I didn't have the time to do a digital image. (Plus, the person I'd normally use was the one I was throwing the shower for.) So, I got this from Michaels, and decided to make an invitation out of it. First, I traced this image. Then, John enlarged the image so that it could fit the stamp, and fill up the envelope.

This is the black background I cut out, with the stamp.

Then, I cut out the red shell, as well as the black dots. Finally, I filled in the information on the invitation and drew in the ladybug's face. I think it turned out super cute.

I finished the envelopes, with some ladybug stickers and ladybug stamps. I guess it's kind of strange to do a baby shower invitation in black envelopes, but I think it turned out cute with the silver writing. Mrs. Jan, Amy's mom, already e-mailed me to let me know how cute the invitation was, and that just made my day!

Finally, I've got a couple videos of the little guy. I'm warning you now, this may be too much cuteness to handle.

He loves to knock down the towers that Daddy and Mommy build. Here he is taking them apart, piece by piece.


This is probably the cutest video we've got of Miller so far. He was just beating on the wall, talking. The video gets a little shaky as I was sitting on the floor, but his reaction is just priceless. Remind me to watch this video when he's driving me crazy. :-)

OK, that's it everybody. I hope everyone has a great week. Hugs and kisses from the Vrana family!

It's good to be home.

It's so great to be back after being gone for five days last week. I was picked up Friday evening by two of my favorite men. John had a bottle ready for me to feed Miller in the car, so I sat in the back with him on the ride home. He was just so happy to see me. He wouldn't let go of my hand or arm and just kept smiling. I'm pretty sure he'd missed his Momma. It took him forever to go to bed that night because he wanted to stay up with me. I knew John was ready for a break, and I had planned just to take care of Miller all day so John could get some video game time. Unfortunately, my mom called me early Saturday morning. They had to call an ambulance for Paw-paw. He's been in the hospital since then. He has some type of infection, and they're looking at his liver and gall bladder right now. His fever was really high, but they got it back down later during the day. He hates the hospital, and he seems to be doing a lot better so we're hoping he'll get to come home tomorrow. I think the best part of his day was having Miller visit him yesterday and today. I swear, all I have to do is bring that boy in a room and everyone lights up. Please keep Paw-paw in your prayers.

He's so much fun right now. Exhausting, but fun. As far as the rest of us go, I am so happy to report that John is done with his Associates, and, he's not positive yet, but I'm pretty sure he'll graduate with a 4.0. He is currently filling out his application for LSU-S. I'm so proud of him. I know my mom was around to help him last week, but he had finals and had to take care of Miller all by himself. Such a great Daddy!

OK here are some pictures I've been meaning to post. Plus some cute videos from this weekend. If you've just recently seen the last blog, you can definitely see how much he's changed in the last month.

John's cousin, Rachel, is having a baby girl, and they're decorating her room in cowprint. I pulled out all my crafty skills with this one. I bought the white letters and painted them. John put the hangers on the back, and I added the ribbon. I was so happy when I found out that Rachel had been looking for letters for months now. I think they turned out cute!

This is the diaper cake I made for her shower. If you look closely, you'll notice that's actually giraffe print, but I couldn't find any cowprint ribbon. I ended up sewing buttons on the ribbon - saddles, cowboys boots, and stuff like that to make it stick to the theme. From what I heard everybody loved it, and they were all fighting over the cowboy sticker. I'm so glad she liked it!

My silly bow, sleeping with his butt up in the air.

It's even funnier from this angle.

Well, he's definitely moving more now. This is his play area in the living room. John baby-proofed the house this weekend. We think we'll be able to use this outside too to keep Doobie off of him and still let him play in the grass.

Here's some videos for you!

This one is he and Lexi playing. He loves it. He's started sticking the toy out so she'll grab it. Then, she gets it away from him, and drops it so he can grab it again. So sweet.

Notice his crazy crawl.

That's it everybody! I hope you all had a great weekend. Love, The Vranas

AAAGGHHH! So behind!

OK, I know there's not a whole lot to this one, but I wanted to make sure to get these videos on here. Of course, these are mostly from a month or so ago. He changes so fast. He's already doing more than this, and I'm probably missing even more of his changes this week while I'm in training. Here's a shot from my window on the twentieth floor.

For those of you looking at this on Facebook, I highly recommend looking at our actual blog because these videos are adorable!

Quick Update from John

This is just a short post to tell you all what has been going on lately, and to give you all pictures. Miller is growing just like a weed. His bottom two front teeth have broken through, and both his top two feel like they are coming any day now. Miller still doesn't like to crawl. Not that he can't, he just doesn't feel the need to crawl to get anywhere. About the only time we can get him to crawl is if we put a toy just out of his reach. He will normally crawl to it and then sit down and play with it. However, it has to be just out of his reach. If it is too far away, he says forget it, it's not worth the effort. He loves to walk though. He is pulling himself up already, and as long as he has a play table, a hand, or something to hold onto, he'll walk like a champ.

Ok, so now a quick update as to what the Vrana family has been up to. The weekend of March 20th, Michelle, Miller, and I went to Lafayette, LA for the weekend. A good friend of the family, Toby and Anne had their engagement party. It was a crawfish boil and a whole lot of fun. Then, for Easter weekend, Toby, Anne, and Toby's mom, Mrs. Peggy came up here. We had another crawfish boil, a weenie roast, dyed easter eggs, played some volleyball, and had an egg hunt. Since Miller's a little too young to be egg hunting yet, Mrs. Peggy and Michell's mom hide eggs with money in them, and the younger adults (23-38) hunt and fight each other for them. The Tuesday after Easter, Michelle's mom left for two weeks to go to San Antonio as that is where Michelle's dad is working for the next 6 weeks. So, Michelle and I are taking care of their dogs, cats, horses and cows while Michelle's mom is away. Michelle and I kind of took it easy this weekend.

We did get a pleasant surprise today from a neighbor though. Our neighbor came over today and offered us her old patio furniture for free as she is lanscaping/remaking her patio/backyard. When I say her "old" patio furniture, what I really mean is her not sold old patio furniture. This stuff was in great shape, and since we only had two chairs and a lounger, I figured it was a steal. We got a glass table with four matching chairs, and a matching swing. Pretty good deal I'd say. So, that's all that's new in our world I guess.

Alright, so here are pictures. I'm not going to be as good as Michelle and post captions on all of them. I know you are smart people and can figure them out.