Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!!

My sweet baby girl is ONE YEAR OLD!!! It's so hard to believe, but it has been one of the absolute best years of my life, and I would not change a single thing.

 

I just wanted to do a quick recap of what all is going on with Miss Sibley these days... She weighs 23 lbs., 14 ounces and is up to 29 inches long. She's a very fast crawler and thinks it's fun to try to "run" away from mama and daddy. But speaking of running, we're not really close. She's standing on her own and cruising along the furniture and behind her walker, but she won't take any steps by herself. Oh, well... I'm not rushing it.

 

She waves and claps and holds the phone to her ear and says "mamamamamama" a lot and "da" for everything.

 

A week before her birthday, on a HOT and MUGGY Sunday afternoon, we met my photographer friend Melanie out on the Natchez Trace for Sibley's one-year photo shoot. We loved, loved, LOVED all the pics! Here are just a few...

 

We were fortunate enough to have her birthday party on her actual birthday this year, and what a party it was! She had so much fun, and we were all worn out afterwards. :)

I have to say I waited a long time to see this girl's reaction to her very own birthday cake, and it was so well worth the wait! She dove right in with her mouth. It was priceless.







Sweetest Sibley, I know I've said it before, but we could not have special-ordered a more perfect fit for our family. You absolutely complete us, and we are so proud and blessed to be your parents.

Happy FIRST Birthday, my beautiful baby girl!!

VEGAS!

Good grief, it's been way too long! I'm a horrible blogger these days, but just for the record, I wanted to write a short post about our trip to Vegas.

This was our first "real" adults-only vacation post-Sibley, and we truly lived it up.

We flew out of New Orleans EARLY on a Friday morning two weeks ago and were in Vegas by 8:30 a.m. their time. Crazy. First thing on the itinerary was a poolside cabana that we had rented for the day. We felt like such VIPs! It was incredibly nice and so relaxing.

We stayed at the Flamingo, courtesy of a comp room from our friends Marc and Jarrod, and our room overlooked Caesar's Palace and the Las Vegas Strip. It was amazing. We could even see the Bellagio fountain from our window. What more could you ask for? ;)

After lounging by the pool all day, we headed to the Venetian and the Palazzo for dinner at Lavo, followed by a spin above Vegas in The Linx, a very slow-moving Ferris wheel high above the city. The views were absolutely amazing, and it was a great way to end our first (very long but fun) day in Sin City.

Saturday morning started with a walk down the Strip for lunch at the Sugar Factory inside Paris Paris. This place was so cool. I had a Reese's Martini with my lunch, which tasted just like a peanut butter cup. Their candy store was amazing, and it was the perfect way to really kick off our Saturday. After lunch, we walked through Paris Paris (one of my favorite casinos, I've decided - I love the themed ones) and through Bally's to catch a cab to the Stratosphere.

The guys rode the crazy ride at the top of the Stratosphere while Allison and I were too chicken. It was insane. You couldn't pay me a million bucks to do it, but I got some great pics! :)

After our top of the world adventure, it was back to the hotel to get ready for our night out on the town. We had early dinner reservations at STK steakhouse inside the Cosmopolitan, and this place was by far the best meal of the trip! DELICIOUS! Our reservations were at 5:30, which gave us plenty of time to get over to Planet Hollywood for a cocktail before we saw Britney.

Britney was the main reason we planned this trip, in addition to one free flight and free rooms, so it was fun. I probably would have picked a different show to see, but it was high energy, and two of our five-member party got to move down close to the stage due to a ticket snafu, so they had an amazing view.

After the show, we went "out" and the rest of the night is a little fuzzy. It was a lot of fun based on the pics though! :)

On Sunday, we all needed some recovery lunch at Gordon Ramsey's BurGR inside Planet Hollywood. This was the best burger I've ever had. And we were starving. It gave us all the energy we needed to walk the 1,000 miles that the afternoon had in store for us. We did it all - the Bellagio fountain, Caesar's Palace, Mirage, MGM, New York New York, Monte Carlo, Cosmopolitian, then Fremont Street for dinner and the laser light show. I probably even left out a few. We walked for miles because it was our last day. We had to see it ALL!

What a trip! It was a quick long weekend, but I missed my baby girl so much and was so happy to return home on Monday. One thing is for sure... three days in Vegas is plenty for me. :)