moving day . . . finally!

i was beginning to wonder if this day would actually come! we are going to be moving into our house today. there are still a few things that we have to finish, but it's things that we can do while we are living there. here are a few more pics of what it is starting to look like. the pink and purple rooms are the for the girls. they are upstairs and that is the original wood flooring and it is so beautiful! the pink room is SO bright that you almost need to wear sunglasses in there! LOL!! but i promise it will be super cute when it is all finished . . . just wait! sean really wanted to make the trim nice . . . i think he definitely succeeded!

it doesn't get any better!

i love cupcakes . . . who doesn't right? well just when i thought a cupcake couldn't get any better, take a look at this:


this would be the perfect cake for any little person's birthday party . . . speaking of which, i have a party i need to start planning for right now. and i think i am going to order this for the party!

big girl!

i can hardly believe it, but our baby girl turns 1 today!

happy birthday, little brown-eyed girl!

at the hop

well the 50's surprise party that we went to saturday night was such a BLAST! everyone was dressed in theme and looked so awesome. not only were people dressed the part, but we all acted the part too! there was a d.j. playing all of the golden oldies that are so much fun to dance to. it was a long night, especially aftering staying up until 4 am finishing my poodle skirt friday night. i guess the time to be quiet in jefferson parrish is 11 pm because the police showed up at 11:05 to tell us it was time to turn the music off. what's funny is that when you would go inside, you couldn't even hear the music! so we are all thinking that someone didn't like the fact that there was a party on their street and they weren't invited! so after the sheriff put a damper on our party we decided to move into the future and we went to 80's night at a local bar! yes . . . we definitely turned a few heads when we all walked in with our 50's getup on! but we had a great time . . . i think we might have been having the most fun, still dancing 50's style, but to 80's music! saturday ended up being another late night . . . we didn't get home until about 4:30 am!

here are a few pics of the night . . . .

here she is miss america . . .

today was the arena bowl and we got to go! for those of you that are completely clueless, like me, and didn't even know that there was another football league besides the nfl . . . arena football is pretty cool! so anywho . . . the arena bowl is the super bowl of arena football.

so this is a pretty big game . . . if you are an arena football fan. i guess since this is a big game . . . they wanted a headliner to sing the national anthem. so we got to see "the miss america" today. she had an absolutely beautiful voice.

now on with the rest of the story . . . . i look up from our super, awesome, 3rd row seats and see her across the field. this is one time that i wish so bad that i hadn't forgotten my camera! her seat was basically directly across from us on the other side of the arena. well my husband and i were really intrigued with the way she carried herself throughout the rest of the game. she was chewing . . . . oops i mean smacking bubble gum, sat pretty much the entire game without a beautiful miss america like smile, and pretty much just looked completely bored. ok . . . so now you might be saying well maybe she doesn't like football and you could be right. but on a scheduled public appearance . . . we were completely shocked at how she presented herself. she honestly looked mad at the world that she actually watching a football game! i still can't believe i didn't have my camera.

i honestly really couldn't care too much less about miss america . . . i'm not a feminist by any means, but i don't really see the point of beautiful women strutting across a stage in their bikinis and evening gowns and the the winner of the pageant being recognized as "miss america." i know we had a great time and everyone else around us did too . . . i guess miss america doesn't know how to let loose and enjoy life!

vacation is over

all of my family has made it back home . . . even my 2 oldest girls left me! they went home with their nana and pops to spend some extra time with them. we all had a great time the past week. my oldest brother and his family and my parents came to new orleans to visit. the only thing that could have made it better was if my older brother and his family could have made it down too. hopefully they can come visit sometime soon, my 9 yr old nephew wants to go alligator spotting in the bayou really bad!

we did lots of touristy sightseeing. we took pics of the grandkids in my mother and father-in-law's beautiful backyard. after my brother went back home . . . my parents and the 5 of us went over to our favorite vacation spot . . . pensacola, fl . . . for a few days and then it was back to the big easy for a couple of more days before my parents went home.

stay tuned for more pics from the camera happy mama!

done with 3 hrs to spare!

the costume is finally all finished. we have 3 hrs till party time and i actually have everything for my costume ready to go! the only thing i am missing is a pair of cat eye glasses, but my plastic frames that i wear are close enough. i'm really excited about tonight. we have a surprise 50's birthday party to go to and everyone will be dressed in theme! i will have my camera in hand tonight and will definitely be sharing photos from the evening.

note to self . . .

. . . don't start costume for costume party the night before the party!

what i am up to . . .

this is a sneak peek into a little project that i am working on for tomorrow evening.

well . . . the family visit is over and i have tons of pics and stories to post about. and i will have all kinds of time to do this over the next few days because my little miss and my little shrimp went home with their nana and pops today! they will be gone for more than a week!!!! i don't know what i am going to do with myself! our little brown eyed girl is going to get some much deserved one-on-one time with mommy and daddy this week! not to mention she has a birthday coming up in a couple of days!

are we there yet?

ok . . . so here's a little background on how we ended up with this house. my husband is from new orleans. he is in construction. basically his whole family is in construction in new orleans. we have been living in s.w. missouri for the past 4 years. hurricane katrina makes her very unfortunate footprint on new orleans. there is more work in new orleans than missouri . . . a lot more work. sean starts traveling back and forth from missouri to new orleans to work. he is gone a lot . . . it was really not fun at all. this went on for a long time. sean wants us to travel with him. we get pregnant with our 3rd little one . . . very unexpectedly. i don't want to travel any more . . . baby #2 was premature and don't want to risk being 600 miles away from my ob/gyn when i go into labor. after baby #3 makes her debut we start traveling with sean again. all 5 of us shared a room at sean's parents house. it was great staying with them . . . but 5 people in one room was definitely not the most desirable situation! we decide to look for a place to stay while we are in new orleans. we rent a house . . . it's nice to have our own space now . . . but thank goodness we are about to move out of it! sean's dad, sean's brother, and sean buy a house in lakeview (an area in new orleans flooded from one of the levee breeches) to remodel and flip. sean enjoys doing a lot of the physical labor in construction and remodeling. the girls love to visit daddy while he is working. we visit him a lot when he is working in lakeview. sean and emily start to fall in love again . . . of course we are still in love . . . but we start to fall in love with this old colonial style house! we decide to buy sean's dad and sean's brother out on the project and make this our house in new orleans. the house had about 5 feet of water inside . . . maybe a little more. when they bought the house it had been completely gutted. the upstairs was fine . . . no damage. i wish i had pictures from the very beginning of the project but these are the first ones i took. the first time sean took me to see the house . . . i thought they were completely nuts! now several months later we can't wait to get into the house and be in lakeview. it is making its comeback and things are looking up for the area. it still needs a LOT of tlc. we actually will have neighbors. not a lot of neighbors but some. it is a good feeling knowing that we are doing our part to help lakeview and new orleans recover.

i think i might wait until we are completely finished to post anymore pics! the suspense is killing me too! i can't wait to see this house finished! the 2 weeks that we had left before we move in has turned into about 2 or 3 months! i do think there is light at the end of the tunnel though! we are ssoooo close to being finished!

a surprise for nana!

this little brown-eyed girl has a new word! i'm not going to say what it is . . . but her nana is really going to love it!

the coutdown is on!

my girls' cousins and aunts and uncles and their nana and pops will be here in 2 days! they are so excited they can hardly stand it! we are trying to get into our new house that we have been remodeling before they get here . . . .which is another blog entry or 10! so stay tuned for lots of fun pics from my family's visit to new orleans!

here is a little sneak peek of the remodeling adventure:

this is the outside (obviously) of our adorable house that we bought in new orleans. notice the infamous markings on the front door? yep . . . this house had water up to the guys head wearing the green shirt from the flooding after Hurricane Katrina! it's really a crazy thing . . . yes that we actually bought a house that was flooded and that fact that we are really excited about living in an area that is still recovering from the storm.

the remodeling is almost complete . . . i am going to try and post some pics tonight of the stages of progress thru the whole remodeling project.

right now i'm off to play a game with my girls because they are so patiently . . . . oh i mean impatiently waiting for me to finish this!

must have kitchen gadget

i had an unexpected knock on the door today from the UPS man and this is what he brought me! aren't they the coolest corn on the cob holders ever? they interlock so the pokey (is that a word?) ends don't get your fingers while you are digging them out of the drawer. i can't wait to cook some corn so i can use them! thanks for the great surprise mom!

How many . . .

How many Bernard girls does it take to put Dora on?

Look Mom . . . No Floaties!

this weekend has been a big weekend for our little 3 year old! she has been working really hard on swimming lately . . . she has really been wanting to swim like a big girl, without her floaties on. well . . . her daddy took her swimming friday night and she was swimming all over the pool without her floaties!! so saturday i had to see it for myself! she went swimming again at her cousins' house and she is becoming quite the little fish! this was her routine . . . climb in . . . swim to the other side . . . climb out . . . run around to the other side of the pool . . . climb in . . . swim back to the other side . . . climb back in . . run around to the other side again . . . climb in again . . .well i guess you are getting the picture! i can't believe how fast she is growing up! she is so proud of herself . . . can you tell by the cute, little grin on her face while she is swimming? little miss's mommy and daddy couldn't be more proud either!

note to self . . .

keep vaseline out of reach of 2 year olds!

why is it that when we are about to go somewhere . . . one of my girls always has to get into something that she isn't supposed to? we were getting ready to head out on our 40 mile road trip to my favorite craft store when this crazy little girl (of course i still love her to pieces!) decided she needed to give her hair and her body and the kitchen cabinet that she was hiding in a vaseline treatment!

the best part about it . . . i wouldn't trade her or her SUPER greasy hair for anything in the world!

am i crazy?

well . . . i finally did it! i jumped on the blogging bandwagon. i have been wanting to do this for a long time and just didn't have the courage to start talking to the whole world - not that anybody else is listening, but you know what i mean!

i guess i should introduce myself?

i am emily. i have the 3 most beautiful little girls! they are my everything . . . and my husband's too. we are a very busy little family (well-i think we lost that "little" family title after our 3rd in less than 3 yrs was born!). our girls are 3 1/2 going on 10, VERY 2, and our baby will be 1 in a couple of weeks. so i think i officially have to admit that i am crazy for thinking i have the time to take on another project.

i'm not a writer by any stretch of the imagination . . . i just want to share what makes my world go 'round and all of the things that i love!

so . . . welcome to my world!