Going to the Chapel...

We have some very exciting news happening within our family at the moment!  My brother, Nick, and his girlfriend Anne are engaged!  Anne is also in dental school (1 year ahead of Nick) so it was very fitting for Nick to propose on the UNC campus!  We are SO happy for them and so excited to welcome Anne into our big crazy family!  Love you both and can't wait for your wedding later this year!

Now, since we are talking about weddings, I just have to share a couple pictures of Emery that I took last week.  I never had my wedding gown cleaned & preserved, so it hangs in plain sight in my craft closet.  Emery and I open up the craft closet daily so at least once a week I hear "Can I see your beautiful wedding dress? Can I try it on? Can you put it on, Mommy?".  I want to make sure we do a couple of her special requests like this over the next couple weeks before baby boy gets here, so I finally said "YES".  She was literally jumping up and down in excitement, and as you can tell by her face in these pictures... her day was made!

She even wore my tiara and necklace from our wedding day too... and you can't see it but of course she had on my high heels as well.  Girly girl from head to toe... you know we'll be using one of these pictures in her wedding slideshow one day!  So funny!

BFF Time & Family Birthdays!

While Kyle and I were in Vegas, my Mom, Grandma, Emery and Samantha were having a blast here in Charlotte.  Even though we decided to keep Emery's party much smaller this year with only friends, it was a must that Mantha still attend.  Her and Emery are serious bff's and the way that they are constantly hugging each other is so adorable.

The morning of Emery's party we let her open one present-- a Shutterfly book from our Disney Vacation.  Her and Mantha loved looking at all the pics together!

Matching jammies and high heels of course:

Watching Minnie-Rella while their nails are drying from painting them earlier:

Mom and Gigi met Tara halfway to Raleigh, and then spent the next 2 days here at our house with just Emery.  I loved all the pictures they sent me while we were away.  Gigi and Em:

They still went to the library story time, here's the craft of the day:

And one last one I got before Mom and Gigi headed back home.  Oh does Em love her Grandma, and never once cried from missing Mommy!

The following weekend, we drove to Raleigh to celebrate Samantha, Samuel, Natalie and Nathan's joint birthday party!  They had it a Jelly Beans, a jump house in Wake Forest, and the kids had A BLAST.  Emery is normally a little afraid in these places, but with Mantha by her side she played for 2 hours straight!

We then all went and watched Nathan's baseball practice to enjoy the beautiful weather!

That night Emery had her first sleepover with her girl cousins! She was SO excited, and was not sad at all when I said goodnight to her and drove back to Grandma's house.  It took her A WHILE to fall asleep (she's never slept in the same room with kids before) and Tara said he was requesting chocolate chip pancakes in the morning after they woke up.  That's my independent girl already planning meals for the next day hahaha.

Sunday morning, we headed over to Kerry & Brad's house to meet up with Kyle and hang out with the rest of the fam!  Don and Emery's birthdays were both the previous week so after a delicious breakfast we all enjoyed huge cupcakes & some presents!

And some sweet cuzzie playtime too!

Busy weekend but a lot of fun hanging out with family as always!  And here is a video of Em singing Happy Birthday to Poppa!

Vegas Vacation!

After visiting the Hoover Dam, Kyle and I drove into Vegas and timed driving down the strip at sunset, perfectly.  Let me just say I LOVE VEGAS and it wasn't nearly as dirty and provocative as I had imagined. (I do realize the sign below says "sensual" hahaha)  

Everything is SO over the top, and so fancy... it truly feels like a Disney World for adults.  It's so apparent how much money the city has from all the casinos... sky is the limit!

We stayed at The Four Seasons, which consists of the top 4 floors of the Mandalay Bay (floors 35-39).  Kyle's conference for work was held in the Mandalay Bay, so we really lucked out getting to stay at the Four Seasons!  Our room was beautiful and so so nice.

Once we unpacked, we headed back out to walk the strip and find somewhere to eat dinner.  I couldn't get over the decorations in all the hotels, I mean seriously over the top!!

Here is a view from outside the Venetian showing the outdoor gondolas they have in front of the hotel:

And inside the ceilings are covered in beautiful murals!

We walked up to the second floor in the hotel and voila you are all of a sudden in an "outdoor" shopping area surrounding the streets of Venice.  I mean look at that sky, doesn't it look real?  Oh and they have rivers with gondolas all throughout too... ON THE SECOND FLOOR OF A HOTEL.  INSANE!  We found a delicious Italian restaurant, split a couple appetizers and headed out.

We then walked down the street to the Belagio fountains!  Over the weekends they show every 15 minutes so we stayed and watched 2 shows, so incredible and all different depending on the music they play.

Once back in our hotel I stopped at the bathroom quickly and walked out to Kyle's guilty face gambling haha:

And took a couple silly pics along the way too that night!

The next morning, Kyle had to head into work so I spent the day being a tourist and relaxing by the pool.  I wished he could have joined me for some of it, but I still had a blast exploring the city, shopping, taking naps and finally reading a book!  Our hotel had a free tram attached to it that brings you more into the strip so I took that out and explored a little more. 

Here is another crazy hotel -- New York, New York which actually has a roller coaster that runs through the casino and then all outside of it.  Kyle rode it one night after I left with his work team... crazy!

Around lunchtime I came back to relax at the pool.  The Four Seasons had it's own pool with people who set up your chairs, provide pitchers of water and free sunscreen... I tell you what FANCY!  I chose to hang out there the rest of the afternoon!

I walked over to Mandalay Bay's pool as well just to check it out.  They have a huge wave pool and lazy river going around it.  Em would have loved it!

Kyle was done with work around 5:00, so we headed out soon after to go eat a quick appetizer before heading to the Cirque de Soile Michael Jackson ONE show!  The theatre was actually in the Mandalay Bay so once again we didn't have to walk far which worked out perfectly!

So pumped to be heading into the show!  It was AMAZING and our favorite show that we've seen yet.  There was so much dancing and cool tricks, the music was so great, and the special effects were unbelievable. 

 

There were parts where you really thought you were watching Michael Jackson dance on stage-- makes you sad to think he's not around anymore as he really was a great performer.  

After the show we headed to the casino to try our luck at gambling.  We only played Roulette, and only lasted a couple rounds.  HA needless to say I take way too long to pick out numbers!

Oh well still really fun!

The next morning, we ate breakfast with my cousin, Ben, as he was in town for the conference as well with his company.

Then Kyle and I relaxed by the pool for a couple hours before I had to pack up and head to the airport.  

But we stopped at the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign for a couple pics!  We always have a jump shot at signs like this but this time I just held the belly since jumping isn't the most comfortable option these days!

And we picked up lunch from In-N-Out before the airport.  It was delicious, and a necessity since we don't have these on the east coast!

A really quick but fun trip to Vegas with my sweetie.  Thanks again Kyle for letting me tag along, and for Mom and Gigi for taking such great care of Emery while I was gone.  Perfect get away before we add another kiddo to our fam and the chaos begins!

Vegas Trip: Hoover Dam

The month of March is absolute CHAOS in our house.  We have a bazillion house projects going on, lots of family birthdays to celebrate and on top of that 2 big trips planned!  It's our last month to travel before baby comes so we are living it up :)  Needless to say I'll have lots to blog about when things actually calm down (although who am I kidding we are about to have a newborn... things might never calm down)!
The morning after Emery's party, Kyle and I headed to LAS VEGAS!  He had to be over there the entire week for work and thankfully it worked out where I could tag along with him for a couple days (A HUGE thank you to Mom and Gigi for watching Em for us).  We got in Sunday around 2, rented a car and headed straight to the Hoover Dam.  We had beautiful weather and I'm so glad we were able to go see this.  Lake Mead is beautiful, and the water is so clear.

The Nevada Arizona line:

The new bridge behind us was so impressive!

And had to get a belly shot on top of the Hoover Dam since you can't say that everyday!  Here I am at 31 weeks preggo.

Really fun start to our trip!