Girl's Weekend

Before I write about my fabulous weekend with my wonderful friends, I wanted to catch up on what is going on in our house since the last post. First and foremost, the built ins are finished! Lee did such a wonderful job! Elle is now in therapy 5x a week with a 6th time pending. The new therapy that she started 3 weeks ago is auditory therapy through the school district (and ECI). I LOVE her therapist and wish we saw her more than once a week! Elle is doing great with her signs. Her first session with Katy, her therapist, Katy was showing her stuffed animals and doing the signs and the sound each animal makes. Elle was mimicking her! Each week Elle has done more and more signs and today in occupational therapy, Elle was signing "drink," "eat," and "more." That was a first for all three when food and a bottle were involved! She is wearing her hearing aids for longer and even wore them for the whole 2 hours today of physical therapy and occupational therapy.

The AWESOME built ins Lee did (all by himself...I'm not much of a helper)

Our little bed head baby in her Animal Print Friday on March 5, 2010Our little happy girl

Elle wore Ole Miss gear all week long in preparation for the girls weekend!

Animal Print Friday, March 12, 2010 This past weekend all my girls from college came in to visit for Elle's first birthday. We celebrated a few weeks early since it was the only weekend we could all get together. I've already written about these girls in the past. They are my hearts, my sisters, my best friends and I love them with all my heart. We had a fabulous weekend together and I definitely didn't want it to end yesterday. They all came in on Friday and Elle and I picked up Aunt Eldy (Laura D) and Uncle Matt, and Aunt Laura S. early Friday evening. We all went back to my parent' house where the girls were camping out for the weekend and met up with Lee and my parents. I believe this was the only time the whole weekend that Elle actually sat on the ground and showed everyone her awesome army crawling skills. Later on that evening, Lee and Matt headed back to our house where the boys were staying and Eldy, Laura and I met up with Aunt Lala, Auntie Shay and Aunt K-Lo for dinner. If we weren't in a restaurant, I'm pretty sure I would have shrieked when I saw them walk in the door. Our dinner conversations might have gotten a little inappropriate and in our usual fashion, we were talking over each other instead of taking turns talking. Even though we hadn't all been together in over a year, the minute we all saw each other, it was like we had never left each other sides. Later on that evening, Lala and Shay went to pick up Auntie Megs from the airport and once she was back at my parent's house, our group was complete!! We stayed up until 2am talking and reminiscing and laughing until we cried and our stomachs hurt. Saturday morning, we woke up and sat around talking and laughing some more. We decided to take Elle on a walk at the park so all 7 of us plus my mom headed up to the park and took Elle on a walk and then we played in the park for a while. Aunt Lala took Elle down her first slide and she loved it! It was such a beautiful day that as soon as we got home, we opened up the doors and put Elle in her walker and let her cruise around the house while my wonderful friends out did themselves decorating and cooking and getting ready for the birthday party that was that evening. I wasn't expecting all they did - it was amazing and just thinking about it makes me tear up. Aunt Steph came over in the afternoon and that's when the partying really started! Lee, Matt, my parent's, Lee's parents and Shay's parents all completed our little party and it was absolutely perfect! Aunt Steph fed Elle Cheetos which she loved and we eventually were able to sing Happy Birthday and let her play in her very own birthday cake after I stripped her down to just her diaper. She wasn't really all too interested in her cake and was way more interested in all the people that were staring at her and smiling and laughing. She hammed it up big time for her party and was a prefect little birthday girl. Even though I said no presents, the coffee table was covered in them! Thank you all for making Elle's first first birthday party so much fun and an absolutely perfect evening! After presents came my favorite time in the evening. When these same girls threw me my baby shower on January 31, 2009, they all gave me one of the sweetest gifts I have ever received. Shannon masterminded the gift - she sent note cards to all of the women in my life that I love and had them write Elle a note (at this point she was still known as Little Lady Lupher). Elle now has a note to read on each of her birthdays for the next 21 years and a letter from Lee to read on her wedding day. So, I read Aunt Laura's letter to Elle on Saturday night. I can't believe it's been a year and I am so thankful Laura and all my friends were able to be there to share in that special moment as I read the first letter.

Sunday we all woke up and got ready for a girls brunch. Elle stayed with my mom while we surprised Eldy with a baby shower. Despite us thinking she knew about it, she was totally shocked when she walked in to the restaurant to see a mountain of presents! We had a great brunch and I'm sure Eldy loved opening up all the gifts! She is due in June and we are so excited to meet her little man (She and Matt are keeping the name a secret but I call him Leon...I'm not so secretly hoping they do end up naming him Leon just because I started calling him that from the beginning). After brunch we changed, grabbed Elle and then went to meet Lee and Matt who had just finished playing golf. We dropped Elle off with them and then hit up the outlet mall by my house. After a long day of shopping we sat down for some much needed Tex-Mex and margaritas. The evening ended with a game of loaded questions and more laughing until I cried.

Monday morning, Lee dropped Elle and Matt off on his way into work and then we sat around and laughed more until it was time to head to the airport. After dropping off Megs at the airport, I had an hour in the car to re-live the events of the weekend. Last time I dropped everyone off at the airport, I cried the whole way home, already missing them terribly. This time, I held the tears in but there will be moments from this weekend that will forever be permanently etched in my brain. I wish I would have had a camera to capture the moments of Elle and Megs cuddling in bed together on Saturday morning before anyone else woke up, of Lala and Elle sliding down the slides in the park and seeing the amazement on Elle's face when Lala showed her the mirror on the side of the slide, of Elle falling asleep on Matt's shoulder on Monday morning, of Laura meeting Elle for the first time and watching in amazement as Elle signed to her and her laugh at the sight of Elle in her hearing aids (she's an audiologist and was so thrilled when we decided to aid Elle at such a young age), of Eldy holding Elle's hand while we were on our walk, of Elle reaching out for Kathryn for her to hold and then putting her little head on her shoulder, of Steph loving on Elle and then feeding her Cheetos, of Shay holding Elle in her lap in her little tutu and Shay showing Elle how to blow on the pin wheel to make it spin and the way Elle's eyes lit up when she saw the pin wheel turn for the first time. I wish I could have captured all these moments to share with the world because they were so special for me.

Elle is so lucky to have such wonderful women in her life and I am so blessed with these amazing girls as friends. Thank you ladies for the most amazingly fun and much needed weekend! I love you all so much!!!!

More girls weekend pictures to come!