The LA Drews

Thank You Friends for the Perfect Baby #2 Shower

I feel extremely blessed to have such wonderful women and friends in my life and felt very honored that so many of them wanted to give me & baby a special shower. I owe a very special thanks to Parrish, who put such hard work into organizing and the decorations, even while being ready to pop with her very own baby #1. Also, a huge thanks to Jessica, who hosted the shower at her place, even while being 5 months pregnant and with a napping almost 2 year old upstairs. There are so many other woman who contributed and helped make my shower just perfect including Izzy, Mel, Alison, Brooke, Sarah, Blaire, Carol and Anna. Thank you all for being such awesome, amazing women. I feel blessed to call you all friends!

Here I am all gussied up for the shower at 33 weeks:

 

Here's Rowan Thor, Mr. Bear, and Cheeta Cub preparing for my shower:

Here are some pictures from my shower. The food was absolutely fabulous with all of my favorites - crabcakes, kale salad, quinoa salad, fruit salad, deviled eggs  and more.  The decorations were beautiful and perfect for a gender neutral shower. (I know I made it hard on Parrish by not finding out the gender of the baby, but she rose to the challenge, of course!) The cake, made by the fabulous Anna of Lovely Lady Cakes, was beautiful and delicious. The candy favors were perfect for this sugarholic!

             
   

Many thanks to all of my favorite ladies who contributed, who attended and who made me feel so very special. I couldn't have asked for a better day!

(Shower & pics taken January 29, 2012)

Christmas 2011 in Sunny Venice, CA

Since I was 7 months pregnant for Christmas 2011, we thought traveling to PA and Atlanta, as we usually do every year, would be tough, exhausting and stressful for me, so we decided to stay put and have our very first LA Drews-only Christmas in sunny CA. Of course, we were sad to not be with our families during the holidays and missed them very much. But, we made the most of our time off at home, spent some great quality LA Drews familly time together, relaxed, visited with friends. We actually had a really nice Christmas 2011. And, as luck would have it, the weather was incredibly warm, so we ended up at the beach 3 days in a row!

December 23rd:

First up on the Christmas activities - opening gifts from Lety, Rowan's nanny. Since art and playing cars is an important and integral part of every day they are together, Lety's gifts were exactly spot on and Rowan was thrilled! Thank you Lety!

   

 

Next up...more gifts...from Aunt Patsy, Maria & Aunt Phyllis. A huge box of wrapped gifts arrived from TX with Rowan's favorites - Captain America gear, art supplies, puzzles, race track, super hero PJs, and so much more. Thank you so much to his Aunties and Maria!

       

Then, a fun evening with Brendan, Parrish, Jonathan...the usual Friday night crew...with a very special appearance from Miriam, all the way from Panama!

       

 

Christmas Eve, December 24th:

Feliz Navidad from Venice Beach:

 

 

Making Christmas cookies with my little love bug.

     

Snacks for Santa (and Rowan).

          

 

Christmas Day, December 25th:

Santa did visit! Christmas morning.What a fantastic age for celebrating the magic of Christmas - both Santa and Jesus' birthday!  

 

              

Plus, we finally let him open all the packages that Nana & PapPap sent all the way from PA. Boy, it sure was hard waiting to open those.

         

Look how happy Rowan is to be giving daddy his special gifts - soccer gear of course!

 

 

The weather was just sunny & perfect on Christmas Day, so we met The Moons  (JP, Lilly & Hank. Unfortunately, Izzy woke up with the stomach flu) at the beach for some Christmas fun in the sun. 

                                   

December 26th:

We were lucky enough to spend the day after Christmas with one of our oldest and dearest friends, Mr. Terry "TG" Gallagher... all the way from chilly Washington D.C. We took him for Mexican food, margaritas, and some beachy fun in the sun. So great to catch up with you in person TG!

   

 

What a wonderful and blessed Christmas 2011 in sunny Venice, CA! It could only have been better if we were surrounded by our families. But, we look forward to a new year, filled with many more blessings and tons of visits with our families when Baby Drews arrives in Feb/March.

(Pics taken 12/23 - 12/26/11)

Venice Family Holiday Photo Shoots

We wanted to get some nice family photos for our Christmas cards this year so we headed out for some photo shoots in Venice with Parrish, Brendan (and, Evelyn in tummy), found some cool backgrounds and went to work...

I must say, I do believe I have the most beautiful boy in the world!

First, Rowan giving some love to Baby Drews, due in March:

   

(pics taken 12/8/11)

Photo Shoot Day 1:

         
       

Taken by Rowan:

     

Rowan and Ella:

(pics taken 12/10/11)

Photo Shoot Day 2:

                   

Me and Parrish with our baby bellies. Parrish s idue on February 13th and I'm due on March 16th:

 

(Pics taken 12/11/11)

Happy Halloween 2011

Rowan's been talking about his costume for this Halloween since the day after Halloween 2010! He was going to be Batman and his best friend, Charlie, was going to be Superman. He never wavered. Then, a few months ago, we were going through a magazine and he changed his mind just like that! I guess he decided Captain America was just cooler.

So, Rowan was Captain America. He decided Daddy would be Batman. And, he declared that I would be Spidergirl.

The weekend before Halloween, we found a festival at the elementary school where Rowan will go next year (assuming we don't move before then.) We thought it would be a great way to get him excited about Kindergarten and let him check out the layout of the land. We decided to get more bang for our buck (these costumes + accessories can get quite pricey) and wear costumes. Rowan was set! Greg...well, he decided that he didn't need to buy a Batman costume. He was going to pull together the best Batman costume ever from "things he already had around the house". The only thing we bought was the cape from the $.99 Store and that looked like a trash bag! Not bad for spending only $.99, but still...poor thing! 

  
  
  

(pics taken October 29, 2011)
 

To be fair, Rowan thought Greg's "White Trash Batman"costume was amazing. And, noone knew us at the elementary festival. But, wifey was feeling a little embarrassed for her (Bat)man and decided we would not show up at Rowan's pre-school Halloween party or go trick-or-treating without the proper costume. As you can see...much, much better!  And, it was really cool to see some of the younger kids interact with Greg. They really thought it was THE Batman. One little guy ran up and gave him a huge hug. Really super cute!

       
  

Oh...and, I talked Rowan into letting me go as a "Pregnant Lady!"

After trick-or-treating, we headed to the Walter residence for our annual yummy taco soup night (thanks Mel!!). So so good! Rowan, Charlie and Luke had a great time passing out candy to the trick-or-treating stragglers while watching a movie (see the candy bowl in Rowan's hands).

 

We had a fun & very happy Halloween season 2011! Wonder what costumes my boys will don next year...my bets are on the Superheros coming to life again! And, I can guarantee I won't be a "pregnant lady!"

(Pics taken Oct. 31, 2011)

 

Pumpkin Carving Sunday Funday with The Moons

After all that fun at the Pumpkin Patch, we headed over to The Moons for a Pumpkin Carving Party, complete with pumpkin decorating & carving, bobbing for apples, dinner & amazing desserts, moustaches, and a viewing of It's a Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.

     
  
   
          

Thank you Izzy, JP, Lilly & Hank for such a fun, amazing Sunday Funday Night! Love you guys!

(Pics taken Oct. 23, 2011)

Rowan & His Buds

The dads organized a playdate and we had a great afternoon in Santa Monica with some of Rowan's buddies playing soccer and on the playground. Here are some pics of Rowan with Charlie - his BFF, Luke - Charlie's little brother, and Luc - one of his school friends:

  
    
 

(pics taken September 18, 2011)

Our Soccer Stud(s)

Rowan loves Jonathan and can pretty much talk him into 2 things when he comes to the westside: 1. playing soccer in the front yard and 2. reading him a book at bedtime.

Here are some soccer pics (please ignore the ratty goals in the back. I've been begging Greg to throw these away, but I guess they do sort of serve the purpose.):

         

Thanks Jonathan for always finding time for our little guy and for always humoring him when he asks for your attention!

(pics taken September 2, 2011)

Welcome to the World Simon Michael!

A HUGE congratulations go out to our great friends Jos & Sarah, who welcomed Simon Michael Ehrlichmann on August 29th. He is perfect and tiny and beautiful and we couldn't be happier for the expanding Walshlichmann clan!

Since they live so close to where I work, I was lucky enough to be able to visit and cuddle the new little guy when he was just 1 day old. I had forgotten how tiny new babies are!

   '

(pics taken August 30, 2011)

A few weekends later, Greg and Rowan were finally able to meet little Simon. Rowan wasn't impressed. Wouldn't even take a picture next to Simon and got incredible jealous when I was holding him. But, Greg sure thought he was a cutie patootie!

(pic taken September 11, 2011)

Welcome to LA!

Uncle Jon was in town for work...and, that's always a fun time. To top it off, our old friend and Greg's former bandmate, Chris, was in town for a visit. 

(pic taken July 27, 2011)

On Friday night, the boys met Chris, Beth and Gabriel downtown for the XGames. Rowan loved watching those skateboarders up close and personal. 

 

On Saturday, the gang headed to one of Greg's favorite hidden beach spots in Malibu called El Pescador. Unfortunately, I was sick in bed and missed the beautiful beach day. But, it certainly looks like they all had a great time!

                        

Thanks for visiting us Chris, Beth and Gabriel! Hope you enjoyed LA! Come back soon!

(Pics taken July 30, 2011)

 

July 4th Weekend Was a Blast!

We headed to Solana Beach to visit with the 3 J's (Jill, Jeremy & Josie) to kick off the July 4th weekend. And, what a fun time we had - hanging & playing at the house, Hawaiian reggae biker pool party, fish tacos, tide pools, body surfing (and Jeremy's first dive into the Ocean since surgery in early May. Yay Jeremy!), Naked Cafe. All around GREAT FUN with the BEST of FRIENDS!

                     
  

(pics taken July 2 & 3, 2011)


Then, we spent 4th of July day at the pool with The (FABULOUS) Moons. For some reason, we didn't get many pics, but here are Rowan and his BFF Lilly at lunch.

  

(pics taken July 4, 2011)

What a kick-off into summer! We're blessed to have such wonderful friends with such wonderful children!