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)

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)

 

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 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)

 

Dr. Seuss + Super Hero = Rowan's 4th Birthday Party

Rowan loves Dr. Seuss, has a ton of Dr. Seuss books (thanks to GeeGee and Poppy, who send 2 a month, I think) and I found some really cool Dr. Seuss bags and favors last year for his 3rd birthday party, which we never had. So, I really wanted a Dr. Seuss themed party. When I asked Rowan what he wanted on his cake, he said Spiderman. So, the Dr. Seuss Super Hero party theme was born.

I found some really cool decoration ideas online. With great help from the best ever Parrish Walsh, we were able to pull a lot of the ideas together. I rented a room at Joslyn Park, one of my favorite parks in Santa Monica. We invited the best kids and adults in all of LA. And, on June 25th from 11am - 1:30pm, we had ourselves a great party.

Here are Parrish and I the Friday night before the party working on the final details. In the pics below, we're working on drink straws for each guest.

 

For the food, I really tried to stick with the themes, so we had:

• Green Eggs (Green Eggs and Ham) - deviled eggs with green center
• Heroes - sandwiches
• Smash Veggies - a cold green bean, potatoes and cherry tomoate salad with lemon vinegrette
• Super Green - a cold kale salad with carrots and lemon vinegrette
• Super Hero and Dr. Suess Cupcakes
• Yertle's Caramel Turtles (Yertle the Turtle) - chocolate turtle candy
• Pink Ink Yink Drink (One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish) - pink lemonade
• Beezlenut Fish Splash (Horton Hears a Who!)- sparkling water with frozen jello fish
• Multi-colored Goldfish (One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish) 

We had a fruit and cheese plate as well, but I didn't come up with a clever name for those. Unfortunately, I was madly rushing around finalizing the party set-up and decorations when guests starting arriving, so I don't have very good pictures and it's not evident how much hard work Parrish & I really put into this party. But, you'll get the idea.

 


Do you see the Super R city we built and Super Rowan sign for the Super Hero table?  

I bought extra Spiderman rings from the cupcake place and those were a HUGE hit with the boys (of course)!

Happy Birthday Book: I set up the Dr. Seuss Happy Birthday to You book on the gift table with a sign that read: 

 "Stop right here you see, and write a special message to me! A Birthday Wish or just say, "Hi" to your very favorite FOUR year old guy!

On the front, the back, or any page, it's something I'll treasure at any age!

Signed,

Mayor Rowan"

We didn't get too many messages, but a few of his friends signed and it's cute to see their little scribbly signatures.

Photo Booth: We had a "photo booth" of sorts with super hero and Dr. Seuss costumes and props. The kids loved it! Even some adults had fun with it. I wish I had taken some time to enjoy it too. Oh well...I'm enjoying the pictures!

 


       


Coloring/Sticker Table: I printed out a bunch of Super Hero & Dr. Seuss pages for the kids to color and found some awesome puffy Dr. Seuss stickers.

  

Happy Birthday to Rowan: Greggie brought out his guitar for the special Happy Birthday singing. At first, Rowan liked it. And then Greg kept it going for a 2nd round and...Rowan freaked out (4th pic below). To his defense, Rowan did tell me the night before that he didn't want people to sing or clap. He just doesn't like all that attention on him...makes him nervous, I think. Just like his mommy. Anyway, we eventually got his beautiful smile back!

              

Make Rowan a Super Hero Game: So, we had this amazing Super Hero poster of Rowan. The idea was that we'd play a game with the kids - like "pin the tail on the donkey" where they would stick the super R on Rowan's shirt and finish making him Super Rowan! Unfortunately, in all of the craziness, I couldn't find the Super Rs, so we didn't play. But, we got a few good pics and the poster is now a very cool addition to Rowan's bedroom.

 


Soccer: We're at a park. It's Rowan's birthday. Greg Drews is involved. Of course we had soccer activities.

      

It was such a fantastic party. But, all great things must come to an end, even if we don't want them to. And, clearly, Super Rowan was ready to keep celebrating. Just look at this face - "Ah man! Is my party over already?!?!?!"

Very special thanks to Parrish - for tirelessly helping with decorations, set up and clean up, to Izzy - for helping with set up, to Brooke - for helping with logistics and photos during the party, to Dax - for helping with set up, and to Jonathan &  Suzie - for helping with clean up.

(Pics taken Saturday, 6/25/11)