A recent conversation with my husband

Cameron: "Guess what? We're the proud new owners of a Bronco!"

Julie: "Excuse me?"

Cameron: "Yeah, I talked this guy out of it."

Julie: "Seriously?"

Cameron: "Yes, it was only $400!"

Julie: "Only $400? Can it be driven?"

Cameron: "Not exactly. The engine is blown. It needs a new one."

Excellent. It is at this point I sort of tuned out to him rambling on about using it for parts for the Bronco his dad recently bought or vice versa because several thoughts popped into my head:

1. Are you sure you talked the guy out of it?
2. Who cares. Better question: what am I going to buy on my $400 shopping spree? Hmmm.....

Days of Thanks

It's so hard to believe that the holiday season is upon us! It is by far my favorite time of year, I just can't believe how quickly this year flew by! It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating Sheridan's first Christmas and birthday! I know, it sounds so cliche but it's true! This year we had the best time with Sheridan because she is at such a fun stage. Everyday she says new words and she loves trying to put her shoes on....most of the time she gets the right shoe with the right foot....but I think it's mostly coincidence. None the less, it's precious!

Anyway, this year for Thanksgiving we went to Temple on Thursday to spend the day with Cameron's family. The picture below is of all of the cousins and our kids. Leah (in the middle) is expecting their second child in May and we are anxiously awaiting to find out if she's having a boy or a girl! My instinct tells me it's a BOY! Kelly and Jason (right) just had their first child, Natalie Paige, on October 8th. She looks just like her dad which seems to be par for the course! When we first got to Aunt Brenda and Uncle Kenneth's house Sheridan was very fussy and clingy....hence why she is not looking towards the camera in the picture below! ;) But after she ate she changed her tuned and entertained us all.

Sheridan thought it was great fun to put on my shoes! We thought it was hilarious!

Reminded me of when my sister and I would put my dad's boots on when we were little!On Friday we celebrated Thanksgiving with my family because Sarah and Cal came into town that morning. The day started off on a good foot when our beloved Aggies beat the hell out TU (yes I meant to say it backwards!) for the second year in a row!!! :) My question was: why didn't we play like this all year??? Hopefully the answer lies within our new coach who will take care of it next year. But back to Thanksgiving. Usually it's just the six of us for Thanksgiving but this year Richard (my mom's brother) and his wife, Jonette, and daughter, Autumn joined us. My dad's mom was also with us. And Jonette's mom and step dad joined us. We had a house full but it was a lot of fun!

Gig'em

I CRACK UP every time I look at this picture. Sheridan really started posing/smiling for the camera this weekend!

Cal and Sarah Sarah read Sheridan some bedtime stories and again...Sheridan posed for the camera!

Happy Halloween!

I only took a few pictures of our little pink poodle on Halloween night. In my defense though, I had to take a ton of pictures because Sheridan was constantly on the move!

This was the 1st and only house we went to b/c Miss Sheridan was a little fussy as the night went onLast year for Halloween our neighbors invited lots of families over for pizza and trick or treating. Since we had such a great time they decided to make it an annual tradition. Most of the kids were Hunter's (our neighbor's son) age and they had a great time trick or treating together and playing in the front yard while we passed out candy.

me and KarenRichard and Karen

Nick (Richard's brother) and his girlfriend

After everyone else left, the four of us continued to have a good time with a few rounds of Tuaca

Richard & Karen - we had a great time as always! So glad we're neighbors!

Girls night out

On Thursday night Shaunna, Courtney and I had a much needed girls night out and indulged in dinner and a little Austin theatre. We ate at El Chile which I just love! And then we went to see my friend, Zach's latest play called Inherit the Wind at Austin Playhouse. The show was excellent and we had a great evening!

me, Zach and Shaunna

Fall Harvest

Now that we are finally in the new studio Allison (my boss) has lots of space to be creative again and we're finally getting to do all the things we've been wanting to do for a long time! First things first....implement seasonal photo shoots for children. Done.

Make it pink OR.......

These pajamas remind me of my friends Courtney and Shaunna because their favorite color ever made is PINK!

Sheridan's precious bunny slippers were a present from Kelly, my dearest friend in Arizona

Moms gone wild!!!!

Ok - so it really wasn't moms gone wild but it makes for a nice title. ;) The second weekend of October my friend Sara coordinated a girls weekend in San Antonio at the Westin hotel for me, Anne, Ginger and herself. Anne hooked us up with a room on the club level of the hotel and it was awesome!!! The room was very nice with a spacious bathroom and the service at the hotel was impeccable. We started our relaxing, no-kids weekend with spa services and I treated myself to a massage and mini-facial. It was heavenly! Then we headed down to the pool for a little sun and more R&R with our trashy gossip magazine, snacks, and raspberry mojitos and sangria....we were set!

After many hours by the pool we headed back to our room to get ready for the evening. The club level had a happy hour with drinks and appetizers so we thought that would be the perfect place to start our evening. Now this is where things got very interesting. As the elevator door opened up to our floor, a man with an ear piece and walkie-talkie stepped into the doorway of the elevator and looked inside. After he stepped aside I made eye contact with the man standing right in front of me as he stepped aside so we could get off the elevator. This is will be an important detail later I promise. As we walked towards our room Ginger and Anne decided they would stop by the happy hour first while Sara and I got ready. Shortly after Sara and I started getting ready Anne and Ginger came back to the room and told us that they (the hotel staff) practically shoved their drinks at them and wouldn't let them in the happy hour room. Anne put one and one together and determined that the man with the walkie-talkie was a bodyguard and someone famous must have been staying on our floor. She thought the guy she saw from the back might have been Lance Armstrong. Needless to say, we quickly got ready and headed to the happy hour so we could hang out with the stars! Unfortunately, whoever it was was already gone. Our waitress confirmed that someone famous was there but couldn't tell us who it was. She was shocked that we didn't know who it was because he was getting on the elevator as we walked off and walked right by him!!!! Seriously....guess we had one too many mojitos at the pool to be on the lookout for famous people. She did agree to giving us hints and letting us guess but we weren't very good at that game until she gave us the following clues...

1. He became famous on a teenage tv show

2. He was on Dancing with the Stars last season

The light bulbs went off and we guessed....Mario Lopez! Turns out Eva Longoria was hosting a charity golf tournament and all sorts of people were/had been in town for it. We never saw him again but found out from our bellboy when we were leaving that Mario (yes, we're on a 1st name basis now!) left at 4am Sunday morning. Anyway, here's a picture of us at happy hour after our sort-of star sighting :)

We took the hotel shuttle to PF Changs for dinner since it was right at the end of the hill from the hotel.


After dinner we went to the hotel bar for a drink and then called it a night. Sunday we hit the shops at La Cantera before heading home and back to reality. Honestly though, we were excited and ready to see our husbands and kids!

It's a zoo out there

Earlier this month on one of my Mondays off work (which I like to refer to as Fun Day Mondays) Sheridan and I went to the Austin Zoo with my friend Sara and her little girl Natalie, Anne and her children Nicholas and Mackenzie, and Ginger and her children Jase and Grace. We had a great time and Sheridan really enjoyed seeing the different animals.

It took Sheridan a little while to warm up to the idea of petting the goat!

I had to help Sheridan feed the deer or else she would try to eat the food herself!

From left to right: Mackenzie, Jase, Sheridan, Nicholas, Natalie, and Grace

Notice how all of the other kids are sitting nicely for the picture and my daughter is trying to get down and run around! :\

Tired already?

Sheridan was very interested in the turtle

Now that's the way to see the zoo

Sara and Natalie on the train ride

I thought Sheridan was the happiest little baby but Mackenzie was always smiling!

Nice kitties

Things that make you hmmm......

3 things I'm puzzled about today:

1. Last night Tara introduced me to Oh's cereal and I love it! However, I don't understand how it stays crunchy from the very first bite all the way to the very last bite when all the other cereals get soggy???

2. How do my dogs possibly have ANY hair left on their bodies when every other day I sweep up enough dog hair to make a whole other dog???

3. How can I watch 8 hours of DVR'd shows from yesterday in one evening without staying up until the wee hours of the morning???

Ah....the pain!

I've gradually been watching the numbers on my scale increase and have finally decided to get serious on doing something about it. Keep in mind I also haven't completely lost all of the weight I gained when I was pregnant with Sheridan so LOTS of weight gain here to overcome! I tried doing the low-carb thing again and I just couldn't stick to it. I like sweets. I can't help it. I'll blame it on my genes that I get from the Sheridan side of my family. It has nothing to do with lack of self control. It's all about genetic make-up I'm sure.


Anyway....my friend Sara and I were driving home from our girls weekend in San Antonio (I'll post about that later) and this was when I came up with my new workout routine/diet while muching on delicious trail mix that I made for the trip complete with Crunch n' Munch, M&Ms, yougurt covered Cheerios, Cheerio Crunch cereal, pretzels, toffee covered peanuts, and cashews. Perhaps this could be part of the problem. I decided to ditch the low-carb approach and do low-calorie and healthy foods...fruits, vegetables, salads, yogurt, all of those fantastic 90 calorie snack packets to satisfy my sweet tooth, no more potatoes and rice and bread at meals for dinner. Tara also gave me a bunch of food suggestions and I think I'll be able to do it. Sara told me about a yoga show that comes on at 5 o'clock in the morning on the Oxygen channel called Inhale. Now let's not get crazy and think that I'm actually going to get UP at 5 o'clock in the morning to do yoga. That's why someone invited the DVR. So I could still sleep until 7 o'clock and then get up and do yoga. Three times a week is my goal and so far I've been a good girl and have done my yoga on Monday and this morning. Now this is where the pain comes in. After doing yoga on Monday my body was killing me. Perhaps it's in complete shock to this foreign thing called exercise that I haven't done in quite awhile. But the pain and soreness didn't stop me from thinking it would be a good idea to do some sit ups on Tuesday morning in an effort to try to find my abs again. Not the greatest idea I've ever had to torture myself like that because my stomach was killing me yesterday! It hurt to even laugh.

The other part of my new workout routine is to put Sheridan in the jogging stroller and walk around our hilly neighborhood for 30 minutes three times a week. Cameron and I loaded up Sheridan in the stroller and dug out the dog leashes on Monday night. I decided if I was going to suffer I was taking the whole family down with me! Fortunately, I mean...unfortunately, the skies looked like they were going to open up any minute and dump a ton of rain on us so we only walked for 15 minutes but I figured it was better than nothing. And Tuesday morning when I got on the scale and the scary number was 1.5 pounds lower I was thrilled and that's where my motivation came to do sit ups. I hope I can make this a habit and keep it up. I'll keep you posted.

Tick tock, tick tock

No, no. That's not the sound of my biological clock ticking but rather the sound of the internal time bomb that is about to explode on never ending tile project that is still underway at my house. Yes, I'm referring to the one that was started back in July people! A few weeks ago this is what my kitchen looked like......

After I told my sister about the new feng shui arrangement of appliances in our kitchen, she asked me how I cooked or fed Sheridan. And the answer is quite simple. I didn't! Well, let me clarify.....Sheridan did get fed but I did not attempt to cook. It was very annoying trying to squeeze through the space between the oven and fridge to move through the kitchen just to microwave a Gerber Graduate meal for her, I certainly was not going to try to cook an actual meal. The first night we ordered pizza for ourselves and the second night I had bible study so I ate dinner at my mom's. Apparently Cameron cooked himself pasta that evening however, I just like to continue believing it was impossible to cook under those conditions. Fortunately, this didn't last too terribly long....maybe four or five days and the kitchen was back to normal. If only I could say that about the rest of the house........

Lessoned learned

I never would have thought it was my daughter I needed to watch for tearing up the toliet paper instead of my dogs!

Chillin' and Grillin': Married Edition

This is the second year that Ben (one of Cameron's fraterity brothers) and Cheri had their annual Chillin' and Grillin' summer party at their house in Pearland. It was the weekend of August 11th (yes - I'm a little behind on posting) and the "Married Edition" was added on because Ben and Cheri got married in June. Heath and Shaunna drove down with us and we all stayed at Ben and Cheri's house so we could party into the wee hours of the morning.

The "A" team: Shaunna, Heath, Kenny, Sara, Sheridan and Cameron
Heath practicing for the future???? I could have posted the picture that showed why Heath's nickname is Belly!

Heath and our hostesses with the mostess, Ben and Cheri
A few weeks ago Cheri called me to share the good news that she and Ben are expecting a baby in May!!! We are so excited for them and can't wait for next year's Chillin' and Grillin': Family Edition party!