FBF5

OK, when you are done laughing, listen up. There is a good chance my sister may never speak to me again after posting this, so I hope you all realize how much I am putting myself out there with this FBF shot!

Aren't we cute? I am the one with the saxophone, if you couldn't tell. Notice anything funny about my uniform? OK, beside the fact that it is a red, white, and blue polyester band unform, smarties! Yep, my hat. It is on backward. Let's hope I didn't march like that! And aren't those gloves attractive with the fingers cut out? Being a woodwind player is rough when it's cold. Too bad you can't see the white band shoes in this shot! (OR the overlay with the confederate flag on it!)

I actually remember this day vividly. We had just marched at the UIL marching band competition at Westlake HS in Austin, TX. I am pretty sure it was my senior year and my sister's sophomore year. We did an entire program to the music of John Williams. (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc.)

You know, I wouldn't want to wear that uniform again, but if it meant fitting back into those pants? Hmmmm.....

Boil some water!

Just kidding! I had almost forgotten to tell you all about this little guy until my blog-friend Flea mentioned crawfish in a recent post! Now, I do enjoy consuming crawfish, but I am in no hurry to eat this fella. I found him in our creek about 2 weeks ago while doing some raking near the driveway. I was trying to get more of those awful leaves out of the landscaping and something moved in the water! At this particular spot in the creek, the water is only about 3 inches deep and it was pretty mucked up. It sent a shiver down my spine, but then I remembered my 3yr old playing about 10 feet away and how cool it would be for him and his buddy, Jackson, to see and touch a crawfish. I was already wearing gardening gloves with the rubber stuff on them, so I plucked him right out of the water. I held his pinchers down with my thumb and let the boys "pet" his tail. They giggled and squealed and watching that was worth supressing the urge to throw the thing back in the water and squeal myself!

I'm back!

below: Aron hunting eggs in our yard, right: Aron and Emma Grace at our church egg hunt


Rudy holding new cousin Tate, Me with Mom and Tia Paula before the Opry, Aron and I on Easter Sunday

Hello! So, I got out of the blogging groove for about 2 weeks, but I have a plethera (love that word!) of reasons why I have neglected to post.


My mother and aunt came in for Easter for almost an entire week and in preparation for their visit, we did lots of landscaping and spring cleaning projects. That is when it all went wrong.....

1. While cleaning the upstairs bathroom, I noticed that the floor was damp and that the linoleum tiles were loose around the base of the toilet....not good. This led to call number one to the home warranty company.

2. The next day, I was out in the yard working on the flower beds. I went into the utility room to find a hammer (for steaking down weed blocker) and heard water running. Funny. I didn't remember installing a water feature in the utility room. Hmm....OH! It's the hot water heater. And it is overflowing from the top. Hmm...pretty sure it is not supposed to do that. Call number two. Thank GOD for home warranties.

3. Due to the above issues, I had no hot water. I had to BOIL water on the stove to do dishes. You can imagine how this slowed me down in my Spring Cleaning efforts. As I am sure you can imagine how pretty I looked and smelled having worked in the yard, cleaning house and no shower. (we did get a new water heater on Tuesday afternoon and I got a shower during naptime. Heaven!)

4. My aunt flew in Tuesday evening from San Antonio. Mom was to fly in the same evening from Dallas. Anyone see the news last week about the weather and almost all flights out of DFW being cancelled? Drama.

5. Mom got here Wed. She took our room, my Tia took the guestroom and Rudy and I took the air mattress. That being said, we had a wonderful time, but hostess duties and mommy duties and Easter Bunny duties took over my life.

OK. Does this explain my absense? (ANGEL!) To make it up to you, I am posting fun pictures of all our good times. Aron was spoiled rotten by Mammaw and Tia Paula. Easter went on for days at our house! What a blessing to share this joyful holiday with family! We even had a special visit from Rudy's cousin Gloria whom I had not seen since about 1999?!?! Her new baby, Tate a.k.a. Tater is sitting in Rudy's lap in that center picture. Cutie pie!

We had a great time on Saturday night with our ladies night out to the Grande Ole Opry. (Flea- I thought of you when Loretta Lynn started in on 'How Great Thou Art!)

Enjoy these photos while I sit on my porch enjoying watching my boy play, listening to the birds sing and taking in the result of all my hard work in the yard.

Cha-Cha-Cha!

This was Aron a few nights ago. He had decided to go into my closet and come out wearing some of my shoes. He loves the groans and eye-rolling this evokes from Daddy and my chuckling and snapping photos doesn't discourage him either. He pranced around the living room and into the kitchen like some crazy version of James Brown doing a flamenco dance!

Children are really a blessing and a gift from above. And sometimes they are just flat out entertaining!

Snow much fun!

I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that we live in a colder climate than we ever have before. Now, it's not the midwest or the north, by a long shot, but I got used to the 80 degree weather in March in Texas and then we moved to Vegas where it came as early as February and I'd be working on my tan by now! Warm weather makes me happy. I know it will get here soon enough and I'll be fanning myself and looking for shade at the park with Aron....
But SNOW? IN MARCH? Oh, allright! If we must. At least we got a good 3 or 4 inches here at the house! We had a blast pelting eachother with snowballs and building a snowman that I forgot to photograph, who was about 4 feet tall this time! Aron's favorite stunt was to run and fall down face first in the snow. He had Rudy and I cracking up the whole time.
We made the most of it out there for over an hour and even took time to throw a few snowballs in the creek as you can see from the short video I took with my camera. Kids + snow = fun!

FBF4

Having been battling the flu all week and watching the hints of spring fade away as we expect snow again tonight, I decided to flashback to a happier time! A springtime back in 1998 when Rudy and I were planning our wedding. We had engagement photos taken on a beautiful spring day in Austin at the Zilker Botanical Gardens. We were so young and happy. And neither of us had the flu! (And look! Rudy with hair!)

(Psst!)

Did you hear that?

(Psst!)

That! Did you hear it?

It's springtime and it's sneaking around, teasing me! Today it left these gorgeous and oh-so-fragrant daffodils in my yard!

I didn't know that daffodils smelled so good, did you? They are heavenly! Now, normally I would not go plucking the very first spring flowers from their happy little home next to the creek, but since we are expected to have a thunderstorms with high winds late tonight, I decided to go ahead and save them from being beaten and torn by the elements.

Besides, they look so sunny in my kitchen and fresh cut flowers make me feel so fancy!