Happy to be here!

Rice Rice Baby

2012-02-05T15:13:00.000-08:00

She ate solid food! I mean she didn't eat a bacon cheeseburger or anything, but she ate some rice cereal. (We are waiting at least a few more weeks before she gets her first greasy hamburger because we are just good parents like that ;) ) Anyways, at her last pediatrician appointment he said she is ready when we are. Like I mentioned in my last blog post for some reason I wasn't 100% ready to give it to her but decided I was just being crazy and she had been pretty obsessed with us eating for a few weeks now and we might as well give it a shot. I was expecting it to be very anti-climactic. I thought we'd give her a few bites, she'd spit it out and then I could go on my merry little way and not approach the solid food issue for at least another month or two.

Well, Ruby girl once again showed me what was up. She woofed down the rice cereal. We were shocked. I mean she leaned forward, opened her mouth for the food, swallowed most it. It was impressive. We finally found something she takes after me- little baby girl is an EATER! I can see us now having long and involved talked involving the best toppings for pizza, or just simply being giddy for weeks in anticipation of birthday cake. I love Andy, but he eats as a way to keep living, don't believe he's ever used the word "life changing" to describe food the way I do quite often. Now maybe this is a big leap considering she's only had rice cereal once but leave me alone, I need this. I was weirdly emotional about the whole experience and just how fast she is growing up. I am so very excited to show her the big world we live in and just how good all the food God gave is but it is also a tony bit bittersweet my snuggly baby is changing so very quickly. Blech, enough of that lame hormonal mom stuff, let's get to the messy face pictures. I will spare you all and not post the 15 minute video of the event, but will say I've already watched it three times (My name is Ashley and I'm addicted to my baby).

A little unsure at first

Still unsure but warming up to it

The verdicts in- she likes it!

I ate trash cookies

2012-02-03T13:51:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week I woke up and said to myself "Self, today we are going to be healthy, no eating peanut butter out of the jar for lunch, no sitting on the couch watching my work out video (again), no justifying thin mint after thin meat till you realize the whole sleeve is gone" I felt good. Despite the fact I had had this same pep talk nearly every day for the past month I still believed that maybe today would be different. I even threw away 1/2 a package of cookies! I knew if they sat on the counter all day, well they wouldn't be sitting there very long. So I threw them away.

Let's fast forward about six hours. I had finally gotten Ruby down for her nap, just finished lunch, had things to do that I didn't want to do- the perfect storm for my junk food relapse. Good thing I didn't have anything sweet to snack on... Then I heard a voice "Ashley! Look! We're down here!" The cookies were talking to me! Okay, maybe they weren't but they might as well of been because it was like there was a spotlight on them, I could see nothing but them peaking out from underneath a pile of carrots peel and two wet tea bags.

So I did it. I dug out the cookies and ate not one, not two, but THREE TRASH COOKIES! And yes, they were delicious. After I came down from my sugar high I had yet another talk with myself. "Self, I'm pretty sure normal people don't eat from the trash. Maybe you have a problem". After a pretty intense argument where I tried to justify eating out the trashcan I finally admitted that my sweet tooth has gotten kind of crazy. So what this long, disgusting story is leading to is this....

I am not eating any sweets this month.

I just shed a little tear when I typed that. It will be hard. It will probably get ugly . I need to proclaim this publicly so I can have a little accountability, my sweet friend Rachel has even agreed to do it with me! It seems like such a stupid thing to have such control over me and I'm sure it may sound a little dramatic but remember- I'm the girl that eats trash cookies...

Grandparent visit!

2012-01-23T12:50:00.000-08:00

Ruby is one loved little girl. Andy and I are pretty obsessed with just about everything she does, we have amazing friends that she gets loving from regularly, but the icing on the big cherry on top of the ice cream sundae of love that is her life is her grandparents. Recently my parents took the short little 8 hour drive down to visit us and we had an awesome weekend. We didn't do anything too crazy, mostly just sit around and talk about Ruby's awesomeness.

Lots of Ruby time!

All gussied up for church

We even managed to get a family picture, I think this is the third picture of the three of us together, we've got to get better about family pictures.

Thanks mom and dad for a great weekend! Love you.

4 Months!

2012-01-19T10:11:00.001-08:00

Does every single parent wake up and wonder how it is possible that their kid got so grown up like every single day? I sure do. We bought a digital video camera a few weeks ago and I keep telling Andy that is we just set it up and film her overnight I'm pretty sure if we watched it in fast forward we could see little elves come in a stretch her out (that's how kids grow right?). What I'm getting at, in a very weird way, is she is ginormous. Okay, I mean she's still a baby and tiny and cute, but changing so very much.

Alright, here are some 4 month Ruby facts:

Weight: 13lbs 12oz (55th percentile)
Height: 24 1/2 inches (62 percentile)

-She rolls over! Front to back and back to front! This is one of those things that seems pretty lame if you don't have a kid but over the past few weeks Andy and I have spend many a night just sitting on the floor in hopes of seeing the miraculous event that is our baby rolling over.

-Ruby is a stand up kind of girl. Literally. She wants to be "standing up" most of the time. She locks her legs and gets fussy if you try to lay her on her back too much.

-She has found her thumb finally. She's been searching for it for awhile but low and behold that pesky thumb came out of hiding and she is loving it. I'm not too worried about it because well, I got bigger fish to fry. If it helps calm her down then I'm a fan of it. Five years from now I may have a different opinions but for now...ehhh...

-I bit myself in the butt last time bragging about her sleep. We are really struggling with sleeping these days. She just wants to be up and around and playing all the time. Aren't babies suppose to need a lot of sleep? I call it a good day if she sleeps for more that 2 hours total for naps (where as before she was doing at least 2-3 long naps each day). I have read so much about all the different sleep training methods and am really struggling with how to handle it. I think she is still too young for any kind of sleep training but also don't want to form bad habits that are going to be harder to break later on. Right now we are still doing middle of the night feedings but only if it's been 4+hours since she's eaten, if it hasn't then we just pat or rock her back to sleep. She is waking up at least every 2 hours. It's been rough.

Happy little girl

Not many 4 month olds have pony tails...
(this picture kills me- she looks like a freakin toddler!)

Rocking the heck out of her first real pair of jeans. They have a little fly and everything- Sqeeee!

Cloth diapers- they aren't gross

2012-01-09T08:11:00.000-08:00

I promise. I mean poop is kinda gross (note that I said kinda- it's true once you become a mom bodily fluids ain't nothin but a thang anymore) but poop is part of the package deal with a baby apparently. I'm going to try to negotiate better with the next kid and see if I can get out of the whole cleaning poop from crevices every day. I'm suppose to be convincing you cloth diapers AREN'T that bad. Crevice cleaning talk isn't a good start...let me start over...

So, we've been doing cloth since Ruby was about 2 1/2 months old, would of done it sooner but the whole being a one handed mom thing messed me up for a few weeks so we just did disposable for a bit.

I was going to do a pros/cons list but I don't really have any cons. Okay I kinda have one but I secretly think it's cute so I'm not going to count it. They are really bulky. They should become less bulky because I have the one size diapers so to make a diaper that fits a newborn to 3 years old it's pretty bulky in the begining. She doesn't seem uncomfortable with it at all, just make some of her snug clothing look funny. My little Fred Murtz (heck yes I just made an I Love Lucy reference!)

(girlfriend knows how to strike a pose that's for sure)

We are also doing resuable wipes with homemade solution. I initially didn't think we would do this but tried it and it really isn't much work so we've stuck with it. Once a week or so I mix together water, olive oil, aloe vera, and castille soap in a squirt bottle and we just squirt it on some flannel wipes I sewed together. I just throw them in with her diapers to be washed. They work really well and she hasn't had any diaper rash ever.

As I mentioned earlier we went with one size diapers, cloth diapers are expensive and I didn't want to buy a bunch of different sizes. After much research and ultimately just choosing what my friend Chez was using, since it was working well for her. I went with the Grovia All in Two diapers. They have an outer shell that has lots of snaps so you can make the waist and leg holes as large or small as you need. Then there is what they call a soaker pad that you change when Ruby does her thang. A lot of the cloth diapers you have to wash the entire diaper each time (called all-in-ones) but with these most of the time you are just changing out the pad and using the same shell. Exception being when she drops a deuce, you definitely want to change the whole thing. I mostly just wrote that last sentence so I could say drop a deuce because it makes me laugh. I'm so not mature enough to be a parent...

I mostly did cloth diapers for the money saving aspects and a little for the environmental concerns about diapers and wipes. I thought it would be a kind of a pain but was willing to do it. I am happy to report that it really isn't much work. I took pictures to prove it!

Step 1) Get yourself one happy baby with some dirty breeches

Step 2) Make sure and give the baby lots of tummy zerberts and soak up that beautiful baby laughter (this step is optional but highly recommended)

Step 3) Take diaper off (is it all babies or just mine that take a delight and somehow have such skill to be able to pee like a racehorse the 3 seconds I have her diaper off, it's amazing really) and replace soaker pad with fresh one

Step 4) Snap that baby back on. Ruby wanted to model how cute she/the diapers are

Step 5) Put soaker pad in wet bag (fancy name for zippered, water proof bag you keep till you have a load for laundry)

Step 6) Throw them in the washer, the only thing I do special is put my washer on a 2nd rinse cycle. I machine dry the pads and hang dry the diaper shell so they last longer.

That's it. Easy peasy. Not hard and not gross. So stop giving me the snarled lip when I say we are cloth diapering...just kidding...kind of...

Searching for words...

2012-01-06T11:44:00.001-08:00

I have really struggled with blogging about Ruby. To have these little lame monthly updates and post some cute pictures of her every so often just doesn't seem to do justice to what is happening in our lives. Now I know even with me attempting to capture it here I still won't be able to express what becoming parents has done to Andy and I but I'm going to try.

We are in love. To say we adore her is putting it lightly. When we dreamed about becoming parents we thought about what she would look like and the fun milestones of her first words and all that fun stuff. What I didn't anticipate is that every day would be so special.

Now I knew I would love my child. I knew Andy and I would take care of our babies and we would have lots of fun together and that being a parent would be special. What I didn't know, and don't think I could of until I was a parent, is just how deep and strong that love is. That even after sleepless night after sleepless night,a flash of that gummy little smile at 4am can make me happier than anything in this world can.

Watching Andy become a father has been such a precious blessing as well. Just when I thought I couldn't possibly love him anymore, along comes Ruby and wow. It actually feels like my heart is melting seeing them two of them interact. The first time Ruby laughed it was so special not just for that reason but until the day I die I will remember how Andy's face lit up. He was so just so happy. It has to be one of my favorite memories of us together.

Now let me take a second here to be real. These past three months have been the most physically draining, emotionally challenging, and plain old exhausting months of my life. Both taking care of a newborn and figuring out how to handle the new (and might I say the most important) role in my life has been tough. Trying to find balance while my life revolves around her seems impossible sometimes. It's strange how something can be so incredibly amazing and yet so difficult at the same time.

I know this is a bit of a ramble, I just wanted to declare to the world that being Ruby's mom is a blessing far greater than I deserve and she has changed us in every way for the better. Recently I have become a little (okay, a lot) crazy for my pregnant friends, not just because I'm glad to have more babies (which I SO am!) but for them to get to experience the joy ride that is having a baby. I have tried to express to them (and got a little choked up one Sunday at church talking to a girl I'm not super close with about how amazing being a mom is- pretty sure she thinks I'm crazy now, oh well, better she find out now than later ;) ) what every single parents knows but you just can't explain it. I guess I need to just smile and say "just wait and see" like several of my mom friends did to me cause this kind of love doesn't have words.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-29T16:35:00.000-08:00

I'm a Christmas freak, love it and everything about it. Add a baby into the mix and my Christmas freak flag was flying higher than ever. So we loaded back into our very packed car (first time in my life I saw the awesomeness that is having a mini-van) and headed north.

First we had to pack up all our gifts! We had one particularly cute one...

Our first stop was in Waxahachie to spend the night with Andy's mom.

That evening we went over to the Mapes house for dinner and letting Ruby hang out with her only cousins- Daisy and Tessa.

Getting some love from Aunt Kari

Then we drove up to Tulsa to visit my family. It was three days of rest, fun, and eating. Totally worth the drive. And of course, Ruby got lots and lots of attention.

Molly got a little attention too, poor pooch has been on the back burner the past couple of months so she gets so excited when someone will play with her.

Uncle Brian is an old pro with babies now...

Christmas eve there was a very intense game of Monopoly. And when I say intense, I mean INTENSE. Lies were told, alliances were made, a wrestling match almost broke out at one point. It was awesome.

Christmas Day

My loot, I felt like such a hippie with my cloth diapers, reusable produce bags and sandwich bags.

One of the days my grandma came for a short visit, I swear babies know who the grandmas are, cause Ruby was smiling up a storm for her.

The McBrides and Jenkins visited one day. Always love seeing Sara and Drew but it was a real treat to get to introduce Ruby to Sara's family too. I definitely consider them all my extended family. It was doubly exciting because it was the first time I got celebrate with Sara since she found out she is having a little girl (aka: Ruby's future BFF) this spring. I'm ridiculously excited meeting Baby Girl McBride.

And it goes without saying that we ate and ate and then ate some more. I took a bunch of food pictures but thought I would just show one, the most simple meal we had but probably my favorite. Good ol Okie cooking- mac-n-cheese, cornbread, and pork and beans with chow chow on top. Mmmmmmmm....

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

2011-12-21T11:07:00.000-08:00

3 months

2011-12-21T09:53:00.000-08:00

Our little girl is a quarter of a year old! Like I said last month, it's just amazing how quickly she is changing. It is just so much fun! Here are some 3 month Ruby facts:

She laughs! It is hands down the best sound I have ever heard. I'm addicted to hearing those throaty little giggles that we work so hard for.

She loves sitting up. There isn't much that makes her fussy but laying her flat down on her back if she isn't tired will do it. She wants to be propped up and surveying the area at all times. She can sit in her Bumbo for about 10 minutes before (I think) she gets tired (it's hard work holding up that ginormous brain if hers!).

She seems to be a really happy baby. Every morning when I go to get her out of her crib she is smiling ear to ear. She has a few times a day (about an hour after she wakes up and then around 5-6pm) that she can be a little fussy but other than those times she seems really content.

She does great with noise and being around lots of people. We've had lots of get togethers and parties with it being Christmas time and all and she does great. She is fine just sitting in your lap and taking it all in. The other day we had about 10 people over for dinner and we are a loud bunch and she slept in her swing just a few feet away from us the whole time.

She rolled over today! Who knew rolling over could be so exciting. I couldn't believe it so plopped her back over and she did it again. Show off.

Now on to the fun part....pictures of our girl....

This picture kills me- she is so grown up! Ugh, basically walking, I can't handle it. I think it's pretty amazing that she has the strength to stand up like that even if it is only for a few seconds.

She is getting use to being in a carrier, we just love it because we are slowly beginning to be able to get out and do fun stuff again (wow, that's sounds kind of terrible but hey I'm not ashamed to say I'm not getting my kicks changing diapers all day, getting out and doing stuff is really important too).

To say Andy is in love with her would be an understatement, this little girl already has daddy wrapped around her finger...

Her hair is still bright red and shows no sign of laying down any time soon.
I can't get enough of it.

2011: The year of having fun, just waiting for Ruby to join us!

2011-12-12T11:01:00.000-08:00

January
New Year's day we took a little trip to Fredricksburg to explore and then hiked up Enchanted Rock. If I had only know I was pregnant at the time I could of blamed my complete lack of energy on that but Ruby was still hiding from us at that point.

A couple week later I took a pregnancy test, was too tired to stay awake to read the results and then an hour later Andy saw it, told me I was pregnant and I got mad at him for lying to me about something so serious....

February
Andy and Ryan made stadium seating for couches for our Super Bowl party. We had over 30 people in our little house and it was awesome.

In what was suppose to be a simple window replacement somehow became the entire back of my house being ripped off and replaced. Oh to be married to an over achiever.

March
Amazing trip to NYC with my two best friends from high school! Loads of fun.

April
Camping at Pedernales Falls with two of my favorite friends, John and Kim

May
Camping at Inks Lake with our church group

June
Celebrated five year anniversary!

Sold our beloved truck that we loved so much and helped us with so many house projects over the years. Knew it was the right choice though, with the money we sold it for we bought a 4 door car, new tires for it, and all our cloth diapers. Uh yeah, responsibility oozes out of us we have so much of it ;)

July
Both tempted fate and scared beach go-ers by going to Port Aransas with friends while 37 weeks pregnant.

Drove up to OKC for my first baby shower. It was at my best friend's Sara's house and it was just perfect.

August
Austin baby shower! Everything was beautiful and I felt so loved.

Two weeks before my due date we decide we need new carpet, somehow that turns into Andy busting out our entry way tile and us getting hardwood floors. I was pretty sure Ruby would be coming home to cement floors.

September
We became a family.

October
Celebrated Halloween- learned that crying could in fact be cute..

Novemeber
Took our first trip with Miss Ruby and drove up to Tulsa (only took us 12 hours) for Thanksgiving she got lots of loving on.

December
Experienced more Christmas spirit and pure joy than we ever had before because of our sweet angel.

Two Months

2011-12-11T13:07:00.001-08:00

This post is about 3 weeks late but hey better late than never right?

Our sweet Ruby is now 2 whole months old! Last month I was a little bit sad at fast this is all going, and I know I will still miss those teeny tiny newborn cuddles, however she is turning into a little person and it's just so cool to get to know her. It makes me so excited to see her grow up.

Here are some Ruby facts:

She loves to be swaddled but when she decides it's time to get up she can bust out of that swaddle like it's nothing. There have been many mornings that I've gone in and her swaddle is not only undone but she has kicked it completely off of her.

She is pretty consistent with her schedule. Right now we are doing on demand feedings (she calls the shots) and she definitely has a clear pattern of what she likes. It is nice though because I almost always know what is wrong or what she wants if she starts crying.

She is a sleeper! She is going a solid six hours at least every night and then usually like four more after that. During the day she takes a couple of 2-3 hour naps. I am SO very thankful for what a good sleeper she is, it really makes such a difference that I can get some good sleep at night and a little bit of downtime during the day to get stuff done.

She loves to get out of the house. Especially stores where she is just chilling out in her car seat and can just look around. Her eyes are usually just really big and you can tell she is just trying to take it all in. She always takes really good long naps after we go out too.

She loves music. She has a couple of musical toys that she just lights up when they are playing. Also I sing to her a lot and she seems to really like that too. Sometimes she will even coo along with me, this is pretty much my favorite thing in the entire world.

She is smiling! Since she was born I've been talking about how much I wanted to see her smile and now she is. I'm kind of obsessed with seeing that sweet gummy smile. I just can't get enough of it. I spent a good part of the morning trying to get a good picture of it, every time I would put the camera down she would smile really big, it was a game to her. Tricky girl.

Her hair shows no sign of falling out or changing color, it is still beautifully red and refuses to go anything but stick straight up. I just love it.

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-12-08T12:44:00.000-08:00

We made the journey up to Tulsa for Thanksgiving. We weren't really sure how the drive was going to be but it was great. I mean, it did take us 12 hours what normally takes 8 but we made it there! It was so nice to just lay around and be with family and introduce Ruby to some of my favorite people. And of course my parents were excited since they hadn't seen her since she was 1 week old.

She got lots and lots of loving from Grandma and PawPaw!

Got to meet her uber cool Uncle Brian for the first time.

It was a good trip and despite the long drive I'm already looking forward to making it again!

From creepy to cute

2011-12-01T18:56:00.000-08:00

What do you do when your husband decides to make himself look like a serial killer a week before you take your holiday pictures? Why photoshop a new head on him of course!

Ewwww

Awwwww

And yes, his head may be a little too large for his body but it is still better than the moustache and bald head! Yea photoshop!

Happy Birthday Mom

2011-11-21T09:01:00.001-08:00

I missed my mom's birthdays. It was yesterday. I knew her birthday was November 20 but it just didn't click in my brain. I'm already pretty absent minded, then add a little bit of sleep deprivation and a little bit of new momma crazy into the mix and well I do dumb stuff, like forget my mom's birthday, or stab a pair of scissors into my hand...

Anyways, it really bothers me that I missed it because I have the best mom. Period. The end. She is simply the best. And it's never about her. And sometimes it should be because if I haven't mentioned it, she is the best.

Growing up I never had to want for anything. Did I have all the latest and greatest toys? No. But did I have a bologna and cheese sandwich cut into a heart shape for lunch every day? Yes. Did I have a mom that was at the very front of the pick-up line every single day my entire school career? I most certainly did. She ate the burnt toast, wore the raggedy house shoes, put her life on hold because she put our family above everything. I remember every once in a while she would take an afternoon or evening and go to a movie or I still don't even know what, but take herself a mom break I suppose. Those would be the strangest feeling days ever. My brother, dad, and I would just kind of putter around the house, it felt like something was off, and it was. She is the center of our family, everyone turns to her with their wants, needs, good news, bad news. Heck I'm nearly 30 years old and when I am sick I still call her.

She is the most caring person I know, the best listener, so protective of people she loves, the best cook ever, so silly and goofy and always laughing, and just all around the most giving and selfless person.

I consider being her daughter one of God's greatest gifts to me. So here's to hoping I can be half the mom she is.

I love you momma!

Why Andy Why?

2011-11-18T11:53:00.001-08:00

So every November Andy grows a moustache. Every November I hate it. I get over it though because him and a bunch of guys from work do it to raise money to prostate cancer. Also Andy LOVES moustaches and walks around with his chest a little more puffed out and is all "I'm a real man now". It's funny and kinda cute, but shhh, don't tell him I said so because moustachiod men can't be cute.

A couple of nights ago, in his testosterone-y high, he decided shaving his head would be a good idea. I disagreed but didn't think he would do it. I was wrong.

Gross moustache, but still cute

Threatening me that he would do it. I still thought he was bluffing.

Realizing he just may be bored, sleep deprived, and crazy enough to do it

At this point I couldn't stop laughing and saying "Ewwwwww.....you look SO creepy" Yes, I'm a great wife.

Finished product. Andy loves it, me not to much. It gave us a fun night of entertainment at least.

Dang scissors

2011-11-15T10:18:00.000-08:00

Yeah it's not the scissors fault but blaming them is easier than admitting how I dumbly jabbed a pair of scissors (with a lot of force I might add) into my hand trying to open a toy up for Ruby. Smooth move exlax.

So we went to the ER because my hand was completely numb and I couldn't move most of my finger. Kind of scary. So after a morning in the ER and then a few days later I went to a hand surgeon, it has been determined I didn't severe my tendon (my big fear b/c then I would of probably had to have surgery) but I nicked it and have some nerve damage. It's not too painful mostly just annoying. The hand doc said I just had to not put any weight on it for a few weeks. Um yeah that's a tall order for a mom of a newborn. So that weekend Andy had his work cut out for him that weekend but then he had to go to work so we called in for reinforcements...

Thank goodness Annette was able to come down here and help out. I really don't know how we would of made it without her. She even got up with me in the middle of the night to change Ruby's diaper. That's love.

Then when Annette left my BFF Sara and Drew came down to spend the weekend with us. I may or may not have told her before she came down that I wasn't able to change diapers ;) Needless to say they stepped up and were just awesome to help. They even baby-sat one night so Andy and I could go on a date. I love Sara and Drew and am crazy excited they will have their own little one next year!

So it's getting better slowly and I survived yesterday and so far today on my own. I can move my fingers a little bit more each day and hopefully will be back to normal before too long!

Attempting to give a thumbs up!

Happy 29th Birthday to Andy!

2011-11-14T14:43:00.000-08:00

Today Andy begins his last year of being a 20 something- next year is the big one! I'm so proud of the man he is and just wanted to take a second to brag on the birthday boy.

I fell in love with Andy a long time ago. I don't know if what I felt 15 years old was love but I knew he was something special. He was different, not in a weird way, okay a little bit in a weird way, but definitely no one else like him. He was both super intense and focused but also really silly and fun loving. And talk about hard working, he was the only 17 year old I knew that had a work beeper because he was assistant manager at Kinkos, regularly working overnight and then coming straight to school. Also, it didn't hurt he drove a crazy nice 1956 Chevy pick up truck that was so loud I could hear when he turned onto our street, yeah, he was crush worthy for sure.

Now let's fast forward about 12 years. Here we are...married, house, kid, the whole dream we use to talk about when we would have our 6 hour phone calls that went well into the night (that undoubtedly ended with "You hang up", "No, you hang up" Gag..). When I stop and think about it I am really living my 16 year old dream. Now getting back to Andy what I want to say is that I am living this life because of sweet Andy and his loving, forgiving, gracious heart. He has supported me in every way possible over this last decade of my life and I don't know where I would be without him. He makes me laugh, think, love, and smile like no one else can. Just when I thought it wasn't possible to admire and care for him any more, our sweet Ruby comes along and to see the love of your life so tender and sweet to the new love of your life. Well it's enough to make you wonder how your heart can contain that kind of joy.

So here's to the best person I know- Edward Andrew Luksys- you are wonderful and I love you a ridiculous amount.

Ruby Fix

2011-10-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

This post is for the grandparents (and Ruby enthusiastic) , I have heard from both sides just today needing a Ruby fix so here you go guys...

And just to keep it real....don't forget this face either....

Practically a teenager

2011-10-19T10:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, not quite, but it's crazy how fast she is growing. All those cliches that everyone tells you about them growing up so fast, well come to find out, it's so very true. On the one hand I get really sad about one day not being able to smooch on those precious little toes or have her tiny little hand wrap around my finger but I am so excited to see her grown up and experience all her crazy stages. And yes, I realized I'm being a bit dramatic lamenting her growing up so fast since she is only one month old but comparing these pictures just really makes me realize how quickly all this is going...

Newborn Ruby

Just 4 weeks later....

Okay, I have to go kiss some teeny tiny toes now before they're gone!

Man Bites Dog

2011-10-16T17:40:00.000-07:00

I'm about to blow ya'lls mind in two way....first way is that I'm not blogging about Ruby. I know! It's wild. Don't worry we are still way obsessed and will continue to torture anyone that will look at the copious amounts of pictures we have of her. The number two way I'm going to blow your mind is showing you the most beautiful hot dogs ever. Okay, maybe that doesn't fall into the mind blowing category but for a girl that has spent the past month inside with a newborn attached to her it was pretty stinkin exciting.

Saturday we ventured about of the house and did a little shopping at our favorite thrift store and then walked next door to a place called Man Bites Dog. They have gourmet hot dogs, delicious, ginormous, mouth watering hot dogs.

We started with what I would argue is one of the greatest combinations of food that ever was and I will dream of this for a very long time.... pulled pork macaroni and cheese! AMAZING. The picture doesn't do it any justice, in fact the picture makes it look kinda gross but holy (pulled pork) macaroni it was awesome.

Andy had the Danger Dog, it was a bacon wrapped beef frank, deep-fried with queso fresco, jalapenos and danger sauce.

I had the Mexcian Angry Bird, it was chicken sausage, jack cheese, southwest corn salsa & chipotle mayo.

On a related note, the pregnancy weight isn't coming off anytime soon :)

Life at home with Ruby

2011-10-04T19:11:00.000-07:00

Since Ruby has been home for two weeks now and I am just getting around to blogging about it, obviously life with our little girl has been busy busy busy. When I was pregnant and trying to imagine what life would be like with Ruby here I kept going back to "how much work could something be that sleeps 18 hours a day?", I would like to thank my friends that already have children for not strangling me when I asked that question. I also asked them "what do you do all day?". Seriously, you guys showed some serious self restraint in not smacking me. It would of been totally justified.

So, let's see here. Let my sleep deprived brain attempt to capture the first few weeks of taking care of a newborn. It's hard. Thank goodness she is kinda cute ;) For real though, that bond between mother (and father) and child is so important for so many reasons. If I didn't love her a ridiculous amount I can't imagine how much harder those 3am scream-fest would be. The fact that I am completely exhausted and overwhelmed but yet still her little gummy mouthed wails melt my heart and I don't mind (too much) sitting and rocking for an hour speaks volumes to that bond that God gives us to our children to endure some of those tough times.

Example:

So let's talk specifics. She eats about every two hours during the day. After feeding, burping, changing diaper, and then holding and calming down that leaves me about an hour (if I'm lucky) between feedings. Not a lot of time to do much of anything, which has been fine because we've had family in town helping out (I will blog about that next!). Something happens around 9pm and her little eyes just pop open and she is wide awake. The last few nights that has lasted a few hours, then she allows us to sleep for up to 4 glorious hours at night which is just such a treat. Also the last few days she has been more alert and we've gotten to have some fun with her being awake and seeing those beautiful blue eyes. She loves to be rocked and sung to as well.

Alright, no one cares about sleep patterns, let's get to the cuteness eye candy

Ruby and Molly's big introduction. Molly was interested, Ruby was not...

I've had lots of couch time with my girls

On her 2nd day home she helped dad install a new showerhead! We had to start to start early with our DIY ways...

So, there it is. We are home. We are a family. It is hard. It is the best.

Ruby Ann Luksys Birth Story

2011-10-04T19:04:00.000-07:00

The due date had come and gone. We did everything we could to get her to come out, she wasn't budging. I so desperately wanted the labor you've see on tv and bad movies, you know the one- oh my goodness my water broke, then scrambling to get everything packed, Andy weaving in and out of traffic to get to the hospital, huffing and puffing in a wheelchair while I got checked in, then flash to me sitting in the hospital bed with perfect hair and make-up admiring my perfect angel. Yes in my fantasy none of that cumbersome labor was a part of what I imagined, I was trying to forget the whole "there will be a person coming out of me" thing. Well, needless to say the reality did not match my completely unrealistic fantasy and that is just fine because Ruby made her fashionably late entrance into the world exactly how she was suppose to.

So the plan was for me to go to the hospital Sunday night at 6pm so they could start me on a medicine that would get my cervix ready to go into labor and then Monday morning at 6am they would start the pitocin to bring on the contractions and start the labor. Sunday was such a strange day, knowing that we would become parents the next day, just the weirdest, most wonderful, most crazy thing, most scary thing. There was lots of praying that day, and lots of tears (from me) being on the verge of such an exciting time. We were late to the hospital because half way there I realized I had not packed anything for Andy to wear. I thought it might be nice if he wasn't naked the duration of our stay in the hospital so we had to go back home.

Me (very obviously) before the contractions came on.

So they started the cytotec Sunday night and it started my contractions. The nurse decided to go ahead and start the pitocin early since I was progressing. Around 4am she started me on the pitocin. Almost immediately I started having CRAZY strong contractions. She upped the dosage every thirty minutes and around 6am I thought I was going to die. The contractions were bad. I couldn't talk, I couldn't barely hear what was going on around me, I just grabbed a hold of the bars on the bed and tried my best to do my deep breathing. I never asked for an epidural because in my mind labor had just started and I didn't want to do it too soon and the nurse never mentioned it to me so I thought this was just how labor was suppose to be. Poor Andy tried to help but I was in my own little world of pain and didn't want to deal with anything other than just getting through those contractions.

So around 7am the new nurse, Pam, came on shift and became my new favorite person in the world. She looked at my 10 minute contractions, with 1 minute in between and just bombarded the night nurse with "Why are you still giving her pitocin? Why does she have no pain meds? What are you thinking here (my favorite question of them all) ". The night nurse slunk away.

Very soon after that the anesthesiologist was administeding what I will forever refer to as God's gift to woman- the epidural. Insert the heavens opening up and a bright light shining down with angels singing. IT.WAS.GLORIOUS. Seriously, I went from a pain level of 10 to a 1 or 2 within 15 minutes. I was in love with a drug. I went from 4cm dialated at 8am to 10 cm dilated by 11am and didn't feel any contractions at all.

So from the time I got time I got the epidural I felt nothing. Couldn't even tell when I was having contractions. Seriously, it was amazing. After a couple of hours of just hanging out the nurse informed me I was 10 cm dilated. SAY WHAT? I was shocked. The labor (after the epidural) was so easy I was convinced that the pushing was going to be really awful. I kept asking the nurse if I had pooped on her yet and apologizing for when I just knew I was going to. I had both Pei Wei and Kerbey Lane for dinner the night before in anticipation of not being able to eat till baby came. Probably not my best idea. Luckily it wasn't an issue, I was proud of that. Okay, nobody cares about that, back to the story.

I was 10 cm dilated for over an hour but Ruby hadn't come down far enough yet for me to start pushing. They could see her head though and the nurses just went on and on about how she had beautiful, thick, long, red hair. That made it so real. This thing that has been kicking at me, causing me to go to the bathroom 17 times a day, that I knew was there, was a real baby, my baby, that I would be meeting soon. Bring on the pushing! I was ready to see my girl.

So I pushed for a little bit over an hour and she came. And it was the best moment ever. We cried. We were in awe. It was just awesome and of course so very surreal to see a teeny tiny baby and know that it is yours. Magical.

Ruby's first picture, not so happy to be in this big, cold world!

We spent two night in the hospital and had lots of visitors, it was so fun to show off our little girl and just get some loving from our friends. We missed our family, but because we really wanted to have some time to ourselves to bond as a family we requested that we not have any out of town visitors for the first week. That was tough but there were lots of emails full of pictures going out every day to keep them satisfied.

First family photo

Hanging out at the hospital, falling in love with our little girl

So, there is the story of how our girl made her entrance. Nothing too wild thank goodness. I am a stronger woman because of it and just like my mom told me after giving birth I feel like I can do just about anything. Pretty cool experience to say the least. Just in the two weeks we've had with her she has changed us so dramatically and we are just so in love with her.

Didn't think I would be back so soon.....

2011-09-27T08:37:00.000-07:00

I so thought my next blog post would be some incredibly sappy love story about how Ruby is a perfect angel baby and attempting to express how much we are in love with her. Well all of that is absolutely true but wanted to update that I am writing this from a hospital bed.

So, yeah, I'm back in the hospital. This last week has been rough. I thought it was just normal rough because, well, I have no basis of comparison. I had been having some crazy intense cramping and just feeling overall achy and sore, but again, I thought that was to be expected after having a baby. Yesterday morning though I woke up about 4 am and couldn't stop shaking and chattering uncontrollably and was just freezing cold even with a bunch of heavy blankets on me. I toughed it out for a few hours, then took my temperature that afternoon and it was 101.6, the nurse at my doctors office told me I needed to go immediately to the ER.

After seeing several doctors they know I have an infection, but they don't know if it is in my uterus, breast, or both. Since they don't know they are treating it all which means me being stuck in bed hooked up to an IV all day. Supposedly I should get released tomorrow. I am feeling better now with all the pain pills and antibiotics but scared about them not knowing exactly what is going on with my body.

Since I was feeling so sick yesterday I was not able to breast feed and Ruby got her first bottle with formula. Man oh man. As if I wasn't emotional enough, then I started the "my baby doesn't need me" and "I can't care for my daughter" emotions that made me cry most of the day. It wasn't just that though, at one point I asked Andy what my mom was going to make us for dinner before we had to go to the ER and he said pot roast. Well there I was in the middle of the ER waiting room crying "I love pot roast so much!" Yeah, I was/continue to be a mess. I know this is small beans in the big scheme of things and we will go home soon but I will just say this has been a tough week. Thank the sweet Lord in heaven above that my parents just happen to arrive day before yesterday and they have been SO helpful. We definitely couldn't of done this without their help.

Promise you guys I will post some fun Ruby stuff when I get a chance and of course gratuitous amounts of photos.

She is here!

2011-09-24T20:02:00.000-07:00

Ruby Ann Luksys
Born Spetember 19, 2011 at 1:53pm
7 pounds 14 ounces
20 inches

Birth story and MANY more pictures to come...be patient...I'm in a newborn baby time warp!

Eve of Ruby's Birth Day

2011-09-18T12:12:00.000-07:00

So we are leaving for the hospital in a few hours for the induction. To try to put into words how I'm feeling would be pointless because I'm just about every emotion a person can have right now. Mostly extremely happy that we will meet our little girl so soon but also really anxious about getting induced. I know we tried everything we could to get the labor started and it clearly just wasn't the plan God had in mind for Ruby's arrival.

SO....let's get this party started!

Austin Shower

2011-09-13T10:04:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so it's a little late, this happened over a month ago, but hey I've been busy making a human being. For reals, I've gotta milk that excuse while I still can. The whole "sorry, I was producing life" excuse is a definite pregnancy perk (despite the fact it is usually met with a roll of the eyes from my patient husband, I continue to use it). Anyways, I digress.

My Austin shower was amazing. Wait. My Austin shower was AMAZING. If I knew how to make the word amazing flash and change colors I would. After my super awesome shower in OKC I was already feeling like one little lucky gal that was very loved. How blessed am I to have two amazing showers? (Actually I had three, Andy's work threw us one last week, I will have to blog about that because Engineers throwing a baby shower=funny).

Okay, so I'm just going to post bazillions of pictures because there was so much eye candy. Love is in the details and there was no detail that wasn't accounted for. My hostesses make Martha Stewart look like a sloppy chump. Lol, sometimes I make myself laugh, and that last sentence totally did.

FOOD
It was both beautiful and super delicious.

The decorations were so cute, the theme was "Pop". Everything went along with that and it was just so stinkin adorable. I love all the polka dots everywhere.

We played a fun trivia game about Andy and I becoming parents.

Everyone with their wads of gum from the game

The onesie making station, everyone was so creative and I love the onesies that were made. Ever since I saw Dr. Torres have a onesie making staion on Gray's Anatomy I secretly wanted one at my shower. Seriously, how did they know how perfect that was?

Then a big group of super models showed up at the party, no wait, my bad, those are my beautiful group of hostesses. What a wonderful group of strong, giving, Christian woman.

Ruby cleaned up! Seriously, look at all that loot. I was overwhelmed with how generous everyone was.

So there it is. It was awesome. Now I'm going to try not to cheese out on you all, but well I probably will cause to think that 4 years ago I was dead set against moving to Austin, didn't know a soul, and now that I surrounded by amazing friends that I love so dearly. Good stuff. Of course I wish our family was closer but knowing we have people like we have in our life, well we are exactly where we are suppose to be. Special shout out to my babe-a-licious hostesesses- Chez, Kellie, Rachel, Elana, Kim, Chloe, Jessica, and Pamela! You ladies are a gift in my life, thank you for everything!

Dear Sweet Ruby,

2011-09-12T03:29:00.001-07:00

I get it. You will not be rush. You've made your point. I have spend most of this past week doing every trick in the book to coax you out of there. I think we were still under the illusion that we have some sort of control of this situation, which we very clearly do not. God has a plan for your life and it begins with you coming into this world exactly when you are suppose to, not a moment sooner.

This last week has been fun though. Seeing your dad's eyes bulge out and him say "is it happening?" every time I mention any kind of ache or pain has been really fun. Here are a few of the things we've done this week to try to "kick start" labor: loooong and frequent walks (even Molly is so over going for walks, she gives us the stink eye for the 2nd walk of the day), walked the stairs at Mount Bonnell 3 times in a row(my calves are still on fire from that), eat spicy Indian food, eat spicy Mexican food (oh the sacrifices I am making for you), drink castor oil (BLECH!), and lots of sweet talk from your dad trying to convince you that it's not half bad out here, followed by lots of stern talk from your dad letting you know your "free ride" was coming to an end cause mom only signed up for 40 weeks of pregnancy. All this and you are still chilling out in there.

So I'm not going to ask you to concede in the imaginary stand off that I see us in because like I said it's going to happen exactly when it is suppose to. But I am going to say this. Your daddy and I have been dreaming about you for years, we've spent countless hours over the last 9 months talking about you. We have a beautiful life out here and can't wait to share it with you. See you soon!

Love,
Your Mama

I got me some floors!

2011-09-06T07:12:00.000-07:00

It would not of been the end of the world if Ruby came home to concrete floors and a little dust (okay, a lot of dust) everywhere BUT after a long weekend of lots of work she doesn't have to! Was it a ridiculously bad idea to rip up floors and replace them with me being 38 weeks pregnant? Probably so. But I also think it gave us a good distraction from just sitting around and freaking out about when she would come. The floors went in Friday and then we spent most of the weekend finishing up all sorts of other projects, cleaning, organizing, just doing all the things my little nesting brain was so desperately wanting to do the last few weeks. It felt good!

Can't appreciate the "after" pictures without a good and messy "during" picture

Afters!

Lessons learned from pregnancy

2011-09-02T07:57:00.000-07:00

I'm tougher than I thought I am. Pregnancy is hard. I survived 38 weeks of it.

My body is amazing. (Not in that way, just in a wow, look at how is changes and adapts way)

I can have so much love for someone I've never met.

A completely new level of happiness that I didn't even know existed. I often told Andy I feel like every single day lately has felt like the morning you wake up of a big vacation you've been looking forward to for a really long time and it's finally here.

I married my perfect partner. He has been amazing through this whole thing, taking care of the house, cooking for me, not letting me want for anything, researching all things baby, loading up on the "You are so beautiful" s when I feel like a whale. Couldn't ask for more.

Eating for two is really really fun.

People are way nicer to you when you are pregnant. I get lots of smiles and lots of small talk from strangers. Last night we were at Lowes and Andy and the cashier weren't agreeing on a price of something and it turned into a thing and ended with Andy saying "Well I will just go to Home Depot and get it then" even with the confrontation the cashier still turned to me and started asking me questions about the baby. It was awkward and really funny.

No matter how many months of feeling a baby moving inside of me and seeing her kick my stomach, I will never get over how crazy it feels.

Being able to paint your toe nails is a luxury.

I serve an AWESOME God. Seriously, how anyone could go through this and not think it is anything less than a miracle really blows my mind. God's perfect timing of giving us 9 months to prepare- perfect. The fact that He made to where we can begin bonding with our child through feeling movement and seeing kicks- perfect. The fact that our bodies are capable of making a HUMAN- amazing. What a mighty and giving God I serve.

Don't google image search mucus plug, bloody show, or stretch marks. Seriously bad idea. Don't think I can ever get those images out of my brain. I warned you...

Pickles are de-lish. How cliche am I?

I knew having a child would obviously change me, but even being pregnant has changed me in way I didn't expect. I think my mama bear instinct has already kicked in, I'm definitely a lot more protective of people I love, a lot more emotional, and worry less about things that seemed pretty important to me before (house, $, things) and more about the "big stuff"(loving Jesus, my relationships, what kind of life I want to lead).

Maternity pants are awesome and nearly make the puking, exhaustion, being ginormous, and all the other fun stuff you get to experience worth it. I am going to miss them. A lot.

Home made laundry soap!

2011-08-31T10:01:00.001-07:00

So I've had a whole bunch of people ask me for this recipe and since I'm stuck inside all day (38wks pregnant and 109 degrees don't mix so well) and getting a little stir crazy I thought I'd do you all one better and I took some pictures when I made it the other day.

Alrighty, lets get started. Eeek! I'm so excited to show you this cause it WAY easy and WAY WAY cheap.

Okay, so all you need is three ingredients, which are all found on the detergent aisle. Sometimes the Fels Naptha can be hard to find in which case you can just use a bar of Ivory I think

Fels Naptha (what a fun word to say!)
Washing Soda
Borax
You can add essential oils of whatever you like but I really like that super clean, laundry soap smelling goodness so I don't.

1) Grate up bar of fels naptha and add to saucepan with four cups of water. Melt soap down till it completely dissolved on low heat. (You kitchen will smell soapy and super clean!)

2) Okay get your five gallon bucket out, fill it up half way with hot water and pour melted fels naptha into it, along with 1 cup washing soda and 1/2 cup of borax. Having an electrical cord dangerously hanging into your sink is optional, I choose to do so because I live life dangerously ;)

3) Mix it up real good, then once it is dissolved then fill it the rest of the way up, like to the 4 gallon mark and put a lid on it and just let it hang out over night.

4) Okay the next day you will open up the bucket to a fun surprise! Okay, it's not really that fun but kinda cool. The top 6 or so inches turn into a gel-like consistency. Now your job is to break it up, if you are me you get your hands in there and break it up and revel at how "icky" it feels, if you are Andy you attach a grout mixer to a power drill and stir it that way. No wrong way. Just get it all mixed up.

5) Then I funnel it into smaller containers for easier use. Before you use it shake the container each time because it does tend to clump up a little. 1/2 cup for top loaders, 1/4 cup for front loaders.

Goodbye buying laundry soap! Hello saving money, being green, no scary chemicals! Woo to the hoo!

tempting fate

2011-08-29T06:51:00.000-07:00

In our birthing class the nurse jokingly said if you really want your baby to come then buy a nonrefundable ticket to a show, or plan something big and watch that be the day your baby comes. We took her advice a little too seriously...

I am 38 weeks pregnant and here is the current state of my house.

tonight the baseboards get painted, tomorrow the wood gets delivered, and supposedly by friday they should be installed. then we enjoy our possibly last child free weekend by cleaning this house like crazy. fun times ahead ;)

i had a doctors appointment today (everything still looking good!) and asked the doctor what i could do to delay this baby coming for at least a week. first she laughed because she said very rarely does anyone want to deal with being pregnant any longer than they have to (especially with our super fun 109 degrees highs lately) as well as "your baby will come whenever she wants to come there isn't anything you are going to do to slow that down". dang. so here is my first of many many many pleas- my sweetest ruby please stay put for a few more days!

Ruby's Nursery!

2011-08-26T12:53:00.001-07:00

It's done! Just missing a cute baby girl...

This is the best picture I could get of our "gallery wall" that has all homemade art that is Beatles themed. When Andy talked me out of Paul McCartney themed nursery this was our compromise ;)

Favorite part of the room! I made the "Good Day Sunshine" art with some old broken down palates we found. Let's talk about this chair. Oh the back and forth I went through for months about what kind of chair I wanted. I wanted a really nice recliner rocker but ended up cheaping out and buying this crusty old arm chair from a consignment store. I thought it would work and I made peace with the tears and cigarette burns in it (seriously, bad choice) and then my amazing Grandma Joyce bought this most perfect chair for us and as beautiful (and insanely comfortable as it is) I love it the most because it makes me think of her. Thanks Grandma- I love you.

Another special part is the perfect bookshelf Andy made fer her and we made special notes on the back of it to her.

Made this with some extra spray paint, scrapbooking paper, and one of my most favorite things- decoupage!

The little diva has a fuller closet than me already!

So yeah, babies take a lot of stuff come to find out

Yea for teeny tiny cute baby girl clothes!

So there it is, a lot of love went into it. One of my favorite things to do right now is just sitting in there thinking about life with her.

a conversation with my obgyn

2011-08-23T08:18:00.000-07:00

OBGYN: So are you having any contractions?

Me: Nope! Not a single one, not even an Braxton Hicks.

OBGYN: Okay, well how have you been feeling?

Me: Good, the only weird thing I'm feeling is several times a day I just can't catch my breath. It comes out of nowhere.

OBGYN: Does it feel like you've been running and your stomach kind of tenses up and you can't catch your breath?

Me: YES! Exactly!

OBGYN: Yeah, that's a Braxton hicks contraction.

Me: Holy crap. I'm totally having contractions.

And the best friend of the year award goes to....

2011-08-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

Here is one of the many conundrums I have faced in my third trimester- I am list making maniac, I have to to-buy list (with no less than 5 categories going at a time), an always growing to-do list (that is simply title "It's crunch time baby!" at the top) and then I just simply look at these list cause I'm tired. Dang tired. And it's 105 degrees outside and I'm already swelteringly hot laying on the couch with two fans on high directed at me eating a bowl of ice cream balancing on my belly. So yeah, not many crossed off items on the old to do list.

Enter Sara McBride.

She rocked my world this weekend. Most of you know she is one of my oldest friends and has been driving me crazy since 6th grade. I say that because Sara and I couldn't be more opposite. I'm a sitter, she is a do-er. I'm a "eh- looks good enough" kind of girl, she's a "let's double check that with a ruler" kind of girl. Wow, as I read this, maybe our only difference is just that I'm lazy, but let's say I'm not as intrinsically rewarded by project completion as Sara is because that sounds a heck of a lot better than me being lazy and it's my blog so I can put whatever kind of spin I want on my bad habits right?

I digress, so Sara drove down from OKC Friday and we did a little shopping, a little frozen yogurt eating- because I am convinced Ruby cannot go more than a day w/o some sort of frozen dairy product, so in the spirit of being a good mother I have been sacrificing and eating ice cream at least once (cough cough twice) a day.

So we spent nearly all day Saturday shopping. It was seriously more shopping than I've done the last few years put together. But we got it all. Let me repeat that cause it feels so good to say. We got it all. Seriously, Ruby could come tomorrow (Please God don't let her come tomorrow) and it would be okay!

If you ever want to test a friendship and really see what kind of person you are dealing with, I suggest being the most crazy indecisive person ever and spending an hour on the diaper bag aisle. Seriously, I was even starting to make myself crazy. Diaper bags are so hard to figure out! I mean this is basically going to be your purse for like 2 years, that kind of commitment to an accessory is scary. But after MUCH debate she helped me decide (I got the one on the right) and didn't waver in her commitment to helping me find a diaper bag. That's love people.

Everything got bought, washed, organized and put up. Then we completed the nursery. Again, indulge me and let me say these beautiful sentences twice. The nursery is completed. Man, that makes my crazy brain a little less crazy knowing that. I will post pictures of the nursery soon, but I feel like it deserves it's own post. Sara McBride + completed nursery pics in one blog= too much awesomeness. Your computer might explode. Let's not risk it.

Folding and organizing clothes by size...

One of my favorite things we did was make a bunch of art for a wall of frames that are all Beatles themed. As you can tell I really put a lot of effort into them ;) Seriously, that whole I'm not lazy theory is coming into question with this picture. Sara was working hard photo-shopping all sorts of things for Ruby's room, and well, I'm clearly not. Come on people give me a little bit of a break, can I pull out the 8 month pregnant card to excuse this?

Andy+ Sara= funny combination because they are both very thorough and precise in how they think something should be done and it doesn't always match up. I'm so glad they are such good friends too.

So it was an amazing weekend and just what this 36 week pregnant mama needed. Not just the taking care of business part of it. But to spend 72 hours with my best friend talking all things baby, using the phrase "so stinkin cute" no less than 300 times, and feeling so very loved that she cares so much about Ruby and I.

Okay, I can't stand it, gotta show off the nursery a little, here is a sneak peek.

Love you Sara! Thank you x 100!

Our little guinea pig

2011-08-11T13:25:00.000-07:00

Molly will be very happy when Ruby comes so we can stop testing everything out on her..

That is not a happy face

Port Aransas 2011

2011-07-19T06:48:00.000-07:00

Our last hoorah before we attempt to be responsible parents was a uber fun trip to the beach with some friends. We spend 4 days in Port Aransas, it was awesome. We are so blessed to have such an amazing group of friends, live 4 hours from the beach, and be able to do fun stuff like this. Now I was going to post some really funny pictures of my ginormous self on the beach not because they are cute but because they make me laugh at how very pregnant I look. I now think the reason you aren't suppose to travel at a certain point in your pregnancy isn't for safety but because no one wants to see a 32 week pregnant lady in a bathing suit. It ain't pretty.

So here's the crew:
Rachel and Paul

Becky and James

Peter and Brandie

Ryan and Elana

And us

Hanging out! And yes, I know, my hat is awesome ;) Not really, but after a scare of what I thought were contractions the day before and the doctor telling me to stay out of the heat and well hydrated I wasn't taking any chances.

Ate some delicious sea food of course!

Woo Hoo- look at those hotties on the beach!

Can't remember the name of this game, just know it got pretty intense!

One morning we got up early to walk the beach and then sat and watch sea turtles and dolphins in the water.

The dogs loved the beach!

Peter totally won the He-Man award, while out in the ocean he got a shark hook through his leg! Like it went in him and back out- he got "caught"! It was so scary! As crazy as it was, the crazier part is that the boys just took him to hardware store to get pliers and they clipped the ends off the hook and pulled it right out of him! The moral of that story is that Paul and Ryan and an apparently really rough looking fisherman in the parking lot of a tiny hardware store can really save you some money and time by performing medical procedures ;)

A trip to Port Aransas without a picture in the shark's mouth well, it just isn't a trip at all. Doing our vacation duty of a group shot in the shark's mouth

Sunburned, exhausted, and happy- last group shot just hanging out at the house

Our last night there the boys treated us by shopping for and making one super awesome meal while we laid on the couch and watch Legally Blonde- doesn't get much better than that!

So, yeah it was great and just the perfect last trip of the summer. No more traveling for us for a while. Weird to think our next trip will be with a teeny tiny in the back seat!

Goodbye Job.

2011-07-06T13:28:00.000-07:00

So today is my last day of work. It is bitter sweet, mostly sweet, like 95% sweet because as most of you know my job was draining me, but it is like 5% sad because I think one of my callings is to help those in need- and people trying to quit smoking are absolutely in need. I wanted to write about my job so I don't just look back on it as the soul-sucking job that wore me out.

I started August of 2007 at American Cancer Society where I worked with an awesome group of people. It was super social, nearly everyone in my same boat- mid twenties with a psychology degree just trying to figure out what we wanted to do with our lives (and what seems to be a relatively useless degree). When I first started we had lots of free time so it was a lot like sitting around for 8 hours with a bunch of friends. We would just hang out, take long walks around the building, scope out who was having the best pot lucks in the building and crash their party. I made some really good friends that I plan on keeping around for a very long time (Yes, I am talking to you, Kim, Dinah, and John) Then things started to pick up, not as much free time, I began working from home. Working from home is amazing. I mean, come on, no make-up, no shower, no problem. I was in slob heaven. But it was really hard to go from a super social environment to my only social outlet during the day was Molly, and although she is cute, she's not so good with carrying a conversation.

So then I got the phone call that while I was on vacation in Las Vegas in 2009 there was a big fancy meeting to tell everyone ACS Quitline was no more and we would all be laid off. Yikes. We had an opportunity to interview with our competitor company who had basically bought us out. So I got a job doing the exact same thing for a company called Free and Clear based out of Seattle. Yeah for not being unemployed!

So I've been with Free and Clear now for nearly 2 years. It is a business, and the difference in working for a business and a non-profit company are very clear. It is very numbers-driven and a big focus of productivity and my little bleeding heart just simply doesn't do so hot in that environment. That is why I haven't been very passionate about my job for a while and it's been really hard to stick with it this long.

So I have been writing this all through today and now I have 30 minutes left of my shift. I probably could squeeze in one more call but the last lady I spoke with was great. Our main focus of the call was talking about she had quit smoking and not because the medication she was on. Building her confidence up so she could remain smoke free after she stopped using the medication. She ended the call by saying "This was a great session." For those that work in any kind of social work field you know it's not often you get that kind of positive reinforcement so I think I am going to end my coaching career remembering that and not some of the less positive (okay, I will say it, down right mean and nasty) clients I get to deal with.

Yeaaa for having a job I met amazing friends, could work from home, help people, but most importantly my heart is swollen with happiness that we have work and planned and God has blessed us so that my job is now going to be to take care of my daughter.

Oklahoma City Baby Shower!

2011-07-05T04:59:00.000-07:00

This weekend we drove to Oklahoma City to stay with one of my best friends, Sara and her husband Drew. Sara is definitely the hostess with the mostess and she took good care of us all weekend. Also, she threw me a baby shower. It was just perfect and I just felt so loved. I've said it before and I will say it again, I am just so blessed with wonderful friends in my life. When I got back to Oklahoma it is especially nice because I am surrounded by people that have been in my life for a very very long time and there just isn't anything like a 10+ year friendship.

Here are my amazing hostesses- Sara, Holly, Marie, Lisa

Sara with her masterpiece of a spread...

What a sweet and beautiful group of ladies!

Cutest diaper cake I've ever seen!

Bubble bath punch!

And of course we played a few games!

So much cute stuff!

Of course she got some Sooner gear!

Everyone was so generous and I got so much cute stuff!

So it was a wonderful weekend with even more wonderful people and weird to think that our next trip to Oklahoma will be with little miss Ruby. Thank you to everyone who came and made the day so special!!!! Love you all!

Maternity Pictures

2011-07-01T12:08:00.000-07:00

My friend Jennifer Weeks took these pictures and I would definitely recommend her if anyone is looking for a good photographer. Her email is JWeeksphotography.com. Thanks Jenn!

Third trimester!

2011-06-13T07:44:00.000-07:00

Holy Moley, the count down is on like donkey kong! I am 28 weeks, about 7 months! She will be here before we know it, especially since we have something planned every single weekend from now till the end of August! Lots of fun trips we are trying to squeeze in before my "do not travel far" 32 week suggestion- in which I will be laying on the beach in Port Aransas at 32 weeks. Yeah, I'm such a rebel ;) So I just wanted to update of getting ready for little Miss Ruby (finally picked a name!)...

She is a dancing queen and I can feel her move all throughout the day, which has still not lost it's novelty. Best.thing.ever. Now she is kicking strong enough that you can see movement on the outside of my stomach which is freeeaky and reminds me a little too much of a certain scene from Aliens...

Bump shot!

The nursery is coming along. Got the crib ready and everything else is close enough I feel good about it. Still have to finish the art work, figure out what I'm going to do for a changing table, and organize the closet. The room will be pretty empty because the closet is ginormous so I'm just going to have most everything in there.
It's not done, but here's what we got so far...

One if the pieces of art I made her, the other wall has a bunch of frames on it with some art we are working on slowly but surely. It's been really fun to come up with stuff and work on it together.

We talk about Ruby every single day and how excited we are to meet her. It has been so fun just fantasizing about what she will look like and her personality. We've been feeling like uber responsible adults lately, bought a super practical family car (yeah, that 1 car family business made me nervous-in case of emergency Andy needs more than his bike), got ourselves some life insurance, and lots of research on like every baby product out there. Whew! Lots of preparation to keep us busy but we are also trying to do lots of fun stuff and hang out with our friends a lot and soak up our last child-less summer.

Can't wait to love on our sweet little girl.

Weirdness

2011-06-08T13:44:00.000-07:00

So I doubted I would ever be able to say these words but I say them with great pleasure- We are a one car family.

Now for most people that wouldn't be a big deal but our drive way has basically been a car lot since we moved here. At one point we were up to 5 cars. Yes, we are those trashy neighbors that you hate and are junking up the neighborhood. I always felt bad about it. Well, one by one we sold the cars. Now we are down to my Mazda! Now, we do still have the Nova, but I am not counting it since it is barely even recognizable as a car. No floor, motor, suspension, steering, seats, it is a metal shell. And with our baby girl coming the Nova probably won't get much attention for awhile.
Poor neglected Nova...

We were down to the Mazda and the truck. The truck was ginormous, old, and not much to look at but boy how we loved that truck. It made many a project possible, it helped move more people than I can count, and was just an awesome reliable truck. We felt okay about selling it though because we don't have any more big house projects planned any time soon, gas is so expensive, and Andy sold it for more than he bought it for 4 years ago which is pretty awesome.

Good bye truck, you will truly be missed!

So eventually Andy will buy a more family friendly car but for now he has been taking the bus and riding his bike to work which he oddly loves. Times are a changin that's for sure and I'm loving it!

Visit from the fam!

2011-06-08T13:24:00.000-07:00

What a fun weekend we had hanging out with my whole family. My brother came down early and spent the week with us. It was really nice because I hardly ever get to spend time with him. Then Friday my parents drove down so we were all together and did lots of fun activities.

Saturday morning we rented a boat and spent some time of Lake Travis, it was perfect.

Even Miss Molly came with us!

This was with two applications of sun screen too! Eek! We both got burned pretty badly. Totally worth it though....

Then Sunday we went bowling!

So it was a great weekend and I always love spending any time I can with my family since they are so far away. Love you guys!

Friday Night Anniversary Date

2011-06-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

So I don't think I've been too crazy emotional from the pregnancy (Andy may tell you a different story though) but I do think I may be a little needy. Okay, a lot. There's been a whole bunch of "Honey, tell me about your love for me...my love bank is low". (As a side note, if you ever want to see an Engineer freeze up, tell them to pour their heart out and articulate their feelings ;) ) So anyways, I told him I wanted to do something special for our anniversary. He delivered. A few days before I got an Evite from him inviting me on a date and an awesome itinerary of what we would be doing Friday night to celebrate. It included taking the bus downtown and walking around to all my favorite places. I was a stinker and went for a three mile hike that morning and so I asked if we could tweek the itinerary a little bit. So we ended up driving downtown and eating at Romeo's and playing miniature golf and then getting a big Icee and coming home and watching Swamp People. Yeah, first two things were Andy's ideas and the last two were this trashy reality show-lovin, sugar-fiening pregnant lady's ideas!

Leaving for our date!

Dinner at Romeo's

Brushetta= one of my favorite things in the world

We shared lasagna and it was GINORMOUS and oh so tasty

Then went to Peter Pan mini golf for a very hot game of golf that Andy rigged the score card and let me win.

It was a perfect date and we had fun reminiscing on how fast and amazing the past five years have been. I will spare you all the husband doting, because I do my fair share of it one here and hopefully it is obviously how much I adore my amazing husband. I will say this though, I made thr best decision of my life five years ago when I married my best friend.

Friday night fun

2011-05-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

I actually remembered to bring my camera out and about on our Friday night adventure this weekend. Thought I would go a little crazy and post about something other than our baby or the house!

We headed downtown with some friends to see a play in Zilker Park. A friend from church was in it, plus is was a Shakespeare play set in a 1960's beach theme- how can that not be awesome really? Luckily we got there early enough to eat our picnic dinner and hang out and to see Ryan (our friend) perform for about 5 minutes before it just started pouring down rain. Come on rain! You gotta start up 5 minutes into the play?

So plan B was what plan B should always be....go eat dessert. We loaded up our soggy chairs and went over to the Hyde Park area and got some gelato. Mmmm Mmmm Mmmmm.

Happy girls= girls with gelato

So there is some proof that we do more than hang out at Lowe's all weekend!

6 Months!

2011-05-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

Guess what? I am 6 months pregnant. Everyone kept saying it would go by quickly- man oh man were they right. Not too long ago I was moaning and groaning about how I would never be functional non-nauseous human being again in my first trimester and now I am 60 % through this thing.

So here is a true blue belly shot for week 24

I am feeling really good. No 'I'm-going-to-conquer-the-world' crazy kind of energy that I've heard some people get but I am definitely feeling normal besides this belly of mine. I was told several times at church that I have "popped", and I guess it's true because I've had a ton of people ask me when I am due in the last week or so and no one had asked me up until about 2 weeks ago.

I can also feel her moving around like crazy. Every single morning and after I eat she is flip flopping around. Speaking of food, it is absolutely insane just how much food I am eating. I am starving nearly every hour and am amazed at how much my eating has increased. I'm definitely not complaining though it does get a little inconvenient at times. I know Andy has enjoyed having more sweets and meals out because I am so hungry all the time.

Andy has been a trooper through this as well- taking care of me so well, putting up with me eating off his plate all the time, doing more house projects that I can't help him with, and just doing a great job of helping us to get prepared for her big arrival. I think he is doing more "nesting" than I am. He has begun a list of projects to get done around the house and is chipping away at the list awesomely. Last night we (mostly him) were on our hands and knees scrubbing the tile grout so we could seal it, who does that on a Saturday night? Okay, don't say lame people, even though I know that's true.

So here is to the next 111 days till we get to meet our little girl!

Inks Lake Camping 2011

2011-05-13T18:27:00.000-07:00

So every year our young marrieds group at church goes camping, this was our fourth year of this super fun tradition. I absolutely love this awesome group of people that we get to call our friends and have no doubt that they are one of the biggest reasons we love Austin so much. God blessed us with this group when we moved and knew nobody in the entire city just four years ago. Anywho, enough of the sap, they are alright ;)

Our group!

Had to get a silly shot!

The first picture I've posted of myself since I got pregnant, so there you go. There's the belly to those of you who have been asking for a bump shot.

So I was brave/dumb and decided I would do two nights of camping this year- normally I have a one night limit. Not really sure what the thought process was there with me deciding three days in the 95+ degree heat 5 months pregnant would be a good idea but hey I survived and I was proud I did it.

So we went to Inks Lake, which is about an hour west of us (I think). It is a beautiful park with lots to do. One of my favorite things we did was rent canoes with a bunch of people and there was a pretty serious canoe battle going on. It was intense and luckily I was in a canoe with my friends Rachel and Jessica who are uber strong and were leave the boys in our dust which was pretty awesome. Yeah girl power!

Love this picture of andy watching Molly fetch a tree branch in the water

so here is our site, I think everyone is up and working on dinner, which was super yummy fajitas.

A rare moment- Molly worn out.

Saturday morning breakfast tacos!

So, it was an awesome trip and I'm glad we were able to go camping a couple of times this year because I know it will be a while before we go again. I don't think I am outdoorsy enough to be taking baby L camping anytime soon. It is a shame though because camping is such a good way to enjoy this beautiful place we get to live, spend time with friends, and of course eat s'mores :)

How our fence went from trashy to classy (well at least as classy as a fence can be)

2011-05-01T16:18:00.000-07:00

Our fence was bad. Not like "oh it looks old" bad, but "hope that light breeze doesn't take out another chunk of our fence" bad. So after doing our research- and boy howdy was there a bunch of very different opinions out there on cedar vs treated pine, wooden vs metal post, spacing of pickets, well you get the idea- super exciting stuff ;) we bite the bullet and took our vehicle of choice-our crusty truck (ps. I need to blog about that, we have an awesome old truck that we both have a weird adoration for, in fact Andy is in the driveway waxing it as I type, anyways, another post..) to Lowes and bought all the wood.

Okay, so here is the rotted beast (please look at the ugliness of the fence and not the barren wasteland that is our back yard, next step is sodding the yard in the fall! Baby steps right?)

Andy and our neighbor Tim working hard! Should 12 hours of work end just because it is dark? Apparently not....

There was a little bit of debris to dispose of so we had a field trip to the dump. Thank goodness our friend Ryan has the hook up with an amazing dump trailer that did all the work. We were SO the fanciest people at the dump that day :)

And here she is! Yes, our fence is a girl- she's pretty.

Our sweet fur baby that likes to escape from the backyard (but never leaves the front yard for some reason) was a good girl stayed put the enitre week we went without a fence. Plus she is cute so she deserves a photo too right?

Woo hoo for Andy rocking out another home project while I sat and ate ice cream sandwiches on the deck (pregnancy does have it's perks). Next project is replacing dining room, kitchen, and nursery window, we are going to pick them up tonight. Hmmmm...I thought nesting was suppose to be cleaning the baseboards or something, this baby is kicking us into overdrive on the projects!

Easter 2011

2011-04-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

So Easter has never really been a big holiday for us. I don't think I've don't anything Easter-y in since I was a kid. Being away from family makes holidays like Easter kind of slip by. But not in a bad way, I love our quirky way of celebrating the holidays that we are on our own. Last year we went for a long bike ride, years past we have gone for a picnic. This year I wasn't feeling so good (dang allergies are killing me this year) so we laid around all day and decided to "splurge" and went out to eat that night. We shared some ribs and a Sprite (big deal to us, we rarely order drinks- yeah, we are quite the party animals). What a treat. We sat and ate our dinner outside and relished the fact that this would be our last "no kids" Easter.
We talked about how next year we would have a precious little baby girl in her Easter finest and would make her an Easter basket and tell her the story of why we celebrate Easter and what an awesome God we serve. Granted, she will remember none of this, but just to get to share our lives with her, well, I just don't know what I am doing to deserve such a blessing.
Now here is the other half of what was going through my head. As fun as fantasizing about our sweet daughter is and looking forward to next year, I was so very very happy to spend the day being lazy, making no plans, eating cereal for both breakfast and lunch, just hanging out with my honey. We have had nearly five years of "just us" and boy howdy has it been awesome.
Making last minute plans for happy hours with my friends? No problem.
Spending the afternoon watching Dr. Phil and Oprah curled up on the couch with my pup? Yes please!
Being completely helpless when I am sick and having Andy to take care of me and just laying around for days at a time? Um, yeah!

So as excited as I am to meet my daughter I am also so very grateful for the time I had to be self indulgent and do my thang' and know we are going to have a wonderful next 5 months bouncing back and forth between "Can't wait to meet her!" when we see teeny tiny little babies of our friends and "Holy moley, how are we going to do this?" freak out moments sprinkled in there too.

IT'S A.....

2011-04-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

GIRL!!!!!!!!

Had our 20 week apt today (can I get a 'what-what' for this getting half way!) and found out we are having a sweet baby girl! We are both crazy happy and have been saying "our daughter" as much as we can work in sentences, which isn't hard because we talk about her all the time.

Here are some baby stats:
Size of a cantaloupe (that is just crazy to me!)
10 inches long
Aprox 10 oz
Doc said she is in the 40% for size, healthy but petite

She can hear us and so I've been playing lots of oldies, (listening to Sergeant Pepper turned up loud right now so she can hear it as I type this), and Andy has been talking and reading to her at night.

The ultrasound was amazing because they took all sorts of measurements, it was a full hour of watching our little dancing queen groove around. They said she was super active and we even saw her do the Andy pose a couple of times which was awesome.

Doctor said everything was looking great. I am also feeling really good and beginning to show a little bit and feeling little bits of movement which is amazing and weird and just the best thing ever. My cup overflows with blessings.

My dearest maternity pants,

2011-03-21T15:56:00.000-07:00

Where to even start? You have changed my life is so many ways and I become overwhelmed when I think about just how very much I love you. But I want you to know just what you mean to me, so here's my best attempt.

When I began to get my baby bump, I was foolish and believed the rubber band trick to extend the button was "the best thing ever". Now don't get me wrong, it was good, but it didn't support me the way you did. I was able to avoid what I then thought to be the beginning of the end-it starts with maternity jeans and ends with me wearing nothing but mom jeans in just a few short years that make my butt look ginormous and tell the world that I have given up completely (ps. none of my super cool mom friends have done this, they are all way cute, I just have a fear of me going down that dark road).

Then one fateful morning I woke up and the only pants that fit were a pair of drawstrings capris from high school. To say they were ugly would be putting it lightly. Low and behold my parents were coming to visit that very day. So after my mom rubbed my belly and squealed a few (again, putting it lightly) times we got ourselves to the mall for what seems eerily similar to some kind of rite of passage, it was like we were shopping for my first bra all over again. I tried on a lot of pants and decided that having some nylon panel cover my belly when I am ginormous and dying of our south Texas heat wouldn't be a good option. But then my match-maker of a mom found you.

The second I pulled you on, well, it was love at first wear. You showed me that I could still be cute and pregnant at the same time. That was four days ago and I have worn you every day since. I also learned from you what a complete nuisance buttons and zippers are! I am literally going to save dozens of minutes in my lifetime no longer buttoning and unbuttoning the 25 times a day I have to pee. Our first night out together we went to Chuy's. I ate more Mexican food than I had ever eaten in my life (and that's saying something!) because I didn't have that pesky waistband to remind me that three baskets of chips plus queso might not be a good ideas. You are so comfortable, oh-so stretchy, and well perfect. I hope you are ready for the next 25 weeks because I have big plans for you and I. Thank you for being making the bottom half of my body and the whole part of my heart feel so good.

Yours forever (or at least till I start getting weird looks for wearing maternity jeans and not being pregnant anymore),

Ashley Luksys

Best part of today

2011-03-21T15:54:00.000-07:00

I asked a client in our program why she wanted to quit smoking and she said "I want to live long enough to watch the entire Twilight saga.....and oh yeah my grandkids really want me to quit."

That is all. People are awesome.

First Trimester Week by Week

2011-03-21T06:46:00.000-07:00

Week 4- Holey Moley. I called the nurse and said "I took 3 pregnancy test, they are all super positive, what does that mean?" Yeah, I'm an idiot. Spend the next week walking around in a daze, absolutely joyful but very surreal.

Week 5- "Why am I so tired?" I though "I can handle this, at least I don't feel pukey! This whole being pregnant thing might by fun, I get a way valid excuse for my laziness!". Oh sister, if you only knew what was coming your way.

Week 6- Hello nausea! I though "Wow-this is real. It's kind of nice to have a reminder that everything is happening as it should and I am really pregnant." Famous last words. Had my first ultrasound. Mind blowing. It looked liked a tiny little gummy bear and it was so amazing. Then she showed us the heart beat. Bring on the tears- there is life inside of me. We danced on the elevator down from the OBGYN office and through the parking lot after the apt. We both agreed it was best day of our lives.

Week 7- I totally took back the whole "nice to have a reminder thing", being nauseous nearly 24/7 has lost it's novelty. Lost six pounds, don't want to eat anything. Having a hard time staying positive feeling sick 24/7.

Week 8- Sleeping 10 hours a night and taking at least 1 nap during the day and still exhausted. And yes, still nauseous. One day I broke a bowl and started crying and got mad at Andy b/c he didn't realize how important that bowl was to me (ps. it was not an important/sentimental bowl in any way)

Week 9- Saw the baby, it has arms and legs and a very strong heart beat. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my whole life. Doctor described the baby as "perfect". Sick as a dog this week but had such a better attitude when I thought abut what was going on inside of me. Suddenly constant nausea/exhaustion seems like such a tiny price to pay. Also I gained a pound of some of the weight I loss which is good, thank you Super Bowl Sunday snacks!

Week 10- Prunes, metamucil, and flavored water (water suddenly taste disgusting to me) are my BFF's- can you guess what super fun new pregnancy symptom I was feeling for over a week? Not fun. Granted, not going twosies for a week may have caused this, but started to get a teeny tiny bump. Even if it is a disgusting gas bump because I'm so dang bloated it still makes me happy.

Week 11- First half of this week I feel not-terrible for the first time in 6 weeks! We went hiking, I was able to go to the grocery store, hang out with a friend. It was glorious! I must of gloated a little too much cause the 2nd half of the week the ickies came back with a vengeance. But we did get a "bonus" utltrasound because they were training technicians- woohoo! The baby was having a dance part in there, so amazing to see it move its arms and legs around.

Week 12- Tired but slowly becoming a functioning human. End of this week I even brave a trip to NYC. It was hard and I was like an old woman sitting down anywhere and everywhere I could. Only had to stay in the hotel one night d/t sickness.

What a crazy roller coaster the first trimester has been. I've never felt like so much of a crazy person in my life. One minute I'm weepy just thinking about how much I love the little chicken nugget growing inside of me and the next I am yelling at Andy that I'm not strong enough to feel this terrible any longer and why did he do this to me? And let me say this, Andy has been a champ. Cleaning house, doing the grocery shopping, and the most difficult task of all dealing with my cranky self. Thank you to him, my mom, and my sweet friends for listening to me go on and on about how terrible I feel all the time. I was even getting on my own nerves, so bless all ya'lls heart for dealing with me. I am so excited to now officially be in the 2nd trimester where I've been told things get easier and my mom described as feeling like an "Earth Goddess", now sure exactly what that even means but I am way excited to feel anything other than bloated and pukey. Watch out 2nd trimester- I'm going to rock you out!

So guess what?

2011-03-16T13:50:00.001-07:00

We are having a baby!

September 11, 2011 we get meet our child. We are walking on clouds, goofy grin all the time, blissfully happy and cannot wait for this next adventure!
Here is our little gummy bear (although I think here he/she looks exactly like ET)....

NYC Food

2011-03-09T10:21:00.001-08:00

Kid in candy store= me in NYC
This sums up how I felt about my eating options...

I was in heaven. A carb-loving, sugar- junkie, street-vendor obsessed heaven. All my guilty pleasures- pizza, bagels, sweets... I would go back to New York just to eat.

Magnolia Bakery- ADORABLE place but also so very tasty as well.

Murray's bagel, most delicious bagel of my life (we also went to H&H bagel where I was shamed for asking what kind of shmear they had).

Sernedipity was just about the only restaurant we were all equally as excited to go to. We were told our best chances of getting in were to go around 10:45pm, well for a girl who goes to bed at 9:30pm every night (shhhh....don't tell anyone...it's embarrassing) I was dubious if it would even be worth it. Silly Ashley. It totally was. It was so cute and we had a lot of fun there.

SUPER excited about my falafel.

So Sheiva told me "I know where the best chocolate chip cookies in the world are". I smiled and thought "psshaw, my mom makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the world" but I smiled and let her believe she had that secret. Well then she brought me one. Mom, you may one to skip this next part. They are amazing. They are what every chocolate chip cookies can barely even dream it could be one day. Ginourmous, super soft, oh-so chocolately. I didn't get to go there since Sheiva is amazing and brought me one, but for my next trip to New York I will be staying in a tent outside their door. These were from Levain's Bakery.

Hot dog in Central Park!

Doughnut Plant- we spend the better part of a morning figuring out the subway system to get to this place. Again, totally worth it. I woofed down my food so quickly I had already eaten my orange donut and half of this pistachio donut before I remembered to take a picture.

Lombardi's- the first pizzaria in America, est. 1905.

YUM YUM YUM.

New York City invaded by Okies!

2011-03-09T08:47:00.000-08:00

Hanging out with friends I've know 15 years + New York City = best weekend ever.

I just got back last night from an AMAZING four days in NYC. We walked all around the city, we ate, we saw the sights, then we ate some more. I think I will do a whole other post on the yumminess that is NYC food. It was just such an awesome trip but as great as the city was my favorite part was just getting to hang out with my friends I don't get to see very often as Holly and Marie live in OKC and Sheiva lives in New Jersey. We have been friends since middle school and there is a good possibility we are still friends because we have too much blackmail material on each other not to be ;) No, I am lucky to call Marie, Holly, and Sheiva my friends and I already miss them! Special shout out to Sheiva- she was an AWESOME tour guide! She showed us the ropes, made us not look like tourist for a couple of days, thanks to her we were even able to get around on the subway w/o her because she taught us so well! Thank you so much Sheiva for being pretty much the coolest person I know.

Chicago on Broadway!

Washington Square Park

As close as we got to the Statue of Liberty, pretty cool to see. It was the other side of town but I'm glad we went. We may or may not have paid our respects by singing "Proud to be an American" while looking at it.

Times Square
At night

During the day

Rockafeller Center was super cool, I totally geeked out and just kept thinking about my eternal love for all things Tina Fey.

Dylan's candy store- 3 levels of sugary goodness.

Central Park is GINORMOUS. We just saw a little bit of it and were amazed.

View from our hotel room- Natural History Museum and Central Park. Way to be awesome Holly and book the best hotel ever!

So yeah, it was a super fun trip and again I'm struck by how lucky I am to get to do amazing things like this- but then the icing on the cake is I get to come home to my better-than-everything-in-NYC life I have with my sweet husband and crazy puppy dog.
:)

Genius! Must get one!

2011-02-16T13:11:00.001-08:00

To my Valentine

2011-02-14T06:42:00.000-08:00

Sweetest Andy,

All those lame things people say at the end of terrible chick-flicks about how you complete me and I can't imagine my life without you. Yeah, I feel like our life is the last 15 minutes of those terrible movies. Not a day goes by I don't think "How did I sucker this guy into spending his life with me?". There is only one answer. You are a gift from God to me.

Thank you for being my husband. You are so good at it. Leaving me little notes, always holding my hand, saying "smooch smooch" on the phone when I know you are at work and others can hear you but you just don't care, and your patience with me when I am less than an ideal wife (read: acting bratty and hard headed, which is more than I'd like to admit). And can I just say, you are also one good lookin man. Looks good in a suit? Check. Looks good with torn up jeans and covered in grease? Check. My honey has it goin on :)

I told you this morning I was going to write you a love letter, so here it is. You are the love of my life, my heart is swollen with pride that I get to be your wife, I love the life we've made for ourselves, and can't wait to see all the wonderful adventures we will have together. After nearly 5 years of marriage and 12+ years of knowing you, you make my heart pitter patter. Love you honey.

Good times are here

2011-02-12T08:31:00.000-08:00

So far this morning I booked ticket to New York for a girl's weekend with my nearest and dearest friends from Oklahoma(followed by dance party to Empire State of Mind in the living room), migas at my favorite taqueria, and then dinner tonight with sweet Dinah and Kim- just a plain ol GREAT day. I love having something to look forward to and am really looking forward to getting some warmer weather, getting out of the house, and having some fun this Spring. Hope everyone is having an awesome Saturday!

Super Bowl Par-tay 2011

2011-02-07T06:23:00.000-08:00

So we hosted the Super Bowl party again this year and because last year we had a serious seating shortage, thought maybe we could do a little better this year. Now my simple minded idea was to "We need more chairs". Makes sense. We could do that. Andy is a little more ambitious than me though. So he did what anyone would do when they've got a whole lotta people coming over. Built stadium seating for couches.

So Saturday Andy and Mr. Ryan Morrow built the platforms. It is sturdy. Like a rock. They were proud and it was cute (sorry boys but it was). Boys+powertools+wood+anything excessive (especially to watch football)= testosterone high.

Here are the manly men

So it was a great party and just like last year I'm reminded of the fact that one of the biggest blessing in our life is all the wonderful friendships we have. Our house is not big. At all. And people know when they come over it will be crowded and loud and there is a big chance you might have to sit on the floor. Despite that, 32 people came over last night and it was simply a great night.

This was just SOME of the food. I may be rolling myself inflated self around for a few days but totally worth it!

Who needs Black Eyed Peas when you can weld and hang out in the garage for the half time?

Apples to Apples > Football

Did everyone have a good Super Bowl? Are you bloated with Velveeta today (don't be ashamed I'm guessing 75% of Americans are today? What commercials do I need to watch?

Snow in AUSTIN!

2011-02-04T13:29:00.000-08:00

For the past week or so I have been seeing all these crazy pictures from my Okie friends and family of snow. My parents have 15 inches right now and are expecting a couple more storms over the next few days! Eek! I've been dreaming of snow days and get the teeniest bit jealous when I hear they get yet another day off work are drinking hot chocolate and snuggling up under covers watching movies all week. Well we got ours!

This morning we woke up to probably just under an inch of snow! Molly LOVES snow and we had to take her for a walk and watch her prance around in it a bit.

See her frozen beard? She doesn't seem to notice the cold at all and was so happy running around in it.

Hope everyone is staying warm and toasty inside and enjoying this very rare Austin weather. As for my friends and family in Oklahoma- hope you aren't getting too stir crazy!

Visit from a Luksys

2011-02-02T05:16:00.000-08:00

So the last 9 days we've had a house guest- Andy's cousin from Canada! It was special because Andy has never met anyone on his father's side of the family. Long story but basically they all live in Canada and hopefully one day we will meet them. I am friends with some of his cousins on facebook and have talk to Scott for a couple years online and he stopped to spend some time with us on his way to Africa to volunteer for the next six months. He is a great guy and it was fun to hang out with him and do some fun stuff the last week or so. Scott drew us a family tree so we learned that Andy has 6 uncles and aunts, 7 cousins, and 6 second cousins. Also got to hear stories about his grandparents that are apparently still really healthy and active and in their 90's.
While we has here we learned he hadn't really ever had Mexican food (gasp!) so we felt it was our responsibility, no, our duty to expose him to the wonderful world of fajitas, margaritas, and guacamole. We also went to Alamo Drafthouse, played lots of board games, I learned to play poker, and must fun of all, listen to, and from time to time make fun of, his way awesome Canadian accent "I'm going owwt and abowwwt". Good times eh?

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

2011-01-28T06:22:00.000-08:00

GIRL SCOUT COOKIES ARE FOR SALE!!!!!

Andy surprised with a box of Samoas (I'm old school- none of this Carmel Delight business)a few nights ago and well, would it be sad if I said that was the best part of my week? Cause it totally was. The Samoas are gone and last night we annihilated a box on Thin Mints and Lemonades. We did have a little help from some friends. Just know if you come over to my house for dinner the next couple of months we will be having GS cookies for dessert- cause I'm fancy like that ;)

MIA

2011-01-18T07:42:00.000-08:00

So I haven't blogged in a while because, well, I have zero to blog about. Just wanted to check in and say I've been one lazy little lady the past couple of weeks. It has been cold and rainy and perfect laying on the couch and watching movies kind of weather. Now, I will ignore the fact that I am pretty lazy and enjoying laying around no matter what the weather, but if I can use icky weather to justify my sloth-like behavior- sweet!

I am actually getting tired of doing nothing and am really ready for Spring. Ready for the sunshine and going for walks everyday (poor Molly is pretty wound up with our lack of walk), working outside, going on picnics, hiking, and lots of home projects of course!

Spring to do list:
*New fence
*Put in limestone pavers around flower bed
*Attempt to make our flower beds not look terrible- I'm okay with them not looking great, just not terrible as they currently do
*Reseed the front yard (not even messing with the back, we are going to sod the whole thing next fall)
* *fingers crossed* scrape popcorn off living room ceiling
*Finish up master bathroom (recently painted walls and cabinets and replaced light fixtures)- need to replace faucets and little accessory stuff/art/shower curtain
*Redo curtains in the kitchen- add more fabric to them, they look more like fabric panels just hanging there, i don't like it...
*Attempt to make some art with some beautiful old crusty wood we left outside for like a year
* Sew some "spring-y" pillows for the living room

Whew! Just writing that was exhausting. I'm looking forward to it all though. I'm trying to find more projects that I can do completely on my own (which is tough since I'm kind of a weenie) because Andy is in NOVA-mode lately, working on his car a lot.
I will have to post a picture later cause it is looking crazy! This morning he asked me if I would help him with it tonight, to which I returned with a lip snarl that could only mean "um, no thanks." But then he told me what he was doing tonight- busting out the front windshield! YES! Lip snarl be gone! I think busting up that car will be the cathartic activity I need to say "Hey Nova, I know my man spends a lot of time with you, but you's be nothing but a car so boo-ya" I asked if I could throw a brick through the front window, he said no it could mess with the rest of the car. But if you've seen the rest of the car you would know that isn't much of an excuse. So here's to hoping I get to throw a brick through a windshield tonight!

If only I could teach Molly.....

2011-01-12T10:53:00.000-08:00

2011 Resolution

2011-01-03T17:35:00.000-08:00

Okay, so my challenge to myself for this year is to not buy anything new. I am way excited. I've been researching what is called The Compact, where you vow not to buy anything new. Simple enough. I think this is the perfect challenge, because as I mentioned a few months back I've been reading lots about minimalism and just love. Now I love entertaining, crafts, decorating, TV, etc too much to strip down my possessions to the bare essentials. I've definitely been flushing out as much as I am able. But what I like the most about minimalism is the idea of getting rid of the junk to make room for what is really important. I am hoping that is part of what this challenge will be for me. In the spirit of full disclosure I am also really cheap and this is another way to justify and embrace my cheapo ways. I copied the reasons below from the original compact group, they started a few years back in San Francisco and are still going strong...

Reasons for the Compact:
1) to go beyond recycling in trying to counteract the negative global environmental and socioeconomic impacts of U.S. consumer culture, to resist global corporatism, and to support local businesses, farms, etc;
2) to reduce clutter and waste in our homes
3) to simplify our lives

So yeah, it is further proof on my ever evolving hippie ways but whatever. I am excited to challenge myself to be resourceful and focus less on consuming. I want to not just make this about buying stuff 2nd hand, but trying to buy as little as possible in general (ie: not go crazy buying stuff at thrift store just cause I can).

Okay, now I feel the need for this disclaimer. I don't want anything I say or anything about this little challenge of mine to insinuate buying stuff is bad. It is not. Heck, Target is my happy place. This is not about how buying stuff is wrong. It's not about that at all. It's just a challenge that appeals to me on a bunch of different levels but I definitely understand why not many people choose to do it.

I think I am being naive, but I really don't think it is going to be that hard. I've got so much stinkin stuff, even after many many trips to Goodwill. I don't say that in a braggart sort of way, I'm just saying that I have been blessed and have more than enough things to keep me away from retail for at least a year- here's my closet to prove it.

So, that's my resolution for the new year! I also want to learn to cook with tofu, karaoke once, go to the beach, spend one whole day in the garage with Andy (he's always begging me to and I'm a toot and tell him no cause I'm not the biggest fan of the Nova), run a 5k, make soap, and read more books. I'm pretty excited about this year and have high hopes. What about you guys? Any resolutions or goals you want to try for this year?

Fredericksburg

2011-01-03T13:51:00.000-08:00

Okay, so obviously from my last post I am kinda weird about having all sorts of goals and things to do in a new year. Since we moved to Austin three years ago I've wanted to go Fredericksburg. Last minute we decided we would go new year's day.

Such a cute little town!

Day one of my no buy pact proved to be difficult when we found this vintage sign shop, I love old signs and there was some really cool ones.

We drove to Enchanted rock for an afternoon hike. It was so beautiful and surprisingly difficult little hike to the top.

Once we made it to the top we hung out and rested for a bit

On the way home we stopped at Tractor supply so Andy could get some bolts (if my happy place is Target then his is the bulk bolt section at Tractor supply, his favorite store). We also found his dream house. For some reason there was a house like 20 feet from this Tractor supply in the middle of nowhere.

Adios 2010!

2011-01-02T13:06:00.001-08:00

What a year. For real. I don't think I've had a year with so many up's and down's. I am thankful for all the blessings that have poured down on us for another year but I am ready to see what 2011 has in store for us as well! My resolution for this year was balance. I have a wonderful life but I wanted to be able to enjoy my blessings instead of living a life that will filled with worry, guilt, and lots of anxiety. I have a long way to go but feel like I have made some steps in the right direction. I really tried to focus on quality not quantity of friendships. I've always had a pretty big circle of friends but I want to focus on loving my true blue, always going to be there friendships. What a difference that has made. What else? Just trying to stop being so spazzy. Now I will always be way spazzy, but I want to be spazzy about things that make me happy and not freaking out that the house isn't perfect (or anywhere close to), not saying the exact right thing to a friend, or anything else that I know is a waste of energy but I do it anyways.

Here's what I want to remember about this year...

January- Andy's amazing optimistic view on this "steal" of "awesome condition" of a car he bought. If you've seen the car you know the importance of those quotation marks.

March-Going camping with our awesome church group at Inks Lake

April- Experiencing the way-cooler-than-the-pictures show Austin Kite Festival

April- Going back to Norman and walking around and remembering our first year of marriage

May- Getting to be a bridesmaid in one of my best friend's super awesome wedding

May- Our amazing vacation to San Francisco

May- Experiencing Barton Springs for the first time!

June- Celebrating our 4th anniversary at Fogo de Chao and going into meat como afterwards

July- Touring the ACL studio and stand on that famous stage! Very cool!

August-My dad getting Gillian Beret syndrome and his very scary six weeks in the hospital. I want to remember this because I had suspected my dad was the strongest man alive, my mom and dad are a relationship rock, my family is amazing, and well, this I knew, but that God is good, but after this experience I KNEW for sure all of those things.

August- My wonderful 27th birthday that was just so much fun and I felt so very loved that night by all my friends that came.

October- Driving up to Dallas and going through the world's longest haunted house with Andy's sister!

November- Our first Aggie game, well actually it was Andy's first college football game ever. OU lost terribly but we went with the nicest couple ever- Ryan and Elana, so they didn't shame us too much ;)

November- Hosting our first Thanksgiving with Andy roasting the turkey (and doing a fabulous job at it)

December- Great Christmas with my quirky, loving, funny family

All year long- lots and lots of fabulous GIRL TIME!
My amazingly awesome friend Dinah

Sara's Austin girl's weekend when a couple of the girls got sick so we just laid in a huge bed in the living room and watched movies

Picking strawberries with my gal pals from church

Spending lots of time with one of the best people I know, my sweet friend Kim

Lots of good memories for sure but I am ready for a new year! I am excited about my 2011 resolution and getting started on it, I will try to post about that soon!
Okay 2011- BRING IT!

Rant from one exhausted quit coach ( or: why I hate the end of the year)

2010-12-30T08:45:00.000-08:00

Dear Tobacco Users who are trying to quit on January 1st,

First off, good for you! Deciding to quit smoking/dipping is awesome. Okay, now that I have that out of the way...

Why are you acting like such a turd? Seriously. I am trying to help you. And although you must think my idea of a good time is sitting on the phone with you for 45 minutes why why you are quitting for your cat's health and not your 2 year old that has asthma- it is not. Way not.

Yes, quitting smoking is hard. But there is no reason for you to be mean. And definitely no reason at all for you to yell at me. I am sure you are a perfectly nice person when you are going through withdrawals, so can you try to find that part of you that isn't condescending and spiteful and be nice. Heck, you don't even have to be nice, just not super mean.

I have thick skin. I've had some tough jobs. I've been punched at, broken up fights, cursed out more times than I can count. I did suicide hotline for a while. What I'm getting at is that you aren't hurting my feelings any, I mostly just feel sorry for you going through this tough process, but it sure does make for a long day for a quit coach. I will talk to you as little or as much as you want me to, I am just here to support you so if you could remember that before you berate me I would very much appreciate it because I am really really tired.

Sincerely,

Ashley

PS. If all you needed was willpower to quit then why didn't you quit like 17 quit attempts ago? Think maybe you ought to try a different approach?

In the year 2010....

2010-12-27T15:15:00.000-08:00

One of the awesome things we did while we were in Tulsa was open up our time capsule we made in 1996. My dad, brother and I put thinks we thought would be valuable or interesting 15 years later. I vividly remember making this time capsule and couldn't believe when my dad pulled it out as a surprise for us to open! We were suppose to open it last year but with the crazy snow we got last year we were busy playing it!

So here it is with my threatening note on the top

Dad cracking it open!

There was a super funny note inside that my brother and I had written. My brother wrote about how he was putting his most valuable baseball cards inside the box. I wrote about how we just got a computer and the internet was getting really popular and how it was crazy that on tv commercials people were starting to put their email addresses. I also wrote about hot the OKC bombing was the year before.

All of the goodies- baseball cards and McDonalds toys (Brian), pogs and Nickelodeon magazine (me), Charlie's Angels cards (dad) and then a newspaper with a real estate section so we could compare.

It was really cool to look at the things and laugh at our notes we wrote and what we valued 15 years ago, despite my predictions for the future I will not be retiring early due to selling my way awesome pog collection. Oh well.

Indian Tacos

2010-12-27T14:59:00.000-08:00

So I've mentioned Indian tacos several times down here and no one seems to know what I am talking about. Is it an Okie thing? If so, I'm so very sad for the other 49 states because Indian Tacos are AMAZING. I took some pictures when we were in Tulsa (this was our Christmas lunch) so I could attempt to portray their deliciousness.

Start by making some fry bread, I think it's just buttermilk and flour. I think my dad took this picture (he loves the up-high shots) unbeknowst to us, you can see how very helpful Andy and I are being in the kitchen helping my mom out ;)

Fry that baby up!

Okay, fry bread is delicious on it's own. Heck anything fried is delicious right? Well things are about to get crazy up in here. Are you ready for your mind to be blown?
ADD CHILI.
ADD CHEESE.
And this is a case where more is more. Heck, you are already eating a piece of fry bread the size of your plate, why skimp out now a few hundred more calories?

Now on top of that chili you add whatever the heck your heart desires...

Behold it's greatness. I sure am, in fact, I just may have to make that my computer's wallpaper for awhile. Mmmmmmmmm.....

Christmas 2010

2010-12-27T09:08:00.000-08:00

So on the forever long drive home yesterday I unbuttoned my pants. You know it's been a good trip when your pants don't fit anymore. I couldn't even be upset about it because I enjoy the holiday so very very much. Plus, what is the whole January 1st thong if not to delude yourself into believing that this will be the year that you get your act together and stop binging on peanut M&M's and laying on the couch watching work out videos. I digress. The point is that this Christmas rocked. Now on to my way too long, with more pictures than anyone other than my immediate family wants to see post....

We left Wednesday and drove to OKC to hang out with Andy's mom, we exchanged presents (she got me some way awesome Beatles stuff I'm pretty psyched about) and made some candy mice.

Then we left Thursday morning and headed up to Tulsa to my family. As always, it's nice to just hang out, be with my family, be goofy, eat lots, and watch cable (lame but exciting to use since we've never had it- and who in their right mind wouldn't be pumped to watch a show about a woman obsessed with eating toilet paper? Come on now, there's just some things you can't get with rabbit ears).

One night we went to Wolfgang Puck's restaurant. I felt like such a fancy pants. Needless to say, ol' Wolfgang has got his shiz-nick together and we had some crazy good food.

A terrible shot of some of our appetizers

My amazing salmon

After Wolfie's we went to my dad's station for a second and while the "adults" (nothing like going home to make you feel like a kid again) were talking to some of my dad's co-worker, we snuck off to take some pictures at the news desk.

"You think you're too cool for school. But I got a news flash for you, Walter Cronkite…you aren't" *Quick- name that movie!!!*

Pretending we are on Jerry Springer

We also played some serious ping pong, singles, doubles, and my favorite- around the world!

And what's Christmas without fear that a full-on wrestling brawl can break out at any moment? Brian and Andy have been wrestling for years, I remember it happening in my tiny apartment in college, they don't seem to mind time or place, just as long as they can get the other one in a choke hold and talk ridiculous amounts of smack. This was as we were leaving, I like to think that this is their way of saying "I love you bro"

And of course the main event of Christmas, sitting around with blankets and dog in front of the fire watching Christmas movies

Molly loves to walk around on her back legs and this skill comes into particular use in the kitchen- she was eye-ballin those roasted veggies!

On the way home we stopped in the city again and I got to have lunch with some of my oldest and dearest friends, Holly and Marie, unfortunately I forgot to get a picture. Then we headed over to my other forever friend's brand spankin new house to see Sara and Drew. Holy Moley. They just bought an amazing house, wait, I don't even think house is a grand enough word to describe what they are living in....it is a fortress of awesomeness. I'm so happy for them and drooled my way through my tour of the house. Here is my sweet friend with her super fancy pot filler- see? Way cool.

So, that's it. We had a good Christmas and are very happy to be home and looking forward to 2011. Hope everyone else had an unbutton-your-pants kind of Christmas too!

Facebook Christmas Story

2010-12-21T16:48:00.000-08:00

They showed this video at church on Sunday and it really touched me. We've all heard the story a million times but to see it through another perspective really makes you think about the awesomeness of the Lord we serve. Very cool.

So although I can go on and on about how much I love the decorations, baked goods, the presents, and really everything about Christmas, I hope we can all realize what this holiday is all about. Merry Christmas!

Marriage- best and hardest thing in my life

2010-12-20T10:52:00.000-08:00

We've been married for 4 1/2 years. Cra-zy. First couple of years were tough. Not like "Why don't you replace the toilet paper" tough but like "Holy moly how is this going to work?" tough. And we knew what we were getting into too- dating for seven years you got a pretty good idea of what you are in for. But then there's the other part. Getting married at 22. What do twenty two years old know? A whole lot of nothing important- that's what. I knew that Andy was a cute boy that would make me laugh a lot and take care of me. That's it. Good starting place but man oh man if I could go back and talk to 22 year me I think I would say something like "You better get over yourself real quick cause you are about to figure out the world isn't all about you and being someone's wife, or at least doing it well, requires you to continually be loving and gracious in times when you aren't feeling particularly loving or gracious. So what I am getting at here is that over this past four years there has been a lot of growing up. A lot of forced maturation for the sake of not ending up some divorce statistic and CHOOSING to love each other. I blab on this blog all the time about what an amazing man I am married to (and the stories I tell about him are just the tip of the iceberg as far as him awesomeness goes) but I wanted to write this to say that sometimes I have to choose to love Andy and most certainly there are times when he has to choose to love me. Part if this process has been full acceptance of who we are married to. I can be emotionally needy, hard-headed home body who has some pretty regular selfish moments. I am most definitely a work in progress and will continued to be for the rest of my life.
So this rant is coming from a picture we took a few weeks ago I just stumbled upon and struck me. On this night I was going to a Christmas party and Andy worked in the garage all night on his car. We both had awesome nights. I think it just made me realized that even a year ago I would of dragged him to that party because I want him to enjoy going out and getting dressed up as much as I do, well he doesn't. Not at all. Just like I don't enjoy going to test drive cars for a date night (true story). Last night I went to a different party without him and had a wonderful time because I was able to sit and just be with friends all evening and know that he has as happy as a clam at home in the garage. What peace has come to our marriage when we embraced the other one and stopped trying to help them become the person we think they should become. I have some wise friends and family members so I know this is all old news to you, well really good for you guys, but I'm a little slow to figuring out this whole marriage thing so you'll have to forgive me. I have a long ways to go for sure, but having that foundation of "you're my partner no matter what so be your little happy self" sure goes a long ways. The good news we have all the major things in agreement (spirituality, finances, future goals, values) but anything else you couldn't find two more opposite people. And boy does that make life interesting...

P-A-R-T-Why? Cause it's Christmas!!!!

2010-12-10T10:37:00.000-08:00

Three Christmas parties in three days....let the weekend begin!!!!!

Hanging out with our two favorite kids

2010-12-08T15:39:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we got to spend some time hanging out with our nieces- Daisy and Tessa! Their parents were going to a Christmas party so we got to baby sit overnight for the first time. It was so awesome because everytime we are together we never have to do all the things we want to do, so we played lots of board games, did a few different Christmas crafts, played at the park, and of course lots and lots of variations of attack/wrestle/hold down Uncle Andy.

There was a pretty intense marshmallow gun fight at one point (again, everyone was against Uncle Andy) that was fun until a certain someone (cough cough TESSA!) figure out it is way more fun to shoot half chewed up marshmallows cause they stick to your target. LOL. It was amazingly gross and sadly we had to end the game their before we destroyed the house too much. Needless to say it was a lot of fun and I every time we leave Midlothian I wish we lived closer cause we love us some Mapes!

Wreath Making Party

2010-12-06T13:04:00.000-08:00

It's here! It's here! I can proudly and obnoxiously celebrate Christmas with all the normal people that just started their Christmas festivities, even though I started a while back. So last week I had a few girls from the Young Marrieds group at church come aver and we made wreaths. And who doesn't love and little girl time, add hot glue and lots of glittery decor and I'm in girl heaven!

Had fun ladies! I'm so blessed to have so many fun female relationships. In fact, I'm about to leave to go to a pottery place to paint ornaments with some friends tonight. Christmas is great for a million reasons but I love all the excuses to get together!

Yet another reason I am happy December is here

2010-12-01T10:33:00.000-08:00

Because it is no longer November- or Mo-vember as my moustache loving husband celebrates by growing a moustache the last couple of Novembers. I can't complain too much because it is for a good cause, raises money for prostate cancer. I'm still not exactly sure how having growing a moustache raises money but his team has raised something like $700 so far.
Here is a link about it.
Anyways, I suggested (read: told) Andy this morning since it is now December it comes off. Hallelujah. I think some men can look good with moustaches but I think Andy just looks creepy. Way creepy.
So here it is on all it's glory. It has been funny to see reactions to it, the guys have all been way supportive of the mustachio (What is it with guys and facial hair?) and the girls tend to just give me a sympathetic look. Thanks ladies. Thanks for nothing guys ;)

Goodbye Moustache!
Hello cute Andy!

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-30T13:11:00.000-08:00

I'm still coming out of my turkey coma so I will just say this- Thanksgiving was awesome, I got to spend the whole weekend with my wild and crazy family that I love so much and we ate lots and lots. Now here's way too many pictures....

Andy was in charge of the turkey and thought massaging the meat would make it more tender, all I know is it looked a little creepy.

Black Friday- one of Andy's favorite days of the year- my least favorite. Everything I don't like- getting up early, big crowds of people, people being rude, the "ohmygoshIhavetohavethat47inchflatpanel!" attitude that posseses people. Anyways, Andy was going to go on his own but I decided to try to be nice and go with him since I didn't last year.

Us leaving at 3:30am - aka- Ashley not happy

We did a yelling match in the electronics department between two guys about where the line started. Sad.

One night we went to Main Event and played lots of games and rock climbed for a little bit. My brother has been rock climbing for years and years and is way awesome so it was cool just to watch him and how talented he is.

The other night we went and saw Pancake Theater's The Blind Side, which is were comedians basically make fun of a movie the whole way through. Way fun, We've been to a couple of them and definitely encourage anyone in Austin to check them out. So that's it. Our fun holiday weekend. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Have yourself a spazzy little Christmas....

2010-11-23T13:42:00.001-08:00

I'm spazzy. It's way true, there's no way around it. I can call it 'enthusiasm for life' but at the end of the day I'm just kind of spazzy. It doesn't take much to get high pitched "OMG-BEST THING EVER!" or just a shrill "EEK" about something as ordinary as well, you name it- having exact change, the perfect amount of wind, it being Thursday ;) So what I'm getting at here is that as spazzy as I am January-October my spazziness goes up a few notches November-December.
I love Christmas. Love. Everything about it. I could list like 100 things here, but fear not, I will not, instead here are my top 10 favorite

1)The most time I get to see my family all year
2)Our Charlie Brown Christmas tree (pictures coming- yes, I already have it up)
3)Seeing how many conversations I can work "You'll shoot your eye out" into
4)Baked goods- I don't discriminate- if it comes from the oven- HELLO!
5)Celebrating the birthday of Jesus- I love that His birthday is (well at least it's suppose to be) about giving and being joyful.
6)Dreaming about snow
7)Makes smores in the fire place
8)Going to see Christmas lights
9)Spending time with friends making wreaths, gingerbread houses, doing Christmas-y stuff
10) Oh no, I'm already to 10? I was just getting started... so if I only have one more space left I will go with my most spazzy Chistmas obsession- Christmas music!!! No lie, if I am sad or having a bad day during the year I will totally listen to my Christmas pandora station to cheer me up.

So, what I'm getting at is that I will have most likely be talking about Christmas a lot on here for the next month or so. Can't help it ;) So to conclude, here is one of my favorite Christmas songs, yes it is crazy awesome and who doesn't like a little Run DMC every now and then but I just remember dancing around and signing this song on repeat over and over again with my brother so it makes me really happy.
Don't judge. What are you favorite Christmas things????

Counting down the days....

2010-11-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

What are some of my favorite things in this world?
Family.
Food.
Bumming around the house being lazy.

Yea, Thanksgiving is totally my kind of holiday. I am 95% excited 5% nervous to host Thanksgiving for the first time. My parents and brother are coming down and since I just happen to have the coolest family around I know that even if I make instant mashed potatoes and have cranberry sauce from the can the world will in fact not implode and what matters is that we get be together for few days.

I called my mom (the knower of all things food/entertaining) to ask some questions and the conversation sounded like this:

Me: So I'm driving to the grocery store right now, is there anything I can buy now for next week
Mom: Well, that depends on what you have on the menu
Me: Ummmm....well the menu is thanksgiving-y food
Mom: *pause* (I imagine this pause was spend with her imagining our Thanksgiving disaster that we were so clearly going to have on our hands, but then she does what I admire so much in her- be helpful w/o any kind of condescension in such a gentle way)
That might be something you want to do so you know what to buy
Me: Okay, I guess I should probably start on that then...

That is a snippets of my cluelessness and hopefully not an indicator of things to come. Andy and I are big nerds and did have a Friday night date of going to the grocery store to get a few things, including the main event....

Our 20 pound turkey! Okay, it's 19.88 pounds, but it was the biggest one we could find and a 20 pound turkey sounds so much better than a 19.88 pound turkey. We got Big Bertha for $6.50 too, man oh man there are some good sales this time of year. If I had more freezer room I would definitely buy a few more. I have appointed Andy in charge of that beast of a bird so I'm sure it will turn out great.

So that's what makes me happy this week, dreaming of hanging out with my favorite people in the world eating lots of (hopefully good) food!

Happy Birthday dear Andy!

2010-11-15T18:54:00.000-08:00

My sweet husband had a birthday this weekend- 28 years of awesomeness on this earth. Woo-hoo! So we did what we did best, ate lots of good food (is that sad that that's what we do best?)

Barbeque at Rudy's for lunch

Fajitas at Texican for dinner (we felt like such big ballers going out to eat twice in one day!)

I try to ignore the fact that's Andy love of donuts is equal if not exceeding his love for me, the truth hurts- the man loves his donuts ;)

The birthday boy with his birthday loot

So after flipping through the pictures I asked Andy what's up with all the thumbs up and we says "When life is perfect it's impossible to not have two thumbs up". Awwwww...that's my Andy. Happy birthday my love- I am so proud to be your wife and hope you had a good birthday!

Crazy Aggies

2010-11-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

On Saturday our sweet friends the Morrows called us up and invited us to the A&M OU game in College Station. We jumped at the chance and even though we aren't much into sports, knew it would be a good game and cool experience. Well it sure was. OU was favored to win, but A&M won! It was a good game and I'm glad they won because, well, those Aggies are kinda crazy ;) So many little phrases and traditions and I had no idea what they were saying a lot of the time but really cool to see thousands of people so passionate about their school.

Brave or dumb to wear our OU shirt with 80,000 Aggies?

Thanks Ryan and Elana for an awesome night! We had so much fun!

I pull the what out of the what?

2010-11-08T10:42:00.000-08:00

I love soup. Not like- love. I knew with the cooler weather finally coming there was going to be some serious soup action in the kitchen. So, I decided to make chicken broth since it is way cheaper, healthier, and yummier to make from scratch. Every time I've made it has been with my mom and she does the "eww-ky" parts. I've been in "treatment" for my fear/disgust of raw meat for years now. My mom and Andy are sweet and always cooked meat for me in college so I would have little containers of ground beef or diced chicken in my freezer-I know right? How nice are they and how spoiled was I? So slowly I started cooking meat, I would use use those huge yellow dish gloves and disinfect everything like 4 times afterwards, but hey...better safe than sorry right? So, needless to say, I was intimidated about this. So instead of attempting to capture this traumatizing experience in words, which I couldn't not do the disgustingness of it justice, I took a few pictures along the way..

Cute little chicken all wrapped up in their plastic

At this point I was gross out, wondering exactly what I was about to stick my hand into....

As I have my hand inside the chicken I start imagining something chopping down on my hand and get myself even more freaked out. Then when I pull out God-only-knows what and it's this brown color that I was totally not expecting I screamed. The girl who get annoyed when people screams- screamed. Yeah, how lame am I? But look how gross that junk I pulled out is! UGH.

Ahhhhh.....in the pot, where it belongs, not on my counters or worse, around my wrist...

So I even though the gross part was over, picking all the chicken off the bone was kinda gross too, but again, I'm a weenie.

So after I got all the meat off, I threw the carcass back in to cook for a few more hours. PS. The word carcass should never be used in cooking. Blech.

So then it sat in the fridge for a day or so all the fat could solidify at the top and I could scrape it off. Again, gross.

Yea! All the stomach turning icky moments are worth when I got myself 24 cups of grade A broth! What what! Look out soup pot- you are about to get some serious use!

Date Night!

2010-11-07T14:36:00.000-08:00

We were long past due for a date night. We do lots of fun stuff for sure, but because of all the awesomely fun people in our lives it is rare we go out by ourselves. So we declared a date night last Thursday.

We decided to hit up First Thursday, which is a really thing they do on South Congress the first Thursday (duh) of every month where all the cool little eclectic shops stay open late, lots of live music, local vendors selling everything from way disturbing art to cowboy boots and everything in between. We walked around and got some really good eats!

What a cool/weird city we get to live in!

For dinner we went to hands-down, no doubt about it, best pizza in Austin- HOME SLICE. So flippin good that I didn't even mind the over hour wait to eat outside in the semi-cold.

To end the evening we went to Gordough's, which I've blogged about before here. Their donuts can only be described as heaven in your mouth. We had one with cake batter filling, fudge icing and a scoop of icecream on top (yes, a 2,000 calorie donut wasn't sufficient for our artery clogging quota for the day apparently)

I'm one happy girl here! Cute hubby+night on the town+ ginormous donut= bliss.

Obligatory pumpkin carving post

2010-11-01T13:37:00.000-07:00

What's a Halloween weekend without carving pumpkins? Our fun, sweet friends Paul and Rachel came over to do some serious showing off with their mad carving skills...

Yeah, I didn't even take a picture of mine- it was shmugly and even worthy of a photo! Despite my carving inadequacies I love it and it was a fun night!

Team Jacob!

2010-10-31T11:17:00.000-07:00

In a last minute scramble to come up with costumes for a party we were going to Saturday night, we decided to be Bella and Jacob from Twilight. Yes, I am a 27 year old Twi-hard. Yes, I know about 15 years too old but hey.... (yes, that was my best argument- "hey") So knowing that I am totally Team Jacob my sweet husband volunteered to be my werewolf best friend.
So with a few hours to get a costume together, we dyed an old undershirt with tea bags to attempt to get the flesh tone and ironed on some abs that I volunteered to find a good image of on the web ;) Tough way to spend an afternoon...

My sweet Andy

We had a fun night and then Sunday we had some friends over to play board games and hang out while we passed out candy. It was a pretty good Halloween and I think I may have finally satisfied my need for Reeses cups which I didn't think would ever happen. Ready to get back on a healthy eating track and I even got up early to take a long walk this morning at 6am! Crazy. Hope everyone had an awesome Halloween!!!!!

Ultra-dad

2010-10-25T10:51:00.000-07:00

The Tulsa paper just did a story about my dad and I thought it was really sweet and captured my mom and dad's relationship so well. I'm so blessed to get to have two parents that adore each other so much. It's a long article, I mostly wanted to post it so I could remember it.

Dan Threlkeld. Many know him as the animated weather guy on Channel 2. Those that personally know him know what an ultra guy he is.
A few months ago, his absence from our homes, from the life of normalcy he and his incredibly supportive wife JoAnn had known, changed overnight – Monday, July 12th as JoAnn precisely recalled. Our beloved weather guy, amazing ultraman, faithful family man (well, except the passionate affair he openly admits – with ultra distance running), battled death.
Recently I met with Dan and his lovely wife of 32 years, JoAnn, for an interview to gain insight and tell the story of their battle. Greeted with a hug, an expression of his warm nature and open kindness, he led me to meet his beautiful bride. We all sat down together to discuss their triumph with this ultra test, and as Dan gratefully stated, the break God has given him.
Here’s their story:
Family, job, and sports are the three key elements in Dan’s day-to-day life. A genuine, caring, earnest, humble, warm spirited man, that when in his presence, you feel you are the focal point of his universe as he intently listens, absorbs the moment, and is seemingly on edge of his seat for “the rest of your story”, offered his story.
His honest, sincere nature was evident in every expression, gesture, posture, and spoken word. Dan has been a meteorologist in Oklahoma for 26 years – 18 years at the NBC station in OKC and for nearly 8 years, he has been the Chief Meteorologist for Channel 2 in Tulsa. He has been in many of our homes, passionately forecasting the weather for Green Country and relentlessly advising us, warning us, pleading with us through our severe weather – day or night, weekday or weekend, whenever we need him.
Aside from serving others, he is a faithful family man and an endurance junky. We’ll get to the noble part of his character later, but let’s expose his affair – with running!
Ten K’s, Half-Marathons, and Marathons weren’t enough of a challenge. He needed more. As many of us have experienced, we each have that “friend” – the peer- pressure/encourager/you-can-walk-on-water supporter in our lives. Dan’s “friend” was Stan. Stan rode his bike alongside Dan yelling at him, “encouraging” him, as Dan completed his first ultra marathon (a race consisting of distances longer than a marathon, generally 50 to 100 miles) – the Okie Relays 41 miler.
This was the birth of his true endurance junkiness. He soon began taking on 50-miler events and then attacked the Oklahoma Mother Road 100 miler – twice.
He openly admitted that while training for the ultras, sports became the number one priority in his life. He truly had an affair with running, as he repeatedly would sneak out of the house at 2 AM for training runs, and was deceitful to JoAnn regarding where or how long he had been running. He kind of smirked and half-heartedly apologized as he stated, “sorry honey, running has been the only time I’ve been unfaithful.”
I then asked JoAnn what I thought was going to be a very hard question: “How does that make you feel that sports or running was a priority over you or your family?” Her response not only made me teary eyed, but also made me take a moment for myself. Her response underscored the abundant love and respect evident between these two: It never bothered me unless he was putting himself in an unsafe or dangerous situation. I only wish I loved something as much as he loves running.
Wow! I still tear up with that! One can only aspire to have that depth of love, support, and understanding for their partner in life!!
Now for the rest of the story:
Dan and JoAnn began dating in high school. She was a senior and he a sophomore – a tidbit of information Dan offered as his chest seemingly swelled, and JoAnn scoffed, “you didn’t have to add that!” This loving couple celebrated their 32nd wedding anniversary in July, shortly after Dan entered the hospital for what would become a nearly two month fight for his life.
JoAnn has always been his greatest supporter, his raving fan. Limited to walking and minimal running as a result of her chronic back problems and surgery, JoAnn has discovered ways to share in Dan’s passion for running – the affair of his heart, the “other love” in their lives. Whether it be on a bike as he trained for distances of 10K’s to marathons, driving a van through all hours of the night as he raced his ultra marathons, or Dan’s recent tangle with death, JoAnn has faithfully, steadfastly been by his side.
They have two grown children, a married daughter who resides in Austin and a son that lives here in Tulsa. Both are active and fit; however, their son has Dan’s ultra gene, as he is a competitive rock climber – a free climber, “the type of climber that has no safety ropes and just scales the rocks, the mountain…and goes UP.”
As alluded to earlier, the morning of Monday, July 12 would become the ultra test of Dan’s life, the “Threlkeld” family’s lives. Fortunately, Dan’s endurance, resiliency, and will honed through his ultra marathoning endeavors would become his and his family’s salvation – who knew a passionate affair would be the salvation of a family!
He awakened to numbness in his fingertips. Not something to “call in” for work, he proceeded with his day. Within a few hours, he additionally lost sensation in his toes. By mid-morning, as if he had dipped his arm up to his elbow into a paint can, he had lost total sensation to that point in his arm.
In retrospect, he stated he had been experiencing stomach issues for nearly two weeks, yet wrote it off as possibly overeating or a taste of food poisoning. By late night, he was retching uncontrollably and JoAnn urged him to go to the emergency room.
Within a few hours, he was diagnosed with gall bladder issues warranting a “one hour” surgery to remove his gall bladder.
Easy enough. Quick fix. Minor incision, remove the gall bladder, and we’re done.
One hour operation, and back home in the morning...back to “normalcy”.
Sure. However, remember this is ultra man Dan. He does e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g ultra.
Nearly four hours later, the surgeon explained to JoAnn that Dan’s gall bladder had disintegrated inside his body – something rarely seen, and explanation as to “why” unknown.
No big deal. Hurdle taken in stride.
Dan simply began walking the hallway as instructed the following morning. However, he had a few falls – unexplainable, uncontrollable spills as he made his way down the halls of the hospital.
What was happening? Ultra man Dan couldn’t w-a-l-k down a hallway?!
Within a few hours he continued to lose function, lose control of his body. Within merely a few days he lost total capability to sit up and was so incapacitated with Morphine, JoAnn was making all decisions regarding his well-being.
Dan’s health was going south, fast! Thankfully, a neurologist did some tests and was able to offer a “label” for what was going on with his body – funny how we incessantly, innately need a label to offer solace as we comprehend, grasp the magnitude or simply understand adversity with which we are faced.
Guillain Barre Syndrome. That was Dan’s labeled diagnosis. Simply put, his body was at war with itself. His auto-immune system (the system that attacks the “bad” germs or what is perceived as the “enemy” in our body) was attacking his peripheral nervous system (the system that allows you the sensation of feel or touch.)
Remember this is ultra man Dan – he does everything in an ultra way! In addition to his disintegrated gall bladder that was only supposed to take an hour of surgery and the diagnosed Guillain-Barre Syndrome, he also developed Bell’s Palsy, to boot! Worse, he took the Guillain-Barre Syndrome to the nth degree – his heart, lungs, kidneys, and other vital organs began shutting down.
What did all this mean? Discussions of a ventilator, a living will. This was meaning our faithful family man, our weather man, our ultra man Dan’s death.
Not on his watch!
After six days of immunoglobulin therapy, he turned a much awaited, prayer-answered corner. He still had an ultra recovery ahead of him as he spent nearly two months in the hospital, had to relearn how to sit up in bed, transfer from a bed to a wheelchair, transfer from the wheelchair to the car, take his first steps with aid of a walker, graduate to a cane, and progress to walking with no assistance! In addition, he developed and battled blood clots – come on man! Enough is enough!!
His progress was seemingly painfully slow, until he made it home. Once home, his progress and recovery was amazingly rapid. His progress and recovery has been a test of determination, persistence, resilience and will. He attributes a great deal of his success to his training as an ultra athlete and is thankful to be a part of the TATUR group, as he and the founder Brian Hoover master-minded the inception of the group on a long run not so long ago.
When asked if he believed ultra marathons were the “cause” of his recent battle with death, he simply said “no”. Guillain –Barre Syndrome knows no bounds. Young, old, healthy, even Andy Griffin had Guillain – Barre and as Dan cheekily added, “I don’t think Andy knocked out any ultras.”
Ultra endurance events are a parallel to the daily life struggles we each face. Filled with unpredictable personal triumphs and challenges (whether it be terrain, weather conditions or individually physical), momentary highs and lows, Dan believes his training and experience in ultra events prepared him to face the ultra battle for his life. Further, JoAnn is ironically convinced his tangle with death saved his life, as he has become a more “balanced” person – a word when spoken out-loud makes Dan noticeably, physically uncomfortable…the word JoAnn refers to as the “b-word”.
Since his recovery, his biggest challenge has been being patient, recognizing and embracing his “normalcy” of anew, and trying not to “overdo it”. He is re-focusing his goals to be competitive at shorter distances, freeing up time to participate in a race, come home and mow the lawn, and have plenty of time to take his lovely, beautiful bride out for lunch.
Though his days of ultra marathoning are seemingly over, both Dan and JoAnn appreciate what the ultra world has offered them – lot’s of fond and not-so-fond memories, life-long buddies and deeply-seeded friendships, body awareness, endurance, resilience, and confidence to persevere in the most ferocious face of life’s adversity. They are incredibly grateful for all the love, support, and out-reach throughout their experience and appreciate your concern, your interest.
Tulsa is an ultra place to live, with lots of ultra people.

BEADBOARD!

2010-10-25T10:27:00.000-07:00

I was waiting till I painted it to blog about it, but being that we are having technical issues at work today (yea working from home!) I'm stuck by the computer waiting for updates, thus the reason for my third blog post of the day.

For those close to me, know that's I've been dreaming of beadboard and negotiating with Andy just how much beadboard to put up. Initially I wanted to do the entire living room, but we met half way and just did the dining area and I'm so glad that's all we decided to do. It would of been way to much to do the entire living room.

So, here it is....

Spooky trip to Dallas

2010-10-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

Friday afternoon we headed up to Dallas to visit the Andy's sister's family- the MAPES! Got to hang out with our nieces for a few hours and then that night the adults went to "Cutting Edge"- the world's largest haunted house. It was legit too, had the Guinness world record plaque and everything. It was in a old meat packing factory so just that alone was pretty creepy and made it a pretty cool place to have a haunted house. It took over an hour to walk through the whole thing, and had some pretty cool features.

Waiting in line for fun/terror to begin!

Only group shot we got...

Although the haunted house was fun, by far my favorite part of the evening was John's cousin Tim that we just meet for the first time. He is an undertaker. For reals. He had the most crazy awesome stories I ever heard. What a gift God gave him to be able to do what he does and have such a strong stomach b/c just hearing some of the stories he told us made me queasy! Him and his wife were super nice and we had a wonderful dinner at their house.

The exit to the haunted house was bubbles. Not like a few bubbles, like a 8 foot wall of solid bubbles you had to just dive into and walk through for a while and find the exit. It.was.awesome.

Kari and I in bubble world!

Here is a video about the haunted house, if you are interested....

Running.

2010-10-25T06:39:00.000-07:00

Andy has been super awesome and getting up to go running almost every morning at 6am for a few weeks now. I decided to join this morning. I can confirm the fact that I hate running. It's terrible. I often talk about how I wish I was one of those people that enjoyed exercise, but every fiber of my being detest it. So my early morning jogs both started and ended on the same day. Any suggestions as to non-terrible forms of exercise?

New window

2010-10-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back I awoke to loud noises. Nothing new here. Andy nearly always gets up before me and dives right into something. Well then I realized it was coming from the back of the house. He has been threatening for about a year to replace some rotted siding. Yeah, it sounds like no big deal. But I know my Andy. Here's how the string of logic would go
"I need to replace the rotted wood"
"If I'm going to replace that wood I might as well replace all the siding"
"While I have all the siding down this would be a good time to replace all the windows"
I know this string of logic well because it is the same thought process that got us here, with a completely gutted bathroom when I just wanted to replace the vanity and flooring.
BOOM! An afternoon project turns into new siding, which means painting the entire house, and new windows for the whole house. And I just adore my sweet Andy for having that "git r done" spirit he has, but I sprung out of bed to attempt to stop the madness.

So after some negotiating and using my mad procrastination skills I justified to Andy why we should wait till the Spring to replace the siding and since he had already ripped off the window trim we decided on just replacing the one window.

Boo old, crusty, drafty window!

Having a ginormous hole into your house is fun for about an hour and then you start finding leaves in your kitchen and it's not so fun anymore...

Yea new window!

Toning it down

2010-10-18T05:28:00.000-07:00

Living room is d-o-n-e! Man, that felt good to type. I don't know why this project got to me, it's just painting. See rant here. Probably because I attempted it on my own and I'm so completely enabled by Andy's awesomeness and hard work that when I take on solo projects I feel like it takes forever and ever. Oh, can I also add in here that primer is your friend. I thought it wasn't. I was wrong. Way wrong. I thought primer was just another annoying step that would slow me down. Well 5 1/2 gallons of paint later I realized what a mistake no primer was. Use it. Love it. Learn from my 3 coats-of-paint-needed mistake.

Okay, so here are a few pictures....

BEFORE

AFTER

I think it looks a little washed out in the pictures, it's a little more green and less hospital-y looking in real life. I'm happy with it. I know it doesn't have the knock you over the head with color effect that I had going before, but I'm planning on sewing some poppy little pillows for my color fix. Oh how the 21 year old Ashley and her dreams of having a house that had themed rooms a-la Graceland would be disappointed in boring 27 year old Ashley and my lame color choices. Please forgive me former self, covering every square inch with bright obnoxious colors is not my thang anymore.

Losing my mind

2010-10-17T19:37:00.000-07:00

Friday- Got completely lost going to meet a friend for coffee at Panera that I've been to at least 10 times before.

Saturday- Freaked out because we were running late to a wedding. Convinced it started at 5:30, got there and they were still setting up. The wedding started at 6:45.

Sunday- Spend nearly an hour looking for Molly before church- thought she ran away because the side gate was open. I went ahead to church and Andy showed up an hour later reporting that she was in her crate the entire time.

Seriously. What's wrong with me? Here's to hoping my apparently gone-to-mush brain is a little more on the ball this week....

Chai lattes and the McBrides- oh how I love thee...

2010-10-06T07:03:00.001-07:00

Fall is HERE! You know what that means- beautiful leaves, the awesome crunching sound when you walk across them, cooler temperatures, pumpkins, blah blah blah, all great but to me, I get most excited about sipping on my chai lattes!

They are a delicious Christmas explosion of tastiness in your mouth. Since I am 1) cheap and therefore can't justify paying $3.50 a pop at Starbucks and 2) lazy and therefore choose to stay in my grotty sweats (btw-who says you have to stop wearing sweats that are 10 years old?) and not leave the house and I have found the perfect compromise. Enter Trader Joes. My favorite store. Not just my favorite grocery store, my favorite store. ever. I will spare you a long rant about how awesome it, but if you are ever need someone to talk your ear off about something so boring as a grocery store- I'm your woman. Of course the closest one is in Santa Fe, New Mexico (the heart wants what it can't have apparently *sigh*). Okay, now enter Sara and Drew McBride.

My sweet friends/dealers that totally enable my Chai-diction. They are quite the travelers and always make sure my stock is good. Nearly every time I see them they've got a stash for me. Bless their hearts for making trips to Trader Joes when they could definitely be doing a lot cooler things when traveling. I love them and am so appreciative of how thoughtful they are.

So, I'm no Oprah, but Chai latte are definitely one of my favorite things. What is your favorite thing about the Fall?

UGH

2010-09-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

I hear people say they are scared of paint. I have the complete opposite problem. I wish I was scared of paint. I wish bright obnoxious colors covering my walls terrified me. They don't. They make my heart pitter patter-in a good way. But then I realize that it looks tacky. And then I start imagining people talking about how our house looks like a kindergarten classroom and laugh maniacally behind our backs at (gasp!) our poor color choices. And then I repaint.
The first color I ever picked out for our house...
Sunburst yellow. The name alone should of been clue enough that maybe it was a teeny bit bright. Or maybe the fact that we had to wear sunglasses while painting the room. Not really, I lied, but how awesome would that of been?

So then when choosing color for the living room I thought I should "tone it down", and somehow I thought jalepeno jelly was the perfect shade of green.

Um, yeah, I was wrong. Way wrong. At one point I like it, I even blogged about it here. But my love is gone and I felt the need for change. And I had two weekdays off work this week so thought "I can totally paint the living room, entry, and dining room one day and then clean up the next day." I'm a fool. I painted non-stop for 9 hours on Thursday, and then 5 hours of Friday. Apparently Key Lime takes about 15 (okay 3) coats to cover my nasty dark green. I.CANNOT.PAINT.ANYMORE.
So, here is the current state of my living room.

And I show you this to let you know that I have no plans of finishing. Just thinking about painting makes me let out a long teenager-esque UUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH groan. So if you come over, be prepared to shimmy around ladders, step over screwdrivers, and secretly judge me.

Okay okay- so maybe I will finish, but not today, or tomorrow, and maybe not next week...