a few more from our fun yesterday afternoon...

what a FUN weekend! we drove up to the lakehouse with our neighbors and had a fabulous time. we are lucky to have such fun peeps living on either side of us and we had a great time hanging out away from home just relaxing.

its so nice to be away with no work, no chores, no errands! lily was on her best behavior as our only baby guest (not counting the lime baby i'm growing. and by the way- how is it already the size of a lime?! when did that happen?? hah). lily did all of her tricks and really enjoyed being the center of attention and showing off!

we rode the new waverunners and cruised around on the boat. i missed out on the tubing adventure staying at the house during one of lily's naps but everyone really had a great time. we are so grateful to have a fun place to hang out and get some r&r.

on the road again...

we are headed to the lakehouse this weekend for some r&r and i'm so excited. a whole weekend of no work and all play! i can't wait!

i have been a serious slacker about taking pics of lily lately. i had the camera out in the playroom today and got these. her favorite thing these days is putting on necklaces!

(and then dancing around with the necklace on)

she has also started pretending to laugh at books. she will have a serious face and then turn the page and point at something and laugh :)

and one of my girl with her 3 current favorite things (blankie not included).
a necklace, a book, and her magnet farm!

*special note for elizabeth. you will observe that my child is pant-less in these pictures. this is not because she needs henry to send her hand-me-down jeans. this is due to my strict 'no pants when napping' rule because really, who wants to nap wearing pants? i sure don't. and a lot of the time in the afternoon before dinner the pants just don't make it back on... okay? so there. ;)

what a craaaazy week. being sick really threw off my regularly scheduled programs. the house became a mess and rearranging work around throwing up made for a busy busy week.

i have had 6 clients in the last 7 days, lily fell and got a bloody nose, i actually managed to start eating what could pass as an adult sized meal, lily fell and got a big bruise on her forehead, erin turned 34, and i caved and hired the maids again since i haven't managed to so much as sweep the floor since the last time they were here.

we are headed to the lakehouse this weekend, so hopefully we'll get some peace and quiet :)

so random i know, but peacocks seem to be everywhere these days :) i was waiting on a client this afternoon and snapped these. he was so pretty and didnt seem to mind me coming pretty close...






and on a completely unrelated note, i'm off to bed. here's hoping i don't wake up throwing up my dinner again!! ah the small victories in life :)

its been a while since yall have seen the soon to be big sister! here are two snapshots of her from today.

check out the molar in this one:



and her impression of what mom has been doing a lot lately:

what a rollercoaster this pregnancy has been so far. we were so thrilled earlier in the week to see that our little bean is growing well and on wednesday the morning sickness reached a whole new level. i couldn't keep solids or liquids down despite taking anti-nausea medication i was very reluctant to try in the first place.

finally i wound up in the hospital this morning just extremely fatigued and dehydrated and they pumped me full of 2 liters of fluids and some meds. not feeling much better, but at least i know i won't end up a raisin, right?

here's hoping the morning sickness heads out the door with the first trimester- only two more weeks!

if you find yourself with a little extra time on your hands and need a laugh, head over to yearbookyourself.com

check out me, kevin, and lily in the 60s...

i'm not sure 'four's company' has quite the same ring to it, but i'm sure we'll figure something out :)




and no, there aren't two of them... that's the yolk sac on the left. it about gave me a heart attack! the official due date is april 23... our 4 year wedding anniversary!

of all the things you expect to see in your front yard, this was not one of them.

i was changing lily yesterday afternoon and got a phone call from my neighbor that i should come outside and lo and behold... a peacock was standing in my front yard.






i was on my way to work, so of course i had to snap a few pics. the funny part of the story is that last time i worked for this client i saw a giant turkey sitting on my lamppost on my way to their house. i'm kinda scared to see what happens if they hire me again :)

ten hours. i just had housekeepers work ten man-hours on my house. who knew it was such a total nightmare in here?! it looks sooooo good and its awesome to have everything sparkling clean for once.

is it bad that i don't want to let the dogs inside??

check out the very industrious work of my little chipmunk...

my bedroom fan is alive. or so it seems... it is growing some kind of fur, so it must be a mammal of some sort.

seriously. when am i supposed to have time to de-fur my ceiling fans? i feel like life is a constant game of catch up that i am losing, mostly in thanks to my two dogs, my child, and my trying to run a part time business that usually ends up being more like full time.

at about noon today i decided rather than open the front doors and let my dogs run free to anyone who would give them safe harbor and rip my ears off so i didn't hear my baby whining anymore, that i would go to the gym. i locked the dogs in their room. i dropped lily in the gym daycare. i put on a bathing suit. i went outside to the pool.

i was woken up 45 minutes later (slightly sunburned) by a childcare worker coming to tell me that my child needed a diaper change. i wasn't sure if i should be embarrassed that i had essentially dropped my child in their care to take a nap, but i wasn't.

kevin comes home in 4 days and i'm seriously considering hiring a maid for the weekend to keep up my 'super-mom' guise...

i have a lot to live up to.

i was just getting ready for the day in my mom's bathroom (its the last day of my visit) and found myself staring at the abundance of makeup in her drawers. truth be told, i can't remember the last time i actually bought makeup because my mom typically gives me the colors that she buys that don't end up working for her, and that's just fine by me! i'm not that picky :)

her drawer is currently home to 18 lipglosses and 16 lipsticks. note, i didn't say 'different' because i found at least two duplicate colors. and mind you this does not count whatever she is carrying around in that gorgeous yellow marc jacobs purse of hers.

thank goodness she likes to share!! :)

need a chuckle?

fun facts from today:

my child will be banned from the playground if she continues to eat rocks.

my child climbs up the playscape and goes down the slide head first before the teachers can catch her (but at least she isn't eating rocks while doing this).

my child refuses to eat her own lunch and instead steals the lunches of others.

whose delinquent child does this sound like?? certainly not my sweet lily?! :) i was actually thrilled with the report card from today that did not include crying! way to go lil!

she's onto me....

yesterday was lily's first day of 'preschool'. she was very excited to be there and walked in all by herself... until she realized i wasn't staying with her.

i came back 4.5 hours later to a red-eyed, snotty-nosed, very very tired lily.

today i dropped her off at the gym so i could workout and an hour later i was paged over the intercom to come collect my red-eyed, snotty-nosed child who apparently thought i was leaving for 4.5 hours again.

we go back to preschool tomorrow... wish me luck!

and for your viewing pleasure, the 'before' photos. ;)

i'm one lucky mama.

i had my first session for now i lay me down to sleep last night. it was heartbreaking. there was a language barrier between me and the family, which honestly kept me from feeling like i didn't have the right thing to say or the right condolences to give.

it made me want to hug lily tight and keep her in my lap all day. i'm so glad to be able to provide such a personal service to keep that sweet child's image in its family's hearts for a lifetime. i just cannot imagine being in such an impossible position. bless them.

head over to the photography blog for lily's cake smash pics :) warning: its awfully sweet!

click here!

today i decided to try to capture lily's growing sign language vocabulary. she wasn't all that interested in playing along, but i got most of them (sort of).

she'd rather watch the dogs than have her picture taken...



here is the sign for milk (think squeezing your hands like milking a cow). she uses it for any kind of drink.



here she is saying 'more'. it looks close to clapping, but she manages to get one hand closed like it is supposed to be...



this is the sign for 'eat'. pretty self explanatory :)



and her version of 'all finished' where she just waves her palms both at you in a circle instead of flipping them over and back...



and finally i had to snap a pic of her posture... remember when she used to sit up so straight?! i guess she decided not to be so ladylike anymore. i really can't blame her :)

just a few snapshots of crazy lily today. she is in rare form!!

woo hoooo!!

kevin and i scored a new acadia on the gmc employee pricing and its beee yuuuuu tiful!

you could fit the whole brady bunch in this thing. three rows of seats and lots of space! hooray!

we had a fun day out at lost pines with gaga and moon! they are coming again next weekend with the donovan clan. i'm excited for lily to have more time with lucy and charlie too. after that we are heading up to dallas for work and to visit with family while kevin is on his big trip to europe with the boys!

i'm not sure i want to know what they are adding to my apple juice to make it last 1001 years...

talk about preservatives! :)

a few pics from jill's 30th bash in lukenbach and the peavy's gorgeous ranch! you can see all the pics HERE :)

its all fun and games until someone gets sick...

i had a great time at the peavy ranch for jill's 30th birthday party until a stomach bug took over my fun around 1am. thankfully it looks to have been a 24 hour bug b/c i'm already turning the corner on feeling better.

lots of fun pics to come soon- we had a great time in luckenbach!

a few months ago my sister burned me a CD of hymns that i find myself listening to over and over again (sorry lily and kevin). my favorite song keeps changing and this week i've been playing the same one on repeat whenever i'm in the car.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

it is a beautiful song but the idea that if i was really focused on my savior that things that seem so important in this world would fade away as clutter just seems so amazing and convicting at the same time.

happy friday and happy weekend to all! i can't wait to celebrate jill's 30th birthday out in luckenbach tonight! :)

overheard while walking into aaron brother's frame store today...

a grandfather holding his 3ish year old grandson up on his hip pointing at a sign in the window advertising the 30% off sale saying "see, the sign says 'sale'... s - a - i - l.... sale."

i swear it took the entirety of my self control to keep walking without a chuckle.

i'm not feeling like a mental giant today. i only got 33.

take the quiz - see how you do!

guess the 100 most common words in the english language!

today's post brought to you by erin, score 32.

its hard for me to believe summer is already winding down! vacations are over (if you can call a 24 hour visit to the beach a vacation), my mom heads back to school in 2 weeks, and lily starts preschool in just 3 weeks.

now the 100 degree weather begs to differ with my theory that summer is about to end, but do you ever feel like you'll blink and it will be christmas already?! when did time start speeding up?

i will admit i'm the teeny tiniest bit heartbroken about lily starting 'school'. on one hand i can't believe my baby is old enough to be away from me twice a week, but on the other hand i think about how much fun she is going to have learning with other kids and how i will be able to balance work and staying at home better and i feel good about it! yet another example of motherhood being a big mixed bag of emotions! :)

not much else to report around here. we are heading to yoga as soon as lily wakes up from her nap in my attempt to motivate my increasingly lazy bum! so if you need a laugh, just think of the most un-flexible person you know trying to disguise their new muffin top while balancing on one leg... sounds about right!!

rock the vote!!

yeah yeah, i know there is a presidential election coming up, but i'm talking about my very first photography in bloom contest!! head over to the bloom blog and join in the fun :)

stupid edouard and his stupid tropical storm.

i'm back in austin 24 hours after heading to the beach for vacation with my family and all i have to show for it is bags of clothes packed with a week's worth of gear, some sand in my ear, and some fun pics from the morning with my niece and nephew.