Easter 2011

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter - I know we did!  This year, I faced a challenge I had never faced before...finding matching outfits for a 4-year old girl and a 1-year old boy.  As a seasoned, practicing shopper, no challenge is too great and I accepted this challenge!  And, of course, CHALLENGE COMPLETED!  I am sure that Beau will wish that I was unable to find success in this endeavor when he looks back on these pictures when he is 10 or 11 years old...and probably beyond.  I fell in love with these plaid, sailor collar outfits by Kelly's Kids, I knew when I found them that they were EXACTLY what I wanted for Easter. Since Beau's 1st birthday was in the midst of prime Texas Bluebonnet season, and I have been warned by my younger sister that the second child can not get ripped off, therefore, we took the opportunity to get our kid's photographed in them!  So, really, I guess Beau can thank his Aunt Jill for the professional photographic evidence!

We booked a mini session with Diana Busch and met on a Sunday morning in Plano.  The pictures below are a couple from our 15 minute mini session.   We were amazed that she was able to get these wonderful shots of our kids in such a short period of time!  The rest of the images are on our family photo site.  Diana is fantastic and we would recommend her to any friends looking for a children's photographer!

Sister & Brother

My happy 1-year old Beau 

My beauty, 4 1/2 year old Vaughn

We colored Easter eggs, made plans with family and watched our favorite cartoons with the Easter twist on them like most families do. As with most kids, there was a lot of excitement at our house on Easter morning when the kids woke up to find a certain bunny had been at our house. 

But, something was different at our house this year.  Vaughn was very curious about what Easter was really about this year. I picked up a set of Bible story pop up books for her at Divine Consign and there was a story about Jesus' life that included some bits about the story of Easter.  In the past, we had tried to explain it to her but she didn't understand quite yet.  It was so wonderful to share this story with her and to sit with her in "big church", knowing enough about what our minister was talking about to ask questions. 

My family, Easter 2011

After church, we had a majorly exciting event happen for the Merriman family...we got to spend a holiday with Doug, Melissa and Jackson for the first time in over a year!  Many of you have been following our nephew, Jackson's, story...he is one-year post bone marrow transplant.  He has been pretty isolated over the past year and even to some extent before that due to his lack of immune system.  I can not tell you how good it felt to walk into Doug and Mel's house with the kids and see all of the smiling faces of family and friends there to celebrate Easter together.  The kids had a blast with the Easter egg hunt and playing in Jackson's "park" in his backyard.  We also had a wonderful potluck style lunch...I can still taste Mel's grandma's banana pudding!  I can not tell you how thankful we are to be able to spend time with Doug, Melissa and Jackson again.  We have missed having them ALL with us during family gatherings and looking forward to do more fun things together!

Excited cousins...Beau, Vaughn, Jackson & Dylan

 Vaughn with her "thousands" of eggs

 Beau getting a little help from Daddy

I hope you all are enjoying Spring so far and had a great Easter!

Beau is 1!

I know, it doesn't seem right to me either!  The first year of Beau's life has FLOWN by way too fast for my liking!  I can not believe that we were in the hospital with this little 8lb. 7oz. and 21 inch long sweetie just one year ago:

My goodness, he has grown up so fast and changed so much in the past year.  He is such a happy, easy going little guy and has been such a blessing to our family!  Vaughn loves playing with her brother and wants to carry him everywhere.  She even shares with him...sometimes.  Rich is really embracing having a son - I will notice on the days Rich dresses Beau, they will both have on Rangers shirts and cargo shorts and he has started to take him to do "man" things.  And me, well, I am just as in love with my little buddy as I was the first time I laid eyes on him.  Everyone told me there is something about mother and sons, and I never believed it until now.  Beau is a "mamma's boy" in every way and I am so so glad.  I hope he continues to be this way FOREVER.

We had a great time celebrating Beau's 1st birthday with a Baseball Bash the Saturday before his birthday with some close friends and family.  I had so much fun with this party - boy parties are so different from girl parties, I really got to get my craft on with the scoreboard, "Beau" banner, and the menu was fun to plan (nachos, hotdogs, sunflower seeds, peanuts, cracker jacks and lemonade).  He really went after his cake!  Here are a few pictures from the party, to view all the pictures, visit our family photo site:

We had a family fun day on Beau's actual birthday.  Rich has been saying he wanted to take Beau to a baseball game every year on his birthday since he was born, so we all went to see the Frisco Rough Riders, our minor league team, play.  We all had a great day together at the game!  Beau seemed to like it and so did Vaughn, we even made the jumbotron a few times because we were dancing around, having a blast.

That evening, we went to our family favorite, Babe's, for dinner to close out a great birthday celebration.  In our grand tradition, Beau had his last bottle of formula that evening.  He is now 100% sippy cup and 2% milk and doing great.  I think he missed the bottle for the first day or two, but he has adjusted to life without it.  He is taking steps but not full blown walking.  Beau is much more cautious than Vaughn was, it seems as if he could just take off at any moment, he'll take a few steps here and there but cruises around furniture and with his little walker at a runner's pace.  It's only a matter of time and he will be fully on the move!  Beau also had his 1-year check up this week and weighed 20lbs. 7ozs. and was 30 inches long.  I've always thought my buddy was a BIG BOY, so I must say we were shocked to find that although he is in the 75th percentile on height, he is just in the the 10-25th percentile on weight. 

I know we all really enjoyed the celebration of this wonderful little boy's first year of life and are so glad that he has completed our family!  We love you, Beau William!

Keepin' It Real Thursday

My cousin's wife's sister-in-law (say that five times fast) has a blog I love called Slaughterhouse Rules.  A couple of weeks ago, she started doing a new weekly feature called "Keepin' It Real Thursday".  Basically, each week she showcases something about her life that is not perfect (ie: what lies beneath the cushions of her couch, etc.).  Since I am someone who seems to be on an endless mission for perfection, I thought covering this weekly topic on my blog would be not only a humbling experience, but bring me one step closer to the perfection I so crave (ha).

Today I was digging through my bottomless pit of a handbag, trying to find something (as usual).  I literally grabbed a handful of receipts off the top and tossed them in the garbage along with my grocery list.  After returning home tonight, I was suddenly hit with what my topic for "Keepin' It Real Thursday" should be.

So...here's the inside of my bag:

It doesn't look that bad from the aeriel view, however, when I emptied the contents of my bag, here's what I found:

- My wallet
- A wristlet containing numerous coupons I've collected and some giftcards
- Kleenex
- My sunglasses
- Beau's sunglasses
- Kindergarten Roundup Packet
- Vaughn's birth certificate and social security card
- A bottle of Ibuprofen
- Dayquil
- An empty Dayquil package
- 3 original pieces of Vaughn's artwork
- A flash drive
- A button
- Tickets to Toy Story 3 on Ice from March 31
- A printoff of a Groupon manicure I purchased
- 2 lollipops
- A pack of gum with one piece in it
- 17 gum wrappers
- My red business card holder with two of my cards in it
- A small make up bag containing 5 lipsticks and 2 ponytail holders
- 2 chip clips for my hair
- 3 bobby pins
- A ponytail holder with a giant wad of hair on it
- Another lipstick, 4 lipglosses and some Burt's Bees lip stuff (for a grand total of 11 lip products)
- 3 bottles of lotion
- An envelope containing a package of thank you notes that have yet to be written with the gifts and who they are from written on the outside (sorry guys)
- Another package of thank you notes
- My address book
- A post it with info on a meeting I attended in February
- A highlighter
- 2 blue ink pens
- About 25 business cards from my neighbor's lawn business
- Random receipts
- Notes from a Women's Business Iniative Luncheon I attended in February
- My point and shoot camera
- Dentist reminder for my appointment in March
- A printout of the recipe for Luby's Mac & Cheese
- An ant (yes, as in the bug - and I do not like bugs even a little bit)

The irony of this is that really, if I look into my bag, I see a lot of things I have been neglecting and maybe why I have felt a sense of disorder lately.  I usually go into organizer mode when I feel like things are crazy, but lately, things have been crazy and I have just kind of stopped.  Hopefully, this will motivate me to do something.  Afterall, one of the notes I took at the Women's Business Iniative luncheon says:

"In order for change to happen, you have to take ownership.  You have to REMOVE should/supposed to from you vocabulary and change it to I WILL."

Maybe that will be my mantra for next week...maybe...

I Want Wednesday...#1

I came across this great blog that is no longer being updated, but I love the premise.  Seeing as I am someone who does well with a structured routine, I thought regular blogging would be more likely to occur if I had a purpose on certain days.  What better way to do this than with "I Want Wednesday"...


In case my husband is reading this blog, and since Mother's Day is RIGHT around the corner, I thought I would take this opportunity to share some of the things on my current want list (for convenience, click on the name of the item to go right to the purchase page).  Here is the Mother's Day Edition:

Amazon Kindle 3 (in graphite please)...I love to read, I check out books religiously from the library and access my sister's Kindle account through the teeny tiny screen of my iPhone.  I usually will read an entire book in one sitting, even for-go sleep in order to READ READ READ.  Please, darling husband, help me preserve my eyes and purchase this for me...this device has the latest and greatest "E Ink" pearl technology.  It has the clearest text and the sharpest images. 

Purple Kindle Jacket - I have put a ton of thought into this, and after seeing numerous Kindles with numerous leather covers, I have decided that purple would be a fantastic choice for me.  After all, it's kind of unique and since I do have two kids that like to mess with my things, it won't stain.  And, every Kindle needs to be protected from the elements.

I'm Back...

Greetings and Salutations!  As many of you know, I deleted my blog a while back because I was simply bad about posting regularly and transitioned to a family photo site.  I am an avid blog reader and have found quite a few that I love...and in reading them, I have been inspired to reenter the blog world. 

As a wife, a mother of both a daughter and a son, a working woman and a general do-it-all kind of gal, I hope to create a voice that other women like me can relate to.  With that said, here goes nothing!