Decorating Nannie & Papaw's cool, spinning Christmas tree last weekend . . .

Doug complaining about having to
put up the Christmas tree . . .



Done decorating!

sick AGAIN!

I felt awful last night--so badly that this morning as soon as a doctor's office opened I called and scheduled an appt at 9:20. The Dr took a throat culture but he thinks I have strep throat. I will know for sure tomorrow. For today, I am sleeping the day (read pain) away.
I hope I didn't get anyone I was around this weekend ill . . .

ready for Christmas . . .

Last night Danielle fell asleep at 7:15 and slept through the night. After watching the fantastic movie Elf ;-) Trey and Doug got the Christmas tree down from the attic and put it up. If you've ever seen my MIL Nancy's Christmas tree, it is quite impressive. It is a pre-lit, all white lights HUGE artificial tree that spins. I knew Danielle would be so excited when she woke up to see it. Sure enough this morning she woke up, saw the tree, ran to her sleeping Papaw's side and said "I'm ready to decorate, I'm ready to decorate, get up, I'm ready to decorate." Papaw tried to get some extra sleep with 20 more minutes but that didn't work.

Once they all got up Nannie asked Danielle if she knew where the decorations were and Danielle went right up the stairs and pointed to the attic!

We got the decorations down and all of the bottom branches of the tree are decorated.

Trey left early for the UT/A&M game. Go 'Horns!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from the whole clan from the top left: Dick, Trey, Nancy K, Todd, Margaret, Mary Ann, Angela, Nancy O, Doug, Danielle & Graham.

Thanks

10 things for which I'm thankful:

1. Grace
2. my husband--almost 8 years of marriage
3. my precious Danielle
4. my neices and nephews--they are all growing up so fast
5. my parents, in-laws, aunts, uncles, grandparents, extended family--there's always something fun and interesting going on!
6. my pets--each with their own weird personality--and the fabulous vet staff we chose.
7. that we have a house with a yard and trees--though I tease we live in the 'hood some children don't their own rooms or a yard to play in.
8. enough food--even at our most broke time we are able to eat
9. freedom and of course, those who fight to keep us free
10. my friends and coworkers

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday everyone. What are your top thanks?

Cool birthday party

Yesterday Danielle and I were too ill to do much of anything so we stayed in bed all day and night. (We were very sad that we missed friend Cari's 5th birthday party. But I'm sure all the parents are relieved.)

This morning Danielle woke up a chatter box and feeling much better. So we went to classmate's birthday party. (birthday girl in the pink hat below) The birthday was at an equestian center (http://www.austinequestriancenter.com/Index.htm) and the birthday girl's father owns a specialty cake shop (http://www.sansalones.com/) (that happens to be about a block from my work). So needless to say this was an extremely cool birthday party and extremely cool cake. And, you would think, since it only took the baker about 3 hours to make this cake that it would be a plain ol' vanilla cake--not so. It was layered vanilla, chocolate, some kind of chocolate mousse, vanilla, chocolate then the mousse again and covered with foundant icing. Danielle fell asleep on the ride home, walked inside, went straight to bed and sleep for an hour. I was feeling better and guilty from eating my piece of cake and the reminder of Danielle's piece of cake so I cut the front yard. This all might have been a mistake, however, as Danielle woke up with a slight fever again and I am again stupped up and sownd lide dis. Sure hope we didn't get anyone sick before the big holiday...

sick house

I'm getting a cold.
Danielle threw up this morning.
Hamilton is down to ~6 lbs.
Trey is tired with all his classwork.
Our house is a sick house this weekend; we're staying home today and tonight.

a little home computer time??

With Trey taking 2 classes on line at night I really get home computer time but ta-da! Tonight I get to sneak a little time!

The church bazaar went well. I, nor my raffle ticket purchasers, did not win either of the 2 quilts. But I know the people that won and they are great. I was EXHAUSTED Saturday afternoon after working most of the day in the kitchen. I feel asleep on the couch for an hour.

Monday night I met my friend, Kathy, for dinner. It was nice to catch up and hand off some of Danielle's no-longer-fit-me clothes. Her daughter, Rebecca, is beautiful and someday I'll get around to linking to my friends' blogs and you can check her out.

Tuesday Trey and I met Danielle at her school for the Thanksgiving lunch. You had to pre-buy tickets and they still ran out of everything. The school was serving ham at the end and the poor teachers ended up with no lunch! That is one of the few compliants we have with her school--they can't seem to plan the food out correctly . . .

Danielle finished the short session swim lessons tonight. She did extremely well this time (9s out of 10s unlike the first time with 3 7s out of 10s and 1 6 out of 10) and has advanced to the Preschool Level 2.

This morning was WINDY in Austin. This evening is crisp and cool. Currently 54 degrees.

Tomorrow is parent-teacher conference.

We have 2 birthday parties this weekend--one Saturday is Cari's and it will be bowling--one Sunday is Chloe's and it will be some kind of horseback riding party. We bought the gifts last night and it is all princess mermaid stuff for the girls :-)

Gotta go--a little time with my husband??!!??!! WOW!

One last note--my oldest, sweetest cat, Hamilton, is getting worse. I was really afraid to leave him this morning but this evening he is so much better. I have an appt to let him go peacefully this coming Saturday but we'll reevaluate daily. Got to take him for fluids tomorrow morning.

Texas weather . . .

They say if you don't like the weather in Texas to wait a few minutes and it will change.
I tell you, sometimes that is SOO TRUE! Last night we went over to my friend Sarah's (http://princessbride42.blogspot.com/) so the girls could play at Emlyn's Fantasia party; it was windy with some lightning to the east and had been HOT all day. It got up to 91 degrees. When we left around 9:30 it was COLD as we were getting into the car. It is 51 (feels like 46) right now with expected high of 71 today! LOL.

But I'm glad it is chilly right now since it is NOVEMBER and our church bazaar is selling chili and sandwiches for the lunch meal today.

ads . . . .

So I click on an MSN article about the new risks on ADHD medications and this is what I find: http://health.msn.com/centers/adhd/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100147785&GT1=8762

Notice the 2 ads on the page are the same Rx referred to in the article as having been removed from the market in Canada!

update on rachel

There's been an update on Rachel Cooke:
http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=5653329

Rachel was the primary reason I stayed home after Danielle was born. After Elizabeth Smart and Rachel's disappearance I couldn't bear to part from Danielle that first year . . .

work, work, work

My work this week has been very busy. It's the week we've been testing our 12/1 renewals and as difficult as some of the 10/1s were we decided it would be good to have the 2 business analysts on our group come in for the testing. I think it went well--some issues were fixed right away and it was nice to have them in. But it was busy and I feel wiped out today--our holiday for Veteran's Day. Also when visiting with our vendor I sometimes long for the "sliding doors." If you've never seen that movie I recommend you do. Gwyenth Paltrow is the main actress and the movie follows 2 paths--1st where she catches the train and the 2nd where she misses the train (the sliding doors) and how differently her life would be in each situation. Don't get me wrong, I love my husband, my beautiful daughter, all our zoo animals and our crazy life but there are times that I wonder how it would've been had I had just a slightly different path in life. If after computer camp that I loved in 8th grade I hadn't had that school counselor say "computers? you should think about something else; they aren't going to be used in the future for anything but games anyway." (seriously--not kidding) or if I'd decided to go to Univ of Neb instead of Hendrix. Oh well . . . there is a reason for everything, right?

So, now I have to go make a cake for the church bazaar. Maybe update more later . . .

Remember your Veterans this weekend; they did so much for all of us.

recent funny/amazing Danielle-isms

Danielle continually amazes me at her memory and how funny she can be. Here's a recent sampling:

• A few days before Halloween Danielle and I were somewhere (?? I cannot remember where . . .) talking to someone (?? goodness I also cannot remember to whom) and I jokingly said “oh she’s spoiled rotten.” The person replied “I don’t believe that.” And I replied “nah, she’s not.” Then Danielle piped up and said “My Grandmama spoils me rotten . . . and my Aunt Gretchen!”
• We had these neighbors down the street that had a wild stray cat named Mouse. They couldn't touch them but you would never know it from all the time he spent on their porch and they fed him for years. They moved over the summer and spent days trying to catch Mouse but it appears he adopted the house instead of them. So the new couple moving in agreed to continue feeding and looking after Mouse the cat. Being the bad neighbor that we are, we had not met the new couple yet but we continued to say "hello" to mouse on our walks. On Halloween, we stopped at their house to TorT and I introduced us to the female, Kathryn, of the house. Two days later I mentioned my friend, Kathy, to Trey in conversation and Danielle pipes up "you mean Mouse's mom?" I had no idea what she was talking about . . . until the next day when I saw the new neighbor, Kathryn, drive by the house then it clicked. WOW! Danielle is so observant and smart.
• Being married to a hunter I am abandoned periodically so we make it a Girls' weekend for Danielle & me. Cousin Kory used to be on the deer lease but he's not now. Danielle commented to my mom that during this most recent time that she's having a Girls' weekend but Drake is having a Boy & Girl weekend because Drake is a boy and Aunt Susie is a girl.
• Mommy: "We need to take down the Halloween decorations." Danielle: "And put up a chicken." Mommy (pause while thinking "???")" "Danielle, I think you mean a turkey." Danielle: "oh right." giggle, giggle.

Shhhhh . . . Danielle's 1st Christmas present is on its way . . .

Shhhh . . . thankfully this afternoon my coworker/friend, Lisa, was talking about getting Ellie tickets to the traveling Broadway show Disney's Lion King. I had been thinking about that for Danielle, also, so we decided to call the box office. We were told there were limited seats available so we quickly placed our order. Ellie & family are going on a Tues night and we are going the next night but we all got tickets right about the same area! They were expensive but, hopefully, worth it! I've heard it's a great show. So 1 gift down! That's Danielle's 1st Christmas present on its way . . .

Halloween home

Blogger is being grumpy so I was only able to get this photo uploaded. This is Danielle & Trey with all of Dnaielle's loot from the night out. We got out kinda late after making dinner, etc. Yes, 2 FULL SIZE candy bars; those are from the people up the street who had an AMAZING haunted yard. Unfortunately one of the creatures really scared Danielle though she has been saying for weeks that she wanted to go to their house. The rest of the night was fun too.

We had a lot of trick or treaters--only 1 bag of snack m&ms left. Trey spent most of the night out front with his laptop so he could hand out candy and work on his final paper for class. Happy Halloween!

Halloween work party

My work always has a Halloween party. This year we went as Mother Nature and the 4 Seasons. I'm Spring. We obviously stood in the wrong order!

The party was disappointing; not many people dressed up or participated in the food contest, other games, etc. But we did win 2nd place in the costume contest.