Family Update

Ben...football and CC are officially over. Soccer officially began this morning. He likes this schedule a lot more. He's home with Betsy and not exhausted more often. He and Bets played ALLL day yesterday so I could work on sewing projects!

I lost a pound and a half over Thanksgiving, no thanks to my own self restraint. I can't smell or taste anything. I haven't been able to smell or taste anything for about 10 days now. Why over-indulge on food I can't enjoy? I didn't. I basically eat when I get a headache and I'll continue this diet method until my senses of taste and smell return and my self-restrain eludes me again. Another observation...I don't know how people have kids without a playroom. OMG, chasing Betsy around this weekend was a full time job as my dining room is set up AS a dining room for a party I'm throwing Friday. Finally I pulled out the gate and set up about a third of the room as a safe play area. Yeesh! She's into everything. Except the tree or presents. She moves the presents but doesn't try to open them.

Betsy's cutest new things are

1. Rearranging presents under the tree. Sometimes she'll bring us a present and we say "Thank you!" and she claps for herself.

2. Socks and shoes come in pairs. If I'm doing laundry she looks through for the matching socks. If she sees one shoe she looks around until she finds the second one. It's adorable.

AND finally! She kind of has manners.

3. When she eats she tries to share. When I give something to her she says tanku or tanks. We need to work on please now. Ben is a champ! He uses please and thank you with her all the time without being reminded because he wants her to be a little lady.

That's about all for today :) I've had a busy morning at work, I'm going to the post office at lunch for stamps, to ship packages, and send Christmas cards. Tonight Ben is cooking tacos (that I probably won't eat since I can't taste them) and I'll be (hopefully) finishing my sewing orders. I'm enjoying this time of year. Happy holidays everyone!

Bets in boots

Take a quick gander in Betsy B. wearing her new big girl cowboy boots. Ben and I just about died from the cuteness.

Giving Thanks...

*please forgive my absence from blogging, I've had a sinus infection and been sleep sleep sleeping as much as possible!*

There are so many things I'm thankful for. My family, my husband, my beautiful daughter, a warm loving home, a great support system, great friends.

This Thanksgiving Ben woke up and made Betsy and I pancakes for breakfast. We watched the Macy's parade (until the BBs fell asleep). I made cheesy mashed potatoes and I'm just sitting down to say hi!

We're having Thanksgiving dinner pretty early, my uncle's family and in-laws are coming over around 2 o'clock. I already have some pretty adorable pictures of Betsy from this morning I'll try to post tonight or tomorrow.

I hope all my blog friends and family have a wonderful thanksgiving, filled with love, good memories and yummy food!

Sunday, funday.

I did a crazy thing Sunday...I mostly spent it alone!

It's not often that I run around town without the baby. I can take her just about anywhere. However Ben was home, I needed a haircut, I needed to shop for a dress to wear to the upcoming wedding and some cold weather work clothes...so I did! Shopped for three hours by myself.

First I got a haircut (one of those things not easily done with a baby). Then I went to Old Navy (who had their fleece accessories on sale by the way). Then I went to kohl's and found a dress for the wedding (that I really love!) and three sweaters on sale. I picked up Subway for dinner, and a very few groceries we needed. I was gone for three hours but it seemed like so much longer! Bets was asleep when I left, and asleep when I got home (she was awake in between, I was gone during her awake time).

Speaking of that baby...she's back to her healthy happy self. What a difference it makes! Especially with regard to her sleeping, she's resting better. And she's playing full throttle, doesn't want to be held at all. And she's a heifer again, finally finishing her bottles.

It's a three day work week but it's a BUSY three day week. I hope to hear back about the interview I had this morning by Wednesday this week. Keep your fingers crossed for me, because I LOVED the principal and vice principle I interviewed with, it's a brand new school, and it's an IB school (The IB Middle Years Programme, for students aged 11 to 16, provides a framework of academic challenge that encourages students to embrace and understand the connections between traditional subjects and the real world, and become critical and reflective thinkers.)

This position would be FABULOUS so I hope it works out, however there were 15 people interviewed so I'm cautiously optimistic. Think positive thoughts for me, please!

Change of plans...

Weekend update...Thursday night Ben spent in San Antonio at a soccer clinic. He came home mid-day Friday and had lunch with Betsy and I before going to school to head to their play-off game. Unfortunately his team lost :( but they have had a fantastic season. Last year they were in last place in their district, this year they won their district title, and made it two rounds in playoffs.

Saturday Ben was planning on going hunting with a friend but due to a sick grandparent and lack of child care his friend had to cancel. It's OK, they'll be going hunting Tuesday night and we got to spend all weekend with Ben!

Yesterday we headed to the mall and I looked for a dress to wear to my brother-in-law's wedding. We had lunch at CFA, stopped at Academy so Ben could look at fly fishing reels. Check out how Betsy ate her lunch while shopping at academy...



We headed home so Betsy and Ben could nap, and I ran to the grocery store to pick up stuff for Thanksgiving. We met our friend's the Osborn's for dinner then the boys dropped Laura and I off to see NEW MOON! at the movie theatre. After the movie, the boys picked us up and it was late, we headed off to bed.

This morning Ben made chili, Betsy has been watching her Barney video and playing in the playroom. Ben and I are watching the new Star Trek movie (it's OK) I'm not really a Trekie. This afternoon I hope to finish up my sewing orders so tomorrow I can mail my packages. I have an interview for a teaching position, so keep your fingers crossed for me!

Betsy is better, I am not.

Hallelujah, EJB slept through the night last night. She was wheezing a little so I did give her a couple puffs from inhaler before bed. I heard her coughing but she self soothed back to sleep. No fever. No vomiting. No whining or clinging this morning.

My allergies are terrible this time of year. I'm so glad she slept well last night but I tossed and turned in my bed. It's raining today so maybe the water will pull some of the pollen out of the air and give me some relief. I'm so glad I'm not pregnant this allergy season (I was last year!) and I can take Claritin.

Thank God it's Friday!

Last night Betsy and I ate dinner with my in-laws to celebrate my SIL's birthday! We had homemade Chinese food, birthday cake and ice cream. Betsy and I split my ice cream, the girl really likes strawberry! After dinner I helped Mary and Jane address rehearsal dinner invitations while Grandpa played with sick Betsy. I think he missed her while she was at church school yesterday.

Bets and I came home and she was a little wound up. I sang every hymn and Christmas carol I knew while I rocked her to sleep. I think Jesus will be her next word, because I sure do sing about him a lot!

Not much to tell about this weekend. I have stuff to do but I can put it all off in favor of getting some rest.

Blankets for Ronald McDonald house kiddos

It's that time of year again!

One of the (many) reasons I start my Christmas shopping, decorating, and sewing so early is because the week before Christmas I plan to be sewing blankets! There's a Ronald McDonald house in Temple, Texas for the families of hospitalized children to stay while their kids are getting treatment. Many of the families at the Temple RMcD house are parents of premature babies staying at Scott and White hospital, in the very same maternity ward where I had sweet Betsy. I'm thrilled to embroider baby blankets for those children to be given to their parents while they stay and the RMcD house over the holidays. The next closest house is in Austin, Texas. This year my plan is to sew blankets for the children whose families are staying at both of these houses.

This tradition has been an ongoing project my Mom and Aunt Mary have done for the RMcD house in Atlanta, Georgia. It's a cause we hold close to our hearts, my cousin Ashley battled cancer for seven years, and her family had the opportunity to stay in one of these locations.

A dear friend I met online who donated blankets to the cause last year already sent me a box with several more this year! They are just perfect, bright colors, nice quality, exactly what I needed. She even included a roll of beautiful ribbon for wrapping the blankets. Thank you Beth, for being a part of something that means so much to me.

I keep an eye out for blankets to go on sale and I usually pick them up for about $3 or $4 each. If you'd like to donate a blanket or two please let me know! I would also love any monetary donation I could use to go pick up the blankets myself. I have confirmed that the Temple Ronald McDonald house will let me do this, and they have the capacity to hold 17 families. Right now I have about 10 blankets so I need more. I'm waiting on the Austin RMcD house to confirm that they can release the chidren's first names then I'll need about 25 more blankets. So in all, I'm looking for about 32 more blankets (though I can't know for certain, the houses may not be at full capacity).

Thanks for reading, I would love your participation in this effort, or even your prayers for the babies, children and families these blankets will go to.

Work emrboidering!

Just wanted to share a picture of the shirts I embroidered last night for my coworkers. They are to be worn during recruiting off campus and this fabric was SO easy to work with. It's super simple but I'm very happy with how they turned out.

Quick sick baby update!

Betsy B. seemed much better this morning. She hasn't thrown up in 36 hours, she slept from 8-6 this morning (though she woke up and wanted some extra attention late last night and early this morning). She LOOKS and acts better. Her eyes have lost the glassy red quality they had yesterday. Her skin looks normal, not flushed. She chased Madison around the house last night and today so I think she's back to her usual antics. We started the oral prescription today, but thank you to everyone who called and sent healthy prayers and thoughts our way.

Sick baby update

For the third time in six weeks we went back to the doctor this morning because Betsy wasn't feeling well. It started Sunday night, she didn't sleep well (she slept SOME, the whole time laying on top of me). She had a low grade fever at Grandpa's yesterday and last night she was pretty miserable. Her eyes were glassy and red, her nose was runny, she's vomiting, she couldn't get comfortable, she's coughing and clingy. The doctor could tell right away how sick she was.

Dr. C spent a long time with us today. Both of Betsy's ears are still infected. She got a shot of antibiotics to hopefully get her over the hump and get these ears clear! She also got a perscription of ABX we'll be starting tommorrow. If her ears don't clear up by December 9th we'll be going to an ENT specialist who will talk to us about having tubes put in her ears. I'm not really upset about it, I love that Dr. C brought this up and if it'll stop her from getting sick so often I'm sure it'll be a great thing.

The other issue is that Betsy has a chest cold. She's coughing..gagging..and vomiting. For some reason she mostly vomits on Ben or myself. The doctor noticed she was wheezing and gave us an albuterol perscription if she seems to be having a hard time.

Please keep her in your prayers, I'm optimistic with this aggressive course of antibiotics she'll be back to her curious, energetic and happy self in no time at all!

Weekend update.

This weekend was fun!

Friday night Ben headed to Dallas for the first round of football playoffs. His team won in an intense game! It went into overtime but they pulled it off. He made it home at 2 am. Saturday morning he got to sleep in a bit, then headed back to school to attend the state Cross Country meet. His runner placed 6th. Cross Country season is OVER!! and the next round of playoffs is this Friday, in Waco (pretty close to home) so Betsy and I will be attending the game.

Saturday morning I baked pumpkin roll and watched the Georgia Tech football game. I saw Laur a couple times and Sean a whole lot. GT did great, I wasn't even nervous when Duke scored the first 10 points, I knew our boys could pull through.

Saturday evening my in-laws kept Betsy for a couple hours so Ben and I could go on a date and run a couple errands. It was a REAL date, we had wine, an appetizer and an overall relaxing evening. We headed back to pick Betsy up then hit Target for Overnight diapers, formula, and size 5 shoes since Betsy seemed to outgrow all her shoes overnight!

Sunday Ben did the grocery shopping while I worked on laundry. We watched a movie while Betsy napped, then I went to a bridal shower for my future-sister-in-law and Ben took Betsy to a birthday party for one of our friends! Betsy ate pizza for the first time, yum. Sunday night we watched football and played with the baby!

In all a great weekend that flew by WAY too fast!

New Betsy pics

Betsy splish splashing in the tub!

O Christmas tree!

Because I had the day off from work yesterday I went ahead and put up our tree and mantle decorations! Feel free to mock me for putting the tree up before Thanksgiving. I love it.

Too busy to look at Mommy.

I've got some good Betsy pictures to share, however we have about a 5% success rate for getting Betsy to stop playing/eating/sleeping and look at the camera.

Betsy running around the kitchen 'helping' Daddy make dinner.

Betsy has two speed. Off and high. This is an off moment.

Little heifer has hit a growth spurt and is eating 35 ounces of milkshake a day, along with her food.


Standing, singing and clapping and dancing.


Buzz, yum.

Bets and Buzz

Sitting pretty.

Fingers, yum.


I spy teeth! The top two broke through and two more on either side are on their way.


Mary Janes...yum.

Show me your teeth Betsy!

Look at me Betsy! (haha, if it were only that easy)

Here Betsy, let's look in your photo album...

She spies...Granny and Gandbuddy!

She's on the run...probably looking for a certain puppy to torture.

Post nap, Betsy wakes up with a Mohawk after her rubber band comes out of her hair. YES, our kid wakes up looking this awesome.

Betsy and Maddie play together.

Maddie Betsy play time

Betsy stalks Maddie

Happy birthday Grandbuddy!!

This is Buddy. Today Bud is 50 years young.

My Dad has had an enormous impact on the person I am today. I'd like to share some of my favorite Dadisms and photos with you all, just so you can get an idea of his awesomeness.

When's the last time you had your oil changed?

I do not begrudge my father this statement. He taught me about car maintenance and I'm pretty good about getting my oil changed (yes, I bring my own Mobile 1 filter Dad, and I make them remove the cost of the filter they would have used from the bill) use fully synthetic oil (yes Dad I get it changed ever 5k miles). Even now as an adult (at least I claim to be) Dad still asks this question within the first five minutes of seeing me. Dad would also make me check the fluid levels on my car in front of him on a regular basis. Just so he could be sure I knew how.

What did you hit?

The alignment in my vehicle from 16 years of age to about 22 years of age was always terrible. My Dad would get behind the wheel, get a mile down the road and would ask me point-blank, "Shannie, what did you hit?".

My response was to always play dumb.

"Gee Dad, I dunno."

Dad "Shannie. You would remember this. I'm talking about a BIG bump. Was it a curb? Was it an animal?"

Along these same lines my first car had scratches and dents on all four corners. I remember the first time I drove my car without my parents (with my best friend Kandace if I remember correctly) I backed into a wall. I called my Dad hysterically upset and once he found out I was OK, and I hadn't hit anyone else he was fine. He didn't seem mad. We replayed this scene a countless number of times. People backed into me. I backed into mailboxes. A bicyclist rode his bike into my car knocking off the side view mirror (true story).

Nowadays I consider myself to be a good (defensive) driver. It just took me a while to get to this point.

Let's go change your tires.

AH. Those were the days. Every time I came home for a home-cooked meal and a free place to wash my clothes during college my Dad would make me come outside and change my own tire (even though it didn't need to be changed). At the time I thought this was a huge pain in the neck. I later came to appreciate this, as I had three flat tires my first semester at school. There were numerous other occasions I changed tires for myself and my friends who didn't know how to do this. It makes me feel like an empowered woman that Dad made me learn this.

P.S. WHY haven't you forced this torture on Lauren yet, Dad?

Hello! Anybody home McFly?

Some of my favorite memories with my Dad was when I was growing up there were a couple movies we would watch together. The movie that come to mind are the Back to the Future series. When I went through my dreamy adolescent stage...I'm sure it appeared to my Dad I wasn't paying attention when he was talking to me (I was!). He'd say "Hello! Anybody home McFly?" and knock on my forehead A la Biff Tannen, the bad guy from the flick.

You're a day late and a dollar short.

(Used to reinforce that procrastination or passiveness will get me nowhere.)

What you need and what you think you need are two different things.

This one is really deep. My generation often thinks we need things we don't. I believe my parents worked hard to PREVENT me from developing a sense of entitlement. That was pretty difficult as they also wanted to give us fantastic opportunities.

When I was a youth... my Dad has a rather dry sense of humor. He used it on me from a young age. As a kiddo I would wander up to Dad and ask

Shannon: Where's Mom?

Dad: Your mother?

Shan: Yes.

Dad: You don't have a mother, you were hatched from an egg.

Shan: DAAAAAD. UGH!

Then I would storm away and find her on my own.

How about you cut it like Billy Ray Cyrus...

One of the all time best Stuckey stories was when my sister cut her own hair. She chopped all her bangs off, as well as a chunk from the side. When my Dad took Lauren to the beauty shop to let them fix it (without telling my Mom!) he made the suggestion they give Lauren a mullet. Thankfully, they didn't listen and Lauren has lived all 20 years of her life sans mullet.

Grab your glove, let's go throw the ball.

I played little league softball. I was terrible but my parents never let me know I was terrible (until I reached adulthood and received the woeful news). My Dad worked shift work and went to college to pursue his bachelor's degree while I was growing up. Somehow he still found time to grab his glove (and me) to play catch as soon as he came home. I didn't particularly care for it at the time (due to my oft mentioned distaste for sweating) but looking back it was a great thing he did.

Dad, I have this science project...

Bud is an analytical engineer type, while I'm a creative-writing fiction-loving type. As a product of the Clear Creek School District (which encompasses the NASA area) there was a huge emphasis placed on math and science. Believe it or not, I was in an accelerated math program in middle and high school and probably could have pursues a more math and science-heavy college degree (but it held no appeal for me).

However I had projects growing up and my Dad was my partner-in-crime. From the recycled trash monster in second grade, to the hurricane withstanding miniature apartment complex, my Dad was in for the long haul. I mean, how many of my class mates projects contained a working elevator in their mini apartment complex?! Not many. How many fifth graders developed a regular correspondence with scientists from John Hopkins Hospital? Working on science projects with my Dad developed the 'go above and beyond mentality'.








Bud LOVES his girls. My Mom, Sister, Betsy and myself. He should know a lot about women because he's been surrounded for decades. See the photographic evidence.














One of the most awesome things I've experienced with my Dad was the wedding planning process. Because our wedding was in Florida and our rehearsal dinner at my parents house, my Dad put a TON of work into getting the house in condition to entertain a whole bunch of people. My Dad also adopted an wedding-crashing alter ego. He was on a first name basis with Janis, our wedding coordinator at the Hilton hotel, and made a habit of heading to the hotel on Saturday evenings to have a drink and watch the weddings at the location we would be using. Just to get ideas. He'd usually call me and the convo started like this "Oh, I'm having a drink, watching the wedding outside the Hilton. I think I'll pop in and say hello to Janis."

How cool is that? I don't know many Dads who were that involved in the wedding planning process.

Here's to you Dad. Happy 50th birthday! I hope it's a great one and I wish we could be there with you to celebrate. Love you.