Straight Hair

Oh, the woes of girl hair.  Conleigh longs for straight hair. Her curls are beautiful and others would do much to have such soft curls.  We got her hair cut the other night and had the stylist blow it out straight. She is in love with it! I'll admit she looks much older and very pretty.

First, it's a little far away but here she is last weekend before the Father - Daughter dance...

 And,  a shot of the back straight --

 And finally, our beautiful, getting bigger and smarter and more confident all the time girl...

I'm back

I guess I needed a break from the blog. I'm back though.  So far, 2013 has been off to a busy start.  We just finished basketball season for Alex on Sunday, Conleigh continued her volleyball pursuits that evening and Campbell will begin basketball on Wednesday - just as Alex heads off to baseball practice.  I LOVE these times.

It seems like my thoughts have been coming in tweet size packages  lately. Since I gave up facebook for Lent, I opened a twitter account while I was at a work conference on Friday. They encouraged us to use our phones to tweet, so I was just following directions.  :)  I haven't tweeted at all, but I can tell you that as a follower of Deepak Chopra and the Motley Fool, they tweet often!

We have been playing musical beds in our house lately.  It has been wonderful to have company.  Larry & Kathryn came to hold down the troops while Peter & I enjoyed a super fun night out with friends at the Austin Rodeo Gala last weekend.  12 of us piled into the Bongo bus and headed downtown for a great auction, meal and concert by Dierks Bentley. We danced and laughed. It was a great time.

As we waved goodbye to Larry & Kathryn, Mark Robinson drove into town for a two night stay. The kids loved having him here and Peter and I get a kick out of all his plans.

This past weekend my parents drove in to see us and to watch Alex's basketball team, the Warriors, in their basketball tourney. It was so much fun. Really, the first challenge the boys have had all season.  Unfortunately, the season ended in the quarterfinals. I felt like we were in a movie everytime anyone scored. The whole spectator section would just roar!

Seriously, my parents and Peter's mom Sarah passed on the highway between Austin and Houston. Sarah came to help out because I had a work conflict yesterday and forgot the kids were off to celebrate our President's.  Thanks for the help Sarah.  I was also sick for the second time in two weeks. Doc said that I have bronchitis, and 24 hours on meds makes a world of difference.

Self Portrait

Auction Success

This room was the silent auction room. You can see all the bid sheets on the tables.

We had our school auction on Friday, November 9th.  I was on the solicitation committee. There were four of us and we had a great time together and we totally rocked the donations.  The theme was "It's a sweet life at Spicewood," and the decorations were so cute.

We were high bidders on quite a few items; no high dollar ones particularly, but they all added up to a pretty sum.  We walked out with

• Schlitterbahn tickets,
• ice skating tickets,
• car washes, 
• Austin Toros basketball tickets,
• some jewelry,
•  each of the kids are signed up for their grade level parties -- a foam party for Alex, a Fancy Nancy party for Campbell and a swim party for Conleigh. 
• Peter also bought the Spicewood tradition which is a cake from a local bakery. The tradition is to get the bidding going on the cake and then once the high bidder wins, they give the cake back and auction it again. Basically, it is a donation to the school. He has watched that the last couple of years and really wanted to be a purchaser this year.

Stephanie & Robyn modeling the Yeti during the Live Auction

Other high end items were a Yeti cooler along with 4 concert tickets to Luckenbach,  a fab Austin symphony package that includes Ruth's Chris dinner certificate and Dom Perignon champagne, a yacht with food & wine.  There were six opportunities to bid on having a dinner made and brought to your house. Our school has such diversity that you could bid on an Indian meal, chinese, steak, italian. We won the Italian meal for six....just need to plan for it.

After the auction, we went over to some friends house and let loose.  These are the awesome ladies on the solicitation committee, Kirsti, Stephanie, Sandy our unstoppable leader and me.

Other post-auction party pals.

It was the most financially successful auction the school has ever had. We raised over $40,000.  We had worried about less attendance but in the end, the people who came were willing to bid!  It was so much fun!

weekend update

For the first time in a long time, we had nothing on the calendar on Saturday.

It was delightful.

We took the kids to open their first bank accounts.

I remember doing that with my mom at United Savings in Houston.

I actually think the bank account Peter and I use now is that same account after many buyouts from larger banks. I hadn't thought of it until Saturday, but I think that is wild.

After some afternoon naps, we took the kids to the park. The static electricity in the air was playing a real number on Conleigh's hair. It was very funny.

Then we went to the bowling alley and enjoyed family bowling night. I was the big winner on both games.  Peter and I both get a little competitive. Campbell was cracking us up. As soon as she would toss her ball down the alley, she would start dancing some wild moves while the ball rolled. We were laughing a lot. Conleigh could care less about how many pins she hits, and Alex is starting to get competitive with it as well.

This morning was the Libraries of Love bake sale at church.  We bought the most beautiful cake. And tonight, I can say it is just as delicious as it is pretty.

Conleigh and I attended the Austin Empty Bowls project this afternoon with her friend Sara and her mom.  They had 5,000 handmade bowls. All proceeds go towards the Capital Area Food Bank.  We waited in line about half hour, then we shopped for the perfect bowl.  After paying, we got to fill our bowl with some soup from restaurant donations. I had crawfish tomato bisque. It was really good.  I like the thinking behind Empty Bowls. As you eat your soup, you are supposed to think about the people who have empty bowls and no food to eat.

The girls have been making bowls in Art club, so I thought it would be neat for them to see how the program works.  Conleigh loves her bowl. It is really cute, and I like mine too; although Conleigh thought I should have picked another one.

Tonight I baked many, many pumpkin muffins.  We'll be taking those to school for the teachers on Tuesday.  Short school and work week ahead. Yay!

Growing Up

Stats on my EIGHT year old.

51 1/2 inches tall

64 pounds

Super sweet to his mama...

...and the feeling is mutual.

Half Time

I've struggled with balance of work and motherhood for about 9 years, 8 months and 3 days. Sadly, the days of work fulfillment have dwindled to hardly any.  I recently bought a book called Half Time. It is about mid-life. How can I have reached mid-life? It is about this is my half-time and what do I want the second half of my life to look like.

This past week I have been pleasantly busy. Peter has been out of town all week. The kids and I have had a great week. I did have a sitter come for several hours two different nights. That helps a lot, I'm sure.

Tomorrow is our school auction. I've served on the donation committee, and it has been great.  We have worked so hard and gotten so many terrific donations. We have over $45 thousand dollars in donations that will be auctioned off tomorrow evening. I have really enjoyed the ladies I have worked with, the work and look forward to tomorrow's execution.

Today as I was moving from one of the girls house to the school to pick up last minute donations, to the club go over the set up plan for tomorrow, I consciously thought, "I love this."   We are working for a great cause and having fun a long the way.

I'm working on it. I want to aim at something great for the second half.