Home Build: Framing Stage

Home building, as anyone will tell you, requires a great deal of patience and a lot of work. I don’t have much patience when it comes to things like this but I certainly don’t mind the work part. I wish it was done already ;)!

I met with our landscape architect yesterday to share more of my vision and drawings and was happy to see the framers have half our home framed so things are moving. (Unfortunately and fortunately, we caught two boo-boo’s by our architect that are major so we are trying to get those fixed.) Our roof is coming in from Spain so I worry it will not be here when they are finished framing but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. My window guy (aka my husband) dropped it on me yesterday that because I chose a custom color it’s going to take an extra week for those to arrive as well. Argh! On the bright side, I’m so happy we are making progress.

This picture is a view of how we had to cut our lot to get the flat yard I wanted. We have a large number of huge limestone boulders behind that big pile of dirt that I’m trying to figure out what to do with. I’d love to use them but my landscape plan is more formal and clean so not sure yet if we’ll be using them. We are considering making a play pad area in the back right of the wall on top of the hill. It would be well-hidden and not take up space in our immediate yard. The wall will run parallel with the left side of our home and I’m excited to see what it will look like after being landscaped.

This is what working at the “job site” (which is what we call it) looks like.

P.S. I probably shouldn’t have worn my pink sequined Elaine Turner flats out to a muddy job site. I took one step in what looked like hard ground and sunk 5 inches (not kidding) into the limestone mud which turns to a cement like material when dry. Nice! I guess I should have worn rubber boots since it has rained quite a bit this past week.

Read Full Post »

It is with deep sadness…

It is with deep sadness and a broken heart that I write this. Scott unexpectedly lost his Dad on February 10th. Scott put together this video for the memorial service.

To Dad and Papa Tractor, we love you so very, very much. You will be dearly missed!

Read Full Post »

Feeding the Ducks

A while back, we took a stroll down to the lake to feed the ducks. We all really enjoy being outside so this was a fun opportunity to enjoy lake living while we still live close by for a couple more months.

Random pictures of the girls from February that I love:

Also, thank you to all of you for your support and sentiments for Scott’s Dad. It means so much to us!

Read Full Post »

Olivia Paige is 1!

This week has been a happy one but also quite emotional for me personally. Celebrating Olivia’s special first birthday this week means that she isn’t a baby anymore though she will always be my baby. My tears are flooding through just writing this. I can’t help but think of the roller coaster of a day we had one year ago when she arrived. We were so scared that day and those emotions are burned into my memory. Everything turned out perfectly and this has been such an amazing year. She is such a precious and funny little girl! Her eyes and her smiles just melt your heart and I absolutely can’t imagine my life without this angel child. It’s truly like she was born to bring “happy” to everyone. She makes silly faces at anyone who will look at her. What a ham!

A few details of Olivia at 1 year:
-22 lbs 28 inches
-she signs what she wants or says da for everything; she also communicates through laughing when she sees something she wants.
-Olivia is and has been the easiest baby you could ever ask for. We have been so fortunate and I hope she doesn’t get us back when she is a teenager 😉
-walks and crawls but prefers to try to walk half way first then crawls the rest of the way;
-has lots of teeth and molars are coming in
-loves to sing and dance!!! She’s very much like her sister in this way.
-favorite thing to do is to play with Avery; she adores Avery (let’s hope that lasts). Avery is like a little mama to Olivia.

For Olivia’s birthday, we celebrated at the Children’s Museum of Austin with family and friends. I chose the “You are my Sunshine” theme since she’s such a light in our lives and it’s also a song I sing to the girls every night. The decor didn’t quite turn out how I had hoped because they only gave me 30 minutes to set up and the room wasn’t what I had envisioned but I made the best of what I had to work with. Thank goodness our family was so sweet to help us! Olivia was just as happy with or without any decor. She LOVED the cake and the fun centers they had at the museum.

After seeing this picture, I booked a hair appointment so I’m happy to say, it no longer looks that bad! Maybe I should paint some highlights in with Photoshop. After children, I rarely find time for things like my hair. Ha!


Avery is helping Livy eat the cake:



My heart melted when she kept hugging the doll I made for her:

She’s clapping because she’s so proud of herself:

Lyla is too:



At home, we snapped a few shots. Notice how the girls are staring at their cousins. That sums it all up. They love their Colten and Connor:

Read Full Post »

My Work

I don’t often share my “other side” on this blog but my work is very much a part of whom I am. I often get questions about what I do or how I do what I do so I think it’s time I share the whole story of how I got here.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who was very, very lost! The year was 2002 and it was my senior year of college. My very last semester I had only three hours left to graduate, was already accepted in to grad school at UT and on my path to being a Speech-Language Pathologist. In my heart, I just wasn’t passionate about it and I felt so stuck and quite frankly very scared. I talked with advisers to see what it would take to get my architectural degree because I love home design but in my mind, it was too late and I knew that if I didn’t finish what I had started, I would be disappointing a LOT of people including my parents and the many people who gave me scholarships. I battled with this through my entire first year of grad school. I was really confused because my grades were always really great and I was really good at speech pathology but I don’t know why my heart just wasn’t in it. I spent my entire first year of grad school researching alternatives of what I could do. By the second year of grad school, I decided to fast track my way to graduation because quitting wasn’t an option and I decided to start a small business importing high-end pearl jewelry. With a little luck, a lot of sleepless nights and dedication, I was able to get myself through graduation, work several part-time jobs, complete all my clinical hours, and launch my new business in the spring of 2004. Looking back, there is no way I could do that again! My internet-based pearl company took off and after less than a year, I no longer could juggle both my speech pathology career and my pearl company so I let my speech pathology career go. That was the point I was able to really build my business into something great (with my proudest moment being featured in TIME magazine) and I was really passionate about this path I had taken! After several years, I started another business in the online financial sector that I became really passionate about and my pearl business was acquired. Now that it is 2012, 8 years after I first started my original business, I find myself in an interesting place. What’s next for me? Of course I will continue my financial businesses because I’ve worked so hard to build them, but I really have been sucked into the idea of new possibilities. I truly believe that if you find something you really want to do, do it! You might be surprised where you end up. Doors open in places you may never have imagined. I just have to figure out a way to balance it all. I think the best way to start is to make it a hobby business and see where it takes you! I read the book “Dream Big, Little Pig” to Avery and I think sometimes, we as adults forget to dream big because we get bombarded with real life. Don’t give up on your dreams…

I hope soon I will be unveiling my new hobby project. My hope that this new journey will be fun, inspirational, and a place where I can be more creative and share with others! Between two kids, a traveling husband, my existing businesses and building a home, I hope to be able to follow through. It’s going to take committing myself to it. I think I perform better under pressure. That’s why I’m posting this here. Commitment. That’s the first step, right?

Read Full Post »