Houston Rodeo 2010

Jason and I love the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Since we moved down here, we have made it a tradition to go as many times as we can each year. This year we have seen Jason Aldean and Alan Jackson in concert. Both shows were great and we really enjoyed watching the rodeo before everything starts. With good food, great shopping, and lots to see we always enjoy our time.

Rockets Game

Jason and I were given tickets to the Houston Rockets vs. Toronto Raptors basketball game. The tickets were on the floor in the second row which was really cool. We were so close to the game. The picture below is of a basketball legend, Dikembe Mutombo, which Jason was totally fascinated by and was thrilled when he signed his ticket. He sat right in front of us on the front row the entire night. I have to admit that I had no clue who he was, even though the entire place was screaming his name when he walked in. It was a great night.

The team getting ready

Floor seats with a great view

Mutombo

Jason and I leaving the game

BEHIND

So I know I am way behind on my blogging. Since Valentine's Day Jason and I went to the Rockets game, the Houston Rodeo twice, had two wonderful showers for Miss Avery and many more. Needless to say I have a lot to write/blog about so I will do my best to accomplish all my updates this week!

Valentine's Day 2010

Jason and I celebrated Valentine’s Day on the thirteenth this year. It was the most perfect Valentine’s Day yet! First, we have had a breakfast date planned for forever and every time we try to go something comes up. So Jason and I started the day off at IHOP on Lake Conroe and then headed back home. We wanted to leave the house early so we could make a few stops before heading downtown. Once we left the house we stopped at Babies R Us to get Little Miss Avery’s mattress for her bed. Her bedding will be ready in about three weeks so the mattress was a must.

Our next stop was Sugarbaby's Cupcake Boutique, the famous cupcake shop, http://www.ilovesugarbabys.com/ . I have wanted to go to this place for three years and we have just never been in the area to go. Jason and I ordered six different cupcakes for dessert and they were delicious. We only had one each after getting home from dinner, but I will be truthful it was hard not to eat all of them at once! I learned about them in “Southern Lady” Magazine.

For dinner, we went to Mark’s American Cuisine, http://www.marks1658.com/ . Jason tried to get us reservations there last year and it was impossible. So this year he arranged them a month and a half in advance. The restaurant is built into a 1920’s old Cathedral Church and it is truly stunning. The vaulted ceilings were so romantic and the food was indescribable. The restaurant was voted #1 in Houston in 2009 and was voted as one of the top 10 restaurants in the United States. Dinner was wonderful and spending time with Jason was even better.

We headed back to The Woodlands and saw “Valentine’s Day” to end the night. I want to thank my husband for another perfect day and more importantly a wonderful life. You treat me so good and always put me first. For that I am grateful and blessed each and every day. Thank you so much for breakfast in bed and my hour and a half pre-natal massage on Valentine’s Day. I am thankful for you every day and I love you with all my heart. Me, Avery, and Maddie are three very lucky ladies!

Our final six choices

Outside of Mark's

Inside of Sugarbaby's

The wine cellar

The vaulted ceilings inside of Mark's

Just a few of their cupcakes

Too many choices!

Leaving dinner

Mission Accomplished

So I have accomplished many things tonight. I finalized the new blog header, background, added a signature, and inserted post dividers. And what a chore it was! Thanks to Jennifer, my-sister-law, who walked me through my new Adobe Photoshop I was able to leave my computer in one piece and not chunk it across the room. :) It is now time for bed and I would love to hear your thoughts on the new look!

Time to Change

Please be patient with the changes. I am currently frustrated at the header so I am taking a break....... To be continued tomorrow.

January in a nut shell

I cannot believe how fast this month has gone by. I remember back when I first found out I was pregnant I would count how many weeks I was and now I am counting how many weeks I have left. 15 WEEKS LEFT! I keep telling myself not to rush through this time, but I cannot help myself. I know when she gets here I will want to freeze time so I guess I better cherish everyday that she is ALL mine. We have finished up our registries and our showers have been set.

On January 30th, Jason and I went to the Baby Expo at the George R. Brown Convention Center and that was really exhausting. I think we came home with a thousand coupons to sort through and about a million samples of lotions, diapers, creams, baby food and the list goes on. And after all the drawings that we signed up for, we came home empty handed. :( Typical though.

Jason finally got to feel little Miss Priss kick on January 17th. I had to write that down for memory. It seems like here lately I cannot remember anything. Everyone keeps saying that Avery will super smart, because she is sucking the smarts right out of me. I go for my glucose testing on February 12th and then back again three weeks later for our 30 week appointment. After that we are down to every two week visits. I cannot believe how fast, but then again how slow, everything is going.

I have been staying really busy work. My girls cheer every Tuesday and Friday nights and then we have had practice every Wednesday afternoons till 5 so I take full advantage of Monday and Thursday evenings when I find myself either relaxing, cleaning or doing laundry. I am ready for things to slow down at work and have the afternoons to just rest. I have more energy here lately, but I when my body says it is time to stop, I have no choice but to crash.

February and March are just as busy so I may become a hermit in April! :) Just kidding. This is one of those posts for my memory, not that anyone is interested in what we did in January.

More Nursery Pics

We have added a few more things to sweet Avery's room. Nana made her three super cute picture frames and we finally got the bag she ordered her in Canton with her name on it. Jason also made a frame that I crackled and added some bling to. He made her a super cute chalk board that is stained to match her furniture. Hope you enjoy the new additions.

One of the frames Nana made her.

The picture frame Jason made and I decorated!

The bag Nana got her!

The chalk board Jason made.

Before we wrote on the new chalk board. Good job Daddy!

I L-O-V-E it!!!!

So this is the sign I have been working on for Miss Avery. I finally found an old cabinet door! I was able to crackle the entire thing (not as easy as you would think) and then I attached the letters with the help of my sweet husband. I am so proud of it. Now all we are waiting on is her bedding and curtains and then things will really look like they are coming together.

22 Weeks Pregnant

I have not blogged much about how I am feeling or just about being pregnant. Partly because my husband has provided me a picture profile each week (to remain private) of my growing belly and I have blogged about preparations and things with our families involving Miss Avery. But the time has come to share a few things that I have notice:

1. I drop everything. Doesn't matter if it is glued to my hand, I will find a way to drop it.


2. I don't remember what I am doing in the moment. I will need something out of the kitchen and when I get there, I find something that needs to be done and I completely forget about what I went in there for.


3. I have become a light sleeper. Anyone who truly knows me knows that before being pregnant I could sleep through a train coming in the room, and now I lie awake wondering about all the sounds I hear randomly through the night.


4. If regards to sleep, I cannot get comfortable for the first four hours after lying down. I toss and turn and eventually find myself like a torpedo in the covers. :)


5. I already have bad back problems from breaking my back and now it is worse. I try not to complain, I just tell Jason "I am just letting you know how I feel". I cannot stand complaining so I try my hardest to avoid doing it myself. But since I am sharing, my back feels like the muscle are tearing by just holding my torso up. These are feelings of an 80 year old women. Not someone in the late 20's.


6. People always want to touch your belly. I feel violated when that happens. It is almost like reaching for one of the girls. My husband and family are fine, but others, not so much.


7. Sitting is not so comfortable, but neither is standing. Any solutions are openly welcome.


8. When you have to go to the bathroom, there is NO waiting time anymore (otherwise known as, "I can hold it"). It is now or never or we have a problem. :/


9. Dancing and stretching when I am teaching my girls has now become an act of congress. Nothing really moves the same as it did before. Hoping that all comes back.


10. Lastly, after reading all of the above, I would not trade any of it. I absolutely love being pregnant and knowing that God has given me the opportunity and chance to experience the absolute greatest gift a woman can receive, a child, is such a blessing. My favorite thing is to feel her move and my heart goes into a panic when she goes days without making any twitches. I am only 5 1/2 months along and I can hardly wait till she gets here.

But on a lighter note, I thought this was cute:

Getting Crafty

The letters I decoupaged. Very intense X-Acto knife work.

Her pig with wings.

And matching wall art.

So today I made a few things for Avery and wanted to share. The letters are not finished. I am attaching them to an old cabinet door that I am painting, once I find the right size door, and each letter will have a different ribbon. It is hard to explain so once I am finished I will post pics. I made the bow holder from an idea I found online and then added the door knobs to hold her hair bands. Nana and Papa bought her the beautiful cross at Canton and the shelf was a find here locally. We also found the matching pig and heart with wings at Canton. I collect pigs with wings so the pink and brown was only fitting. More pics to come as we move along in the decorating process.

Christmas 2009

Dad playing Tony Hawk Wii that Tucker got for Christmas. We all tried it out.
Me and Grandpa

Jason and Tucker

Mom with her Nana pillow!

McKinley being silly!

Her favorite, Chuy's......

Avery's stocking at Nana and Papa's!

Us girls!

Josh, Jason, Jeff, and Jennifer

Uncle Bubba did my hair and popped my collar! So cute.

Snowing on Christmas Eve 2009!

Jason and I had a very busy Christmas break with our families. We celebrated Christmas Eve with the Burrus Family, had Christmas morning and breakfast with my family, then headed to the Hutchins' for Christmas with Jason's family, then to Jason's Aunts' house, and then to his Dad's house. Whew!!!!!!!! Little Miss Avery had presents everywhere and Santa found her at everyones house. AND we were soooooooo excited about the white Christmas Eve and Christmas. We are blessed to have the time with our families and miss them very much. We hope everyone has a wonderful 2010!

Gender Cake

Proud Parents-to-be!!!!!!!
The entire gang, but Papa Burrus!!!!!!!! We missed him, but he knew before anyone else.

And the cake I was not very happy with......

I know I am a little behind on some updates so I am going to do my best to get caught up before cooking dinner.

Jason and I shared the news with our families that we were having a little girl right before Christmas and we wanted to do a gender cake. With our time crunch and my dad not being home for the big announcement, we just ordered one through Kroger. Their cakes are delicious; at least where we live. Let's just say the Sherman Kroger is "one of a kind". We both went in and described in lengthy detail what we wanted and the cute little lady assured us it would be perfect and exactly as we asked. So the night of the reveal we headed to run some errands and I remember telling Jason, "why don't we go pick up the cake first that way if something is wrong, we can have some time to plan a plan B". Good thing we did because when they handed us the cake it read, "Welcome Baby Girl" and was pink all over. If your not familiar with what a gender cake is, the inside is suppose to be the color of the gender and the outside decorated very gender neutral. Needless to say, I went into a panic of what to do now. They said they did not see the directions on the back of the card and if we could give them ten minutes, they could fix it. I don't know about you, but how in the world do you redo a cake in 10 minutes. However they did it we walked out of Kroger with a cake in hand and headed to the restaurant.

Was I pleased with what I had to pay for, absolutely NOT. The writing was off centered and rather random and the quality was horrible as far as decor. In the end the cake did taste pretty good and everyone ate it and I realized there were other things to stress over than a cake. Note to self: just order from a true bakery next time Ashley!

Avery's Bedding

New Year's Day was a very successful day. Back before Jason and I got married we were at Canton and I saw some of the cutest bedding for babies. I remember telling him and my mom that "when I have a baby I want to come here and custom order something" and I did just that. So my mom, Jason, Jennifer, and I set out in search for the perfect booth. We found and bought everything but baby bedding. The last Arbor we went into we hit the jackpot. Jason saw the booth first and I immediately fell in love with her stuff. She only makes the bedding once and then names the set after the baby she makes it for. So as we were looking through her books of designs we came across our color scheme, pink and brown, and the design we absolutely loved was named "Avery". What a fluke! I knew it was meant to be, so we changed some patterns and upgraded the comforter to a twin blanket that way we get more use out of it. Avery's bedding will be named "Christine" after her middle name. We are so excited and should have it early March. Now all we need is Little Miss Avery to complete the deal. :)