Fred's Party

Every two years, there is a charity event in Fredericksburg called Fred's Party. It is themed and people go all out decorating their tables and dressing up. This years theme was "celebrate". You could choose to "celebrate" anything. People buy tables in advance and choose the individual theme of their table. If you are invited, you bring a bottle of wine or liquor for the bar and a donation. Then it's an open bar with all of the donated liquor. People were celebrating Wall Street, college (Revenge of the Nerds theme), family game night, trailer trash, birthdays, and lounging. There were actually too many tables for me to soak in and remember! Adam & Destiny invited us and we were celebrating color. Derrek & I were green (obviously). I so wish we'd had more time to put some effort into our outfits but we had fun regardless. I hope we can buy a table next time so I can get involved. It looks so fun. So many people went all out on their costumes. You'd see a face of someone you're pretty sure you know but under all the face paint or wig they just didn't look the same. One of our favorite tables was celebrating rock and roll. They had people dressed as ZZ Top, Cher, Tina Turner and Kiss. The event raised $40,000 for local charities and several hundred people had a darn good time dancing all night to an incredible cover band from Austin. The only thing that went wrong that night was that Cash decided he did not want to take a bottle from Billie Jean so I had to run home (love living in a small town!) and feed him and put him to bed really quickly. It feels great to be the one to comfort him but I need to work on getting him comfortable with other people too. But, he spends at least 10 hours a week with Billie Jean and she couldn't console him. Oh well. It was nice to see him halfway through the night! Now I have two years to save some money for one of those tables!

Destiny & Adam's table

Kay's Table (she was celebrating Black!)

Here's my dad and Sandy. And his hair is NOT that color. I didn't recognize him!

Here's my sister-in-law, Lea. She was at the Trailer Trash table. Her shirt says
"Queen of our Double Wide"

Adam & Destiny...hot pink.

A red Mike & Patsy (Mammaw & Pappaw)

There was a table celebrating Love. All of the guys were cupids with these fake butts on. Here is my friend, Kathy. Obviously, she's Tina Turner. I did the Walk to Emmaus with her and she is Cash & my doctor's nurse. Her husband, Mark, was a member of Kiss. They were hilarious all night and seriously, truly partied like rock stars.

There's Mark in the middle. He didn't know any of the words which made it SOOOOOOOOO much better/funnier. Luckily, Gene Simmons knew every word.

Root Fashion & Babies

So, some of you may have read that I'm going to change up what I'm doing a little bit at Root. Hopefully, the change (read about it in Cassell's words here - she put into words better than I even knew how!) will keep me at home a little more and allow me to be even more flexible than I am now. I know some of you are thinking I'm ridiculously spoiled. I mean, I work at Root with girls I love AND I get to take Cash to work with me. How could it really get better? I guess I'm not necessarily going for "better" overall, just "better" for me and my little family right now. I just want to contribute as much as possible during this economic slow-down and if I'm able to work a little more from home at the same time, then it's a win-win. Of course, I will have to be MUCH more disciplined and work at night sometimes and on the weekends. I will not get paid for having fantastic conversations with my girlfriends during the day like I do now...but I hope I will be disciplined enough to get things done most efficiently to save some time for that. Like Cassell said, it's my therapy and without it, I may have to pay a stranger for it. Okay, I'm seriously rambling. My point is, Root is such a wonderful place to me. For five years or so, I've loved to shop there. It was the perfect escape from my horrid job at Chocolates El Rey. Then, it became such a huge part of my life as I got more involved. Cassell has become one of my dearest friends and I've learned so much from her. She reminds me that what I am is enough when I'm worried about doing more. She's as proud of being a working mother as I am and has taught me that you can do both...it may take longer to get things done but they can all still get done without compromising what you put into motherhood. She laughs easily. Her style, naturally, is annoyingly innate. Then there's Rebekah. She owns Beulah's next door to Root. She has Brooklyn, Camden & Wolfgang. She is our WonderWoman. Her own business, three kids, and this ridiculous drive and talent to throw the best parties. She is always thinking about what she can do for other people. How does she have time for other people? When Derrek had his surgery and when Cash came, she made sure we had food every night. Did I even take her one meal? Oh my gosh, I'm just realizing exactly how lousy of a friend I truly am as I write this. I think I want to throw up. Then you have Billie Jean, our babysitting...or should I say baby juggling sales associate. She can keep track of all the customers in the store, answer the phone and entertain, feed and put our babies to sleep all at the same time. I wish I was exaggerating but I'm not. Cash knows her as his Brown Mama (Billie Jean's sister, Javette came up with that one:)) When she's in a bad mood, she's really funny...probably because her bad mood is about as bad as my best mood. The best part about Billie Jean is she shows up every day to do all of this and we're completely dependent on her! The high school girls that work for us are great too. They show up too! So, to make a short story very long, I love going to work. In a short 19 months, the kid count has gone from 3 (Ashley + Blake +Brooklyn- unfortunately not pictured!) to 5 (+Camden+Willa+Cash+Wolfgang)! Sometimes it's a little crazy but the best kind of crazy.

Miss Camden.


Camden & Willa are 9 months apart.

Willa cracks herself up all day long.

Willa peeking at Cash in the crib in the office.

What? I'm just playing with deoderant.

Cash in the crib we roll up to the front by the cash register. This is
where he hangs with Billie Jean.

Here he is taking his first official nap on his tummy. He started out flat but when we took the covers off in the end, we found him like this.

Billie Jean & Cash

This is WOLFGANG! He's growing like a weed.
Possibly a pound a day. I'm thinking he weighs more than
Cash but it's hard to tell. They're four weeks apart!

Rebekah & Wolfie

Christmas in January

My side of the family has started a new tradition (hopefully) of celebrating Christmas together after the holidays. We usually try to do it before the kids go back to school but this year it couldn't happen. For the last 3 (or 4?) years we've rented a lake house - this year on Lake McQueeny - to house our celebration. It's such a blast. The older kids usually have their own room and a yard to run and play in. My mom, sister and I usually stay around the kitchen and the guys can nap, read, talk, play with the kids or whatever they like. Since the craziness of the holidays is behind us, it's easier to relax, I think.


Ruby was a little more receptive to Cash this time and even played with him a little bit in his new play matt/rocker thing. We still don't know what to call this thing but it's AWESOME. Cash loves it and it has allowed me to get so much more done. Oh, like blog. He's in it now. Talking to the pelican and monkey that hang over his head and swing every time he kicks his legs. Back to Ruby. So maybe, she didn't want him to touch her. Like, at all. But at least she got close to him and the look of disgust was gone...well, unless he touched her.


Sam, Alice, Ashley & Blake had an awesome swing to play on in the back yard. They were outside alot which is really nice for everyone:) They also all have Nintendo DS's that keep them extremely occupied as well.



It was hard to NOT take pictures of Ruby because she was so entertaining all weekend and even harder to pick from the pictures we took to post! But keep checking back...I'm waiting on Traci to send me an awesome picture of all of us together. I'm always a little annoyed when its time for the group pic (sorry, Mom!) but always SO glad we did it when it's done.