Sunday Updates....

This will probably be a short update tonight because I'm really tired!!    

School's Out!!   Kids are thrilled!  Not too much time to rest though.  Early Band Camp for the next three days for Rachel.  Stephen gets to relax a week and then goes to baseball camp at Rice.

Physical Therapy begins for Miss Rachel this week to get her shoulder back into tiptop shape.  She's doing pretty well but will slowly start to get full range of movement back in PT.  I'm sure it won't be all that comfortable for awhile.   

I had a fun weekend scrapbooking with several nice ladies in Wallis, TX.  We stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast that is setup for crafters and scrapbookers - Premier Estates.   The owners, Sharon and Belinda, of this lodge really makes you feel very comfortable here!

Even though I was messing with lots of pictures and papers, etc., I did manage to snap a few pictures and will post them later this week.  Thank you Marybeth for including me and I enjoyed spending time with each of you - Laurie, Beth, Dallas, Marybeth and Susan!!  We had lots of good food, wine, coffee, and scrapbooking!!  Was even so inspired to stay up until 3:00 am this morning working on some pages.  But.... am paying for it now.     

Pictures to come..... 

MA

School's Almost Out!

I love him and this picture.... it's sweet, and weird and cool all at the same time. Stephen's expression is great with that little smirk. Took the picture through a link fence in the dugout. The background has all the cool bokeh in it... those funny shaped discs of light in the upper background have a name. I just like the photo a lot. 

So.. here we are... almost at the end of ANOTHER school year!! Hard to believe that Friday will officially start summer for the kids! John is out in another week for his summer break. Me... well... bankers don't get summers off. Darn it.

Only 2 more days of school. Well... actually, only one day for Rachel girl and two days for Stephen. This has been finals week for Rachel and she doesn't have one on Friday, so she doesn't have to go to school. Sweet for her.

Big day tomorrow for miss Rachel. Doctor's appointment and assuming all goes well, clearance to get out of the big black sling and start moving the arm and shoulder around. Expect it will be somewhat painful and stiff for awhile. Physical Therapy will start next week for about 6 - 8 weeks until it's back to normal.



Guess we won't be able to call her one wing any more. BTW, that's her "serious" pose. I love her too.

John is going to be a bachelor this weekend and he's looking forward to it...maybe with a little too much excitement! I'm trying to not get a complex about that!! He just seems so happy about it, I'm wondering if I should worry or not. :-) Maybe not. The kids will be with their Dad for the weekend. And... I am heading out of town for a girls scrapbooking weekend. He's all alone and really doesn't know what he's going to do, but he just knows it's going to be great!



Can't you see that smirk on his face.......  yea.. I love him too.

I am going to scrapbook my tushie off this weekend. I feel like I'm taking my entire scrapbooking room with me to make sure I have all the stuff I use (or may want to use) . I'm sure there will be lots of fun, coffee, chocolate and wine. Well... I'm bringing all three: coffee, chocolate and wine, so I know at least that will be there. Nothing else really matters!!

I'm sure I'll post something while I'm there.... maybe.

Have a great one!

MA

Memorial Day Weekend

I’ve been slacking at my blog upkeep lately. May “hem” is in full swing this year with all the sports, banquets, end of school fun, graduation and May also happens to be my busiest month at work. So... lots of time for everything but blog writing!! Never fear though.. I have been thinking about my blog and gathering all the fun pictures to go with the aforementioned activities so I should have enough to keep my blog going for quite some time in the future!!

Let’s start it off..... it’s a long post because while my blog has been quiet, our lives have not!!!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend - the kids went with their Dad to the beach this weekend, so John and I are just having a relaxing weekend and I’m catching up on sleep, scrapbooking, photography assignments, etc.

On to the past week......

Laila Graduated from UT Arlington last weekend!!! YIPPEEE!!! Congratulations beautiful one!!

John and I traveled up to Dallas to be a part of the festivities marking this wonderful accomplishment. Laila & Justin also just bought a new home so it was fun to see their new place and stay with them. Simba, their adorable (but previously very aggressive) Australian Shepherd did soooo much better. He didn’t even hardly bark at me (ok, a few times) once Laila introduced us again!! :-) I’m pretty happy about that and have to say, was a little nervous about it too. I think I may be able to say I’m even a little friendly with him now that I’ve played ball with Simba now. Anyhoo... the house was gorgeous!! Graduation was exciting and Laila looked beautiful and happy. Justin’s parents, Terry & Les, graciously hosted all of the family and friends out to their amazingly wonderful ranch for lunch. There had been grand plans for swimming, volleyball, horseback riding, etc., but the weather did not cooperate that day!! John was the Chef and BBQ’d chicken, made some pasta salad and guacamole! It was a hit and everything went swimmingly.

A couple of my favorite pictures and TONS more in the Flickr Group - Click HERE or on the Picture Gallery link on the right.




6th Grade Band Concert - Stephen & His Euphonium
Stephen participated in the 6th Grade Band End of Year Concert on Tuesday evening at Friendswood High School. There were actually TWO 6th Grade Bands for the first time ever this year. The Band saw 250 kids from 5th grade signup for 6th Grade Band! That’s pretty amazing given the entire class size of 6th grade is only 400. Over 60% are in the Band. Another reference point.... there are that many or less in the ENTIRE High School Band (4 grades). And... for more excitement, over 180 of the 250 are going on into Jr. High Band. Not sure where they are going to put all these kids... but hey, it’s a good problem to have if you’re a band director.

It always amazes me to hear kids play their 6th grade End of Year Concert. When these kids started school a mere 9 months before, they had no idea how to play these instruments at all. Over such a short period of time really as 9 months isn’t all that long, they go from knowing nothing about their instrument, to reading music, learning notes and finger positions, scales, chords, and playing a musical song together as a band that sounds pretty good. I’ve always thought that was amazing...even when I was doing it oh so many years ago. Watching my kids do it has amazed me each time.

Some of my favorites are below, more pictures in the Flickr Set - Click HERE or on the Picture Gallery link on the right.

Yes, the Euphonium is almost as big as Stephen. The handle on the case keeps breaking (school rental). We’ve fixed it at home many times this year, but can’t fix it this time, so he has to carry it differently now!!





BASEBALL 2009 - Little League Minors - The Knights
We have wrapped up Baseball 2009! (Secret yay from Mom!) However, sad for Stephen. He loves playing baseball. He’s improved a great deal this year with some good coaches who were more encouraging than in prior years and overall, I think Stephen has grown a bit in strength and confidence.

The Knights ended up placing 3rd in league play for Minors! Was a great job. The tournament began and was played with groups of 4 teams seeded having to play each other with the overall winner advancing to the next bracket. Unfortunately, the Knights didn’t do all that well in the tournament ending with a 1 - 1 - 1 in their round robin games. So, their season ended last Thursday evening with the Team Party on Friday night at Cici’s Pizza. The one game I missed last Saturday was the game in which Stephen was the hero and received the game ball (of course, I would miss that one game!!). He had a good hit that brought a runner in, but more importantly apparently, he caught a pop fly in center field that stopped the other team from scoring and taking the lead. The game ended in a tie (not a loss) because of it. YAY Stephen!!!

A couple of favorite pictures here, and you know the drill by now.... Flickr Group HERE or Picture Gallery on the right.




Hoping everyone has a safe and happy Memorial Day!!

MA

Sweet Sophie!

Our sweet little Sophie passed peacefully to doggie heaven today. She has lived a wonderfully long life of 15 years bringing love and joy to Laila, Ariane and John. I know they have many fond memories of her throughout their lives. Rachel, Stephen and I came to know her and love her over the past couple of years. She was such a sweet, calm and loving friend to all of us. We are going to miss her!!

MA

Friday!!!

It's Friday ... Thank Goodness!!!

I've been remiss this week at keeping up the blog. It's been a busy week as will the remainder of the month of May!! It's like the schools and all activities just press the Fast Forward button to get everything in before the end of May. It's just crazy and we run, run, run. Add a busy work schedule in right now and it's just nuts here. June can't come fast enough!!

A couple of updates:

One Wing .... our pet name for Rachel right now..... is doing just fine with her shoulder surgery recovery. Managing through with one arm through such fun with help from Mom!

Baseball Update - Stephen's team, the Knights, had their final regular season game last night and have placed 3rd place overall. YAY Knights!! The end of season Tournament begins on Saturday... not sure how this one is played. End of year party to come as well and is still trying to be determined.

Laila graduates from UT Arlington this weekend, so we're traveling there to support her and enjoy this great accomplishment!! Look for great pictures to come.

Photography class - going fabulously. I'm only mildly behind which is good and I'm learning a lot of good information.

Have a great weekend everyone!!

MA

Mother's Day 2009

Happy Mothers Day to my Mom and to all my friends who are Mom’s!

It’s a been a good Mother’s Day weekend around the Cox house. Flowers from John started earlier in the week. Ariane & Laila followed it up with some beautiful tulips delivered yesterday!! Thank you so much ladies! You make me feel very special.

Stephen, Rachel and John gave me two presents that had been on my wishlist.

A Wacom Intuos Tablet


A Slice Scrapbook Die Cutter

Went to lunch today back to the Villa Capri Italian Restaurant on Clear Lake where John and I were married last July and where we spent last Mother’s Day!


We did a lot of work out in the garden this weekend - yes, that includes me too! The weeds (nut grass) has found it’s way into my beds. Weeding is a pain in the batookus!! But, it had to be done before the weeds took over my pepper plants. We also had to put up a structure to put the netting around to keep the birds away from all the fabulous green tomatos that are about to turn red in the next week or two. I’m so excited!! But... I didn’t want to have to fight the birds again so we had to put up a structure this weekend. It’s done!

Harvested two yellow squash and one tomato yesterday and they were quite yummy!!

Saturday night was spent at a Wine Study Session for my friend Michelle who will be taking her sommelier exams this week. One of the four tests involves a blind testing of lots of different wines and she has to identify them to pass the test! So... in an attempt to give her some practice, her good friends gave of their time and taste buds to show up for good wine and food! All in the interest of helping Michelle pass this test this week... yea... that’s it. We did have a great time and I do hope she passes!
Anthony & Sean were great hosts who made fabulous food and have a beautiful place! Check out some pictures below and in the link to the whole set on Flickr.


Michelle



The other pictures are here.....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/maryaustincox/sets/72157617958234868/

Finally uploaded the birthday pictures to Flickr as well. Click here to go to the link or click on the right for my picture link to all the pictures!

Hope everyone has a great week!

Just a great picture of Stephen I couldn't pass up posting!!


Love MA

12 Years Old!!

Stephen is 12 years old Today! HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPHEN!!!

I think he’s had a good Celebration today! Rob and his girlfriend, Catlin and her 3 year old son Logan, came over this evening to deliver some presents and have some cake!

We went a little out of order tonight - cake first... then dinner! It’s still cooking but per the tradition of getting to select your own meal for your birthday, Stephen has selected for his birthday meal - ribs and refried beans! Seriously.... those are his two favorite things. Glad it’s only one meal!!

Cake selection for this birthday was a chocolate cake with white icing topped with fudge to go along with what he really wanted which was strawberry ice cream (Blue Bell of course!).

More pictures to come!!

Gifts this year - he’s such a lucky guy
Albert Pujols St. Louis Cardinals Fathead (which is a lifesize wall cling) from Mom & John
St Louis Cardinals parking sign to hang in his room from Mom & John
iTunes Gift Card from Rachel
Set of weights from his Dad
Great Gamestop Gift Card from Catlin & Logan
Fantastic Best Buy Gift Card from Meme & Poppy


The Details of Now

• You love everything about baseball
• You love playing with the dogs over and over and over
• You love to play XBox 360 and baseball games
• You love to watch TV shows where you learn something and you love to share what you’ve learned with everyone
• You have a great smile!
• You are still losing teeth
• You are a night owl and love to stay up late
• You love to play on the computer and build your own city in Sim City
• You are transforming into a handsome young man
• We love you dearly!!

Love Mom

Heidi Swapp

Saturday, Rachel and I took a little outing as she was feeling ok and wanted to get out of the house for a little bit.  Saturday was National Scrapbooking Day and one of my favorite local scrapbook stores, By Design Scrapbooking, had a wonderful scrapbook designer in town for the weekend.  Heidi Swapp!  Her link is on my right sidebar if you want to check her out.  Rachel loves her as well as she designs very pink, very divaish type girlie stuff.  Rachel wants her room decorated with all the stuff she designs!  Heidi was here doing workshops on Friday and Saturday.  I didn't sign up for the workshops because of Rachel's surgery.  Didn't really know how she would be feeling and if I'd feel comfortable leaving her.   But we LOVED seeing her and watch her use all her great scrapbook design stuff.  The Invisibles and Masks are just really cool.

We also went out to dinner on Saturday night and with a couple of meds in her, Rachel was a little loopy!  She was funny to watch and listen to.  :-)

Rachel Update: 

She's doing pretty well as long as we keep the pain meds going every 4 hours or so.  We've started to ween off of it a bit stretching it out and adding Advil in between.  Today was the magic day when we could take off the bandages and she could take a real shower!!   She was quite thrilled and felt much better afterwards!  I did keep her home today just to make sure we could get the bandages off, the shower and see how she did in general today.  Still hurts... but she's going to try to go to school tomorrow.

Baseball Update:

Stephen had a game tonight and they won handily this evening.  Stephen did fine.  They play their toughest games coming up on Thursday and Saturday!  Good luck Knights!!

Have a great evening!

MA

She is so amazing....

Rachel did fine wonderfully today.  Other than the little excitement we had at the beginning, everything else went extremely well.  We even have pictures from the doctor of the surgery... weirdness.  However, what we know is the space in her shoulder was clearly too large and her shoulder was not being held in there by much.  So.. he fixed it.  As long as she doesn't move her arm/shoulder in a certain way for the next 30 days, the fix should be permanent.

They did not end up giving her a nerve block after the surgery because she really wasn't in all that much pain.  When we got back there to see her, she needed a little pain med and the nurse gave her a dose of morphine.  Another learning lesson here as she apparently has a "sensitivity" to morphine.  So, the morphine shot was followed by a Benadryl shot to counteract the immediate itching and red blotchiness she developed all over.  :-)   Several items to remember to tell doctors and write on forms from now on.

That was pretty much it for the pain meds except for the oral meds that were sent home.  The Anesthesia Dr. was amazed that she wasn't in a lot of pain after the surgery and seeing from the pictures at how much drilling, etc. he did in her bone, I'm amazed as well.  I wish I had her pain threshold.  I just simply don't and am a big baby.  She's just seems to handle it quite well.  Must take after her Meme.

She's been doing just fine at home today as well with just one pain pill every 4 hours and either it's doing the job or she just isn't feeling any pain.  Whichever, I don't care.  She's comfortable, has eaten, napped and is doing just fine.   I'm so relieved!

We're going to have dinner and hopefully, we all will get some sleep shortly afterwards!

MA

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Baby girl is all prepped and in surgery now. Isn't she cute??!!

Had a little excitement this morning as we all discovered missy rachel has the vasal vegal reaction. Not quite sure how to explain it but the gist of it was that shortly after they put in the IV, probably 3 min or so, Rachel says "I'm not feeling too good" and she proceeds to lose all color, to drop her heart rate to 0 then 40 and her blood pressure down very low and passes out with a little seizure-like behavior apparently. Nurse asks me if she has seizures and I say "ummm. Not that we've seen before" and the medical folks start jumping. Pop the oxygen on the face and open up the IV fluids and she then quickly recovers. Anesthsiologist tells us it's called vasal vegal reaction and will be a lifetime issue. Explains why a few years ago when she got a vaccine at the pediatricians office, she's fine and we get up to the front to pay the bill and she passes out!! Leave it to her to add excitement to the day.

Because of the reaction, the Anesth. Dr did not want to proceed with giving her the shoulder nerve block they would usually do that would provide the pain blocking for the next day. Dr says they may try it in the recovery room if everything is going ok.

We'll see!!! Waiting time now.

MA