Sweet Potatoes...Yum!

Today begins a new stage in Beau's life....real food! We have been giving him rice cereal for the last couple of weeks, trying to get him in the habit of "eating" as opposed to just "sucking". This little guy has a very strong tongue thrust, so we have made some progress, but a lot of what he eats still ends up on his shirt.

These pictures were from a couple of days ago, and believe it or not, he did really well this day, and there was still that much food on his face! (and everything tastes better with fingers, of course!)

Well, today we took it to the next level and gave him his first taste of the joys to come....sweet potatoes! He took to those taters like he had been eating them his whole little life! He ate about half of a jar!

Way to go big boy!

Time Flies When....You Have a Baby!!!

Ten months have gone by since I last logged onto my blog. I'm gonna blame it on pregnancy and having a baby...both of which take a lot of work :-) Regardless of why I have been absent from the blogging world, starting today, I hope to be better about keeping everyone updated with Mr. Beau's latest happenings. So, for now I leave you with a couple of sweet pictures of my boy, and promise there will be many more coming SOON!

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

That's what little girls are made of! Shane and I are a little less than two weeks away from finding out what gender our sweet little one is, so I was looking back through my pictures and found this one from when I was little.

If we have a girl I wonder if she will look like me? I can't wait to meet our precious baby!

Fun Times In Louisiana!

This past weekend, we had the privilege of attending two dear friends, JJ and Katie's, wedding in what they refer to as "the promise land", also known as Louisiana. Shane and I agreed that this trip through the "L" shaped state redeemed it for us after having only driven through the southern swampy areas previously. It was beautiful! The tall tress, the flowers in bloom, the little ponds scattered about....it was truly remarkable. So the fact that we drove about 7 hours over on Friday evening, and 7 hours back on Saturday afternoon was helped by the view.


The wedding was so sweet. They made sure their wedding was loaded with southern hospitality! Shane thoroughly enjoyed the fried catfish, and I was a big fan of the chocolate cheesecake! Here are a few pictures from the festivities:

This is JJ and Katie during a prayer....I guess it is safe to assume I didn't have my eyes closed...oops :-)

Here I am (well at least my back) with a group of our friends from Austin who also attended the wedding.

Congratulations JJ and Katie!!!

Now That's Style!

Today in celebration of my school raising over $12,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, we had "Clash Day". The kids were all so excited to walk in and see their teacher "clashing"! Here is a lovely picture of my ensemble.

Kids are so precious. They don't know that you aren't supposed to mix browns and blacks, or that you shouldn't mix silk with cotton, and they practice what they preach...totally clashing clothes whenever they are in charge of what they wear :-) Today I received more compliments from my sweet kindgarteners than I have any other day of the year. I bet I had ten kiddos tell me, "Mrs. Walker, you look pretty today!" Wow, why in the world do I try so hard? All I really need to do I wear tons of jewelry, and throw in a few sequins here and there, and I am pretty :-) I did have a few tell me that I looked like a pirate and a hippy, but I will choose to focus on the pretty comments!

Hooray for an Update....Finally!

The last three weeks have been a whirlwind! You may have been wondering if I fell off the map, or just got annoyed with blogging.....but the truth is, the last three weeks have been CRAZY, and neither situation was the case :-)

It all began with having to move! Three weeks ago, I went into our apartment office to check on the status of a two-bedroom apartment that would be coming available in June....thinking I was being proactive and a good planner. Much to my surprise, they said we were "scheduled" to moved at the end of April. I quickly protested and informed them that the agreement was we would move in June. "No problem," the apartment manager smoothly responded. "I will just change the date." My heart, which was now in my throat began to move to its normal position until...."Hmmm" came out of the manager's mouth. She then proceeded to tell me they had already leased our apartment! "Well, great!" I'm thinking at this point! We are having a baby, and we are going to be homeless....I could feel myself getting a little light headed.

She could obviously tell I was very uncomfortable with the situation, so she "made me an offer I couldn't refuse," to borrow a line from The Godfather. She said if we were willing to move the next day (which was the Wednesday before Easter) and over the weekend, she could give us the two bedroom we wanted for just $50 more per month. I consulted my wise better half, and he agreed it would be stressful, but was a good deal. So the move began.

My amazing parents could sense the stress in my voice over the phone when I called to tell them we would be moving the NEXT DAY. With that, they decided to come "help" us move. I want to emphasize the word "help" here, because once they got to our apartment, they practically DID IT ALL! Can I just say how blessed I am to have such wonderful caring parents! Shane and I were so humbled by their servant attitudes. They worked while we were at work, and literally moved almost everything, and cleaned the old apartment, too (my dad is quite the carpet cleaner!) Wow, what an amazing gift!

I know it's a long story, but all of that was to say we haven't had internet for several weeks while we were waiting on our service to transfer. In addition, we have been busy with doctor's appointments and just general "busy-ness!"

On a high note, we did get to see our precious little one again on Tuesday (12 weeks), which made our week! This time our sweet baby's heart rate was 175...I think Baby Walker may be very energetic like its daddy :-) Here is the picture our little blessing! June 1st we find out what Baby Walker is!

Introducing Sam....

I just realized that many of you may not have met our first child....Sam. Sam is our Scottish Terrier, who joined our family in September 2004. I can't believe he is going to 5 in August!

Here is a baby picture of Sam with his brother. He was about 9 in. long in this picture, and weighed a pound or two.

Now, here is a current picuture of our favorite little guy.

We have learned so much through caring for Sam. Before we got Sam, we had a Ficas Tree that we kept alive for 2 years. At that point we figured we could upgrade to a dog (we do still have the Ficas Tree, by the way). I guess now that we have had a Ficas Tree for 7 years and dog for 5, and have managed to keep both of them alive, we are ready to have a baby :-)