Austin Road Trip

I feel like all my KU posts are so long and have so many pics.  With that, consider yourself warned.

Remember when I posted this on my Smile Fridays last week?  Well, we did it!  We kept going back and forth and basically decided no.  Then Thursday night we got a connection with tickets-maybe.  It wasn't finalized until Friday afternoon.  So, Friday night we packed and left our house Austin bound on Saturday morning!

After the short drive (3 hours), we arrived in Austin just in time to grab some lunch and head straight to the arena.  We had incredible seats and the kids did amazing!  The game started at 1, the exact time we put them down for naps everyday.  Despite the 16,000 semi-loud fans, we got Laney asleep most of the first half.  She was up for the second half but totally content on our laps.  Very unLaney like, I was prepared with lots of toys and snacks, but didn't need anything!  She was taking it all in-the game, the crowd, the LED boards with all the lights.  She would point to the court and say, ba-ball.  She is very familiar with basketball since her brother asks her to play every single day.  We are pretty sure she loved her first KU basketball experience. :)  Cooper loved it as we thought he would.  He was always on the lookout for Jeff Withey and Ben McClemore.  He was cheering and mad at all the right times :).  However, he did tell me about every 3 minutes how tired he was, but he refused to rest.  We didn't buy anything!! and only got up once, can you believe it??!!  That one time was for me to take Coop to the bathroom with 4 minutes left when we were still down!!!!!!  But we came back from the bathroom after we had finally taken the lead again.  It wasn't the prettiest game and was way too close for comfort (if my kids didn't soak in any new inappropriate words it will be a miracle ;)) but all that matters is our Hawks got the W. 

After the game we hung out, let the crowd clear out and took some pics on the court.  On the way out of the arena, we happened to walk out where the team bus was!!!!!  Aaaahhhhhh!  Duh, of course we hung out to see our boys up close.  And up close we did...

 Told ya, great seats.

 sweet sleeping babe. 

 Happy 1st KU basketball experience Laney Faith.  You were a gem!

  Representing our Hawks in Longhorn country.

 Thumbs up for a KU win!

Standing right behind Uncle Bill's seat :).

 Can you tell Coop is happy to be meeting his favorite player and the guy he imitates everyday at home.

 Evidence that we tried to get Laney in these pics.  She wouldn't stand still and the guys didn't seem willing to grab her in their arms :).  For you non-fans, this is Ben McClemore.  The kid is 18 and an absolutely incredible basketball player.  Even if you aren't a KU fan, you need to watch a game just to see him play.  You better catch him this season, I imagine he will be in the NBA soon.  For the record, I just wanted to squeeze Ben's cheeks...he looks like a baby!

 Elijah wasn't too happy...he did not have a stellar game.

 We really wanted Laney in a picture, I kept feeling like she was going to look back on this and wonder where she was!  Kevin Young was the sweetest with the kids.

 I was about to throw in the towel and give up on seeing Uncle Bill...tired and hungry kids and a diaper that needed changing.  Ad convinced me to stay a few more minutes and then out walks Uncle Bill.  Cooper was in an all out sprint, yelling "Uncle Bill!!!!"  This was him thinking, who is this kid about to attack me and where are his parents.  :)

 Mission Accomplished.  Coop was on cloud nine afterwards, all smiles and full of energy.  Of course,  I love living vicariously thru my kids so I felt just like Coop :).

Right after seeing the players and Uncle Bill they must have been chatting about who was their favorite.  

It was the most beautiful day - 70s and sunny.

I love this picture but hate how grown up he looks :(.

We stayed in downtown Austin, walked to a local pizza place for dinner, and then pushed our double stroller in a liquor store for a 6 pack :).  Yep, as Austin was just getting started Adam and I were drinking beers in our hotel bed with a 3 year old between us and a 18 month old sound asleep in a pack and play.  We were all out by 10 :).  We all slept in until about 8, grabbed breakfast, hit the road and were back home by lunchtime Sunday.  It was an incredible 24 hours and we made some really fun memories.  

Smile Fridays - week 30

It's a Stella and Dot edition of Smile Fridays!  The Spring line debuted last week and I received my samples just days ago.  Incredible.  I have already ordered more, can't stop, love it all!  It's full of color, layering pieces and great price points - 75% of new pieces are under $50!

 I have 2 favorite necklaces and this is one!  This green is the color of 2013 and looks good with so many colors/patterns.  Lara Spencer was wearing it over a green sweater on GMA this morning and it looked great.  See more details on it here.

Stacking bracelets, woo-hoo!  The 3 julep bracelets on top sell separately for only $19 and comes in hot pink too!  See them here.

Love the Fiona statement necklace!  So pretty for all seasons!  See it here.

This is my other favorite necklace, the Kimberly!  See it here.

You can see the new virtual look book here.  If you want me to mail you one in person, email me your address at ash4545@hotmail.com.  If you see something you love and want to order, you can do it all at my website, www.stelladot.com/ashleyjones.

PJ Day at Preschool 2013

Today was all about the letter P at preschool today for Coop.  They wore PJs and had a pizza party!  See last years PJ Day here. 

After school he totally hammed it up for me before heading up to nap.  This is a rarity so I totally soaked it in.

Instagram Fun

Are you on Instagram?  I am!  Love it.  My favorite part about Facebook is the pictures-well, this is just pictures.  How awesome is that!  And you can alter them with filters/frames.  You can find me at ashsoudersjones.  Creative, huh?

 There has been some serious basketball playing in this house lately but that's a whole other post.

 Doodles in her Sunday best...minus shoes.  Yeah, sometimes in the rush of trying to get all 4 of us out of the door in time for 9am mass, shoes get left behind, oops.

 Yep, still a thumb sucker.  

 Life with an older brother.

Last week I cleaned out/organized our office for the first time since we moved in almost 2 years ago.  I even dusted and swept!  How gross is this...99.9% sure it was the first time it was that was done!  Anyway...I found this gem.  My first class!  I loved everyone of these sweet nuggets and they taught me so much.  I can.not.believe they will be seniors next year.  Oh how I wish I could see them now!  One of them and her sweet family was the inspiration behind Laney's name.

 Here's the reason I am behind on blogging this week.  The new line of Stella and Dot jewels debuted, woo-hoo!  More on these gems later.

Toddler tattoo sleeve.  Yes, I saw him doing it and no, I didn't care.  I think he was channeling his inner Ben McClemore.  I really didn't care because he needed a bath tonight.  Well I was gone all night and came home to a sleeping still-tatted up 3 year old.  Guess what that means?  Yep, bath time before school tomorrow.  That should be fun since I can barely get him up in time to change clothes and eat a granola bar in the car on the way.

Come join me on Instagram, it's no Pinterest but still pretty great :).

3 girls with 3 girls plus a few more :)

Ok- thought I was done with holiday posts until I was cleaning up my email tonight and found these that Stacey had sent me!  I am so happy she documented this visit.  The baby girls are getting so big and maybe starting to notice each other and interact?? 

You can see the history behind our Christmas luncheon and pics from last year here.

 Hilarious.

 Well, we got one looking and smiling out of 7.

 The girls were pretty happy in the that crib.

love.

Smile Fridays - week 29

My Jayhawks are on fire and that makes me smile!  Seriously, they are so much fun to watch!  Ben McClemore is ridiculously talented and Uncle Bill never ceases to amaze in how he transforms these boys into an incredible team.  During the game this week they pulled up Withey's stats this year so far and compared them to the same time last year with Anthony Davis.  Withey surpasses him in every category. Bam.  

My friend/Jayhawk bball partner in crime Julie shared this article with me.  I have watched it countless times and laugh every.single.time.  Then I found this article written by the same author, who my sister told me went to my high school!  Love it.

Holy Cow, if this story doesn't make you smile and potentially cry you should probably make sure your heart is beating.  http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/8579599/chy-johnson-boys.  There is so many awful stories on the news, I love to read these.

On another note, Coop tells us, "I love you," several times a day now, unprompted.  It may be the sweetest thing I hear each day.  Love that he is figuring out to use it when he realizes he's in trouble and trying to dig his way out.  

How much fun would it be if next week my Smile Friday was from Austin, TX because Ad, the kids and I decided on a whim to drive their for the KU/UT game??!!!!  Anyone have 4 tix to game next weekend they want to send my way???  Prob make this proposition much easier to pass with Adam if I already had tickets :).

I did Zumba for the first time tonight thru a class at Lifetime.  This is totally true...

Happy Friday y'all!

Holiday 2012 wrap-up

It came and went in the blink of an eye, except for the hours in the car. All 22 of them.  Yes, we spent 22 hours of winter break in the car and that was just the 3 legs.  It totaled over 2,000 miles.  Ugh.  

Our 12 days was perfect as you saw in my posts.  We are so blessed and couldn't ask for anything more in our lives.  Thanks to our gracious parents who treat us like Royalty when we visit, I hope you know how much it means to us.

Here's a few random pics from the journey home to Texas.

 We left Kansas just in the nick of time, the snow was coming down fast.  It was 60 degrees when we got home.

 This girl is getting a bit long for front seat diaper changes.  However, I refuse to change her in nasty gas stations on I-35.  Cooper barely uses them because he never has to go when we stop.  Instead he waits 20 minutes after we stopped and there isn't a stop in sight...meaning he often potties on the side of highways.

 Whew, this girl gave us a run for our money on those long car rides.  She wasn't even content facing forward watching a movie with Coop. 

 Coop was digging into his Christmas presents the second we walked into the house.

Thanks to a sweet neighbor texting a picture, we weren't blindsided by this when we got home.  The Christmas day snowstorm got the best of our fence :(.  

We are onward to 2013!