Being a stepmom.....

Has its ups and downs and its pros and cons. It is hard....even after 4 years of doing this. 3 of the 4 years the boys have lived with us and go to their mom's on the weekends. It is getting harder and harder that the boys are tweens. Colby (the 11 year old) just came up to me and said, 'I love you Meena', gave me a hug and asked if he could lay down on the couch with me. It was sweet and made my day. Both boys always tell me 'I love you' in the mornings when I drop them off for school and at bedtime, but Colby is always more affectionate than Tristen . Colby is definitely a momma's boy, but he is turning in to being a 'stepmomma's' boy too. :) It is just nice to know that even through the rough days....there are always better days to make up for the rough days!

(Meena is what the boys have called me for the past 4 years. Our niece couldn't say Amanda when she was younger, so she called me Meena. The boys took to the name and that's what they've called me ever since.)

Friday Fill-in

Randomness brought to you by the Friday Fill-Ins Blog, perhaps you might get to start reading these weekly. My answers are in red.


1. I'm tired, I'm annoyed, and I'm glad it is Friday.

2. Why do I have to alway try to PLAN everything?

3. How does this parenting thing work, anyway ?

4. Every morning, I put makeup on my face.

5. I consider myself lucky because I have an amazing job, a great family, and wonderful friends.

6. One day we’ll see the beach again.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to seeing my brother & sister-in-law, tomorrow my plans include Colby's belated b-day party @ Main Event, and Sunday, I want to relax and enjoy the day!

Lack of Posting

There has been a lack of posting, obviously. I've been sick with some annoying cold. Nothing extraordinarily exciting has been going on, therefore, there hasn't been anything to write about.

Oh...last weekend, the BFFs along with some other friends of ours decided we would go check out Mardi Gras in downtown Dallas. I was less than impressed. Yes, we do go to Mardi Gras annually in Shreveport, and it is a mid-afternoon and kid-friendly affair. I was expecting a little more out of the Dallas festivities than what we experienced. I think we experienced first hand what the economy is doing as there must have been some budget cuts due to the lack of beads that were thrown. LOL! Speed zone thought it would be genious to staple little coupons to their beads. While this does provide a relatively cheap means of marketing, it also provided their 'parade participants/bead throwers' (for lack of a better term) a pretty harmful weapon. Speed Zone obviously didn't have budget cuts b/c they were chunking handfuls of beads. These beads with the little coupon attached were like bullets, so when handfuls were chunked I was literally ducking and covering my head for fear my head was a target for these things. So after the mediocre parade, we decided along with the 1000's of other people to go try and eat in the West End. FAIL. Back we treked to the route we had taken to get to where we watched the parade. We stopped at Sonny Byrans and had some barbque. After dinner we decided to *try* to attempt to experience these fesitivies again by just going and having some drinks. Yeah, we were all annoyed and realized that we are too old for this. By 9pm we were heading back to the house to play the Wii. Yes, we are officially old.

3rd Annual Mardi Gras Trip

So, here it is on actual Fat Tuesday, and I'm finally getting around to posting this. I've had the blogged all typed up, I just haven't had the time to put the pictures together. I finally had the time to sit down and throw some pictures into a slide show. So....here ya go....

We made our trek to Shreveport for our annual trip to watch the Mardi Gras parade and to participate in some debauchery prior to the parade starting. No worries (Mom), everything was kid friendly. People hear Mardi Gras and they think tatas or something like that. No, this is a kid-friendly parade. Granted prior to the parade starting, the adults enjoy a few adult beverages and we have some fun!

Our trip started out Friday afternoon leaving our casa. Jason wasn't supposed to get off until 7pm on Friday, but ended up leaving work early. Tristen doesn't get out of school until 4 so by the time we left the house, it was 5pm. Not really the best idea, leaving on a Friday with rush hour traffic. Whatever though, we bite the bullet and head out. Mind you, I make a dash for the car b/c I did NOT want to drive. I won! We are truckin' along down 35 South living it up in the HOV lane. BAM....we get to 635, conveniently where the HOV lane ends, and it is bumper to freakin' bumper traffic. I look up the route on my nifty little iphone and sure enough the traffic is 'red' from where we are all the way down town. So long story short...................................traffic was a beating and we finally get out of town. We are finally up to normal highway speed and are going for about 20 minutes. The all too familiar annoying question comes flying out of the back seat, 'Are we there yet??????' Jason fielded that question, 'NO, and don't ask again!' LOL! Harsh much? LOL...no b/c with a 11 and 12 year old you've got to be stern. We are on 20 heading east and of course someone has to pee, you'd think it would've been one of the boys, but no...it was Jason. So finally, we get back on the road and we are good to go. We finally arrive in Shreveport in 4 hours instead of the 3 it normally takes. After saying our hellos and chit chatting a bit with Jason's extended family (aunt, uncle, mamaw, etc.) we decide to call it a night and head to our hotel.

This whole trip is about the parade (and of course seeing J's family). One might ask, what is the big deal about the parade. Well, it is all about location. Location, location, location for your parade/bead catching spot. The baracades for the parade route usually open around 7am. Well, Bonnie (J's aunt) always rents a porta-potty for our area since we are out there for 6-7 hours. The porta-potty is just dropped and marked private. This, however, does not prevent anyone from taking your 'spot'. You cannot mark your 'spot' until the parade route is opened. So....at 3:30am, Aunt Bonnie and the crew (Marty, Dennis, & Shane) all headed down to mark off our route. Marty was staying in our room at our hotel and so the alarm went off at 2:50am for her to get up and go to Bonnie's. She leaves, whatever, no big deal, right. Well about 45 minutes later, Jason and I awake to this screeching beeping noise. We both fight with the alarm clock (in the dark no less) to try and get it turned off. Finally, we turn on the bedside lamp and I'm starting to unplug the stupid alarm clock and we both realized at the same time it was the freaking fire alarm. Nice, eh? So, kids are still asleep and I decided to go open the door to see what was going on before I woke 3 kids (Colby, Tristen and Abby). Of course, I don't smell anything except for something that resembled the smell of burnt bacon. We were waved back to our rooms (luckily we were staying on the 1st floor) by the front desk staff. I'm assuming that Night Auditor got hungry and went and made himself some bacon and forgot about it or something b/c the next morning there was not any bacon on the Continental Breakfast. LOL! Of course it wasn't complete, without the fire trucks and all the noise arriving within 30 seconds of me laying back down to try to go back to sleep.

So anyways, fast forward to about noon. We head out to our parade site that was safely secured by our 'crew'. They took shifts sitting out at our parade site from 5am - noon when we got there. I have apparently been nominated to participate in the early rising for this next year. My remarks, 'Well, I might not be able to do it if I'm pregnant!' Nope, I still didn't get out of my nomination. Crap!

The afternoon always starts off slow. We all sit around the fire pit, realtively calm. The gumbo and taco soup arrived that are prepared by the fabulous Mary. The kids are always rambunctious. Me being the OCD mom, always thinks the boys need to 'look nice', so I pack them 'good jeans' (this means fairly new jeans w/no holes in the knee). Dumb mistake and lesson learned. Who cares what their jeans look like...as long as they aren't highwaters! Not sure how many times I said, 'Tristen/Colby - stay off of your knees!" (I was fighting grass stains like no other when I did laundry when we returned.) This year, we were treated to Jello shots! Woohoo. Actually, the jello shots were to try to entice the bead throwers to throw us adults some big beads (in trade for the jello shots). I myself decided to take it 'easy' and drink mimosas. Yum yum! Anyways, shortly before the parade started we had a little dancefest that I've yet to decide whether or not I'm going to post the video. I'm torn on whether to forego my embarassment and post it or save my face and not post it. LOL! It is all 'clean' material, just quite hilarious and not sure that I want it on the intraweb for everyone to see.

The parade was fun. We collected lots of beads and cups. The parade seemed a lot longer this year than previous years. The boys pick out beads they want to keep and then put the other beads in a huge bucket that Aunt Bonnie takes and to an "Old Folks Home".

We headed home Sunday morning and made it back with plenty of time to relax before the week started. Fortunately, I had Monday off due to President's Day! (I love having Banker's Hours/Holidays!)

Purse Tag

Since there has been a lack of posting, I'll post a very uninteresting, no point, post. It will even include pictures. Pictures that will surely leaving you well informed for the day. (/end sarcasm) It is all Kelly's fault.

It's a Purse Tag!

Here are the rules:

1. Post a picture of whatever bag you are carrying as of late. No, you cannot go up to your closet and pull out that cute little purse you used back before you had kids. I want to know what you carried today.

2. Post a picture of the contents inside your bag. The theory here is that you can learn a lot about someone from what is in the bag...oh and you can steal mommy secrets!

3. I want to know how much it costs. And this is not to judge, this is for entertainment purposes only. So spill it. And if there is a story to go along with how you obtained it, I’d love to hear it.

4. Tag some chicks. And link back to this post so people know why the heck you’re showing everyone your diaper bag/non-diaper bag.

Here ya go:


This would be a Jessica Simpson purse. I actually purchased it last June and love it. Yes, I surprisingly haven't purchased a purse in 8 months! Go me! I get so may compliments on it. I think I paid right around $100 for it.


Inside you will find. My work blackberry, a random sticky note with my name on it from my boss, Excedrin, Degree deodorant, 2 random rings, a red checkbook, my purse hook, a pen, Imitrex for my migraines, a random penny, my coin purse/card holder, keys to Jason's truck, lip gloss, a hairclip, lotion and a makeup bag with a mirror and other necessities.

So there ya go, my pointless and boring post.

Colby's Weekend in Denver

Colby returned from Denver today. When he got off the plane...he had the biggest smile on his face. He couldn't wait to tell us all about his trip. He was beaming and couldn't stop telling us how much fun he had. Both boys experienced a trip that they'll never forget.

(Click to enlarge)

Busy Amanda....

I thought Fridays weren't supposed to be this busy. This has been my day so far and what my tentative agenda is for the remainder of the day. I'm so exhausted already and it is only 3:27pm. Caffiene is calling my name. I must go find some soon.

• Colby’s flight was at 6:40am, so we had to get up at 4:30am. (Colby left for his snowboarding trip in Denver this morning.)
• Back home from the airport by 7am to get Tristen up and ready for school.
• Took a 45 minute nap from 8-8:45am
• Worked from home for 30 minutes in between getting ready.
• Dentist appt at 10:30.
• Got to the office at 1:15.
• Leave the office at 5 to meet at the W Hotel for ‘strategy session’/validate our valet tickets.
• Leave for AAC at 6:15.
• Event for work at our Suite at the Dallas Stars game to hob nob with some of my high net-worth members.
• Mike Modano appearance in our suite AFTER the game!

My guess is I will be home somewhere around midnight!