We can't forget about Willie!

Gotta love it!!!

I guess I've become an "official" blogger. I've learned I used up all my free blog space (1 GB) and now I have to pay for my space. Nice!! This really makes me feel like a real true seriously professional blogger. Woohoo!

Out with the Mommy, in with the Mammy!

Alright...I'm really frustrated now. I've had some MAJOR technical difficulties over past couple days with the blog. I wrote a blog on Tuesday (over 48 hrs ago) and was ready to post. However, I couldn't post b/c I was having issues getting the video to upload. Well, I finally found another option and got the video up and running and got the blog posted. Then, tonight I was about to post another blog and this blog deleted....I have NO CLUE how this happened. So, to make a long story short, I have to re-write this blog. Of course, it's never as good the second time especially when you write what's on your mind like I do but I'll give it a shot. Ugh!!!

So, little Miss Lola is going through a new "precious" stage where she calls me Amy...ALL THE TIME!!! No more Mommy....just Amy. Clay loves it and thinks it's just adorable. I have to admit, at first, I also thought it was adorable....not so much anymore.

This all started when I was out of town a couple weeks ago. Lola woke up and Clay could hear her shouting from her bed "Amy, Amy...Amy....Amy, Amy". Since that day when she calls for me or when she is talking to or about me she calls me "Amy". Yea...it sucks! I've been called Amy my entire life and I have to say I'm not all that crazy about my very common name. It was such a great moment when I became a mother and such a special milestone when Lola called me "mama" for the first time then "mama" became "mommy" and now here we are today back to Amy....same 'ol same 'ol. Well, to make a long story short, over the past couple weeks anytime Lola calls me "Amy" I respond by saying "Mommy...I'm Mommy...Lola say Mommy". Now Mommy has turned into Mammy (that's Amy with a M in front of it). Clay actually likes Mammy...he even refers to me as Mammy now. I'll continue to work on the Mommy thing but for now I'll have to settle with Mammy.

We had a fabulous Memorial Day weekend! Clay's place of business had a Chili Cook off at Zilker park. We had tons of fun!!! Clay's team were called the Chili Willies and they dressed up as Willie Nelson. Clay looked a lot like Willie.....it was kind of scary. Lola had a great time running around playing with the other kids and loved the bounce house. We look forward to the next festivity.

The parental guidance also came in town to visit over the weekend. It was so great to hang out at our new digs and enjoy the fabulous Austin. We'll continue to look forward to more visitors.

Lets have a good long weekend!

Nothing much to say today...can you believe?!?!?! Actually, I have a lot to say but I'm going to hold off until next week. Very nice of me I have to say! However, I will say this....I can't believe the Hola Lola blog is 1 yr old....actually even a little older. Man, the things we've been through and the challenges we've confronted and it's all documented right here on the blog.

Before we head off to enjoy the holiday weekend, I wanted to post this pic and me & Mary. Oh how I love Mary!!! Mary came to visit Austin a couple weeks ago. We had a great time!!! We've been friends since 1998...crazy!!!. I worked with her hubby, Brian, at my first job with State Farm back in the day. Brian and I hit it off immediately and became BFFs. Then, I had the honor to meet and become great friends with Brian's girlfriend at the time, Mary. She is such a great girl and I hardly can believe we've been friends for 12 years now...Yikes!!! Mary and Brian live in Illinois now but I keep hoping they'll move back to Texas...maybe one day. They have two precious kiddos....Kate who is 8 yrs old and Kyle who is 3 yrs old. They are little darlings. It was great to spend time with Mary. I miss her muchos!!!

I've been working my rump off lately so I'm thrilled to have a long weekend to sit back and relax ...well, as much as you can relax with a toddler. We'll be heading to the SHW Group (Clay's work) Chili Cook-Off in about 2 hours...Woohoo!!! Can't wait!!!

Everyone have a fabulous Memorial Day weekend!!!

Call me crazy

Ok, call me crazy but several months ago did I not say I would never run another half marathon again? Let me quote my exact statement written in the Run the Rock blog on 12/23/08:

"I'm not sure I'll run another 1/2 marathon again. The training is very long and it takes a lot of time. Plus, I've discovered through all of this that I love running but not long distances so much. I most likely will keep my runs between 3 and 6 miles in the future."

As I read through that blog again it brought back memories of the horrible pain I felt that day both during and after the race. It also brought back memories of the 5:30am. /6:00 a.m. morning runs, 5 days a week for 6 months straight. Boy, once it was all over, it sure was nice to finally sleep in until 7:00 a.m. again (if Lola allowed this of course). I guess it's the same thing with a baby. If we make the decision to have a another baby, you have to wonder why in the world would we choose to go back and suffer through the hassle of pregnancy, the pain of the birth, recovery, breastfeeding and lack a sleep a second time?!?!?!? Drive, passion and love I guess.

Well, for some reason last night I found myself signing up for another half marathon. Yep, I sure did!!! Training starts next Saturday 5/30/09 at 7:00 a.m. sharp. I have no clue why I'm doing this again. Actually, I do. Drive, passion and love of course plus I've discovered I need structure to force myself to exercise. If I don't have structure and a long-term goal to achieve, then I won't do it. Lately, I've done a very poor job with the whole exercise thing and have been very frustrated with myself....mainly b/c I've lost all tone in the old 32.94 yr old bod. The good news is this week I started up again but discovered running isn't enjoyable if you don't have some sort of long-term goal such as a half marathon. So last night I bit the bullet and signed up for the Rock 'n' Roll San Antonio half marathon which will take place on November 15, 2009. I'll be training through one of Jeff Galloway's training programs. With that, it looks like I'll have 5 1/2 months of hard training in front of me....Woohoo!!! As always, I'll keep you posted on my progress and certainly the misery that will go into the training. I'm actually very excited and looking forward to it. The worst thing that can come out of this is I get in shape and meet new people...can't complain about that right!?!?

She's a maniac (I mean this in the nicest way of course)!!!

What a weekend!!! It was Clay's 36th Birthday. I can't believe I'm married to someone who is 36. I can't believe I'm about to turn 33. How did we get so old so quick?!?!?!? I'm sure this is a question we all ask ourselves every day. I remember being in my 20s and looking at people who were my age now and thought they were old...kind of scary.

In celebration of Clay's birthday, we had a fun filled weekend! We basically spent most of the weekend watching Lola run around like a maniac. Seriously...it was NON-STOP!!! This toddler thing is CRAZY!!! How does this child go and go and go (with very few naps I must add) without feeling absolutely exhausted and just collapsing. Oh to have energy like this again! I have to say that by the time Sunday bedtime comes along I'm pretty excited to drop Lo off at daycare first thing Monday morning. Is that bad? It's not that I don't love spending time with Lola b/c I do...more than anything. I actually miss her so much during the day but sometimes she has a tendancy to wear me out to the point of exhaustion and I feel like I need a break asap!

After Lo went to bed last night, I started researching the "toddler years". Basically wondering how long we would be going at this speed. Well, it seems it will last until at least 36 months. Oh man...we're only at 15 months. Lola has started a lot of this "toddler" stuff a little early which means our toddler years are going to last a lot longer. Most babies just start walking good at about 13/14/15 months but not Lola. She was walking good at 12 months and is now 15 months and is full on sprinting...usually away from us. I found I can't even have a nice relaxing conversation with our neighbors without constantly saying "excuse me" and chasing Lola, then "excuse me again" then chasing Lola again....non-stop! Literally, we spent the entire weekend blowin' and going' and just try to keep Lola from killing herself. Trust me on this one...you can even ask my mom who after two days of keeping Lola is usually so exhausted that she has to stay in bed for a full day after the fact just to recover. I was talking to a friend the other day about losing weight. She wants to pull off a few pounds and asked me if I had any suggestions. I immediately suggested she should have a baby! She looked at me as if I was crazy but I said "I'm serious" b/c once they hit the "toddler years" you will NEVER sit...EVER!!! This is true. I NEVER sit down...EVER!!! But, on a positive note, at least I don't have to worry about my eating habits so much as I'm burning 10 trillion calories a day chasing Lola.

Temper tantrums! Fun, fun, fun!!! Well, they say these usually don't start until between 16 - 18 months. Of course, we've had the joy of experiencing tantrums for about a month or so. They got a little more fierce over the weekend. So, we just let her throw them and act like we don't hear her. She stops pretty quick. Clay and I absolutely will not have a brat child who throws fits. I let Lola get away with a lot but I won't let her get away with this. So, we're pretty stern when it comes to the temper tantrums.

The new thing this week is hitting. Yep...hitting...nice!!! She slaps me and laughs. She'll take her sippy cup and swing it at the dogs heads...poor things...they are taking it really well. I also caught her riding Lady Bird like a horse on Saturday. I wondered if she learned this from the horse race we had just watched on TV. Anyway, back to the hitting thing....Clay says it's ok and it's their (meaning babies) way of learning. They don't understand empathy right now and have to learn when you hit it hurts by actually doing it....not sure this makes sense to me but I'll go with it. My question is how do you teach and explain to a 15 month old it's not right to hit? When I tell her "ouchy" or "no, no...you don't hit", she just laughs uncontrollably and starts hitting again so I'm not real sure how to address this phase. I mean it's not like I can hit her back to show her it hurts. We'll see how long this one lasts.

I often ask myself if all toddlers are like this or if we just have a wild child on our hands? She was a good infant so are we paying for it now? Clay assures me that all toddlers can be hard to manage and we're doing just fine. I have to say little Miss Lola is full of personality and she has definitely come into her own so I guess this is just all part of it!

Oh, I almost forgot. We had Lola's 15 month appointment on 5/4. Can you believe it??? She is 15 months. I swear it seems like I just had her yesterday. Here are her stats:

• Weight 24 lbs 75th percentile
  
• Hight 30 3/4 50th - 75th percentile
  
• Head 48.6 cm 97th percentile

Compound Crawfish Boil

I'm slightly behind on my blogging but hope to catch up soon. The weekend before last we had several sets of friends in town visiting. It was perfect timing as we were able to pull off yet another Crawfish Boil which consisted of fabulous food (thanks to Clay Kennedy's exceptional ability to cook up crawfish cajon style), excellent company with new and old friends and downright good times at the compound. I thought I would post some pics of the fun.

Yummy Crawfish!!! As you can see, everyone basically ate it all up and left a Lone Star beer can for good measure.

The Chef, Clay Kennedy, and Kara taking in all the wonderful odors of the Crawfish. Luckily, once cooked, it just smells like fabulous Cajun seasonings.

Amy, Clay and Kara. Getting our belly's ready for a mind-blowing meal.

Rick, Christian, Heather and Clay. Rick and Heather have a 2 year old little boy named William who Lola played with all afternoon. Christian and Jody (Jody was out of town) have a 4 1/2 year old named Cade and a 2 1/2 year old boys named Leyton. Good times for the kids...they ran around and played all afternoon.

Amy & Jesse. Jesse and Matt are old friends from NYC who now live in Kansas City. It was so great to see them!

Kristen, Kevin and Gang. Love all of Kristen and Kevin's friends!!!! All great people.

Jeff, Summar and Clay. Happy as can be!!! Jeff and Summar tie the knot in October. Can't wait for the big day!

Little Miss Puffy Eyes. Lo took a 4 hour nap this day. Longest ever!!!! She was just getting up in this pic below. She's like her mama...takes her a little while to wake up before she is ready to socialize.

Guitar time...Hondo is back!!! Jeff and Clay provided some great entertainment and played some old school Hondo songs. Oh....love to reminisce. Lo sat right next the Clay the entire time. She LOVES to hear him play guitar.

And now Clay and Clay toast to a successful Crawfish Boil and a fabulous night.

Hola Lola temporarily out of service!

I feel like it's been ages since I've posted a blog so I thought I would drop a quick note to let you know Hola Lola is temporarily out of service but will be back in full force soon. Boy...life has been a bit hectic lately....let me recap real quick...

I'm currently in LA. This will be my 6th straight week of traveling for work. CRAZY!!!! Just when I think I'm about to get a travel free week I learn I have to be in Big D next week for a meeting. On top of this, over the past 6 weeks (in between business trips) we've had guests in town every single weekend (Can't wait to show yall pics and tell you about our Crawfish Boil last weekend). We LOVE the company but WOW things are very busy to say the least...this is what we like to call "blowin' and goin'". Basically, I've struggled to find time to wash sheets in between guests...should be a very simple task right? Yea...not so much.

With that, I still have TONS of work to get done. It's a matter of finding the time so I'm squeezing it in where ever I can which is usually my daytime hours and then back again between 8:30 p.m. (after Lo goes to bed) to 11:00 p.m. then I try to squeeze in a little sleep too...why not!?!?!? The worst part is Clay is on the same schedule...he comes home around 6:30ish for dinner, fam time, puts Lo to bed and then heads back to the office for more work. What a man...always home to put his little girl to bed no matter how busy life is. I keep thinking "A break would be great!". But to be honest....I most likely wouldn't slow down. It's weird...I can't slow down anymore...I can't sit still....I have to be constantly going. I actually think I would go insane if I had a day (or even an hour) to myself with no plans...I would go stir crazy. The biggest problem with all the traveling/non-stop guests is I'm not finding the time to exercise and I'm craving it like you wouldn't believe!!! So, next week I'm going to start the 6:00 a.m. runs up again...can't wait!!!!

Today was FABULOUS!!! I was able to visit one of my childhood BFFs Ashley "Cox" Drysdale in Santa Monica. Ash and her hubby, Jono, moved from D.C. to Santa Monica a year ago. They have a new 4 month old baby girl named Stasya....such a happy baby...such a beautiful baby. I believe she is a spitting image of her gorgeous mother. It was so nice to spend the afternoon with Ash and Stasya. We ate lunch, walked up the coast, talked, shopped, hung out on the couch at their fab home, etc...such fun girl time! I really love Ash more than anything. The best part of our relationship is that as we get older we find ourselves becoming even closer (that's hard considering we grew up living next door to each other...every waking and sleeping hour together) and we don't let distance get in the way of our relationship. I really feel a special connection with Ashley and love that she is still a part of my life after all these years.

Tomorrow is a new day. I start my meetings off at 7:00 a.m. sharp and go until who knows when but THEN another one of my BFFs, Elizabeth, who I met in NYC is also visiting LA so we'll get to see each other. Woohoo!!! She is 8 1/2 months pregnant so I can't wait to see her buddha belly.

Anyway, I have lots of updates so hopefully I can find time to kick back and focus on the blog next week....I'll make sure to find the time. Of course, I can't get away without posting a pic of Lo...