A friend's blog givaway!

A fellow book club member is having a giveaway on her blog - stop by and check it out!

http://mrsmessi.blogspot.com

Have a great day!

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Let your heart be light.

From now on all troubles will be out of sight.

So have yourself

a merry little Christmas nigth.

Next year we'll add two more ;)

Meeting Santa at the Rivercenter

My cuties at the Rivercenter :)

Emma and Livi sharing a moment on the riverbarge.

And finally - Santa Claus! Livi was very excited to see him... up until we went to sit her on his lap. Notice the pained expression on her face.

Now for the tears...

and a perfect upside down frown.

The Rivercenter Santa Claus is the best around - and very reasonable. All you have to do is make a free-will donation to the charity of the day and your picture is taken and presented to you in a nice keepsake card.

He also looks like Santa.

Our annual Christmas Riverwalk/Alamo trip

Well, I'm finally getting around to uploading our Christmas pics. Sorry for the delay.... but with no further ado - here is Christmas with the Akin/Arlitts.

Near the beginning of December every year we have a tradition of heading down to Riverwalk / Alamo area to look at the lights and eat at Casa Rio.

Here are Emma and Livi at Casa Rio, feeding the ducks and fish. We hate having to sit under the bridge, but with the crowds that time of year, we really didn't have much of a choice.

After our meal, we walked over to the Alamo to take a few pictures. Here is a cute one of Emma and Livi on the back grounds of the Alamo.

A rare and precious picture of our baby smiling! She really hasn't been in a 'smiling for the camera' mood lately.
She liked the koi pond/creek that runs behind the Alamo.

As you can see, smiling time is over.

Our traditional pic in front of the Alamo.

And one in front of the big HEB tree outside of the Alamo.

This is for Mom and Dad. And MaMaw and PaPaw.

I saw this in Fredericksburg the other day and just had to take a picture for everyone. There is another, smaller sign off to the left with ordering information, if you'd like one of your own. ;)

The Coach meets The Amish Lady Part 2

I made it! I'm in the room with Pioneer Woman! In just a few short minutes, I'll be getting to meet her and apologize for the Longhorn/Sooner debacle... and what does The Coach do? He goes and flirts with Pioneer Sister.

Not really. The Coach doesn't flirt. The first time he asked me out went something like this... "So, ummm, do you want to ummm, go out and do something sometimes?"

Very verbose my man is.





Ok, I'm getting near! Here are my Line-Mates, Lucy and Sarah meeting PW. I'm getting excited!

I made it!

Now I'm falling all over myself trying to apologize for the Longhorn/Sooner questions. Typical Texas coach's wife - I get to meet a celebrity and all I can think to ask is a football question...

She forgives me :)

She was also entertained by The Coach's comment on our drive to Austin. He asked me, "So, are there going to be any people at this book signing? Because I've never heard of this Amish Lady."

After my quiet giggle, I calmly answered, "Yes, honey. There will be lots of people there. She's actually kinda famous."

Lets just say he didn't believe me and was shocked when he had to hunt to find a parking space on the 4th level of parking garage.

See the small child on my hip trying to strangle me with my necklace. Yeah, the breathing treatment she was on at the time made her a hyper wild-child. It was late at night and she wasn't even close to slowing down.

All in all a very fun night!

Pioneer Woman was funny - She had to have been exhausted by the time she got to me (remember - 18th from the end) and yet she was gracious and smiling.

Marlboro Man was hot and Pioneer Sister and The Coach hit it off famously.

The Coach meets The Amish Lady part 1

Ree Drummond (aka The Pioneer Woman) was at BookPeople in Austin to promote hew new cookbook "The Pioneer Woman Cooks." Of course, half of central Texas showed up - including me. Yes, I'm a devoted PW fan :)

She started off by taking questions from the crowd - including ME! Of course, I managed to screw it up... I asked a loaded question, given the enviornment, "So, are you a Longhorn or a Sooner?"

The crowd got a kick out of it, but I'm not sure she did. She bowed her head a bit but responded nicely with, "Well, actually I'm a Trojan." DUH - I knew that. She graduated from USC... I should have thought before asking.

Here she is recovering from my rudeness:

And here is Marlboro Man.





Let me tell you, I've always thought MM very nice looking, but he is very smooth too. I have to admit, there is this sexy aura that surrounds him. After I got my books signed, we were organizing Livi, the bags, the books, the coat, etc. he started to talk to me a bit. My toungue was tied - blah blah blah - I sounded like an idiot! He asked me what my blog was and was being nice in general and all I could do was gag on myself. I sounded like I had a mouthful of mashed potatoes. sigh.... I can be such a dork.
Plus, he took several pictures of Livi - I think he thought she was pretty cute. I hope she makes PW's blog!



But here is the sexiest man in the house - The Coach. He already managed to sew up the 'Father of the Year' award with his single-handed victory over the Swine Flu earlier this fall, but now he is vying for 'Husband of the Year' after his show of dedication and love last night.
Pioneer Sister was very impressed that Jeff drove me to Austin and watched Livi in the bookstore for 3+ hours so I could meet PW.
Apparently Jeff made friends with Pioneer Sister and Pioneer Mother in the kids' book section while I was standing in line. He had no clue who they were. Figures.



Here is Livi continuing her World Domination Tour of toy and book stores. I like that the Olivia book is right behind her. The BookPeople store is amazing - I fell in love. Too bad its all the way in downtown Austin or we'd be there every weekend.
The childrens' section employees deserve extra pay after last night - just sayin'.

It was a long wait. I was the 18th person in line from the end. Here is a pic of the end of the line to prove it. My feet hurt - of course I chose to wear my cute black heeled boots rather than comfortable shoes...

Here are my Line-Mates, Lucy and Sarah. They drove in from San Antonio. We had fun visiting whilst waiting our turn.

Up Next: Me and the Pioneer Woman!