Yesterday was my mom’s birthday. It’s hard to get someone something who can just buy anything they want for themselves. So I had to get creative. I searched blogs. I found this. And I made this:
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| This is her four grandkids in birth order. Rilyn, Ella, Asher, and Caden. I bought a big frame so I can redo it when all the grandkidsare finished being born. (By the way, I am done! My brother and sister can keep the grandkids coming…) |
Today is my brother’s 5 year anniversary to his bride, Becca! I thought it would be fun to show some pictures of his wedding for flashback Friday!
Rilyn was the flower girl at 23 months old. She never made it down the aisle (she cried), despite James’ parents waiting on the front row with a chocolate shake from McDonalds. Rookie mistake: she still got the shake at the back of the church because Papaw couldn’t resist her sweet tears, and she spilled it all over her dress. Needless to say James’ parents took her home after the pictures were taken in the church. No reception for her.
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| love this pic of her soon-to-be aunt Becca! |
I was a bridesmaid and James was a groomsman.
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Ella was only 5 months old, and I had to pump in the public restroom during the reception. I’m sure there were strange looks when ladies came in and heard the noises coming from the stall…
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| only picture I have with Ella in it (these are my cousins, aunt, uncle, and grandpa)…I had my hands full with Rilyn that day!! |
32 today!
Here is my 11th birthday posted on the 11th in ’11. 🙂
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| 5-11-90 |
Happy Mother’s Day weekend!
Here is my mom with her mom, Dorothea, circa 1953. What I love about this photo is that my grandmother (who I sadly never met), could totally get away with this outfit today. High heels with short shorts?! What a fashionista!
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| baby Norine |
And here is me with my mom. Love her. SO MUCH.
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| 1984 |
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| Mothers Day 2006 |
This past weekend, my dear husband let me have a girls getaway in College Station with some of my best friends, Jen and Denise. We stayed at my parents Octahouse, which was very relaxing and quiet. Just what us busy mommies needed!
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| Jen, me, and Denise on Octahouse deck |
We are all Aggies, and so we had a good time reminiscing as we walked around on campus and drove around College Station. Jen and I have known each other since 1997 when we met as freshmen at Aggie Sisters For Christ. The oldest picture I could find of us was March 1998 after an ASC date party. The theme was to pick a decade and dress like it. James and I just started dating here, and we were “the 1950’s”. I think Jen was too(?)
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| James, me, Jen, Kyle, Kim, Mike |
We even made Denise take a picture of Jen and I at our old apartment (the Enclave) that we lived in our sophomore year!
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| had some great memories here! |
I could include a picture of us three with beauty face masks on…but I won’t. Your welcome. 😉
Do yourself a favor and go on a girls getaway weekend, you won’t regret it!
In honor of Texas bluebonnet picture-taking season (I am taking pictures tomorrow!), and in keeping with the theme of jean on jean fashion (see post below), here is a picture of me with my brother and sister circa 1996. (You are lucky I couldn’t find the picture with my mom and dad in jean on jean too!) That year was my first experience with bluebonnet pictures because I had moved from southern California the summer before. Speaking of…I can’t believe that I have lived in Texas as long as I have lived in California. This year marks 16 years living in Texas and I moved to Texas from California when I was 16. Wow.
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Best friends are such a blessing. And Ella is so blessed to have had one since birth! (See this previous post for their baby pictures together!)
This weekend, Anna celebrated her 5th birthday with Ella and one of the things they did was take best friend portraits! This brought back some memories because back in the day (early 90s), I too, took my portrait with my best friend!
Here is Anna and Ella’s portrait:
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And here is my old school bff picture! (rocking the “all jean” look)
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| you can’t see it, but we were wearing our “half a heart” bff
necklaces! |
Here are me and Kristy through the years!
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| we’ve known each other since we were 3! |
my new photography blog!!!
Now it’s a work in progress, but I wanted to get it up and running since I had my first official paying customer photo shoot yesterday! What a blessing to be able to do what I love for other families! As of now, I have another photo shoot booked for May and 4 other interested customers! Wow!
Last summer, while reading A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller, our wonderful “facilitator” encouraged us to pray for something that we never would think to take to the Lord because it seems too selfish. But God wants to be part of all the decisions we make in our life. So my request was to pray for a photography business one day, not because I need to get a job, but because I love taking pictures and editing them! For pure enjoyment!
And now, here we are 9 months later, and God is opening the door for me to step in! Honestly, I never would of attempted to start anything right now because I feel like Austin has so many wonderful, creative photographers and there isn’t room for one more! But God had other plans. A sweet blog reader of mine left a comment and asked me to take their portraits and I just couldn’t say no to that! Seriously flattering!
So, please, go on over and check out my new photography blog! It even rhymes-JulieP Photography! Heehee!
Here is a “taste” of the photo shoot from yesterday, no pun intended. (well, maybe it was.)
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| sweet thing! |
James took a couple days off and we went to College Station to take the kids to the Texas A&M campus. James and I walked the kids around and we showed them where we lived, our classes, our first kiss…it was so fun and a beautiful day!
First stop, to visit the Bonfire Memorial.
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| Both James and I had never been to the Memorial, but we both were in school
when it collapsed on Nov. 18, 1999 |
We went to the southside where we showed them my dorm:
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and daddy’s dorm across the way
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| southside commons |
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| Dunn |
Then we went inside to the Commons lobby and showed the kids something very important to James and I-the ping pong tables. These tables are where our relationship started…long talks were held in this very room, getting to know each other…
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| James showing the kids how he played ping pong and lost to mommy a lot! 😉 |
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| class of 2026 |
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| class of 2028 |
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| class of 2030 |
No campus tour is complete without visiting Heldenfels. We both took classes in there and James was an supplemental instructor (SI) for many Chem 101 classes. We went inside the classroom to show the kids what college is really like. Rilyn asked if my teacher would remember me. 😉
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| pretending to be students in class |
We walked this route many times…
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| Academic building in background |
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I did the best I could with this picture…it was waaaaay sunny and the fountain was drained, but here is Fish Pond, the site of James and I’s first kiss.
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All Faiths Chapel, where we went to Upstream every Thursday night. Many lifetime friendships were formed here, the Spirit moving in ways we could have never imagined…
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| Kyle field |
This is new in front of the “ring building”
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| future Aggie ring wearers |
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Ella took this picture-not too bad!
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| class of 2001 |
In honor of spring break, here are some of our spring breaks of the past!
In 2000, we went to southern California with some college friends and checked out Disneyland, my home town, and Big Bear. Here we are at Huntington Beach, my “home beach” growing up.
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| only one person in this photo that we don’t keep up with-not too bad!
Becca, Scott, Matthew, James, Julie, Noel, Carson |
This is spring break 2002. We went to Las Vegas. This is us on top of the Stratosphere!
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| Halim, Jen, me, James, Noel, and Carson (by the way, Carson is now moving to
Austin, so that makes 5 out of 6 in this picture living next to each other!) |
This is spring break 2005. We went to Colorado to go skiing. We all stayed in one huge cabin, it was a lot of fun and this was the first time we left Rilyn for so long!
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| my brother Jeff, Noel (who sprained his arm on the trip), Dean, Halim, Carson
James, Kim, Angela and me (Ryan is taking the picture and the Richardson’s were there, they just brought newborn Cole and weren’t “available” much! |
Spring break 2007-we moved to Manor from Houston! I can’t believe it has been 4 years now! James looks thrilled here.
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| getting ready to load the truck |
While James was doing “the moving thing” and preparing our house in Manor for us, the girls and I were living with my parents for 3 weeks!
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| I can’t believe they were so young when we moved here! |
the paquettes 