A Day Destined for Quinn

Yes, May 7 was the day destined for our baby girl's arrival.  We were planning induction for that day since I had good progress and I was ready for our newest little lady to make her appearance for many reasons.  It's always nice to have things somewhat planned, too when there is a big sister to consider care for.

Honey and PP made their way to Austin on Monday afternoon to be here with Reese while we headed to the hospital at 5:30 the next morning.  Not sure why, but I decided I should eat the same meal as I did the night before Reese was born, so we all dined on Pei Wei takeout on the deck.  Bedtime routine with Reese was done before 9, and I was in bed by 9:30 since I knew it would be a long day on Tuesday.  Little did I know it was going to be much longer than I had anticipated.

I think I finally dozed off around 10:30 that night and was up at 12:30 am for a bathroom break and some contractions.  I'd experienced a lot of Braxton Hicks throughout the majority of my pregnancy and these seemed about the same, but quickly things began to progress.  I played a few mind games with myself wondering if I should call the doc, go in early, etc since I was already scheduled for that day.  I realized that I was not going to be going back to sleep so I decided to take a long hot shower and get ready for the day, because what I DID know is that I was going to have a baby that day and I might as well TRY to look and feel fresh.

By the time we left for the hospital around 3:30 am, I was having contractions every 5 minutes or so and it was PAINFUL.  We were already about 5 minutes from the house when I realized I'd forgotten my purse, so we had to go back because I figured I would need my DL for paperwork etc.  The ride was pretty miserable.

After going to a few wrong doors because of the hour, we finally made in to L&D and into a room.  I was already a 6! By the time I got my epidural I was an 8 and so incredibly relieved that now I could rest a bit.

After a mere 5 minutes of pushes, our newest little lady, Quinn Mae had arrived at 8:41 am, weighing in at 7 lbs 12 oz and 19 inches long  My first thoughts were how much she looked like JP and how much she looked like Reese when she was born.

We are smitten with the newest member of Team Parker!

Another Fab (and Shab) Wedding Weekend

We survived another crazy fun wedding weekend, but that coupled with the 4th of July, has kept us recovering for several days.

Congratulations to Cyndi and Trae Schultz on your recent nuptials...and what a great celebration!  JP and I started it off on Friday with all of the guys from the wedding party over at the casa.  Let me just say, things get a bit rowdy with a bunch of guys together, kickin' the party off at 9 am on a Friday morning--I can only imagine what the bachelor party trip was like in Vegas.  Then we headed out to the Salt Lick in Driftwood for rehearsal dinner at Thurman's Mansion.  We love the atmosphere at Salt Lick, but had never been to an event at Thurman's Mansion--what a great place for events!  I could also picture a beautiful indoor/outdoor wedding here.

Saturday took JP to lunch with the grroomsmen at Iron Cactus, so Reese and I met up with all the grandparents for brunch at Taverna--one of my faves!  Who doesn't love delish italian fare and $1 mimosas...I mean, really...you can't beat it!  We decided to not take Reese to the wedding with us, so she stayed with the Beverly's again.  I think Reed and Chase are beginning to think she is their little sister...they are so stinkin' cute with her!

There was quite a bit of worry on how the weather would turn out after a full week of rain, but it turned out just perfect.  And thankfully that hurricane gave us some action, because otherwise it probably would have been 100 degrees and miserable.  After a beautiful ceremony, I began sipping on Sweet Leaf Tea and vodka out of a mason jar and didn't put it down all night---yummy!  The venue, Vista West Ranch, was a perfect backdrop for a Texas Vintage/Shabby Chic affair and all of the details dovetailed perfectly.  We left Reese behind on this one, knowing that one of our fave Austin bands was playing and knowing how loud and rowdy things could get.  If you've never heard (and seen) LC Rocks, you should!  They are an 80s cover band that never disappoints.  And let me tell you...they live their work...check them out!

they passed out these awesome sunglasses when LC Rocks started singing "I wear my sunglasses at night..." and I've been wearing them ever since.

Cyndi and Trae, I hope you are enjoying your honeymoon...see you soon!

Another House Divided

Last weekend, the time had finally come...Shelley and Matt's nuptials.  We've been looking forward to this for quite sometime, and let me tell you, the weekend did not disappoint.  There was literally no detail left undone. 

A quick history of this lovely couple, for those of you who don't know:

• Shelley: one of my besties from Texas Tech and Theta sister!
• Matt: friend of JP's from UT...they worked together for the football team while they were students and now Matt is Equipment Manager for UT Football

These two are so special to us and we are absolutely thrilled to have two great friends ready to spend the rest of their lives together.  And we must not forget, they are now members of the UT/Tech House Divided fraternity....woo hoo!!!!

Thursday: A fab Tex-Mex dinner at Matt's Famous El Rancho and then on to the Broken Spoke for a little two-steppin'.  Shell's fam was in from out of state so they enjoyed dance lessons, too!

Friday: The Bridesmaid's brunch at Iguana Grill overlooking the lake while the boys played golf at the UT Golf Club.  The spread was amazing...my fave was the fried eggs on top of toast and ham with poblano cream.  Of course, great margaritas for lunch on a Friday were all I needed to get the party started! 

Then we headed over to the Lakeway Resort to check in and get settled.  Of course, the highlight of Friday's festivities was the rehearsal dinner.  It was at the UT Club at DKR stadium and absolutely not one detail was left undone.  When we arrived by the provided transportation (awesome, I must say, to have a few drinks and not worry about who is driving home) we were greeted by Bevo himself.  Funny thing is there was quite a bit of foot traffic around the stadium and there were lots of crazies trying to get their pic with Bevo, but we kept shooing them out of the way, because really he was there for OUR party. 

Shelley had worked to get the Masked Rider there too, but Transfer of Reins to the new rider was 2 weeks prior and there was already a Tech event scheduled that day for the rider to be at.  Up in the club we were greeted with amazing decor sporting a tailgate theme and the godzillatron was in full effect congratulating Matt and Shelley. 

There was even a video toast recorded from Mack Brown himself given to the lovely couple.  I know it was so special for them!  We had drinks galore and feasted on typical tailgate fare with a slider bar...it was yummy!  Except for the venue of course being in Austin, everything was divided between Tech and UT.  Even the cocktail napkins were UT and Tech jerseys.  We ended the evening with a trip down to the field for a few pics and practicing our run through the endzone.  It was such a great party and of course a great primer for the big day.

Saturday: Pretty much consisted of a laid back morning and afternoon of gettin' ready, yummy food and mimosas.  It was just so fun to be in a wedding with so many other GREAT friends!  The wedding itself included another mention of the Rutherford "house divided".  The night was so "shelleyfied". Hot pink and orange lighting EVERYWHERE lit the entire venue overlooking Lake Travis, coupled with beautiful flowers and feathers.

Food was amazing...cedar plank salmon with dill, grilled veggies, pasta salad, broccoli salad, mashed potato bar complete with french fried onion strings, caviar and blue cheese, brisket sliders and mac and cheese!   Can I go back and get some more?  My only disappointment was not getting any dessert (wedding cake, of course, along with fried pies and Blue Bell homemade vanilla for the grooms cake) due to my gallivanting on the dance floor.  And my little lady was such a trooper all weekend...she didn't want to miss a thing!  I don't think she slept for more than 30 minutes at a time on Saturday and even those little cat naps were few and far between!

thanks to Maurer Party of Five for a great family photo!

"And after the show, it's the after par-tay, and after the par-tay, it's the hotel lobby..." And what would a great wedding weekend be without an exceptional after party!?  Honey was gracious enough to let Reese sleep in her room, so JP and I, accompanied by a tub of Cheesy Poofs (which Erika is kindly displaying) enjoyed the evening...errr morning to the wee hours.

Sunday: RECOVERY!

So here's to The Rutherford's (man, I'm gonna have to get used to that!)...may God bless you as you enjoy a lifetime of happiness and a very happy HOUSE DIVIDED.

5 Year Jaunt

Wow...time really does fly when you're having fun!  JP and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary last weekend and what an amazing ride these past 5 years have been, especially this past year as we welcomed Miss Reese into our lives.

We weren't quite ready to head off on a big trip without Reese, so we decided to just enjoy this great city we live in for the majority of our Saturday.  As we both mentioned earlier, Reese was well taken care of by the Beverly's, so we decided to jaunt around Austin and enjoy the beautiful day.  The rule was we couldn't go to any place we had been before...and we stuck to it!

Our first stop was the Shuck Shack on East Cesear Chavez.  Such a great outdoor place, complete with a bocce ball court and horseshoes.  We were really looking forward to some raw oysters and come to find out, their shucker doesn't arrive until 4:30, so no raw oysters until then.  Instead we had the ceviche, which was quite good.

Next stop, 2nd Street District.  We headed into Lambert's for a refreshing cocktail and their gourmet frito pie.  Let me just tell you that this thing is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! It's basically fritos, a little bit of brisket, goat cheese, homemade green chile queso and a little pico de gallo...I could have eaten 3 orders of it on my own!  Then we headed to La Condesa, which is supposed to be famous for their ceviche, but since we already had our ceviche fix at Shuck Shack we decided on the nachos.  They weren't your traditional nachos, but oh-so-tasty!

My friend, Megan (who recently moved to Austin) met up with us and since she lives downtown, we decided to go soak up the evening sun a bit on her rooftop pool.  It really has such an amazing view of Lady Bird Lake, the Congress bridge and the Austin skyline.  We hung out until the sun went down and even watched the bats fly...something we hadn't done yet, either.

that line in the sky are the bats

Finally, 9 o'clock rolls around and we figured we should probably go grab some dinner.  We decided on Vespaio on South Congress and it did not disappoint!  I think we got on the wait list around 20 minutes after 9 for a 45 minute wait, but luckily we were able to find a tall top in the bar a little sooner.  JP and I love sitting in the bar, but Reese is usually with us and it doesn't work so well with a baby, car seat, etc, so it was a treat!  The food was AMAZING!  They had a special of the day, which was gnocchi with a tomato cream sauce, avacado and lobster, but much to our dismay, they were sold out.  Of course, my wheels start turning (I was determined to taste this treat) and I'm thinking they are probably sold out because they were out of lobster, so I asked about just getting the gnocchi without the lobster and it worked!  Even better...they added shrimp to it!  JP and I shared that along with the veal saltimbocca.  Oh and how could I forget our awesome appetizer...just made fresh mozzarela on top of an artichoke puree and tomato puree served with foccacia bruschetta....DELECTABLE!

So, can you tell we are foodies?  A good cocktail or glass of wine accompanied by a good plate of food and conversation is all we need to celebrate and remind us of what an amazing 5 years it's been.  Love you, babe!

3 Months

I'm sure you can all relate...you hear it time and time again, "they grow up so fast" and "love every minute because it goes by so fast".  Everyone who has ever uttered these words is absolutely right!  I cannot believe that Reese is already 3 months old--time really does fly by when you're having fun.

Speaking of fun...Miss Reese is more fun everyday.  We see a little more personality out of her everyday and quite honestly, she cracks us up!  She is quite the chatty little baby.  It will be interesting to see what she talks about once she actually has a vocabulary, because I can only imagine what she intends for all of her interesting sounds to be as they are today.  And I swear she is growing like a weed!  JP and I look at her some days and see noticeable differences from the day before...it's wild!  She really is putting on the baby chub and I love pinching that sweet meat! She is also learning new tricks everyday.  Last weekend Honey taught her to sit up on her own in the Boppy and boy is she proud little baby! She also loves sitting in her highchair and watching whatever I have going on in the kitchen...and tells me all about it, too!

Along with her 3 month birthday (last Thursday), Reese also experienced another first this weekend--her first sleepover (without the 'rents).  JP and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary on Friday.  Our cousins (and friends), the Beverly's, were also begging us to babysit, so it was perfect timing.  We dropped Reese off around 1 pm on Saturday and didn't get her back until 2 pm on Sunday.  JP and I stayed in town, but sure enjoyed a beautiful afternoon and evening around the ATX hitting up a string of places we had never been to--it was a blast--more to come on our destinations a little later.  Reese enjoyed watching the Beverly boys' baseball games on Saturday, attending their school carnival and more baseball on Sunday--thank goodness she likes to be on-the-go!  We really enjoyed ourselves, but it sure was great to have our little lady back home on Sunday!

Here are a few pics of the little lady lately...

A Beautiful Day

On Palm Sunday March 28, 2010, our baby girl became a part of Christ's family through Baptism.  It was such a beautiful day and extra special since the event was shared with my 28th birthday.  Miss Reese fussed through the majority of it, but as soon as the water hit her head, she was quiet.  We use bathtime at our house to make her happy, too!

with Reese's sponsors Matt Parker and Joe & Pam Lowke

Reese's Christening dress was hand smocked by Honey and made by an employee of my mom's.  It turned out absolutely beautiful--just as I imagined it.

We enjoyed celebrating with several of our local family and friends afterwards at the house and enjoyed the back yard and beautiful weather.  We feasted on chopped beef barbecue sandwiches, baked potato salad, chilled haricots verts (french green beans) with feta, and Emeril's Blue Cheese Waldorf salad.  Everything was so tasty thanks to Grammy and Honey for helping (especially since our Atlanta trip was earlier this week)!

Oh, and how could I forget the scruptious Tres Leches cake (with Reese's monogram on it, of course) !?  I ordered it from Austin Cake Studio and it did not disappoint in decoration or taste.  I was originally going to go with Italian Creme, but considering it was my birthday too, I was a bit selfish and picked my favorite!

Finally, the Grandpa's saying goodbye before heading back to B-town...so sweet!

Brenham Babies

I think we might be entering the next baby boom...at least if you are from or live in Brenham.  When I announced that we were expecting, there were several others that I grew up with and went to high school with that did the same just before or just after, and I tell you what....they just keep coming!

A couple of weeks ago, we headed to Brenham to see Amy and Will in from Augusta.  Will was born about a month before Reese and several of the other new babies were there too. 

William Ashley and me

 As I looked around at the crowd attending the Sip N See, I noticed that for the most part everyone there was either expecting, recently had a baby, or a grandparent to one of the babies.  We had fun lining up all the little ones for a quick photo opp and it was quite hilarious watching the newborns fall over on each other, the older ones touching all over the newborns and of course the ones that won't sit still for a picture.  Many more fun times to come with these little ones!

lining them up

craziness!

Sue and Karla with Reese and Madalyn

our first attempt at a family photo...must be something really interesting on the ceiling!

First Trip to Brenham

Yes, Saturday was Reese's first trip to B-Town and she took it like a champ.  It was a quick daytrip, so I apologize for to everyone we weren't able to see on Saturday.  The occasion was my nephew's 2nd Birthday.  The big day was actually in December, but with all the craziness of the holidays going on, Matt and Lauren decided to have "the ultimate 2" celebration, that is 2 year, 2 months, and 2 days...and I must say it was a great one!

yum-o carrot cake cupcakes

trucks, trucks, trucks was the theme so Grammy made cookies to fit

Along with Beckett's big day came meeting some of the fam Reese had yet to meet, including Great-Grandma Karcher and Aunt LaVerna Landua.  These two ladies are both very special to Jonathan and me and I know they will be very special to Reese, too!

And now, for the cousins!  Emma and Beckett (and Finley, though he doesn't realize it yet) got to meet their new cousin.  It was absolutely adorable to see them ooh and ahh over her and give her hugs and kisses.  Parker holidays just got a little more fun, adding one more cousin to the mix and Emma will actually have a girl to play with, since all of her other cousins (and brothers, of course) are boys!  Let the house-playing begin!

Finley Foo

Kisses!

A Beautiful Day

Our lives changed forever at 2:06 pm last Friday--and for the absolute best! 

It all started with my weekly appointment on the previous Wednesday.  The docs office was very busy and finally after waiting 1.5 hours in the waiting room, I finally got taken back to an exam room.  One of my doc's nurses came in to do my check, since I know they were trying to make up some time to fit everyone in before the end of the day.  I was 2 cm dialated and 60% effaced.  Being that IBP's due date was the following Monday and a mere 5 days away along with my progress, she began talking about the option of induction.  I have been against inducing all along because of some of the horror stories I had heard about extremely long labors, often ending in C-sections, etc, etc.  JP wasn't with me at the appointment, so I really wasn't making any decisions then and there, but as soon as I left the office, my mind began wandering.  Should I do this?  When? I wonder if things will be as easy as the nurse lets on? Then I began thinking that we were about to be upon the weekend and I knew that my doc was not on call, so if IBP came over the weekend (which had a high probability per my doc), a different doc from the practice would be delivering her.  I picked my doc for a reason and really wanted him to do the delivery, so I was gravitating on the side of inducing.  After several rounds of phone tag with the office and several questions, we decided to book it because a Friday morning check-in was available.

So, we were set and as soon as we made our final decision on Thursday afternoon, everything began to feel so surreal.  Alarm sounds at 3:45 am on Friday (after JP and I both tossed and turned all night) and our beautiful day began.

final preggo pic and about to leave the house

We checked in to the hospital at 4:45 am and by 5:30 am, my IV was in and Pitocin started.  Around 8:30 am, the doc came in to break my water and things really got going then.  Progress continued and I finally got the epidural at about 6 cm and what a difference it made!  Love the epidural!!! 

staying connected during labor

quick house divided pic with Dr. Seeker and my nurse Kessa

At 1:30 the nurses began breaking down the table and calling the doc in because IBP was near.  After less than a half hour of pushing, our little beauty was here!  The experience was absolutely amazing and the end result words cannot explain.  We have been living on cloud 9 ever since!  We are absolutely in love with our Baby Reese!

loading up to go home

she has stolen our hearts!