Update on life

I'm so far behind in blogging I'm not sure where to start. It's been two weeks or so since I last wrote and I have some news! We are expecting another niece or nephew in April! yay! I love being an aunt so much. Landon and Makaylan fill my heart with so much joy. I only wish I lived closer to little Makaylan Joy so that I could see her growing up so fast! I can't believe Landon has grown so fast this past 15 months. Here's Landon (looking a little confused) in his Big Brother tshirt. His world is about to change in a few months. :) I know he'll be a great big brother.

It is definitely feeling more like fall here in Arkansas. We have our trail mix out in our house and have been trying (and failing) to not eat it all but it's soooo good! It's my favorite and it's so easy: unsalted roasted peanuts, candycorn and candycorn pumpkins and the Fall colored M&M's. Mix & Enjoy! But I'm warning you, it's addicting! You can also pop up some popcorn to serve with the trail mix... Pure heaven. Salty and sweet!
Conner and Charlie are still growing closer everyday. It makes my heart smile when I see them curled up on the couch like this. I love it! It's funny to me how animals become friends and then again, some don't.
I'm keeping super busy with my photography this fall. I've had several Fall mini sessions that were 100% successful. I still have two more to go! I love this time of year! Hope y'all are having a great fall. Hopefully I can get back in the groove of things and keep up with blogging more regularly. :)

Thank you, Columbus

This past weekend my cousin Jena flew up from Dallas to spend a four day weekend with me and Buie. Friday night we had tickets to the Rep Theater. The Ring of Fire was playing. It was spectacular! B & I are both big Johnny Cash fans. Walk the Line is one of my favorite movies and we thoroughly enjoyed this musical at the local theater. We are even considering getting season tickets because there are so many great shows coming to The Rep!

Our weekend was very relaxing. We watched lots of football and ate lots of good food and even did a even hit up some Columbus Day sales at a few antique stores. Sunday we invited my brother, sister in law and of course Landon to come join us for a little NFL action. :)

... along with our friends the Bubbus's. We ate some amazing Mexican food prepared by my amazing chef husband. These flautas were AMAZING! Fried to the perfect crispiness!

Landon's favorite form of entertainment was rolling the baby pumpkins down the front steps. Overall it was a wonderful Columbus Day weekend. Thank you, Columbus, for discovering this country so that I could have weekends like this one.

LA Tech

Yesterday was a family day at Tech for us. Every now and then we like to hang out with each other. ;) Those of us living up here in Arkansas road together and met the rest of the family for a weekend of fun in Louisiana! This was Landon first football game and first La Tech game. My whole family (dad, mom and 2 brothers and even one of my sister in laws) all went and graduated from Tech. Between the 5 of them they have 8 degrees from Louisiana Tech! ha! You get a brick every time you get a degree at La Tech - that's a lot of bricks! I'm the black sheep of the family who went to Ouachita. Needless to say, our family is big supporters of Tech and love to attend Tech football games.

Craig, Nicole and my cute little nephew Landon

Amanda, Chris and niece Makaylan

my mom and dad with their grandkids

I wanted a picture with my nephew and niece but Landon was NOT having another picture taken. Maybe next time we'll START with pics with Aunt RaRa instead of waiting til the end.

The whole family (minus Buie) who had to work. :( Maybe we can photo shop him in because wouldn't this make a could Christmas card? Landon had a blast at his first Tech game. He watched the band come by at the pre game pep rally. He clapped when Tech scored. He was a regular pro at football. He must take after his daddy.

My thoughts exactly...

In case you were wondering... this is how I feel.

But instead of resting, I'm in Louisiana with my family about to go see LA Tech play. Tomorrow I will go to church with the fam, then have two photo shoots, drive home to Arkansas and proceed to have a crazy week of shoots & editing! Oh how I love fall but it is also the very reason why I started dyeing my hair again. Fall = my busy season = stress = GREY HAIRS!

Hopefully soon I will be doing this....

but it might not be til January.

Check out my photography page for more updates and have a fabulous weekend!

Restore and After Wrap Up

I had a such a good time at Restore and After I wanted to share all the fabulous details like these amazing dog houses. I'm pretty sure I placed a bid on every one of them. The dog houses were definitely the popular items tonight. I was in a bidding war with several people to win a dog house. I told a few of my friends that I would NOT leave without a dog house. I specifically had my eye on the top two dog digs.

I thought for sure I had lost the bidding war but I dug down deep in my pocket and bid once more, all the while thinking, "it's for a good cause!" And I drove away with this beauty! Here's me and Cara, the lovely artist of the dog house.

Even though I was stressing about my "mini" project, my wonderful husband helped me finish the legs on this little foot stool.... THIS MORNING. The wood glue was drying on the way to the event. :) Nothing like a last minute project to raise $35 bucks for Habitat for Humanity. Maybe next year I'll try to do something a little more challenging.

I also had a mini table set up for Restore attendees to sign up to win a FREE photo shoot compliments of Cara Beth Photography.

Over all this is a fabulous event for a great cause. If you didn't get the chance to attend this year, be sure to come next year to bid on some great items, meet new people and mingle with local artists!

Procrastinator

Why oh why am I a procrastinator? I have always been. In every area of my life. I work better under pressure I think... which is weird because I hate being stressed. But yet here I am the day of an event in which I have to present a restoration piece and half of it is sitting on my front porch. UNFINISHED. Yup, that's right. The event is tonight and my piece is not finished. But that's what makes life exciting right? or better yet, that's what gives me migraines. I have less than 5 hours to complete the project, load up my car, charge my camera and head to the Restore and After event.

And you better believe I'll be bidding on this bad boy that my friend Cara made. She never ceases to amaze me. Secretly, I wish I had her skill... and time management for that matter.

Well, I better stop blogging and get to finishing my project. See you tonight!

Restore & After

I am participating in the second annual Habitat for Humanity Restore & After event in downtown Little Rock. Last year, my good friend Eric who is on the board of Habitat for Humanity asked me to take pictures for the event. Of course I jumped at the opportunity to support such a cause. Also, I was thrilled to be a part of the very first Restore and After event. I know that the second annual will be better than ever! I will be entering a small restore project and I must emphasize just how small it is because my life has been nuts! I will have a table displaying some of my photography and raffling off a photo shoot. Be sure to stop by and put your name in for the drawing.

All of the restore items will be up for bid in a silent auction to benefit Habitat for Humanity including mine. Here's a sneak peek:

Stop by the second annual Restore and After TOMORROW NIGHT Thursday 6 pm at The Lafayette Building, Downtown Little Rock. See you there! I'll be the one with the camera in your face. :)

Check out my Restore and After project from last year.

fresh new look

If you are reading this post then you are looking at a brand new blog design for The Buie's Zoo. Our old header was great and all but it still had a picture of Georgie on it and it was about time we switched it out and added Charlie. :) So here's to new beginnings and a fresh new look. We decided to use the pictures that Jen Amato took of us in New Orleans this summer and also one of our favorite's from last year with the dogs taken by a local photographer, Grant Harrison. You will also notice our lovely furry children each have their own picture on the right side. Thanks so much to Tricia Nae Designs for the great blog redesigns she always does on this blog as well as my photography blog.

Update on Charlie boy

We've had our sweet little Charlie for about 6 weeks or so and he is doing so well in his new family. Introducing him to his brothers and sister was a slow process, one in which we had to practice much patience. For about 2 weeks Charlie stayed in our guest bathroom. You may think this seems cruel but we wanted him to adjust to a small space before we let him loose in our entire house. Several times a day we would go in his room and play with him but he never came out of his room. After we played with him we would go sit down on our couch and let our other animals smell Charlie on us. They were very curious of the new smells coming from the bathroom and the new "meows" they heard.

This intro period is very important not to overload Charlie but also not to overload the other three animals. We made sure we give our pets lots of love and extra attention and treats so they would know we were not neglecting them. We would let each one of our pets sniff under the door to Charlie's room to check out their new brother. After about a week of smelling under the door, we would crack the bathroom door and let their paws and noses touch. There was some initial hissing on Hazel's part but it became less and less over time. Several nights we would put Charlie in his kennel and sit in out in the middle of our living room. All three of the animals would smell, sniff and yes, hiss at the Charlie and the kennel. But this stage of introduction is very important. It is crucial to let the pets already in the home get to know the new pet with some sort of barrier between them. Do not just throw them in a room together! I repeat do NOT!

After two weeks of this process, I would take Charlie out, holding him in my arms and let each of the dogs and Hazel sniff Charlie. The would rub noses, lick and do a little more sniffing all while I am holding Charlie. We did this process for several days, several times a day until they all became less anxious and there was a lot less hissing going on from Hazel.

Finally the day came when we put Charlie on the ground and let him go in our house with NO other animals around. He explored and climbed and sniffed. It was glorious! He was in heaven. Then we let one animal out at a time in the house to explore and play with him so he was not overwhelmed. Because the other animals had been introduced to Charlie at such a gradual pace, this last phase of introduction was not traumatic for them in the least bit. Actually we were shocked at how well everyone got along, especially Conner.

I mean seriously have you seen anything cuter? I think the introduction period went pretty well, don't you think? :)

My Nuttso Crazy Week!

Generally speaking you can just look at our kitchen and see how our week went......

THIS IS HOW OUR WEEK WENT AT THE BUIE'S ZOO.

I actually said the phrase to B today: "I don't think our kitchen is safe for our animals." So the cats went up while we cleaned. We were afraid they would eat moldy food or drink dirty water. Gross, right? Am I embarrassed to show you this pictures? Not really. Because everyone reading this blog has had a week like this. A week where you throw in the towel and just say "I'll do it later." It might not have shown up in your kitchen but believe me, it shows up somewhere.

So this is how my week went:

8 am to noon - Monday through Thursday I filled in out my old job which involves a 25 minute drive to Little Rock everyday.

noon to 1 - drive BACK to Benton, eat a quick lunch, perhaps run a quick errand

1 to 2 pm - drive to Bryant to take care of my pups I pet sit for on a daily basis. Meet Foxy & Gloria. :) Cute, huh?

2:30 to 4:30 pm- drive BACK to Little Rock (for the second time in one day) for a chiropractic appointment. I have pinched yet another nerve and have been going to the chiro and physical therapy everyday.

Every evening this week I had something different planned: a photo shoot, serving dinner under the Broadway Bridge at Eikon, and sorting items for a garage sale.

Friday I didn't work for my old job but I DID have to go to Little Rock for a chiro appt and to drop Hazel off at the vet. Found out that Hazel has a cold but the good news is my back is a little better after a week of therapy. Friday afternoon B & I loaded up BOTH of our vehicles and drove to Maumelle to my brother's house. We set up for our garage sale and priced everything piece by piece. We finished about midnight, went to sleep, woke up five hours later to begin our garage sale.

Landon at the garage sale.

Whew... Are you tired yet? Cuz I sure am. And I'm not even done yet.

We left Maumelle around noon, drove to Rison to celebrate my mother in law's birthday with B's family where I proceeded to fall asleep on the couch (and snore) through the last half of the game out of pure exhaustion.

Mrs. Carole (my wonderful mother in law) holding her new Vera Bradley bag.

But I made it through this week. Barely.

Hopefully next week will be a little more normal and I can catch up on some blogging. I still haven't told you about my 10 year high school reunion that I went to last weekend or given you an update on the Buie's newest addition: Charlie. Stay tuned for blogging in the near future! Hope y'all have a great week and are enjoying this Fall weather!