Real Men Sleep in Pink Cribs

This was from a few weeks ago (before Julia's arrival) when we had an impromptu slumber party at the Poages! Mom, Drew, and I were in Sherman completing details on my "to do" list for the new house and we wore ourselves out. We stopped at Collin & Steph's house to eat dinner and planned to press on toward Temple that evening. But, as soon as we sat, we cratered.

Luckily, Julia's room was all set up and waiting for a baby...so Drew had a place to call home that night. Thanks Julia for loaning your room out before you could get to it!! If I never have a daughter, at least I got to see one of my children in a cute, frilly, girly decorated crib. These will be great blackmail pictures for a "macho" Drew in his teenage years, I'm sure!!

Then the next morning, we got Avery and Drew to sit and smile for a brief moment for a cousin picture or two. How cute are these two?

My Future's So Bright....

I gotta wear shades! (Remember that good old 80's song?)

It was a sunny day on Friday and we decided to take a family walk. We suited Drew up in the precious hat & sunglasses his cousins Kerry, Lona, Austin & Taylor gave him and he was just too funny!! I was surprised that Drew didn't mind wearing the sunglasses. I figured he'd try to pull them off, but I think he actually liked them.



Who could have imagined that about an hour after these photos were taken, we were loading up the car and heading north to avoid a tornado headed toward our neighborhood!!! Gotta love Texas weather!

First Lesson

Being fussy lands you in piano lessons! Drew wasn't happy this afternoon. He didn't want to eat, he didn't want to sleep, swing, bounce, sit....none of our baby contraptions were doing the trick. So, Andrew took him and played piano for him. Drew loved his first piano lesson!

Baby Babble

Drew was really talking this morning. It was so cute that I had to grab the camera. Enjoy!



Then, he hung out in his Bumbo Recliner with Dad and Kobe. Thanks Brabhams for the Bumbo. It was his first time to use it and he loved it!



His Grandma and Grandpa (The Bossens) brought him great black and white picture cards from their recent trip to Savannah, GA. He loves looking at his new cards! Thanks Grandma & Grandpa!!

Happy B-day Aunt Heather

We went to Walburg, TX to celebrate Heather's birthday Friday night. It was Drew's first night out on the dance floor, and he seemed to really love it. We went to the Walburg Biergarten, which is a wonderful outdoor German Biergarten complete with the "Walburg Boys" live entertainment. We heard a little yodeling, sat around a campfire, and had a great time! Drew was all dressed up in tiny baby boots (thanks Carolyn!) and his fuzzy blue coat. We couldn't wait to take him for a spin out on the dance floor. He had to eat his evening snack first, and then it was dancing time. He liked it so much that he fell asleep mid 2-step in my arms!

Call us Aunt Jen & Uncle Andrew...Again!!

Julia Kate Poage is here and she's absolutely beautiful!! She arrived Thursday April 17th at 3:51pm at 7 lbs, 9 oz and 19 1/2 inches long. Stephanie was a champ and seemed to have a fairly easy delivery. She pushed only 6 times and Julia was born in less than 30 minutes after the "serious action" started. Most importantly, Julia and Stephanie are both perfectly healthy!

Drew and I scurried up to Dallas as quickly as we could and made it just in time for Julia's arrival. Andrew drove up after work and was able to peek at her in the nursery for a little while. It's amazing how small babies are when they're first born. Drew isn't even 3 months yet, and he looked huge compared to Julia. They're going to be great friends, we can already tell!

So, there's another Poage in the world to love...and we're all excited about it.

I'm not 65...

but I retired anyway!! Tuesday April 15th was my retirement day. It was a very appropriate retirement day for a CPA specializing in taxation! I had a wonderful 10 year career spanning many different areas of taxation.

A trip down memory lane (probably for my own entertainment more than yours)....

After earning my Master's degree, I started my career with the now defunked Arthur Andersen in Dallas, TX (I promise, I didn't shred anything). I loved working downtown and the high energy, fast paced work life. I also really loved working along side so many young professionals, some of whom are still dear friends of mine. It was definitely a work hard/play hard life. Busy seasons were killers, but inbetween the late nights and long hours, we were spoiled with many fancy dinners, afternoons at the ballpark watching the Rangers play from the corporate suite, happy hours, and crazy April 15th parties. I learned a lot about partnership taxation, preparing tax returns, and about how much of a pain it is to track and record your every billable minute! I loved working there, but ultimately I just didn't want to work so much.

So, after Arthur Andersen, I decided to take a job with less hours (and free parking) in Richardson, TX at Henry, Held & Associates. Little did I know I was in for culture shock. Life at a smaller firm was SO different from what I was used to. I learned to love it, but it was an interesting transition. I prepared lots of individual returns, which I enjoyed. I did some small business returns, which I really didn't enjoy. I'm not a fan of creating financial statements from check stubs. I realized that proper records are a must! Right before I started working there, Andrew proposed to me, so I was only there for a brief year before moving to College Station after becoming Mrs. Andrew Bossen.

In College Station, I worked for Durst, Wood, Milberger, & Associates. Interesting place. You couldn't find a nicer group of people, but the office was in desparate need of renovation. I had my very own office -- first time I'd ever had an office with a door. Unfortunately, I found it to be highly chlosterphobic sitting in a 6x6 room with no windows and a door that only faced out into an empty hallway. I enjoyed working there because I had a lot of client contact. I was allowed to conduct my own meetings and really work as I wanted to with little supervision. It was a mixed blessing for someone so young in their career, but it really forced me to step up and grow in my knowledge and professionalism. Andrew finished his 2nd year of med school and we moved to Temple, TX for his clinical rotations, so I left Durst, Wood, Milberger with 9 months under my belt there.

In Temple, I worked for McLane Company. I was thrilled to leave public accounting and enter industry. No more tracking clients and keeping count of how every minute of my day was spent! Initially, my time was split between state income taxation and payroll taxation. Both were completely new to me. Over time, I found that I really enjoyed payroll tax more than state tax. Fortunately, the opportunity arose where I could just focus on payroll tax, so I passed the state income tax portion of my duties on and was able to do what I enjoyed most. I started with the company as a Senior Tax Analyst and received 2 promotions in my almost 6 years there. I retired April 15th as a Tax Manager. They were 6 years of ups and downs. Very happy times, and extreme challenges. Through it all, I learned a lot about myself and the expectations I have from those I work with, supervise, report to. Most importantly, I learned that I can do anything that I set my mind to, whether or not I know anything about it ahead of time. It was a great sense of satisfaction to take an area of taxation I knew nothing about and eventually become the manager of that specialty. I will miss my friends at McLane very much (but luckily I can still go visit before we move to Sherman).

So...April 16th was the first day of my new "job" as a full time Mom! I told Drew that morning during his first diaper change of the day that I was loving my first day of my new job. Taxes were wonderful, and I'll still get to exercise that skill once a year by April 15th. But I now have higher sense of purpose and a job that will return more reward than I ever could have found in the corporate world or with a regular paycheck. I'm blessed to have had such a wonderful career as a CPA, and I'm even more thankful for my new career raising my child!

Remembering the past...

and looking forward to the future!

Tummy Time

He's not sure that he likes it yet, but Aunt Heather says it's good to do so he learns how to crawl. Here's Drew at 2 months talking about tummy time!

Sherman and St. Patty

St. Patty's Day started a really fun week for our family. Andrew was on a rotation that took him to work for a week at his future practice in Sherman. Drew and I didn't want to be home alone, so we decided to tag along with Andrew. It was Drew's first road trip! It's amazing that someone who is only 20 inches long can require enough gear to completely fill up an SUV to be able to live away from home for a week!! But, we got it all packed up and we made the 3 hour trek to Sherman. Drew actually traveled really well.

It was an active week for us all! Drew's adventure started Sunday night with a true Cajun Crawfish boil at Bill's house (Andrew's future partner). Bill boiled over 100 pounds of crawfish for friends and family that night. It was kind of amazing for this non-cajun family! Drew didn't partake of the crawfish...but he had fun looking at them. They taste really good -- but it's best to eat them in the dark so you don't quite see what you're doing!

The rest of the week was full of meetings and planning for our future. Andrew loved getting work at the practice during the week. He shadowed Dr. Burilingame and met several patients who will become his patients when he starts work there in July. Bill, Bob, and Andrew took "white coat" pictures to use in their new advertising once Andrew comes on board. The pictures turned out great and Andrew was really excited to officially be in the group!

We went up to the practice for lunch on Monday and introduced Drew to everyone. There were so many friendly faces and people who were really excited to meet our little guy. Andrew is lucky to be working with such a great group of people!

The next order of business for the week was to check on the house. There was still so much that needed to be decided! We worked on plumbing, flooring, countertops, window coverings, paint colors....you name it, we had to pick it. The most fun part (for me) was our trip to Durant, OK to pick out our granite for the kitchen. Ashley Boothe (the decorator for Boothe Homes) went with us to help us make our choice. She also brought her 4 month old son Clay, so Drew had a playmate along! It was fun to think that Clay and Drew could be great friends since they'll be growing up in Sherman together!

Stephanie and Avery even came to see us in Sherman one day! It's going to be SO wonderful living only 1 short hour away from my sister! Steph hadn't toured Sherman yet, so it was fun to show her around. We looked at the house, ate lunch, relaxed at the hotel, tried to get a good "cousin" picture, went out for ice cream, and had tons of fun!

Drew and I also got together with some girlfriends of mine who lived in Temple but are now up in Sherman. Cheryl Plauche (Bill's wife) and Anne Turner (friend from Temple whose husband is now a Cardiologist in Sherman) met us for lunch one day. It was fun to catch up with friends and even more fun to know that there are already some friendly faces waiting for us to get to Sherman! Moving is much more fun when you already have a friend or two in town.

Before we knew it, our week in Sherman was over. It's such a bittersweet time of life. We're really thrilled about our future in Sherman and excited to get started up there, but we're treasuring every last moment we have here in Temple and the friends and the life we've built here over the last 6 years.

I'm dreaming......

of a White March?? I'm a little behind on the blog posts so this is old news, but we actually had snow in March!! Drew got bundled up and Andrew ran him outside really quickly before the snow completely melted. When we woke up at 6am, our whole yard was covered in thick chunky snow. By the time these pictures were taken around 9am, most of it had melted. But, it was still Drew's first snow experience. He didn't really seem to care, but we sure thought it was fun! Happy Spring!