Do512 Family - What to do in Austin with Kids

Do512 Family - What to do in Austin with Kids

Heart to Heart with Lani Ripple, Mother of child with CHD

Do512 Family Featured Babymakers, Claire and Lauren from M.I.L.K. (Moms I’d Like to Know), recently interviewed local mother, Lani Ripple. Ripple’s daughter was born with a Congenital Heart Defect. This is her story.

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In honor of Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week, (Feb. 7 – 14) we’re bringing you the story of our long time friend, Lani DeGuire Ripple. Her daughter was born four months ago with a CHD and, since then, Lani has done everything she can to educate herself on her little girl’s condition. She was kind enough to share her experience with us- the good, the bad and the ugly- in an effort to put the spotlight on CHDs.

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HAVE YOU ALWAYS KNOWN YOU WANTED TO BE A MOM? I think I always kind of assumed that I’d be a mom someday, but I didn’t give it much thought in my younger years. Once we started trying (and trying and trying) to have a baby, the desire definitely grew stronger.

WAS CONCEIVING EASY FOR YOU? Oops, I gave my answer away in the previous question. I didn’t take fertility drugs or have any treatments or anything, but it did take a while to get pregnant- both times. I don’t tell many people about this (so why not start on the Internet?), but we actually lost a baby at 13 weeks during the summer of 2011. The baby had a very rare chromosomal abnormality, and the pregnancy simply wasn’t viable. It was devastating, and I remember thinking “this is the hardest thing I’ll probably ever go through.” Turns out I was wrong. Just so there’s no confusion, our first baby’s rare condition and Nina’s rare condition are completely unrelated. It seems lightning really does strike twice sometimes.

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MomCom 2014 Wrap Up

There was a lot of WE and a lot of Learning, lots of laughs, some tears, plenty of wisdom-sharing, wine, food, friendships and fun. Do512 Family managing editor, Jamie Jett, attended the conference for her third time, here are her thoughts…

Musician Elizabeth McQueen is Remixing her Life

Do512 Family Featured Babymakers, Claire and Lauren from MILK {Moms I’d Like to Know}, chatted with former member of the band Asleep at the Wheel, Elizabeth McQueen. McQueen has recently gone solo and she took some time to catch up with the ladies from MILK about her latest album, her upcoming show and what it’s like being a musician and a mom. You can win two tickets to her upcoming show by leaving a comment on MILK’s original post explaining why you need a music-filled night out! 

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Photography by Todd V. Wolfson
Photography by Todd V. Wolfson

It’s been two years since we last chatted with the lovely songstress, Elizabeth McQueen. At the time she was living the rock mom lifestyle, touring with Grammy-nominated band, Asleep at the Wheel, and taking her two young daughters on the road. Back then, she told us the adventure would end when her oldest daughter started kindergarten. That time has come, along with exciting new opportunities for her solo career. She describes the fear and fun of leaving a good gig to follow her own beat.

What have you been up to as a musician? What have you been up to as a mom? Has it really been two years? That seems so crazy, because in my mind y’all came to my house just the other day. But that seems to be the way of things these days. It seems like time speeds up exponentially with each child we add!

Musically, I’ve been traveling with Asleep at the Wheel for the last two years, playing shows all over the country and Europe. We’ve taken the kids with us to almost every state in the lower 48. And last year we took the kids and my parents to Europe on a tour. It’s been pretty amazing. An epic family vacation and lots of music all at the same time.

But that era of my life just came to a close. After eight and a half years with the band I played my last show as a member of Asleep at the Wheel on New Years’ Eve. It’s a very strange feeling to think that from here on out I won’t be in the same band as my husband, Dave Sanger; that we won’t be taking our kids with us on the road and that I won’t be playing Western Swing for a living.

On a solo level though, my main focus has been working on the “Laziest Remix” EP with my friends from St. Louis, Brothers Lazaroff. Almost exactly two years ago, we decided to see what would happen when they took a couple of songs from my 2010 release “The Laziest Girl in Town” and imbued them with their influences — noise rock, hip-hop and R&B. We’d been talking about melding our sounds for a couple of years, and then for fun we decided we would try it. What came out of that was so compelling to us that we decided to make a full project out of it. We mounted a successful Kickstarter campaign in October 2012, and are finally releasing the six-song EP on January 7th.

It’s been amazing collaborating with some of my best friends in the world. We went from catching up with one another once every couple of months, to talking every day, bouncing ideas of one another, and creating what I think is great music. And it has really opened me up to musical possibilities that I hadn’t previously felt comfortable with.

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