• I really want to redo my blog header up there, but I dread the thought of re-learning how I actually did it.  Maybe if I did a header every few months, the steps wouldn’t leave my head so quickly.
• I have a secret desire to a fabulous photographer.  I LOVE photo blogs and am hopelessly addicted to them.  I’m a photo-blog-stalker.   Maybe some day I’ll be able to get a fancy-shmancy camera and try it for myself.
• S loves to dance and sing for us.
• And she’s really loud, too.
• Huntley is still my shadow.  He never leaves my side and in fact often steps on my feet as he follows me around the house.  That’s pretty annoying when you wear flip-flops.  Crazy-lovable-huggable dog.
• After the kids are in bed, Huntley jumps on the couch and owns it.  Completely and totally.  Last night, he even stretched himself out with his head on a pillow.
• This past weekend, Chris took the kiddos and went up north a bit to visit his parents.  I love the quiet weekends of relaxation.  Sometimes a mom just needs a few days of quiet.
• And the kids got to see snow for the first time!!!  I hate that missed it but we’ve got some great videos of them playing in it.  So fun.
• A G funny story for you:  He got some Spiderman stickers from the treasure box at school and they were the kind that if you moved them back and forth, you would see a different picture.  I opened the package and moved it back and forth to show him and he loved it.  He took the stickers and stuck them all over his short and wore them like that all day.  When Chris got him, G ran up to him and said, “Look, Daddy!  My stickers!  And they move!”  With that, he moved his upper-body back and forth to make the stickers change pictures for his daddy the same way I moved the stickers themselves back and forth earlier in the day.  But since the stickers were stuck to his chest, his solution was to move his chest, too.  I laughed so hard.

Giggles, Going Nowhere, Growing Up, Uncategorized

Yesterday, on our nation’s Labor Day holiday, we walked down to the local park to let the kids burn off their perpetual energy.  I must say that it turned out to be quite the experience, especially where bugs are concerned.

I was walking leisurely along with the Hunt-ster by my side and I turned back to see where the rest of the fam was in catching up to me.  S was standing with her foot poised over what I thought was just a very large leaf.

VERY.  Large.  Leaf.

She kept insisting she was going to squish it and I couldn’t imagine why she would want to squish a leaf, but hey, she’s two.  That’s quite an imagination she has going on there.

C-r-u-n-c-h.

That was no leaf.  Look at the bug in the below picture – this was the one just like it that was encountered on our way back home.  Just like it – only HALF the size.  Yes, the bug S squished so gruesomely was DOUBLE the size of this one.

HUGE.

I’ll spare you the neon-colored details of its insides.

We play, we swing, we lounge in the humidity of an average afternoon here in the South, then venture on home.

We encountered not small spiders, oh nooooo….because mutant insects are the theme of the day ’round these parts.

We were all exhausted upon arriving home.  But none more so than Huntley.  He literally laid with his face in the water bowl.

Giggles, Growing Up

In honor of Father’s Day, how about some funny stuff my kids have done lately?

• I made chicken stock last week and put it in a juice pitcher until I could get freezer containers of the proportions that I wanted.  I should’ve guessed that S would think it was really juice.  She demanded some.  After awhile, I complied, with an evil grin on my face.  G wanted some, too.  I gave G his cup and he promptly made a face and didn’t finish it.  S gulped hers down and asked for more. I am not kidding.
• S disobeyed me several times in a row and per my promise I had to discipline her.  I sat her on the couch and asked if she wanted a spanking or time out.  She thinks for a minute, looks at me with a cute grin, and says, “Lollipop?”  I couldn’t stop laughing long enough to discipline her at all!
• This morning, Chris was sleeping on the couch because S crawled into bed with me.  He awoke to G getting out his VSmile game (video game console for preschoolers) which we had told him several times was broken and not to get out.  Chris snuck up on G and when G turned around his jaw dropped open.  He quickly recovered and said, “Daddy, go back to sleep now.  It’s ok, go back to sleep.”
• And just some cuteness…S loves having her hair brushed.  She’ll even fall asleep in my lap while I brush her hair.  But if I stop, she wakes up and makes me keep going, then she goes back to sleep again.  It’s a few minutes before she’s sound asleep and I can stop.  I love those moments.

Giggles, Growing Up

• “Have fishies.”  G’s version of “Go Fish” when I was teaching it to him the other day with his LeapFrog Alphabet Cards.
• “You going to be a big princess like S?”  G said this to me on a recent Sunday morning while he was watching me fix my hair and put on make-up for church.
• “I wuv you wotsa-wotsa-wotsa-wotsa!”  G’s translation of “I love you lots and lots and lots and lots!”  We say this to each other a lot recently.  My heart absolutely meeeeeelllllllttttttssssssss.
• (If you have modest sensibilities, ahem, little sis, skip to the next one.)  I asked G, who was sitting on the potty, if he was finished yet.  He replied, “No, Mommy, poopy not here yet!”
• (S watching Roadrunner and Wiley E. Coyote with Daddy)  “Uh oh!  Be careful!”  (Said MANY times during the show…hilarious!  She was very worried about Mr. Coyote.)  
• “Big Ouchie!”  Same show…they both say this every time a cartoon character gets bonked.
•  “Shhhhh, S, Mommy is driving!”  Said today as we were heading to library to drop off books.  It was completely random.  Why they don’t do this when I actually ask them to be quiet is beyond me!
• “Thank you, Father, for this day and bless and nourish this food to our bodies, in Jesus’ name we pray…” G’s eyes peek open as he prays over our meal “…and we’re going to eat dinner now and we have no drinks…” he closes his eyes “Amen.”  Was this a big hint??
• This one is just sweetness.  We were riding to get Cody from the vet’s office and I had Lincoln Brewster’s (?) Another Hallelujah playing.  The next thing I know, G is singing “Halleluuuuuuujaaaaaaaah…..”   Then S chimed in.  If it was sweet to my ears, I think God in Heaven was smiling, too.

Giggles, Growing Up

Meet Cody.  :)

I’ve been missing Goldie’s company a lot.  For those of you new to my crazy blogginess, you can read about my sweet Goldie here.   She’s been playing at Jesus’ feet now for about two and a half months, but my heart still thinks she is here.  I kept thinking I needed to let her back in the house, or that I heard her collar jingle, or I’d see her out of the corner of my eye laying in front of one of the doors.  

Dogs have always been a part of my life – always.  (Right, Dad?)  The only time I did not have one was during my college years.  In grad school, I rented a house from a professor on sabbatical and dog-sat his dogs for him for the year he was gone.  You guessed it – they were a Golden Retriever and another little rascal that looked like a little German Shepherd.

Then a second year, then the first year of marriage, then Chris succumbed to my manipulations to let me get Charlie, an Italian Greyhound.  I loved him, Chris not so much.  When we moved to Florida and both had to get full-time jobs, Charlie was not getting the attention that he (and most in his breed) need on a constant daily basis and I had to make the horribly heart-breaking decision to surrender him to the Italian Greyhound rescue organization.  His foster family ended up keeping him permanently and they could even take him to work with them!  Score for Charlie!  

Several months later, we were offered Goldie from a co-worker of Chris’s who could not keep her.  What a dream.  So, as you can see, I’ve spent very little time without a dog.  

I’ve been eyeing online rescue sites and other organizations for Goldens here and there, then on Friday afternoon I happened to spy an offer for a Golden Retriever on Freecycle.   However, she was eight years old.  Having small children who are not at an age to comprehend death, especially again so soon, might not lend itself to adopting another senior dog as much as I wanted to.  I did not want a tiny puppy though.  I’m not much for the tiny puppy stage. 

The discussions began.

Which breed?  Registered?  Puppy?  Younger dog?  Then we wondered off into…

Rescue?  Humane Society?  Animal Control?

We perused the websites for available dogs and spied a Golden mix puppy at the downtown location, but doubted he would be there by the time we got there.  Still, there might be other dogs?  We mapped out a plan to hit both Animal Control locations as well as the Humane Society and headed out with the kids on Saturday morning.  

I was a woman on a mission.  (Chris will tell you that is a dangerous thing.)

I felt like I was dating…or shopping for a wedding dress…waiting for that “I just know” moment.  Because I knew that when I saw the dog, I would just know.

First stop, Animal Control near our home.  Cute puppies, but nope…Chris liked one of the puppies there, though.  

(Unbelievable the number of pit bull mixes at all the locations.  Sad, really.)

Second stop, Humane Society.  Lots of dogs, puppies spoken for but none that said “take me” to me.  Very loud place, as you can imagine, but what a great organization.

We ventured downtown to the main Animal Control location…not really the best area of town, you know?  We signed in and walked the long sidewalk to the adoption building and I zoomed down the cages looking for a dog that could be ours.  

Chris said, “Tara, what about this one?”  I looked into the cage.

I knew.  

The cutest Golden mix puppy, the very same one we had seen on the website was, amazingly, still there.  I had no need to look any further.  He was three months old.  We asked to see him and play with him and off we went and it was an easy decision from there.  

I asked the lady helping us if puppies like him stay very long.  She replied, “I am actually surprised he has been here over twenty-four hours.”

I just knew.   That made me smile.  Was this an answer to prayer?

$40 (half-off Saturday) later we were gone and Cody was in my arms.  Do you know what that $40 dollars got us?  I am so impressed – a neutered puppy, all up-to-date shots, Frontline, and a microchip.  Seriously?  

Then we learned how they pay for it.  A family next to us came to retrieve their dog who had been, uh, impounded?  (Is that the right word?)  They took him home $250.00 later.  Many thanks to that family for paying for our dog’s surgery, shots, and microchip – in a round-a-bout kind of way, of course.   

The shelter named him Cody and I liked the name.  It fit.  G and S’s suggestions were “dog” and “puppy” respectively so Chris and I made an executive decision to go with a less-generic name, like, oh, I don’t know – say…”Cody”?  

He has been a dream.  We do not know how long he was stray for, his age is a guess, as is his breed – the staff vet’s best guess.  (I’ll hear my vet’s thoughts on this later today.)  But surely someone had him?  He is nearly already potty/housetrained and doing well with crate training.  In addition, there was a severe thunderstorm the first night he was here – he slept right through it.  Wow.  Goldie would’ve been in our bed.  

Ah, memories…

Time to create new ones and I cannot wait.

Oh, and just so you know…after we left Animal Control, riding home, I was holding Cody, and I said, “I can’t wait to go home and blog this.”

I’m so addicted.  Just be happy I didn’t lobby for a name that started with “G”.  Now THAT would be sad!

Giggles, Growing Up