Zoe

An early birthday present for Hope - her very own, REAL doggy.

Hope has become quite the lil momma over the last 72-ish hours. She holds Zoe almost constantly and carries her around like a baby. It reminds me of the relationship I had with Pepper Sr. when I was about Hope's age.

{Love the boots.}

Before we got Zoe, I told Hope that she would have to take the puppy to go potty and clean up after her and feed and play with her. Of course she agreed. She has held up her end surprisingly well. I thought for sure she would disregard what ever instruction I may have given to her before the puppy and just assume that "mom would handle it". However, she's taken ownership quite nicely, and I see some pride in her eyes as she takes care of her puppy. If only she was old enough I could hand off the night time puppy responsibility to her. That would be great.

Zoe is wonderfully patient and rolls over on her back when she sees Hope coming like she knows she's about to be picked up. She is playful, but not overwhelmingly so and she is small enough that she can't knock the girls over.

Ever since "the incident" several years ago, involving a puppy, Hope's ear, and a few stitches...*sigh*...Hope has been a little skittish around dogs. I was concerned that she might be too scared of any dog that we adopt and it would take some time for her to get used to it, but she took to Zoe right away.

One of Zoe's favorite things to do is chase the kids around the backyard. At first Eden was scared, but then she realized they were playing and couldn't stop giggling.

Zoe likes to bury her nose in the grass and pull clumps of it out at the roots. The kids think this is rather silly, but I think I may teach her to weed the garden. :)

Eden picked some flower weeds for the dog. I think she might have eaten the top off one. Zoe...not Eden.

Zoe enjoys being outside but isn't out for long before looking for shade to rest in. The trampoline is the perfect place. Also perfect cause the kids like to play under there already.

She's a snugly little thing. On the way home from picking her up she sat in Noah's lap and fell asleep while Hope sang her a lullaby. So far she has been sleeping with me at night, simply because I am not used to waking up several times during the night anymore and I don't want her whining to wake Ben and the kids. The good news is that Eden slept with me for at least the first year and a half of her life so I am accustomed to sleeping with little wiggly beings. I'm devising a plan on getting Zoe to sleep in her kennel throughout the night though. I just have to psych myself up to lose some sleep or perhaps sleep on the couch for a few nights. Hm, why did we get a dog again???

Originally we were looking to get a Border Collie. After a couple weeks of looking they just seemed too expensive and we were worried about their herding instincts especially around Miss Chevious who could actually use some herding. Anyway, I finally found this little puppy. The mother is a husky mix and the father is a chihuahua/dachshund mix. Ben wasn't thrilled with the idea of a small breed dog, but I think after seeing Hope with her he is more than fine with it.

She has multi-colored eyes. One of them is mostly blue with a brown spot on the bottom and the other is half green/brown half blue. It is a little weird, but also pretty cool. I've never seen a dog with multi-colored eyes before. Hopefully, it isn't something to be worried about.

Noah lovingly gave Zoe one of his stuffed animals to use as a chew toy. She also likes to chew on our carpet and anything else that might be lying on the floor. So are the puppy days, I suppose. On the other hand, Muffin has barely shown his face since Zoe's arrival. Guess we'll have to work on that.

Make Believe

Every once in a while when I feel like cleaning up a bigger than usual mess, I get out the big pink legos for the girls to scatter around the house. I keep them up in Hope's closet cause I don't want to deal with the mess every day, and because it is more exciting to play with something they don't see every day. There is a mommy tip for you, rotate which toys your kids play with so they don't get tired of all of them and you don't have such a huge disaster to clean up when your kids just won't pick up after themselves. I don't have many mommy tips people, so enjoy it. Relish it. You won't hear many from me.

Hope surprised me by making horses with the legos. She told me she had made a horsey and when I turned to look I was quite impressed that it indeed looked like a horse.

Later she built some llamas, which favored the horses but were still somehow noticeably llamas. I'm not creative with legos. Give me a pile of legos and I can build you a tower, that is about it. She must get her genius from Ben. Noah helps too sometimes, but I think he mostly makes guns out of them. I don't think I would be as happy to turn around and see her holding a lego gun though.

Noah is always making little crafty things. I saved a diaper box for him and he cut it up and taped it into a duelling...thingie. I don't remember what it's called, but still impressive.

He usually uses up most of the tape and leaves the cardboard inventions lying around the house which in turn gets ruined by pairs of little running feet.

Since we haven't really been out of the house for a week and half (not including the zoo) I have needed many distractions while I take my turn being sick. I was telling Ben that I really think that mommys should be exempt from illnesses that they treat their children for. Just doesn't seem fair, does it? Anyway, out came the cute little tea set from Uncle Mike & Mark! I love this tea set, so it doesn't get used much because I'm afraid it will break. The tea pot already died a couple of years ago in the toddling hands of Hopie and today a saucer met the same demise. Sad, but it has been put to good use in the last two days.

Look closely at her lips, she is making a pouring sound for the creamer. When she first started playing with it she couldn't keep from smiling. She loves this little tea set too. Soon after Noah joined in and they started playing something like Sherlock Holmes while having "tea."

A couple of monkeys and a cat also joined. Then they were off to solve some kind of mystery and little sister found an abandoned tea party.

Look at the smile on her face. It's so GREAT! It's like she can't believe she found such treasure. She even took her pacifier out to enjoy her air tea.

A Bunch of Random Stuff...

The first two weeks of February has been somewhat eventful and stressful in our home. Lots of learning, messes, life changes and so forth. Of course there are always good times. Last Saturday Uncle Brian's family came over for a while and it was warm enough to play outside, so the kids decided to dig for treasure in the sandbox.

All they found was some cat poop (not from our cat). I wouldn't really call that treasure, but you know what they say..."what is one man's trash is another man's treasure." There were also rides in the wagon...

and lots of fun in the sun.

This is Caleb in the box.

Cameron getting ready to slide.

Caleb and Hope running around the trampoline.

Cameron and Hope taking a juice break.

Autumn, Cameron & Brian

And of course Destruct-OR in all her glory.

Noah and Hope have been saying that they want to switch rooms. I figured why not since I had done it a few months before. So I spent ALL day last Thursday switching their rooms and trying to get everything ready before Noah came home Friday. Muffin of course was very concerned/interested in what was going on and had to explore everything. He managed to jump up onto a shelf in Noah's room while some furniture was close by.

Turns out switching the rooms just wasn't a good idea. Eden still cries at night some times and it is very upsetting to Noah. When I switched the room he was right next to her room so he could hear her very well and didn't like that. Hope's bed in her new room was also an issue...so Saturday, Ben and I switched everything BACK.  *sigh* Oh well. At least it was a distraction from some of the more stressful things that have been going on.

Sunday morning Ben made pancakes.


So that was our first two weeks. It actually did snow after the unusually warm day that Brian's family came over, and Noah and Hope played outside for a while making giant snow balls. I didn't get any pictures of that though.

Another one of Noah's drawings.

"How can one read a story with no pictures in it?" - Alice In Wonderland

Lately, I have been somewhat frustrated/concerned about my blogging friends because of their lack of blog updates. I realize that life gets busy and that my friends are probably out in the actual world (as opposed to the blogosphere) experiencing life. I also realized that I don't do so well at keeping my blog updated myself. For this I quickly rationalized, "no one reads it anyway" and "nothing happens here". Well, I can't really say about the first but as soon as I finished the latter sentence I knew it was not true. There is a ten year old, four year old and an 18 month old in this house, as well as a cat. Something is always happening here.

Just this morning Eden had decided to fill the toy grocery cart with all the t-shirts from dad's t-shirt drawer. For any of you who know Ben well, you will know that this does not mean a few shirts. There were probably about 20 or somewhere close to it, piled high in the little green buggy situated near the end of the hallway. Eden was happily and quite busily waddling to and fro carrying armfuls of shirts. I was trying to make myself look like an actual human being in the bathroom so I decided to let her finish making her mess and I would pay for it, I mean, clean it up later. Soon though, Hope randomly decided to push the cart over spilling the contents throughout the hallway. Eden was devastated to see all her hard work disrespected by being spewn about the floor (much like mommy was when she saw the many, many, many once nicely folded t-shirts in piles all over the house). Eden began complaining saying bits and pieces of words-some actual, some made up. Her tone was obvious though, she was not happy with her sister and she was telling me all about it.

That was just one of a few events from this morning. I didn't get a picture of it because I didn't think anyone would care to hear about it. But look you just sat through and read an entire post about it. :)

***P.S. I just want to clarify, that although the tone of this post my be sarcastic and indicate some level of frustration with the messes that my children make that in no way means that I do not love my children or love being a mother. I may include this disclaimer in all future posts...I haven't decided yet. ***

Twinkle Twinkle - Abracadabra!

Several weeks ago when Noah and I went to Lagoon, Ben stayed at home to take care of the girls in between working from home.....and apparently, doing crafts. This is what he did, spur of the moment, all on his own. I thought that maybe he saw the idea on one of the craft idea sheets at the craft store, but he said he came up with it. This man is a genius.

 He took the girls to Michael's (I think, it might've been Hobby Lobby) and let them each pick out what would go on top. When I first saw the wands, I thought that the sunshine wand was for Hope since she has been our Sunshine since day ONE. But I guess she picked the heart and Eden actually picked the sunshine.

At first, Hope would swing her wand in the air and say a mess of words. I think it took about 24 + hours to realize that she was trying to say "Abracadabra".

Eden still sings "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" every time she see the wand.

Noah thought these were pretty cool too. He asked Ben if he could make him one. :) Muffin also enjoys watching the ribbons fly through the air and every once in a while he'll swat his furry little paw at them.

Does anyone ever get sick of me bragging about what an amazing/talented/smart man I am married to? I suppose if you do you can keep it to yourself. :}



Tea Party

Uncle Mike and Uncle Mark sent Hope the cutest little tea set I have ever seen. Hope absolutely LOVES it, and will spend hours rearranging the cups and using the tiny spoons to scoop from the sugar pot and creamer. In the pics below, she was having a tea party with Muffin. Thanks Uncle Mike and Uncle Mark!!!!

Muffin is always very interested in what the kids are playing with, but I think he was a little confused with this one.

Happy Birthday Ben!

Thirty years ago today my husband was born. Ben is truly one of the smartest people I know (actually he may be the smartest) and the most talented. He is one of the few people on this earth that could not only do anything they wanted, but do it extremely well.

I don't necessarily believe in soul mates. I believe that few people have someone that they were actually meant to be with and that all the rest simply find someone to get through this life with. I don't know if Ben and I started out as soul mates, but I do know that somewhere along life's craziness that we were divinely guided to each other.

Happy Birthday Ben, I love you!!!

Cabin Fever

It seems like everyone I know is itching for warmer weather and we are no different. This is what cabin fever has brought the Maxwell House to.

I guess a little crazy never hurt anyone.

Messy Pumpkin

Noah drew a dragon breathing fire (with a little help from Ben) and Ben got out his Skil Saw. They had a good time, and even Muffin enjoyed watching. You can see his eyes glowing in the corner of the first picture.