Finally....

Well, very surprisingly, it snowed tonight. FUN! You can never trust the weather people. True, I didn't get anything done tonight, but I did get to take pics of the boys in the first snow of '08!

Also, my poor Vincy boy had to stay overnight at the animal hospital. :( He apparently swallowed a ton of his bed stuffing last night while the rest of the house was sleeping. Although he was a perfectly behaved dog today while I had a guest in the house, I knew that was not my Vince and something must be wrong. So a visit to Dr. Jim proved that he had swallowed a stomach full of stuffing and wasn't passing anything. $500 later, we have a healthy dog again, but now Brian is sick! :) This, of course, brought on a discussion about how much Brian was (or was not) willing to spend to retrieve the stuff he swallowed. Apparently, Vince is going to have to curb his appetite for non-food items... there is a limit to how far Brian is willing to go with this. hehehe But thankfully, Vince has no trouble "passing" things such as Power Ranger hands, toy lizards, even parts of toy cars. And in the process, we have the added benefit of being purged of all the meaningless toys that find their way into our home. Anyway, unfortunately, Vince can't learn from experience. But we can, we've changed the bedding, you can bet, and will be more careful going forward. So, let's hope there are no more scopes in Vince's future... but who could resist this face? What a gorgeous blonde!

The new year has started off with a bang! The boys are back in school and I can't believe that we are now working on the second half of the 07-08 school year. My babies are growing up too quickly before my eyes! It's hard to believe that in this calendar year, Jack will be a nine year old third grader.

Jack is playing basketball and loving every minute of it. This has been a great year for him as his team has several friends on it and his coaches are great. The atmosphere is more laid back than last year, but that doesn't mean we aren't a bundle of nerves during the games. Last week his team lost by one point, 36 to 37. It was down to the wire and Brian and I are wondering how we will survive Middle School sports if we get this charged up about 8 year old rec. league basketball! :)

Here are some photos of our crazy days:

Dog Gone It!

It turns out that we should start a non-profit for dogs... we'll call it, "We've gone to the dogs" or some other such accurate description of our home. We have two (yes, TWO) "rescues" at our house right now. First, there is Meg, or Meggie Moo, as we have taken to calling her. She is the sweetest most precious Golden puppy you've ever seen. Don't ask me why I'm not keeping her for myself because I couldn't give you a good answer to that one. Here she is asleep in her food bowl... did I mention she is narcoleptic?

She really is a perfect pup and Vince loves her. But the real reason we can't keep her is that Vince has a major come-apart when she falls into her sleep sessions. He barks, licks, bites, paws, and generally tries to get her to wake up at all costs. It's really sweet, but I think it's a little more neuroses than I am able to deal with at this point. I think Meg has found a good home and will be going to live with her new family today. I will really miss her!

Then... there's Bogey's twin... Amy. (I couldn't resist having a friend for Vince named Amy, even if it's only a temporary friend.) Anyway, Amy is a Cocker that came up to my dad's house and wouldn't leave... so I took her in to save her life. Things of no use don't last long on a farm. Especially an unwanted dog that doesn't work, so here she is. She is available to a good home so if you are so inclined toward Cocker Spaniels, please consider her. She's sweet, but no match for my 90 pound Vince, so she too must go. Hopefully soon before we have to kennel her for the holidays.

Then, I can't leave the post without a precious photo of Meg and Vince... this is just the sweetest thing ever and I really am going to miss this precious baby!

Finally, by some stroke of luck, I figured out how to log back in to the site... I passworded myself out! :) Anyway, six months brings alot of changes in this house... we now have a second grader and a Kindergartener. We just returned from the beach and here are the highlight photos... what a great week!

Jack loved the beach. His favorite thing was a skin board that he bought. He spent most of the week trying to perfect the technique. He was fearless in the waves and actually loved the sand this year. He drove the golf cart and fished like a mad-man.

Liam was troubled with swimmers ear the entire trip, so he wasn't as lively as usual. But he was totally happy because his best friend, "Connor Hills" was there at the same resort and he woke up every morning wanting to hang out with Connor Hills and his brother, Wyatt.

Connor loved the sand, just like last year. And on the last day of vacation, he actually swam his first few strokes in the Beachside I pool. Maybe we'll have another little swim team member on our hands next year! :)

Now, I just couldn't let the post go by without sharing a few highlights photos that I think speak for themselves!

A.K.A. "the Toddler Posse"

Attack of the Babysitters (our girls Jessica and Madi), is it possible to adopt two teenagers?

A New Year

Okay, so I haven't posted in almost two months... like everything else in my life! :) But since my last post, alot has happened. We are half-way through first grade, I can't even believe it.

And we have another boy in our house,
Vince the wonder dog!

Here he is at only four weeks... awww!

And here he is on December 23 at 6 1/2 weeks. Liam told Santa that he didn't want anything else, but a puppy. So, I guess that's one way to get what you want; only ask for one thing.

Also, Connor is officially, sort of, pretty much potty trained. Does one accident a day count? So, life is always changing around here. We'll update you some more later. Check out my link to Shutterfly galery for more photos from our fun and crazy Christmas. http://www.ephesiansone5.shutterfly.com/action/

Thanks for visiting!

The Joy Project

The Joy Project

Weekend on the Farm

What a weekend we had at Pop's!

I love this photo of the boys walking down the road together; tired, dirty, and happy!

We met Pop at the lake for some fishing, then the boys had a grand time at his house... getting as dirty as boys can be, riding tractors, three wheeling, and "burning stuff".



Liam caught his first fish ever! It was a small blue gil. He was so excited. But when he tried to pick it up it finned him and he slapped it! :) That's our Liam. Brian says he is "Arlis" on "Old Yeller".

This pond is behind Pop and Trish's trailer. We built a fire, roasted hot-dogs and marshmallows, and had some very tired boys on the drive home.


Brian was in hog heaven getting a son to actually watch part of a football game with him. Bad news though, it was UT! :P
http://www.shutterfly.com/view/pictures.jsp For more photos of this fun weekend, check out the photo album at Shutterfly!

Sleepovers and Big Bugs

The boys are wrapping up their summer with a big bang. We had an impromptu sleepover with our friends, Hunter and Chandler.











Today we found the biggest moth I have ever seen. It's called a Polyphemus Moth (we looked it up on the internet.) It's a female and we (mostly me) are hoping it will lay some eggs and we'll get to see some more of these gorgeous "birds" in the spring. It's really cool. Her wingspan was about 5 1/2 inches. Here's a photo of her on Jack's hand.
Jack is turning out to be alot like his mom in terms of caring for creatures. Yesterday he wanted to stop the family walk to "rescue" a little dog that was running around the neighborhood. Today he was very intrigued by this moth and wanted to keep her. The body of this moth was as big as the end of your thumb, very thick and had "feathery" stuff on it, very soft. I was afraid to hold it because it felt kind of gross, but Jack loved her. :)

Speaking of walks, the nightly walk has become such a part of our summer routine that Connor gets very upset if we don't get up from the table and walk out the door. Don't know how he will adjust when it's cold.

Tonight was fun, we ran into our neighbors during our walk and the boys ended up just riding scooters, bikes, trikes, and roller blades with about six neighbor boys while all the parents chatted. Gotta love the summer nights! :)

End of Swim Season!

The boys had their last swim meet yesterday. It was great. They are both great swimmers and Liam has really improved through the team this year. They call him the polar bear because of the lumbering way he moves through the water, but he is actually very efficient and is faster than he looks. He went from getting participation ribbons in the beginning to winning third and even some second place ribbons in the last two meets. Quite an accomplishment for a guy who's swimming against many kids who are twice his size and almost two years older than him.






Connor is growing and talking like a big boy. He can say anything and gets his point across, sometimes with great emphasis! He has started to swim like a master with his life jacket on, which makes my time at the pool significantly easier. We have really enjoyed the summer together.

Brian's family visited from Ireland this summer. What a treat that was. The boys are so fortunate to have gotten to spend a good amount of time with their Irish cousins and form a bond I think they will hold on to. They fell in love with all of Brian's family and we all had a great time together.