Our New Baby Boy

As it happened, my loving husband and I finally, after a week or so discussing it, decided to adopt a stray male lab mix a friend found. Unfortunate for us, after having the beautiful creature for a month, she just couldn’t let him go, so our adoption hopes ended.

That’s when we realized we really wanted to add a new dog to our home and we wanted to do it soon so this dog could be close to our aging old Wally and inherit some of his quirks, hopefully the good ones :).

So with that realization, we talked....
Getting the lab would’ve broken the no-shedding and smaller dog size rules we used to think we had. Jay, a now novel fisherman and boat owner, wanted a water dog he could take out often. Whereas me, the self declared “Not a big fan of Dogs”, wanted a trickster, someone I can teach to play frisbee and fetch, and many other possible things…. we both thought of our favorite dogs we know and knew… and both had the same breed in our top 3.

The beautiful, talented, super intelligent, amazingly trainable and agile…. Border Collie!
So for our Christmas present… we adopted this little guy.

Called “Dallas” by his breeders, 7 weeks old and the only one that didn't jump on us or nip when we started to play with the litter. I called him to me and Liam, he walked to us, sat down and stared into my eyes as I talked to him, as if he knew what I was saying. I immediately melted! We’re still deciding his name and are absolutely in love! Even our Elle, who seems to take after Mom a bit more in the dog arena is in love.

We’re sooo excited to teach this guy and look forward to watching him grow with the kids.

House Full

My kid brother, DJ made it to Dallas for a visit this month. An extra special visit as we got to meet his girlfriend Randee and her beautiful daughters Raelynn(age 4) and Noel(age 3).

Thanks to my wonderful in-laws we were able to hang out at the Lakehouse for a few of those days. Between adventurous swims in the cold and hours of trampoline jumping our guests really enjoyed themselves.
It was such a treat having a house full!

Cheeri-Oh!

Little Liam has decided he is fully capable of feeding himself. That can make quite the mess. Thankfully there are the ever wonderfully, fairly safe to eat, Cheerios!
Liam may very well turn into one, he eats them so often.

The other morning at breakfast, Liam had a bit of a mishap when trying to get a cheerio in his mouth. He of course paid no attention to the cheerio stuck to his nose.

The rest of us noticed and giggled... I said, "poor little guy, he's trying his best."
Elle then responded with, "that's ok Liam, now we match." as she stuck one of her cheerios to her nose.

What a wonderful big sister!

Rock-n and Roels-n

We finally had our good friends Alain and Mary over for dinner Friday.
My have the kids grown.

Our Elle and their Natalie are right at a year apart and our bubbling baby boys are right at 4mos apart. Raising our kidos in the same town is going to be a lot of fun. I am already dreaming about the family vacations we can have!

Pretty Natalie!

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Liam and Ryan discussing something....

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Such a Cutie Pie

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Happiest little guy!

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Elle and Natalie sweet little girls

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Awe, Elle really adores Ryan.

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Giggles Giggles and More Giggles

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Although we remained busy busy busy with the little people, it was great seeing our old friends. Dinner was delicious and we hope to do it again soon!

Pumpkin Guttin and Cuttin

Halloween should be Saturday every year! It was so nice having the whole day to celebrate the holiday. Kordell even made it down.

After making some cookies, as we would need our energy, we started the prep work on our subjects. Changing an ordinarily large orange squash into a frightful Jack O Lantern takes some concentration and diligence. After carefully removing the cranial cap, the painfully gruesome task of removing its innards was at hand. In our strategy, I would do the hard task of cutting and the kids would begin the gutting. Well all kids except Liam, as I was sure he would eat it, yuck!! Imagine those Diapers!

Kordell began pulling the slime from the first pumpkin, in doing so a piece flew from his hand to Elle’s neck. Unfortunately this set the stage for Elle and this experience. As she cried for help I cleaned her neck, and sent her back out to help her oldest brother. She reached her tiny hand into the pumpkins cavity, grabbed a handful of guts and threw it in the bowl… all the while looking as if she was being tortured, or about to hurl.

A real look of horror over came her, and as we urged her to keep going… she raised her hands up, walked to me and said clearly “Nope, I don’t do this. I just don’t do this!”

I laughed, “Oh really? This is fun, you can wash your hands when we’re done.”
“Nope,” she declared, “I can’t.”
The tears and panic began to set in, and my little all girl Elle Bug HAD to wash her hands immediately.

As understanding and nice as her older siblings Jules and Kordell are, they finished cleaning our pumpkins. Daddy and Elle shared theirs and designed quite a frightful character. Elle’s drawing and imagination have really taken off. Jules and Kordell decided to try something different this year and made a cat. Turned out Great!

If anything Elle was successfully scared in the cleaning process.

Muahahahaha!