Happy Birthday Jacob

Sunday was Jacob's birthday! I cannot believe you are five now! Such a big guy

We started the day off by cleaning Allison's bombing in her room! It was the messiest I have ever seen. It all stemmed from the week we all had the flu. We were in the house for an entire week...bored out of our mind...but no motivation whatsoever to clean up our messes. It is spotless now though! WOOHOO!

After we cleaned, we were outside soaking up the sun, and decided to go for an impromptu walk around the block with the dogs. During our one block walk we decided to walk to my mom's house...a little over a mile away. I had flip flops on...as did both girls, but I got stuck pulling the wagon with over 60 pounds in it not counting the wagon itself. It was quite a workout for me...let alone our old fat dog who literally stopped in the middle of the road three houses away because she refused to go any further. We (half) joked that she would be the one riding in the wagon on the way back... and laughed at how true the statement probably was. To her enjoyment, she was driven back home instead!

After our walk to my mom's and their roaming the property for a while. It was time to head home and head out once again for Jacob's birthday party at the fire department. Very cool... The kids got to climb on the trucks, squirt the firehouse, and honk the horns!

It was going good until Allison decided to climb up the back of the firetruck and promptly lose her footing and fall backwards head first. Don't worry...my mom reflexes kicked in, and I shocked myself and everyone there by lunging forward just in time to catch her right before she hit the concrete. Still don't know how I managed to break the fall though.

Some pics from the party...

Jacob and Allison inside the fire engine.

Chris putting the gear on to show the kids NOT to be afraid.

Big Girl Sarah in the driver's seat!

Ha...the scene of the crime...Take 2. Notice she took her flip-flops off this time!

The momma's girl in her cute hat.

Emma looks so happy! I love this picture!

Allison in the hot seat!

They even got to spray the firehose!


It was such a great day to the beautiful weekend!!!

Introducing Tucker

On Saturday, we adopted a dog. A Coonhound to be exact though I'm not sure if he is a pure bred. Dale thinks he has some lab in him too.

He is 7 years old, and the sweetest, shyest, big guy...weighing in at 100 pounds....but you would never know it. He literally tiptoes around the rooms. I knew we were used to older, laid back dogs, so a puppy was probably going to be too much for us. Though Allison sure tried hard for one. The girls absolutely love him! He is housebroken, walks well on a leash, knows 'sit', 'sit pretty' (where he sits on his butt with his front paws in the air), and 'speak'. He gets along well with Laila, and loves to lounge in the girls' rooms.

We have had him a few days now and I can definitely see him slowly coming out of his shell. I came home today from dropping Allison off at school and he came running down the stairs with his tail wagging. Very sweet.

Laila's tail was wagging when she first met him...though she is getting a little jealous now that she has realized he is likely staying! She comes running and butts in for her own personal attention any time we give him lovings.

We took him for a long walk on Sunday from our house to my mom's house, and let him run her property. He even swam in the lake, and managed to stink for a while afterwards even after a bath. But he definitely seems happier each day.

Some additional pics...

His previous owners said that he never gets on the couch, but he LOVES beds! Here he was testing out beds.

Emma's bed first...

Then off to Laila's bed...

Yep...Allison's bed is comfy too!

But I like to lay in Emma's room and watch her play.

But sleeping with my Buddy is the best!

Even though his name is Tucker...Emma rarely calls him that. In her world, she has renamed him Buddy because he is her "buddy"... When she talks about him, he is always Buddy. She would not go to bed Sunday night...and he was sleeping on the floor in her room, and that was where she wanted to be!

Big WeeK

We had a big week including the weekend, but I will do these in separate posts instead of one gigantic post. That way it gives you something to look forward to! :)

First off, it started with us finally getting over this stupid illness. Unfortunately I was the last to get over it since I didn't get the Tamiflu until 48 hours later. I still have some traces of it, but I can certainly tell a difference the weekend made.

We will start this post with this past Wednesday. Allison got an early birthday present...

A Bearded Dragon she named Oscar.

And they couldn't be happier. Like I said, it is part of her birthday present...the majority of her present, but I will get her something else so she has something to open on her birthday.

The next morning, Allison and Emma were in the car on the way to school and had the following conversation...

A: I'm going to tell all my friends that I have a lizard!

E: Me too!! I'm going to tell all my friends too!

A: Okay Emma...but you HAVE to tell your friends that YOUR SISTER has a lizard! Not you.

Ahhhh...such sisterly conversation! :)

I do have to say he is pretty cool. I was worried about him because I couldn't get his home warm enough...even with the heater, and I couldn't get him to eat anything. He also should be misted with water once a day, and I have yet to buy a spray bottle...I keep forgetting and I don't want to use any used ones for fear of what was in them. So the other day I finally picked him up and put him in his water dish...he drank a river! And I also went and bought him a heated rock to add another heat source and hopefully warm the tank up a little more.

Ha...it worked! He is a completely different lizard now. A mind of his own! Now when I put my hand in the tank, he takes off running! He no longer sits still for Allison to hold...and he is shedding like crazy now.

But she is fascinated!! And so is Emma!!!

Allison's School Picture

Not too bad for a school pic. And OMG she has changed so much from the one she got last year!

So...You Want To Know What The Kids Dressed Up As For Halloween??

We should have dressed up as Pigs and coughed on everyone! BUT...we were much nicer about it and Allison dressed up as Harry Potter, and Emma was a Bunny Rabbit. They had fun...even if Allison didn't have the hair. Though I do have to admit that I was extremely disappointed in he lack of houses giving out candy!!! Not that they needed any more than what they have already! Emma was climbing the curtains last night!

God I need a new camera!

After we walked til their hands fell off from the cold, Allison dug straight in to her loot!

While Emma took the opportunity to fall asleep and not wake up til the morning!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

Emma's School Picture

I know, I know...this is very poor quality, but this is what you get when you scan the thing in. Not too bad for a school picture! I wonder how Allison's turned out. I haven't received those yet...just Emma's for whatever reason!

Battle Zone

H1N1 CONS:

An entire bottle of Tylenol, an entire bottle of Motrin and an entire bottle of Robitussin consumed
Two packages of Tamiflu and one inhaler - GONE
A house that is desperately in need of maid
Bedding needing stripped and washed and surfaces needing bleached
A dog that hasn't had her daily nap allotment in over a week
Four doctor's visits and $200+ in medicine and co-pays
The rest of my sick and vacation time off used up
No contact with the outside world (except the sickies in the doctors offices)

H1N1 PROS:

No gas used driving back and forth to work
Spending quality time with my girls (even if it is just napping together)

Oh - and the H1N1 vaccine....PRICELESS!

OMG! I feel like I have been in battle!

It has been an extremely rough week and a half for us. All four of us (and Gaga too...sorry Gaga) managed to acquire the swine flu bug. I haven't been so sick in a long time...if ever! We are recovering. Not contagious anymore, but not well either. My lungs hurt...they feel bruised, I can't breathe and am short of breath just getting dressed. I am dizzy and lightheaded. I can't stop sweating, but I'm not running a fever. My chest is rattly but nothing comes up EVER and I mean EVER when I cough. But the irony of the situation is, I feel 90% better than what I did! Friday was my first day back to work, and was also Allison's first day back to school in over a week!

Being confined to the home for a week...THE week before Halloween...meant that we were not able to get all of Allison's costume. She had to go without Harry Potter hair, and she wasn't happy about it. We were also scrambling on Friday night to get some of the other pieces of her costume, and unfortunately, we were not able to carve pumpkins at all. The kids didn't mention it, but I felt bad! I think this was the first year we did not carve them!

The kids did manage to make a disaster of Allison's room though!!!



And the sad part is it is much worse now because when we cleaned the downstairs this past weekend, she dumped everything onto the floor...so now you can no longer see carpet. She tripped over a toy today just trying to get to her closet, and she was crying and I told her it is all her fault!

We also got some much needed rest...laying in bed watching television on cell phones!

We wore our pajamas ALL DAY LONG!



And we seriously paid at least one worker's weekly salary at Walgreens last week!

Stay Healthy! Because this stuff is HORRIBLE!

Clifford The Big Red (Invisible) Dog!

How can Clifford the Big Red Dog be invisible you ask?? Try giving him to Emma to keep for a weekend! For some of you that were lucky enough not to have to listen to me vent last week...

Emma was given Clifford to bring home from her classroom at school two weeks ago. She got to keep him for the entire extended weekend. (They were off school that Friday for a teachers day and then again on Monday for Columbus Day.) Emma loved Clifford. Slept with him. Played with him. Took him to Gaga's house. Took the car ride back home from Gaga's house Sunday night. And that is where the trail ended. I looked for him Monday night and couldn't find him. She didn't take him to Pawpaw's house on Monday morning, so he couldn't have gone far! We searched high and low though and found NOTHING...not even a scent of him! He was red. How do you lose Clifford the Big Red Dog! I found red gloves. I found a red stuffed fish. I found red socks. I could not for the life of me find the red dog! We looked in the trash cans outside...just in case she threw him away. Nope. We looked in the pantry, the refrigerator, EVERY SINGLE drawer in the house. Nope nope and nope. Under each bed, in the laundry hamper and every closet. Nope nope and nope again. Under the couch, in the couch cushions, and in the sheets of every bed. Still no red dog! We ended up giving up after over an hour of searching the house. Searching is tiresome!

Tuesday morning, I explained the situation to Emma's teacher, who having kids of her own, completely understood! Tuesday night, while I was at Target, I found another Clifford, Clifford the II, that looked identical to the missing Clifford the I. $15, but I bought him! I gave Dale strict instructions that we would not be opening the package until Thursday morning when we were leaving for school and we hadn't found him yet. Just in case I was able to get my $15 back! I searched some more that night. Couldn't find him. I searched some more the next morning. Couldn't find him.

Wednesday morning, I grabbed my coat which had been sitting on the chair, and he fell out of the inside of the coat! She hid him! I had lifted the coat up and felt underneath, but didn't think to shake the thing out in case he was hiding inside of it! Emma snatched him up and ran with him. We took him back to his rightful place at school, and intended to return Clifford the II!

Intend was the key word...because Emma has found a new place for him. In her heart!!!

Uh-Oh - What Have We Created

I can't help but stare at this picture! It so reminds me of Katy and myself!!! I see it in both of their faces. Emma looks just like me and Sarah like Katy! I remember how we were, and trust me...it worries me!!!

God made us friends because no parents could have handled us as sisters!!!

Hambone/Ms. No

But I just love her to pieces! We got to visit with her this past weekend for a little bit while Allison was trying to con the Bates' into buying 41 boxes of Girl Scout cookies! Ms. Sarah won't let me hold her much though...the lip sticks out and the pouting begins all the while she is searching so she can keep an eye on her mama! But once her mama has her...she is laughing at me and playing with me. She now shakes her head NO! and smiles and such while she is doing it. She knows she is funny!

As long as it isn't funny like her mom! ;)

Missing You

One of our favorite pictures of the boy. I was taking a picture of Allison and he popped his head in the shot at the last minute and looked at me!

It has been one week since his passing, and we think about him often. I still wake up or come home in the evening expecting him to be laying in the kitchen. He loved the kitchen floor since he was usually warm with all that hair, and it was always a cool place to be. I broke down over the weekend because I was sitting at the dining room table and caught a glimpse of white under the table. Instinct is that it is him laying there. But reality was that it was Emma's blanket. It's still hard to come home to one dog. And it is hard to listen to Emma constantly ask me where he is, or is he still sick, etc. It's hard on everyone at any given time. Dale constantly says he cannot believe there will be no more Guinness. For me, I keep thinking he is just at the vet or something. I think since we left him there and didn't bury him, it doesn't seem final. I feel like we need to go get him. And for Laila, her buddy o' pal is gone. And she is feeling the sadness big time.

We miss ya big guy...still do and always will!

Emma The Cook

Emma is a helper! She LOVES to help. She loves to be in the middle of anything, and to be included. It doesn't matter if she is picking up the toys in the living room or if she is helping get dinner ready...or even doing dishes. As long as it is made out that she is needed in order to get the job done, she is there..willing and able!

This weekend, the job entailed helping Gaga make a roast. She was so excited and took the job seriously.

She is just so cute. I couldn't help but take pictures!

She rubbed it down with salt...

She rubbed it down with garlic...


And then she sprinkled it with pepper and rubbed it all in!

She did a great job! No telling where Allison was during this...probably playing as helping with this stuff is the last thing she wants to do! :)

To Be...Or Not To Be...

For Halloween this year, I think I may have mentioned before that I originally had Allison convinced to be a bride. We had all the things needed since she has already been in 3 weddings, and is slated to be in her forth in 2010. This meant that I wouldn't need to search endlessly for the last piece of a costume...or that I wouldn't have to spend any money on something she will only wear once! All was well until her father mentioned that she should be Harry Potter, and then the bride went out the window fast!

Now, here I sit trying to find a gray sweater for her to wear...and also find a wig since she can't be Harry Potter without having the right hair. I should really make her dad do this since it was his idea!

But in the meantime, I went upstairs last week to find her like this...



See...wouldn't she have looked cute!?!?! But nope. She would rather be a boy for Halloween!

Warning

Whatever you do...DO NOT buy Emma makeup for Christmas!!!! The kid is addicted to it, and as you can see...makes a mess with it! You should have heard Gaga yell from the other room when she found her! :o) I knew immediately what happened! But she was proud of her new look! That attitude is the best!

Run Free Guinny Boy

There was only one Guinness. He was Dale's best friend, and he knew it. He used to think that the rank in the house went Dale, and then him, and then me. I was low man on the totem pole in his opinion, and even though we rarely saw eye to eye. He was a good dog. I can't believe he is gone.

The last two weeks were horrible for him. As I look back, it seemed like he declined so fast! Two weeks ago, we were thinking something wasn't right. I told Dale that he looked like he was having trouble eating. And that was just the beginning. Later in the week we determined that he was in pain. He wouldn't stop panting, and he would moan as he went to lay down. At the end of the first week, he was barely eating, and barely drinking. Week 2 started with him really having a rough time, and no longer eating or drinking. We were also waking up at night to him moaning or quietly whining. He no longer wanted to go outside for us, and wasn't even having accidents in the house since he wasn't drinking anything. We knew it was the end. I called the vet and talked to Dale about our options. We made the arrangements, by Wednesday morning, he was having real issues just getting up from a laying position.

I made another call to the vet and we decided Thursday evening would be the best time. It gave us the time to say our goodbyes, and we felt like it wasn't such a rushed decision. He was already literally skin and bones. You could see his ribs and spine, etc. After work last night, I bought him a whole rotisserie chicken. Chicken was his favorite. He would literally howl when we would eat it for dinner. There are no words for his love of chicken. And the boy had it for his last meal. He ate a little for Dale, but I fed him more later in the evening. He could no longer get up from his spot on the floor, so I hand fed him. He gobbled it up.

Today, when I woke up, it became apparent that what we were doing was the right thing. He once again hadn't moved from his spot in 24 hours. Poor guy. Dale and I went to work and both came home early. We spent some time with him. Pet him, tried to make him comfortable. The poor guy looked scared. worried. confused. When my mom picked the girls up from school, Allison cried hard and begged to be able to come home and say goodbye to him. She wanted to go with us and begged. Pleaded! So my mom dropped her off at the house but kept Emma. There was no way Emma could go too. But Allison said her goodbyes. She cried a little at home as she was saying goodbye to him and she cried just a little bit at the vet. Not much. She explained to us that she knew what was going to happen because she saw it on Marley & Me.

It was extremely hard for Dale and I once he was gone. And it was extremely hard for me to leave him there afterwards. We opted to have him cremated and it will be 2 weeks before we get his ashes back. We have yet to go home since we left with him. We are at my mom's right now. I really don't want to go because it becomes reality then.

He was good dog. We have lots of good (and bad) memories of him. Things that make us laugh. Things that make us smile. I can't tell you how many times that dog used to run off on us, and we would have to get in the car at midnight to go look for him. Or there was the time that he jumped in the little pond at the lake and Dale nearly had to get in to help him get back out. Or the time when he ate 15 raw hamburgers in a matter of minutes while Dale was outside turning the grill on.

Run free Guinny Boy...run free. The void was in our hearts immediately, and you are already missed desperately by the entire family. We will always love you.