Note to Self

It happened this weekend....

My oldest son is now taller than I am. It seems like it's all sort of a blur. I was on bedrest one day and then I hollered at Charlie and said, "I think I just peed my pants!", next thing I know, there's this big kid with a deep voice hangin' out in my pantry chanting "I'm starving! I'm starving! I'm starving!".

She's in Like Flynn

Mom closed on the sale of her house and has finally moved in to the "Dog House". I took some pics so you guys could get to see how good it looks. But first take a look at how it looked when we were there...

This is the front drive-up, big appeal for her is there is no real lawn to mow. Of course she has some yard in the back, which she and her sister just got through pulling weeds and then she ran out and bought forty or fifty squares of St. Augustine, so I guess she'll be mowing after all.
This is the view from the front right angle. Note the two concrete statues of greyhounds out front, thus the name "The Dog House".

This is the side porch on the left side of the house. This entrance goes into the second living area.

View back toward the front of the house. When we lived here, the porch had no decorations, and was littered with scooters and shoes.

Front entry has vaulted ceilings, which she painted herself. This nifty new chandelier and had room for one of her biggest furniture pieces.

The front living area. (another one of my bad pics. I can't tell I've taken a fuzzy pic on the

3" x 2" screen on my digital camera.) This is the same room you saw at the top of the page with no furniture and a t.v. on a cardboard box.

View from that room into the eat-in kitchen.

More of the dining area.

To the right, the kitchen...

This is bedroom number one off of the dining area. It is the second largest bedroom, and each of the bedrooms has it's own full bath.

This is the second bedroom, off the central bathroom. Keep in mind she has painted each one of these rooms, this one she striped a pale blue and white.

This is the third of the bedrooms, across a hallway from the second bedroom.

Cute desk in the third bedroom.

The second living area, with the large french doors to the porch.

The room is large and bright with two skylights. It has really pretty dark stained concrete floors.

The Master bedroom, is huge!

The bedroom has a sitting area and a huge walk-in closet and a big Master Bathroom.

She loves the house and is excited about getting moved in. However if someone were to come along with 200 large, she might be persuaded to part with it.

Her Name is Zoey...

She was a showgirl...

okay, it's not Lola, but that doesn't mean I can't sing! :)

It took me a week, three mock elections, and finally a secret ballot. She now has a name. Everybody is still in love with her. She's only slept through the night once. I may as well have another baby. Well, I can leave her in her fence for a couple of hours while I go places. A.J. has still not warmed up to her. When Zoey is outside, she wants SO badly to be her best friend but A.J. will have NONE of it! We've been trying to pay her alot of extra attention so she's not jealous, however, she knows Zoey is staying in the house and she's not.

And the big P.S. for the week?

John has Pneumonia AND Bronchitis. And no, I didn't give it to him.

Puppies and Algebra. I'll take puppies.

I sit here with the puppy sleeping around my neck like a scarf, while Charlie and John sit at the kitchen table arguing about John's Algebra homework. Boy what memories that brings back! Charlie was the one who argued with me about MY algebra homework when we were in the ninth grade. I still don't get it. Guess who got my algebra gene? The funny part is that Charlie has been at the table the last hour trying to solve the problems himself, so they're really not getting much accomplished.

Meanwhile I promised Peach that today we would finally decide what name we were gonna give the dog.

(John is commenting about his Science class today...then whistles a part of his clarinet music and breaks out with a story about band...then talks about something they're doing in Spanish...the kid never talks about his day...then you've got Charlie mumbling under his breath "...minus 14, then positive two minus 4....there's your factor... everytime John starts humming his music, Charlie has to tell him to be quiet. "okay, tell me the answer, No that's not part of the answer, it's negative 2, now show me the rest...")

I hate school.

So we have a very large pool of names and six people who disagree. Here are some of the contenders....

John : Skittles

Melee' : Motsey

Peach : Zoey, Chloe, Muffsey, and Panini

Ace: Doesn't really care what we call her

Charlie: Nachos Bell Grande

I like Carrie's Lolita because then we can call her Lola and therefore I could continue singing Copacabana around the house "Her name is Lola, she was a showgirl, with yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there..." To which the crowd starts hissing and throwing things.

Other suggestions in the comments of the previous post, plus Baby, Sasha, M and M, Mighty Mouse, Layla, and every item found on a mexican restaurant menu...

SHE'S SO CUTE!

I have been informed, that boys of a certain age, cannot be seen snuggling a Chihuahua, therefore, Melee' quickly pulled her down from his neck and gave me a "What? I'm not snuggling a Chihuahua!" look.

Lola and Hammy.

I can't take a good picture to save my life, but she's really cute and frisky. The kids are just out of their minds crazy about her. (so far) We took the two Little's with us to Dog Town, with no intention of getting a dog (so why did we take the two Little's to Dog Town?) and gave them the whole "We're just here to look." lecture. On the way from the car Ace started in with a running commentary, "Can we take one home? What if we find one that we like? Could we just adopt one? I don't even care which one. I'll like which ever one you like..." And it didn't take long to figure out Dad was being a soft touch. He ended up saying "I don't care. It's up to you." which means, "Yes, they can have the dog, but I'm gonna blame it on you when it all goes wrong." They asked to hold every puppy, we said yes to hold about four different ones, and then settled on The Taquito, while the lady was filling out the paperwork, Peach had tears in her eyes and said "It's a dream come true!" She totally means it. Ace has been saying "Thank you" non-stop since Sunday. Today he said "Thank you for letting us hold all those puppies." Crap, if he keeps it up, I'll have to go get more. They argue over who gets to hold her first, longest, feed her, walk her, etc. John gets to hold her on the way to the High School, then Melee' gets her, then Peach, then Ace.

Now if I could just get someone to volunteer for the 3:00 a.m. shift.

OH SNAP!

WE HAVE A NEW BABY!
We could use a little help for some possible baby girl Chihuahua names! :)

The Moment You've All Been Waiting For...

GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAALLL!!!!Soccer season has officially begun!

Okay, I'm cheating a little. This shot was during the warmup. But he's got style right?

A little stretch before the action begins.

Leader of the Pack.

or

Pack Mentality.

The Blaze won the game 5 to zero, but whose counting? We are Under 6 but one of the boys on Ace's team is in Peaches first grade class. Not sure how that works, but we clearly have a size advantage. And comparitively we only had one kid crying and they had a hard time keeping five kids on the field at a time because of all the weeping. Everytime their coach asked any of the kids on the sidelines if they were ready to go in, they would bust out crying. It was totally fun!

Go Fly a Kite!

Best $10 spent!
Ever.
It was freezing outside and the wind was crazy, I don't know how we got any kites up at all!
We did have several tangle delays and one small meltdown. But the boys stayed out almost the entire day, and they haven't had that much fresh air since the last time we went camping.