Playing at PLAY

The next morning after the roller skating party, I took the kids to PLAY in Roswell and Owen's friend Preston came along.

Chloe had fun jumping on the trampoline and getting some serious air between her feet and the tramp.  I love what it does to her hair!

Meet Seth.  He works at PLAY and is supposed to be monitoring the rooms to ensure all kids are behaving and not playing dangerously.  Instead, he finds himself the object of Chloe's affections.

And the recipient of a good foam block pummeling from all the kids.

The kids pull out all stops and resort to throwing the ginormous exercise ball that is bigger than them.  Seth eats it up and throws everything back.  Sometimes, he can be talked into jumping on the trampoline and doing flips.  The kids love it.

The kids moved on to jumping off the tower and into the foam pit.

Or taking nose dives.

Owen and Preston had fun racing on the long moonwalk.

Owen would slide to win.  I worried he would slide off the edge, but he never did.

The kids wore themselves out and had sooooo much fun!

Roller Skating Madness

The kids were being sweet before we headed out for a friend's birthday party at the local skating rink and let me snap some pictures before getting in the car.

Owen held my hand as we made a our way around the rink a few times.  Then he was good to go and speeding away all on his own.

Chloe needed a little more assistance and chose to skate more on the carpet.  Those skates are so slippery!

Then it was time for pizza and Owen was thrilled to be sitting next to his good friend Matthew.

Chloe was doing her best to not smile at me.  Neither of the kids are very successful at this maneuver.

See?  She caved and burst into the biggest best grin.  Chloe continued her efforts at smile hiding and eventually covered her face because she couldn't keep her mouth straight.

When it was time to leave, Owen kept saying, "One more time around, Momma!"  Here is one of those many times, skating away with Matthew.

The skating rink was white linoleum and made a nice backdrop for a falling Bean.  By the end of this party, she was so ready to take off her skates and go home.  It was good exercise for us, but I'm not sure if Owen or I had more fun.  I had a blast skating as fast as I could around the rink and snapping pics of the kids.

Sick Beanarina

Chloe came home from school on Wednesday not feeling well. She chose to lay down on the sofa and skip dinner. Food just did not sound good to this Bean. Then there was diarrhea. And after going to bed, she started throwing up. We changed out her sheets several times before she realized what that rumbly tummy meant and she should hurry to the bathroom. Chloe threw up over ten times and wasn't done before 1am. It was a long night and it wiped her out.

This is how Chloe spent much of Thursday morning. She took a good 3+ hour nap on the sofa in the living room.

Look at those pigs! I love those sweet pigs, even though they are not cute little bebe feet anymore. They are getting so big.

After Chloe woke up, she felt much better. Although food still didn't sound good to her. She didn't eat much of anything all day and made me work at getting her to even drink any water or gatorade (she turned up her nose at Pedialyte!). We were happy that what she did eat and drink stayed down.

I was able to finish early with work close to 1pm and helped her get set up for painting. She had been asking and asking to get the paints out. I love that when she starts out, she pays special attention to painting the corners of the paper.

She's a tough artist. She has tattoos.

Chloe spent mucho time cleaning her paintbrush between colors. I was just glad she was feeling better and not a little sack of potatoes wiped out on the sofa. Hard seeing one of my babies so sick.

Dylan - Our Newest Family Member

Meet Dylan. Doesn't he look happy? This is driving home for the first time with a pit stop at Petsmart to pick up a collar that fit him, as well as a name tag with my cell # on it.


I know I had shown you Chance before....we were contemplating naming him Samson or Wilson or a handful of other pretty cool names. But then Todd met Chance, who acted a complete spaz (who could blame the sweet boy? he had been penned up in a 4x10ft space for well over a week due to kennel cough and no exercise time). Todd teased that with Chance's jumping, he would knock our piano over.


So Dylan was brought out next and all this sweet boy wanted to do was to sit by our feet and be petted. Dylan didn't jump or dance. He just sat. Very patiently. Waiting to be petted and told how beautiful he was. Dylan wasn't a name we had contemplated, but all four of us liked the name chosen by the rescue and agreed to keep it. After living with us for a week, I think he knows his name now. :)

Dylan weighed in at 68 pounds, which is about 40 pounds underweight. We are feeding him four times a day, instead of two with extra helpings of puppy food thrown in to fatten him up. During his first week with us, he has gained six pounds. He has also started the beginner training class at Petsmart with me on Tuesday nights. And is learning that going up the stairs is not scary (many rescue dogs are scared of doorways and stairs).

Friday was day 8 with us and that was the first day he ventured upstairs on his own (as opposed to me carrying his stubborn/scared self up all the stairs to go to bed each night) and visited Todd over a dozen times throughout the day. He is learning to stay out of the kitchen when we are eating meals and that he must show his manners and sit first before his food bowl will be put down in front of him.

Dylan is a super sweet boy. He is quiet and unassuming; content to sleep most of the day in any cool spot he can find (in front of the fireplace in the family room or out on the back porch). He and Maggie get along well together. She is having fun joining our little 5 minute training sessions throughout the day and is learning with Dylan how to "Watch Me" as I hold a treat in front of my face. We are so glad we found Dylan and look forward to many wonderful years ahead of us with him in our family!

Embarrassing Moment

See this goofy girl?


This one right here?

Yes. The Beanarina.

She embarrassed me good over dinner.

Todd missed out.

He was in Mobile, Alabama with his Men's USTA team for sectionals (where all the state championship teams/winners play the other state winners).

But my boss didn't miss out. She was over for dinner and enjoying getting to know our kids better in their natural and sometimes wild environment.

While we were eating, Owen complained that his tongue hurt.

From the hot chocolate he drank.

A week ago.

I told him his tongue didn't hurt from the hot chocolate, but probably from constantly running his tongue between his snaggle teeth. Those snaggle teeth that are still brand new and razor sharp because they're so new (he's got four of them in now and space for the 5th to push through). Ozanna (my boss) echoed that those new teeth are sharp as razors.

Owen wanted to know what a razor was, so I reminded him it is was Daddy uses to shave his face. Owen nodded knowingly.

Then Chloe piped up. Or like what Momma uses to shave her buh-gina.

Oh.

My.

Gosh.

My child? Just said that? At the dinner table? With my boss?

I'm sure my face was red as Christmas. But we laughed. We laughed hard.

Chloe thought she was pretty clever and sat with a smug smile on her face as she looked from Ozanna to me and back at Ozanna as we laughed. Then Chloe said, "I said that because I wanted to make you laugh."

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Ozanna thanked me for a wonderful evening and told me she loves our kids before she left.

While I was getting the kids ready for bed, Chloe and I had a chat. She now knows the difference between bikini lines and buh-ginas. And that we probably shouldn't talk about either at the dinner table.

Boosterthon Fun Run

Here is Owen, running out of the tunnel with his classmates as each team/classroom is introduced prior to the start of the Fun Run.


The leaders of the Boosterthon got the kids warmed up with dancing before the run. Which got Owen waving his arms in the air like nobody's business.

"Hi Mommy"

More dancing. Check out the hard rocker in the background. From this alone, he must have cool parents.

O's favorite dance move of hopping in place with the right leg doing double-time hops. Arms are normally out in front, like he's holding the reins to a horse.

The boy has speed!

Look at him go!

Oh yeah, the pedal is to the metal.

This boy ran almost non-stop for 30 laps. That's 3 miles. Can I please get half of this energy?

They did a Buddies lap, which was cool to see Owen running arm in arm with his friend Nate.

Checking out the number of laps completed.

They stopped counting at 35, but Owen went around the racetrack at least 40 times. Wow!

They were tired, but very happy boys.

Best friends since they were close to three years old. Matthew is on the left of Owen, then Preston and Miles. I love these boys. Good kids, all of them.

Aquariums

Here is Owen's new tank. Henry was fascinated with the fish inside. He didn't leave the tank for a good hour. But that was only to run to Chloe's room and check out her tank.

Chloe picked out one of those boggly-eyed black gold fish for her tank. For some reason, her tank didn't hold a ton of bubbles to the glass like Owen's, so the pics turned out better.

One of the best parts of each day for the kids is when they get to feed their fish each night before going to bed. :)

January Snow Day #2

Day two was much colder. Temps were in the teens and we last all of 9 minutes outside before going back inside. The snow was no longer slushy, but rock hard.
The driveway was slick from the rain the night before, followed by a light dusting after that.

But that didn't stop Owen from chipping away at the snow on the driveway so he could throw his own little snowstorm up into the air.

Owen didn't mind the bone-chilling cold.

On this sunny day with a quarter inch of snow on the ground, Owen found complete and total joy in being outside.

Chloe chipped snow from the driveway to eat it.

She thought it was mighty tasty.

Chloe had fun pushing her stroller around in the snow.