Baby boy...

10:47 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
Moments like these make me forget about sleepless nights and aches and pains and long days. I could just squeeze him all over and eat him up...so snuggly sleeping safe and sound, perfectly content, on Daddy's chest. We are so, so very blessed.

Family time!

10:37 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
There has been plenty of time for snuggles and loves, from brothers and sisters, and also from Uroma, during her visit! She got to meet Zach for the first time!






All I want for Christmas...

10:14 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
Anna lost her first front tooth on top...just in time to sing, "all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!" This one was driving *me* nuts because it's been haaaanging like a little crooked hill-billy tooth for weeks and weeks. It's finally out and the tooth fairy has done her duty. All is well!
BEFORE, crooked hill billy snaggle tooth:

AFTER, all better!

Christmas Cuteness

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Hark!

9:52 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
Anna was "the golden angel" in the Christmas program at church this year. She said, "I think I'm in charge of the angels or something, because I'm the golden angel." I told her, "Oh, you're Hark! You know, as in, 'Hark and the herald angels sing'?" She didn't think it was that funny. Still cute, though.

Hells Bells!

9:49 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
One of our first dates was to an AC/DC concert...waaaay back in 1996. :) Zach is continuing a fine tradition in great music.


It's a dog's life.

9:39 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
Zach is already learning what it means to be "man's best friend". If he's not pulling himself up on Beau's x-pen to visit, he's sneaking Rigby cheerios from his saucer. He has a canine fan club wherever he goes.





Rigby had better watch himself...

9:51 PM Edit This 1 Comment »
(This entry is long, morbid and a little gross...so read at your own risk. But I really keep this blog to remember all of the funny times we have with our kids, so that we can look back and laugh at all of the fun times we've had. You've been warned.)

I'm just saying...Rigby had better be careful. As of today, we have lost 5 pets (2 rats and 3 fish) in the last 3 months.

Last year we lost our awesome mastiff, Kodiak. It was super hard for all of us, but especially Anna.

Then a few months ago, Anna's pet rat, Rosa died. Ugh. Well, the first rat was traumatic enough...but then, the second rat was getting sick, and had a big tumor. It was *time*. But after losing Kodi, and then Rosa, we didn't have the heart to put her through the upset of euthanizing her second rat. So, we took the rat, had it euthanized, and then PUT IT BACK in the cage. Seriously. I know that is all kinds of weird (and thank goodness my vet knows me and has a sense of humor) , but it was way less traumatic 'finding her' than it would have been to take her to be put to sleep. (And, never mind how traumatic it was for ME to do the 'finding', because in the 2 minutes between when I took the stupid dead rat and put it into a cute little box with pink fabric and went to tell Anna that Daisy had died, RIGBY jumped up onto my desk and was mauling the rat when I came back to get the box to go let Anna say goodbye to her. It was like a scene from a B-movie. I had to wipe the dog slobber off of the rat before I took it to Anna. Rigby is lucky I didn't kill him THEN!) But anyway...I digress.

So, 3 years ago, we bought a beta fish, and Anna named her Jasmine. Jasmine has (amazingly) lasted all this time. But cleaning her tank was always a pain, so we got the bright idea to get one of those tank cleaner fish. Well, by the time we left PetSmart, that 1 fish had turned into 4 tank cleaner fish (Shark 1, 2, 3 and 4) and a snail (Candy Cane). They assured us that they would be fine with the beta. Well...it seemed they would be, at first. But about a week later, Shark 1 and Shark 2 bit the dust. *sigh* Here we go again. After Curtis and I conferred and agreed that fish get flushed, not buried, we told Anna. She took it pretty well. (Although, she did ask if she wrote a note to ask how Shark 1 and Shark 2 were doing and flushed it down the toilet, would it get to them. I told her, "No, but it will clog the toilet.") But then, a few days later, Jasmine went floating to the bottom of the tank. We weighed our options and decided that if we could get away with swapping her out for a similar looking beta to avoid more little girl heartache, we would. We just had to make sure Anna didn't notice Jasmine before the next day. We planned to say she was just 'sitting' at the bottom (which she *did* used to do sometimes) if Anna asked. That was until I checked in the morning and found that the damned snail takes her tank cleaning job seriously. She was SITTING ON DEAD JASMINE on the bottom of the tank. EEWWW!!! Of course, this is AFTER Curtis left for work, too...leaving me to pry the nasty snail off of the dead fish on my own. Did I say EEEWWWWW!!??!!

But, all's well that ends well (so far). PetSmart had a nice supply of red/purple Jasmine knock-offs the next day, and I made the swap. So far, it seems to have gone undetected. But seriously...I'm DONE with pets dying around here!

So, Rigby, you're the last man standing. And since I'm pretty sure that Pomeranian knock-offs are harder to match than beta-fish, I'm hoping you hang in there for awhile.

Fun with math

9:18 PM Edit This 1 Comment »
Yeah, there is a phrase I never thought to use, but Anna definitely still loves math. We were driving today when she started the following conversation:

A: Does 8 squared equal 64?
WTH? Where did that come from?!
C: Yes. What is 10 squared?
Without missing a beat...
A: 100
C: How about 20 squared?
A: 200...no, wait, 400.
C: What is 9 squared?
A: 81
B: How did you figure that out?
A: Well, 8 squared is 64, so I added 8, so that's 8 times 9, then I added 9. See? 81. Easy.

DEFINITELY takes after her Daddy...lucky girl. :)

Grandpa's Visit

9:13 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
We had a fun visit with Grandpa, Uncle Will & Jen last weekend. Both kids had a blast with a whole new crowd to entertain. Jen and Will spent most of the weekend making craft projects and origami with Anna. Anna and I both cried when they left. Hope to see you all again soon! Thanks for coming!




Zach's Baptism

9:52 AM Edit This 0 Comments »
Last weekend, we had a big celebration in our house! Zach was baptized! We filled half the church with friends and family who came to celebrate with us. Then we had a little brunch at our house afterwards. About 40 people made it to celebrate with us, including Grandpa, Uncle Will & Jen, all the way from Colorado! It was so neat that they could be there with us. God bless you, Zachary Charles!!!







Pa's Faux Pa

9:37 AM Edit This 0 Comments »
We had Oma and Pa over for Thanksgiving this year, as usual. It was a nice quiet day, and we had a great time...with lots to be thankful for! But we did have a near disaster...

We were playing a game called Things. The idea is that you are given a topic, and everyone writes down an answer secretly. Then you take turns guessing who said what. The topic on this turn was "Things that do not really exist, but you wish they did." Someone wrote 'smart democrat', another was 'leprechaun'...and then we read, "EASTER BUNNY". As Curtis and I both gave Pa (because we ALLLL knew it was Pa) a "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING???" look, Anna chimed in with, "It said things that are NOT real, Pa! Of course the Easter Bunny is real! Where do you think all of those eggs come from? Duh!" *whew* We almost had to have The Easter Bunny/Santa Claus/Tooth Fairy talk...but Anna saved herself from it.

On the next round, the topic was "Things You Shouldn't Name a Children's Book." Although, Anna's answer of "Crap!" (only after whispering in my ear at ask permission to put down a bad word, just this one time) was funny, I was partial to Curtis' answer, "Why The Easter Bunny Didn't Exist."


Peter Pan & Tinkerbell

10:15 PM Edit This 0 Comments »

Yoga, by Zach

9:21 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
We bring to you, interpretive Downward Dog, as interpreted by Zachary. What do you think, JL? How is his form?

We bring you...the Olympic Sport of SISTER WRESTLING!!!

9:10 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
This is Zach's current favorite sport. He likes to wrestle his sister to the ground and then keep her pinned with a well placed palm to the face or a big slobbery kiss to the tummy. Fortunately, Anna is more than happy to be his jungle gym!