"Barbecue freaks me out"

Another week has flown by. At this week's Dr. appointment, I made slight progress -- 1 cm. dilated. Slow and steady seems to be my body's motto.

Brenna's poor cat, Jasmine, was spayed last Saturday and needed to wear the "cone of shame" for a few days. She did NOT enjoy it. She seems to be healing up well, though, so we have since released her.

Me and the 4 older kids took a kitchen tour of Chik-fil-a on Monday evening. While there, I inquired about their hiring practices. We were told they are hiring right now and Conner was offered an interview on the spot. He looked a little taken by surprise, but agreed to it. It went well, so he had a 2nd interview with a manager on Thursday. That went well, too, and now he waits to hear if he'll get a 3rd and final interview with the owner. He has been working with Scott at his company for a year now, but this would be his first "real" job that he's gotten on his own.

This was the final week at Options, so they just had award ceremonies, yearbook parties and a picnic. Brenna's awards were of course art-related. She has such talent and it definitely didn't come from me or her dad. =)

I got a few good deals at area garage sales on Friday, including a rocking horse for the little boys, a cat toy that Jasmine just loves, and new throw pillows for the couch.

Chase got to go camping for the weekend with his friend and their family. Thankfully, after such a rainy week the weather cooperated and was nice for them, although chilly. Conner spent the weekend bowling and the rest of us cleaned and organized in the garage. We were going through and finding stuff for the baby, curriculum I want to sell at a book fair, and we also hope to have a garage sale of our own soon.

On Saturday, I hit the Old Navy $1 flip-flop sale, then took Scott and Aiden with me to more garage sales, and we found some baby clothes, clothes for the little boys, and a book me and Brenna have been wanting to read together.

I wanted to record and remember a couple funny things Declan has been saying. He learned a song in his little music class and walks arounds singing, "He's got the whole world in his hands", which is adorable. But he also picked up from the Black-Eyed Peas "I got my money in my pocket". LOL

Then at dinner on Friday, somebody mentioned barbecue chips and he piped up with, "Barbecue freaks me out".

Such a turkey.

winter play

At least somebody is enjoying the snow. =)

Project 365 - Day 36

He's here!

Day 20

We picked up our new family member first thing this morning. This is Hershey:

So far he's been really sweet. He and Dakota get along well and have worn each other out playing. He is terrific with the kids. However, he doesn't know what to make of the cats. It will take a bit of time for them to get used to each other.

Chase is happy with his new best friend.

Not quite a zoo...

Day 19 of Project 365

This is our oldest son, Conner and his dog Dakota. Somehow Scott and I became convinced a few years back that it was a good idea for each child to have their own pet at some point. You know, it teaches responsibility and yadda yadda...

Anyway, we thought 10 might be a good age. So we talked a lot with Conner before then about what kind of animal he might want. We had lost our beloved family dog, an awesome Golden Retriever named Malibu, about a year and a half before. So Conner thought a dog would be good.

We planned to wait until he turned 10 but a few months before his birthday, the sister of a friend told us we could have the last of her dog's litter of Labs at a low cost. Since we knew her and loved Labs, we decided to go for it.

We had to drive a few hours to her home in Ogalalla, Nebraska to get him. He was super cute and we instantly fell in love. Conner named him Dakota and he has been his friend and primarily responsibility since then.

When Chase turned 10 last year, we looked at various kinds of animals. He ended up picking out a chameleon. He named her Tera.

We bought all the needed supplies to make her comfy in her new aquarium. He worked very hard to keep her environment the right temperature and humidity and fed her crickets. Eww.

But unfortunately she died after a few months. We found out from the vet that we had blundered by buying her at a pet supply store instead of a reptile store, and this particular store has a bad reputation for selling sick reptiles. I wish we'd known.

Chase was understandably upset. We had a nice burial for her in the yard.

We told Chase we'd get him another pet but not immediately. At some point we all decided another dog to keep Dakota company might be a good idea. The holidays came and things got busy, but once the new year arrived we started looking.

A couple weeks ago we visited two shelters. We saw a lot of great dogs but none that fit our criteria. We had thought to get a smaller dog this time and didn't want a puppy. We weren't set on a particular breed or gender. We all prayed for the right dog for our family.

Today we visited another shelter whose website we'd been frequenting. They do a great job of keeping it up today and even putting up videos of the dogs so you can see them in action. Chase had his eye on a dog last week but we didn't have the time to go up there and she was adopted quickly.

So today we decided to just head up there and see what they had. We spent a few hours and took about 3 of the dogs out to the yard to meet and play with them. By the time we left we had placed a hold on one. He was bigger than we'd planned but he won our hearts. We've decided we're just a large dog family. We wanted to come home and pray again and sleep on it before the final decision.

But so far it looks like tomorrow we'll have a new additon to our zoo -- I mean family. As long as he gets along okay with our dog and cats, it should all be good and I will post a picture tomorrow.

Wish us luck!

6/365

Brotherly love