Our Family Expanded AGAIN

Today we got a new baby (of the four-legged variety) and we are so excited.  As most of you know our wonderful lab, Maverick, passed in July and there has been a void in our life since.  The kids (not having as much compassion as we would like) have been asking about a puppy for a while now and I was just not ready.  Jay and I recently started talking about maybe getting them a puppy for Christmas this year so we started looking.  Well of course spending several hours on Petfinder.com made me just as excited (maybe more so) than the kids and I just couldn't wait to find the perfect puppy.  We looked at several and then last night (quite late) I came across her.  She is an Australian Shepherd which is in my top two breed choices, the exact color I wanted and big bonus has beautiful blue eyes.  This is a breed that is highly intelligent, loves kids and protects them, can keep up with my children's high energy levels and would be a great addition to our family.  Well fast forward twelve hours later and we have her home with us peacefully sleeping as if she is right where she belongs :)

How cute is she?

Here are the kids meeting her for the first time as we picked her up from the wonderful rescue lady (who drove her 4 hours to bring her to us). Can you tell how excited they were?

We will all need to learn to pick up better as the chewing has begun.

Yummmm - baby feet make a great chew toy!

The kids so happy with their new puppy :)

I forgot how hard puppies play and then how fast they crash.  Wonder if she is out for the night or just a little nap...

 This looks like a great place to catch some zzzzs ;)

So the question everyone is wondering - what might her name be?  Well we have not quite decided yet.  The kids are going to help in the final selection (picking from a list provided by Mommy).  Cole of course wanted to name her Sparkles since we decided not to use it for Baby Lilah ;)  We are going to wait a few days to see if her personality helps us decide at all.  So unlike our baby names I will share our not so short list of puppy names (you can even comment if you have an opinion):

• Kiah (pronounced Ky-Ah) - this is Australian (how appropriate) and means From the beautiful place
• Skye - because of her eyes of course
• Bella - a beautiful girl name but way too popular to use for our child and who wouldn't love a dog named Bella?
• Luna - thought this was cute for a little girl doggie
• Twilight - mainly because of her coloring but also a little because of my obsession ;)

Stay tuned for the big announcement once a name is chosen...

So putting this together I realized that you know so much about our two-legged babies but really don't know much about our four-legged ones.  I will take this time to introduce you to them.  We have for years referred to our bundle of pets as "The Zoo" and you are about to see why.

This is Jackson - he is a pit bull/boxer mix that is about to turn 13.  Jay has had him since he was a pup and I had the joy of meeting him shortly after his first birthday.  We have had quite a history together - a very strange love/hate relationship but he does hold a very special spot in my heart.  You will often see comments and posts on Facebook about him as "Worlds Worst Dog" and whatever his daily antics may be.  Yesterday it was getting on the counter and eating the last of my loaf of bread that was intended to make sandwiches for myself and the kids - 'Oh Jackson'.

This is Kochka (Russian for cat because she is a blue russian) but we mainly call her "Kochie".  Jay and I adopted her from the shelter right before we got married and she is about to turn 10.  I had wanted a blue russian for a while and we had been checking regularly for one to come up for adoption.  Kochie is a super soft sweet girl that keeps to herself but really enjoys a good neck and belly rub.

Then there is Shadrach (yep from the bible story).  He got his name because we already had a Meschach and Abednego so he completed the trio.  Jay and the dogs found him one night while out for a walk.  We believe that his mom was killed by a neighbor dog and of course Jay couldn't just leave him so he sat outside in the cold almost all night waiting to catch the little guy.  He said we would find him a suitable home but that didn't happen (because we never even tried) so 7 years later he is still with us.

And finally we have Nahla (from the Lion King - you know "pinned ya, pinned ya again").  Nahla was living in the back of a friends Jeep which Jay came across one day about 2 years ago (see he really is the cause of all these pets).  We had been talking about getting the kids a kitten for a while so he brought her home.  She loves to sleep in the kids rooms and as you can see enjoys anything that belongs to them.  Her favorite place to sleep is in the high chair or booster seats.

Now you really understand the Zoo!  They each bring their own unique qualities to the family and are part of this craziness of our life.

A Fabulous Fall Break

So our Fall Break started out not so great.  We had plans of driving to Florida and spending some time with Jay's family (all of them).  We were even going to Disney World!  But then everyone got sick :(  Jay had pneumonia; Graham had a sinus infection; Cole had bronchitis; and Payton was getting over an upper respiratory infection.  Since everyone was sick we decided it was best not to travel and let everyone rest and get better.  A total bummer but it worked.  After a few days of nothing but sleep, sleep and more sleep (and of course some meds from the doctor) everyone started feeling better :)

We decided to make the most of our fall break and do some things locally that we could all enjoy.  The kids wanted to go to a new playground so we went to the Tennessee Riverpark.  It was the last warm day and it turned out great.  The kids played on the playground and swung on the swings then we all walked around the water.  The kids watched a boat launch into the water and to quote Graham it was "totally awesome".  I really love seeing all of these things through my children's eyes and experiencing them all over again.  As always I took a ton of pics so here are just some of my favorites.

The next day was cold and rainy so we figured what better way to pass the day than at the movies ;)  Our local movie theater plays movies for $1.00 on Wednesdays.  I didn't realize that every child in the two local counties would be there but we still managed to see what we wanted.  First we saw Cars 2 and the kids did so well that when they asked if we could also see The Smurfs we said sure.  We were pleasantly shocked that  all the kids made it through two back to back movies!

Fall Break would not have been complete without hitting up an orchard and doing some fall festival things.  We drove into the mountains south of us (it felt like it took forever) and it was a beautiful drive with all of the leaves changing and great fall colors.  We went to Hillcrest Orchards and the kids had a lot of fun.  We had our very own private tracker ride around the orchard - it was Lilah's first.  Then we went to the petting zoo where everyone got to hold baby chicks (their favorite), pet goats, a baby cow (he was really soft), a pig and some bunnies.  Then it was off to the play area with slides and climbing walls and even a zip line.  We played there for a while until it was way too cold and headed back inside to pick our bag of apples.  The day ended with a visit from an overly friendly large black cow who was quite interested in Baby Lilah :)  Every time Jay moved the cow moved to get closer and even licked Lilah a couple of times.  We all totally cracked up and the kids thought it was great.

Payton is 3 apples tall.

Cole is also 3 apples tall.

Graham is 2 apples tall.

Baby Lilah on her very first tractor ride.

The kids being their usual silly selves :)

Picking out which apples they want.

A fun day for everyone!

Lilah Grace getting licked by a cow.

Since we have an upcoming photo session with our favorite photographer and this time she is coming to our neck of the woods we wanted to scope out some possible photo locations so we all hopped in the van and headed out on an adventure.  We started out at the Chickamauga Battlefield.  A very big and nice place full of history.  As we drove around and saw all the monuments, signs and cannons we tried to explain to the kids about the Civil War and how battles were fought right there where we were.  Payton wanted to know who the "teams" were and which one we were cheering for (love that kid).  And of course in Cole's new obsession with all things fighting he just couldn't ask enough questions about the blood, fighting and finally "Daddy do you think some of the men who lost the battle also lost their heads?".  I am still not used to having boys and how everything gets turned into a gun or some sort of fight.

The kids favorite part of the battlefield was the 'castle' which Daddy took them to the top (twice).  

Then it was off to the Chattanooga Nature Center.  We have a membership and had been there before but part of it was closed that day so we went back to check it out.  It ended up being the perfect spot for our upcoming session and is at the top of our list.  The kids enjoyed getting out to check out all the different areas including a bamboo forest, wishing well, pond, pavilion and of course the open fields where they ran around and chased each other.

As usual Payton posed for each shot, Cole acted goofy and Graham watched what they were doing :)  Oh and Lilah Grace looked adorable as always.

We also drove through and checked out Pointe Park on Lookout Mountain and Coolidge Park in downtown Chattanooga but didn't get out to play.

As Fall Break came to a close we decided to check out our town hayride and Halloween celebration.  We went on the hayride which took us down the Ringgold Nature Trail and dropped us off at a camp fire complete with roasting marshmallows.  Then we went to The Depot where a live band was playing and people were waiting in line for the Haunted Depot tour (way too scary for our kids).  We finally left once Graham announced "this place is freaking me out" (he is so funny!).

Even though we didn't go on our planned vacation we were able to spend a lot of quality time together as a family and make more precious memories with our children.  We also were able to get some much needed rest that will hopefully carry us through our next couple of extremely busy months!

Going TuTu Crazy

I have been wanting to make some tutus for the girls for a while now.  I finally found a great sale on tulle and had the extra money to stock up so I did.  As I do with everything I went a little overboard and became obsessed and started making as many as I could.  Instead of just making the one that I wanted for immediate use I went ahead and made them for all upcoming events J 

Princess Payton got a pretty pink and purple one for dress up:

Seems I have started a little tradition for Lilah Grace in that all of her “first” outfits will get a Mommy Made tutu to coordinate (thanks to my friend Stephanie for the wonderful idea). 

Lilah Grace gets a Halloween one which coordinates with her onsie:

Baby’s 1^st Thanksgiving with coordinating tri-color tutu:

And of course her 1^st Christmas with ribbon accents tutu:

Payton requested a tutu dress so I think I will need to get some more tulle to tackle that one but I am up for the challenge :)

And stay tuned to see the real reason I wanted to make tutus.  All of these were practice for me to perfect my skills for a special one.