Runion Soup: 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.