and we shall call her 'Hazel'

Brecken has been wanting a dog for the past year..but has been really mentioning it a lot over the past few months. (I think seeing his cousin's new German Shepherd, Mika, solidified that thought in his mind.) He wanted a chocolate lab..and preferably a puppy. We told the boys that whenever we get a dog, we would like to get one through a shelter, a dog that needs a new home. They agreed that was a good idea (of course, anything to get a dog!) and we started looking online at the shelters here and checked out the dogs pics, read through all the funny little 'about me' ads and laughed at their names. None of the dogs really were all that appealing (to me anyway), but Brecken suddenly decided that any dog with the words 'Adopt me' still flashing behind its name was just the one he wanted! He just wanted a dog-and NOW! We did convince him that we should hold off and wait until we found a puppy that we could all agree on. Ryker preferred a little dog that would stay little, Brecken wanted a lab, and Ben and I both preferred a dog on the larger side as well.

The boys were off to a birthday party on Saturday..an afternoon at the Apple Orchard for Sawyer's 5th birthday! We told them we would go check out the animal shelters after the party if we had enough time. Ben and I met Craig & Anita at some westie festie (she won free tickets..so why not check it out)..and shortly after entering this crazy little outdoor western festival, we see the Second Chance Rescue people sitting at their booth with some puppies..one of them, a cute and mellow little chocolate lab! how could we pass her up! We instantly signed up to take her for a 24 hr trial visit (like we were really going to bring her back), and surprised the boys with a new puppy when we picked them up from their party. It was a quite unexpected surprise for them..but they were excited! At some point, Brecken said, 'I thought i wasn't gonna get a dog 'til i'm 8!'. haha see, he does listen to me!



We named her Hazel. Hazel Mae. She has her first vet check up on Saturday..and she's thought to be about 9-11 weeks old. She was a stray..poor little thing! She's a chocolate lab..but she looks like she is probably mixed with something else..who knows--she sure is cute. She's pretty mellow for a puppy and prefers sleeping instead of barking. She is really skinny right now and just doesn't want to each much. Hopefully in a few days she be a little more adjusted and start to eat.



The boys absolutely love her and Brecken instantly was attached to her and is constantly by her side..she gets to walk to school with him in the mornings and she's there to pick him up after school as well-Breck loves it! Ry's been kinda taking her in from a distance, but has really grown quite fond of her throughout this week when Brecken is at school and he actually gets time to hold her, play with her, take her outside, etc without a big brother telling him what to do and how to do it. He loves telling her 'no!' and 'no biting!' Yesterday afternoon I saw him go over and sit with her on the Futon in the basement and he looks at her and says, 'you wanna know what my name is? I'm Ryker. and you... 'are Hazel mae'. and then just jabbered to her for a bit. it was pretty cute.




We have been working with her on learning basic commands and playing fetch. She is smart and they are quite entertained by it all! (so am I..watching your 5 & 4 year olds giving commands to a puppy who is still trying to learn what they mean, is actually pretty funny).

'...Not Fuzzy!'

brand new glasses...

and a cute little 4 yr old named Ryker.

...put 'em together and this is what you get.

Does he look cute or what?! Yesterday morning we picked up his new glassses...he loves them! One of the first things he did was just stand in the parking lot, amazed at everything he could see! He pointed to a house off in the distance and said, 'mom!! i can see that house way over there!' and then would push his glasses up off his eyes and say 'fuzzy...' and then put them back on and say, 'not fuzzy!'. He was fascinated by the fact that he could see so clearly. All day long he just looked around and announced to me all the far away things that he could see! I couldn't help but just smile at his excitement.

We went over the proper way to take care of his glasses and the three S's. The three S's are the only three times he should be taking them off...Swimming, Sleeping, and Showering. (We realized yesterday we had to add another one...wrestling with Brecken!). He has a spot on the table beside his bed for his monkey glasses case and takes pride in the fact that he's responsible for taking good care of them and putting them in there when he isn't wearing them.

Today is his group's day for show and tell at school and they are to bring something that has to do with their theme for the week. Their theme is 'Health'. They are learning about healthy bodies, health providers, etc. He is going to show the class his new glasses and explain how they make him see better and that by going to the eye dr. he's taking care of his eyes. I reminded him not to take them off and pass them around the classroom, but to just walk around his friends so they can see them close up if they want. (I can just picture him walking around to each friend, stopping to look at them so they can check out his specs!!)

checkin' out the frog...

Don't forget to look up and always look behind you...you never know what you're missing out on.

Union Grove is a beautiful old state park that often gets overlooked. These forgotten about spots are the ones that i love most..especially during this time of the year.

Friday evening Anita and I packed up our things and headed south on 29...just us. no men, no kids, no dogs. We had been waiting excitedly for this trip--our time to just get away, relax, and enjoy the outdoors together. We got the tent set up with no problem and started the fire. (note to all men: reading the instructions and putting up the tent in the order advised, really does help).

We pretty much had the park to ourselves..a couple in a camper on the other side of the campground and another pair of people in a tent a few spots down tucked back in the trees. Perfect!! We spent the evening just relaxing, laughing, and drinking by the fire. The park ranger was pretty cool (Power Ranger Matt), and he even killed 20 minutes or so with us by the fire before his shift was over and he left the park for the night. Somehow we ended up hanging out in the bathroom for a good portion of the night as well. not like anyone else was there...and plus, the shower stall was really comfy with that blue rubber floor mat, and late night bathroom conversation is always interesting...

We woke up around 6am to drizzling rain...that lingered for a few hours. We made the best of it and decided to just chill in the tent (what else could we really do). We successfully saved our journal that we wrote in over the course of the night before, and so stupidly left out by the fire when we went to bed. We sat there and laughed as we peeled wet pieces of paper apart from each other and read our scribbles and spread them all over our blankets to dry as we ate some awesome lemon poppy seed bread that Anita baked and brought with.

After laying around in the tent for awhile, Anita threw out the suggestion of putting on our tennis shoes and going for a walk despite the light drizzle. In about 5 minutes, we were out of the tent and on our way down the road with our pink bag as we started out on our journey through the day. We wandered slowly down the beautiful tree lined road throughout the park, stopping in every direction to look, take pictures, grab a new beer, and just enjoy everything around us...at our own pace. We walked on some of the trails even though they were wet early on in the morning... intrigued by all the dew drops. We stopped and sat in the middle of paths to take a break, take a pee, take a look around, take a picture together, or take a shot. The view was amazing no matter which way we looked, the weather was absolutely perfect, and the hours we spent together enjoying each others company was time well spent.

The early afternoon greeted us with two men, three boys, two beagles and another fantastic day and night with more exploring on the trails, fabulous food over the open fire, laying around in the middle of tall grasses, lots of laughs and lots of fun.

Click here to see some of the many photos we took over the weekend.

Ryker's First Day of Preschool

We are all finally getting into the groove of things with having Brecken in school all day...and its going great! Ryker just started his first day of school on Monday! He has been so excited to finally go to school! Day one was just an orientation for parents and the kids got to just check out their room, find their hooks, name tags, etc and play in the gym with their friends until we finished up the parents meeting. He didn't want to leave when we went to get him from the gym after our meeting..he was having lots of fun! On the way home he said, 'i think i talked to everybody, mom'. I had talked with him prior to school starting about manners at school, bathroom ettiquette in school, and how to respect his friends, teachers, and his classroom. He must have remembered something and was nice to alllll his friends! :)

Today was the second day of school and Ry was anxious all morning..walking around with his backpack and jacket on. ..so 12:18p.m. rolls around and we hop in the van after he packed up his show and tell. (Brown is the color of the week..so yesterday we looked for a brown toy to take with..he decides on his new green webkinz instead. I explained that he should try to find something that has brown on it..he told me that his webkinz had brown eyes and he will just tell everybody that! ..so that was what he was taking!) ..back to hopping in the van... Dead Battery. I had to cancel my dentist appointment and have Joe bring me keys to the absolute piece of SHIT car that sits in our driveway so i could get Ryker to school..even though he was quite late already. Not a good start to our day..but we found his name tag and his spot on the floor on the 'R' mat where the rest of his class was listening to a story-so he didn't miss much, thank goodness. I would have felt horrible! He had a great day despite the crazy lazy start. He made a gingerbread man craft in the 'art room'. He thinks that is pretty cool because Breck's preschool didn't have a separate room for crafts and art.

The one good thing out of this whole crazy mess today...i was forced to cancel my dentist appointment, and went for a much needed 3 mile run instead! ;)

Ryker's First Day of Preschool

September 8, 2008

On the way out the door!

Walking into his School with his cool new backpack.

Finding the 'R' hook for his coat and backpack.

today's breakfast

I made Caramelized French Toast for breakfast this morning. At around 10pm last night i thought about making homemade cinnamon rolls - but then realized i'd be up far later than i'd like to be, so we watched Fool's Gold instead and i opted for something easier that can be done in the morning. These were pretty good-despite the overload of sugar they contained! I took the other reviewers advice and boiled the water before adding it to the brown sugar-i still ended up with small clumps..but not many.

The boys loved 'em...i thought they were pretty good too. I only made a small mess--but guess what? i was easily able to locate my brown sugar and vanilla (oh yeah, i added vanilla since the recipe didn't call for it)!!

with a little help from www.last.fm and my fabulous music library...

'Are you pregnant?!' .....Ben's reply to my rambling on and on about my extensive cleaning/organizing/decluttering/making sense of all the unorganized organization scattered, hidden, and quite often even visibly seen throughout our house.

It started with my phone call to YMCA Advancement to donate a heaping pile (mess) of clothing, toys, and miscellaneous household items that were strewn across the makeshift shelving on the west side of the garage. After finding out everything needs to be contained in either a plastic bag or cardboard box, i began my cleaning frenzy...before i knew it, the entire garage was cleaned, organized and looking like, well -- a garage! one room down...

I decided to just suck it up and tackle the kitchen cupboards. My white cupboards that constantly need to be wiped down (not to mention having the insides wiped out regularly would do wonders as well--but i don't do it). -- Do not even think about purchasing white cupboards--unless you are OCD and love to repeatedly wipe down the fronts of your cupboards. I didn't choose these, by the way...they were a bad choice made by the owner of the house in 1991 when it was built. (Their choice of lighting fixtures throughout the house and the horrendous black and white checked kitchen flooring was just as bad of a decision..but that's a whole other blog that i'll never write--but for the record, we replaced the kitchen flooring ASAP after moving in and all the light fixtures in the kitchen have been replaced as well).

Back to the cupboards. I started with the baking cupboard shortly after 9am..which had somehow become the baking/small tools/spilled sugars/one big huge mess cupboard. No rhyme or reason whatsoever..just ask Anita, she'll tell ya.

Marnie stopped over in the midst of my project and got the luxury of helping me sort through random pills strewn about the cupboard that contains our glasses/cups/coffee mugs and medicine?!

By 2:35pm, after many sneezes and a few 'what the eff is this doing in here?' and 'oh, that's where that was!' comments to myself, i had a heaping bag of nonsense for the trash and and entire kitchen of clean cupboards with actual rhyme and reason to their order.

My next project will be the 3 storage closets..the linen closet, hall closet, and front entryway coat closet. These three doors are the ones that, if you are smart, you close your eyes and cover your head when you open them to protect yourself from falling objects -- just ask Anita, she'll tell ya.

But first, we're going to paint Brecken's room today. Well, i'm usually not allowed to paint because i suck and let my impatient personality get the best of me..so i tend to get the luxury of taping and entertaining the kids. Hey..maybe i'll just organize the closets as Ben paints -multitasking is my speciality. After that, i could move on to the storage space under the stairs....

...for the record, NO - i'm not pregnant - just simply preparing the house for another period of hibernation during the upcoming and highly unwanted South Dakota winter that is creeping up upon us all much too soon.