New Addition

No, I'm not pregnant, ha ha ha! We have a new puppy, Lily. She's a Cavapoo (St. Charles Cavalier and Poodle mix) and she was 8 weeks when we got her. My mom has been awesome taking care of us and potty training a puppy. :) The kids adore her, Megaman a little too much, and they have been really helpful with her. The moral of the story is, never say never!

Its Soccer Season!

And I actually have a child who wants to play! Honey Bunch had her first game the Saturday after my surgery so I wasn't able to go. BUMMER! Thank goodness Doctor took video of most of it for me. Our all-star scored 3 goals!!! The best part of the video is her flirting with the other team's goalie after she scored. Classic Honey Bunch. :)

A Lovely Afternoon

Well, my September has been nothing like I thought it was going to be! I thought Doctor would be in Buffalo for the month and I would be running around crazy shuffling the kids to school and all their other activities. Instead Doctor stayed in town, my mom flew out with 11 hours notice (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!), and I had a surgery scheduled, rescheduled, and then had a completely different surgery than the one planned. CRAZY!!! Anyway, thanks so much for all the well wishes, calls, and prayers, I feel so loved.
Since my Friday surgery was rescheduled for Tuesday, we were able to spend a lovely Saturday afternoon at the conservation department.




We also went to the car wash which was not a hit with Megaman.

Totally Random

This post is a compilation of several random things that have happened this last month.
We don't have any pets, much to the chagrin of our children. Thankfully our neighborhood is full of frogs and toads that an eight year old can love and take care of! I've been calling Dude the frog whisperer because, amazingly enough, the frogs he catches don't jump out of his hands. Crazy as it sounds, I think they really do like him!
Princess caught this stick bug and kept in a bug catcher (a.k.a. death trap) for a couple of days before we convinced her to let it go free. She named it Sticky.
Megaman loves books, especially car/truck/train books. This one apparently wore him out. He has also developed a love for NASCAR. We need to move back to Idaho soon!!!
Honey Bunch is a character. The other day I told the girls that they needed to clean their room. She not only convinced Princess to clean it all, Honey Bunch had Princess make her a special fort in which to watch her sister work.
In the last few weeks several different people have come up to me to tell me that Honey Bunch is their child's best friend. They have told me how their children talk about her all the time, and how much their children love her. She is so gregarious! She has a way of making everyone feel special and loved. Way to go Honey Bunch!

Big Pile of Dirt

Doctor started the landscaping around our yard this last spring with Dude's help. He placed an order for a truck load of topsoil in April in order to finish the flower beds. Due to an abnormal amount of rain the topsoil was too wet to deliver. Doctor persisted, though, and tried all summer to get the needed topsoil. His attempts were unsuccessful until the owners of the company came into his office this last week. Amazing enough we got topsoil right away. :) We filled the flower beds and raked quite a bit into the yard. I didn't have the foresight to take a picture of the dirt before we started shoveling, but here's what it looked like after half a days work. The original pile was at least twice this size.

This is what it looked like when we stopped Saturday night. It was quite the job!

Here's the landscaping. Oh, and he made the trellis for the clematis, also. Again, isn't Doctor amazing?

Swing Set - update

Doctor is almost done with the swing set. It's awesome! The kids love playing on it. Thanks Doctor, you are completely amazing!

Where did our summer go?

I think we had the shortest summer ever! Today is the first day of school for Princess and Dude. (By the way, are you not so impressed that I'm posting on the actual day instead of a week later?) We went to meet the teachers yesterday and Princess is super thrilled to have her best friend from her kindergarten class in the same class again this year. She was really nervous today, though, and kept saying that she wanted to scream.
Dude was not excited at all about going back to school until we went to his classroom and found out that he sits right next to a newt. Could that not be more perfect for Dude? When Princess asked what a newt was he said, "A Newt is an aquatic amphibian." I kid you not. If he's interested in something, he's really interested. :)
Here's to a great year, I love you both very much!

Two Yellow Belts!

Doctor and Dude completed their testing last week to become yellow belts. They both did a great job and I am very proud of both of them. They both broke their boards on the first try again. Since I wasn't able to post a video of doctor last time, here's a video of this time. It's through the window, though, because I had my whole rowdy crew with me.
Good job guys!

Why buy it if you can build it?

That's what Doctor always says. Thank goodness he's so good at building things! I've been begging for a swing set and last Saturday Doctor relented. He agreed at 11am, bought the materials at 1pm and had a platform built by dinner time. Here's what it looks like so far, I'll add more pictures as more gets done.

What do you do when....

.....you have a budding domestic goddess for a daughter but you don't have a single crafty bone in your body? I don't have the foggiest idea. I do know that I learned the hard way not to allow them to check out books at the library full of wonderful craft ideas that they want to get crackin' at right away and then you have to admit that you don't have a clue how to help them. Poor Princess. :) I leafed through the book searching for anything that I could help her do. I settled on sewing a doll. Honey Bunch wanted in on the action and Dude did too, only he wanted to sew a Ninja, not a doll. So off we headed to Wal-Mart for fabric and stuffing. Princess was a natural and is already begging to sew another one. Dude was excited for a finished project but was frustrated with the time it took. He decided huge stitches would take less time, so his doll, I mean Ninja, ended up looking pretty realistic. Not intended, but fun nonetheless. Honey Bunch did a good job sewing but grew bored pretty quickly so I "helped" her quite a bit. Here's what they looked like before faces/clothes. (Dude's is the farthest on the left, notice the arm sticking up in the "hi yaw" pose.)
Princess really wanted to sew faces on but our Wal-Mart doesn't carry embroidery thread at the moment, so she reluctantly agreed to draw on a face with markers.
Dude hasn't drawn a face on yet, and he wants to make a Ninja outfit out of some extra black fabric we have so I'll post a finished picture of his later. He did make this castle with a battle between a ninja and a knight today, though.
And here's a picture of Megaman who napped all through our doll making but wanted a picture taken anyway.