One more thing!

After almost exactly 365 days on the market my parents house has finally sold! They are in escrow and will be moving to Texas around the 20th of August! YEE-HAW! We are so excited!!

A new family member!

Meet Chef!

Well we finally did it! We got a little crazy and adopted a 10 week old puppy (we figure his birthday to be May 1). After a week of trying out names we finally decided on "Chef". He likes to hang out in the kitchen and we all love to cook so we figured the name was perfect for our family dog! He was rescued from a shelter on his last day. He then lived with a foster parent for a week until we found him. He is a mixed breed - we were told he was 1/2 Golden Retriever and 1/2 we don't know. We think he might be 1/2 Beagle because he face looks a lot like a Beagle puppy.

Here is a picture of Beagles - What do you think?

We think he looks a lot like our Golden Lab Buddy when he was a puppy. But the foster mom said he was with his mom when they were at the shelter and she was definetly a Golden Retriever. When shaved, Goldens look a lot like Labs so it is a possibility he got the short hair with the Golden's Color. Here is a picture of a Beagle/Lab mix - looks a lot like Chef!

He is so sweet and docile. The kids could do anything to him and he pretty much lets them without a sound. He does make a sound though if it happens to hurt. We read the Puppies for Dummies book before we got him and we used their "Pick a Puppy" test to pick the right dog for our family. So far he is awesome - except for the fact that we wakes up to potty at night and early in the morning - kinda like having a new baby! Actually it is like having two toddlers. Him and Luke are so much a like right now. You have to constantly watch them or they are into everything! He thinks Lucas is a dog like him.


Now for the sob sob stuff...two days after we brought our puppy home he wasn't acting right so we took him into the vet. It turns out he had parvovirus, hookworms, & coccidia. Poor thing was so sick from being at the shelter at such a young age for 4 weeks. We weren't going to treat him and just let nature take it's course (which probably would have taken him to doggy heaven) but after a couple hours and talking to a few vets we changed our minds! They warned us that we wouldn't be able to get a young (un-vaccinated) puppy for at least 1-3 years and if we did it may come down with parvo also. Since the kids were SOOOOOO upset about the whole thing (and we were quite upset too) we decided to treat him. It was really a traumatic evening in our house - we didn't take him to the vet expecting anything serious to be wrong. The treatment wasn't cheap (so much for rescue dogs being less $$) and we were not up for nursing him back to health at home (as if I have time to do that with 3 kids) so we had the vet take care of him. He was in the hospital for 3 nights hooked up to fluids and different antibiotics to combat secondary infections. They even gave him plasma for a low blood count!!! He was admitted on a Monday and came home on Thursday. We are so glad we had him treated - he is really the best dog. Of course I may be retracting my words in another month or so.

We have also read the book by Cesar Millan (The Dog Whisperer). We are raising him to treat all of us (well maybe except Lucas for now) as the Pack Leader. Cesar's structure for raising a balanced dog is - 1st Exercise, 2nd Discipline, & 3rd Love. We have been watching the show also. Gosh darn it we are going to have a well behaved house dog!

Yummy Cupcakes!

My aunt Kathy has a little cupcake business - SugarRush Cupcakes. She does quite well for herself. I hear her cupcakes are yummy (better than all the big name shops). She even got called for an interview with Food Network. She had to decline because they wanted someone who also did mail order. I have not yet tasted them but she is coming for a visit in August so maybe she'll bring a recipe or two and do some baking with us!

She has names her cupcakes after people, things, places and animals that are near and dear to her. She has named 3 of them after my kids. See if you can find them:
http://www.sugarrushcupcakes.com/flavors.html

Ella came up with her cupcake creation on her own. Emily's is her favorite kind of cupcake. Luke's is the Limenator because mommy made key lime cupcakes (similar to SugarRush's) and Luke devoured them!

A visit from Papa & Mimi

Two days after we got home from California - Papa Pete and Mimi Barb came for a visit. They were here for 5 days! We went to the Stockyards, Lake Texoma, Canton Trade Days, Went swimming in the pool and watched 4th of July fireworks. We had a wonderful time and the kids loved hanging out with their grandparents.

Daddy, Papa & The kids at The Hacienda:

Our little ham, fooling around with a rib. This boy loves to entertain!

Fun with sidewalk paint. Mimi bought the kids sidewalk paint in Canton. They had fun making a mess of the driveway! The best part about it is it rained the next day and washed it all off - no clean up for mom!

10th Anniversary!

WOW! Has is been 10 years already? Where does the time go? Four houses, three kids and two states later here we are together as one! For our anniversary we stayed downtown, went to a fancy dinner and saw the show Stomp. We did all this in the company of our friends the Bowers. They also celebrated their 10th anniversary in June - 2 days before us!

The Bower's and the Goodman's

California Trip

At the end of June we took a little family vacation to California. Daddy was lucky enough to have to be in CA on business that week so we all stayed at Ga & Pop's and Daddy joined us when he could. Here are some pictures from our fun time:

Ga flew out to TX to help fly us back to CA.

Of course we went to Disneyland! Besides our friends & family, this is what we miss most about California. It was always something to do when there was nothing to do. With annual passes
Disney could be as cheap or expensive as you wanted to make it. Ga went with us and we met our friends the Collins' at Disneyland as well as Emily's friend Richelle from TX.

Playing in the fountains at Disney's CA Adventure:

Tom Sawyer's Island is now a pirate island. The kids had fun exporing the caves. (Yes, Mommy, Daddy, Ga & Karin in tow)

Emily and her TX friend Richelle: Ella, Justin & Amanda:

One last ride and still going strong after 12 hours, teacups at night:

All tuckered out! The little man still takes 3 hour naps so this was a long day (actually a LONG week). I think he got one 3 hour nap the entire 7 days!

Baby Reagan's house:

Baby Reagan lives in Beverly Hills - way up high on the hill with a fabulous view (silly me I didn't get a picture of the view) Her mommy grew up next door to me (mommy) in Yorba Linda. Reagan is so cute, we all adored her!

Kristie's 30th birthday party. Kristie had no idea that we were even in California so "crashed" her birthday party. It was great! She was so surprised. I wish we could have spent more time together.

BEACH DAY! Of course a trip to Southern California would not be complete without a visit to the beach. We went to the beach with Ga, Pop, The Enda's and The Collins'. The kids had a blast and if we still lived in So Cal I know we would be going a lot.

Catching up with Kenna & Shane. Just like old times, we met Kenna, Shane & Charina at McDonalds for a little play time.

Checking out the fountains at the Shoppes of Chino Hills. Yes, a new addition to our old town. The Shoppes are neat but I expected a little more, although I don't think they are finished yet!

Girly Girl Camp

Girly Girl Camp

At the beginning of summer vacation the girls went to a week long day camp at Girly Girl in downtown Mckinney. "What is Girly Girl?" you ask. It is a place were girls can go to do all things girly, sing, make-up, nails, crafts and lots more! They had an absolute blast!

Emily's 8th Birthday Party

We celebrated Hawaiian style for Emily's birthday. Our pool was filled just in time - 3 days before the party. I scheduled the party a week late to account for any delays in the pool construction. And as always there were so many delays.

Emily only invited a handful of girls since this was our first official pool party. (Mom didn't want to be too overwhelmed) It was a lot of fun, we ate hawaiian chicken, went swimming, ate cake & cupcakes and opened presents.

Our New Backyard

Finally Finished! Our New Backyard!

Yes! We have been using it A LOT! It is so warm here that the temperature quickly rose to 87 and now it hovers around 90. It is the perfect temperature - no chill yet it still cools you off! Come on over for a swim anytime!