Time to Camp!

...in living room!   Yes, its the middle of winter it's the only place to camp.   We started the tradition of when Loving Husband is away on a mission that the kids get to have a sleepover in our bed.  This time I decided to add a fun twist and I decided to camp in the living room.    I kept the kids downstairs while I set everything up - including starting a fire and making dinner.  

Why yes, I did get this idea from Pinterest!

They were pretty excited to see the surprise and Ace was even more excited to hear that the tent would be where we were enjoying our sleepover for the night!  We ate dinner and enjoyed the fire and after we finished Ace went and picked the movie, he chose E.T..   We broke out the popcorn and enjoyed tent life with a movie.

After E.T. we watched an episode of Rescue Bots and then they Ace easily settled into sleeping.  Mae was a bit more wound up and it took an extra 30 minutes of getting her to finally settle down and crash into a slumber.   Eventually they both were sleeping, the fire died down, and mommy watched a bit more tv on her computer with headphones on before crashing myself.

Everyone slept through the night and even Pixel did a good job throughout the evening (he certainly was a big help eating discarded popcorn that missed little mouths!)  As everyone settled into sleep so did he and did good to keep us company all night long.    It was an excellent sleepover!

2012 in Pictures

A Few Months in Photos

In order to preserve the historical aspect that I love so much about keeping this blog, I'm doing a bit of backlogging of things that I did stay on top of - photography.  :)    So here are some fond memories of the last 5 months.   Enjoy!

Ten on Ten - November

It's been a few months since I participated and even this time I didn't do it hour per hour. :)  But throughout the day there were some fun moments to take some photos and then in some downtime I had some fun editing them.  Mae wanted to be more of a model than her brother today (as is most of the time.)  

To see more joy and photography hop on over to the hostess: A Bit of Sunshine

Twenty Two Months Old

Goodness gracious!  How have we ventured to this point?!   We are two months away from Mae turning TWO.    Time goes so fast and it's such a fun adventure.   

Mae's first for her 22nd month included:  trick-or-treating, sleeping through the whole night*, lots of new words and phrases.

Yes, Mae's vocabulary is really exploding and aside from being quite the parrot for anything her brother or the rest of us say she's doing great coming up with things all on her own.   It's really cute because after she poses for a picture, takes medicine, anything really she wraps up with 'gud job' which is often what we tell her.    She love to say prayers now and she will offer up prayers in one word sound bytes that then she wants us to say "Dear Jesus, thank you for..." "dad"  "Thank you for dad"  "bruder" "Thank you for brother"  and if we don't pray and thank Jesus for what she has said she repeats it until she does.  Her prayer list typically always includes:  Dad, Bruder, Mom, Pehul, food.   Others that aren't as consistent include: bed, nap, sad (not to be sad), kind, lov-u (loving), Pop Pop, Grammie (I think she's lumped all grandmas into this prayer), piggy, printhesses, diapers... and the other day she was stuck on needing to pray for butt and poop.   It was one of those I tried to skim past, I know I'm editing her prayers, gasp!  But we prayed for them once... I figured it was enough.  No we prayed for them several times.   This went on for a few days - who knows if it will return.   It's adorable and I love that she wants to talk to Jesus every time she lays down for a nap or to go to bed for the night.  

Speaking of sleep this is where the * comes in.   Yes, I know I have blogged once upon a time in Mae's existence that she slept through the night... but it's been soooo long I feel we've reset and so I am going to happily celebrate the fact that she was asleep last week for 12 hours straight.   Put her to bed and she talked to herself for a bit and then she was asleep and I awoke before her to by an hour - insured she was breathing and went back to lay in bed for another free hour!   BLISS... looking forward to when that ever becomes consistent.  Most nights she's awake every 3 to 4 hours.  No milk breaks but still very much wanting it and so the wake ups are often more time consuming then when she was nursing.    She's slowly getting there and heck even if she's on her brother's time line of independent sleep we only have 14 more  months to go.  I think I can, I think I can...

Mae has really started to take a liking to certain things - she for a while was very much in mommy-mode and was loving on her babies and feeding them a lot.    This month she has been very attached to 'printhesses'  which is cute.  She does NOT like Cinderella (not sure why)  and she isn't a huge fan of Merida - but she loves Rapunzel, Belle, and Aerial.   It's cute she lugs around her 20" stuffed princesses and loves them.  If she sees one on tv or in a book - her eyes get wide and she screams "Printhess!"  it's cute - and as Loving Husband pointed out an expensive love.  :)   We'll see.   Her main focus might shift once again.  :)  We haven't even begun to explore My Little Ponies!

In Mae's 22nd month of life and Pixel's 6th month - Mae broke the dog.   I sound dramatic?  No really... she broke the dog.  Fractured his left knee at the growth plate - so to be fair it was a softer bone area that is more prone to injury - but Mae has once again proven she's freakishly strong.  The thing is that she wasn't trying to hurt Pixel.  She was trying to get him up on the couch... by his hind leg.  It didn't work out.   Pixel is on the mend after xrays, a visit to an orthopedic team of doctors and some good narcotics for the pain.  No major intervention was required and we now have pet insurance as he's proven to be a tad too fragile for Mae.     NO hard feelings are left between the two of them - in fact much to our dismay - Mae and Pixel like to enjoy kisses.  She sticks her face down close and puckers her open mouth and says "kuuusssss' and Pixel licks her and then she covers her mouth and giggles and says "Awww coote'  (cute) over and over again.   It would be sweet if not totally gross.  ;)

Mae and her brother are doing well and more often than not are a great pair - she misses him when we drop him off at school and often requires giving him a hug and a kiss before we leave.  In fact she just assume stay and often toddles over to a table or the play bins and just joins the fun with out a care in the world as to what mommy is doing.  :)   Ace and Mae still have the more traditional relationship of siblings where Mae has found her voice (read screaming high pitched yell) and her brother screaming "That's hurting my ears, sister!!!"   It's delightful to discuss patience and lovingingness and kindness in those times.      They play well together and she of course wants to do everything that Bruder is doing.   Including going down the stairs on a broken down cardboard box... "Watch this sister!"   Oh boy!   

Size wise M is growing and getting bigger each day it seems - although she's still super tiny.   We love to watch her grow and develop today she even said a compound word (sunshine) and we were so proud as often any phrase that we say to her she often only repeats one of the words.   She's really getting quite the personality and is adorable.    We love her and I can't wait to see how she enjoys the holiday season this year!

Ten on Ten - August

I cannot believe that it is August!   Where did the time go!?  I'm happy to report that my 10 on 10 is late being posted because THIS mommy actually got out of the house for a girl's night!   And I didn't get home until after 1am!  HoOrAy!!!    On another note -- a Happy Birthday shout out to Kaylee and Ethan! 

Ace helped with this edit - he really likes the heat map edits, but I reigned him in some for this one. :)

Mae requested I do her hair and then promptly pulls it out to look at it.  Rinse and repeat all day long. :)



With kids fully engaged into totally educationally mind stimulating activities ::cough a movie:: 
mommy continued to edit the first birthday shoot that I did.  

4pm mommy finally gets a shower!

back from berry picking with dad the children play (?) outside.

Last  shot of the day before mommy gets outta dodge and goes free!!!

Ten on Ten over at A Bit of Sunshine!

Pixel

Our family has converted!  We are now dog people!   After putting together a 30 slide power point presentation for Loving Husband (no lie)  we got him on board to the idea of getting a dog.   Because every kid needs a dog!  

Loving Husband wanted a puppy and I wanted a cairn terrier and a dog from a shelter.     It seemed to be fate that right after LH got on board we found a litter that was ready to go home with two pups still unclaimed from the litter.   So we went to have a look!  

Having studied up we went through several 'tests' with the dog to ensure that it wasn't a dog that was overly nervous, skiddish, aggressive, etc..  He passed all the tests and I think best of all he was raised in a foster home with small kids that loved and smothered them excessively and so our pup was more than happy.    Yes, our little guy was on the smaller size from the litter.   He was one of five puppies to be born to a cairn terrier mix who was found wandering in a park.  His mama delivered the next day in the shelter and then all of them went to live at their foster home until adoption day.   

Our little guy weighed in at 2.2lbs at 8 weeks and was neutered!  Eep!  Sad day for the tiny guy... but coming from a shelter it's their policy so that they prevent future unwanted litters.  It makes sense but it is still a little sad.   I digress!   So he was neutered on a Friday and that Sunday we went to have a look-see!   As I mentioned above he was perfect for us and although smaller than our desired dog, he stole our hearts and we took him home.  On our ride home we began to go through names and after going through several options we moved onto photography terms and came across Pixel!  It was perfect.  So by the time we headed to the pet store to buy his food we knew his name and so we got his tag! :)

In his foster home he had been in a pin with his brothers and sisters and adults in the home said 'good night' at 8pm and then good morning at 5am.   This was a bit of a transition for us all the first week.   We crate trained Pixel and the first two nights we had him in a pin with his crate inside and the door open.  He happily slept in his crate from the start with no issue.   Night three we closed the crate and eliminated the pin and he slept through the night our 9 week old puppy slept all night and was even starting to stretch out his sleep pushing past 6am.   After a week or two he was finally on track with the rest of the family with a more reasonable 7am(ish) start.  :)

Pixel loves to play fetch and aside from not wanting to drop whatever he retrieved he's pretty good at it! He has recently learned to 'speak' - which is good - now we can concentrate on 'quiet' :) but to be fair he's a pretty good dog and isn't a yapper. He barks when he's excited and playing, when he needs to go potty, or is trying to get our attention. He is still uber hyper when meeting new people and is very much a puppy. 

Pixel the first few weeks of his life with us were full of medicine!  Poor dog needed some ear drops twice a day and he caught kennel cough somewhere along the way and required a 2 week round of 2x a day oral antibiotics.  Thankfully he and I got into a routine and he actually was very good at taking the antibiotic meds... The ear drops depended on the day and his level of angst - but we got through it and he's a happy and good to go puppy!   

I have to give this puppy props because on the 4th of July (his first holiday!)  He did not care one bit about the war zone that was going on in our neighborhood... and when I say war zone I am talking about 7-10 different neighbors within visible distance from one another lighting off professional sized mortars over and over and over.  He didn't budge and went to sleep no problem.

He's a great dog and a happy new addition to our family - even if logistically he does take a little extra planning as a result. :) The kids love him and Morgan only took a few days to warm up to him. Pixel does jump and bite on them (playfully in his mind) and so there is still more work to be done, but overall they all get along great!

 Pixel is a typical puppy that requires training to break habits of biting, jumping, etc.  :)   I am happy to report that just in the last week - Week 14 - so 5 weeks after having Pixel in our home I am feeling more confident that he's finally "getting" potty training.  I think a large hurdle for that is that he finally has learned that he CAN in fact get down off the deck and go in the yard.  Silly dog.  He's tiny, but he's not THAT tiny.  :) 
 
Now the BIGGEST question - what IS he?   His mama was a carin terrier mix.  But his papa??  Originally it was guessed that he was a chihuahua, but that is less and less likely - next guess was a toy or mini Australian Shepard because of his general look and the natural bobtail that he has.   Most recently yorkie or sheltie has been tossed around.  Anyone else care to weigh in?   :) 

9.5 weeks old

14 weeks old

He's gotten a bit longer, taller, and his snout has elongated some.  He weighs in at 3.6lbs now.