Inspiration

Our big sweet bear of a dog, Norman is a spoiled one. It's no secret, and I'm okay with it. I'm sure he thinks we are mean when we don't share our dinner or other table scraps, or when we haven't taken him on a walk in about 3 weeks {buddy, convince me you want to be outside, I have to practically pull you to get you out there in the heat} but in reality, he lives a pretty plush life.

Not a camera trick, he is in fact tucked-in on the couch.

 

He is such a good dog though, it's hard not to spoil him, and let him walk all over us a bit. We laugh every morning when we leave because we get all of his toys and bones out, turn on the fans for him, turn on the iPod {so he doesn't get lonely, duh}, make sure all the blinds are open so he can look outside. Really? All that? He's a dog!! Both of us are aware of this, but for those of you that have a dog, you know they are so much more. They are family {I'm sorry for those of you that don't have dogs, I know that concept might be strange, but I pray that you will experience it one day.}

 

Mr. Norman was a rescue dog that I got when I was up at school in Kirksville. I was a Freshman and with a lack of activity in town I decided to start volunteering at the local animal shelter. They needed people who would come walk the dogs around their HUGE property, and were especially in need of people who were comfortable with the big dogs. Well, come February/March of my Freshman year, this cute {albeit smelly} puppy shows up and I was done for. He was so cute, and St. Bernard's had always been my favorite dog. I called my dad and told him all about it, but he said it wasn't possible right now, they already had  two dogs and taking in another while I was at school just wasn't in the cards. 

 

I was devastated.   

But I kept going out and walking the puppy {his name was Lumpy then} and eventually my dad said that he supposed it would be alright, but it was my financial responsibility to take care of him. YES!! I went out, filled out the application, and prepared to bring him in all his stinky glory home over Easter. 

 

Pure joy of freedom

Home

Sad when he mom was leaving =(

I was nervous he wouldn't remember me, since I was back at school after I dropped him off, but he did. He knows I am the one who saved him, and that was always something special to me. My amazing family took him and his 90 pounds in for the next three years of school, and the first year we were married, living in Lawrence, but we finally got our puppy back last year. It's so sweet to have our little family together. 

 Before we went out for our first anniversary

So if you haven't gotten it, we feel that dogs are a vital part of life. They teach you so much about yourself but more importantly about loving others. The love and devotion they have is really incomparable and it makes you think about how you approach love for others in your life. We leave Norman everyday in an empty house to go to work, but everyday he is excited for us to come home and love him. He greets us with the same enthusiasm whether we are gone for a trip to the grocery store, to work, or for a week long vacation. It often reminds me of the love we are given through Christ, no matter how neglectful we are of Him, He loves us all the same. 

We have a plaque in our kitchen:

Isn't that just easier anyway? You can't walk out of the house without looking at it, and it's such a great daily reminder of how we should approach everything in our life. Just love everyone, you never know who's life you are going to impact with one random act of kindess and love. 

keep it simple.

And Another....

This heat. I feel like I keep coming back to it, but it has gotten to the point of no return. We got our electric bill for last month, and it was painful. Apparently when your air conditioner doesn't turn off, day or night, you pay for it. Yikes. I am thankful everyday that we are blessed to have AC, because it seems like each morning there is another tragic death in the area of someone who wasn't as fortunate. If you have older neighbors, please check on them. It is so heartbreaking that people have to suffer through the summer when others can help by being a good neighbor.

All of our activities must take place in the morning now. Which I am okay with. Curly actually is a stud when it comes to nap-time, and the heat wears him out {I'm talking four hour naps here, and he still sleeps at night.} So today, I was informed that we were going on a walk. Fine by me, wear those little legs out. So off we go and about 2 blocks into our stroll we come face to face with...the street-sweeper. Best thing ever. We chased that street-sweeper for probably close to a mile, poor kid was determined. It was hilarious. We did have a couple stops, as we passed a street that has had construction going on for the past year. Thankfully mansions don't build themselves, and we have gladly taken part in watching the work with the cement mixers, bobcats, bulldozers and trucks since last summer. It's amazing to me how these boys can just sit and watch the trucks for 15-20 minutes. They can't sit through an entire meal, but put a dump truck in front of them and game over.

We eventually lost the street-sweeper {shocking} but made it to the playground for a little while. There is a family center down the street where we would go to an indoor play-group during the colder times {at least that's what I am told, I don't remember any such times} and they are on their summer break now too, so there aren't any kids. This playground is never empty, so it's fun when you can get it without 50 kids on it.

He was a wild man today, refuses to go down the slide and way but head first and he couldn't stay on any part of the playground for more than 5 minutes and was off running to the next thing. No wonder he is still sleeping, makes for a nice afternoon of Pinterest for me I suppose.

keep it simple.

Two Years Ago...

I was doing this:

 

 

By far the best day of my life. We had such a great time with our wonderful family and friends. Everything was perfect (thankfully the big man upstairs blessed us with a cool spell and it wasn't 105, like it is today).

I can't believe it has already been two years. For the most part it seems like it was yesterday, but when I stop to think about all the changes in our life that have occurred since that day, I remember what a crazy two years it has been.

•  We moved to Lawrence.
•  The Mr. completed his Master's.
•  The kidney-stone debacle. Not the best Thanksgiving ever. 
•  I lost my Grandmother.
•  We moved to St. Louis.
•  The Mr. passed his CPA tests (on the first go around, praise the Lord!)
•  I started my new job with the crazy three.
•  The Mr. started his new job.
•  We finally got our puppy =)
•  I lost my Grandfather.

There were so many things to be thankful for over the past two years, but also so many things that brought serious heartache to our family. It takes your relationship to a new level when you go through the grief of losing someone close to you, and we unfortunately had to do it a lot, very close together (I actually lost my three remaining grandparents in a span of two years and three months.) But we made it through, and I am thankful that we had each other during those times.



Today, two years later, my day has been oh so different. It was spent sweating my life away at the Zoo because dear old Curly only wanted to see the animals today.

 Although I did get a kick out of both this turtle and the lion. You don't get to see the big cats too often and in Curly's words, "That lion is handsome, he's just chillin'." It's been a good day, just not what I envisioned two years ago.


Now just time to wait for our date night. Maybe we can wear this again:

Maybe not. I am a lucky girl and got to wear my dress two times though. More on that another time though.

keep it simple.

This Week

Has been chaos. Lot's of running around and not a lot of time to relax. Which is okay, and I typically prefer to be doing something, but still...it's nice to have a little time to yourself.

We are doing some serious potty-training-bootcamp around these parts and Curly has been doing pretty good. I'm seriously impressed. Nothing that bribery and stickers can't solve. We did two days without any accidents {insert me jumping up and down celebrating here}. I didn't even try today. We went to the Museum of Transportation with the Blond, Chunk and their mom, J and without bathrooms being right around the corner, I didn't want to risk it. The five of us had fun though, despite the sweltering heat. It's so good for the Blond and Curly to get together to play during the summer since they don't see each other every day. After that we went to Jeremiah's and got ice-cream for the boys hoping to see a train go by, but apparently they stopped working {seriously, I have never been down there without at least one train}.

So now I am basking in the glory of sitting down and relaxing while Curly enjoys a little siesta. Simple pleasures.


This morning I started Tracy Anderson's 30-Day Method. I liked the strength training. The cardio/aerobics part wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but that's alright. It was a little more dance than I was expecting, and being as I have no rhythm and failed miserably in my 8 week stint of dance classes you can imagine how absurd I looked. But hey, I figure I'm trying, it has to get easier, and at the very least I'm jumping around, flailing my limbs like a lunatic for 45 minutes, it's got to be doing something!

I'll leave you with a picture of my pride and joy right now. I don't have much of a green thumb, so the fact that any of my wildflower seeds made it to bloom is shocking, and I was very happy to see that the first little sunflower popped yesterday.

It's only about 2 inches across! So cute!

Sunflowers make me miss our Lawrence home a bit.

keep it simple.

Home Sweet Home

 I got a lot of looks with all 3 of them in the car.

After a long crazy week at the homestead, we are back in our sweet little house. It's funny how much you can miss little things when they aren't around. Case in point, our gloriously comfortable bed. Not to say we slept uncomfortably at my families, but there is something about being back at your house, in your bed that can make everything seem better. 

The Mr. had some friends in town over the weekend. Our friends band, Quiet Corral was playing here in StL and a handful of guys came in to see the show. It was a great show, and it was nice to see everyone. I was a little thankful that I could get away from the madness. Well sort of. It was sort of a take your pick kind of situation.

In other news, my baby brother turned 19 this week. NINETEEN.

Look at how cute he was, rocking that red fubu jersey. Sometimes I forget that he's grown up now and I still imagine he must look like this, right? He's not old enough to be going to college in the fall, right?

There you have it, he's a grown up. Sort of.
Dinner should be fun tonight. Typically is when the whole crew gets together, we are blessed.

keep it simple.

Puppies can be Punks

We are house sitting for my family while they are in Wisconsin, I'd be jealous that they are away from the heat if they weren't having their own heat wave up there...with no air conditioning. Okay, I'm still jealous, just trying to convince myself I'm not.

So we are back at the homestead with three dogs and two cats, we debated having all them to our house, but quickly realized it is not big enough. Norman has officially become the medium puppy in the trio and has been having some issues adjusting to Miss Raina not only being bigger than him, but taking all of his old spots in the house and her general puppy tomfoolery.

Raina doesn't quite get that we don't like sharing the bathroom.

The eight months of puppy, coming in around 97 pounds means that most of the time we hug the wall when she starts going a little batty. Getting home from work means that there is about 250 pounds of dog running straight for your knees. It's a not an ideal situation for those of you with weak knees.

the pup standing on the bed. she can't figure out those back legs to jump up yet.

We have been getting a laugh at all three of the  pups though. Tucker has basically been keeping to himself, unless Raina is driving him nuts, then he promptly goes and steals the bone she likes more. Which results in her barking at him. A lot.

poor old man, just trying to stay out of the way

Norman is constantly giving us looks of, "Can you believe that punk just stole my spot?" because she will lay on top of him in the bathroom, or directly in front of him in the kitchen (blocking all air from the fan). It's really humorous. In regards to the photo above of Raina's sad attempt to get on the bed, it's obvious she is used to getting up earlier in the morning (thanks Dad) and every morning this week has made a running start to jump onto the bed. Since she doesn't know how to jump, I end up with about 70 pounds of force from her front paws on top of me. Not the most calming wake-up call. Once I get her pushed off the bed, Norman (who was previously sleeping) decides that it is time to jump on the bed. He has no reason to, it's hot, he doesn't like to be too close when it's hot. He just wants to be a punk, and it's so obvious that he is mocking Raina's inability to get onto the bed. I'd say it's coincidence, but since it's happened every morning thus far, I'm going with our puppy is a punk.

all three punks gathered in the hall. 

big house and they all lay together in a skinny hallway.

keep it simple. 

Kids and Food

Have you tried these?

They are delicious. They are a nice little pick-me-up sugar rush to keep in your bag. The trick is trying to keep them away from certain little hands.

Easier said than done. 

We've been having a fun week around here. We made it out to the zoo to see the sharks and stingrays. FUN! If you go to the zoo in the first hour that it's open, all the extra exhibits are free (sharks, carousel, children's zoo) so that's a big plus. Nothings like a fun free day at the zoo. I am glad that we didn't pay for it, Curly wasn't too sure about sticking his hand in the tank to touch the stingrays and sharks, but he did enjoy looking at them, so it wasn't a total bust.

We split a pretzel and cheese. Curly didn't like the pretzel dipped in cheese so much so he took a different, more unconventional approach...

yep that's a raisin.

The blond might quite possibly be the messiest eater I have ever had the pleasure to know. It has gotten to the point of being comedic really. He can eat a granola bar and have it spread around the entire room, while he stays in one place...really it's just impressive. Here's the aftermath from eating two, yep only two raspberries yesterday. 

Like I said, it's a gift.


I'm making a  balsamic roast chicken tonight for dinner. I'll keep you posted on the progress of that =)


keep it simple.