Our Growing Family

NO, we are not expecting again. But, we did welcome baby Coal to our family on Saturday.

The kids wanted a dog, but we said we would have to get a house first and then put up a fence. Well, we finally bought our forever home, which actually had a fence. So, the kids were ready. We talked about if they wanted a small puppy that turned into a small dog or a small puppy that turned into a big dog. They opted for small puppy into a big dog.

Brian & I decided on a boxer, Brian said it needed to be a boy and we all wanted a black dog.

We picked him out a couple of weeks ago, but he wasn't ready to come home with us until this past Saturday. The kids loved getting him toys, food and snacks. They were super excited to pick him up and originally loved him. Now they aren't so sure. As with all puppies, he loves to jump and bite. He will grab onto their clothes and not let go. Abs has decided she doesn't need to wear dresses anymore! Ha!

Here are a few pictures of baby Coal - lots more to come.

RAK in 2013

Over the holidays, I saw many posts about RACKing (Random Act of Christmas Kind). It was too much for me to do in December, but I LOVED the idea! So, I thought about switching it up a little and doing a RAK each month!

I really wanted to get the kids involved too. You hear so much about the bad things that happen in our world - why not do something good (even if it is little).

Here are a few rules we setup:
- Do a monthly RAK for somebody we know
- Do a monthly RAK for somebody we don't know
- Can spend no more than $20/month for both RAK's combined

For the month of January, we did a Valentine's RAK for somebody we know. We included a heart mini-cakes pan, cake mix, frosting, sprinkles, a heart box of tootsie rolls and some heart sticky notes.

We bought dinner at Chick-Fil-A (the kids FAVORITE place to go) for somebody we don't know. I felt a little guilty about doing this because we have done this RAK several times before. But, we have just been super-busy already this month ... I have traveled twice and Brian traveled as well, so I slacked a little here. Next month we will try to step it up a notch for somebody we don't know!

Check back next month to see what we RAKed in February.

Happy Birthday, Jason!

Today was my brothers 39th birthday. We were invited to a birthday dinner celebration, which we of course took my dad up on! Abby was so excited to go - she had to put on her pretty dress, curl her hair, put on makeup and wear her fancy shoes ... nothing but the best for Uncle Jason! We were sad because Koby wasn't there, but the kids had a good time - especially when it was time to open presents and eat cake!

Happy Birthday, Jason!

Catching Up

Happy New Year! I hope your new year is starting off good!

I have successfully neglected the blog for the past month or so. I guess that is what happens with a move, the holidays and starting a new school!

We have moved into our 'forever home'! We call it our forever home because we are NOT moving again! We plan on living in this house F-O-R-E-V-E-R! The sellers actually contacted us and asked us to move up the close date by a week. Although I wasn't initially crazy about the idea, it did put us in the house for Christmas. I am glad we did it because it was fun celebrating at our new home.

For Christmas, we had a great time! We started off here and then headed for Cushing. We were exhausted by the end of the day because we made visits to Papa & Peggy, Nana & Papa Dave and then Mame' & Pape'. For New Years, we took it easy. Okay, we were too tired and everybody was in bed by 10!

Today the kids started their new school! I am extremely sad to see the kids leave their last school - I will forever miss their last place. I am sure their new school will be great! For their first day of school, they took their friends a Happy New Year treat and of course they had to take their teachers a little something special. Abby loves to draw, so she took her friends a notepad, pencil, eraser, marker and colored pencil. Brayden gave his friends some bubbles and play dough.

Holiday and forever home pics to come. For now, here are pics of their first day at their new school.

Happy New Year!!!