Vicariously you shall live!

Our new puupy is great....but....couldn't he have come potty-trained? and WHY can't my 3 yo understand that if you squeeze his neck or pull his tail or put your fingers in front of his mouth, that he WILL BITE?!?! What is his obsession with tearing up, ripping or shredding paper products? He doesn't dig outside in the dirt, but he tries to dig a hole in the bed before he lays down. What's up with that?







Our new puppy is great! We love him already, and like I said previously, he's spoiled rotten. He loves to sleep in my lap when I'm in the lazy boy watching football (or anything on TV, I guess) and he prefers to be under the covers in the bed at night. First time he did that it freaked me out. He finds a fold in the comforter, sticks his long nose in it, and heads down the bed, to around knee-level. When he runs through the living room, it sounds like he weighs 50 pounds, hence the name suggestion from my 'other-mother' of Thumper. Then when he runs through the kitchen, we hear his little claw-taps. He is great. The first paragraph is just new-puppy-frustrations that I'm sure everyone faces. Truth is, we all are very grateful to finally have a dog.
My hubby grew up with lots of dogs throughout his adolescent years, I think about a dozen, several of which were named Blackie. I got a kitty on the first day of kindergarten, Samantha, who passed my senior year, and I got a cocker-spaniel, Charlie, in 2nd grade who passed when I was, like 22.
After our oldest was born, we found out when he was about 10 months old, that he is allergic to peanut butter (scary story for another time). Then when he was about 18 months old, we thought we found out he was allergic to cats & dogs. Later on, by process of elimination, we now know he's very allergic to cats, but not dogs. So, for about 3 years now, we've been talking about getting a dog, but then we had Kaylee, so after she turned 2 we kept saying that after she was potty-trained we'd get a puppy (to potty train).
I thought I'd found the perfect puppy back in June when my BF told me about a friend of hers at church that got a mini-pin mix from the pound, got her home, and found out she was pregnant from a pug. I thought that would make a pretty cute mix. I anxiously told my husband about them, but he wasn't interested. When the puppies were ready to go home, I thought if the one I liked came over for a spend-the-night-trial, Tony would fall in love with it, and let us keep it. Now, I don't usually use the word 'wise' to describe my husband, but in hindsight, it is very appropriate for this situation. We had the puppy over at our house for about 2 hours, it was very sweet, pooped outside, slept in it's box, played a little bit, presented itself as a good little puppy. But my husband kept telling me it wasn't the right puppy for us, we weren't ready yet, we would find something better when we took our time to look, etc. And, yes, I'm gonna say it, he was...right (write that one down, honey!). I made a puppy-mention again before Christmas, and I was very surprised to hear, "Yeah, I was thinking about it too, I think we're ready now."
~Sidenote here~ Thank you, thank you, thank you for autosave!! I was this far when my computer fraze & had to be restarted! You'd be getting a much shorter version of the story if this draft hadn't been saved!~
Anyway, we looked in the bulletin board, found a breeder in Troy, and it happened to be the day of our anniversary when we went to get him. We're joking about filling out his CKC registration papers with the proper name of Melchizedek Methuselah Oswald, puppy name Buddy. Nah...
I hear heavy rain outside! Praise the Lord! Lake Martin's only 4 feet away from normal now, so bring it on!

Our Little Buddy

We got our first family dog on our 9th anniversary, a week before Christmas. We have finally given up trying to pick a name all 5 of us agree on, so we're calling him "Buddy" because that's what we called him while we were trying to decide on a name. He is a 4 month old black & tan dachshund. My 8 yo wanted to name him Slim, Winston, or Chester. My 7 yo wanted to name him Biscuit, Smokey or Stretch. My 3 yo would go with whatever the new idea was for the day. I wanted to name him Oscar. My husband wanted to name him Blackie. So, he's our little Buddy. He's already spoiled rotten.

Firstborn

When I was pregnant with my first child, I thought I could eat everything I wanted to. So I did. And it showed. He was born in July, amist sweltering heat, so ice cream everyday was a must. My pre-pregnancy weight was 135. When I was admitted into the hospital, I weighed 218! YIKES! is right.
Everything went well during the pregnancy, except my dr did repeatedly tell me to slow down the weight-gain. I was due on Friday, July 9th. That afternoon, I went walking up & down the street at my "other-mother's" house, and that didn't work. Needless to say, I was miserably fat & SWOL. Went to bed that night, disappointed that nothing had happened, woke up at 4am, yes, of course, to pee, and realized that my water had broke. I whispered to my husband, "honey, I think my water broke...should we go to the hospital?" He said, "well, are you in labor?" I said, "no, I don't think so, but, aren't we supposed to go to the hospital?" All I could remember hearing in parenting class was, "Don't come to the hospital before your contractions are 5 minutes apart!" and "If your water breaks, don't take a bath!" So I walked back to my 'rents room (very long story about a crazy landlord) and whispered to my Mom, "Mom?" she answered in a low voice, "Yeah?" I said, "I think my water just broke" she answered in a loud voice, "Let's go!" She was up and dressed in the blink of an eye. I got dressed, got my hubby up, headed to the hospital, and was admitted right away.
It was slow goings from there. They gave me 12 hours to go into labor on my own, and when that didn't happen, they started me on pitocin. When that kicked in, around midnight, I got my epidural, then around 6am I was ready to push. I didn't go through the cliche pushing scene of yelling and screaming and blaming my husband and stuff, I just breathed & pushed. It was going fine until the dr said, "He's stuck at the shoulders, I can't get him out." Um, what? He's stuck? Get him out! Get him out! So they laid me down flat and just pulled as hard as they could, I guess. Pretty traumatic for the little fella. Dr Korey said, "We've got a line-backer! Where's he gonna play?" My husband & I answered in unison, "Bama!" then he was cleaned off & laid on my chest.
A few minutes later, we found out that he weighed 10 pounds, 1 ounce. Then a little while after that, we found out that he broke his collar bone during delivery. He recovered quickly from that and was a great baby. The nurses put his portable crib next to a little 5-pounder, and let me tell you, that was a funny sight.
He was a good baby and grew up to be a good kid. I was in for a real shock when I thought my second son would be just like him. Maybe another post, though.

Where you at?

How sweet! A faithful checker has posed the question 'cuz it's been a whole week since my last post. Truth is, Monday morning I was all poised and ready to boo-hoo and complain about the Packers losing on Sunday, but I checked Steph's blog first, and learned the sad, tragic news about Bronner Burgess. Needless to say, that sort of thing changes your perspective real quick.
So, this week I've just been floating around, listening to news about Rick & Bubba, Heath, Britney, (the whole "British-accent-possible-split-personalities-thing" fascinates me) and not really knowing where to focus.
I'm wondering if having a blog that could potentially reach lots of people brings a certain responsiblity for me to spread the gospel. The fact that I love my husband very much, but have to watch him suffer from depression from time to time is not something that I talk about a whole lot, but I know I'm not the only one out there who has to deal with that kind of situation. So maybe I should write (type) about that. I have 3 wonderful children and I often don't feel like the best parent in the world (or even house, sometimes) and I know that's something I'm not alone in dealing with. Every mother (well, most every mother) likes to share their stories of childbearing. Those of you who know me would probably never have guessed my first child weighed in at 10 pounds, 1 ounce.... yeah, that's a cool story. We just got a new puppy for Christmas, I think we're gonna call him "Buddy" because we can't decide on a real name.
See, total lack of focus!!
Someone let me know what they would like my next topic to be, and I'll hit the ground running with the first recommendation.
Ready, set, reply!!

We got

SNOW!
I know it doesn't look like much to some, but down in Bama, to 3 young kids, it equates to "the best day of my life... ever!"

Sky Angel Cowboy

If you've never seen (heard) this, get the kleenex ready!
This was a call-in radio conversation from a 13 year-old boy named Logan who lives on a farm in Nebraska.
Talk about wisdom beyond your years...

Just another reason why....

I like Mike Huckabee.

TO's Tears

Who is he trying to convince? Is he going for an Oscar for best supporting player in an athletic role? He's shown himself to be a talented smack-talker, but c'mon, tears? During his years as an eagle I often criticized him for not being able to back up all that talk, but he has proven himself quite well this year. I do commend him on his note-writing skills, showing that he is capable of holding his tongue on occasion, but this is just too much drama queen!
The guys at Sports Center have done a nice job all week long of standing up for Romo's weekend getaway with Jessica, frequently stating that if they were to in fact, lose, it would not be because he chose to bask in the sun in Cabo. So I think we didn't need all the waterworks.
I'm pickin' the Packers all the way! I'd love to see them take down the Pats! (Sorry, Jeff! :)

We all need

A good laugh!

My Grandma

Lillian, or Ms Lil, is in need of prayer. Here she is on our trip to Gulf Shores this past August. She just turned 85 in October, and uses a walker due to a break in her leg 2 years ago, but as you can see, she's still very active.
She has osteoporosis and has recently been in a lot of pain, and the dr has found a compression fracture in her spine. She has decided to have a surgery that will inject a sort of cement into her vertabrae to solve the problem and releive the pain. Please lift her up for comfort & healing. Thanks!

Dr. Phil

visited Britney in the hospital last week, and then had the GALL to tell ET that she needs serious physcological intervention. This is news? The rest of the Spears family is upset because Mom Lynn asked him to visit her with the idea that he would not bring the media into it. Is Dr. Phil the only person on earth who thinks Britney needs to get some help? The spokesperson for Jaime, Lynn & Jamie-Lynn Spears was on the today show and she made an excellent point (which most of us already realize) that our society unfortunately, for the most part, is facsinated with watching a family deteriorate, rather than rally around them. So she basically came on the today show and asked for prayers for Britney and the family. Now, I don't know about you, but I've heard it before and honestly, been a little heartless about it. The truth is, she's a mother of two who's losing a mental battle in her own mind, and in the meantime, losing her chances of raising her boys. She does need prayer, and we're not here to judge. So, I know it may sound silly to ask for prayers for a celebrity-paparazzi-darling, who has been very open and deliberate about a lifestyle of flagrant sin, but it is what we're here for. I think our initial reaction (or at least mine) should be one of intsant intercession instead of a shrug, an eye roll, and a quick dismissal as being the norm.

"All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Ph 2:12

"Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much." Ja 5:16

"Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other." Is 45:22

I thought this was funny.

Premiere Post

Following the advice & encouragement of a fellow blogger, I have decided to start my own. I think I'd kind of like to try little devotionals and antecdotes about my kids. Plus I love crazy, creative & strange stuff on the internet like this. I hope you will enjoy!