May 22 2012

March Madness

Anna
March Madness

Ok, so that is a pretty lame use of a “sports” theme especially since we aren’t a sports oriented family…oh well! I still will share our March via a photo show!

Playing in the laundry basket AKA "the boat"

Hail storm that we had to seek shelter from!

Watching Daddy's 10 K race from the car...it was WAY too cold outside!

Ham "freezing" in the backseat while waiting for Daddy to finish his 10K

School time!

They LOVE the new whiteboard we purchased for the school room

Abraham did these all by himself! I was so proud of him! He really doesn't like writing.

We had some fun with water outside in the month of March! Crazy!!

Abel enjoying the outside toys.

Ham is now a total pro at riding his trike!

I caught him doing a PUZZLE! This was huge as Abel has shown NO interest in puzzles!

Aww...taters is snuggling some buddies at bed time

I even caught Abel "reading" books! Again, he hasn't shown much interest in books! So this was huge!!!

27 weeks!

Cheese!

Aww...brotherly love

Super double CHEESE!

Abraham in his adorable "robey robe"

We transitioned Abel to his big boy bed and he loved it!!!

He even pretended to go "night night" for a picture:)

Massive Island of Sodor!

His first time in his new big boy bed and he went right to sleep!!!!

Abraham accepted Christ!

Aaron's goodbye to our bassets

My goodbye to our beloved bassets...thankfully you can't tell I am sobbing in this picture.

We found Hammy like this one afternoon. He crawled up in his bed and crashed!

Insane play time...ham did this ALL on his own!

Sweet little taters

 

March was crazy and lots of fun but it was also very emotional for us as we had to make the difficult decision to give up our bassets. With the news of Aaron going off for training and everything changing, we just couldn’t keep them any longer. But they found a great new home and are loving it (we have seen photos!).  I hope to get April up here by the end of this week!


Apr 3 2012

Bittersweet Goodbye

Anna

Last Tuesday, Aaron and I made the most difficult trip of our lives. We took Archimedes and Arugula to Guardian Angel Basset Rescue to find new homes. It was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make.

We have had issues with our dogs for some time now and they really deserve a better life than I can provide. That hurts so much to say. I love them dearly (they were my first babies) and feel terrible that I had to say “I can’t do it all.” I am not a quitter and here I feel like I have given up. But that is just my flesh and the evil one trying to make me feel guilty for doing the right thing for Arky, Boog and our family. In the coming months, things are going to get very crazy and I don’t need the added stress of taking care of 2 semi-high maintenance dogs. They are super sweet and lovable and I miss them terribly but it was becoming more and more stressful for them and us all living together.

Anyway, I have good days and I have bad days. Today was a bad day. I cried most of the way to my doctor’s appointment this morning. I missed them so much. I regretted letting them go. I want forgiveness from them. I want them to understand why this had to happen.

See the irony in all of this is that they are probably having the time of the lives right now! They are getting super special attention and love from wonderful people. I was told about a potential adoptive family of a recently retired couple who have had bassets for years and just lost their beloved pet. They want a bonded pair (which ours are) and want to travel with them (they have a couple vacation homes) and just enjoy a couple of sweet dogs regardless of health issues. This family seems perfect! They are going to have SO much stinkin’ fun and will probably never think of me again. But it still doesn’t make the pain go away for me. It does lessen it a bit from time to time but it still hurts. I see pictures of them on the wall or Abraham says a prayer for them at bedtime – talk about rip my heart out!

All in all, I know this is right in my heart. Arky and Boog are going to be much better cared for and that is what matters. I love them and always will.

Aaron's goodbye

My goodbye...thankfully you can't see the tears running down my face

Dear Lord, I pray that you will help Arky and Boog find a great new home. Thank you for the time we had with them and thank you for the courage to give them a better life. Please help me deal with this loss and heal the wound in my heart. I love them so much.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen


Feb 24 2012

Our recent week…

Anna
Our recent week...

It started on Sunday when I didn’t feel the greatest (mostly congestion). By the afternoon, I had a fever. I was out for 2 days with a few hours here and there when I felt okay. Congestion got worse and ended up a sinus infection. Thankfully, I had antibiotics on hand to start taking right away.

Monday morning Abraham definitely doesn’t feel good. All he wanted to do was sit in the cart at Meijer. I knew something was definitely up. By the time we get home from our grocery trip, he was running a fever. This fever is STILL GOING ON as I write this. The fever has been the worst I have ever had to deal with. It started around 102 and kept climbing. He topped out at 104.6 F last night. We did make a trip to the doc’s office on Wednesday but he had NO other symptoms so they are just as unsure of what is the cause. The poor kid got so hot last night that he did eventually throw up. It was mostly medicine since the kiddo hasn’t eaten in days. After some fervent prayers over Abraham last night, the Lord delivered him from this severe fever. It is now around 99.9 F. The worst part of all of this has been seeing him suffer and being able to do nothing about it except let him watch way too much TV and keep him on Ibuprofen and Tylenol. He has tolerated it very well considering how bad he must feel.

Now we have Mr. Abel to contend with. He has been feeling great and doesn’t much care for TV at his age. Plus he is FULL of energy. He has not appreciated my attention NOT being centered on him…hence his CONTINUAL testing of every single limit known to him. It has been nothing short of frustrating but I can’t totally blame him. He is bored to tears and just wants some attention – good or bad. We are working through this. The blessing in disguise here is that Abel is healthy! He has shown no signs of sickness except for a minor fever tonight (which might be his teeth) and a little runny nose. Praise Jesus! I surely hope this gets no worse.

The man who has held us together for the better part of the week is now coming down with the sinus thing I have/had. Yuck. Figures. But it is also a blessing in disguise that he doesn’t get sick until AFTER I am able to pick up where I left off. I am also so thankful that he is not afraid and certainly willing to take care of the dishwasher and keep up with the laundry! God gave me a great man as my partner!

Now the dogs could not be out done by the family. We are still dealing with huge issues with them (skin irritation, missing fur, bleeding skin, lack of appetite one day, eating like crazy the next, so thirsty they drink too much and vomit it back up). In a nutshell, they are a mess! We are currently on the path to get them tested for thyroid issues. I am so tired of dealing with this mess. I just want a definite answer to get them better! Too bad they aren’t listed on my health insurance because continual vet visits are expensive!

Anyway, prayers for continued recovery would be much appreciated especially for Aaron to quickly recover as he has a 10K race next Saturday that is VERY important to him. Thank you in advance!


Jan 5 2012

Happy Birthday Boog

Anna
Happy Birthday Boog

Arugula is 6 today! I seriously can’t believe my dog is 6. She is my youngest! Anyway, we had the awesome privilege of being completely dorky and getting a picture of our dog with shadow goggles on! Hi-Ho Silver, Away!!! HAHAHAHA. Yes we are completely dorky:)

Hi Ho Silver Away!! Poor Boog. We have WAY too much fun with her:)


Dec 28 2011

Our Christmas 2011

Anna
Our Christmas 2011

We were very blessed to see so many family members for Christmas. Of course there were many we didn’t get to see but we wished them a Merry Christmas through our cards and letters.

This year was fun to watch Abraham really get excited about handing out gifts from us. He was shy but he did a great job! He was also very polite with the opening of his gifts as greed hasn’t totally set in.

Abel was also fun to watch this year. He enjoyed opening the presents as well. He was having more fun with the paper than the actual gift! He would tear his wrapping paper into the smallest bits possible! He was still quite the handful this year as he is in the toddler phase. He wants to do what he wants to do and really doesn’t care what mom or dad say. Thankfully, most of our Christmas celebrations with family did NOT include a meltdown! Yeah!!!!

Now that the celebrations are over and things are starting to get back to our normal routine…I find myself fighting Abel with his sleep schedule once again. He wakes around 5 am and isn’t really ready to wake up but can’t go back to sleep either. It is so frustrating and exhausting for mommy. Normal wake up time is 8:30 am so this is a big shift for me! We will get through this. I know some of it is his teeth along with our crazy running around for the past couple weeks. Now that things are slowing back down and he will get his GOOD afternoon naps, hopefully things will get back to normal!

Enough of that, enjoy the pictures of our Christmas!

This was at our dentist’s office on Saturday, December 17th.

We don't "do" Santa in our house...and this will probably be our last picture attempt

We went to my Dad’s for Christmas later on in the afternoon of Saturday, December 17th.

Abraham playing very nicely with his cousin Nikolas

The boys enjoying Chrismas at my Dad's

Ham cheesing while playing with ABEL'S new piano!

My Rockstar...guitar and all!

This was Sunday afternoon, December 18th at my Grandpa Shinkle’s.

Abraham posing nicely at Great Grandpa Shinkle's

One of the ONLY face photos of Mr. Taters

These are hilarious pictures from home…

This is his response to "cheese"

This is his next response when asked to take out his binky and cheese!

Love these two

Abel may be a veterinarian when he grows up...look closely Ark is in there too!

I had to open the cage up, thankfully he can't lock it!

My other rock star and Taters getting tossed by papa

This was Christmas with my mom (Grandma Jean) on Thursday morning, December 22nd.

Abel with my mom...see that look, he gives that to me A LOT!

All three were looking in the direction of the camera!!!

Opening presents! Their favorite past time!!!

This was our Christmas Eve celebration in Muncie with Aaron’s extended family.

This was the cutest. Baby Isla just LOVED Abraham!!! She would giggle and smile for him! Ham thought she was pretty cool too.

Abel found "bells" on the door - He LOVED them!!!

More wonderful presents...mater and finn were in these along with 2 new buddies!!

This is Christmas morning at home…

Christmas Morning with stockings!

Even the dogs got a present:)

Ham got Gordon! His favorite!!

Abel adores this dollar store recorder! Best buck I've spent in awhile!

Abel got Animal for Christmas

Ham so proud of Moon Sand!

This is at Christmas morning service…what a neat service…of course I spent most of it chasing Abel around out in the cafe area.

Best shot of the boys at Christmas service

This was Christmas with Grandma and Grand-dad Daniel right after service.

Love this face

Abel REALLY wanted the camera

Boys with Grandma Daniel

The only picture of US!

This was Christmas with my Grandma Brown and my extended family after we left the Daniel’s.

This little boy LOVED the motion-activated Santa because it would play music when you walked by. See the bear, Abel ends up tackling him and running into the main room with him later on in the day!

And this was Abel’s present, a shiner! He was goofing around at his grandparents house and walked into a table corner. Yeouch! THANKFULLY we did NOT end up in the emergency room. It blossomed immediately to a bruise and I knew it would be bad…I just hoped his eye was fine. It was and so no visit! But it sure looks ugly!

Abel's Christmas Shiner


Sep 5 2011

December Fun Part 1(12/2010)

Anna

Enjoy the photo memories!

We have been working on books are for READING not EATING!

Rolling baby boy!

just look at that face

How could I EVER say no to that face!

Tater's 1st Christmas pictures...I was just having some fun with him in front of the tree

He thought the camera looked tasty

My taters with his momma

LOVE this hat!!!

Ham and Papa just chillin'

His absolutely BEST friend

Going for his favorite...the ears!

And he of course had to TASTE the ear...yuck. Boog is such a good sport!

He is so sweet. I love him.

My sweet boys

Mama with Ham

Big brother helping to show Abel how to play with the new toy

Look at the excitement on that face...we are heading to the bath!

Ok, there are a TON more pictures…I will do a part 2! Good night!


Jun 5 2011

Do Over

Anna

Aaron’s birthday was yesterday and in all honesty, the man deserves a Do-Over. Here is how the events unfolded…

Friday: Aaron left late for work because Arugula (dog) decided to have diarrhea in our master bedroom. It was DISGUSTING. Thankfully, he watched the kids while I did the clean up to include shampooing the carpets.

***For those of you who are not “in the know” let me preface this…Aaron and I have been struggling with the decision to find new homes for the dogs. We just can’t give them the attention they need and deserve. We love our dogs but want what is best for everyone. I had finally made the call to a basset rescue and the dogs were accepted. After thinking it over a couple days, we couldn’t part with them. So I cancelled the pending adoption. We made a promise to allow the dogs to be free throughout the house (they had been confined to 1 room downstairs and an allotted space upstairs as to make it easier for me with the FUR) and to give them more attention (walks, brushings, playtime, etc). The boys love our dogs too and it was just too hard to let go of the them.

Ok, now back to the story…I will give Arugula some credit. She had been grumping and grumping trying to tell us she had to go out. But communication is a bit limited with an animal especially ours since they seem to always be grumping about something. Well, she needed to go out and we missed it. Oops. So Aaron finally gets to work and of course things had blown up before hand and he had some major work to do that night and long story short he didn’t make it home until 2:30 am and got in bed at 3:15 am on his birthday. I also had a very late night. Arugula had to be taken outside about every hour. She was having the worst case of diarrhea. I had gotten ready for bed (late since I was trying to stay up for Aaron to come home and wish him a happy birthday) but I finally gave up. I was calling it quits about midnight when Arugula started whining. I went to get her and took her out but totally forgot I had set the house alarm. So I now have 2 very scared and upset children! Abel went back to sleep fairly easily but Abraham did not. He was shaking so badly and wanted to go to sleep in Mommy and Daddy’s room. I got out his cot and finished up with Arugula and by the time it was all said and done it was now 1:30 am! Abraham gets back to sleep and so do I only to hear my dog again at 2:15 am (I had set up a monitor in the dogs’ room). I quickly turn down the monitor and run downstairs to let her out (I was smarter this time and didn’t set the alarm). Meanwhile, Aaron comes home so I just wait around a bit, say hi/happy birthday and go back to bed. I am out. I wake to the weird smell of dog poop at about 6 am. I think to myself, oh man. She has pooped her bed. Why didn’t she whine and make noise for me to hear her? As I descend the stairs, the smell is sickening and then I see my first floor…dog diarrhea EVERYWHERE. Arugula had blown up her bed so badly that she couldn’t take it and BROKE THROUGH HER CRATE! She actually cracked the plastic and busted through the wire door! She then proceeded to TRACK the diarrhea throughout her room and have several other diarrhea accidents all through my kitchen, dining room and living room. And to boot she vomited twice as well.

I didn’t scream but I exclaimed “Oh No! Oh No!” and woke Aaron and Abraham. With so little sleep and this just disgusting mess…words just can’t quite describe what it felt like. I felt bad for my dog but I was also SO MAD. I sent her outside and just left her while I tended to the mess. Aaron’s birthday was officially ruined. We had made plans to go to the Asian Festival to enjoy some different foods without having to drag me or the kids to a Thai or other weird restaurant (ok, only I think those are weird…I like Chinese and Japanese food but the rest, not so much). Anyway, those plans were pretty much canceled since it was going to be super hot and if we didn’t get there right at 10 am, the kids would never make it. I worked as fast as I could and still had to have help from Aaron. I did the cursory clean up with paper towels and APC (all purpose cleaner), mopped the kitchen with hot water and Pine-Sol, steam mopped my kitchen, set out to spot spray and then shampoo the dogs’ room, living room and dining room. Thank God I had enough shampoo left in the house! Aaron thankfully cleaned out her crate (outside) and reassembled it the best we could. It is functional but if she wanted to, she could escape without much effort. I then gave Arugula a bath and left her outside the rest of the day. I know it was ridiculously hot but we had shade on our back deck, gave her a towel to sleep on and lots of water with ice cubes. There wasn’t much else we could do. She had to potty so frequently that it was just the best solution we had.

I was thankful that Abraham understood the gravity of the situation and was very obedient. He did not go back to sleep and was up at 6 am and we allowed him to play in his room with puzzles and books for about 90 minutes. He was then hungry enough he needed to eat. We were able to get that taken care of too and of course Abel woke for his morning milk about 7:30 am and did not go back to sleep either! He had been sleeping in until 9 am but of course, not today. I took on the cleaning and had Aaron just go have fun with the boys for a bit. It worked out pretty well. The boys enjoyed their Daddy and I was able to get everything clean without much interruption. This cleanup took nearly 5 hours! It was 11 am when I was finished! Ugh! But at least the house didn’t smell like dog poop anymore.

Looking back, I am so thankful the kids woke when they did because we all took a nice nap at 11 am.

We did salvage some of the day. We did take Aaron to Shallo’s to work on his beer list (he hardly ever drinks anymore so this was a real treat) and we opted for low-fat ice cream at Baskin Robbins instead of birthday cake. It was perfect! The car never stranded us and we really did have a nice time together as a family. We ordered Papa John’s for dinner since Shallo’s really didn’t have the “food” we were looking for. After dinner (which Abel LOVED Papa John’s) we had a nice, quiet evening together. The kids went to bed late but without a fuss and Aaron and I enjoyed part of a movie and crashed.

Looking back, we are still bewildered that we didn’t hear our dog breaking through her crate. Their room is right below ours and we hear them kicking and scratching all the time.  You would think we would have heard a crate being torn apart. Plus, I had a monitor right next to my head! What gives!!??!! Well, in my stupor of having only been asleep 30 minutes or so, I turned down the monitor volume as to not disturb Abraham but forgot to turn it back UP when I came back to bed. Most of this fiasco would have been avoided had I done a simple task. I feel terrible. I am mostly responsible for the ruination of my husband’s birthday.

The verdict is still out on whether or not we keep the dogs. Part of us believe that it is wrong to do so, but the other side says do what is right for all of us. We just don’t know.

Just too cute!

Goofy boys

Best picture of my Ham and Taters

Super CHEESE!

Wanting to be just like his Daddy

We partied THIS hard!

Happy Birthday love. Sorry it didn’t quite go as planned…I promise a “do-over” very soon! We love you!

ps It came to me today WHAT is wrong with our dogs since now Archimedes has diarrhea too…they had vaccinations last week! Aha!