Thursday, November 29, 2007

Soapbox: Subject, Dogs!



These are our dogs, Max(black one) and Molly(brown one). They were our children long before children...and we love them. I choose this post to vent to all those who have inside dogs that require upkeep and you just can't bear to give them away are make them outside dogs...Here goes...
This week, I picked our dogs up from the kennel, and they did not get a chance to give them a bath because the worker pulled out her shoulder the day before. I decided not to pay another 60 dollars to get them bathed, because it had already been $264.00 to have them boarded over the Thanksgiving holidays...this was a mistake. It was too cold to bathe them outside, so I had to hoist these big dogs over the bathtub wall in our guest bathroom and bathe them. Unfortunately we do not have a sprayer on our shower in there, so I had to rinse out all of the soap by dumping bowlfuls of water over them until they were rinsed. By the time both dogs had been bathed, the drain was clogged with hair, and the walls were coated in a fine layer of hair from all of their shaking off... and our house smelled like wet dog for about a day an a half.
The next morning, the kids allowed me to sleep until about 7:30 and I got downstairs and told Ben to go into the playroom...he responded, "Mommy, there is something shew whee in here." The only room downstairs that is carpeted in our playroom and of course, Molly had had a huge bout of diarrhea all over the carpet. So I had to clean than before I fed the boys. Then yesterday, I discovered that the dogs had been all over my bedding and one of them must have had gas or something, there was a fowl smelling juice that had leaked from one of their hind ends, all over some of my pillows and bedding..so that entails much more laundry to do today. Not to mention that I vacuumed the whole house on Tuesday afternoon, only to wake up Wednesday morning and the carpet was so covered in dog hair that it looked like it had been 3 weeks since the last vacuum. Then this morning, I got the stroller out of our shed to take the boys on a walk, only to discover that from the shed to the driveway, I had accidentally ran the stroller through a pile of dog poop and it was now all over Ben's shoes and the bottom of his jeans because he had put his feet up on the wheel!! I guess that about covers it! I do love them both, which is why I can't bear to get rid of them, and I am afraid if we made them outside dogs, they would always be filthy...but for those of you who have kids or not and are thinking of getting a dog...think "small dog" and only one!! Or this week could be yours!! Have a great weekend!!
CB

Friday, November 23, 2007

Thanksgivng Road Trip!


We left on Friday morning for a week long road trip to my parents in Paducah Ky.
We decided to try and pack as many visits into one trip as possible. Our first stop was in Murfreesboro, TN to see our good friends the Coggin family. We had a great time visiting with them. Here is a picture of Ben enjoying a fun morning at Gerald and Joanne's house.
Monday evening we met some friends from St. Louis in Mt. Vernon, IL for a quick visit at the Cracker Barrel. We spent a quick couple of hours trying to catch up while also trying to wrestle our crew of kids. Where are built-in babysitters when you need them??


We had a great visit with our family. Ben spent a lot of time playing with Lauren, his cousin. We had three new babies in the family this year, Collin, Luke and Lukas(my uncle Scott's 4 month old)
My grandparents spent the day with all three of their children...a first in many years. We tried to take lots of pictures!
We had a great time with the entire family. There are many more pics I could have posted, but I am afraid the post would be too long.

It was tiring but well worth the trip!!

Friday, November 2, 2007

1st Big Easy Girls' Night






Well, I finally did it!! I finally talked enough friends into hanging out with me that we were all able to go out for a kid free night! Some of the ladies here at the Tamany Oaks C of C agreed to join up for first Girls' Night at the Olive Garden in Slidell. To those of you who I have left behind, I miss you terribly, but the fun must go on! Everyone actually had a good enough time that we are planning to do something next month as well. My sister, Lorie was able to come up and hang out with us. We had a great time and ate lots of pasta. Earle was nice to hold down the fort at home with the boys. Here are a few pics from the evening, and then a few of the boys.

CB