Fisher, camps & love

Look at me posting again so soon. I apologize ahead of time for all the Fisher photos. He's just so photogenic =)

I think Fisher knows he's ours now. He's definitely getting more comfortable. He still does puppy things like nibble on everything. He bit me in the butt this morning but I forgave him quickly. I can't stay mad at him. He follows me everywhere except upstairs because he's nervous about the unknown land that the stairs lead to. We're okay with that for now. He's pretty much potty trained. He hasn't had an accident for several weeks now. He does pee when he's scared though so we try not to scare him. I put him in his kennel so I could run the roomba. That was before I knew about his scared pee reaction to loud moving robots. He peed in his kennel. So the next time I ran it, I sat by his kennel and we talked about how the Roomba is helpful and although noisy, it's not mean. He did okay that time. 

He gets separation anxiety when I leave the house but we're working through that too. My neighbor told me she could hear him whining while I was at Costco so I try not to leave him unless I have to. I take him with me to run errands. 

He walks pretty well on a leash. Not perfectly, but he's improving.

He's addicted to woodchips which are all over our front and backyard, so that's fun. I talked Dan into clearing them all out of the back which he graciously agreed to. I haven't mentioned the front yard but I think that's next. 

He's learning not to chew on people or furniture or the car. We give him his bone every time he chews on something he's not supposed to. We very much love him already.

Our friends took Angus with them to a Monster Jam Rally. I think that's what it's called. I'm not really a truck rally kind of gal. Angus on the other hand was in heaven. Best day ever.

We had the pleasure of seeing two awesome people get married. The venue was so lovely and fun. I love weddings. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good pic of the happy couple but I got a few of some of the guests =)

Dan and I took this in the hotel room for Winter who asked to see our "fits." One of these days we'll take a good pic of us in nice clothes.

All the kids went to different Winter camps with the church last month. We're broke now but they all had a blast.

We celebrated our annual Valentine's Day fancy dinner at home. Dan made a lovely spread as usual.

And Mya made cake pops for her friends for Valentine's Day. I thought it was a bit ambitious since she'd never made them before but they actually turned out amazing.

If you don't know Dan well, he is type A. One of the things that bothers him the most is when I buy more of something like cereal when we have 2 or 3 half-eaten boxes of cereal. So he forbids the kids from opening the new cereal until the old cereal is finished. Even if that means that the old cereal and new cereal get old and moldy, as long as no one opens the new cereal before the old one is eaten. This is him explaining that the right side of the drawer is off limits until the right side of the drawer has been eaten. =) 

Happy almost March!

 

These guys

I already know that this will be my favorite season of parenting. I know I shouldn't say that with so much more ahead, like graduations, moving into appartments, weddings, grandkids, big family gatherings and more, God willing. But this right here is where it's at; 9, 11, 14 & 15. 

I'm just so proud of them. I feel like we are starting to see the fruits of all the corrections, punishments, words of wisdom, encouragements and all of the constant training that comes with parenting. I know that life doesn't always go as planned. You can't control the outcome of your kids' lives. And we are by no means done with them. But I just wanted to take a minute to acknowledge how much I enjoy this current life and how much I enjoy these people. This is what I imagined when I thought of having four kids when Dan and I got married. 

After we had Mya I wasn't so sure I wanted to do the whole baby thing three more times. And Mya was a dream baby. But slowly, one at a time, we had three more. There have been some really rough times. And it was really hard for me when they were little. Really hard. Most days I prayed that God would make up for what I lacked and make them forget about the times when Mommy lost it or was the opposite of what I felt like they needed. But now, I tend to forget about that because they are turning out okay. By the grace of God, they are.

I try not to flaunt the good things too much because I worry that it will make those who are going through hard stuff feel worse about their situation. So hopefully it doesn't. Hopefully this brings encouragement to those with littles. And maybe it brings a smile to those who love me and know me and my kids well.

I think it's important to acknowledge that life sucks sometimes, but sometimes it doesn't =)

 

Demons at Baby Beach

Last summer or maybe the one before that, Angus invited the devil's angels to Baby Beach in Dana Point. So if you go, be cautious. 

The kids and I took a trip down south to see my friend Mari and her fam. We all met up at Baby Beach. After the kids had played, swam, paddle-boarded and kayaked, we were sitting around talking about scary movies. I mentioned that I don't watch a lot of them because I don't want to invite demons into my house. 

That was Angus's queue. He stood up and raised a toy sword to the sky and yelled, "I INVITE YOU DEMONS! COME ON!"

I yelled, "Angus stop!! What in the world?! 

Mari commented, "Well, I guess we're not coming back to Baby Beach."

The kids, some wide-eyed, and some laughing hysterically, had no words.

Angus has always had an extra portion of confidence when it comes to going up against someone stronger than him. He always wants Dan to come and tackle him at bedtime. Dan's not a giant man but he's easily 3 times Angus's weight. But still, Angus is like, "Okay Dad, I'm ready. I think I can take you this time."

Mya found a "demon slayer" sword on Amazon so of course I had to get it for him for Christmas.