Six Flags, Bells, and C'est Wags

This week has been a ton of fun and busyness at our house! Let's recap, shall we?

• On Monday, Bebe started a 3 day camp at church. It was all about learning about the different lessons God wants us to know through art, drama, and music. Right up her alley. Since Jason had the day off, he picked her up and took her to Chili's for lunch. They enjoyed a great Daddy/Daughter date complete with Caramel Apple Skillet for dessert (Jason's favorite). Mamu went to swim lessons alone with Ms. Taryn and really loved the one-on-one attention he got for his full hour. He's probably gonna have a hard time going back to sharing her next week.


• On Tuesday, Mamu went to school and Bebe went to Six Flags with Jason. They go every year because she gets a free ticket from school for reading 600 minutes (and I get a free teacher ticket). This means I.was.alone. I went to the lady dr. for my annual checkup (so much fun there!) and then went to TJ Maxx where I found some cute things for Duncan (I'll have to post pictures of those later) and a new shirt for me. I also got a new cookbook and we're trying out some of those new recipes next week! I met Auntie for lunch and then we visited. We also got mistaken for a lesbian couple when I went to go inquire about grooming services for Duncan. That was fun. :) We giggled about that all the way through the rest of the store.


• On Wednesday, Jason went back to work. I took Bebe to church camp and then Mamu to swim lessons. He again loved his time with Ms. Taryn, but had to go to the bathroom 3 times in the hour we were there. Then on the way to get Bebe, we had to stop at a gas station, where two gentlemen held the door for me (that was nice) for him to go again. Wow! Stop drinking the pool buddy. Bebe had a great time at church camp and we came home. I then got bit by the cleaning bug and proceeded to clean like a crazy person. I still need to vacuum though.

See all those yarn bits? Yup. Duncan chewed on his rope toy.

Totally acceptable, except now I have to vacuum.

• On Thursday, Mamu went to school and Duncan went to the vet. He needed his annual shots and his rabies vaccination. We then registered him with the town and added another tag to his collar. He now really jingles around the house with 3 different tags! After we picked Mamu up, we went to the pool and swam around for awhile.


• On Friday, we took Bebe to church camp for the last day. Then we came home and did Mamu's 'homework'. I bought him 2 preschool workbook things back at the beginning of the summer and he loves it! Then we colored. He really is starting to enjoy coloring now. We went to pick up Bebe early so we could see her perform. She did a great job with the bell / chimes and did a good job in her skit. Then we came home for lunch and nap. Then we went to the library where we got some new books! Unfortunately, Bebe didn't get to get any because she didn't take care of putting her books away and has misplaced one. She's now on a hunt to find it because she did.not.like not getting any books. Mamu watched one of his Wiggles movies and danced along! He likes to be Murray (the red one) and play his guitar. Well, there was a part where Murray didn't have his guitar. That was NOT good. "Where's his g'tar?" "I want him to have his g'tar!" Luckily they segued into a dance that he liked and he did the duck dance.

My little scholar. Check out that pencil grip teacher friends!

Bebe in her skit and getting ready to play the chimes.

• Today, we went to Build and Grow at Lowes and made binoculars! Then we went on a couple of errands and had lunch at Souper Salad. Yum. Then we came home and just chilled around. Bebe and I made some labels for Mamu to begin reading and we labeled all sorts of things around the house. Mamu loves it! Jason thinks our house is turning into a classroom.... that tends to happen around pre-reading time for our kids! :) Luckily, he's on board with us too. He started listing things we'd forgotten!






• I've been walking Duncan every night and Bebe joined me tonight. She even held the leash for the last part and did a great job! Poor Duncan is ready as the rest of us for the heat to end so our walks can be a bit longer. It was still 98 when we walked at 8:00 tonight.
  

So we had a fun and busy week. It didn't include catfish noodling however. Who in the world wants to stick their hand into a muddy river/pond/lake/body of water and have a catfish suck on it? Really people? Luckily it's no longer illegal to do that in Texas. Wow. Our legislators are hard at work. (That rant was prompted by a commercial that I saw called "Hillbilly Handfishing." Check it out. Or don't. You might get the heebejeebees like I did.)

Duncan

A new family member joined us this past Friday. No, no baby here; we got a dog! Here's the story:

About a year and a half (or maybe even 2 years ago), Bebe got it into her head that she would like a dog. I told her that I would like one too, however, I was NOT potty-training 2 different beings at once. So I told her when Mamu was potty trained, we would look into it.

Well, Mamu's been potty trained for almost a year now, and I was really thinking about wanting a dog. There are several reasons for me wanting one, companionship being a big one for when Jason's off doing a show. (I probably should mention that I was thinking about this a lot during the 4 back-to-back shows he did this Spring.) I also wanted the kids to have the experience of having a pet that they can, well... actually pet. Bebe has gone so far as to figure out how to pet our angelfish, Pepper. She's also gotten a few stuffed animal dogs and drags them around on leashes around the house. To say she wanted one, was an understatement.

Being the responsible adult I am (which sometimes stinks by the way) knew that we needed to wait until I was out for the summer, so I broached the subject with Jason. We decided that we would need to wait until we went on vacation and then see what was available at the shelters in our area and go from there.

Fast forward to last weekend. For some reason, I went to petfinder.com to just look and see what was around us. After looking for about 30 minutes, I stumbled upon Duncan (after just seeing a Golden Retriever / Standard Poodle - a GoldenDoodle .... way too big for our house, but adorable!) and they had a video to go with their posting. I showed it to Jason and got a "Hmph" (That's a good thing.) and we decided that we should go by ourselves (no kiddos) to see if he would be a good addition to our family on Sunday. Auntie was so sweet to come over and watch the kids and we just told Bebe that we were just running an errand and would be back in a bit.

Our initial meeting with Duncan went well and the fabulous volunteer said that even though the shelter was closed on Monday and Tuesday, that she would be there feeding the animals if we wanted to stop by. So I took the kids on Monday, just telling them that we were going to visit a dog. Bebe really took to him and really enjoyed playing with him. Mamu was a little more apprehensive; probably because Duncan is the same height as Mamu. He wasn't upset or afraid, just a little wary of something the same size as him.

So we came home and told Jason all about our visit. After the kids went to bed, we talked and decided that after we priced all that we would need to do to adopt Duncan, we'd talk again. I went and priced stuff (kennel, leash, collar, food, shots, etc.) and we decided that it was doable for us. We still hadn't told the kids because we wanted to make sure that we were completely sure we were going to adopt Duncan.

So Wednesday night, I went out and bought all the things we had decided we needed and left it in the back of the van. Jason had taken Friday off (because he was going to see Harry Potter at midnight on Thursday; well Friday morning ...yup, I've got my share of crazies, so I tolerate his little quirks there -- believe me, he totally puts up with my craziness) so we decided that we would go Friday and adopt Duncan.

We told the kids we were going on adventure and Bebe figured out where we were going when we were almost there (the shelter's at the end of a long winding road) and thought we were just going to visit Duncan again. We had to wait for the Animal Control Officer to come back from a call (we got Duncan a few towns over ~ about 30 minutes from our house) and watched the kitty cats while we waited. When the very nice Animal Control Officer came back, I filled out the paperwork and Duncan was ours! The collar I bought for him didn't fit, so we had a quick stop at PetCo on the way home. We picked up an ID tag for him as well. The kids really liked watching the engraver engrave it (try saying that 3 times fast).

After that, we headed home. Duncan did great riding in the back of the van. There's been a couple of accidents (marking his territory really) and he got out this evening when I took the trash out, but we're doing pretty good. He's a great walking pal - Auntie and I walked him last night, Bebe, Mamu, and I walked him this morning, and then he and I had a private time walk tonight. I've learned how to use the poop bags, he's learned to walk beside me and is doing well not pulling, and is friendly to other dogs. I've nicknamed him Stealth because he doesn't bark. He whimpers, but has yet to bark. I don't know if he can't or was trained by his old owners to not bark. (His old owner went off to college.)

So here's what you've been waiting for... Pictures!

Bebe and Duncan playing with his squeaky toy.

Our new family!

Duncan on the way home.

So many adventures await our family and now I'm super glad that we have Duncan to enjoy them with us! Now the blasted heat needs to break (I think we're up to 13 or so straight days of triple digit heat) so we can play outside for longer than 5 minutes.

Blast-Off!

So, as you may know, the last shuttle to go into space went yesterday morning at 10:26 CST. I thought the kids should see it, since I remember a lot of shuttles lifting off from my life. (I also remember getting out of school early because of the Challenger explosion and where I was when the other one burned up on re-entry. Since I know you want to know - I was in bed, 7 months pregnant with Bebe and watching something on TV when they interrupted the show to show the re-entry. We figured out very quickly that something went wrong.)

We found CNN carrying the launch live with Anderson Cooper narrating what was going on and they showed a montauge of all of the lift-offs. Mamu was not so thrilled until we started counting down from 10.

Bebe went and got the toy space ship we have circa early 1990's (found at a garage sale several years ago) and had it stand like Atlantis. The spacepeople (we have a man and woman astronaut - yes, very equal opportunity here - you know the girl is a girl because she has eyelashes) and their space car/rover/thing is MIA, so Mamu substituted Buzz Lightyear and 2 Woody toys. I guess that works too.

And the countdown almost caught us by surprise because they had to stop the clock at 31 seconds for a bit to check something out. But then we heard the NASA guy say "10!" and we counted down together. Bebe had our space shuttle lift off as well and now has it sitting on top of the entertainment center. She thinks it should stay there until we watch the re-entry. I don't mind it, and Mamu hasn't said anything about it (and I don't know if Jason's noticed it yet), so it probably will stay until they return.

I hope to catch the re-entry with the kids, so they can see that too. Just imagine what they'll have their kids watching when they're my age! Probably something to do with robots. Lots of robots. :)

Happy Fourth of July! (on July 7th)

So, we started out the fourth to a predicted heat of 104 or something crazy like that. By 10:45 am, it was ridiculously hot, but since both of the kids wanted to be in the children's parade, we suffered through.

See, our town has it's own parade - they let any kid who wants show up and walk (or ride, or be pulled, or be pushed, or be carried, or whatever) the (what feels like forever and a day) short parade route to the free kids fest. There are little signs telling you where to line up (bikes, scooters, trikes, walkers, etc.); only most people go wherever they want. We lined up with the only other little girl on a trike (that followed directions) and that was probably a good thing, since it was close to the end of the line.

You see, Mamu isn't exactly the best trike rider there is... like, he just scoots along with his feet. Put them on the pedals, and he goes.nowhere. Like he's stuck in mud, quicksand, and whatever else is sticky. I (in my infinite wisdom) thought, "Oh. It's ok. He scoots pretty fast. It's not a long parade route. He should be fine." Ok. I'll admit it. I was w.r.o.n.g. with a capital W. So he ended up scooting part of the way, me pushing him part of the way, and eventually, me carrying his trike while he walked part of the way. At some point, a very nice man gave me a bottle of water (there is a church along the route and they kindly give out water to all of us *ahem* suckers) and they cheered for Mamu. Poor Bebe was on her scooter and got tired of waiting for us. I'm pretty sure she lapped us a couple of times. We finally made it to the end of the line - where Jason was waiting- and Mamu was as happy as a clam to scoot/ride to Dad. (We definitely will be working on our trike riding skills once the weather is less than 100 degrees.)


Yes, the kids decorated their bikes with my fabulous help. Mamu really wanted to take his flags off and wave them, but couldn't figure out how to scoot/ride while doing that.
After our lunch, some naps, and a yummy hamburger/hot dog dinner, we popped some more poppers out back before we went to the fireworks. The kids really liked it, but poor Mamu couldn't pull the string out fast enough to really make his work.


When we got to the fireworks, we set up camp on the field and let the kids run around and play. Jason bought a bunch of glow sticks 3 years ago, and we finally finished them off this year. Jason made a ball out of some of them which Mamu turned into a football helmet. Complete with mouthpiece.

Bebe put on a show for us (and anyone else who wanted to watch).

Jason and Mamu played with another glow ball.

Bebe decided to work on her cartwheels and Mamu joined right in.

My feet with Mamu's - I did this to because I have one from when he was a baby and wanted to see how things have changed.

2011

2008

Mamu got a smidgent tired waiting for the fireworks and became quite silly. I had to hold onto him for awhile and he kept saying "I'll stay on the blanket Momma!" and yet, I knew he wouldn't.

Bebe and I decided to paint our toenails patriotic colors - red with white flowers. Yes, my child is tan. No, I am not. Yes, she takes after Jason's side of the family - I swear when she's around them, the tan just rubs off. (We just spent a week with them, so I swear that really happens - or it could be that we spent a ton of time in the pool.)

The kids had a great time running around and playing in the field. Bebe met another little girl about her age and they played together for awhile. It seemed like forever for the fireworks to start, but doesn't it always? After the fireworks, we rode the shuttle back to our car and then came home. We had a great 4th and are so thankful that we live in the USA.