A good day

Thinking it was a pretty good birthday for Paul.
Spent the day on the lake...the whole day.
Boating, floating, laughing.
Drove the boat to dinner at a restaurant on the lake.
Drove home in the dark.
The sky was so clear.
A million stars out.
I held Ayla and watched the sky and literally teared up.
So much going on in my mind.
So much.
Just felt a bit emotional about it all.
Happy birthday, Paul.

Happy Birthday Paul!

So...while I've been trying to put together this real estate deal the past couple days,
Paul has been doing things like this...

and this...

and this...

and this...

which is why i love him so much.
it's what makes him a good dad.
a good husband.
a good son.
a good uncle.
a good brother.
an amazing person.

love you, honey.
happy birthday.

On the tube today...

vacation so far...

no time to blog...

BUT.
i had to share.
so real quick...without too many details...because i'm on vacation and the lake is calling my name...we have an accepted offer on our house.
we scrambled to get counter offer papers signed minutes before leaving town on wednesday night and finally worked something out early this morning.
of course we have inspections left to get past, but as long as that goes off without a hitch, we have a deal.
i kind of have this giddy, excited, nervous, relieved pit/butterflies in my stomach feeling. so i'm drinking a beer to try and get rid of it. :)
18 months on the market.
several houses have come and gone that we had been interested in.
we had given up on looking.
so we are on vacation in the ozarks, our house has sold, we need to be out on sept 17 and we have nowhere to go. :)
i think we may rent for a while. the thought of owning another house kinda makes me sick right now.
anybody in town know of any cheap rentals that allow big, cute dogs??

whew.

sold.

that was fun.

:)

We are leaving

Heading to the Ozarks. We had planned to leave in the morning, but decided if we left tonight we'd get another full day to play. So I'm rushing around trying to get things together. I'm not going to stress. It's going to be fun. I have our swimming suits packed and I'm not worrying about anything else.
Be back Tuesday!

No TV

TV died.
Kind of sad that that's blog-worthy...so maybe that's a sign that it's a good thing it's dead.
We're going to take some time off from the TV.
But if anyone knows of a good TV deal out there, we will need to be purchasing one at some point...

Mornings

For the past month, in the morning, it's just been Willow and me.

She gets up early and I take her out for a walk, get my coffee, give her a toy, read for a little bit in the peace and quiet and then do emailing, blogging, etc.
(Seriously...doesn't she look like a TOY in the following picture??)

She's super sweet and fairly obedient.
I'm pretty sure we can safely say she is house broke now...which makes me incredibly happy.
She knows several commands, but this morning we've been working on "lay down"...

She's a quick learner! A pleaser, indeed.
And I'm growing to love my early mornings with her.
In the silence...with a book, a cup of coffee and my dog.

And now, I must admit that I have officially done several posts dedicated completely to my puppy.
Didn't think that would ever happen.

The Bix7 2010

7 miles walked this morning.
Here we are at the start...just beginning to get wet.

It poured on us.
It thundered.
But we all crossed the finish line together...having raised awareness, I do believe.

Here we are at the finish...completely soaked, but so thankful to be surrounded by others who share our passion for water.

My feet hurt.
It was like walking in puddles with socks and shoes on for 7 miles.
If ever there was a doubt about my love of water, this should clear it up....

We ran the Bix7 last year after training for several months.
It was much easier having trained.
I think we need to start training TODAY for next year's race.
Now good night.
I am tired.

My sister started a business!

Go check out her photography website.
She does a great job!
jenniepeakinphotography.com

Today...Friday...Woo Hoo!

yeah, i love friday.
heading up to the quad cities to sit at the W4C booth for the Bix7.
Ramona and Beezus comes out today...but it's not in town. Not sure if we're going to wait or if we'll head back to the QC later.
walking the Bix7 tomorrow morning. sitter coming at 6:30. she's a dream. hoping the weather isn't disgusting.
that's it for this morning.
tgif!

A few more

Ayla does this all the time.
We call it her "stink face".
She loves to get a good laugh out of us and it works every time...


Trying to be like her brother....

More messing with Willow...

And Willow...just allowing it...

ok, enough photo session.
Showing at 4:15.
Lots to do.
Praying this is IT.

Early morning...

Willow and Ayla were the first ones up with me this morning.
So we had a little photo shoot.
Can I just say that this dog is going to be amazing with kids.

She has way more tolerence than anyone else in this family.
She doesn't even flinch when Ayla smashes her head..

Or lays next to her...

Or puts her nose 1 inch from her mouth.

It's pretty amazing.
And they are pretty cute, too.

Milestones

I feel like we are reaching some significant milestones around here.
Today all three children played together for 2 hours.
2 full hours.
That's insane. And so exciting for me! I really don't think there's a better sound than hearing your kids all playing together and laughing together and enjoying eachother. It's pretty rare. Hoping to hear more of it in the future.
If we ever get this house sold, we will probably be putting the girls in a room together. I kind think it will be fun for them and I would LOVE to do this in their room so they also have their own space within their room. It may be a stretch, but it's totally cute....


In other news, Willow is officially tall enough to reach up on the kitchen table and eat food off of it. Don't ask how I know that.
Also, we have been using treats to work on training her. It's the hope of our future, I tell you. She loves them. And she'll do anything to get one. Working well!

That about sums up today.
Heading out to enjoy the sun and whoop up on my son in a game of HORSE.

The Bix7

QC Times article about Water for Christmas and walking so they don't have to right HERE.
Anxious for the weekend....

The bell

We have been trying to "bell train" Willow.
I think I can officially say it's working.
We have bells hanging from our front door. The idea is that she will ring the bell when she has to go out.
She has been ringing it randomly for a few days now. Today she has rung it several times and each time she's gone out, went to the bathroom, and then came right back in.
She's a genius. :)

Now if we could just bell train our KIDS at night....

Adios 2010 Baseball Season...

...it's been fun.
Brigg's team...


And those awesome coaches I was talking about...

So happy I won't have to work at getting grass stains out of gray pants anymore.
I'm not good at that.

We want to live small...

ok, if you haven't noticed, we are trying to downsize.
our goal in to get into a house about half the size of ours.
which, i realize, makes virtually no sense to lots of people.
and yes, i realize our family is growing.
but we really feel like it's unnecessary for us to have this much stuff and this much space.
anyone who knows us well, knows this is our goal.
small house, super energy efficient, possibly even a net-zero home, and a larger piece of land to have a big garden and maybe even some chickens.
not kidding.
but we cannot sell this house.
it's beyond frustrating.
anyway, i got an email today from my brother-in-law. (who also may find us a bit crazy, but he loves us anyway.)
he sent a link to this video.
honestly, this looks so appealing to me.
obviously it is not possible with 3 kids and a giant dog, but one day, maybe one day, paul and i will live in a "tiny house"....and maybe we won't even kill eachother because we'll be so happy there. :)
we'll see.
a bit out of reach for us right now, but pretty cool nonetheless.
what do you think??

Ayla at the baseball fields...

The losers' winners

I think this is so cute.
Yesterday we played 3 games in steamy hot weather.
We lost every single one.
Did I mention it was hot?
And that we lost all three games?
It was and we did.
Anyway, the top 11 teams played in a bracket today and the rules said the bottom 4 teams would be playing in the "losers bracket".
Because we lost all our games, we were destined to be in the "losers bracket".
2 games played today and both were won.
The boys were so excited!
One boy was yelling "We WON! Party at my house at 10 o'clock tonight!!!" (we don't win a lot. clearly.)
Another boy replied with, "Yeah, but we won the loser's bracket."
I was thinking about it tonight though. And I kind of think they would have rather WON the losers bracket, than gotten 4th or 8th or 11th in the "winners bracket".
Baseball is over. They won their last 2 games and it was a great day.
The improvement was pretty amazing from their first game and their last game.
And I think the true sign of a successful season is that the boys didn't want it to end.
So thankful for a couple awesome coaches who really just want to build on these boys' love of baseball.
No more activities the rest of the summer.
Whew.
Just a much-anticipated trip to the Ozarks.
Now GOOD NIGHT!

Walking for Water

Next Saturday Paul and I, along with a large group of other men and women, will be walking in the Bix7. We'll be carrying jerry cans on our backs. And wearing water shirts. We will be walking to raise awareness. The water crisis is far from solved. It weighs heavy on my heart. So Saturday we will be walking so they don't have to.

Our jerry cans will be empty. I'm fairly certain we could not complete 7 miles with full jerry cans. Take a look at this video to get an idea of what it takes to carry a jerry can full of water on your back. This is incredible. Can you imagine doing this several times a day? I cannot. And I will not be able to have peace until nobody else has to either....

Walk For Water from A Glimmer of Hope on Vimeo.

Heat wave...

We are under a heat advisory until 9pm.
I think we've been under a heat advisory for days.
So after THREE baseball games today....in the heat advisory....nearly dying, we decided to end our day here...

Awesome.

Kinda excited about this.

We are reading Ramona the Pest.

Decided it would be so fun to read this book together with Lani after seeing the previews for the "Ramona and Beezus" movie.
Have you seen the trailer?
It looks SO good.
I'm super excited.
I love Ramona.
And I hope Lani does, too.
In case you haven't seen the trailer, here it is.
It comes out July 23rd.
Can't wait!! Why do I almost get teary when I watch this?? (who am i kidding? i get totally teary!)

3 whole days...

...with no accidents in the house.

woot woot!!

really, she is such a good dog.
she's fitting in great. she's awesome with the kids and loves to just lay around with us.
she's getting better every day as far as training goes.
we love her.