11 Months

Eleven months! How?  Only one month till your first birthday (and Christmas).  This year has flown by.  I remember putting your "1st Christmas" ornaments away and thinking that you'd be almost a year old when we got them back out.  I can't believe it's already that time.  Your little personality has really blossomed this month and you are the sweetest thing, of course I'm kinda biased. 

• You weigh around 19.5lbs 
• You're around 29" long. (this is a very rough estimate because you weren't into being measured).
• Your eyes are still blue
• Your hair is still light and still stands up most of the time.

• You're wearing mostly 6-9 month play clothes and 12 month dressy clothes.  
• Still wearing a size 3 diaper and go through about 6 a day.
• You are crawling EVERYWHERE.  You are not scared of anything.  
• You're starting to open drawers and cabinets

• You and Ally are becoming the best of friends.
• You can throw her toys for her.
• You can also hold her toys and play tug of war with her. 

• You are eating pretty much whatever we eat. 
• Your favorite is chicken & dumplings.
• You still take 3 bottles each day (2 6oz and 1 8oz) 

• You can pull up to your knees but not to a stand yet.  It's coming though, you're very close.
• Still only 6 teeth.
• You love to bang any toys together and make noise. 
• You still love Mickey Mouse clubhouse 

• We celebrated your first Halloween and it as so much fun.  You were the cutest monkey ever.\
• You love bath time. You will play and splash until your little fingers and toes are shriveled up.
• You're still sleeping great at night.  You've woken up a few times lately but I think you've been cold.
• You still take at least one good nap, usually in the afternoon. 

• We've taken you out to eat a few times this month and you've done great.
• You'll lean into our faces sometimes when we ask for "kisses"
• I put a little tree up in your room and when I got you up from your nap today I plugged it in and you gasped.  It was pretty cute.

We're throwing a party to celebrate your first birthday in 2 weeks.  It's going to be so cute and I can't wait.  Now on your actual birthday I'm probably going to be a crying mess.  I love seeing you grow and learn but I'm sad it's happening so fast.  You are so sweet and cute.  I love watching you play and discover new things.  Right now you and Ally are playing, you can barely catch your breath you're laughing so hard.  I love it.  We are so excited to celebrate the holidays with you this year.  It may not be your first Christmas but it's your first Christmas season and we are going to make the most of it.

Happy 11 months, Baby Barrett! 

We love you so much!

Dog weekend at the Lake

We had a nice weekend at the lake with my little brother, his soon to be wife and 5 dogs.  I love taking our two labs to the lake because they love it. It's so hard when we have a full house of people to add 2 hundred pound dogs, so we planned a low key weekend just the 5 of us and our dogs.  We were loaded down in my pilot.  We had to put the dogs in the very back, we put Barrett in and the piled stuff around him.  It was a lot of work but so worth it.

 

This was Barrett's second trip to the lake but first time to swim and he looked adorable!

In our hats ready for the water.

 

He was not to excited about the water.  I think he might have enjoyed more if I'd spent more than $3 on him a float.  It was crappy and I was afraid he was going to fall out it.

Here we are dodging the dogs chasing tennis balls.  They played fetch forever.  They had a ball.

My sweet (old) girl.  This is her spot on the deck.  It's completely in the way but she likes to keep an eye on everything.

This girl didn't really know what to think with her big brother and sister there.  She did manage to roll around in the dirt and get extra dirty!

I think this boy had the most fun out of all of us.

My boys.

He fell asleep waiting on dinner.

I love this picture of Patrick and Barrett snuggling one morning.  So sweet!

 

I thought it would be fun to get a family picture of the three of us and the three dogs.  Yes, i'm crazy.  This was the best one!

Packed up and headed home.    It was a nice relaxing weekend.  We enjoyed getting spend time with John and Hope.  John has grown up so much in the last few years and I love hearing him talk about life.  He's embarking on the start to the rest of his life. Graduating college, starting his career and getting married.   I remember the excitement I felt when I was in that stage of life and I love seeing it again through his eyes. I'm so proud of him. 

Last week's Fun

{I meant to post this Friday, as you can tell that didn't happen.  Here it is now.}

Friday morning I got up and started getting ready for work.  I noticed that Ally was acting weird but didn't think much of it.  Well after I watched her I realized she was sick, stomach issues.  Now I'm not one to rush to the vet so I was on the fence about taking her in.  The only reason I did was because it was Friday and I didn't want to have to make a trip to the ER vet if it got worse.  Turns out she had a virus.  She was pretty pitiful.  She got some meds and a shot and we were sent on our way.

I had to take Barrett with me.  I feel like I deserve an award of some sort of award.  He did pretty good.  He even slept a little in his carseat.

Friday night we went to the Kreider's house for a cook out.  I love getting together with our tailgate group outside of tailgates.  Barrett was up way past his bedtime but he did alright.

I took this picture one day last week of my boys napping.  I love it.

I guess that's all for this round of randomness.  

Happy 5th Birthday Ally Bama

This sweet girl is 5 years old.

I can hardly believe it.  It seems like yesterday we got her.

She was just a little fur ball.

She is the best dog and a great big sister.

I know she looks like an orphan.  Hopefully, she'll get a bath for her birthday.

Everyone was right, her role has definitely changed since Barrett arrived but we still love her.  She sleeps with us every night.  She gets up with me every time I get up with Barrett (luckily that's not to often these days).  She's seemed a little down lately, I think she's still adjusting to her new role.  Her favorite thing is when we put Barrett in the floor.  She will drag every toy out of her toybox over to him just hoping he'll play with her.  She is so sweet, she hates hearing him cry.  If he cries and we don't immediately jump to see what is wrong she starts crying too. 

She will always be our first "baby".  She taught us to take care of something other than ourselves.  I fully believe she has helped us become better parents.

Happy 5th birthday Ally, We love you!

Weekly Random Picture post

First of all, the swelling in my ankle finally went down Thursday.  Now, I'm just peeling like a snake. 

 Ally got a haircut.  She's a fan of the shorter do. Friday, baby Elise turned 6 months old.  I can't believe she's already half a year old.  She is so sweet and so fun.  Girl has good taste too, she was trying to get my diamonds and pearls the whole time I held her. Ally found a spot on my throw pillow.  She managed to curl her whole body on it while I did house work.  It was pretty cute. That's pretty much all that's been going on lately.  My nephew Drew turned 12 years old last week.  He's taller than I am and just the sweetest most handsome young man.  I can't believe he's almost a teenager. Yikes! Right now I'm watching the finale of the Bachelor.  I already know who he picks and honestly I'm just ready for this season to be over.  Ben has been the most boring bachelor.  I'm looking forward to Emily as the Bachelorette. 

Happy Birthday Ally Bama

Yesterday was Ally Bama's 3rd birthday.

I've been absent on the blog.  Our modem went out at home and I we just got iphone's this week so I'm trying to learn how to post from it. 

Day 122

At Home Date Night

The sweet husband decided to surprise me with steaks on the grill tonight!

(He loves having his picture made!)

As you can see, Ally and I were so very excited!

We had steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans.

With, way to bad for me, pie for dessert!

Our grill had been out of gas for months now.  So Patrick got our tank filled and got some steaks.  I love when I get home from work and don't have to worry about what we're going to have for dinner! 

Now I'm watching the Bachelor...how about Chantel and Brad staying in a tree house in the middle of nowhere for the fantasy suite?  Not sure how I'd feel about that!

Happy Birthday Chloe

Yesterday, Ally was invited to Chloe's house to celebrate her 1st birthday!  It was so much fun!  Amy did a great job and even provided a wonderful dinner (for the people) of chicken casserole, green beans, corn and rolls.  The dogs were hilarious.  They acted just like a bunch of kids.  They drug every toy out of Chloe's toy box and barely let her open her own presents.  It was so funny to watch.  I have to say I am alittle embarrassed because Ally was "that kid" at the party.  You know the one that only wants the toys the other kids are playing with and will whine and bully to get it.  Yep, she was "that kid dog"!

With her giant bone from Molly.

Ally really wanted the giant bone but she just couldn't do anything with it.

Ally loves a party hat.

The birthday girl with her mommy!

Thanks Amy and Sean for inviting me and Ally.  We had a blast!

{Disclaimer:  We all totally know that we are nuts. I would say that we do this for each dog as a joke but we don't we really do love our dogs that much.  We all pretty firmly believe all the dogs are friends from "daycare".}

Baby It's Cold Outside

It is freezing today...literally I think the high was 32°. That is cold! We've had snow flurries all day but nothing is sticking! I went to church and then spent most of the afternoon sitting on the hearth at my parents house in front of the fire.

Ally even climbed up there with me.  She loved the fire too.

This was before we left the house this morning.  I had on my houndstooth scarf and Ally was wearing her houndstooth coat.  Patrick had to take our picture since we matched!

This weekend has been fun and somewhat low key.  Friday night I worked at a Christmas party serving wine and drinks.  I did it last year and had a ball so I was excited when the guys called and wanted me to do it again this year.  Saturday I spent some time with some sweet kiddos to get a shot for their Christmas card.  Then I did some shopping.  I'm really hoping to get most of my shopping done this week because next week it pretty busy.  I need to start wrapping. The holiday season is flying by (as with every other season these days).  I guess that's all for now. 

Poodle in the Mud

Yesterday afternoon it was beautiful out so when Ally and I got home from work I decided we should take a blanket out to the back yard and enjoy the sunshine.  It took me forever to get the blanket spread out because Sam thought I was laying it out for him!  I finally got laid down and got my book out.  I got some cute pictures of the dogs!

I just love this little dog.

Sam and Ally

Sweet Gracie.  She getting so old.

My sweet little Ally decided to play in the mud.  She was covered!  I had to give her a bath before I could let her in the house.

Filthy...but still cute as ever!

Pitiful Babies

Patrick was sick last night.  I think it was just allergies but it was bad.  He called into work.  He has never called in to work and it almost killed him to have to.  But he was that bad.  I have a really hard time having empathy for people when they're sick but refuse to go to the doctor.  He said if he wasn't better today he would go.  He was better today.  He's still congested but felt well enough to go to work.

Aren't they so cute.  Ally wouldn't leave his side all night.  She laid right beside him.  It was the sweetest thing.  I love them both so much!