Family Fun

This past weekend Josh and I temporarily added a new addition to our family: Mr. Iggy Pug Manley. We thought it would be great practice to dog-sit for my best friend Clair since we are hoping to officially add to our family this summer. Yep, that's right folks--Josh and I have finally grown up. This time around we are planning for our newest baby, all 20lbs of slobbery, furry goodness. We'll be sure to send out a birth announcement when we hear that the insemination took.

Anywho....While Clair spent a fun-filled weekend with her female family members we welcomed Iggy into our home. It certainly didn't take much time for Iggy to make himself comfortable. He proceeded to to snuggle up on the couch while chewing his favorite ball. Oh-but little did he know that this was no vacation for him with Beastie lurking just around the corner.

Lennon was ecstatic to have Iggy for a two-night sleepover. Anytime there is a living creature smaller than her to boss around she's on cloud nine. With Lennon around Iggy was in constant motion and on high alert. He became her personal puppy puppet. Lennon has mastered many sentences since Iggy came to stay, including: "NO IGGY STOP!", "Iggy come here!", "Iggy go potty!" and "Good boy, Iggy." Poor Baby Reese was chucked out of her place of honor in the doll stroller and Iggy proudly took her place--if only I was able to capture it all on camera! Of course these two toddlers quickly became partners in crime. Whenever there was dead silence we were sure to find Lennon and Iggy getting into massive amounts of mischief. My poor flowers will never bloom again.

Having Iggy over has certainly opened my eyes to juggling two small, semi-helpless creatures. I don't know how mothers with several children or multiples do it. Keeping track of the two of them was a challenge. Josh found this out the hard way while trying to take Iggy, Lennon, Uncle Cody and Uncle Randy out for a walk. Then again he was over reaching with thinking he could wrangle 4 youngins' by himself.

But over all it was a pleasant experience (the 3 of us haven't gone on that many walks in one day in I don't know how long) and I think we are very ready to expand our brood come this summer. That gives us a few months to train Lennon on how to scoop up poop. I mean, if she's going to be so averse to potty training, keeping herself in diapers, the least she can do is clean up after an other's crap. They say you shouldn't push your kids too hard but....

Ringing in the New Year

Well it took my a bit longer than I would've liked (you can thank food poisoning for that), but here is our first update of the NEW YEAR!
The three of us headed on down to Bend to finish off the 2009 Holiday Season and celebrate Mimi's 50th Birthday. What a trip it was!

Lennon got to experience her very first snow. The long 3 hour car trip to Bend certainly built enough pent-up energy. As soon as we opened the truck door and unbuckled her car seat she was off and running into Gamma and Papa's frosted lawn. If Josh and I had known better we would have given her the all-important "Yellow and Brown Snow Lesson", because the first thing she did was promptly gather snow and shove it into her mouth. Here's hoping she caught some good mountain antibodies to get us through the rest of this cold/flu season. Unfortunately, that was her only experience with snow this trip. The next morning it had all but melted away and by our third day in Bend the snow was completely gone. Good thing we made the trek to Target for a snow bib and snow proof mittens...
After unpacking and unloading the truck at Gamma and Papa's house we hurried off to open presents at Mimi and Baba's house before the big birthday bash. Lennon made sure to pack appropriate party clothing--as you can see she chose to wear her orange tu-tu. Lennon could hardly believe Santa remembered to bring her gifts at Mimi and Baba's house (he sure over did it this year!). Every gift was ripped open with a "Yay!" or "Awesome!" and then celebrated with a dance. Thanks to all the little elves who made her 3rd Christmas
gift opening a memorable one! I don't know how we got the truck packed up so well.

Lennon then wiggled and giggled the night away at Mimi's Birthday Party. I think Mimi's guests really got a kick out of seeing our little munchkin order the big kids around while toting her new "baby" Reese. I have to give a huge thank you to Gabby Foote, a second grade party go-er, who took on the daunting task of babysitting our little Beastie, so Josh and I could try to have some adult social time. She did a fabulous job and is welcome at our house anytime!

The three of us partied our pants off till 10:30pm!!