Puppy Love

This morning we took the kids to Petsmart as a surprise. They thought we were just going to look around at all the fish and lizards and stuff. They were completely shocked to find out about the adoption fair in the back of the store. :P

After much deliberation, the family agreed on a sweet brown German shepherd border collie mix puppy. So far, so good. He sat patiently in the parking lot while we put together his kennel and then walked right in for the trip home. He didn't make a peep the whole ride home and just laid in his kennel very happily. We're going to need a new kennel in like a month though and it will probably have to be the big one!

He's more comfortable around Tom and me, but he loves the kids and all the attention they give him. He lets Amelia hug him every 5 minutes (minimum) and he's just very gentle with them all. We spent lots of time in the backyard when we got home and he's happy to run around with someone or just sit next to them quietly.

After about 2 hours of going through dog naming websites and picking our brains, everyone finally agreed on "Jasper" for the little guy. Who knew it was so hard to name a dog? We spent less time picking out names for the kids! Wait. That's not totally true. It took us about 3 hours to name Tyler after he was born. ;) Tyler calls him "Dappers." Jasper doesn't seem to mind.

Amelia has already told me she's staying up all night with the dog and she has thanked us at least 10 times for the big surprise. Joseph has offered to walk the dog no less than 50 times and he's constantly checking to make sure Jasper has water. Tyler is just exhausted by the whole thing and is on his second nap of the evening, on the couch. He'll be headed for bed in a few minutes.

Ramsey and Luna (the feline kiddos) aren't thrilled with the new addition. They'll get over it eventually I'm sure. Or they won't. Whatever.

Yes, pics will be coming soon, but not tonight. I took a few, but Jasper is camera shy, so I'll need to take a few more so you can see what he actually looks like.

Today...

..we've had tons of excitement, including, but not limited to:

-Tyler pushed the cat into the bathtub. Yes, there was still water in the tub. The cat ran out of the bathroom so quickly that I didn't even see her run past me.

-Amelia decided to play some invented game that resulted in Joseph getting kicked in the mouth and knocking his head into the coffee table. Tears followed.

-Tyler decided to climb the tall baby gate, where he proceeded to get stuck- perched at the very top. He didn't call for help, just sat there and cried.

-Joseph stood next to me while I was blogging and repeatedly asked me what I was writing and why I was doing this.

-Amelia locked Tyler out of the bedroom while she was in timeout for kicking Joseph.

See? Exciting!

Christmas Countdown

Two more days. Yeah. I haven't wrapped a single present; in fact, I'm not sure where I even put all of the presents that need to be wrapped. My plan was to make most of the presents for the kids this year. Yup. Didn't happen. I'm making (yes, still) some felt food for T to open on Christmas and then the kids will get the rest as I finish it, um, in my spare time.

Walmart is not a fun place to go 3 days before Christmas, especially when the cart is laden with children that you need to buy for. Next year, I will plan better. Just like I will blog more. Honest.

J just woke up and he's asking for breakfast, so thus ends this riveting blog session. You're sad. I can tell. Come over for cinnamon rolls in about 20 minutes. :)

And he's off...

...to school today. Joseph is feeling better and was super excited to get to school today. I think he missed the playground. :P Amelia is watching Curious George right now and Tyler finally went down for a nap.

In M&B news, I finished one pair of longies and they're headed for the lanolin bath in about 5 minutes. The next pair should be done later today and then I have 2 more surprise pairs to knit and I'll be through that part of my list. We won't discuss what's left on my list yet. Yikes. I think I'll be spending a lot of time at the post office in the coming weeks.

In other crafty news, I'm trying to plan out what I'm making for everyone for Christmas. Wow. I need to start the planning much earlier next year. I have to make a birthday gift for Joseph this week, one for Tyler immediately after that, and then Christmas gifts for each of the kids. Ideally, I'd love to make them each a pair of socks and a pair or two for myself, but since I have yet to actually knit a sock of any size, I don't see it happening. Maybe they'll get socks for Valentine's Day.

And to Little Miss Lindsay, happy birthday, sweetie! You'll love being six!

A mother's conundrum

Why won't a sick child lay down on the couch and just watch movies, but when said child is prefectly healthy, he is perfectly happy to be a couch potato?

Joseph is sick today. He told me he didn't feel well last night, so I fed him dinner and he went to bed. This morning his tummy still hurt, so I told him he could stay home. 10 minutes before we normally leave for school, he decides he's fine and then goes off to get dressed for school. Nope, getting dressed was too much work for him, so he just laid on the floor instead and decided that staying home would be better. That turned out to be the right choice because the school would have called me to come get him as soon as I pulled back into the driveway from dropping him off.

In totally unrelated news, blueberry oatmeal is not fun to clean out the carpet. Just sayin'.

In Munkit & Blue news, I have a pile of stuff to finish, wash, and mail this weekend. I may even be ambitious and post some pics of it on here since my commitment to blog more this year than last is dangerously close to becoming a thing of the past.

Sondheim Saturday

No, this has nothing to do with Sondheim, but it's what I could come up with at the moment.

It's officially Spring, which explains the snow that has been falling for the majority of the day and the indoor Easter egg hunt that we took the kids to today. There are pictures. They are not on the computer yet; I'm waiting until I have the plethora of pictures from our Easter morning excitement until I bother.

I bought some blank DVDs today, too, so hopefully I can actually save all the pictures to discs and send them to family members instead of having 800 million pictures saved on my memory card. I'm giving myself until the end of May to accomplish this.

On the house front, things are looking good. We have a house that has been inspected and we're waiting to hear from our realtor if the sellers are willing to fix a couple things. If everything works out, we'll close mid-April and slowly transfer our apartment into the house. Slowly=over the course of a week and then getting help with the furniture on a Saturday. The kids are excited to move into a house with a backyard. Joseph says his favorite thing about the new house is that it comes with two squirrels.

Business is going okay. I made my first knitted item sale to a stranger. I've sold plenty of knitted stuff to friends online, and also crocheted items and stitch markers to strangers, but no knitted to a stranger. Until yesterday. I still have tons of other little knitting and dyeing projects to catch up on and another stocking to prepare for on April 16th, so this will be a busy month and a half. Don't expect much blogwise. Of course, if you've been following my blog at all since it's inception, you probably don't expect much from me blogwise anyway. :P

March Madness

It's March already. I swear it was just November. We're doing well, kids are doing well, etc. I've decided that I need to blog more often. Really it shouldn't be that difficult since I only blogged 8 times in the last year.

Here's a few semi-recent pics of the kiddos...

Tyler showing us how to clap



















Amelia showing off her new capris that we are borrowing from Sarah. Joseph, on his 5th birthday.