Thor!

We added a new member to our family yesterday. He is a pure bread Rottweiler, he's 5 months old, he will be mostly an inside dog,and we named him Thor. Yes, we know he will grow to be about 150 pounds and that he will shed and drool and that his poops are already enormous. He is already 55 pounds! I'm sure many of you are thinking we're crazy and what are they thinking?! Especially, since for a long time I didn't like people wearing shoes in the house and am kind of a clean freak! But, I have definitely mellowed over the last few years and David had an experience that we just could not ignore. David had this very vivid dream that we had a Rottweiler named Thor and in that dream he was protecting our family from some unseen danger. Well, he kind of shrugged it off at first, and just out of curiosity  looked up the breed to see what they were like, having absolutely no desire to get a dog in the near future before this. But, it was after he had the same vivid dream  the very next night again that he felt like it was some kind of prompting. He told me about it and after the shock wore off that David even wanted a dog, I felt very impressed that we needed this dog too.
We found Thor in Salt Lake through the want adds, and even though we wanted a younger puppy, we just kept being drawn back to him. The price was right, so we decided to go meet him. David went up with Mary, Adam, and Lydia and right when David saw him, he knew this was Thor. Unfortunately while David was putting some things in the van, Mary witnessed the old owner kneeing him hard in the side because he had barked, and it made him yelp. When he came home he was very shy and timid and a little jumpy. Then this morning David caught him starting to pee inside and yelled to scare him into stopping and he yelped and flinched expecting David to hit him. We are sure he was abused at the last home and we are just so thankful that we were drawn to him to rescue him. We're pretty sure he wasn't exercised and he was on a very poor diet so his back legs are very weak, but the vet said he should be fine and able to recover. He's already had two play dates with Marby's dog and a neighbors puppy and he LOVES playing with other dogs. He's been so friendly toward everyone and is much more comfortable and happy today. He's a sweetheart and we all love him already. I can't even tell you how extremely excited the kids are! So without anymore delay here is our monster puppy!

All I want for Christmas is my ONE front tooth!

Lydia's front tooth had been barely loose for a very long time and just wasn't getting anywhere. It was taking so long that her permanent tooth was growing in behind it, and I was NOT going to pay dentist to take out a loose baby tooth. So, I thought, we've got to get this thing out, she can tough it out. We tried and tried, and finally with a quick hard tug, and a scream, it came out, with the WHOLE root still there! I felt so bad, but Lydia was so brave, and she got over it in a minute because she was so excited to show off her new space. And, I bribed her saying that the tooth fairy would bring extra if she was really brave! This is one of my favorite stages when they're missing their front teeth. Soooo cute!

Picture with Santa

Oh, what a wonderful time of the year, making memories and traditions, but sometimes making those memories is quite challenging. We were having just a wonderful time waiting in line to see Santa for only about 45 minutes. During that time I was just enjoying watching my children wildly running about, fighting, tripping, harassing an old lady, putting their hands all over everything they can think of, almost breaking the decorations, taking off shoes, hair in dissaray, and crawling/laying on the floor in the middle of the mall.  We were up next to see Santa after such a joyous wait and his helper was talking to me about getting their pictures taken when Lydia bumped into Adam (possibly on purpose, we don't know who to believe), and Adam decides to let loose and shove her as hard as he dare, almost knocking over a statue and Lydia! Well, Santa's helper handled it with grace and said very nicely, "Oh, we don't treat our sister like that", and I, well, it took every ounce of control not to slap him on the back of the head and drag his sorry butt out to the car. But, I did not stand in line for that long to miss out on getting our traditional Santa picture. Adam's pouting, Lydia's  crying and somehow I gathered every ounce of patience I could, dried their tears and amazingly came home with this wonderful picture.

 

Hazel loves putting on makeup, lipgloss especially. She's not happy unless she has at least three in hand and gobbs them on, sometimes dripping from her chin. Needless to say, all of Joy and Mary's lip glosses are infected with Hazel slobber!

Halloween!!

Hazel went as a fairy, thanks to Mom's amazing talent. I got sooo many complements on her costume! People even gave her extra candy because of her cuteness!

Mom also made Adam's Link costume, the shirt and the hat. He looks pretty awesome!

Lydia, the Cupcake fairy!

Joy, a Japanese girl, and Mary, Red Riding Hood

We met up with Seth and Jim's families to go trick or treating. Mary and her cousins Jennifer and Melanie all dressed up as Red Riding Hood and they didn't even know they were the same until a few days before!

Adam with his cousins Paul and Joseph

I had to share these wonderful dresses Mom made for the girls. They are just so cute and she made the hair bows too.

 

As for other news, Joy was chosen as student of the month in Science for October, and she was just chosen to be the Miamade  secratary, so she's very excited about that. Mary and Joy are also both on the Honor Roll.

Hogle Zoo - October 28th, 2011

The kids had the 28th off of school, so we went to the zoo with my brother Josh and sister Jenna. Unfortunately David had to work. You can't see it in the picture very well, but Adam thought this was the coolest monkey ever. He was very entertaining eating his food and Adam didn't want to leave him.

Hazel loved seeing all the animals, especially the tiger and monkeys.

This tiger was pacing back and forth and roaring over and over. It was really cool!

Mary and Josh goofing off.

I think Joy's favorite was the giraffe. It was so funny watching that giraffe get in that position in the second picture.

Mary, Joy, Josh, and Jenna

 

As I have mentioned before Adam LOVES wolves and he is reverently letting the wolf in the background sleep. We were hoping he would get up and walk around.

And of course he chose the wolf to ride on at the carousel.