Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everybody!
Charley's first Christmas!

Our beautiful tree full of presents underneath!

Our kitties got a new cat bed! We noticed that they enjoyed laying on a smashed down Dick's box. It didn't look very nice in our living room, so we gave them an upgrade! After a little sprinkle of catnip, they settled right in!

Charley got a new chewing mint flavored rope that he loves!

Chester snuggled into the bed too! It's right by the heater vent, so they just love their warm spot!

Charley

Introducing our new little one, Charley!

Today, Charley is 14 weeks old! He's been home with us about 8 weeks, and continues to bring a lot of happiness to our family. Charley came to us from a breeder in the Columbus area. His father, Seymore is a standard chocolate poodle, and mom Fergie is a labradoodle! This makes our little Charley 75% poodle, and 25% lab. Charley has a chocolate coat which will lighten as he grows to a silvery coffee with cream color, and Koby (white) toes! He has beautiful hazel brown eyes, and very sweet personality.

Charley sleeping with Daddy

Baby Charley already loves sticks! He's going to be a good camping dog!

He was SO much smaller than Rugby! In his mind, he'll always stay this way!

Sideways Charley!

Charley's mouth goes crazy sometimes!!

Charley playing sticks with his first little boy, Braden!

Too little to go down stairs all by myself!

Charley getting his first Christmas tree!

Mommy and Charley with our fresh cut tree!

Passed out in the middle of playing!First trip to the park! He loved it!

Charley now, growing so big!

And of course, Charley making "friends" with Chester!

Charley's dad, Seymore

Charley's mom, Fergie

Charley has adjusted very well to his new home. He's figured out that the orange one (Rugby) is the boss of everybody, and that Chester is his pal. He now sleeps in our bed, and sleeps soundly through the night until about 8:30 in the morning. Charley loves to run around his yard, and is a natural at chewing sticks. He is VERY bouncy, and can jump straight up in the air. (Poodle legs) Our little boy is now 20 pounds, and seems to keep growing all the time before our eyes! I just want him to stay little for longer, but he's determined to grow up fast! Charley has already begun to learn to sit, lay down, and give his paw. He has the super smart poodle brain, and we know that he'll be able to learn a lot of fun tricks!

We love our little Charley so much, and are so glad he's here with us!

Introducing...

Kayla Reese! (from beginning of August) And also when it was 90*! :o)

July 27th, I got a picture text of a baby, from Jill saying, "She's here! We have quite the story!" I honestly thought that it was a joke, maybe this was her way of saying that she was at the hospital, in labor or something. I was sure that Jill would call me when she started labor, just like she did with Braden. Well, I called her right away, and this was no joke! Kayla Reese had been born! She literally didn't have time to call me, as she went in to labor in the middle of the night, quickly took a shower, and then she was in full fledged labor! Just like that Brad was driving her to the hospital, and Jill hoped to make it, as she really felt like she would deliver in the car! Not but about 5-10 minutes from getting to the hospital, Jill delivered Kayla in her street clothes! No wonder she didn't have time to call!

The following week, I went to Dayton to do my "nanny" duty to help out with Kayla (and Braden :o)

I'm just going to do a really long post of Kayla pictures, otherwise, I'll never catch up with everything. It is now December, so I really need to get going... So enjoy this sweet little girl!
Me and KaylaSleepingWith her name blanketBeautiful mama with her beautiful baby!What a cute little dress!Jill looking at here baby so sweetThe whole familyCloser up with Braden's "cheese" smile. I love it!Look at the adoring look on Jill's face for her kids! She is such a great mom!
Kayla in her swing Aunt Carisa found for her!
Braden is such a good big brother! Here he is holding his sister in about to give her a kiss!
Kayle about to punch us for giving her this bath!!
Cute baby toes!

And that's enough pictures for today people! Photo shoot officially done!

Christmas 2010

Flourish Elegance Christmas 5x7 folded card

Shutterfly Christmas cards

View the entire collection of cards.

Christmas Cards

We usually don't send out Christmas cards, but this year, we may change that. I do love to receive them, and hang the cards all around our living room door way. I like to get the photo cards of kids and families, and have wanted to make them myself. When browsing around on blogs, I stumbled across Shutterfly. I'd been using other photo creating websites to do projects for years, but thought about giving this a try for Christmas Cards. Stacy uses Shutterfly to show pictures of her son, Aidan, which always post really nice. In the past, I've created a mug and a calendar from photo websites, and love the personalized items that you can create. This year, I don't know what picture to put on the cards, but we have several to choose from, including our new fuzzy bundle of joy (and teeth)! (More to come on him soon.)

Aren't these photo cards cute? Of course, I don't have the cute kids to add, but may just add my own "fuzzy" kids.

In addition to these cute cards, Shutterfly is offering a nice deal to those in the blog world! Check it out here!

So, we'll see, maybe this year will be the first edition of sending our Christmas cards.

Koby and Cheeser

(June 26, 2010)

While visiting Jill and Braden, I had the opportunity to introduce Braden (by computer) to Koby and Chester (Cheeser). We did also talk about Rugby, but just not in these videos. Jill must've been napping, and I fed Braden leftover pizza for lunch, and did so simultaneous teaching. Braden is very good at knowing animals, and I wanted to teach him about my boys. I think he got it just right!

Jungle Jim's Storm

Any time I visit Jill, I head 40 minutes south to one of my favorite stores, Jungle Jim's. It is the hugest grocery store ever. They carry food from all different countries around the world. When I visited for Braden's birthday, on the way home I made the stop. I got to Jungle Jim's, the sky was turning crazy colors. Loving the weather, I bravely got out of my car, and walked around, trying to capture some of the amazing lighting outside of the store... Here's the transition of this storm!
What first caught my eye as the storm rolled in, was the clear division between good and nasty weather! It was like a clear line was drawn across the sky.

Next, the bad weather went to terrible weather, and drew an even darker line across the sky.

I waited and waited to try to capture the gigantic lightning bolts, but the wind got extremely strong and it started to pour.

Plus, I thought about it, and didn't think it was a good idea to be beneath so many metal objects sticking out just asking for lightning to strike them.

Isn't that incredible? I wasn't able to capture the rain on my camera, it was coming down in sheets! But as this video shows, you can see the people running into the store as fast as they could!

Melt with BriAnne

In August one of my good friends, BriAnne came to visit Cleveland. She was here with her husband to go to a concert, and take some New York friends they brought with them around the city. I got to meet up with her one afternoon, to have lunch at Melt! It was her first time eating there, and my first time at their new Cleveland Heights location. I always love to go to Melt, but it's extra special to take one of my friends for the first time! Since I always talk about it as my favorite restaurant, my friends for out of town have been dying to go! Although we had a short but melty lunch visit, it was fabulous none the less! Can't wait to go back with you again Bri! I didn't have my camera, but here's a quick snap shot she took while we were there.

Fourth of July Fireworks!

This fourth of July, just like in years past, we've gone out to Robb's mom's boyfriend Harry's farm to shoot off the fireworks we bought! I LOVE fireworks. Maybe since I was completely firework banned growing up, they are especially awesome to me. This year, Stacy came out to spend the night with us, and enjoy the show! She also was firework banned growing up, so this year, at 28 years old, she held her first sparkler! She even was brave enough to shoot off roman candles! We had a great time at the fireworks, and camping that night! Also, it's extra special cause it was Robb's 32nd birthday! (Happy Birthday Honey) As always, it was tons of fun! Here's our stash! We go to Wholesale Fireworks, where we get buy one, get 2 free! It's the best deal for the most fireworks!We get all kinds! Little ones to do at home, smoke bombs, spinners, sparklers, fountains...Roman candles, ground blooms, jumping jacks, strobe lights...We get snaps, helicopters, parachuters...And LOTS of big mortars (these are the fireworks that go up in the air and blow up)Here's Stacy's sparkler...She got a long one!Also, I taught her how to spin it around to make a sparkler circle!Here's our little fire that we made. It was like 90*, so we didn't need much, but what camping trip would be complete without a fire!

We think to take pictures of any other fireworks, cause we were so busy shooting them off and enjoying the show!