Girl's Book Club

Today was "Girl's Book Club" at Regan's school. They had moms or grandmas come and sit in the library and read books together. So we had a good time. For an hour just sitting there taking turns each reading a page. She's really getting much better about reading, and will read anything about animals or monsters (as evidenced in the picture!) She's really enjoying her school this year, and I'm so happy. She's still making all A's and B's!

Regan's Big Break

After having Riley x-rayed so many times, I was worried he would become some radioactive super-hero (Injury-Man anyone?) it was Regan's turn I guess. She came in from playing last night, right about the time we were supposed to leave for church, bloody and upset. She's very stoic when she's hurt, so I never know how bad things really are. She once had a well check with a double ear infection and we had no idea! She's not one to milk things either, like her big brother. She had fallen off her scooter and landed on her arm and knees pretty bad. Her forearm was swollen, and her knees looked like she slid down a cheese grater.

So, I wasn't sure if we should watch and wait for swelling to go down or go to urgent care right away. But after about an hour, the swelling had gone down some, but you could still feel a lump in her arm, above the wrist area, and her knees and legs were pretty nasty looking. Bad case of road rash. So, I took her in. There's an urgent care place right down the road and they got us in and out in about an hour, so that was nice. She cried when they did the x-ray because of how she had to hold her arm. The results were somewhat inconclusive. The doctor thinks it is something called a "greenstick" fracture, but they were sending the x-rays to a pediatric radiologist today and I haven't heard back yet.

In the meanwhile, they splinted her arm and cleaned and wrapped the legs.  She can't really put any pressure on her arm, or push or pull with it, so changing clothes has been a challenge (which might mean less laundry for a while, that girl likes to change her clothes!) Anyway, she's doing much better now, took some ibuprofen and got some rest, and she's ready to go!

Busy Busy Busy

It's been a crazy busy week! We had our first ever Women's Conference at church this weekend, and David and I were both volunteers. It was so much fun. On Friday night, we had a photo booth, with all kinds of fun props and hats and stuff, it was really cute. Charlotte Gambil was the guest speaker and she was amazing! What a great way to open the conference. Tammy came and spent the night with me, her church had a group of ladies come to the conference, so it was fun to have my BFF there. The after party was great, there was hot cocoa and coffee, chocolate dipped pretzels and popcorn, frozen yogurt, line dancing, it was fun.


Then we were back bright and early on Saturday for a full day of fun. I just love our church. There were so many fun skits and videos and the meetings were just awesome. Christine Caine and our pastor's wife, Lori Champion, spoke on Saturday, with Charlotte Gambil again. I just keep saying over and over, it was so good.

Anyway, that kept us busy the whole weekend. And on Sunday after church we took Riley and Hunter to the skate park, Riley rode his bike around while we walked Hunter around the hike and bike trail, and he loved it. It really wore him out and he slept great that night. We really need to do that again! He loves to smell EVERYTHING so walking is slow going, but he's learning. The skates and bikes kind of scared him, but he was getting better. He's also getting SO big. His other ear is finally starting to poke up too, so I think he might end up with 2 pokey-uppey ears after all!

 Hunter snuck a nap on the couch while mom and dad were gone! Bad boy!!

More Pictures!

Cause I know you all want to see how big he is getting!

  MOM! He stole my bed!

One ear is starting to stick up, makes him look crooked!

Belgian or German?

Guess which one is Hunter? David was reading one day about Navy SEALs and the dogs they use are called Belgian Malinois, so he googled it to see what they are, and wow, sure looks like our Hunter! We were just told he was a German Shepherd, possibly a mix, but now we're wondering if part of that mix is Belgian?! Of course, they are super high energy dogs that require a ton of attention and training and they want a job to do or they will become neurotic, so guess whose days just got a little bit busier?

One of our friends from church is a K9 police officer and he trains German Shepherds and Belgian Malinois, and we showed him the pictures of Hunter and he said he sure looks like a full blood Belgian. I kind of think he's a mixture of both, but now that I know how smart he is, I'm very disappointed in him for not being house trained yet! Riley has really been working with him on sit, stay, down, etc. and he's doing great on those, but he doesn't seem to want to be housebroken, OR sleep past 5:30am.

Good thing he's cute. That's all I can say.

Regan Goes British

First of all, we have been selling cookies at a lot of booths. A LOT OF BOOTHS. They tend to get boring. Especially the one we did tonight where it was SO very cold, and we sold a total of 15 boxes (that's really bad, we usually sell around 50). So, Regan was playing around, asking people if they want to buy cookies in a British accent. She would *love* to be British! She also has a "thing" for this British band, One Direction, and a boy in the band named Nial. Yeah, we're in that phase. So this is Regan, goofing around in her British accent. It's cute.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfehTKOri7I&feature=youtu.be

I "mustache" you to be my valentine!

Regan was home sick the day before Valentine's day, so I wasn't sure she would make it to school, but thankfully, she ran a low fever for a little bit, and then was fine, so she was able to make it to the party! That also meant I stayed up late cutting out 22 mustaches. Nothing like last minute, right? But, she said they were a huge hit, and they are super cute. There is just something I love about homemade valentine's!

RIP Chris Kyle

Riley has long admired Chris Kyle. Riley has wanted to be a Navy SEAL for a long time, so Chris Kyle was one of his heroes. We were very saddened to learn about his death a few weeks ago. Today, the funeral procession was making its way from Midlothian to Austin for burial at the Texas State Cemetery. I took Riley out of school to come with me and stand on the highway and pay our respects. I think Riley appreciated being able to go and see the support that showed up. Every overpass, and along the highway for the entire 200 miles was packed with people waving flags and just showing their support to the family. It was a quite a sight to see. I haven't had a lot of "proud American" moments in a while, but being out there, with all those other people, seeing the miles-long line of Patriot Guard on motorcycles leading the procession, it was incredible, and very moving.

Riley and I were asked by KXAN news to speak about it, and what Chris Kyle meant to Riley. They thought it was neat that Riley was in Sea Cadets, and that he wasn't just sitting back talking about wanting to be in the Navy, but actually working towards the goal. It was a great interview, but sadly, the audio messed up and we didn't make the news. BUT, they want to meet up with us in Ft. Hood and do a story on Riley and the Sea Cadets, so we're very excited about that! Especially since budget cuts to the military lately have resulted in Sea Cadets losing quite a bit of their grant funding. Maybe some publicity will help.

After the news interview, Riley wanted lunch at Olive Garden where he ate his weight in salad. At least it was salad, and I think the waitress was surprised to see a teenage boy eat 3 huge bowls of salad!

The Super FUN Week

Can you detect my sarcasm? It HAS been a fun week. Well, it kind of started off fun, we had dinner with friends, and that was fun. Then I got the flu, and the puppy took about 3 giant leaps backwards in the whole potty-training business, and decided that 5am is just as good a time as any to be up for the day and eating shoes.

And there's a little matter of about 400 boxes of Girl Scout cookies with MY name on them staring at me from my living room. And me with no energy to do anything about it but whine.

But, in my near-delirious state on the couch, I would hear Hunter on the move and jump up and run to the back door to let him go potty outside, so although I haven't gotten the much needed rest to get over the flu, the house training is back on track.  Regan and I had a really good cookie booth last night where we sold 80 boxes, so I feel a little better about where we stand there. And right now, everyone is gone but me and the tired dogs. I think I am going to catch up on some DVR and enjoy the silence.

Regan was invited to a "Rock Star" birthday party tonight. She was so excited, wanted me to buy her a whole new outfit, with new high heel shoes and hoochie mama shorts and everything. She's in this awkward phase right now, the girl section is too "girly" and the women's section is too "womanly" or, hoochie. Not that it's stopping her, she would be fine with some hoochieness. But that's not leaving my house! Also, I wasn't really thrilled with the idea of buying a new outfit AND a birthday present, so we compromised and got a new shirt and a clearance scarf.

She came home so excited, but quickly got upset when she saw her friends looking "more glam" than her. We have no "hair crinklers" (yeah, left that back in the 80's) no spiky high heels, no funky jewelry. Sorry, I'm too plain Jane for my 10 year old I guess! Well, she was upset, ready to not even GO to the party, and I promised her I could glam her up like nobody's business. She wasn't convinced, she said all my stuff was too "old lady" and nothing, NOTHING would work for her. So, I found my mom's old jewelry stash, and boy, we hit jackpot. My stuff is too old lady, but not my MOM'S?! HELLO?! She was flabbergasted that I didn't wear her stuff all the time, but she felt super glam with her huge silver clunky earrings, double pearl necklace, silver hair clip, all kinds of jewelry goodness! She did wear my wedge heel boots, so I'm not a total fuddy-duddy I guess.  Then I brushed on some of my purple sparkly eye shadow (hello, only a super cool mom has purple sparkly eye shadow!) and she was good to go.

Anyway, drama queen has left the building so I think it's safe for me to relax! And the boys have tickets to see Top Gun at the IMAX. Boring. And here's a picture of Hunter, who likes to "help" me load the dishwasher.

The Cuteness

Prepare for an onslaught of cute...

Puppy and Cookies

That is the story of my life these days. Puppy puppy puppy cookies cookies cookies. I'm up half the night with the puppy, and out all day with cookies! Not really but it seems like it.

The good news, I started crate training Hunter and he's doing MUCH better. Last night he slept from 11-5:30 (which is the longest stretch of sleep I've had since we got him!) and then I took him out and put him back in his crate till 6:30 when we get up. He whines a little when I put him back but he goes back to sleep pretty quick. He's getting so big too!

As for cookies, we're almost to 600 sold. Which is pretty good because we're not quite to the halfway mark of selling, but we are over halfway done with OUR goal. I'm hoping we can sell another couple hundred this weekend, and be on the downhill slope from there.

I took a night off from booths last night to renew my CPR certification, and Riley came too. He's been wanting to take CPR and I think it helps him in Sea Cadets, for his Quartermaster or something! And here's a link to a recent article about his Recruit Training that he went to: http://www.thelighthousenews.com/news/2013/jan/23/sea-cadets-hold-10-day-training-at-nbvc/

Well, that's about all that's going on around this neck of the woods!