Nothing Much Better Than Great-Grandparents!

This weekend my mother, Daniel and I drove to the Eastern Shore of Maryland and visited my grandparents!! Daniel had not yet had the honor of meeting them and so we were well overdue!

We arrived Friday to a lovely lunch and some visiting time, before heading our to the VFW and playing slot machines!! Instead of slots Daniel spent the hour play Dominos or "Bomb"ino's as Daniel's Great Grandfather called it since they had fun setting up Domino trails and then "bombing" the first one to make the train start. They did circles and lines, and had a great time. I don't think they knew it but from the penny slot machine I could sneak a peak over to their table and enjoy watching them together!! (In case your wondering, my mom, myself and my grandmother each lost 20 bucks!)

Here are some unforgettable memories from our getaway this weekend!




Next stop, Memorial Day cookout!!

Big Cousin, Trip to the Local Park, Sentences and Tagged

This is going to be an all in one post!


Last Friday night I hosted game night at our house for my side of the family. Both of my sisters came, my mother, my two neices, one of the boyfriends, and of course Daniel was here as was the infamous Baby Eli and my grand niece Karmen! We had a house full! We played lots of Boggle and cooked dinner and had a great time. I took this photo as Daniel has expressed a real interest in holding Eli recently. We tried it once before using a pillow, but Daniel didn't seem very thrilled about it. However, this time, he loved holding his little cousin!


Aren't they adorable!!

Then this past Sunday Troy, Daniel and I headed to our local park to feed the ducks and have some play time. Funny how I was just posting about our lazy winter days and then we have some oddly warm weather. Of course last night and tonight we have had 60 mph wind gusts which always make for a pleasant driving experience to and from work! At the park we fed the ducks, walked acrosse the big bridge over the water and because Papa was around got to play in the big boy section of the playground while Mommy had multiple heart attacks!! It was a great day!

Lately Daniel has started putting together more and more sentences. It seemed to almost happen overnight. I am thrilled, but let me tell you...that boy can babble up a storm. I love every minute of it! Some of his newest phrases are "I'll be right back", finger in the air to show the one minute sign; then the other day while I was putting on my shoes, he came over, pulled the tongue of the shoe up and shook his head up and down and said "all set Mommy"; and lastly (my personal favorite) we were rocking two nights ago and he starts fingering my necklace. I asked him if he liked it and he replies "way cool Mommy". Obviously I need to update my vocabulary!

Finally, I have been tagged several time lately from several different people on a couple of different topics.

The first:

I was tagged by Chris and Danica and then by Jill, who by the way adopted the cutest little girl from Ethiopia, lives down the road from us, used the same agency we did and we went to high school together! The rules were:

1. Open the 4th picture folder on your computer.2. Choose the 4th picture and post it on your blog.3. Explain the picture.4. Tag 4 people to do the same

Well, our laptop blew up that had all our pictures neatly in folders and thankfully I had stored most of them on disk, but for the purpose of this, I am using the 4th picture from the 4th folder of our office computer. Ironically it's one of a series I took (not the best one as I posted the best one in a previous post) in which Jill recognized the background and realized we really did know each other and then contacted me! The folder was entitled Stuff (I'm so creative) and the photo was Stuff004! Without further ado...

I am not going to tag anyone else since it has been a while since my tag.

I was also tagged by someone else to do a book tag, but I can't remember, so I apologize for not doing that one.

Wow - I think I'm all caught up now. I'm exhausted!!

My New Cousin

A blog from Daniel, inspired by a blog from Andrew...

Guess what everybody?? I have a new cousin. My Aunt Cathy, who I lovingly call "Aunt Cahkeee" had her baby. Let me tell you, he's a cutie. He has a head full of that darn black hair the women in this family have. Why it's not blond, like mine, or red like my Uncle Joe's, I just don't know.

Anyway, he was born on Friday night while I ran around the waiting room burning off energy and looking in the nursery window. I tried to show all the newborn babies my cars, but they didn't seem too interested. He was 6 pounds and 10 ounces and 18 and 1/2 inches long. He looked really tiny to me though. They named him Elijah or Eli for short. I call him "Baby EeeeLyyyyy". I was told to be very gentle so I just pointed out all his facial features for the new mama. I even told her when his eyes were closed so she would know he was sleeping.

I really liked Baby Eli, but when my Mama held him, I wanted to be held too. Afterall, my Mama is mine and Baby Eli gets Aunt Cahkee. It's funny because I heard my Mama telling Baby Eli that she couldn't wait to give him coffee and chocolate. It's the same thing my Aunt Cahkee always tells me, but then I never get it. What's with that?? It must be a joke between Mamas.

Anyway - I suppose I'll share some pictures of Baby Eli with my Aunt Cahkee's permission of course.

I love having a new cousin!!! I can't wait to see him again!!

Also - I am posting a picture of my artwork from day care. Mama especially likes the turkey made from my very own handprints. She showed it to everyone and then hung it up. She's so silly sometimes fawning all over the papers I color. I'm surprised she doesn't frame them and hang them in a gallery somewhere. Oh wait...did I hear her mention we need to take a trip to the craft store. Silly Mama!

Love, Daniel

P.S. Mama said she was going to do a big update about me soon. I guess I'd better be a good boy for the next couple of days!

Attachment Part Two and Gardening Fun

This weekend we had tons of fun!! We visited Granny and Grandpa (Troy's parents) and had a great time. Troy's dad recently had both knees replaced and we were amazed at how well he was moving around! We had lots of fun swimming in the pool and had lots of good food!

I need to say a special thank you to Granny (Troy's mom Barbara). She loves, loves, loves children and we knew it would be especially hard on her to not be able to run to Daniel if he cried or pick him up if he fell or give him snacks if he was hungry as we needed to be the ones to do that in order to help Daniel understand that Troy and I were his parents and we would be his providers. In the pool this weekend, I would swoosh Daniel to Granny and he would start to fuss and instantly look and reach back for me. Granny let go every time and even spoke about how thrilled she was to see Daniel acting that way. I know it had to be hard though!! I do know once my little daredevil was laying on a raft that Granny was able to tip him over and into Papa's waiting arms and we had lots of giggles!! Barbara - we're so proud of you and don't you worry Daniel loves his Granny or as he says "nanneeeeee".

On Sunday we played around outside with our tomato plants. Last year we planted them against one whole side of our house because we dug out some other plants we didn't like and stuck the tomatos in for fun. Well, they grew like crazy so we did it again this year. We have the biggest darn tomato plants I've ever seen in my life. We also got our first red tomato!! Daniel loves to help us water them!!

Here I asked Daniel to look at Mama and say cheese and instead

I got this...when I squealed it became an all out war as he thought

it was hyterically funny to spray Mama!!
Not too sure about payback though!

Helping Papa tie up those huge plants.

Do you see how big the tomato plant is behind me? I mean seriously

it's so big I can't see the top of it!

Happy Fourth!!

I hope everyone had a great fourth!! We were so busy and Daniel had a fantastic time. I'll just let the pictures tell the story...

Waiting for the Parade

Waving my flag to everyone...and I mean everyone!
Uh...that wheel is bigger then me!!
Playing with Tess-Great Aunt Sarah's doggie at the BBQ after the parade - look at me giggle!
Another day, another BBQ. This is at Aunt Cat's house. The pool was full of little girls - Yuck!
Aren't I cool?

Christmas Eve Celebration

What a great Christmas Eve we had! 18 people, tons a great food and even better conversation! To get to that point Troy and I ran around like mad getting ready! We had to put all the leafs in our table and bring another table upstairs, borrow 5 more chairs and cook a turkey. Whew!! It was worth it!!

Troy and I also used the occassion to take family photos for our book to leave with our child in Russia! It was perfect! So, in honor of our wonderful family and one day soon (hopefully) Daniel's family, we'd like you to meet everyone!

The Future Parents - Troy and Rachel (Check out Troy's facial hair - never seen him with that much before!!)

Grandma (Rachel's mom) and Aunt Cassandra (Rachel's baby sister)







Granny and PaPa (Troy's parents)

Uncle Joe, Aunt Cathy, Caroline, Lori, and Karmen (Rachel's sister, our brother in law and nieces and grandniece)

Uncle Richard, Aunt Sandy & Ian (Troy's sister, our brother in law and nephew)

Aunt Amber, Uncle Stephen and Parker (Troy's sister, our brother-in-law and nephew)

As you can see - Daniel will have an amazing family!! Merry Christmas to all!

TLC

Many of you may recognize Jerry from a previous post introducing our furry family members. Jerry is actually a dog I have been fostering from the shelter since sometime in late January. He was brought in by animal control. We don't know the actual circumstances but we know Jerry had been left chained to a pole outside. Jerry arrived in the shelter last October. He was terrified. Once in his kennel he would not come out. Neither volunteers nor staff could take him outside. So, they roped me into fostering him.

After 45 minutes of struggling with him to get him out of the kennel and into my car, off we went!! I had in the process scraped my hands on the asphalt of the parking lot holding on to him, strained every muscle in my back and arms trying to carry him (He weighs close to 50 pounds!), and had broken a sweat in cold weather. But he rode nice in the car and then we started all over again when we arrived at my house.

I won’t bore you with too many details but this is what we have endured. He would not go out and once out would not come in. He was terrified of a leash (from being choked on the chain before) and we would have to back him into a corner to hook him and then walk him outside. Once outside we had to leave the leash attached to him so we could catch him to bring him back in. Once in he would not come off the dog bed to eat or drink and we finally had to take the bowls to him. Troy could not get near him as Jerry would never growl or bite, but would back peddle so fast Troy was horrified he would give the dog a heart attack.

Weeks went by and Jerry got better. Months have now gone by and the improvements in Jerry are immense. Troy can now pet Jerry and sometimes play tug of war with him. Jerry has discovered he can bark. We weren’t sure if he could or not and the first time he barked it was so hoarse we were afraid he had a permanent injury. Well, he barks now!! Still sounds a little funny but he fits right in!! He will go in and out with no problem and will even go by himself. We have inched the food bowl back into the kitchen and the water bowl is no longer by his dog bed, but he prefers to drink outside. He will sit with a simple hand motion and he snores!!! He still has a few issues and will jump at unexpected sounds and still will shy away from Troy at times, but he is so much better!!

I need to say a thank you to Troy, my wonderful husband who has let me keep Jerry and knows I intend to adopt him. With four animals already, he has been a great sport!!

I am posting a before and after picture of Jerry. You will see his hair has gotten thicker and his whiskers have grown back in. I know I promised at the top of my blog that our newest member of the family would not be 4-legged or furry, but I am pretty sure he will be!!

So with a little TLC you can achieve anything!!


Before
After

Meet the Furry Family

Troy and I have been adding to our family through the adoption of animals since the week before we got married and these are our current babies!! Hopefully soon we'll be adding another 2 legged member to our family as we are currently out numbered!!

The cats:

Jack – The 12 year old cat who is the very reason we are adopting a child. We have taken to putting him in baby shirts and pushing him around on his new favorite toy we bought for our new little one!! No really, Jack just had a tumor removed off his back and the shirt is in lieu of an Elizabethan collar around his neck. It keeps him from licking and keeps the site clean. Poor guy, just had the tumor removed, his teeth cleaned and then put in a baby’s shirt!! And what’s even worse? I humiliated him by taking the picture!

Jill – How creative were we with her name. She came to us about 5 years ago as a stray where she had been living in a barn with about 6 other kittens. Troy put on a glove and made a grab for a kitten. I pointed at a black one and said “That one”, and he grabbed and out came Jill and he said “This one.” Hence, Jill became a member of the family.

The dogs:

Elka – a Sharpei-Shepard mix who is the love of my life, after Troy of course. She is 9 years old and better live to be 100. She is the sweetest, most loving, most well behaved dog in the world. She won’t sit on command but will give kisses when asked. She loves to visit her “grandma’s house” and is just a wonderful girl.

Jerry – a mutt through and through and not yet a full fledged member of the family. He is the tan guy in the middle. He actually is a foster dog from the local SPCA where I spend one day each weekend as an adoption counselor. He was treated extremely poorly and was brought to the shelter by animal control. He was extremely shy and wouldn’t let anyone near him but me. He is currently learning how to be a dog!! He will now play outside by himself and has made himself at home. (I am sure he will be a permanent member soon!)

Ruby – a Heinz 57 brindle hound mutt!! She loves Troy and Troy only. She will only sit in my lap or cuddle with me when he’s not home. When he is, she is all about him and I do not exist!! Gotta love her although she thinks she’s a cat most of the time!! She has been with us for 2 years!!