Meet Lucy and Spring Break!

 Oh hey! I wish I had the time to blog but I give up! Between everything going on in life right now, there's just not time. So, I'll dump pics here hopefully once a month and do a little catch up!

Since I last blogged we got a new baby! Her name is Lucy, she is a blue doberman. And she is the bomb diggity! Josh drove for about 9 hours to get her and it was love at first site for the two of them. She even goes to work with him! I swore I would NEVER EVER have a big dog in the house. But, dobermans just really don't do well outside so hubs said we weren't getting another until we could keep it inside. I still said no. Then a few months ago I really starting wanting another dobie and decided that if hubby let me have a PIG in the house then I should let him have a dog inside so the rest is history! By the way, Tucker the pig has been outside in his new fabulous pen for a few months now! :)

Here she is! Our little LuLu!

We spent most of our Spring Break at the beach with cousins! It was such a fun time! 

This picture is not great at all, but it's the ONLY one I have of Griffin from the entire week! He WOULD not let me take any pictures of him. And I wasn't in the mood to make him!

 One day while it was pouring rain we headed over to Pensacola to the National Aviation Museum!

 The rest of the time we just beached, ate and played with pirates!

This was early one morning...the kids broke the swing the night before and they were having popsicles WAY too early in the morning and Bella was trying to get me to help her to get away! ha!

Your go!

These two!!!!! I can't even.

Now for some randoms! 

I'm trying to have "date night" with my kids once a week or so! Sometimes it's hard to have one on one time and this makes it easy!

 A few weeks ago Reece did a color run with her cousin for her cousin's school! They had the best time!!!

I think that about wraps it up for now! Off to work on some home study paperwork!

Roxy

A few weeks ago our sweet Roxy passed away. When the vet called to tell me she didn’t make it all I could do was cry. To the point that the lady on the phone was like, “I am SO SO SO sorry. Just call us back. ” 

It was bad.

She escaped from the goat yard the day before-she and Foxy have NEVER escaped-and one of our dogs attacked her. A stray that we had taken in. He had also killed several chickens. He is no longer an issue. That’s all I know about that.

Our entire household was sad. We haven’t found another goat yet but we are on the lookout for sure! Goats do not like to be alone so we need to find Foxy a friend SOON!

However, we DID get new baby chicks!

And a few days later….baby DUCKS!!!!! EEEKKKK!The ducks make us SMILE! They waddle around with all their little ducky cuteness! 

Welcome to the farm! :)

Meet Toby!

I’m sooooo behind on blogging. I will catch up sooner or later!

Just before Josh and I got married we got a chocolate lab. Her name was Molly and she was the sweetest dog ever. She was SO GOOD with the kids. And she was a very loyal pet. She lived for about 10 years before she went to doggy heaven. Ever since she died I have wanted another lab. I had a friend whose dog had puppies and they were labs so we got one!

Meet Toby! B LOVES him! I’m excited for them to grow up together! They will be BFF!

Meet Mittens!

Y’all know I don’t like cats! Y’all also know I love my kids more than anything! Griffin LOVES cats…the other kids do also but Griffin LOVES LOVES LOVES cats. We’ve tried three times to have a kitten. All three came up missing. We live in the sticks so there’s no telling what happened really. Sad, I know. Circle of Life. I have been looking for an adult cat thinking maybe it will last since it already can take pretty good care of itself…so, meet Mittens! G is in love and is constantly sneaking her inside. The day after we got her she killed a mouse outside, so she’s earning her keep!

Daisy

I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that we found out that one of our dogs has cancer. Boo.  Daisy is Reece’s baby. She carries her around everywhere and loves her to pieces! So do I but homegirl is attached! She had a knot come up on her neck, I took her to get it checked out and the vet thought it should come off. Which I did too because of where it was.

Sweet little baby snowseal!

When he removed the tumor the plan was for me to pick her up that afternoon. Well when I went to get her the vet told me that he wouldn’t charge me if I would rather just leave her overnight. YES! She was bleeding like crazy through the stitches and I was terrified that she would rip them out and then she really would be bleeding! The tumor was bigger than it appeared and the vet ended up having to open it back up and put some surgical gel in the wound so it would stop bleeding!

Needless to say, her first few days at home after the surgery were stressful! Her very most favorite thing to do in the world is rub on things, especially the couch, like a cat. Well she couldn’t do that because it would pull on the stitches and they would bleed!

Anyway, I took her today to get the stitches out and talk with the vet about what will happen next. The type of cancer she has can come back soon in the same place or come back years down the road. So, for now, we’re not worrying about her…she’s still her normal spunky self! And now she gets to sit on the couch! HAHA!

Honey

Meet Honey!

Not to be confused with Honey Boo Boo.

Our other kitty, Oreo Cookie Little Tongue Kitty Cat(if THAT’S not a name I don’t know what is!), has been missing for a little over a week. And get ready for it….I miss her. I’m a sucker but she just was the best little cat, even hubs loved her! So I came home with this little girl yesterday. She’s a sweet little thing, she loves to just sit in your lap. And, of course, the kids are in love!

She was only inside for a little while. I lost my mind for a half a second and thought about letting her stay inside! Like I said, lost my mind. So she’s outside!

Lost and Found

Soon after we returned home from the beach we discovered that our house was apparently struck by lightning. Lucky for us the plugs that were zapped were in the garage. My deep freezer had defrosted and water from it was everywhere.

Fast forward a day or so and I open the garage to leave for work and there stood Cracker Jack & Niko in the drive way. We have an underground fence that does not allow them on the driveway. Sometimes the batteries in the collars run down and they can get by the fence but never both of them. Niko NEVER goes anywhere near the fence. He is smart enough to know better! So them both being in the driveway meant that something was wrong with the fence.

Long story short, when the lightning struck it blew the fence box up. Literally. The company that made the fence is sending us a new one for pretty cheap and we are waiting on it!

Meanwhile, the dogs got into trouble. They jumped up on Josh’s pawpaw truck trying to get the cat and scratched it all up. So they were put in their pen. Josh felt sorry for them yesterday and let them out. When he woke up yesterday afternoon they were g-o-n-e. For reals.

Have I mentioned we live in the boonies?

So Hubs and the boys rode around for over an hour yesterday looking for them.

I silently began to freak my freak. I’m SURE someone would pick Niko up in a heartbeat.

Then I received a text from Hubby… Turds. He knew he was in trouble!

They found another dog and were chillin’ with him.

Guess they’ll have fun in the pen until the new box arrives!

Fancy

When I was in high school(umpteen years ago) and still living at home we went to my grandparents’ farm and got two super sweet kitties! A girl, Fancy, and a boy, Max. Fancy is the stripped one, Max is gray. Fancy’s nicknames were Fancy Kitty, Frances, Francene, Kitty Kitty and Kitty Frances. Max’s were Maxton and Maxton Farsworth. Don’t ask. They were so lovable! And they loved each other SO much! We used to say they “made-out” all the time… 

After a year or so we found out that Max had feline leukemia. He was fine for a while and then got really sick and we had to have him put to sleep. That day was awful! The vet sent him home that night so we could say goodbye to him and then my step-dad had to take him the next morning to be put down. Ugh, so sad. That was the day of my senior prom.

After that Fancy went a little cray cray. The main thing that we couldn’t handle was that she was peeing in the house all the time. My Mom decided to take her back to my grandparents’ farm. So they did. We would periodically check on her and one day my granddad said he hadn’t seen her in a while.

Six months later she showed up back at my mom’s house. That’s like 10 miles! AND she had to cross a very busy interstate!

Suffice it to say she was back home! AND she learned her lesson because she was the perfect kitty from then on out.

A couple of months ago she came up missing for about a week. My parents decided that she probably we off and died. She was 13 so that would make sense. Then they were in the garage and heard her in the attic! She had been trapped up there for a week! No food or water. She recuperated from that.

Then a couple of weeks ago my parents were doing something in the garage and the garage door fell on her and killed her! Seriously. She survived ALL that and the dang garage door had to fall on her?

It was traumatic. She suffered because it was Sunday and the vet close to their house was closed. There wasn’t time to get her to the emergency vet before she was gone. :(

I’m not about to tell Griffin, Peyton and Reece. Griffin is still so upset about his teacher that passed away in January. I’m not adding to that. I don’t think he can handle it.

I’m just going to think about her and Max making out in kitty Heaven! :)

Meet Oreo

Lawd.

Y’all know I don’t like cats. Hubs doesn’t either. But Griffin LOVES cats. And sometimes parents have to give a little.

So we did.

I think little kitty cats are so cute and cuddley but we all know they grow up to be grown up cats. And grown up cats are snitches!

It is NOT staying inside. EVER. Been there done that TWICE and I will NEVER have a cat inside again! The end.

This all started yesterday just after lunch. My Mom came by the office and I glanced up from my desk to see her walking in with something wrapped up in a sweatshirt. It’s 975 degrees. All she said was, “one of y’all gotta take this.” And then there was a little meow followed by “awww”, followed by “Al’s taking it”! But Brad said “no”. Earlier in the day I had been thinking about how we’d promised Griffin when we moved we would get him another cat once we got settled. Well we’re settled and out of excuses! ha!

So, we took the cat. And the chill-ren were very surprised and happy.

Bad News and Bad News

I’m about to turn my husband loose on the neighbors! They have this cute black lab, named River. He’s sweet. I love labs.

How do I know he’s so sweet? Because he’s at our house every freakin day playing with our dogs and kids and eating our dog food! The past few weeks when I’ve seen him I’ve “shooed” him off. He gets into EVERYTHING that we have outside. We have an underground electric fence that we use to keep our dogs IN OUR YARD that cost us a lot of money and a lot of Hubs’ time putting in. So that OUR DOGS stay HOME and don’t ROAM!

Well last night while putting the chickens up for the night I stepped in an excessive amount of poop. I had on flip flops so I just left them on the front porch and planned to clean them off today. Well this morning I went outside to get them and what do you know? One was missing. AND Peyton had left his GOOD tennis shoes out there and one of them is missing too. I am SURE I know who the culprit is and I am not happy.

The other bad news is that Fufu went to bunny heaven.

Seriously.

I don’t know if we will get another one or not. It was pretty sad at our house last night.

Cracker Jack

After Molly died I kind of decided without talking to Josh(because I figured I knew what his answer would be) that we wouldn’t get another dog. We still have three, Daisy and Chippie inside and Niko outside. And three dogs is enough. Plus it hurts so bad when they go to doggy heaven!

Well the day I kind of told myself that we were sitting at my brother’s football game and I noticed Josh playing on his phone. I looked over and he was browsing the Pet Finder App!

Uh WHAT?

So we’ve kind of had our eyes out for a puppy for the last week or so. He wanted a puppy and I wasn’t so sure about that. That puppy stage, while it’s cute and all, is not very fun. You know, with all the whining and tearing crap up! ha! Plus we had to find something that would get along with Niko. He’s easy to get along with but he is HUGE. Several times since we’ve moved I have looked outside and mistaken him for a deer.

Yesterday my sister, Kelsie, called. She and her boyfriend Parker(or Paka if you ask Reece!) were leaving his grandparents’ farm and saw a puppy just laying in the middle of a dirt road. They stopped and fed him a Slim Jim(almost named him that!) and some snack cakes..he was starving! She sent us a picture and of course I was smitten! So, they brought him to us!

Meet Cracker Jack! Sorry for the blurry cell phone pic! I’ll get some with my good camera soon..

He’s an Australian Shepard and looks to be about 3 months old or so. I mean WHO could throw him out???? He is VERY lovable and sweet! People are crazy!

Niko LOVES him! He was getting kind of depressed so now he has a playmate! :)

So I had dinner with the Governor(s)!

Last night was the Lincoln Reagan Dinner at The Zone in Bryant-Denny Stadium! I generally don’t get into political mumbo gumbo but it was fun. Our Governor, Dr. Robert Bentley, was honored and the guest speaker was Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi. I could have stuck him in my pocket and brought him home! Super sweet Paw Paw! I didn’t take my camera but I did have my picture taken with both governors and as soon as I get my hands on it I will post!

I went into the night SUPER bummed because my sweet chocolate lab, Molly, passed away sometime yesterday. It really was out of nowhere. She was acting different earlier in the week but she wasn’t acting sick..I really just thought she was pregnant, she had a black lab boyfriend that lives across the street! :) But I guess that wasn’t it. She was almost 10 years old. The best dog ever, really. Labs are SO great with kids. She let Griffin, Peyton and Reece do whatever they wanted to her. She loved them so much. She was also a really loyal dog. If we were outside, she was right by our side. Before we got a riding lawn mower she would cut grass with Josh, taking every step he did.

We’re going to miss her! The only pic I can find at the moment…look how little PeyPey was!!!

Daisy

I’ve wanted a Maltese for a LONG time. In fact, I was going to get Bella before Allison did but then changed my mind and we decided to have Reece instead!(best decision ever!) So I talked Allison into getting her! AND we bought her sister for my Mom!

My Mom already had one, she’s like 13 years old now, my grandfather has one…they’re everywhere in my family. They are just the best little dogs and they are hypoallergenic! No shedding whatsoever! They are also super smart and kid friendly!

Sooooooo, Allison’s groomer called her last week and told her she had someone who had a three year old female that is potty trained AND fixed for FREE! Her name is Daisy. My mom happened to be with Allison when the groomer called and my mom thought my granddad would want her. And he did. But no one was thinking about his 11 year old SPOILED FREAKIN’ ROTTEN Maltese(JJ) that he already has! So he took her and well, JJ was super jealous and Daisy would not mind! That really stressed Granddaddy out and he told mom to find her a home. Meanwhile I told Mom that I needed one. And she said that I should take Daisy. Sounded great but I had to talk to my boss, aka Officer Hubby!

I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was going to say no. I KNEW IT! So I had to make sure he was in a good mood, and that the timing was just right! bhahahahaha! This is really funny to me now, but this really was my thought process! Hubby is very laid back and easy going so I knew that if he knew I really wanted it he would let me get it. I bit the bullet and asked him..after chewing off every single nail I had. I told him it was completely up to him. He said, “I mean, I don’t want her.” So I said, “ok.” Then I just sat there watching him play on the computer and he said, “Well if you want her then get her!” I said, “OK” as I was running out the door. haha! I told him I was just going to run down to Granddaddy’s to see if I wanted her. He laughed and knew I’d be back with another dang dog! ha!

That makes 4 for those of you counting. One is his.

Here she is…

I mean, who COULD resist that sweet little face?!?!? She loves to cuddle and she slept with the boys last night, all on her own! They LOVED it!

I was a little worried about how Chippie would react because she is the Queen and always will be! She likes her too! So there.

And just when you thought you were done with this little story…there’s more!

After hubby got home from work this morning(the rest of us were already gone) he was sitting in the living room petting Daisy. She ran over to the front door and whined. So he thought she needed to potty. So he opened the door and out she went like a bat outta hell! GONE! He chased her barefoot in the rain around and around our neighborhood! He finally had to call me to come home from work and help him catch her! I went flying home and as I whipped it into the neighborhood I saw her running towards the entrance! I stopped and she ran from me!!!!Thankfully one of our neighbors stopped to help and she jumped in his car with him! I really don’t know what would have happened had she not done that!

Josh was SO SO mad! I would have been too. He literally chased her about 15 times around our neighborhood! So their relationship has gotten off to a rocky start! eek!

Hopefully that won’t happen again!

Niko

Here’s our new boy! He fits right in at our house. He’s spoiled rotten already and the biggest lap dog I have EVER seen! I think he weighs 93 pounds right now. He is super sweet but I have no doubt that if the need was there he would tear someone up if they messed with me, Josh or the kids! Reece LOVES to boss him around…it’s so funny because he is bigger than her but he minds her! He loves his duck as you will see in the pictures…it squeaks which is a little annoying but he knows exactly how to make it squeak and doesn’t do it while anyone is sleeping! :) LOVES to sleep like this! Ignore our crate, it’s been outside unused for a while! Ignore my mess in the floor, I just wanted you to see how big he is compared to Chippie! Oh and she bosses him too! With his foster Dad and Sister… So sweet!

We’re loving having a dobie around again! :)

xoxo,