Sam and Grandpa!

Well, not much news to report here, other than Dave's dad from Colorado was here a few days this last week. Sam had so much fun with his Grandpa Meyers! We had a really good time having him here and were disappointed to see him go! Though we didn't do anything extremely exciting (our time consisted of shopping in Prescott, playing with Sam, political talk :), working...the usual), we really enjoyed visiting and spending time with him. Now I get to look forward to Sam and I's trip to Colorado in just a little over a week! Then I can see all our family! I'm really excited for Cindi's Bridal Shower and John and Micha's wedding. It should be a fun week!

I wanted to give a quick shout out to some sistas of mine...Happy birthday (yesterday) to Jennifer and happy birthday (today) to Micha! We love you guys! Oh, and I can't forget to CONGRATULATE Jillian and Steve! Dave and I are so excited for you guys! Now you finally get to experience the all encompassing horror and joy (mostly joy:) of being a parent!

Here are a few pictures...

This is Sam giving Grandpa a high five...


These are a couple of Sam and Grandpa when we went on a walk on Sunday...



And here's Sam...just looking cute...

Granola Bar

I just wanted to post a picture I think is cute. I couldn't find Sam this morning and so I went in the kitchen and found him chillin on the floor with a granola bar. He found one in the diaper bag and somehow figured out how to open it and he was sitting there eating it, piece by piece. He's so cute!

Bye Bye Zoe

Okay, so I spoke (or wrote) way too soon. To everyone who got excited about our puppy news, I'm sorry to report we actually do not have her anymore. I know it's crazy. This last 24 hours has been crazy. Zoe had been going insane in our backyard all by herself all day and just wouldn't stop howling and crying. We tried to play with her as much as we could but she just needed a lot more attention than we have been able to give. We would keep her inside if she wasn't going to grow up to be a big dog, but our house is too small for a big inside dog. We both felt so bad for her and just had a bad feeling about this whole thing all night and day because we didn't feel like we could really provide a home like she'd need, with kids and people to dote on her and play with her. It just didn't seem to be fitting and it didn't feel right.

So, just to see if we could find a family with kids that would enjoy her more than we would and give her the home she needs, Dave took her back in front of the grocery store and tried to see if any other families wanted her. We figured it has only been one day, and she wasn't completely used to us anyway, so what would one more change do? Plus, she just didn't seem happy. Anyway, if no one wanted her it would be fine and we would take her back here and do our best at it.

When Dave left for the next 20 minutes after that I just felt awful about the whole thing. She is such a sweet cute dog and I just felt so bad that we were trying to get rid of her but I also wanted her (and us for that matter) to be happy. So, of course, being the softy that I am, I was praying that whatever is supposed to happen would happen and that a great family would want her, and if not I was praying for everything to work out with us having her.

Well, not even a minute after that Dave called me and told me that a man came up to him and said that she was exactly what he has been looking for! He said he has two kids (7 and 10) who just had their black lab die and they wanted another one so badly and that Zoe looked just like their old one! So that was our answer. Dave gave her to him and that was that. I'm sure she will be so much happier with a family that will probably give her a lot more attention (and will probably keep her inside) and with kids that will actually be excited and play with her. Sam is just way too young for a dog now. He loved her but didn't quite know what to do with her. He would have rather watched Blue Clues than play with her all night.

I just feel so much better about the whole thing and I'm actually glad we took her in the first place, not only so this family could take her, but because it helped us realize we are not at all ready for a dog in our lives right now. We have been talking about getting one ever since we moved here and now we know that we wont even start thinking about it again until we have at least 2 kids, and they are old enough to play with her and love on her!
So anyway, this has been our dramatic day! Whew!

What Were We Thinking??

I know I always do this...I let everything build up and then blog about it all at once. So sorry about another lengthy post. I guess that's what happens when you're busy! Well, we finally gave in and did something I never really wanted to do...meet Zoe, the newest member of our family...Isn't she cute?


Dave called me yesterday and said there was someone in front of Basha's (the local grocery store) giving away free puppies. So we decided to take one....without any preparation or anything. This is not normal behavior for either of us. Especially with this big of a decision (well, it's big to us, anyway). So we are both having mixed feelings about it and hoping it's not going to be a nightmare.

She was very mellow when we first brought her home yesterday and slept most of the day, so I thought we got really lucky...but turns out she was just bummed out. Once she warmed up to us the lab in her took over (she is 3/4 black lab and 1/4 Australian Sheppard) and she started chewing on everything! Since she is going to be an outside dog anyway, we ended up having to put her outside.

Then there was last night...we only got 4 hours of sleep because she was CONSTANTLY whining and barking all night. We were up trying to figure out what to do - we didn't want to wake the neighbors, but if we put her in the garage she'd wake Sam, etc. etc. etc. So, we finally put her in the garage and then put fans in our room and Sam's room to drown out the noise. So that might be what we have to do for a while.

I'm going to Prescott tomorrow to get her shots and I'm going to buy her bed and everything and hopefully when she has that it will help. We are trying to train her, but it's hard because she is an outside dog and we can't be with her all the time. Maybe when dad comes on Thursday (Sam's grandpa Meyers is coming this week...yay!!!) he can give us some more pointers. He has already been such a huge help over the phone. If anyone has any suggestions AT ALL it would be greatly appreciated!!

Here are some more pictures of her...Sam was a little scared of her at first, which isn't like him. But he loves her now!




Well, other than the puppy, the only thing really going on in our lives is working on the yard. We (I should say, Dave) have been rototilling, raking, etc. to get the ground ready to lay down grass seed. It will be so nice when we have grass! We should have started this and had it down by last month, but oh well. I did get some flowers planted though! Here's a picture of our wonderful dirt yard and the extremely exciting flowers I planted...




Now onto Sam....you didn't really think I could go a whole post without reporting on him, did you? he has been so wonderful! He is at the funnest age. He does something new every single day. He is so smart and I am noticing more and more now how much attention to detail he is. One of his new favorite things to do is to organize things. He will take all of his diapers out of the basket, one by one, and then, one by one, he will put them all back, or he will either take them over to the kitchen table and put them on it. In his bath he doesn't even play much with his bath toys anymore - he takes them all out of the hanging container they are in, then he will put them all back in, one by one. But the cute thing is, he is so particular about it and organizes it so well so that every single toy first perfectly inside. It is so cute!

One thing he loves to do now, even more than ever before, is eat! He likes to put as many things in his mouth at once as he can. He stuffs his nilla wafers (or cheerios or beans or whatever he is eating at the time) in his mouth as fast as he can until he can't fit anymore and then he slowly sucks and chews until they are all gone. I think he does this so that he can play longer in between bites without having to interrupt what he is doing by taking more food. Who knows! It's so funny. He walks around looking like a chipmunk. Because of this, we are trying to not put so much of something in front of him at once. Sometimes when he does this, he even tries putting his binky in his mouth on top of that. So silly... Here are a few pictures, even though they don't really do it justice...most of the food was chewed by this point...




He is walking everywhere now and is a complete pro at it. When we are at church and I don't know where he is, I just scan the chapel for the top of a tiny blond head. He is always talking and is always mimicking us and trying to say what things are. He tries to say "Zoe" and "truck" and pretty much anything else we get him to say. He loves chattering and pointing! And singing is a new thing he discovered he likes doing. When mommy sings in "la la"s he copies me, but instead of pronouncing it "la la" he says "na na."

One of our new favorite things to do is to have Sam give us "zingling" kisses! It is the best thing! He loves giving us kisses...unless it's his bed time and he is really cranky...then he just angrily pushes our faces away....which is actually pretty darn cute too, even though it wouldn't be if he was older.

He also learned a new dance move or two. He used to only "head bang" when he danced but now he shakes it back and forth and shakes his whole body. He loves dancing so much and when he says "dancing" it sounds like he is saying "deetdeet." I know, it's not even close, but we know what it means and it's adorable. Here's a video of him laughing and "dancing" in his high chair. Okay nevermind...I tried posting a video. I don't know why it never lets me. You'll just have to take my word for it...he is cute.

We took him to Cabela's for the first time a couple weekends ago and, as we suspected, he loved it. He loved the fish and was pointing and talking to absolutely everything. We didn't have our normal camera, so I had to use the crappy one on my phone. Here he is looking at the fishies.





Okay, I will get off my Sam kick now. I can't help it...I am a happy proud mama and to those of you who think my blog is absolutely boring, I'm sorry....don't read it then. :)

Before I end, I wanted to post a picture from long ago that reminds me of a lot simpler times. I was looking through some old pictures and found it. It was on "24 night" with Steve and Jillian (she was taking the picture)...yes, I was 7 months pregnant and stuffing my face. We had so much fun. We miss you guys.... (*sniffle *sniffle)

Bum, bum, bum

I know this is a little past due, but I thought I'd let everyone know that Sam had his follow-up appointment with the surgeon on Friday and everything looks good! The surgeon almost seemed surprised that he was healing so fast and that it looked so good. He gave it two more weeks and said, at the rate he is going, he should be healed up by then. And if he is not, then we need to come back in, but unless it's not healed, we shouldn't need to come back in! Yay! Hopefully that means we will be rid of this once and for all very soon. One huge plus that has come out of this, is that ever since the surgery he has slept strait through the night and he sleeps longer and takes longer naps! We were wondering why he didn't sleep very good and long before (he wasn't getting nearly enough sleep), but his bottom must have just been really bothering him. I'm so glad we got this taken care of!

An unwanted house guest!

I just thought I'd show you a picture of an intruder that was in my kitchen yesterday....all I can say is "eek!" I had heard so much about them when we moved here and I was scared of seeing my first one...Here he is....

Beautiful, huh? Not quite. Here I was, minding my own business, sweeping the floor, and out it dashed from under the counter, heading right for my foot. Of course I screamed. But then after a moment I just watched it because it was kind of fascinating to me. I had never seen one alive before. Instead of going for something to kill it with, I grabbed the camera so I could show Dave (and all of you, of course), then by the time I got the shoe it was under the stove. I sprayed some scorpion killer under there, thinking that would probably take care of it, but then about 5 minutes later it came crawling back out so I smashed it about 5 times with my shoe (it just wasn't dying!). Apparently they are pretty common here, like house spiders, but it still freaks me out. The scary thing is that Sam was playing on the kitchen floor right in the same place, about 5 minutes before it came out of hiding. We are thinking of getting a cat because we hear this helps with the problem, but we just don't know.

We had our first normal Y.W. activity tonight, since I have been in the presidency, and though we were a little disorganized because we are still trying to get the hang of things, it was great! I met 5 of the non-member girls that usually come and they are awesome! I'm already having so much fun in this calling. We talked about personal progress because this ward hasn't really been involved in it and we are trying to get them in the swing of it again. It was a little confusing for me because as I was looking through the book I realized how COMPLETELY different it is from when I was in Y.W. 8 years ago. It has changed so much and I didn't even know what I was looking at. I guess we will all learn it together. But anyway, it was awesome because all the non-member girls wanted a book and they want to participate in it also! I'm excited about how this year will go!