Bathing Beauties

1.19.14

Long Weekend In Lindale

Her Happy Place

01.23.14 - Delaney 10 1/2 months old

Delaney at 10 months!

01.08.13

Delaney! You are TEN months old! This month you continued sleeping 7:15PM to 7AM until the second half of the month when you started waking up "talking" at 6 but we allowed you to just play in your crib until at least 6:30. You are still having 3 (7oz) bottles a day - 9:30, 2:30 and 7PM. You started clapping right at 10 months and regularly using sign language for water, milk, all done and more. Right after you turned 10 months, you got a 3 day long high fever bug up to 104 degrees with just a runny nose. We took you to doctor but your ears and throat were clear. That same weekend, you made your first trip to Lindale and you were incredible in the car - sleeping the entire way up there since we left at 6PM. You did freak out on Meme when the four of us left you, with her, at her house for the night to visit Papa Lance. We had to come back when you couldn't be consoled. Delaney, you are at an all time high for "neediness" and we still can't put you down, muchness leave your side, out of a 2 foot radius and sadly, I AM NOT EXAGGERATING.  Most importantly though, you took your very first wobbly steps (around 4-5 steps) on your own (back and forth to mom and dad) on January 24 at 10.5 months!!! You defintley say "da" when you see a ball, stuffed animal or real dog. You say dada and mama. Also, at 10.5 months, we think your teeth started shifting around and hurting you again as you can quickly become super uncomfortable wanting to shove your fingers in your mouth. For a week during that time, you never had a fever or any other symptom but we had to give you Advil, in the mornings, to keep you happy. You still love the flash on any camera and it is hysterical because you instantly start smiling when the flash goes off... you are a photogapher's dream child! Also, your hair is really starting to thicken up around the back and sides. So the big debate is on, what will your hair be like?!?!? I think, similar to Addie's, as her hair looked identical to yours around this age. Time will tell...

Picking Out Our New Puppy

1.08.14

This was a big decision for our family since loosing Smokey just over six months ago and Maverick, a couple of years before that. Blake and I talked a lot about it for about 2-3 months, imagining our life with yet another new baby. As hard as we knew it would be, we also both felt it was important to us to have Delaney grow up with a puppy from before she could remember. It was even easier of a decision when we thought about Addie and her continuous infatuation with dogs, of any kind, since birth. Combine that with Carter's responsibility and we were sold! But then the hard part came.... what kind of dog and where do we find our next family member? 

We toiled with the thought of a "Doodle" mix, like a Labradoodle or a Goldendoodle, I even  "googled" a Boxerdoodle but was scared by the images I found. The benefits were substantial, no shedding!!! How could you get much better than that. After all, my house had been at it's all time cleanest level since Smokey had passed away. We took our time and I even started finding different websites of local, family breeders on-line, facebook liking some breeders and starting to get to know them that way. I kept coming back to my personal love of Boxers and Blake felt the same way too. Their personalities are unmatched and most importantly they are known for their love of children. That was the critical decision for me and ultimately why we didn't opt for rescuing a Boxer. I would love to do it later in life when the children are older or even moved out of the house, a time when we don't have to be concerned about the history of the dog or what it had been through before it came into our home. We needed a puppy that was okay ecstatic being around very young and active children!

Ultimately, I found two families that raised Boxers in their home as a part time job. They both started out with Boxers and fell in love with the breed and just decided to have a litter once year or so. We met both families and their dogs for almost an hour (BEFORE THE FEMALE BOXERS WERE EVEN PREGNANT!) I wanted to personally meet the mom and dad and get to know their personalities and see how they were around our THREE kids! Let's just say, the family I thought we were going with ended up being the ones with the craziest and most out of control dogs. It was such an easy decision and we put down a deposit for the PICK OF THE LITTER, even before momma had been knocked up!

So, a couple of months went by and we had heard that the momma (Mia) was pregnant and on December 10, we got a text that they puppies were being born! Pictures started coming in but I knew I wanted to wait as long as possible to make the ultimate decision so we could see their personalities. On January 8, when they were almost a month old, we headed to Seguin, TX to pick out our new puppy. We were pretty confident we had the one we wanted in mind (based on pictures of the dogs) before we got there: Rudy, the Brindle with white face boy was our pick. (Carter holding in the first picture below.)

However, we ended up choosing "Penny," the brindle dark faced GIRL instead! We just followed our gut that she was more confident, into the kids and wasn't afraid or timid at all! After we literally drug Addie out of their kitchen, we started our 19 day countdown until we could return to pick her up.

Delaney and Her "Da!"

1.06.14 (Just a couple of days shy of 10 months old!)

Happy Valentine's Day!

"Babysitting" Delaney!

1.05.14

Chances are, this is the sight you would see, if you randomly stopped by our house at time. We have discovered that if we put her upstairs with Carter and Addie or in one of their rooms, where she can't see Blake or myself, she will actually be okay.

So this is a great example in early January of our plan working and Blake and I actually were able to get dinner cleaned up quickly after bath time. Carter and Addie were so attentive to her every need and they were all having so much fun!

But a couple of weeks later on a cold Saturday morning, it was super quiet up stairs so we went up to find out why and our "babysitters" had failed us and they didn't even realize their sister had passed out in the middle of the floor.