What did you do on your Friday night...?

Weekends are so different now that we have 3 kiddos.

They involve naps

and playing

and birthday parties

and spending time with friends and family

Ok. So they aren't so different...

...but this one also involved cooking.

Yes, cooking! I'm so thankful for our friends Mandy, Chad, and Cady.

As Addie says, Cady is her bestest friend!

But in addition to being an amazing cook (among other things of course), Mandy is an incredible organizer!

And because of her, our freezer is now stocked with 8 meals and 2 sides.

Seriously? Seriously!

I'll let Mandy tell you more about that!

After Mandy left, I sat down to download some pictures and blog about Finn's story.

And there was nothing on my {external} hard drive.

Let me repeat that: there was nothing on my hard drive where I store all of my pictures!!!!

0 bytes out of 983 gigabytes.

Zero

Nothing left of over 30,000 files.

And I proceeded to have a complete and utter meltdown!

After many tears and Paul attempting to figure out what happened, we discovered that somehow my hard drive formated itself.

Yes, I know I'm giving my hard drive more power than it deserves...but I didn't reformat it. Addie didn't reformat it. Paul didn't reformat it. No one reformated it!!!

There is no explanation, but I'm praying what Paul is doing will recover 3 years of our pictures.

And today he's going to buy two additional hard drives so we have a backup and a backup of the backup.

Seriously? Seriously!

But the whole reason I sat down to blog {at 12:30am} was to show you these pictures of our boy.

We knew we would get another dog sooner than later.

We're a dog family. Ok, I'm a dog person. Well, really, I'm just an animal person!

But I started realizing that Audrey Kate was becoming very fearful of dogs we would be around. So I started looking at Golden Retriever rescues and moved to shelters in search of a Golden mix.

What I found though, was nothing short of amazing.

Finn was relinquished to a local shelter on March 11th because his family had too many dogs (um, don't get me started).

He became part of our family on April 4th.

I have no idea why he remained in the shelter for as long as he did.

He is so gentle with our girls. So kind with Addie. So calm.

His coat is in perfect shape. He is heartworm negative. He's a great age, being halfway through that puppy stage.

But I think he stayed because he was meant for our family.

Sure, there have been some ups and downs. Some accidents on the floor. Some barking and whining in his crate at night.

But as a whole, he is simply an amazing dog!

He loves to lay on the cold bathroom floor

or in the bathtub.

On the cool dirt outside or underneath our huge magnolia tree.

He hasn't been mean to the cats, but he's clearly chased them enough that they are {on their guard}. You think?

But who could be afraid of this smile?

There will always be a special place in our hearts for our Abbey girl. No dog will ever replace her.

But we are so thankful to have found another perfect dog for our family!

Welcome to the family Finn-ster!

Wordless Wednesday: Sleep Where You Can

Wordless Wednesday: Addie and Fuzz

8:45pm

(no, I didn't turn a light on...just a flash!)

The Dreaded 4 Letter "F" Word...

No, not that one! We don't say that word in our house (for real)!

So which four letter "f" word am I referring to?
 
f-l-e-a

In our case: fleaS!

We treat our animals each month, every month with heartworm/flea medicine!

But Fuzz, our outside cat, is apparently bringing them home after her
little jaunts in the neighborhood...in addition to the squirrels that
live (& die at the paw of said cat) in our yard.

{random squirrel}

They {the fleas} weren't going away. 

I kept trying to wish them away.

I kept thinking they would cycle through & quit reproducing because
that's what the medicine does to them...when they bite your animal.

I didn't want the chemicals in our house.

I didn't want to have to wash e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g all at once. 

Every sheet, blanket, bedspread, pillow case, pillow sham, mattress pad, &
towel in addition to all the dirty clothes.

I didn't want to have to hide swing & bouncy seat covers, toys,
baskets off the shelves, diaper bags, stuffed animals, and diapers all
in the closets and take off bumper pads, fold up the pack-n-play, &
put every utensil, knife, bottle and paper towel in a cabinet.

I didn't want to have to take all 3 animals to the vet for checkups &
flea treatments at.the.same.time!

I didn't want to admit we our animals had f.l.e.a.S.

Um...because who would?

but more than anything, I didn't want f.l.e.a.S.

And in the middle of all of this, I dropped a metal rod from the
pack-n-play bassinet ON MY TOE. I couldn't breathe it hurt so badly!

But we vacated and fogged the house yesterday.

Today we will have the backyard drenched in chemicals to kill the
fleas in addition to mosquitoes.

Have I mentioned I'm anti-chemicals?

We will vacuum everyday for the next 7 days.

We will PRAY that this round kills everything. 

Otherwise we get to do this all over again in 10 days.

Seriously...

Nicely Adjusted

Just in case we wondered, Miles and Fuzz seem to have adjusted nicely to having an infant in the house.

Miles sitting in Addie's chair.

Miles lounging in Addie's exersaucer.

Fuzz sleeping on the back of the chair.

Tonight as I was taking Addie's dress off before her bath, I stood her up; and her dress stayed on her head. Paul went and grabbed the camera, and we managed to get a few good shots. She obviously found it rather humorous too (or maybe we were just funny looking laughing at her!). Needless to say, we thought it was cute.